Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness

by Rick Hanson

awakening is the magnificent journey that carries you along toward the top. Many real people have gone very far up—the

Those who have climbed this mountain come from different cultures and have different personalities, but they all seem alike to me in seven ways. They are mindful; they are kind; they live with contentment and emotional balance through even the hardest times; they are whole and authentic; they are present here and now; they speak of feeling connected with everything; and a light shines through them that does not seem entirely their own.

Their realization is genuine, and it’s the result of the path they’ve traveled,

Their realization is genuine, and it’s the result of the path they’ve traveled,

you can see some of their qualities already deep down inside yourself,

steadying the mind • warming the heart • resting in fullness • being wholeness • receiving nowness

opening into allness • finding timelessness

There are many traditions, which are like many routes up the mountain of awakening.

As we move up the trail, it steepens and the air gets thinner. So it helps to have a guidebook.

insight- or vipassana-oriented practice.

Come and see for yourself what rings true and is useful over time.

When I use the word dharma, I simply mean the truth of things.

Neurodharma is the term I use for the truth of the mind grounded in the truth of the body, particularly its nervous system.

Buddha’s advice to steer clear of the “thicket of views” about theoretical matters, and to focus instead on the practical how of ending suffering and finding true happiness here and now.

What gives me both trust and hope is that this is a path we can walk step after step through our own efforts, not a magical quick fix.

On the long, rough road, the sun and the moon will continue to shine.

This is our neuropsychological home base: to be calm, contented, and caring. No matter how disturbed by stress and sorrow, we can always come home.

First, you can simply be with whatever you’re experiencing: accepting it, feeling it, perhaps exploring it.

Second, you can release what is painful or harmful, such as by easing tension in the body, venting feelings, challenging thoughts that aren’t true or helpful, or disengaging from desires that hurt you or others. Third, you can grow what is enjoyable or useful: developing virtues and skills, becoming more resilient, grateful, and compassionate. In a nutshell: let be, let go, let in. If your mind is like a garden, you can observe it, pull weeds, and plant flowers.

Letting be, letting go, and letting in form a natural sequence.

relax. Let feelings flow…perhaps imagining them

leaving you like a little cloud each time you exhale…Recognize any inaccurate, exaggerated, or limiting thoughts, and disengage from them…letting go…

The last way of being—timelessness—is an exploration of what could be unconditioned,

Awakening proceeds with its own rhythms: sometimes slow growth, sometimes a plateau, sometimes sliding downhill, sometimes a breakthrough. And all the while there is the deep true nature of each one of us, whether it is gradually uncovered or suddenly revealed: aware, wise, loving, and pure. This is your true home, and you can trust it.

Pick something that you find admirable about this person. Then see if you can get some sense of this quality already present in yourself. It might feel subtle, but it’s real and you can develop it. For a day or longer, focus on bringing this quality into your experience and actions, and see how this feels.

When you want, just be with your experiences for a minute or more, without trying to change them in any way. This is the fundamental practice: accepting sensations and feelings and thoughts as they are, adding as little as possible to them, and letting them flow as they will. Overall, a growing sense of simply letting be can fill your day.

Think not lightly of good, saying, “It will not come to me.” Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise one, gathering it little by little, fills oneself with good. Dhammapada 122

In a word, there is suffering, named by the Buddha as the First Noble Truth of human existence.

Life has unavoidable physical and emotional pains, and then we add suffering to them: thus the saying “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” For

This add-on suffering is not accidental. It has a source: “craving,” the sense of something missing, something wrong, something we must get.

It is chasing pleasure, pushing away pain, and clinging to relationships. This is the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth—but

we are also the ones who can make it come

to an end. This hopeful possibility is the Third Noble Truth, and the Fourth Noble Truth describes a path of prac...

When suffering falls away, what is revealed is not a big blank but a natural sense of gratitude, good

wishes for others, freedom, and ease.

known who are clearly far along are straightforward and fearless, endlessly p...

They stay engaged with the world and try to make it better while also feeling at peace in the core of their being.

Major causes of both suffering and its end are rooted in your own body.

Over time, these useful mental states can be gradually hardwired into your nervous system as positive traits.

This process of physical change occurs because all of our experiences involve patterns of neural activity. And patterns of neural activity—especially when repeated—can leave lasting physical traces behind. This is neuroplasticity, the capacity of the nervous system to be changed by the information flowing through it.

neurons that fire together wire together.

three days

prefrontal regions behind the forehead exert more top-down control over the posterior (rearward) cingulate cortex (PCC). This matters because the PCC is a key part of the default mode network

Consequently, greater control over the PCC means less habitual mind wandering and less preoccupation with oneself.

couple of months,

develop greater top-down control over...

The amygdala reacts like an alarm bell to anything that’s

painful or threatening—from

triggers the neural/hormonal stress response, so getting more control over it...

hippoc...

helps us learn from our e...