md+The+Center+for+Investigating+Healthy+Minds

On the weekend of May 15th, I traveled to Madison for the second time to participate in the opening of a new center called The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. It is the first place in the world to house neuroscience with meditation. From my understanding, it is based on monastic evidence that meditation changes and calms one's brain physically.

Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

 Again, please peruse their website if you are interested. In the blog section, you can find webcasts of Dr. Davidson's dialogue with **THE DALAI LAMA** as well as a lecture by **JON KABAT-ZINN**.

 I took about 16 pages (in a small book) of notes during these presentations. What I'd like to share with you here are ten phrases and ideas that I've synthesized into my thinking.

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 * 1) The definition of healing is coming to terms with the way things are.
 * 2) In all Asian languages, the words for mind and heart are the same.
 * 3) Sustained attention in possible. There is no stage or level you have to reach while meditating. The most important thing is to rest in the incredible beauty of awareness. Regular mindful meditation does physically change one's brain.
 * 4) Compassion transforms our mind and body. Studies have shown that when we participate in altruism, our brains produce more of the chemicals that enable us to sustain happiness.
 * 5) Don't articulate who you are. Be who you are.
 * 6) Our basic nature is pure. Other things that result in negative thoughts (which should not be assumed to be true) can be reduced or removed. A healthy mind is one that is most of the time neutral, in the middle of the emotion spectrum, like calm water. A healthy mind also includes good physical health, honesty with one-self, proper mental state, and community. In fact, The Dalai Lama said that individual survival depends on our social connections, and that being very "self-sufficient" is not necessarily a good thing.
 * 7) As human beings, we are a part of the whole called by us "universe." We are limited in time and space. We are all basically the same, and there is freedom in liberating the notion of "self."
 * 8) Problems often dissolve rather than resolve, especially in children. As adults, we need to accept their journey and ask them questions, not tell them what to do.
 * 9) Meditation promotes positive changes in the inflammatory system.
 * 10) Science can cultivate humility, because the magnitude of what we don't know is so much greater than what we do know.

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