Some dazzling new info on the "brain." Recent research points to two independant "minds," the left and right hemispheres. What's interesting is that sometimes the left doesn't know what the right is up to, and vice versa. So a shizophrenic nature maybe be built into us. A correctly functioning brain navigates between both hemispheres, but what we know, may not be what we can say. What we see, may not be what we are able to verbalize. We may not "know" all that we "know."
Plus there's this: neuroplasticity. Brain scans of London cabbies showed that detailed maps they had built up in the course of navigating their city's complicated streets were apparent in their brains.
Brain scans also showed this: Buddhist monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation, showed brain function that was strikingly different than other people. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex, the locus of joy, overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the locus of anxiety. Meditating on compassion, the monks brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress.
Brains may be altered by driving a cab for years, or by long-term meditative practice. We are in a dance with the world, what we do, may alter us in the most fundamental way we can imagine!