WEBVTT 00:00:02.175 --> 00:00:06.010 (Announcer) Please welcome to the stage Dr. David Hendricks. 00:00:06.531 --> 00:00:08.271 (Applause) 00:00:14.017 --> 00:00:18.150 Tashi delek - that's how you say hello in Tibetan. 00:00:20.356 --> 00:00:22.278 Today I'm really happy to be here 00:00:22.278 --> 00:00:27.570 to share thoughts that have been on my mind every day since 1989. 00:00:33.850 --> 00:00:38.138 My talk today, I hope, you will find some benefit in. 00:00:38.138 --> 00:00:41.793 That's the basic motivation I have in talking to you today. 00:00:45.974 --> 00:00:51.874 The subject matter of my talk 00:00:52.234 --> 00:00:54.541 is going to appear to you today 00:00:54.541 --> 00:00:56.666 just to be a little bit on the academic side, 00:00:56.666 --> 00:00:58.736 and there's a reason for that. 00:00:59.016 --> 00:01:00.606 Before my own recovery, 00:01:00.606 --> 00:01:03.372 the only emotions that were easy for me to access 00:01:03.372 --> 00:01:06.424 were anger and depression. 00:01:06.744 --> 00:01:09.345 And one of the true gifts of my recovery 00:01:09.345 --> 00:01:14.525 was the ability to access a full range of emotional responses, 00:01:15.075 --> 00:01:18.754 and I haven't yet got the hang of all of the more tender emotions, 00:01:18.754 --> 00:01:21.616 so I tend to break into tears easily. 00:01:21.916 --> 00:01:26.744 So staying on the academic side is the best thing for a macho man like me 00:01:26.744 --> 00:01:29.676 so I don't break down in front of you. 00:01:30.356 --> 00:01:32.692 So, the other thing I want to say 00:01:32.692 --> 00:01:36.031 is that even though the presentation may seem at points academic, 00:01:36.031 --> 00:01:37.572 it has a deep soulful purpose 00:01:37.572 --> 00:01:42.826 because it's been my passionate intention over the years 00:01:42.826 --> 00:01:46.991 to try to relieve the suffering of addiction particularly, 00:01:46.991 --> 00:01:49.039 but also mental illness. 00:01:51.158 --> 00:01:53.301 Before I start, the last thing I'd like to say 00:01:53.301 --> 00:01:56.494 is that I'd like to dedicate this talk today 00:01:56.494 --> 00:02:02.174 to my old Buddhist teacher, who died last year. 00:02:04.576 --> 00:02:06.232 So Buddha said, 00:02:06.942 --> 00:02:11.642 "The mind is everything. What we think we become." 00:02:12.418 --> 00:02:14.581 Because I really believe that to be true, 00:02:14.581 --> 00:02:16.318 I'm often made really uneasy 00:02:16.318 --> 00:02:20.166 when I see the kind of crazy stuff that goes around in my own mind. 00:02:20.376 --> 00:02:25.478 But what's in my mind today is really more peaceful and calm 00:02:25.478 --> 00:02:29.532 than it was in the many years during my rough childhood, 00:02:29.532 --> 00:02:31.240 where my father was incessant 00:02:31.240 --> 00:02:35.819 in his attempts to shame me and break me down, 00:02:37.349 --> 00:02:39.639 and it's certainly clearer and better than it was 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:46.119 during the uncontrollable anger of my 20 years as an alcoholic. 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:49.365 I figured that if Picasso can have a blue phase, 00:02:49.365 --> 00:02:53.481 then I'm entitled to an alcoholic phase, which I'm glad is over. 00:02:54.221 --> 00:02:57.066 But at the end of that career, 00:02:57.066 --> 00:03:01.798 I really didn't believe that I would ever be able to have a normal life. 00:03:02.288 --> 00:03:04.759 But I joined AA anyway, 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:07.839 and within one year of that, 00:03:07.839 --> 00:03:11.079 I met my Buddhist teacher and I began to meditate, 00:03:11.279 --> 00:03:14.362 and I began to practice the Buddhist philosophy of mind, 00:03:14.362 --> 00:03:19.978 which was the most profoundly useful psychological system I'd ever encountered. 00:03:20.528 --> 00:03:22.667 And then three years later, 00:03:23.167 --> 00:03:29.798 the unexpected miracle of a top-to-bottom revolution in my entire life occurred - 00:03:29.798 --> 00:03:32.881 something we call "sobriety in recovery." 00:03:33.851 --> 00:03:36.262 This has been a pivotal event in my life, 00:03:36.262 --> 00:03:38.757 and at the time that it occurred, 00:03:38.757 --> 00:03:42.786 it's become my fundamental motivation in life 00:03:42.786 --> 00:03:45.979 to try to help other people who suffer as I did 00:03:46.669 --> 00:03:49.566 to also achieve the same kind of redemption 00:03:49.566 --> 00:03:52.060 that I was lucky enough to achieve. 