Where is Monkey Mind? or Zazen Changes Your Brain

I stumbled across this interesting article the other day examining the effect of regular zazen on the brain using high-tech MRI imaging in the journal PLoS One. Functional MRI is a type of imaging of the brain that can show both an picture of the brain structure (like the one above), and the areas of the brain that are being used more than others at a particular moment. It turns out that such studies show the physical locations of monkey mind! Monkey mind, that stream of thoughts that rattles through the mind unbidden, is described by neuroscientists as:

"...brain regions that are metabolically active during wakeful rest and consistently deactivate in a variety the performance of demanding tasks. This “default network” has been functionally linked to the stream of thoughts occurring automatically in the absence of goal-directed activity..."

When the scientists compared activity in the brains of long-term zazen practitioners (3 years or more of daily meditation), the findings were quite interesting. Both zazen practitioners and a control group (non-meditators) were shown visual pictures of words, as well as non-sense combinations of letters. When zazen practitioners saw words, they still had signs of the brain activity of monkey mind, it was shut off very quickly; non-meditators had the long, ongoing brain reverberations that we are all familiar with. So, neuroscience tells us again what our teachers have for centuries: you can never completely rid yourself of monkey mind, but you can settle the mind into stillness with training.

Go sit, change your brain!