--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@...> wrote: > > http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2225634/Is-worlds-happiest-man-Brain-scans-reveal-French-monk-abnormally-large-capacity-joy-meditation.html
I've actually seen Matthieu Ricard do his thing, while translating for the Dalai Lama or other Tibetan teachers, and have always wondered how much of his "brain plasticity" is the result of how "simultaneous translation" is done in that context. Translating for a Tibetan Buddhist teacher is *NOT* the way you see it done at the UN. Instead of translating phrase by phrase, the translator sits quietly beside the teacher, listening but taking no notes, and allowing the teacher to speak as long as he wants. Then, when the teacher pauses, the translator relates what the teacher said, in a different language. The teacher could have been talking for two minutes or twelve, but the translators seem to always (according to people I know who are bilingual in Tibetan and English) spot-on, and perfect. Nothing left out, nothing added, and nothing mistranslated. Being chosen to be the trans- lator for a Tibetan teacher is considered a teaching in itself, developing the ability to DO THIS. I strongly suspect that this has a great deal to do with the differences one sees in scans of his brain.
