Buddha's Brain - by Rick Hanson (Paperback)

About the Book

Change your brain, change your life--that's the message of this self-help classic, now celebrating 15 years in print with more than 500,000 copies sold! In Buddha's Brain, neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author Rick Hanson draws on breakthroughs in neuroscience to show readers how to develop greater happiness, love, and wisdom. This special anniversary edition also includes a new introduction from the author.

Book Synopsis

Change your brain, change your life with this essential classic from New York Times bestselling author, Rick Hanson--now celebrating 15 years in print with more than 500,000 copies sold!

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. Neuroscience now reveals how the flow of thoughts actually sculpt the brain, and more and more, we are learning that it's possible to strengthen positive brain states. By combining breakthroughs in science with insights from thousands of years of mindfulness practice, you too can shape your own "Buddha's Brain" for greater happiness, love, and wisdom.

Buddha's Brain draws on evidence-based neuroscience to show you how to stimulate your brain for more fulfilling relationships, a deeper spiritual life, and a greater sense of inner confidence and self-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 provides an essential intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice, and is filled with practical tools and skills that you can use every day to tap into the unused potential of your brain and rewire it over time for greater well-being.

Review Quotes

"Buddha's Brain brilliantly reveals the teachings of the Buddha in the light of modern neuroscience. This is a practical guide to changing your reality. This is your brain on Dharma!"
--Wes "Scoop" Nisker, author of Essential Crazy Wisdom, and editor of Inquiring Mind--Wes "Scoop" Nisker

"Buddha's Brain is a beautiful synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, and a profound guide to understanding how we can rewire our brain and experience more openheartedness, peace, and happiness. In this edition, these teachings are ever more relevant: By strengthening our own resilience, clarity, and compassion, we are better able to help our troubled world toward healing and transformation."
--Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and Radical Compassion--Tara Brach

"Buddha's Brain is a significant contribution to understanding the interface between science and meditation in the path of transformation. Illuminating."
--Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace and One Dharma--Joseph Goldstein

"Buddha's Brain is compelling, easy to read, and quite educational. The book skillfully answers the central question of each of our lives--how to be happy--by presenting the core precepts of Buddhism integrated with a primer on how our brains function. This book will be helpful to anyone wanting to understand time-tested ways of skillful living backed up by up-to-date science."
--Frederic Luskin, PhD, author of Forgive for Good, and director of Stanford Forgiveness Project--Frederic Luskin, PhD

"Buddha's Brain makes a significant contribution to the current dynamic dialogue among neuroscience, psychology, and Buddhist disciplines of mind training. Drawing on the wisdom born of their own meditation practice and their scientific backgrounds, the authors point again and again to the possibilities of the deep transformation of our minds and lives."
--Christina Feldman, author of Compassion and The Buddhist Path to Simplicity--Christina Feldman

"A clear introduction to some basic principles of neuroscience and dharma."
--Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, professor at the University of California, Irvine; and author of Essential Spirituality--Roger Walsh, MD, PhD

"A wonderfully comprehensive book. The authors have made it easy to understand how our minds function and how to make changes so that we can live happier, fuller lives."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness--Sharon Salzberg

"An illuminating guide to the emerging confluence of cutting-edge neuropsychology and ancient Buddhist wisdom, filled with practical suggestions on how to gradually rewire your brain for greater happiness. Lucid, good-humored, and easily accessible."
--John J. Prendergast, PhD, adjunct associate professor of psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies, and senior editor of The Sacred Mirror and Listening from the Heart of Silence--John J. Prendergast, PhD

"I wish I had a science teacher like Rick Hanson when I went to school. Buddha's Brain is at once fun, fascinating, and profound. It not only shows us effective ways to develop real happiness in our lives, but also explains physiologically how and why they work. As he instructs us to do with positive experiences, take in all the good information this book offers and savor it."
--James Baraz, author of Awakening Joy, and cofounder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center--James Baraz

