Table Of ContentPraise for
Train Your Mind, CHANGE YOUR BRAIN
“A thrilling account of recent breakthroughs in neurology that have profound
implications for Buddhist practitioners and anyone interested in human potential
and how the mind works.”
—Shambhala Sun
“Reading this book is like opening doors in the mind. Sharon Begley brings the
reader right to the intersection of scientific and meditative understanding, a place
of exciting potential for personal and global transformation. And she does it so
skillfully as to seem effortless.”
—SHARON SALZBERG, author of
Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
“Neuroplasticity has enormous implications not only for our physic cal health but
for our mental health.”
—Slate
“It is very seldom that a science in its infancy is so skillfully unpacked that it reads
like a detective novel. The fact that this science includes the collaborative efforts of
neuroscientists, psychologists, contemplatives, and philosophers, and the full
engagement of the genius of the Dalai Lama is not only fascinating but uplifting
and inspiring. This book lets you know that how you pay attention to your
experience can change your entire way of being.”
— JON KABAT-ZINN, author of Coming to Our Senses
“Does a good job of detailing the history behind the discovery [that the human
brain is not fixed at adulthood] and how it is changing our approach to learning,
neurological diseases, and emotional understanding.”
—BusinessWeek
“This is a truly illuminating and eminently readable book on the revolutionary new
insights in mind sciences. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in
understanding human potential.”
—JACK KORNFIELD, author of A Path with Heart
“A clearly written account of recent discoveries about brain plasticity.”
—New Scientist
“I have meditated for forty years and have long felt that the potential of mind
training to improve our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being has barely
been tapped. Thanks to Sharon Begley’s fascinating book, though, that is about to
change. As human beings, we really do have inner powers that can make a world of
difference, particularly if our goal is not merely to advance our own agendas but to
cultivate compassion for the benefit of all living beings.”
—JOHN ROBBINS, author of Healthy at 100 and Diet for a New America
To Ned, Sarah, and Daniel,
for seeing me through
FOREWORD
The Dalai Lama
It is now nearly twenty years since the first Mind and Life Conference took place in Dharamsala.
Some of those who fostered and encouraged those initial dialogues between Buddhism and
modern science, such as the late Robert Livingston and Francisco Varela, are no longer with us.
Nevertheless, I’m sure they would share the pride and enthusiasm the eminent scientists,
contemplatives, and other contributors who have subsequently been involved, have expressed
about what our conversations have achieved so far.
Although modern science and the Buddhist contemplative tradition arose out of quite different
historical, cultural, and intellectual circumstances, I have found that they have a great deal in
common. By some accounts, both traditions are motivated by an urge to relieve the hardships of
life. Both are suspicious of notions of absolutes, whether these imply the existence of a
transcendent creator or an unchanging entity such as a soul, preferring to account for the
emergence of life in the world in terms of the natural laws of cause and effect. Both traditions
take an empirical approach to knowledge. It is a fundamental Buddhist principle that the human
mind has tremendous potential for transformation. Science, on the other hand, has, until
recently, held to the convention not only that the brain is the seat and source of the mind, but
also that the brain and its structures are formed during infancy and change little thereafter.
Buddhist practitioners familiar with the workings of the mind have long been aware that it can
be transformed through training. What is exciting and new is that scientists have now shown that
such mental training can also change the brain. Related to this is evidence that the brain adapts
or expands in response to repeated patterns of activity, so that in a real sense the brain we
develop reflects the life we lead. This has far-reaching implications for the effects of habitual
behavior in our lives, especially the positive potential of discipline and spiritual practice.
Evidence that powerful sections of the brain, such as the visual cortex, can adapt their function
in response to circumstances reveals an astonishing malleability unforeseen by earlier, more
mechanistic interpretations of the brain’s workings.
Findings that show how a mother’s expressions of love and physical contact with her child can
affect the triggering of different genetic responses tell us a great deal about the importance we
need to give to bringing up our children if we wish to create a healthy society. On the other
hand, it is also tremendously encouraging to know that some therapeutic techniques may
successfully be employed to help those people, who, due to childhood neglect, find it difficult to
generate warm, compassionate feelings toward others. Reports of cases where normal function
has been restored through therapy indicate exciting and innovative discoveries. Finally, there has
been a positive answer to the question I have been asking for many years; investigators have
shown that how people think really can change their brains.
