<ul><li>If someone asked you what is meant by the word self, you might say that it is the essence of a human being. A strong sense of self can cause suffering because it makes us take things personally, act defensively, and even get possessive over others.</li><li>When we detach from the sense of self, we start to look at the world from the perspective of "we" rather than "I". We can do this by following practices for opening into allness.</li></ul>

Well-being increases when we decrease our sense of self and instead open into allness

<ul><li>The author attended a conference at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, where he met the Dalai Lama. The bodyguard radiated happiness and love, and he taught the author that being kind and compassionate to others is part of awakening.</li><li>The author's favorite practice for this meditation involves offering warm wishes to five types of people: a benefactor, a friend, a neutral person, someone who is challenging to be around, and ourselves.</li></ul>

Living with a warm heart means being compassionate to yourself and others

<ul><li>The author was curious to learn more about nibbana, the ultimate spiritual goal in Buddhism. The teacher Steve Armstrong replied that nibbana is like standing on top of the highest peak in a deep valley enclosed by mountains, and seeing the world in its entirety.</li><li>Finding timelessness means letting go of past pain and experience, and worrying about the future. The following meditation can help with this, as well as practicing steadiness, lovingness, fullness, wholeness, nowness, allness, and timelessness.</li></ul>

Finding Nibbana, or true happiness, means accepting impermanence

<ul><li>To achieve happiness, wisdom, and strength, you have to practice seven ways of being, including steadiness, lovingness, fullness, wholeness, nowness, allness, and timelessness.</li><li>The seven ways of being require you to experience feelings openly (first step), accept them (second step), let go of what is painful or harmful, and let in what is positive (third step).</li></ul>

There are seven ways of being that form the basis of true awakening

<ul><li>Scientists have proven that our every sensation, thought, and desire depend on our nervous system and the brain. Changing our neural activity can enhance our psychological well-being.</li><li>Our brains are made up of 85 billion neurons connected in a huge network. Mindfulness and meditation can help us control this neural activity and reduce stress and overreactions.</li><li>Meditation can help you develop greater resilience and well-being by weaving qualities of steadiness, lovingness, and presence into your nervous system.</li></ul>

Changing our neural activity can enhance our psychological well-being

<ul><li>When the author first began to meditate, he didn't take things that seriously. After a few practices, though, he realized something real was taking place.</li><li>The author explains that concentration is one of the three pillars of Buddhist practice, and that modern society constantly bombards us with distractions.</li><li>To calm the monkey mind, we can practice focused attention through meditation. During meditation, we can concentrate on a specific object of attention and lead our wandering mind back to this object of attention.</li></ul>

The first step toward awakening is steadying the mind, which requires us to concentrate while meditating

<ul><li>The author realized that unhappiness is common, and that it can take many forms. Buddha himself called this suffering, which can be healed by resting in fullness, which is the third step on the path to awakening.</li><li>To rest in fullness, replace negative material with positive material. To do this, have an experience of the positive material, enrich the emotion by staying with it, absorb the positive material, link the positive material to the negative material, and let go of the negative material.</li></ul>

We can heal our suffering by learning the practice of resting in fullness

<ul><li>The fourth step to awakening is to feel truly whole. This is achieved by accepting yourself fully, despite the mind's natural tendencies toward negativity.</li><li>The brain's default mode network drives rumination, which can make us feel unfulfilled because we get lost in thought throughout the day. Expanding the brain's lateral networks can help suppress the midline cortical networks and allow us to see the bigger picture.</li><li>Gestalt awareness helps us feel whole, by bringing awareness to our whole bodies and our minds as a vast sky. This allows us to be present in the moment.</li></ul>

Strengthening neural factors can help us foster a sense of wholeness and live in the now

Rick Hanson's neurodharma approach to happiness combines modern neuroscience with teachings from the Theravada Buddhist tradition to help you become more mindful, balanced, and connected to the world.

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • “An easy-to-follow road map for creating day-to-day inner peace in today’s increasingly complex world.”—Lori Gottlieb, MFT, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Throughout history, people have sought the heights of human potential—to become as wise and strong, happy and loving, as any person can ever be. And now recent science is revealing how these remarkable ways of being are based on equally remarkable changes in our own nervous system, making them more attainable than ever before. In Neurodharma, the follow-up to his classic Buddha’s Brain, New York Times bestselling author Rick Hanson, PhD, not only explores the new neuroscience of awakening but also offers a bold yet plausible plan for reverse-engineering peak experiences, sense of oneness, and even enlightenment itself. And he does so with his trademark blend of solid science and warm encouragement, guiding you along this high-reaching path with good humor, accessible tools, and personal examples. A groundbreaking yet practical book, Neurodharma shares seven practices for strengthening the neural circuitry of profound contentment and inner peace—qualities that offer essential support in everyday life while also supporting the exploration of the most radical reaches of human consciousness. Step by step, this book explains how to apply these insights in order to cultivate unshakable presence of mind, a courageous heart, and serenity in a changing world. The breakthroughs of the great teachers are not reserved for the chosen few. Dr. Hanson shows how we can embody them ourselves in daily life to handle stress, heal old pain, feel at ease with others, and rest in the sense of our natural goodness. The Buddha didn’t use an MRI to become enlightened. Still, 2,500 years after he walked the dusty roads of northern India, neuroscientists are discovering the mechanisms of the brain that underpin the Buddha’s penetrating analysis of the mind. With deep research, stories, guided meditations, examples, and applications, Dr. Hanson offers a fascinating, inspiring vision of who we can be—and an effective path for fulfilling this wonderful possibility.

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Personal Development

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Books

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Science & Nature

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • “An easy-to-follow road map for creating day-to-day inner peace in today’s increasingly complex world.”—Lori Gottlieb, MFT, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Throughout history, people have sought the heights of human potential—to become as wise and strong, happy and loving, as any person can ever be. And now recent science is revealing how these remarkable ways of being are based on equally remarkable changes in our own nervous system, making them more attainable than ever before.   In Neurodharma, the follow-up to his classic Buddha’s Brain, New York Times bestselling author Rick Hanson, PhD, not only explores the new neuroscience of awakening but also offers a bold yet plausible plan for reverse-engineering peak experiences, sense of oneness, and even enlightenment itself. And he does so with his trademark blend of solid science and warm encouragement, guiding you along this high-reaching path with good humor, accessible tools, and personal examples.  A groundbreaking yet practical book, Neurodharma shares seven practices for strengthening the neural circuitry of profound contentment and inner peace—qualities that offer essential support in everyday life while also supporting the exploration of the most radical reaches of human consciousness. Step by step, this book explains how to apply these insights in order to cultivate unshakable presence of mind, a courageous heart, and serenity in a changing world. The breakthroughs of the great teachers are not reserved for the chosen few. Dr. Hanson shows how we can embody them ourselves in daily life to handle stress, heal old pain, feel at ease with others, and rest in the sense of our natural goodness. The Buddha didn’t use an MRI to become enlightened. Still, 2,500 years after he walked the dusty roads of northern India, neuroscientists are discovering the mechanisms of the brain that underpin the Buddha’s penetrating analysis of the mind. With deep research, stories, guided meditations, examples, and applications, Dr. Hanson offers a fascinating, inspiring vision of who we can be—and an effective path for fulfilling this wonderful possibility.