Adventures in Neuroplasticity

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
- Buddha


We seldom stop to realize that our experience of reality is created within us through the interactions between our brains and our minds. Some go as far as to say that we create reality through our minds. Others of course insist on a definite reality “out there,” independent from consciousness. The fact of the matter though is that we experience reality within our minds, through sensory filters based on biology, cultural conditioning and personal interpretations.

This is easy to see. Some people, for instance, visit a particular city and fall in love with its beauty and people. Others visit the “same” city and find it ugly and the people obnoxious. (Never mind that almost everybody agrees about Los Angeles.) We agree that it is the same city but our experiences vary. Of course, we all experience the same buildings in the same locations, etc. There are general reference points by which we all navigate a shared world.

I don’t want to delve into the ultimate nature of reality here. What I do want to explore is the ways that our experiences, both inner and outer, change the way our brains function, thus further changing our experience of reality. This is referred to as “neuroplasticity.” The brain has the ability to reorganize neural networks based on changes in lifestyle, attitudes, relationships, and very significantly through meditation, or contemplative practices. Mind in this sense is the medium through which these changes occur.

Our brains develop over our lives based on stimuli from our environment and our response to them. Beginning with fetal development a child’s brain develops in response to her mother. At birth a process of attachment-development begins which lays a foundation for further growth into adulthood. Children who have developed a secure attachment in infancy have an advantage over others in every area of life – education, relationships, sports, artistic abilities, and so on. Further, trauma, alcohol and drug abuse, neglect, abuse, exposure to violence and poor nutrition adversely affect brain development in adolescence. At least it keeps us therapists in business.

The critical brain component of mature adult functioning, the prefrontal cortex, develops from late adolescence into early adulthood. If a foundation is not present or other factors, mentioned above, interfere this development can fail producing a less than fully functional adult brain. Such capacities as empathy, decision making, emotional regulation, moral judgment, etc. are compromised. Abstract thinking is absent or barely present. The ability to reason and make sound judgments is impaired. The good news is that both the therapeutic relationship and meditation practice can “restart and catalyze development,” in the words of Roger Walsh, MD.

Meditation enables us to develop a “self-directed neuroplasticity” in the words of Rick Hanson, Ph.D. (http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-nine-april/self-directed-neuroplasticity/) The agency through which we develop this ability is the inner witnessing awareness cultivated through regular meditation practice. This is a level of “meta-awareness” which allows us to step outside of the usual conceptual systems that we habitually identify with. It liberates us from our self-imposed mental limitations.

The ability to witness our thoughts and beliefs as they arise requires an attitude of non-attachment. Sometimes we need to look at our most cherished ideas objectively. Any thoughts that we cling to which contribute to anger, resentment, hatred, dissatisfaction, greed, etc. need to be acknowledged and released. They are simply not good for us. They create stress which damages our bodies and our minds. When we are able to do this through meditation practice, and perhaps with the help of a therapist, we cultivate inner peace and overall wellbeing. We change our brains and we change our “reality.”

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Real Meditation



The practice of meditation frees one from all affliction.

This is the path of yoga. Follow it with determination

and sustained enthusiasm. Renouncing wholeheartedly

all selfish desires and expectations, use your will to control

the senses. Little by little through patience and repeated

effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self.

- Avatara Krishna

Although meditation is becoming more popular and more appreciated in some ways, it doesn’t seem that we truly understand its implications and its true importance. Yes, it can improve both physical and psychological health, and it can help improve our performance in a number of areas. It slows the aging process and regenerates the brain. We need meditation to help us withstand the enormous stress of our seemingly apocalyptic world. Yet all of these acknowledged benefits represent a limited understanding of what is truly at stake.

First of all meditation is not a “technique;” the various methodologies that have developed in cultures throughout the world are not “meditation” in the true sense. Instead they are means by which people have been able to enter into an altered state of consciousness through which they experience a deeper level of reality. The various methods of meditation are meant to disconnect us from the outer world of the senses and reconnect us with our inner being. Perhaps as Western materialists we might be surprised that this enterprise re-energizes our psycho-physical vehicles.

Meditation is something that people have adopted since ancient times as a way of overcoming the illusion of this world. Instead we attempt to fit meditation into our illusory world-construct. To truly grasp the import of meditation you need to be willing to turn your world inside out. The ancient wisdom traditions tell us that consciousness is the fundamental reality. Mind is secondary and matter is tertiary. Some super-materialist philosophers have suggested that consciousness is an illusion. But, if so, who or what is having the illusion?

