Alcohol and drugs harm this part of the brain, which is why perhaps you often find injunctions to not drink or take drugs.

On the other hand, from what I can gather sleep, regular high protein meals, exercise, goal setting and following, and most interestingly meditation all help to develop the prefrontal cortex.

It seems that meditation thickens the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which controls the amygdala (anger and fear), the hypothalamus (appetite, sex drive), the nucleus ambens (pleasure) and the insula (empathy).

But if we were to support our meditation practice, we could engage in exercise, in fact all the things we listed above. And again from what I’ve been able to find, Omega-3 oils play an important role in brain function, according to Amen in Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, who also says that DHA, which is in flaxseed oils “is critical for normal brain development in fetuses and infants and for the maintenance of normal brain function throughout life.”

What’s also interesting is that the ACC seems to contain a lot of serotonin transporters. Amen says elsewhere that Inositol is “a natural chemical found in the brain that is reported to help neurons use serotonin more efficiently.”

And how about this? Vitamin D3 “activates receptors on neurons in regions important in the regulation of behavior, and it protects the brain by acting in an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacity.”

But don’t accept what I’ve found out. Rather think about how your physical lifestyle is affecting your practice.

Something I’d like to add is that there is a deliberate practice that uses the ajna chakra, or 3rd eye as it’s sometimes called. The “ā” meditation, which uses a process of visualisation and an energy sweep through the ajna chakra.

And then there’s mindfulness of emptiness, beyond thought. Perhaps the physical brain correspondence here is the connection between the PFC and the cerebellum. Perhaps strengthening this connection is the physical correspondence of opening the third eye. Food for thought, don’t you think?

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According to Wikipedia: Respect is an assumption of good faith and competence in another person or in the whole of oneself. Depth of integrity, trust, complementary moral values, and skill are necessary components.

And yet being treated with disrepect can be a painful experience.

When Fa Da failed to pay his respects to Hui Neng, here’s what Hui Neng had to say.

Since the object of ceremony is to curb arrogance
Why did you fail to lower your head to the ground?
‘To believe in a self’ is the source of sin,
But ‘to treat all attainment as void’ attains merit incomparable!

When we treat our attainment as void there really is no disrespect is there, which I’m sure was Hui Neng’s basis for the discussion, so he didn’t experience disrespect what he saw instead was the next step for his disciple, the curbing of arrogance.

When experiencing disrespect to focus on compassion towards the other changes everything. In my experience. Illusion falls like shells from our eyes and we stand in the present moment.

Just a thought.

I remember reading this passage several years ago and thinking that this refered to holding his attention in the Ajna Chakra (Third Eye). Ajna is Sanskrit for control.

Sutra 54, Book II, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali reads: “Abstraction (or Pratyahara) is the subjugation of the senses by the thinking principle and their withdrawal from that which has hitherto been their object.”

And if you care to look up Pratyahara in Wikipedia here’s what you’ll find: “Apart from Pranayama, another device that is used to aid in the development of Pratyahara is to concentrate on the point between the eyebrows. This location is known as Ajna Chakra or the third eye.” Is this the root of the nose that some authors on meditation refer to?

Go to Ajna Chakra in Wikipedia and someone wrote that“it represents the superior mental consciousness that favors the direct perception over the invisible worlds, and the direct perception of the subtle aspects of manifestation.”

It is said that the Buddha was born, enlightened and died at the full moon of Taurus whose esoteric key note is: “I see and when the eye is opened all is light”.

May you awaken and be free.