"Numerous writings in recent years have exacerbated the traditional rift between science and religion; however, there has been a refreshing parallel movement in the opposite direction. Neuroscientists have become increasingly interested in using first-person introspective inquiries of the mind to complement their third-person, Western scientific investigations of the brain. Buddhist contemplative practices are particularly amenable to such collaboration, inviting efforts to find neurobiological explanations for Buddhist philosophy. Stripped of religious baggage, Buddha's Brain clearly describes how modern concepts of evolutionary and cognitive neurobiology support core Buddhist teachings and practice. This book should have great appeal
for those seeking a secular spiritual path, while also raising many testable hypotheses for interested neuroscientists."
--Jerome Engel, Jr., MD, PhD, Jonathan Sinay Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles--Jerome Engel, Jr., MD, PhD

"Recent developments in psychology and the neurosciences have led to clear and powerful insights about how our brains work, and how these neurological functions shape our experience of the world. These insights are profoundly congruent with the wisdom that has been developed over thousands of years in the contemplative traditions. The authors of Buddha's Brain have given us a concise and practical guide to how these two currents of knowledge can be used to transform our capacity to engage both ourselves and others with wisdom, compassion, and mindfulness."
--Robert D. Truog, MD, professor at Harvard Medical School, executive director of the Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice, and senior associate in critical care medicine at Boston Children's Hospital--Robert D. Truog, MD

"Solidly grounded in the latest neuroscientific research, and supported by a deep understanding of contemplative practice, this book is accessible, compelling, and profound--a crystallization of practical wisdom!"
--Philip David Zelazo, PhD, Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota--Philip David Zelazo, PhD

"This book enables us to understand the whys and hows of our human operating system so we can make more informed actions that allow us to live our lives more fully, compassionately, and with greater well-being and kindness toward others and ourselves. What I find exciting about Buddha's Brain is Rick Hanson's ability to clearly delineate the root causes of suffering and explain pertinent ways we can actually change these causes and effect lasting change on all levels of our mind, body, and interpersonal relationships. His informative, relaxed, and easy-to-read style of writing made me want to pick up this book again and again, and dive ever more deeply into the complexities of our human engineering. Buddha's Brain is now on my recommendation list for all my students and teachers-in-training."
--Richard C. Miller, PhD, founding president of Integrative Restoration Institute--Richard C. Miller, PhD

"This is simply the best book I have read on why and how we can shape our brains to be peaceful and happy. This is a book that will literally change your brain and your life."
--Jennifer Louden, author of The Woman's Comfort Book and The Life Organizer--Jennifer Louden

"With the mind of a scientist, the perspective of a psychologist, and the wise heart of a parent and devoted meditator, Rick Hanson has created a guide for all of us who want to learn about and apply the scintillating new research that embraces neurology, psychology, and authentic spiritual inquiry. Up-to-date discoveries combined with state-of-the-art practices make this book an engaging read. Buddha's Brain is at the top of my list!"
--Richard A. Heckler, PhD, assistant professor at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, CA--Richard A. Heckler, PhD

About the Author

Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times bestselling author. His books have been published in thirty-three languages, and include Making Great Relationships, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha's Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture--with more than a million copies printed in English alone. His free newsletters have 250,000 subscribers, and his online programs have scholarships available for those with financial need. He's lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, his work has been featured on BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media; and he's the cohost of the Being Well podcast, downloaded over fifteen million times. He began meditating in 1974, and is founder of the Global Compassion Coalition as well as the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He and his wife live in northern California and have two adult children. He loves the wilderness and taking a break from emails.

Richard Mendius, MD, is a neurologist, and cofounder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He taught medicine at University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. He also teaches weekly meditation classes at San Quentin State Prison. He and his wife have three children.

Foreword writer Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is executive director of the Mindsight Institute and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. He is author of The Developing Mind, The Mindful Brain, and other books, and founding editor of the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology.

Preface writer Jack Kornfield, PhD, is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. He is author of many books, including A Path with Heart and The Wise Heart