“The four main neural pathways meditation transforms are, first, those for reacting to disturbing events—stress and our recovery from it (which Dan tried not so successfully to document). As we will see, the second brain system, for compassion and empathy, turns out to be remarkably ready for an upgrade. The third, circuitry for attention, Richie’s early interest, also improves in several ways—no surprise, given that meditation at its core retrains our habits of focus. The fourth neural system, for our very sense of self, gets little press in modern talk about meditation, though it has traditionally been a major target for alteration.”