In addition to my interest in science, readers may also know that I’m a keen gardener. But
gardening is often a hit-and-miss activity. You can put a lot of time into preparing the soil,
carefully sowing the seeds, watching over them, and watering the seedlings. And yet, other
conditions beyond your control—particularly in places such as Dharamsala, where I live, with its
occasionally excessive heat, humidity, and rainfall—can prevent these efforts from ever coming
to fruition. Therefore, as other gardeners will attest, there is a special joy to be had from seeing
the plants you have nurtured emerge and blossom. I feel a somewhat similar emotion toward the
findings related to neuroplasticity (revealed and discussed at our conference and recounted in
this book): that we have reached a watershed, an intersection where Buddhism and modern
science become mutually enriching, with huge practical potential for human well-being.
A great Tibetan teacher once remarked that one of the mind’s most marvelous qualities is that
it can be transformed. The research presented here confirms that such deliberate mental training
can bring about observable changes in the human brain. The repercussions of this will not be
confined merely to our knowledge of the mind: They have the potential to be of practical
importance in our understanding of education, mental health, and the significance of ethics in
our lives.
The Mind and Life Institute has grown into a substantial network of scientists, scholars, and
interested individuals focused on the creation of a contemplative, compassionate, and rigorous
experimental and experiential science of the mind. This we hope will be able to guide and inform
medicine, neuroscience, psychology, education, and human development. I personally feel that
its activities are extremely worthwhile and am very grateful—not only to the many busy
individuals who have taken the time and trouble to share and explain their research but also to
those who organize and coordinate our occasional meetings and conferences. In addition, part of
the Institute’s mission is to support the preparation of accessible publications of the proceedings
of our conferences, so that what takes place as semiprivate conversation can be presented to a
wider interested public. I am grateful, therefore, on this occasion to Sharon Begley for her artful
work presenting this material accurately and attractively. I am optimistic that the exciting
discoveries related here have great potential to contribute positively to the betterment of
humanity and the way we may develop our future.
September 5, 2006
PREFACE
Daniel Goleman
When Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, met for a week with a handful of neuroscientists
at his home in Dharamsala, India, in October 2004, the topic was neuroplasticity, the brain’s
capacity to change. That this capacity was even a subject of serious scientific discussion would
have been unthinkable just a decade or two earlier; the received dogma in neuroscience for a
century had held that the brain takes its shape for life during our childhood years and does not
change its structure thereafter.
But that assumption has joined countless others in the trash heap of scientific “givens” that the
march of research has forced us to discard. Neuroscience now has a vibrant branch exploring the
many ways the brain continues to reshape itself throughout life. This volume stands as an
excellent introduction to this hopeful new science.
What’s particularly intriguing about the discussion recounted here are the partners involved.
Many world leaders in the study of neuroplasticity traveled thousands of miles to India to
consider the implications of their findings with the Dalai Lama, a surrogate for the tradition of
Buddhist practice that he leads. The reason: the meditative practices of such contemplative paths
seem to offer neuroscientists an “experiment of nature,” a naturally occurring demonstration of
the upper regions of neuroplasticity.
For millennia, meditation adepts have been exploring the potentials of brain plasticity,
systematizing their findings and passing them on as instructions for future generations, down to
our day.
One of the questions raised by the Dalai Lama was particularly provocative: can the mind
change the brain? He had raised this point many times with scientists over the years, usually
receiving a dismissive answer. After all, one of the cardinal assumptions of neuroscience is that
our mental processes stem from brain activity: the brain creates and shapes the mind, not the
other way around. But the data reported here now suggest there may be a two-way street of
causality, with systematic mental activity resulting in changes in the very structure of the brain.
How far this can be carried, no one knows. But the fact that neuroscientists are even
acknowledging the possibility is a second revolution in thinking for the field: it’s not just that the
brain changes its structure throughout life but that we can become active, conscious participants
in that process. This poses yet another challenge to the received gospel in neuroscience: the
assumption that mental systems such as perception and attention are subject to fixed constraints.
Buddhism tells us these can be overcome, through the right training.
How far such neural systems might be pushed was shown by Richard Davidson, the University
