Since I’ve started to realise the benefits of Buddhist practice, and have studied a little biological psychology, I’ve been on the look out to how spiritualism and science can talk to each other and shed light on each others underlying theories.  It was therefore with delight that, during some idle internet research, I happened upon ‘Buddha’s Brain:  The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom” by Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius.  As the book acknowledges, studies into the intersection between biological, psychological and ‘contemplative’ processes are really in their infancy.  But the synergies that have begun to be highlighted are truly fascinating.  Take the premise that we experience suffering and discomfort because there is tension between what we want to believe at a gut level and what is actually true.  Looking at our evolutionary biology, we can identify certain patterns of behaviour intent on helping our survival.  Hanson pinpoints these as the struggle for separation (identifying yourself apart from other people/objects), the struggle for stability (trying to keep dynamic processes in check so that we can make sense of the world and function within it) and the struggle for optimisation (optimising pleasure and reducing pain).  If we take these struggles to be true, we can see how relying on our evolutionary instincts to guide us will condemn us to exist in a state of perpetual tension that is at odds with reality.  For physics tells us that actually everything is connected (we breathe air, eat food, interact ceaselessly with our environments on a number of levels), it is a fact of life that everything changes (we are not exactly the same person we were a minute ago - for example, there have been hundreds of neuronal connections and biological processes taking place in even that short time) and the very nature of pleasure is that it is almost always accompanied by pain - you may struggle to reach a goal and have to overcome many obstacles, or you may reach a goal only to find it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.  Contemplative practice such as Buddhism demands that we face the reality of our existence face on and fully absorb these three truths in order to find calm and happiness. One cannot overcome adversity through struggle - it is only conquerable through acceptance. Peace comes from soothing the evolutionary calls for control inside of you, and fully accepting what is.