00:03:54.620 --> 00:03:55.818 So, 00:04:04.198 --> 00:04:07.508 what I would like to do is to see if there's any fundamental truths 00:04:07.508 --> 00:04:10.959 that we can bring out of my little miniature biography today, 00:04:10.959 --> 00:04:13.918 and I'd like to start in childhood. 00:04:15.018 --> 00:04:18.093 Recent brain imaging studies of maltreated children 00:04:18.093 --> 00:04:20.450 revealed extensive structural abnormalities 00:04:20.450 --> 00:04:23.087 in multiple regions of the brain, 00:04:23.386 --> 00:04:26.557 and enough damage to the brain so that the brain of these kids 00:04:26.557 --> 00:04:31.141 has actually reduced as much as 10% in size below normal. 00:04:32.041 --> 00:04:36.539 When you look at the painful images, these brain images, of these children, 00:04:36.539 --> 00:04:40.495 it's difficult to understand how they could ever have a decent life, 00:04:40.495 --> 00:04:46.862 but it wasn't until the publication of the Adverse Childhood Event Study, 00:04:46.862 --> 00:04:49.721 the ACE Study, a few years ago 00:04:49.721 --> 00:04:53.690 that what these kids were going to face in adulthood became clear. 00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:59.036 Now the ACE Study was a groundbreaking clinical epidemiologic study 00:04:59.036 --> 00:05:02.953 that did two things for the first time in the history of clinical research, 00:05:02.953 --> 00:05:06.020 and that is that it looked for - 00:05:10.039 --> 00:05:13.285 I'm going to put all this up so you have a chance to see it. 00:05:13.535 --> 00:05:16.008 For the first time in clinical research of this type, 00:05:16.008 --> 00:05:19.741 it looked for all of the types of adversity 00:05:19.741 --> 00:05:21.600 that kids could go through at one time. 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:24.231 It's hard for me to believe it wasn't done before this - 00:05:24.231 --> 00:05:25.639 it was always fragmented - 00:05:25.639 --> 00:05:27.237 but in this study, 00:05:27.237 --> 00:05:30.300 all forms of adversity that children could suffer were looked at, 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:32.258 and they were eight in number, 00:05:32.258 --> 00:05:36.271 and they include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, 00:05:36.271 --> 00:05:38.482 witnessing the mother being abused, 00:05:38.482 --> 00:05:40.571 divorce or separation, 00:05:40.571 --> 00:05:45.977 and being raised by a parent that was criminal, mentally ill, or drug addicted. 00:05:49.447 --> 00:05:52.455 The study - the second thing that was done 00:05:52.455 --> 00:05:53.821 was that the study was done 00:05:53.821 --> 00:05:57.391 in a very large well-designed population of study subjects 00:05:57.391 --> 00:06:00.459 on whom med and psych records existed 00:06:00.459 --> 00:06:02.960 so that the results of the study 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:08.580 accurately represent the experience of the entire U.S. adult population. 00:06:10.640 --> 00:06:13.847 64% said that they had experienced 00:06:13.847 --> 00:06:17.792 at least one form of these eight forms of adversity. 00:06:18.242 --> 00:06:20.539 I've done my math about Millikan Auditorium. 00:06:20.539 --> 00:06:22.361 And I'm sorry to tell you, 00:06:22.361 --> 00:06:25.956 but it has probably already occurred to some of you looking at the screen 00:06:25.956 --> 00:06:32.000 that 230 of you also likely experienced one form of adversity growing up, 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:36.210 and that 140 of you experienced two types of adversity - 00:06:36.210 --> 00:06:40.099 two of the eight - that's 40% of the US population, 00:06:40.099 --> 00:06:43.782 and 13% experienced four or more, 00:06:43.782 --> 00:06:47.372 like me or like 45 of you. 00:06:47.716 --> 00:06:50.054 So the first thing that we know from the ACE Study 00:06:50.054 --> 00:06:54.267 is that adversity is very common and that most of us in this room share it. 00:06:55.867 --> 00:06:59.707 What do you think the ACE Study would predict the likelihood 00:07:00.258 --> 00:07:05.489 that these suffering children would use drugs in adulthood? 