The Buddhist monk, the Scientist and the neuroplasticity of the brain.

I was in Nepal when I received by email Joe Dispenza's video (see below) talking about the neuroplasticity of the brain. I was doing a retreat in the Tibetan Buddhist Neydo Monastery located near Pharping.

That same day in the morning, I had the chance to spent some time with the Abbot of the monastery talking about spirituality and Buddhism. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him but the first one that came to my mind was: "You are saying that training the mind to meditate and to feeling and thinking about compassion can lead us toward happiness and therefore to a better life? But what if your mind, your subconscious is filled with negative thoughts like anger, fears, depression, judgement...We know that the subconscious mind is stronger than the conscious mind so how can you get rid of the negativity? " and his answer was: "Don't try to get rid of the negativity...just focus on positive thoughts like compassion, it's not easy at the beginning but if you practice long enough then your negative thoughts will disappear." I knew that Buddhist teachings are about meditation, mantras and prayers practiced every day to train the mind to go in a specific direction with the hope of reaching one day the ultimate stage of mindfulness: The illumination! But for my occidental mind there was still a doubt about just practicing and training your mind like you train a muscle to become stronger when you go to the gym. And that's exactly at that moment that I received Joe's Dispenza's video giving me the scientific evidence about what the monk was telling me and how practicing compassion and positive thoughts not only creates new neuronal connections in your brain but also disconnect the neuronal web of negative thoughts. Like tracks going to a specific destination (negativity), built during your childhood for different reasons (all connected to your own story and personal journey) you have the capacity to create a new "railway system" that leads you to a destination where compassion, altruism and happiness dwell. I was very thankful for the synchronicity that brought me that knowledge at the same time from the Spiritual approach and from the scientific research. Two "opposite" sides coming together to show me that the more we keep our mind calm and open then answers, knowledge and positive things come into your life. 

Long is the journey to reach true happiness, especially in a world in such turmoil. But we have to see the bigger picture and keep in mind that every chaos is the precursor of a huge inner transformation and we are all learning through different experiences to clear our mind to make the world a better place to live in. It shows me as well that the key to have one day a peaceful world is to focus on what is positive and not on negativity like we are trained to do by our education and medias. Focusing and sending out positive vibrations (contemplating the beauty of nature, respect for every living beings (animals included), compassion, humility, happiness, laughs and love) is the key. It's a long process but it's worth taking the road because the more we can go happily with our own self, the less we can hurt another!