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    Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
    Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
    Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
    Audiobook6 hours

    Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom

    Written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Richard Mendius, MD

    Narrated by Alan Bomar Jones

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    If you change your brain, you can change your life.

    Great teachers like the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi were all born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s―and then they changed their brains in ways that changed the world. Science is now revealing how the flow of thoughts actually sculpts the brain, and more and more, we are learning that it’s possible to strengthen positive brain states.

    By combining breakthroughs in neuroscience with insights from thousands of years of mindfulness practice, you too can use your mind to shape your brain for greater happiness, love, and wisdom. Buddha’s Brain draws on the latest research to show how to stimulate your brain for more fulfilling relationships, a deeper spiritual life, and a greater sense of inner confidence and worth. Using guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, you’ll learn how to activate the brain states of calm, joy, and compassion instead of worry, sorrow, and anger. Most importantly, you will foster positive psychological growth that will literally change the way you live in your day-to-day life.

    This book presents an unprecedented intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice, and is filled with practical tools and skills that you can use every day to tap the unused potential of your brain and rewire it over time for greater well-being and peace of mind.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateNov 15, 2010
    ISBN9781441887559
    Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
    Author

    Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

    Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist and meditation teacher. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, he cofounded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and edits the Wise Brain Bulletin. He and his wife have two children.

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    Reviews for Buddha's Brain

    4/5

    215 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The material in the book is insightful, useful and important. The narration of the audiobook sounds like Siri with strange pauses and intonations and was distracting from the material itself. I found myself wishing that the ebook was available so I could just read it.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Explaining the spirituality and its connections with science. Thank you ?
    • 5/5
      Such an insightful book. I really enjoyed it and it helped me understand some of my internal processes better.
    • 5/5
      Great storytelling and interesting content. Easy access techniques. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Interesting mix of science and philosophy, with numerous strategies and mantras for retraining the brain and subsequently, the pursuit of a calm, purposeful state of being. The exploration of "us" vs. "them" responses is useful for managing reactions to triggers and situations beyond our control; this deeply rooted reaction also illuminates contemporary politics and warfare.
    • 4/5
      Arthor discussion on KQED April 22, 2015. Listen to your positive experiences.
    • 5/5
      "Buddha's Brain" contained a great mix of neuroscience and meditation practice. It is written for people without a scientific background but, as a biological scientist, I knew where he was going with some of the explanations and I really enjoyed them. How you can actually change your brain's behavior is something no one would have talked about 20 years ago, because it was thought that mature nerve cells could not change. Science is now catching up with Buddhist philosophy and it is very exciting. Also, the idea of pondering the "self" as a collection of different parts rather than a unit is a fascinating concept. The less one thinks of "self" as a unit, the less stress there is to make it "happy". This is better explained in the book, so I encourage people to read it rather than listen to me.From my perspective the book is divided into 2 parts. The first part acquaints you with different parts of the brain - which part is involved in higher order thinking, where emotions are processed and how they function as a unit sometimes - or not. The second part of the book is more a series of suggested meditation exercises designed to have positive effects on your mood by way of regulating different parts of your brain. Although I read the entire book through, I think it would be better to read the second half one chapter at a time. Each day, a chapter could be read and the suggested exercises performed. That way one would have time to absorb the lessons more deeply. I hope to go back and do that some day.
    • 5/5
      Finally a book about meditation/mindfulness that cuts through the buddhist chatter and focuses on what is important.
    • 5/5
      A brilliant piece of research. Some readers may find it a bit dry, as it reads a bit like a research paper (which it essentially is), but it is just wonderful. Just the idea that science is proving the common sense of Buddhist principles makes me happy. Hopefully it makes other people happy too.