00:07:05.919 --> 00:07:08.627 This is a graph that depicts on its vertical axis 00:07:08.627 --> 00:07:11.325 the likelihood of injecting drugs as an adult 00:07:11.325 --> 00:07:15.451 plotted against childhood experience on the horizontal axis. 00:07:16.411 --> 00:07:20.294 The way this works is that for those that report no adversity, 00:07:20.554 --> 00:07:24.019 the likelihood of injecting drugs is very low, 00:07:24.465 --> 00:07:30.011 but among those who have only one species of adversity during childhood, 00:07:30.311 --> 00:07:32.547 the risk triples, 00:07:32.547 --> 00:07:35.710 and for those that have two of any of the eight … 00:07:35.710 --> 00:07:39.434 or three …, or four or more … 00:07:41.164 --> 00:07:45.189 80% of all addicted adults in the United States today 00:07:45.189 --> 00:07:49.048 come from this population of people that were abused as children. 00:07:51.178 --> 00:07:55.068 What would you guess about the likelihood of mental illness in their future? 00:07:56.214 --> 00:08:01.668 This is a bar graph that depicts a likelihood of committing suicide - 00:08:01.668 --> 00:08:05.169 surely, the ultimate marker of emotional suffering - 00:08:05.169 --> 00:08:07.906 in adulthood plotted against childhood experience. 00:08:07.906 --> 00:08:12.283 And again, the zero represents an ACE score of zero, 00:08:12.283 --> 00:08:16.363 that among those who had no reports of childhood adversity, 00:08:16.363 --> 00:08:22.261 the risk of committing suicide as an adult was very low - vanishingly small. 00:08:22.286 --> 00:08:25.947 For those that had one type of adversity in their childhood experience … 00:08:27.142 --> 00:08:29.863 two types …, three of the eight …, 00:08:29.863 --> 00:08:34.833 four …, five …, six …, and seven or more … 00:08:37.061 --> 00:08:40.023 In the article where these results were first published, 00:08:40.023 --> 00:08:42.004 the authors said 00:08:42.004 --> 00:08:47.593 that the linkage between being abused as a kid and killing yourself as an adult 00:08:48.443 --> 00:08:51.750 was so strong 00:08:51.750 --> 00:08:56.610 as to be unprecedented in the history of epidemiologic studies. 00:08:56.830 --> 00:08:58.072 And they further concluded 00:08:58.072 --> 00:09:02.201 that the vast majority of suicides in the United States every year 00:09:02.201 --> 00:09:08.219 are attributable to only one thing, and that is their abuse as children. 00:09:09.069 --> 00:09:15.722 So the 20th century closed on an extremely dark note. 00:09:16.512 --> 00:09:17.851 What we knew at that time 00:09:17.851 --> 00:09:23.643 is that adversity altered the structure of the brain of these kids, 00:09:23.643 --> 00:09:27.361 and that these structural alterations 00:09:27.711 --> 00:09:31.381 set the stage for emotional states 00:09:31.381 --> 00:09:36.088 that accounted for the majority of the suffering in the United States 00:09:36.088 --> 00:09:39.065 due to drug addiction and mental illness. 00:09:41.635 --> 00:09:44.701 But science made this picture even blacker 00:09:44.701 --> 00:09:50.181 when it said that once these suffering kids reach young adulthood, 00:09:50.181 --> 00:09:52.753 there wasn't anything anybody could do to help them, 00:09:52.753 --> 00:09:57.428 because by that time the brain had lost the capacity to ever change, 00:09:57.428 --> 00:10:01.136 essentially entombing them in their suffering. 00:10:02.912 --> 00:10:05.571 This is what I was taught in medical school, 00:10:06.394 --> 00:10:09.942 and I absolutely refuse to believe it. 00:10:10.682 --> 00:10:13.273 And it turns out that I was right not to believe it, 00:10:13.273 --> 00:10:19.031 because at the dawn of the 21st century, enough light shone in on this problem 00:10:19.031 --> 00:10:23.941 to reveal that the brain had had a science of its own all the time 00:10:23.941 --> 00:10:26.881 and had the capacity for radical change, 00:10:27.161 --> 00:10:34.016 and that it could do it even in adulthood. 00:10:35.719 --> 00:10:41.290 So what I'd like to talk to you about now is two major mechanisms that the brain has 00:10:41.290 --> 00:10:44.367 in order to restructure itself 00:10:44.367 --> 00:10:49.746 and to create different and new functional potentialities. 00:10:54.426 --> 00:11:00.730 This is a photo micrograph of the hippocampus, 00:11:02.545 --> 00:11:08.321 which is one of the most remarkable areas of the brain. 00:11:08.321 --> 00:11:12.679 And over the years of study, it's become my second favorite bodily organ. 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:15.970 (Laughter) 00:11:17.346 --> 00:11:18.923 Sniggering? 00:11:18.923 --> 00:11:20.262 (Laughter) 00:11:20.761 --> 00:11:22.983 Okay, this is total transparency - 00:11:22.983 --> 00:11:26.880 my favorite bodily organ is my anterior insular cortex. 00:11:26.880 --> 00:11:29.200 (Laughter) 00:11:29.848 --> 00:11:32.279 Alright, so the thing that's remarkable about this - 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:33.664 this is a beautiful picture - 00:11:33.664 --> 00:11:39.700 these green guys, all along here, are brand-new baby neurons. 