Washington ? Lawyer Susan Green specializes in resolving disputes through mediation rather than in court. She also meditates four evenings a week, and she is convinced that the spiritual practice has improved her conflict resolution skills.

Green’s message reached a wider audience earlier this month. At a workshop that she organized, a panel of legal experts discussed how meditation could help lawyers and mediators by boosting their “mindfulness” – the inner capacity of being fully aware of the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation “can really make us more effective lawyers,” Green said. When one can “gain some distance from your own emotions about what is going on in the room around you … then you can deal more skillfully with opposing parties and with clients in a mediation room.”

The lawyers’ workshop was part of Meditate DC, a weeklong, high-profile exploration of Eastern meditation’s benefits being staged in Washington to coincide with a 10-day visit to the city by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader from Chinese-occupied Tibet.

The scope of Meditate DC and the related events on the Dalai Lama’s schedule illustrate how widely accepted meditation has become in the United States. At one conference this week, doctors, scientists and monks joined him in discussing meditation’s role in the prevention and treatment of disease. Free meditation training sessions were offered at workplaces from the World Bank to the Humane Society. Sponsors of individual events included such institutions as Washington National Cathedral, Georgetown University Hospital and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The attention and praise from the political and medical establishments are in sharp contrast to meditation’s image in this country in the 1960s, when its chief advocates were leaders of the hippie and psychedelic drug movements, or as recently as the 1980s, when it was associated mostly with converts to Eastern religions. The ancient Buddhist spiritual practice is now a habit among millions of Americans of almost every faith who say it has helped them achieve physical relaxation, emotional balance and spiritual growth.

Science and belief

Many scientists remain skeptical of a proven scientific link between meditation and mental health. Some are dubious of the research findings delivered at the three-day conference that ended Nov. 17. A speech that the Dalai Lama planned to deliver that weekend on how meditation affects brain activity has generated controversy.

Although his appearance at the convention is part of a new program featuring speakers from fields outside neuroscience, some members of the society have criticized the decision to invite a religious figure.

“I think science and religion should be kept separate,” said Rory McQuiston, an assistant professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Some of the criticism is politically motivated, the Dalai Lama’s supporters contend. “The strongest comments are from the Chinese scientists,” said Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, which is co-hosting the Dalai Lama’s visit. “This is not at all surprising. … Chinese protests against high-profile visits of the Dalai Lama are routine wherever he travels.”

Winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama has long been interested in science and in demonstrating through research that meditation can cause the brain to generate feelings of compassion. In 1987, he and Adam Engle, a Colorado-based lawyer and entrepreneur, co-founded the Mind and Life Institute, which has regularly sponsored discussions between scientists and meditators aimed at finding “a way for Buddhism and science to be in dialogue, share findings and collaborate,” Engle said.

Buddhism is uniquely well-suited to this dialogue, Engle added, because “while it is a path of liberation, (it) is not based on a theology or belief. It does not postulate a supreme being.”

Potential benefits

At the conference, scientists explained the results of clinical trials and research studies suggesting that meditation not only relieves stress but may also produce long-term changes in the workings of the brain. The meditation experts at the conference, based on what their tradition teaches about the mind-brain-body connection, identified new lines of research.

Georgetown University co-hosted the event “because it goes to the heart of what Georgetown is about, which is to explore the intersection of science and religion,” said Aviad Haramati, physiology professor at Georgetown Medical School. Applying scientific methods to the study of religious practices “isn’t something people need to fear. Quite the contrary,” he said.

Washington is a particularly stressful city in need of meditation, said resident Hugh Byrne, an immigration consultant and meditation trainer involved in the week’s activities.

“You have the federal government here. You have the September 2001 attacks,” Byrne said. “There is a lot of pressure to achieve, to produce, to succeed. … Having a way of coming back to ourselves, coming back to the present … can be a beneficial approach.”