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As a physiologist interested in contemplative practice and meditation I have enjoyed the opportunity of lecturing to students engaged in the study of contemplation. My pedagogic role was to expose them to some of what we know of the biological phenomena that are or may be taking place during various meditative states — explicating for them the details of how the human body actually works. In the course of working with students and faculty engaged in meditation I formulated the following questions relating biological science and contemplative practice: What should a practitioner or a teacher of meditation know about basic human anatomy and physiology? Is it necessary for someone engaging in contemplative practice to understand how the human organism is actually put together and how it works? Will knowledge of how the various organs work with one another enhance one's ability to meditate or can we dispense with this information and suffer no consequences in our practice? The fundamental importance of somatic or physical phenomena in meditative practice (for example in control of breath, heart rate, or metabolism) and most people's lack of understanding of basic human anatomy and physiology led me to answer yes to all of these questions. In this paper I outline the physiological knowledge and particular insights I have found useful for enhancing a person's understanding of how we breathe, how we regulate our heart rate, and how we control our metabolic rate in 'control' or non-meditative states and the kinds of changes we might expect in a meditating subject. I link what is perhaps the fundamental principle of physiology, the concept of 'homeostasis', with the balance and integration of the body systems sought by people engaged in contemplation. Mind-body harmony or an enhanced awareness of this linkage between the mind and the body can, in my opinion, be more fully realized when coupled with an understanding of what Hippocrates called, 'the nature of the body', that is, what the body actually does and how it does it.

Every breath you take: physiology and the ecology of knowing in meditative practice