Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience Of Happiness, Love, And Wisdom Quotes
"The principal activities of brains are making changes in themselves." — Marvin L. Minsky
"What flows through your mind sculpts your brain."
"You can use your mind to change your brain for the better."
"We have probably learned more about the brain in the past twenty years than in all of recorded history." — Alan Leshner
"Anything less than a contemplative perspective on life is an almost certain program for unhappiness." — Father Thomas Keating
"Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional."
"The root of compassion is compassion for oneself." — Pema Chödrön
"I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness." — Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road"
"The point is not to resist painful experiences or grasp at pleasant ones: that’s a kind of craving—and craving leads to suffering."
"When you have a positive experience today, help it sink in to old pains."
"There’s evidence that negative memory—both explicit and implicit—is especially vulnerable to change soon after it’s been recalled."
"Most of the time, taking in the good takes less than a minute—often, just a few seconds."
"When you tilt toward what’s positive, you’re actually righting a neurological imbalance."
"Emotions have global effects since they organize the brain as a whole."
"Taking in the good is not about putting a happy shiny face on everything, nor is it about turning away from the hard things in life."
"Explicit memories are conscious recollections of specific events or other information."
"The first remedy is to consciously look for and take in positive experiences."
"Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure."
"Notice the other person’s movements, stance, gestures, and actions. What would it feel like, in your own body, to do them?"
"Tune in to yourself. Sense your breathing, body, and emotions."
"Our core emotions are expressed through universal facial expressions."
"Relax. Let your body open to resonating with the other person’s emotions."
"Actively imagine what the other person could be thinking and wanting."
"Ask yourself questions, such as What might he be feeling deep down? What could be most important to him? What might he want from me?"
"When you would like to receive empathy, remember that you’re more likely to get it if you are 'feelable.'"
"Empathy opens you up to other people and naturally draws you closer."
"Pay attention to awareness itself, distinct from the (potentially intense) sense of the other person contained within awareness."
"Use imagery, which stimulates the right hemisphere of your brain."
"Whether you’re with others or by yourself, being mindful of your inner world seems to help heal significant shortages of empathy."
"You can deliberately cultivate compassion, which will stimulate and strengthen its underlying neural substrate."
"Asserting yourself skillfully involves unilateral virtue and effective communication."
"All joy in this world comes from wanting others to be happy, and all suffering in this world comes from wanting only oneself to be happy."
"Kindness is expressed mainly in small, everyday ways."
"When your attention is steady, so is your mind: not rattled or hijacked by whatever pops into awareness, but stably present, grounded, and unshakeable."
"Being mindful simply means having good control over your attention: you can place your attention wherever you want and it stays there."
"Your brain manages the flow of attention by balancing three needs: keeping information in mind, changing the contents of awareness, and finding the right amount of stimulation."
"The deeper layers of the mind contain what’s most vital to get at for both you and the other person."
"Mindfulness brings insight and wisdom—and the best way to increase your mindfulness is through meditation."
"Kindness is relatively easy when others treat you well. The challenge is to find your way to kindness even when you’ve been mistreated."
"Cultivate the habit of everyday mindfulness."
"Settle into awareness, observing ill will but not identifying with it, watching it arise and disappear like any other experience."
"Mindfulness leads to wisdom, and the best way to increase mindfulness is meditation."
"Thoughts about the self, or thoughts from the perspective of 'I,' are just contents of awareness like any other, not special in any way."
"Relax and breathe. Sensations and feelings are just contents of awareness arising and dispersing."
"Relax and breathe. See what’s present when self is absent."
"Awareness requires subjectivity, but it does not require a subject."
"In the brain, self-related activities are distributed and compounded, not unified; they are variable and transient, not enduring; and they are dependent on changing conditions."
"Self is continually constructed, deconstructed, and constructed again."
"It’s a wonderful paradox that as individual things feel increasingly groundless and unreliable, the totality of everything feels increasingly safe and comforting."
"It is all right to wish yourself well, just like wishing the best for any other living being."
"You and every one else have been sky all along."
"May I be loved without being special. May I contribute without being special."
"In many ways, the self is like someone running behind a parade that is already well under way, continually calling out: 'See what I created!'"
"The self is a collection of real representations of an unreal being—like a story about a unicorn."