I have read Dr. Daniel J. Siegel’s book Mindsight once and then again, and I still keep it handy for reference. Right now I’m making my way through some of his other books, though they were written for professionals so that much in them is beyond my frame of reference. The author has a gift for making the difficult comprehensible so I’m learning.

These and a number of other books and resources tell how recent advances in brain science can illuminate family life, education, psychotherapy, the workplace, and virtually every other area that affects human well-being. Contrary to previous belief, It turns out our brains keep learning and adapting throughout our lives, even into old age; that what we learn depends not only on what happens to us but on how we think about those things; that our most troublesome attitudes, superstitions and habits stem from chance incidents and encounters early in our lives; and that we are capable of more control over ourselves and our lives than we ever dreamed possible. By learning to calm the more primitive parts of our brains we can more intelligently govern our thoughts and deeds—and at the same time make actual physical changes in our brains that will strengthen this control in the future.

One way to do this is through a form of mental discipline that Siegel and many others call “mindfulness.” The very word, with its Buddhist associations, has always clashed with my stubborn Western bias. I have never mastered meditation. I once stopped reading a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a brain scientist and Buddhist scholar, when he said something condescending about William James. But Siegel, while he acknowledges the word’s religious tradition, uses it strictly in its scientific sense, accessible to all and central to his message. For that I am a willing disciple.

I still haven’t memorized the parts of the brain and their functions. It’s enough for me right now to trust the science Siegel talks about and get on with using it. Especially when his final chapter in Mindsight is called”Time and Tides: Confronting Uncertainty and Mortality.”