00:11:39.980 --> 00:11:43.540 So one of the major resources the brain has to change 00:11:43.540 --> 00:11:46.057 is the birth of new brain cells. 00:11:47.397 --> 00:11:50.495 I love these little guys. 00:11:51.895 --> 00:11:54.518 If there was one place that they could do the most good, 00:11:54.518 --> 00:11:56.235 it would be here in the hippocampus, 00:11:56.235 --> 00:11:58.033 which is Grand Central Station 00:11:58.033 --> 00:12:02.344 of the brain's capacity to form new learning experiences 00:12:02.344 --> 00:12:06.050 and consolidate that into retrievable memory. 00:12:06.050 --> 00:12:09.786 And what happens, apparently, is that whatever we're required to do - 00:12:09.786 --> 00:12:13.850 to grow, to adapt to current life situations, 00:12:14.290 --> 00:12:17.339 like recover from mental illness or addiction - 00:12:17.669 --> 00:12:21.486 constitutes the marching orders for these little green guys 00:12:21.486 --> 00:12:25.195 to begin to migrate up into the body of the hippocampus, 00:12:25.195 --> 00:12:26.914 where all life's experiences 00:12:26.914 --> 00:12:31.688 are already encoded and find the right place to plug in 00:12:31.988 --> 00:12:36.287 in order to encode new learning experiences 00:12:36.287 --> 00:12:38.265 that can be remembered. 00:12:38.265 --> 00:12:41.740 And the second that they plug in, the brain has changed. 00:12:42.300 --> 00:12:44.577 And the second that these new neurons 00:12:44.577 --> 00:12:48.064 add their voice to the internal mental conversation, 00:12:48.064 --> 00:12:51.226 the vector of thought and feeling shifts. 00:12:51.456 --> 00:12:54.505 And the second that these new learning experiences are in place - 00:12:54.505 --> 00:12:57.793 and by new learning, I don't mean one plus one equals two, 00:12:58.123 --> 00:12:59.768 I mean important stuff, 00:12:59.768 --> 00:13:04.277 like I just discovered that I'm a pretty decent person after all - 00:13:05.487 --> 00:13:06.487 that experience 00:13:06.487 --> 00:13:09.494 immediately begins to compete with the messages from the past, 00:13:09.494 --> 00:13:13.117 and for all abused kids, the message is "you're a bad kid," 00:13:13.327 --> 00:13:16.460 so that the "I'm a good person" message 00:13:16.460 --> 00:13:19.408 can come to dominate "I'm the bad kid" message, 00:13:19.408 --> 00:13:22.366 which is really hopeful and really cool. 00:13:23.656 --> 00:13:25.546 But what's also really cool 00:13:25.546 --> 00:13:28.171 is the second mechanism that I wanted to tell you about 00:13:28.171 --> 00:13:29.709 by which the brain changes, 00:13:29.709 --> 00:13:33.336 and that's a very complex molecular machine 00:13:33.336 --> 00:13:38.927 that exists inside the neuron in the brain, called epigenetics, 00:13:39.497 --> 00:13:43.658 which has the capacity, in response to current life experience, 00:13:43.658 --> 00:13:46.803 to physically move into the nucleus of the cell 00:13:46.803 --> 00:13:51.122 where it shuts genes off and on in order to help us adapt. 00:13:52.832 --> 00:13:55.638 So I'd like to tell you about a recent laboratory experiment 00:13:55.638 --> 00:13:58.803 that goes to the heart of what we're talking about here today, 00:13:59.203 --> 00:14:02.396 and it's an experiment 00:14:02.396 --> 00:14:08.746 that deprives rat pups of the maternal care that they need. 00:14:09.535 --> 00:14:10.808 When they don't get that, 00:14:10.808 --> 00:14:13.511 the epigenetic machine becomes aware of it, 00:14:13.511 --> 00:14:16.522 it physically moves into the nucleus of the cell, 00:14:16.712 --> 00:14:18.311 where it shuts off a gene 00:14:18.311 --> 00:14:22.758 that's responsible for the control of the stress reaction in the brain, 00:14:22.758 --> 00:14:26.156 and when that gene doesn't work, the brain can't control stress. 00:14:26.156 --> 00:14:30.727 So once a stress reaction begins, it can't be stopped. 00:14:31.239 --> 00:14:34.626 And this out-of-control stress is toxic for central nervous tissue: 00:14:34.626 --> 00:14:40.560 it kills brain cells, it reduces the brain in size and distorts its architecture. 00:14:40.950 --> 00:14:44.864 But you see, those are exactly the forces that were responsible 00:14:44.864 --> 00:14:47.313 for the abnormalities in the brain imaging studies 00:14:47.313 --> 00:14:52.174 of these maltreated children that we talked about earlier. 00:14:55.972 --> 00:14:57.847 The other thing that it does 00:14:57.847 --> 00:15:01.853 is it makes these rat pups act mentally ill. 00:15:02.751 --> 00:15:07.100 So this molecular and genetic configuration in the brain 00:15:07.777 --> 00:15:11.825 are the changes that drive the behaviors 00:15:11.825 --> 00:15:14.772 that we diagnose as post-traumatic stress disorder 00:15:14.772 --> 00:15:16.540 in clinical practice. 00:15:18.210 --> 00:15:22.573 But if later, the maternal care that these rat pups need 00:15:22.573 --> 00:15:24.330 is provided to them, 00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:27.269 the epigenetic machinery hears about this, 00:15:27.269 --> 00:15:30.946 this complex molecular machine moves back into the nucleus of the cell, 00:15:30.946 --> 00:15:36.041 where it switches the gene responsible for the stress response back on - 00:15:36.311 --> 00:15:39.575 stress comes under control, the brain is healed, 00:15:39.575 --> 00:15:44.945 and the rat pups stop acting mentally ill, 00:15:44.945 --> 00:15:47.787 and they get on with perfectly normal lives. 00:15:47.787 --> 00:15:53.407 And this is exactly analogous to the situation of maltreated children. 00:15:54.630 --> 00:15:56.273 And we learned from this 00:15:56.273 --> 00:16:01.913 that if we want to give to our patients in recovery 00:16:01.913 --> 00:16:05.129 the same epigenetic gift of healing 00:16:05.129 --> 00:16:08.227 that these rat pups enjoyed in this experiment, 00:16:08.227 --> 00:16:09.849 then we'd better be really careful 00:16:09.849 --> 00:16:12.756 about how we go about the process of repairing it 00:16:12.756 --> 00:16:14.540 in our patients in treatment. 00:16:14.540 --> 00:16:16.784 So in our treatment program, 00:16:16.784 --> 00:16:17.777 my wife and I 00:16:17.777 --> 00:16:21.195 try to provide as much as we can every one of our patients 00:16:21.195 --> 00:16:23.087 with two new parents - 00:16:23.087 --> 00:16:24.687 she and I. 00:16:24.687 --> 00:16:29.546 And we have a commitment to stick with them for a minimum of five years, 00:16:29.546 --> 00:16:32.578 and this is a period of time that science indicates 00:16:32.768 --> 00:16:37.277 that is necessary for these brain changes to come to completion. 00:16:38.167 --> 00:16:41.257 Okay, so where are we now in this conversation? 00:16:41.627 --> 00:16:45.956 We know that adversity changes the brain, 00:16:46.196 --> 00:16:50.724 and we know that these brain changes sets the mood in the brain 00:16:50.724 --> 00:16:57.697 and that these moods drive the processes of addiction and mental illness. 00:16:57.947 --> 00:17:01.073 But we also know now, in the 21st century, 00:17:03.243 --> 00:17:04.673 Western science teaches us 00:17:04.673 --> 00:17:07.967 that the physical brain is being changed all the time 00:17:07.967 --> 00:17:13.441 under the dynamic influences of epigenetics and neurogenesis. 00:17:19.961 --> 00:17:21.907 But whereas Western culture 00:17:21.907 --> 00:17:24.576 is really good about looking at the outside world 00:17:24.576 --> 00:17:27.514 and manipulating physical matter, 00:17:27.974 --> 00:17:31.443 our Western culture doesn't provide us 00:17:31.443 --> 00:17:34.349 with a very deep understanding of the nature of mind - 00:17:34.349 --> 00:17:36.509 the internal mental world, 00:17:36.509 --> 00:17:39.950 how to really pay attention to what's going on there, 00:17:39.950 --> 00:17:42.045 how to sort out the meaning of mental events, 00:17:42.045 --> 00:17:45.967 and how to guide these mental events for maximum growth, 00:17:45.967 --> 00:17:52.173 so that what happens is that a change is usually or often willy-nilly, 00:17:52.173 --> 00:17:54.545 and the results are half-baked. 00:17:55.255 --> 00:17:56.840 But, 00:18:02.501 --> 00:18:06.144 20 centuries ago, Buddhist philosophy of mind 00:18:06.144 --> 00:18:11.352 had a very detailed and profoundly intelligent understanding 00:18:11.352 --> 00:18:13.248 of the nature of mind. 00:18:13.248 --> 00:18:14.264 It had techniques 00:18:14.264 --> 00:18:17.475 so that we could really pay attention to what was going on there. 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:19.044 It had the ability 00:18:19.044 --> 00:18:24.148 to sort out mental events, understand their operational nature, 00:18:24.148 --> 00:18:30.504 and how to use them for maximal human growth and spiritual development. 00:18:32.124 --> 00:18:35.795 So, now I'm supposed to say, What now? 00:18:37.085 --> 00:18:39.280 So I'm going to say, What now? 00:18:39.600 --> 00:18:45.739 So, my wife and my professional partner are both Buddhists. 