Train Your Mind Change Your Brain

Every once in a while I find a book that just has to be added to my Recommended Reading list, and I found one recently that I heard about last year or the year before on Charlie Rose’s Show. It is truly a marvelous way for the mind to wrap itself around why meditation can improve your life and change your brain at the same time.

 

A book that helps all who love science or meditation and what comes through then will enjoy the brilliant writing of Sharon Begley in her book “Train Your Mind Change Your Brain ~ How a new science reveals our extraordinary potential to transform ourselves” ISBN 978-1-4000-6390-1. The forward is by The Dalai Lama and the preface by Daniel Goleman who knows all about emotional and social intelligence.

 

This book is a groundbreaking collaboration between neuroscience and Buddhism. Sound weird? Think about it! They go together and if you doubt it, check out this book and revise your mind. : )

 

I set out to identify a few lines that would give you a feel for this great work and ended up with so many tabs that I could teach a seminar on the subject by just reading all the material I identified as interesting and important to all of us now. So, it is not possible to sum it up for you and if you are not interested in how meditation affects your life and has been tested too many times to be doubted now, then you would not want to read such things now. However, if you do want to know just a bit about Sharon Begley’s style that has won her numerous honors, here are what a few authors have said about this book…authors you may have heard about, too, or read now.

 

“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, thought, that is about to change.  As human being, 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”

 

“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.” ~ John Kabat-Zinn, author of “Coming to Our Senses”

 

            For decades the conventional wisdom or neuroscience held that the hardware of the brain is fixed and immutable—we are stuck with what we were born with! Recent pioneering experiments in neuroplasticity (a new science that investigates whether and how the brain is capable not only of altering its structure but also of generating new neurons into old age) show that the brain can adapt, heal, renew itself after trauma, and compensate for disability.

 

            This book is designed to let you, the everyday reader, in on what is going on now behind the scenes of this new science and how it will affect our way of life in the future. This book began in late 2004 when leading Western scientists joined the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India, to address the question: Is it really possible to change the structure and function of the brain, and in so doing alter how we think and feel?

 

            This book reports on how cutting-edge science and the ancient wisdom of Buddhism have come together to show how we all have the power to literally change our brains by changing our minds. These findings hold exciting implications for personal transformation.