Dharma Lab AMA#5 Navigating Neuroplasticity, Non-Dual Awareness, and the Neuroscience of Flourishing
Reminder: Our Next Live Ask Me Anything (#6) with Richie and Cort will be on Feb 9th at 8pm ET. Please send questions in advance! (in comments, chat, or reply to this email)
Why Listen to This Session?
In our latest wide-ranging AMA, Richie and Cort explore:
* Your brain can change at any age — but plasticity isn’t always good:to answer a popular question inspired by Huberman: yes, neuroplasticity lasts from birth to death (even near the very end of life). But here’s the twist: plasticity is neutral. Without the right conditions, it can reinforce anxiety, anger, or stress. The AMA explains how to pair plasticity with wholesome habits so change actually supports well-being
* How meditation can literally rewrite emotional memories: a detailed walkthrough of memory reconsolidation, the neuroscience of why retrieved memories become editable, and a practical technique you can use at bedtime
* Discover what happens in the brain during non-dual awareness: cutting-edge research on why advanced meditators show dramatic drops in prediction networks, and the crucial difference between practices that focus on experience versus practices that orient to awareness itself
* Flourishing is contagious: A firsthand account of meeting a 90-year-old Tibetan master who radiates unconditional love after surviving 20 years in Chinese prison camps
Detailed Chapter Guide
00:00 - Opening Meditation & New Year Intentions
Brief guided meditation to open hearts and set collective aspiration for easing suffering and supporting flourishing worldwide.
02:00 - New Year Reflections: Small Steps, Daily Affordances
Richie discusses why New Year’s resolutions fail and introduces the concept of “affordances”: everyday contexts that can trigger practice moments. The importance of small steps repeated consistently rather than unrealistic grand plans.
06:00 - Contagious Flourishing: Meeting Garchen Rinpoche
Cort shares a powerful experience meeting 90-year-old Garchen Rinpoche in Arizona, a living example of boundless love cultivated through decades of practice, even surviving 20 years in Chinese prison camps. A visceral reminder that flourishing spreads through presence alone.
14:00 - Neuroplasticity Across the Lifespan
Q: Does brain plasticity continue after age 25? Richie explains that plasticity persists from birth to death, with sensitive periods (birth, ages 4-7, adolescence) showing heightened susceptibility. The critical point: plasticity is neutral and requires wholesome focus to support flourishing.
20:00 - Buddhist Psychology Meets Neuroscience
Cort connects neuroplasticity to the Buddhist concept of “bardo,” transitional periods when habitual patterns are disrupted. Why adversity often catalyzes the deepest growth, and the dual path of accumulating wisdom and creating supportive conditions.
25:00 - Memory Reconsolidation: Editing Emotional Memories
Q: Can we heal trauma from infancy if we don’t remember how it formed? Richie explains how retrieved memories become temporarily fluid and re-encodable, the scientific basis for therapeutic change.
29:00 - Practical Memory Reconsolidation: The Bedtime Argument
Detailed walkthrough of how to work with a difficult memory using reconsolidation principles: bringing positive associations to the same person during retrieval creates lasting change in how that memory is stored.
34:00 - Different Practices, Different Reconsolidation Effects
How loving-kindness changes associations versus how awareness practices create space for memories to dissolve. Mingyur Rinpoche’s “cow dung” teaching as a metaphor for memory malleability.
37:00 - Education: Declarative vs. Procedural Learning
Q: How does modern education impact neuroplasticity in children? The Western bias toward declarative (conceptual) learning versus procedural (skill-based) learning. Richie’s call for more practice-based education.
40:00 - The Surprising Value of Memorization
Cort’s counterintuitive defense of traditional monastic memorization practices: how deep encoding creates attentional laser-focus and transforms understanding in ways that passive learning cannot.
44:00 - Giving, Receiving, and the Reward System
Q: Is giving more rewarding than receiving at all ages? Richie confirms the data supports this across the lifespan, though strength may vary by developmental stage.
45:00 - The Science of Non-Dual Awareness
Q: What happens in the brain during non-dual experiences? Cort explains non-dual consciousness as the “open sky” versus the “weather patterns” of sensory experience, orienting to awareness itself rather than its contents.
50:00 - The Brain as Prediction Machine
Richie’s hypothesis: non-dual awareness may involve releasing prediction entirely. Evidence shows dramatic decreases in prefrontal activation in long-term practitioners during tasks that normally activate prediction networks.
54:00 - Subject-Oriented vs. Object-Oriented Practice
Q: What’s the difference between focusing on breath versus connecting with awareness itself? Cort unpacks this crucial distinction from their published research paper.
56:00 - Two Paths of Insight
Object-oriented practices reveal the conditioned, changing nature of experience. Subject-oriented practices reveal the unconditioned, spacious nature of awareness, leading to emptiness and non-dual realization. Different practices, radically different destinations.
59:00 - Brain Connectivity Patterns in Different Practice Types
Richie explains how object-oriented practices strengthen connections between awareness regions and sensory regions, while subject-oriented practices strengthen awareness networks and salience networks differently.
1:01:00 - Closing Reflections & New Year Wishes
Final thoughts, gratitude for the community’s questions, and wishes for health, peace, and flourishing in the year ahead.
For the technical deep-dive referenced in this session, see Davidson & Dahl’s paper: “Reconstructing and Deconstructing the Self: Cognitive Mechanisms in Meditation Practice” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Our new book is coming out next month! Pre-order Born to Flourish and get:
* Live access to an exclusive Born to Flourish Launch Event
* Richie and Cort’s personal reading list on the art of flourishing
* A daily protocol for training the mind to flourish
* 1-year paid membership to Dharma Lab with weekly essays, research updates, podcasts, and member-only online events
From the archives: