Syl - marathon runner Frank Shorter, apparently had a resting heart rate of 75 bpm !
Guess he must of been pretty fit.
Stu - I saw my chinese buddhist master today - Dr Chi Kin Po,
and asked him about the heart rate of meditating monks. He didn't have a figure but said they can average two breaths per minutes, and when they meditate they believe that they temporarily die - in the "clinicall dead" sense. Apparently when they're old and their time has come, they go to meditate for a final time and are found passed away in the lotus position.
I know that some 'free divers' claim their heart rate can drop to 7 bpm, a combination of training (deep relaxation) and the effects of holding your breath and being emersed in cold water - the bodys' attempt to self-preservation against drowning.
The outer columns of a temple have great strength , but it is the emptiness, inside the temple that gives them their purpose - that is the taoist way