Ramachandran wrote in an article in 2006 for the website edge.org (a site “devoted to discussions of cutting edge science by many of the world’s brilliant thinkers”), “Researchers at UCLA found that cells in the human anterior cingulate, which normally fire when you poke the patient with a needle (‘pain neurons’), will also fire when the patient watches another patient being poked. The mirror neurons, it would seem, dissolve the barrier between self and others. I call them ‘empathy neurons’ or ‘Dalai Llama neurons’. (I wonder how the mirror neurons of a masochist or sadist would respond to another person being poked.) Dissolving the ‘self vs. other’ barrier is the basis of many ethical systems, especially eastern philosophical and mystical traditions. This research implies that mirror neurons can be used to provide rational rather than religious grounds for ethics (although we must be careful not to commit the is/ought fallacy).”

“Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person’s mental shoes,” said Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and director of the Ahamson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center in 2005. “In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person’s mind.” Last November Iacoboni was quoted as saying in an article for salon.com, “The self and the other are just two sides of the same coin. To understand myself, I must recognize myself in other people.” And Ramachandran, who calls the Self the “Holy Grail of neuroscience,” agreed by recently saying, “Mirror neurons dissolve the barrier between you and someone else.”

“Mirroring” is a term used when one human being adopts the gestures, speech patterns, and/or postures of another in order to gain rapport. It is also used by a therapist or coach to reflect back non-judgmentally to their client what he or she is saying so as to allow them to comprehend their own thought processes and habitual patterns more clearly. This requires the person doing the mirroring to possess strong degrees of compassion, empathy, sensitivity, mindful presence and acute listening skills. I use mirroring extensively in my private work with individuals to facilitate cut-to-the-chase self-inquiry. Although not always “comfortable” for people with a domineering ego, it is highly effective and appealing to individuals who have done a fair amount of inner work and aren’t interested in a long, drawn-out series of processing sessions with lots of ego indulgence. When a client and I work together with deliberate, proactive focus with what I call applied mindfulness, we are engaging in self-directed neuroplasticity, and actually changing how our brain functions by purposefully re-minding ourselves via making increasingly more humanitarian and transparent choices and actions. I am quite certain that mirroring with another person in this manner involves the full engagement of my own mirror neuron system, and is effective regardless if we are communicating with one another in the same room, on the telephone or by webcams.

And in terms of learning within the dynamics of our connection, just by receiving the instruction for a particular mindfulness-based action, the client’s own mirror neuron network becomes energized and able to reflect that same action back out into the world, and effectively lead by mindful, humanitarian example.

Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and author of The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, concurs that focused-attention techniques such as applied mindfulness definitely fall within the category of self-directed neuroplasticity exercises due to the deliberate shifting away from older, habituated modes of neural firing, and purposely fostering new patterns of neural activation to occur. In an article written for the Psychiatric Annals in 2006 titled “An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy: Awareness, Mirror Neurons, and Neural Plasticity in the Development of Well-Being,” Siegel states, “The basic steps linking consciousness with neural plasticity are as follows: Where attention goes, neural firing occurs. And where neurons fire, new connections can be made. In this manner, learning a new way to pay attention within the integration of consciousness enables an open receptive mind within therapy to catalyze the integration of new combinations of previously isolated segments of our mental reality.” And that, at it’s core, is what mindfulness-based Self discipline is all about: learning a new way of paying attention to everything going on within you and without you, while concurrently cultivating empathy and insight regarding Self and others – which are, as mentioned above, skill functions of the mirror neuron system.

To build upon the practice of tonglen, I suggested in last month’s column, I’d like you to add to it a deliberate, focused awareness upon your mirror neuron system when you are applying this technique of centering, meditative breathwork within any stressful situation. While you are using the calm inward breath through your nostrils and into your diaphragm to viscerally connect with the stress/pain of the situation, and the outward breath to feel the release of it repeatedly until you experience a shift in your attention field, consciously connect with this part of your brain firing these new connections and actively establishing new patterns of neural activation to help make each successive response to stress triggers more positively mindful than negatively reactive. This will gently help re-mind you to purposefully become the calm in the center of chaos, and whose own mindful actions will touch the mirror neuron systems of all those around you.

Suzanne Matthiessen combines Transformative Conflict Mediation and Applied Mindfulness skills to help individuals and groups discover productive, solutions to debilitating and costly interpersonal communication problems. For more information please visit her new website CommunicatingHumanity.org