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Some schools are giving it a try with some pretty good results. There are critics though, that say introducing it in schools is a little too much like prayer.
Vipassanā-meditation is a modern Theravada practice, reintroduced by Ledi Sayadaw and Mogok Sayadaw and popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw, S. N. Goenka and the Vipassana movement, in which mindfulness of breathing and of thoughts, feelings and actions are being used to gain insight in the true nature of reality. Due to the popularity of Vipassanā-meditation, the mindfulness of breathing has gained further popularity in the west as mindfulness.
originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
A school is for learning, not spiritual practices.
However, what is truly new is the other finding of the study—that meditation makes you more liberal, at least in the short term. The researchers arrived at this conclusion by comparing the political views of people who had just participated in a guided meditation with those in a control group. The meditators expressed more liberal views—including a reduced support for "tough on crime" policies, and a preference for liberal political candidates—than the non-meditators.
"We suspect that meditation lowers the rigid boundaries between self and other that people normally experience in their lives, promoting a more egalitarian mindset (it's hard to maintain a competitive frame with another person when you don't believe that you are separate from one another!). Preferences for egalitarianism, in turn, are one of the key motivational factors underlying support for liberal political attitudes."
MRI scans show that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress.
As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker.
Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala (link is external) than liberals. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.