Research on meditation

Since the 1950s hundreds of studies on meditation have been conducted, though many of the early studies were flawed and thus yielded unreliable results. More recent reviews have pointed out many of these flaws with the hope of guiding current research into a more fruitful path.

Research on the processes and effects of meditation is a growing subfield of neurological research. Modern scientific techniques and instruments, such as fMRI and EEG, have been used to see what happens in the bodies of people when they meditate, and how their bodies and brains change after meditating regularly.

Meditation is a broad term which encompasses a number of practices.

Mindfulness

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Christian meditation

Christian meditation is a form of prayer in which a structured attempt is made to become aware of and reflect upon the revelations of God. The word meditation comes from the Latin word meditārī, which has a range of meanings including to reflect on, to study and to practice. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (such as a bible passage) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God.

Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God that marks Christian communion. Both in Eastern and Western Christianity meditation is the middle level in a broad three-stage characterization of prayer: it involves more reflection than first level vocal prayer, but is more structured than the multiple layers of contemplative prayer. Teachings in both the Eastern and Western Christian churches have emphasized the use of Christian meditation as an element in increasing one's knowledge of Christ.

Méditation (Thaïs)

"Méditation" (pronounced: [meditasjɔ̃]) is a symphonic intermezzo from the opera Thaïs by French composer Jules Massenet. The piece is written for solo violin and orchestra. The opera premiered at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on March 16, 1894.

Description

The Méditation is a symphonic entr'acte performed between the scenes of Act II in the opera Thaïs. In the first scene of Act II, Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, confronts Thaïs, a beautiful and hedonistic courtesan and devotée of Venus, and attempts to persuade her to leave her life of luxury and pleasure and find salvation through God. It is during a time of reflection following the encounter that the Méditation is played by the orchestra. In the second scene of Act II, following the Méditation, Thaïs tells Athanaël that she will follow him to the desert.

The piece is in D major and is approximately five minutes long (although there are a number of interpretations that stretch the piece to over six minutes). Massenet may also have written the piece with religious intentions; the tempo marking is Andante religioso, signifying his intention that it should be played religiously (which could mean either strictly in the tempo or literally with religiously-founded emotion) and at walking tempo. The piece opens with a short introduction by the harps, with the solo violin quickly entering with the motif. After the violin plays the melody twice, the piece goes into a section marked animato, gradually becoming more and more passionate (Massenet wrote poco a poco appassionato). The climax is reached at a place marked poco piu appassionato (a little more passion) and is then followed by a short cadenza-like passage from the soloist and returns to the main theme. After the theme is played twice, the soloist joins the orchestra while playing harmonics on the upper register as the harps and strings quietly play below the solo line.

BIA

BIA or Bia may refer to:

Acronym or abbreviation

Organizations and companies

Airports

Bia (butterfly)

Bia is a Neotropical genus of butterflies, named by Hübner in 1819. They are in the brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae.

Species

Arranged alphabetically.

References

Bia (rapper)

Bianca Landrau, better known by her stage name Bia, is an American rapper perhaps most known from he appearance on the Oxygen reality television show Sisterhood of Hip Hop. Currently signed to Pharrell's i Am Other record label, she released the song All Around the World via her YouTube page on July 21, 2015.

Early life

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, the rapper graduated Medford High School. She is of Puerto Rican and Italian descent. According to an interview with Oxygen's website, she spoke about wanting to become a rapper at a young age; after surviving a nearly fatal motorcycle accident, she decided to seriously pursue a career in rap/ hip-hop. The accident was in fact a result of drunk driver who crashed into Landrau and a group of friends in 2013. The rapper stated " When I was young in Boston, probably like 14, I used to hang with a bunch of rappers in the studio. They’re famous battle rappers now. Back then, they were coming up. They used to be in the studio. I used to hit the 'record' button for them all the time. I was writing but I didn’t tell anybody until I was 18."