Sharon Begley covers a large swath of the most-recent research into brain plasticity, and does it in the context of the Dalai Lama's yearly gathering of scientists for the Mind Life Institute. Although it's a lot of material, Begley does a good job of organizing this book, so the reader follows the scientific community's journey from the old dogma that brains are fixed at age three to the current understanding that our brains remain plastic throughout life.

Full disclosure: I'm a true believer in the power of meditation to change one's happiness basepoint. I've experienced the plasticity of the brain, firsthand, through the practice of meditation -- particularly centering prayer and compassion meditation. So, of course, I found the topic of this book fascinating.

Some of the work with stroke patients is amazing, and the reports involving the usefulness of mindfulness meditation in cognitive therapy gave me a lot of hope for the human race (and for the future of psychiatry, which has been tied to the old dogma for too long). Of course, the studies of Tibetan Buddhist monks were also interesting, but those have been widely covered in the media.

Begley ends the book with this summary: "The conscious act of thinking about our thoughts in a different way changes the very brain circuits that do that thinking."

I read this book in audiobook format.