If current education, in fact, is just directed to a small part of the brain, and forgets some potential, practically unexplored, Zen teaching is directed not just to the frontal part of the brain and the central nervous system, centre of mental abilities, but also to the subconscious psychism. This way, it strengthens our body and spirit, the mental and the organic, in other words, the self in its entirety.
Our memory possesses two kinds of functionings: on the one hand, we have the pre-frontal memory, intellectual, and, on the other hand, we have the organic memory, the one of the body, which is directly impressed through some chemical modification in the neurons located in the base of our brain. This memory forms the subconscious. If we practice zazen, we strongly influence our hypothalamus and thalamus. Our pre-frontal and frontal brain calm down. On the contrary, our hypothalamus and thalamus begin their activity. The circuits of our brain get better. This chemical activity of the thalamus and hypothalamus is extremely important, since our intuition is developed thanks to it.
In Zen, manual labour has great importance, due to the fact that the agility of our fingers stimulates the one of our deep brain. Manual labour and intellectual activity are firmly complementary. Both of them should be practiced for the balance of our entirety. Zen restores this manual labour, which is necessary for the perfect realisation of our self.