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:49.020 We've been mental health and addiction treatment professionals 00:18:49.020 --> 00:18:50.021 for a decade, 00:18:50.021 --> 00:18:52.508 and so she and I decided many years ago 00:18:52.508 --> 00:18:54.647 that we were going to take a really close look 00:18:54.647 --> 00:18:56.689 at the Buddhist philosophy of mind 00:18:56.689 --> 00:19:00.016 and see whether or not we could integrate it into our treatment program 00:19:00.016 --> 00:19:01.307 so we could do a better job 00:19:01.307 --> 00:19:05.342 helping the people that came to us with these disorders. 00:19:05.972 --> 00:19:12.837 So, after many years of preparation, we left the United States a few years ago, 00:19:13.538 --> 00:19:18.907 and we traveled to the seat of the Tibetan people in exile 00:19:18.907 --> 00:19:20.582 in North India. 00:19:21.664 --> 00:19:26.527 And over about two-year period of time, 00:19:26.987 --> 00:19:30.443 she and I selected a specific Tibetan text, 00:19:30.443 --> 00:19:34.684 which was a text on human psychology from the Buddhist perspective, 00:19:34.684 --> 00:19:39.669 and then working separately, we each then translated that text 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.596 over about a seven- or eight-month period of time. 00:19:45.326 --> 00:19:49.545 And this is a text that in Tibetan is "Sem dong sem jung" - 00:19:49.545 --> 00:19:54.689 it means "The mind and that which arises from mind," 00:19:55.349 --> 00:19:58.326 or more loosely translated, "The mind and its functions," 00:19:58.326 --> 00:20:00.927 or "Mind and mental functions." 00:20:01.567 --> 00:20:03.000 And after we translated it, 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.975 then we had the good fortune to be able to study this translated material 00:20:08.235 --> 00:20:13.146 with Buddhist scholars who were respected for their mastery of this subject matter. 00:20:15.100 --> 00:20:16.520 So, when we finished, 00:20:16.520 --> 00:20:19.525 we came back to the United States and set up a treatment program 00:20:19.525 --> 00:20:21.056 in Traverse City. 00:20:21.556 --> 00:20:23.784 But before I tell you about that, 00:20:26.572 --> 00:20:28.680 I would like to share with you 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.004 one more piece of evidence that's necessary to have 00:20:32.174 --> 00:20:34.519 before we're able to take all the pieces of puzzle 00:20:34.519 --> 00:20:36.191 that I've talked to you about today 00:20:36.191 --> 00:20:42.492 and put it together into an improved treatment methodology for these disorders. 00:20:42.970 --> 00:20:47.373 And this has to do with recent brain imaging evidence 00:20:47.373 --> 00:20:52.737 demonstrating that meditation has a profound positive impact 00:20:52.737 --> 00:20:56.518 on multiple regions of the central nervous system, 00:20:56.778 --> 00:21:00.999 including those areas of the brain damaged by childhood adversity. 00:21:01.789 --> 00:21:06.193 So that only after four hours of a sitting meditation practice - 00:21:06.193 --> 00:21:11.439 four hours of sitting in meditation, divided up over days or whatever - 00:21:12.489 --> 00:21:16.471 brain imaging technology shows a marked enhancement 00:21:16.471 --> 00:21:20.075 of the activation and the operational strength 00:21:20.075 --> 00:21:23.642 of those brain regions that are responsible for focused attention, 00:21:23.642 --> 00:21:26.616 what's called "mindfulness" in the lay press, 00:21:26.906 --> 00:21:30.640 and then after only 11 hours of sitting meditation practice, 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:32.899 brain imaging proves 00:21:32.899 --> 00:21:38.388 that the actual density of living tissue in these brain regions has been increased, 00:21:38.388 --> 00:21:40.691 so they've been muscled up and bulked up 00:21:40.691 --> 00:21:43.389 so that their functional capacity has changed, 00:21:43.389 --> 00:21:44.926 so they can really pay attention 00:21:44.926 --> 00:21:48.123 to whatever you choose to focus your attention on. 00:21:52.833 --> 00:21:53.995 This is an example 00:21:53.995 --> 00:22:00.657 of sustained attention of the mind as distinct from the brain 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:06.959 changing the structure of the brain and giving it enhanced functional capacity. 00:22:09.265 --> 00:22:13.040 But we had this experience all the time. 00:22:13.840 --> 00:22:16.376 The mind is always telling the brain what to do - 00:22:16.376 --> 00:22:18.195 so if I say wiggle this finger, 00:22:18.195 --> 00:22:23.510 the brain says, "Okay," and it finds the appropriate area in the motor cortex 00:22:23.510 --> 00:22:25.512 that controls the finger, the right nerve, 00:22:25.512 --> 00:22:27.142 and the finger wiggles. 