The gist here is that meditation practice, traditions, etc. defy our current models of reality. To try to understand meditation in terms of the scientific-materialist paradigm is like trying to catch the wind in a box. The materialistic way of looking at things is not wrong, it is just hopelessly incomplete. We need to know who is looking. Who is it that experiences touch, taste, vision, smell and sound? Somehow you have to admit that there is an essential ingredient through which any of these can have any meaning or existence.

When Krishna says “The practice of meditation frees one from all affliction” this doesn’t necessarily mean it will cure your hemorrhoids. It might actually, but the practice of meditation goes to the root of suffering: the belief in a separate self identified with the body. It connects us with our inner being which is prior to space, time and becoming. These all exist within the mind. Everything is created through the imagination. When mind becomes quiet we know ourselves to be beyond illusion.

Unless you are a devoted aspirant or perhaps an enlightened being all of this may sound outlandish. Certainly it seems irrational to deny the reality of the senses. Our consensual reality is such a “given” that we are rarely able to get beyond it. Our sense of identity is intractably intertwined with it. No matter how bad life seems or unhappy we might be we hold onto this identity for dear life – until death does us part. Even then we might have trouble letting go.

Meditation helps us to awaken to our true identity. It requires persistence or “determination and sustained enthusiasm.” To overcome the conditioning of this, not to mention countless prior lifetimes, requires consistent effort. If you have ever attempted to overcome a bad habit you know how hard it can be. Here we are talking about the habit of samsara (i.e. cyclical pattern of suffering) for which this world is, perhaps, a big rehab program. In any case, according to tradition, it is a big opportunity.

The next message from Krishna in the opening lines above indicates our biggest psychological obstacle to overcoming the illusion of suffering (or is it the suffering of illusion?) He enjoins us to “renounce wholeheartedly all selfish desires and expectations.” Holy sh*t! This is the ego’s whole game! We want the world to go our way when we want it to. “Selfish desire” arises out of the illusion of separateness. Somehow an imaginary fragment of the universe thinks it can control the rest. A dear friend is fond of reminding me “let go and let God.” The ego is an illusory being who imagines himself apart from the whole, then wants to control the whole situation. It’s hopeless. Meditation means letting go.

What we do seek to control in meditation are “the senses.” The senses themselves are not “bad” or “evil.” They simply condition awareness to turn outward and away from inner reality. The point is not to become comatose. In fact, it is to intensify inner consciousness, to be awake inwardly. We have been conditioned to attune ourselves exclusively to the outer display of the senses. The sensory level of attention keeps us distracted and fragmented in our awareness. An essential aspect of all meditation, or contemplative practice, is to turn attention inward.

When we successfully attune to our inner being we find an inner resource of strength, courage, peace and joy. Research indicates that the brain functioning of experienced practitioners begins to change over time so that the meditative state continues into ordinary daily activities. “Patience and repeated effort” is the key to positive self-transformation. The “Self” represents an awakening to our inner unity. We are not just part of the whole but also contain the whole. We are spiritual holograms.

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Maintaining Health in Stressful Times

The superior doctor prevents sickness; the mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; the inferior doctor treats actual sickness.
- Chinese proverb

The concept of stress has been around for a while now. Hans Seyle, considered to have first discovered stress, published The Stress of Life in 1956 where he first introduced his research on the “General Adaptation Syndrome,” which is a more scientific term for stress. His research initially met with some skepticism because it seemed to challenge the current models of health and disease. However, it has since proved valid and has entered our general understanding of health.

In 1977 Kenneth Pelletier published Mind as Healer/Mind as Slayer  documenting the link between stress and various diseases, most significantly cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, and respiratory disease. Since then the field of holistic medicine has continued to grow and develop. The field of psychoneuroimmunology has developed to study the way that mind, emotions, disease and immunity are related. Numerous studies have shown a link between psychological, social, environmental factors and susceptibility to disease. The implication is that we can manage our health by managing these factors in our lives.

“Stress” is a broad concept which is hard to pin down. We each have our own subjective responses to events in life. What some may find stressful, others might not. The way we respond to stress is also highly variable: the American Institute of Stress lists 50 common signs of stress at http://www.stress.org/topic-effects.htm.

