ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some ideas about the intersection of three circles: neuroscience, clinical psychology, and Buddhist contemplative practice. Most of the immaterial information represented by material neural substrates is forever unconscious, but the fraction of this information that composes conscious experience is particularly influential in shaping the brain. This is what researchers call experience-dependent neuroplasticity. The brain is the organ that learns, and any form of learning—from personal growth and cultivation of loving-kindness to nonordinary states of absorption—all that learning involves alterations in brain structure or function. Since learning—in some sense a process of internalization—is turbocharged for what's in the field of focused attention, mindfulness training is vital for improving therapeutic outcomes. Obviously there are pitfalls on either approach to self-healing and transformation, whether by psychotherapy or by contemplation. As positive psychology has increasingly shown, many of the states of mind promote lasting happiness.
