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

An Amazing Experience of Spirituality, Neuroscience, and Self-help

In Buddha’s Brain: the Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, Dr. Rick Hanson details how one can use principles of Buddhist teachings to change the way we experience and are affected by everyday life. Not only does Hanson delve into the how, but he explains the why, providing neural mechanisms behind the ancient ideas of Buddhist teachings. I found this book to be incredibly insightful and enlightening. It allows for personal reflection while giving real-life, usable methods for undertaking a change in one’s way of life. Hanson details why humans have developed certain character traits and how they play a role in our daily lives. He goes on write the methodology for successfully controlling these negative traits and how we can focus on the positive ones. Reading this book, not only opened my eyes into how I can learn to be happier, but how this will positively impact my health and entire life. The structure of the book is (in my opinion) perfectly laid out. Buddha’s Brain is divided into four parts: suffering, happiness, love and wisdom. Each chapter discusses the neural mechanisms at work behind these aspects of our lives and how we have both positive and negative aspects of each. He then gives ways we can change our outlook and thereby our actions to increase the positive and decrease the negative. More importantly, these changes aren't difficult. They’re simple, small things we can do every day that can greatly impact how we experience life. He includes many anecdotes and quotes from his own life and prominent Buddhist figures that express the magnitude of the effects these small efforts can yield significant changes in attitude and outlook. Each chapter ends with a short overview of points to remember to keep us focused on what’s important and many chapters provide a short exercise to help channel the strong and good within ourselves as this plays a major role in how we interpret life’s events. Part One, “Suffering”, consisted of the evolutio...