The symptoms of stress can be physical, emotional or behavioral. They range from headaches, chest pains, heart palpitations, etc. to depression and anxiety, overeating, eating disorders and addictive behaviors. Everyone has their own version of what it feels like to be “stressed out,” but we are also often unaware or in denial of our stress levels. Nonetheless it leads to a breakdown in the functioning of our bodies, mood disorders, relationship problems and substance abuse. Even chronic television viewing or internet “surfing” can be maladaptive coping mechanisms for stress. The fact is that stress is rampant in our society and we are all getting sick because of it.

Despite advances in understanding the relationship between stress, disease and immunity the current medical system rarely addresses it. Instead of looking to prevent disease, there are vested interests in treating it. Instead of helping patients to make important lifestyle changes, or even changes in their thinking and beliefs, doctors tend to prescribe pharmaceuticals to treat the symptoms. And, of course, there is big money in this. Approximately $300 billion dollars a years are spent on prescription drugs. Here is an interesting documentary on profits and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TwdsYVHjGA&feature=player_embedded

Most of us have been taught a belief system that disempowers us in terms of taking control of our own health. Instead we are led to believe that we are victims of viruses, genetics, etc. over which we have no control. Recent research on epigenetics, however, shows that we are not simply controlled by our genes. Instead our genes themselves respond to internal and external stress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3E_rSkwrwA There are number of areas in our lives where we can be more proactive in managing our health: diet and exercise, developing insight into our own inner processes (i.e. mindfulness), replacing maladaptive coping strategies with better ones, learning to relax . . .

“Relaxation” is something that we all think we know. However, many of us never or very rarely experience true relaxation. Instead we carry stress and tension all of the time. Relaxation is really a skill which needs to be learned in our modern world. It might come naturally to some but we have mostly learned habits that have buried this ability under layers of conditioning. Yoga is an excellent way to relearn how to relax. Hatha yoga helps to eliminate the cumulative effects of stress from the body. Pranayama promotes emotional balance and meditation develops relaxation on the deeper levels of the psyche. The technique of Yoga Nidra as developed by Swami Satyananda Saraswati has proven to be very effective. I have taught to hundreds of students with nearly unanimous positive feedback.

Here is a link to a guided Yoga Nidra practice I recorded a few months ago: http://soundcloud.com/turiyaom/yoga-nidra. You can use it to help you take control of your physical and psychological health. It is powerful and has no known side-effects. (Do not practice while driving or operating machinery . . : )

ॐ

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Beyond the Ego?



By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the One
- Ramana Maharshi

Psychology as it has developed in the West has focused heavily on ego development as the central criteria for mature mental health. From Freud’s early theories the idea of a rational “self” who mediates between inner drives and cultural injunctions, we have gone on to develop more sophisticated theories of object relations, self-psychology, etc. The ego, or “self,” can be seen as a combination of developmental lines: cognitive, moral, emotional, relational, aesthetic, etc. However, it is also an inner image or idea that we have of ourselves which sometimes does or does not correspond to how others see us.

Early childhood attachment has come to be seen as crucial in our development of our view of self and the world. It forms the basis on which further development succeeds or fails. As David J. Wallin writes in Attachment in Psychotherapy, “Histories of secure, avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized attachment have been found to be associated, for better or worse, with subsequent outcomes in childhood, adolescence and adulthood.” Psychotherapy utilizes the therapeutic relationship as a means of healing or correcting attachment patterns which interfere with our ability to live healthy, happy lives. As Wallin writes, “The therapist’s role here is to help the patient both to deconstruct the attachment patterns of the past and to reconstruct new ones in the present.”

As far as the structure and functioning of the brain reflects the development of personality, it has been found that secure attachment in childhood promotes healthy brain development. Daniel Siegel finds that secure attachment in infants leads to the development of neural pathways in the middle prefrontal area of the brain. This area of the brain is central in the development of psychological coherence and empathic relationships. In The Mindful Brain he lists nine functions of the middle prefrontal area which correspond to healthy psychological functioning: bodily regulation, attuned communication, emotional balance, response flexibility, empathy, insight, fear modulation, intuition and morality. Imagine a world where the majority of us had these areas fully functioning!

Interestingly enough he further finds that “mindfulness” promotes the development of this area of the brain. In writing of his interest in the use of mindfulness-based clinical interventions he states, “What struck me in learning about this area was that the outcome measures for its clinical applications appeared to overlap with the outcome measures of my own field of research in attachment: the study of the relationship between parents and children.” Mindfulness is a way of relating to oneself and one’s experience which is caring and nonjudgmental, open and impartial. In The Mindful Way through Depression, the authors describe mindfulness as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are.”

