Monk's meditation brains

There have been alot of scientific studies done where people try to support religious, spiritual practices with science. Well this is no different. A doctor from a university in New York, Dr. Josipovic, has been doing brain scans on Tibetan Buddhist monks and the blood flow that goes on in their brains while they meditate. This research is being done in order to understand how their brains reorganize themselves during meditation. Dr. Josipovic says that one thing that meditation does for its practitioners is cultivate attentional skills which he says can lead to a more "tranquil and happier way of being." Dr. Josipovic also says that "when one relaxes into a state of oneness, the neural networks in experienced practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environment." All this research is being done to understand the "default network" in the brain. The monks that practice meditation are able to simultaneously active the part of the brain that is active during sports and pouring a cup of coffee and the part of the brain that is active when in self reflection or one's emotions.
This is a really important study, I think, because it not only shows that meditation has religious connotations, but also scientific ones. Just like the situation we talked about in class where the nurse saw the person "huddle on the floor and mumbling," sometimes people don't understand other's motivations for doing things because they are often related to religious ideals. With this scientific study, it could possibly help bridge the gap between misunderstandings between different cultural and religious practices.