Hi Mike, Just read your post, and thought I'd echo your thoughts, and suggest a couple of other relevant sources that might interest you, time-permitting. Take a browse of "Mindsight", by Danel Siegel, M.D. Its a discussion of topics ranging from a primer on neuroplasticity, to discussing how soul, mind and brain inter-connect, to explanations on how memory and trauma are encoded-- plus the neurobiology of how inter-connection with each other manifests. Offers fairly current seminal thinking in this discipline, without needing to be a neuro-surgeon to understand it-- I am leaving tomorrow for his UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center to attend some seminars, and such. As you teach English, some of this may be quite relevant to your teaching. He's written a number of key texts, such as "The Mindful Brain", and a couple of fascinating parenting /developmental psych papers. Understanding some of this can help guide your students in mastering their study of language with greater clarity, at the very least. He is lecturing next week, and if interested, e-mail me off-list, and I'll send you the link to listen to his lecture. Another great book to sift thru is "The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion: How Feelings Link the Brain, the Body and the Sixth Sense", by Michael Jawer, and Marc Micozzi, M.D., Ph.D. A bit text-y, but worth a look-through. As our mind, body and spirit are inter-connected-- trying to isolate or control one part but denying another is simply futile. They work in concert, and a better understanding of that inter-connection can only enrich zen practice. Its not a question of if this relevant or real. One can choose to deny or ignore this, but it doesn't make it any less so. Like it or not. believe it or not-- if you change one's physicality, you change their behavior, emotion, responses, awareness, and bio-chemistry. Its simply another key piece to the jigsaw, thereby allowing one's practice to thrive with greater clarity. Finally, I read the 'galleys' of a new book set for a pub date of 3/11, entitled "Awakening the Sacred Body", by Tenzin Wangyal Ripoche. Excellent discussion of our physical /emotional /heart energies. Discusses chi and places of stillness, silence and spatiousness in re-directing discomfort and pain. Quite insightful, I thought. Look for it early next year, if interested. Will not have time to stay current here, so if you have further comments , please contact me off-list, and I'll give you my primary e-mail that I check often. If I don't hear from you--be well and happy in your journeys:) Kristy
10/21/10, mike brown <[email protected]> wrote: If I can just jump in here. There is scientific data to suggest that the brain has a kind of plasticity and so can be neurologically changed according to how it is used. I think this is should hold a huge interest for those of us interested in zen/meditation. Learning to pay attention to the moment and letting go of negative thoughts can be seen as a 'skill' just like learning a language or playing the piano. If one incorporates sitting into their daily lives it'd be possible to change the physiology of the brain to better respond to internal/external stimuli with happier results. Zen, as an art of living, could then jettison all the religious mumbo-jumbo that it's wrapped up in now. Mike __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5546 (20101019) __________ __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version