Mindfulness is generally cultivated through meditation. It is an awareness of one’s internal processes. In the Yoga tradition we refer to this as developing the capacity of the inner witness. It is the capacity to step outside of one’s thoughts and to observe them without reacting to them. As Siegel writes, “Mindful awareness . . . actually involves more than just simply being aware: It involves being aware of aspects of the mind itself.” Through mindful yoga practice we can develop an integrated awareness of body, breath, thoughts and emotions.

Although the term mindfulness is generally associated with Buddhist practice it is an aspect, actually the central aspect, of all yoga practice. When I began studying Yoga with Swami Niranjan in 1981, he introduced to the idea of being aware in all areas of life. He guided me through a series of very simple asanas known as pawanmuktasana which basically takes one through each of the joints in the body as a focus of aware movement. Next came pranayama where I learned to become more aware of breathing patterns as they are related to emotional states. He then introduced me to a variety of meditation techniques as developed by our Guru, Swami Satyananda Saraswati. These can be found in Meditations from the Tantras which provides both theoretical aspects and detailed instructions for practice. Swamiji essentially presents the same view of meditation as presented by Siegel. He writes, “When we meditate we are able to take our consciousness to different parts of our mind. Normally our consciousness is confined to surface activity in small areas of the middle or rational parts of the unconscious. We are able to move away from intellectualization during meditation.” Unfortunately it is not really possible to learn meditation simply from a book. The guidance of a qualified teacher is necessary.

When we develop the capacity to witness our thoughts and to allow the mind to become quiet we begin to notice that the “ego,” the self we believe we are, is really more of a theoretical thought construct. Who we really are is a more basic awareness which witnesses or observes the ego itself. This is something which happens with practice over time. Research shows that ego-development is actually accelerated or catalyzed through meditation practice. A good review and discussion of this research can be found in Ken Wilber’s The Eye of Spirit, in a chapter entitled “The Effects of Meditation.” Basically, as we learn to step outside or “disembed” from the unconscious thought structures that constitute a particular level of self-development we are able to move on to the next stage. “Development is a constant process of embedding and disembedding, identifying with and then transcending. And we are controlled by everything we have not transcended.” writes Wilber.

In other words self-awareness or insight does lead to healthy development. It is also important to note we have start from where we are. We can’t skip over levels of development. As Wilber puts it, “Meditation, for example, can accelerate moral development (gauged by the Kohlberg test) but under no circumstances has it been shown to bypass any of those stages.” It is common for people on a “spiritual path” to attempt to skip stages of development and to imagine that they have achieved a higher state of consciousness. Psychotherapist and author, John Welwood, has coined the term “spiritual bypassing” to describe those of us who seek to use spiritual practice to avoid emotional issues. He writes, “. . . there is often a tendency to use spiritual practice to try to rise above our emotional and personal issues – all those messy, unresolved matters that weigh us down. I call this tendency to avoid or prematurely transcend basic human needs, feelings, and developmental tasks spiritual bypassing.”  Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation  Again, a teacher, or a therapist, might help us to avoid getting caught in self-delusion.

Practicing “yoga” without meditation, without developing mindful awareness is not really yoga. As a form of exercise the postures are still beneficial but we miss out on the potential for psychological and spiritual growth. In fact our yoga can come to serve the needs of an immature ego. On the other hand, if we can become aware of our pride, need to judge, to fit in, to feed our vanity, etc., this awareness will help us grow.

The “further reaches of human nature,” the higher developmental stages which lead to and include unity consciousness, are statistically rare achievements, often emerging late in life. Spiritual practice is a means to restart this development where it has become stuck and to accelerate the process so that we can experience the higher stages within this lifetime. There is a difference between a temporary state and a stable stage of development. A psychedelic substance or a spiritual retreat may give us glimpses of higher states but often they don’t last. The higher stages unfold successively based on our inner and outer experiences.

The inner witnessing awareness is our opportunity at any point to step outside of our self-referential system or ego. It gives us leverage for growth and change. It is an innate source of love and wisdom which we can draw upon, cultivated through yoga meditation, chanting, self-inquiry, Zazen, or any consistent contemplative practice. Eventually we move more and more into an identification with this awareness as the ego falls away. Open awareness without attachment, without any external reference point, is our true nature. At the same time the ego is just fine. We don’t have to try to kill it.

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