00:22:27.142 --> 00:22:28.189 So what I'm suggesting 00:22:28.189 --> 00:22:33.362 is that if we became more astute about training the mind 00:22:34.282 --> 00:22:36.971 to find any area that we wanted, 00:22:36.971 --> 00:22:41.067 we could learn how to access specifically those regions in the mind 00:22:41.067 --> 00:22:43.938 that were damaged by childhood adversity, 00:22:44.178 --> 00:22:47.498 and by focusing and encouraging their sustained operation, 00:22:47.498 --> 00:22:49.205 beef them up to cure it. 00:22:50.041 --> 00:22:53.623 So this is the way this new treatment methodology works: 00:22:54.453 --> 00:22:58.386 We practice quiescent meditation 00:22:58.736 --> 00:23:01.339 until we beef up the areas of the brain 00:23:01.339 --> 00:23:03.465 that are responsible for focused attention 00:23:03.465 --> 00:23:06.976 until they become strong enough that we can use that as a tool, 00:23:06.976 --> 00:23:09.260 like a lens to look inside 00:23:09.260 --> 00:23:12.718 and to actually observe the arising of thoughts and feelings 00:23:12.718 --> 00:23:15.300 from moment to moment in our own minds. 00:23:16.228 --> 00:23:19.030 By enumerating a relatively short list 00:23:19.030 --> 00:23:22.417 of mental functions that mind is capable of performing, 00:23:22.417 --> 00:23:24.721 Buddhist psychology helps us here 00:23:24.721 --> 00:23:26.205 because as they arise, 00:23:26.205 --> 00:23:29.467 we can properly identify them and give them names. 00:23:29.687 --> 00:23:33.559 And what this does is facilitate bringing meaningful order 00:23:33.559 --> 00:23:38.615 to a realm of our inner mental experience that's often very confusing for us. 00:23:39.777 --> 00:23:42.688 The second thing that Buddhist psychology does to help us here 00:23:42.688 --> 00:23:47.649 is that it actually assigns a moral weight or value to these mental functions 00:23:47.649 --> 00:23:50.817 so that now we've got them sorted out and we've got them named 00:23:50.817 --> 00:23:53.261 and we know what's going on: 00:23:53.261 --> 00:23:55.658 we learned that they are bifurcatable 00:23:55.658 --> 00:23:59.246 into two mutually distinctive areas of functionality - 00:23:59.246 --> 00:24:01.894 harmful and beneficial - 00:24:01.894 --> 00:24:05.960 and we observed that when the harmful mental functions operate, 00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:10.468 it reduces our mental health and our happiness, 00:24:10.748 --> 00:24:16.125 but when the mental functions that belong to a beneficial domain of mind 00:24:16.125 --> 00:24:17.400 are operational, 00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:20.877 our mental health is increased along with our happiness. 00:24:22.467 --> 00:24:25.512 The third thing that Buddhist psychology does to help here 00:24:25.512 --> 00:24:30.634 is to give us efficient and useful techniques 00:24:30.634 --> 00:24:35.558 by which we can begin to modulate internal mental activity. 00:24:35.558 --> 00:24:37.065 We've sorted things out. 00:24:37.065 --> 00:24:38.065 We now see 00:24:38.065 --> 00:24:41.218 that they exist in the two categories of harmful and helpful, 00:24:41.218 --> 00:24:42.985 but now we can actually take a hand 00:24:42.985 --> 00:24:46.130 and we can develop the mental discipline that's required 00:24:46.456 --> 00:24:51.951 in order to recognize the incipient operation of negative mental functions 00:24:51.951 --> 00:24:55.183 and reduce their power over us, 00:24:55.423 --> 00:25:00.162 and to recognize the benefits of positive mental functionality 00:25:00.162 --> 00:25:02.596 and encourage and strengthen them. 00:25:02.916 --> 00:25:08.930 So, for example, if I am a person who has some training in these matters 00:25:08.930 --> 00:25:11.128 and I'm going through my day 00:25:11.128 --> 00:25:14.228 and I suddenly become aware that this person that I'm dealing with 00:25:14.228 --> 00:25:16.146 is really pissing me off, 00:25:17.186 --> 00:25:21.508 I see the arising of anger from the domain of negative mental functions, 00:25:21.508 --> 00:25:24.741 and I take a step back because I know I'm in danger - 00:25:25.311 --> 00:25:28.164 I don't want to be hurt, I don't want that person to be hurt, 00:25:28.164 --> 00:25:33.697 and I certainly don't want to have to suffer the mental consequences 00:25:33.697 --> 00:25:37.146 that will necessarily arise 00:25:37.146 --> 00:25:41.246 if I allow that motivation to motivate my behavior. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.835 If I have some training and control, 00:25:43.835 --> 00:25:48.795 I can switch my motivation and intentionality to the positive domain 00:25:48.795 --> 00:25:52.396 so only they can operate to motivate my behavior. 00:25:54.190 --> 00:26:00.806 When we have the subjective experience of positive emotionality, 00:26:00.806 --> 00:26:02.799 it is important to realize 00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:06.337 that that experience that we have 00:26:06.337 --> 00:26:08.482 is the end product of the result 00:26:08.482 --> 00:26:11.731 of a number of distributed different brain regions 00:26:11.731 --> 00:26:15.222 that are cooperating together in a tightly wired neural network 00:26:15.222 --> 00:26:17.659 to produce that sensation. 00:26:19.729 --> 00:26:20.736 So that means, 00:26:20.736 --> 00:26:23.563 just like the mind controls the brain, 00:26:24.273 --> 00:26:29.668 I can use the mind and learn how to command the brain 00:26:29.668 --> 00:26:31.398 to go into those neural circuits 00:26:31.398 --> 00:26:34.067 and navigate specifically to the brain regions 00:26:34.067 --> 00:26:36.583 that were damaged by a childhood adversity. 00:26:36.843 --> 00:26:41.876 Little kids who've been abused don't have any trouble feeling negative affect, 00:26:41.876 --> 00:26:44.834 but they do have trouble feeling positive affect, 00:26:44.834 --> 00:26:45.829 which means 00:26:45.829 --> 00:26:50.842 that it was precisely the domains of the brain responsible for positive affect 00:26:50.842 --> 00:26:53.518 that were injured by childhood adversity. 00:26:54.192 --> 00:26:58.217 So by using these techniques of Buddhist psychology, 00:26:58.217 --> 00:27:00.224 what I'm really doing 00:27:00.224 --> 00:27:05.514 is navigating to them by mindful attention - 00:27:05.514 --> 00:27:07.247 I am sustaining their operation, 00:27:07.247 --> 00:27:09.132 and we know that sustained operation 00:27:09.132 --> 00:27:11.414 beefs them up and make them stronger and stronger 00:27:11.414 --> 00:27:15.920 until such time as they begin, for the first time, to function normally. 00:27:16.190 --> 00:27:19.182 The first moment of normal functionality of these circuits 00:27:19.182 --> 00:27:21.180 is experienced objectively 00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:26.023 as the acquisition of sobriety in recovery. 00:27:26.933 --> 00:27:30.750 When I achieve sobriety in my own recovery efforts, 00:27:30.750 --> 00:27:36.372 it was a feeling like my soul was rising like a raft from the bottom of the ocean 00:27:36.372 --> 00:27:37.868 to stand up for the first time, 00:27:37.868 --> 00:27:41.401 and what came with it was a sense of enduring peace 00:27:41.863 --> 00:27:44.608 and a certainty I would never drink again. 00:27:44.608 --> 00:27:48.421 There wasn't any need to drink anymore because everything was working okay. 00:27:49.481 --> 00:27:51.415 So what's really happening here 00:27:51.415 --> 00:27:54.205 is that we're using a powerfully focused mind 00:27:54.205 --> 00:27:57.000 that we get from a meditational practice 00:27:57.230 --> 00:28:00.027 within an overarching construct and guidance 00:28:00.027 --> 00:28:04.515 of a Buddhist psychological system of mind, of understanding the mind. 00:28:05.025 --> 00:28:07.461 And what we're really doing is, 00:28:07.461 --> 00:28:12.395 for the first time, we have the ability to take conscious control 00:28:12.845 --> 00:28:16.847 of the brain's physical resources, dynamic resources for change, 00:28:16.847 --> 00:28:20.303 which is epigenetics and neurogenesis, 00:28:20.303 --> 00:28:25.521 and we direct them to heal the wounds of the past 00:28:27.531 --> 00:28:33.842 and to restore to us the right to be who we choose to be for the first time. 00:28:34.173 --> 00:28:36.072 Any of us can do this at any time; 00:28:36.072 --> 00:28:40.457 it doesn't matter where we stand on the continuum of human development. 00:28:40.817 --> 00:28:46.369 So you don't need to worry about the brain's capacity to change; 00:28:46.369 --> 00:28:50.806 all you have to do is to be really serious about training the mind, 00:28:50.806 --> 00:28:52.963 and it'll happen automatically. 00:28:52.963 --> 00:28:54.837 Buddha said, 00:28:55.227 --> 00:28:59.727 "Mind is everything. What you think you become." 00:28:59.727 --> 00:29:00.933 Thank you very much. 00:29:00.933 --> 00:29:04.520 (Applause)