Day 1: Chapter One
You have just joined me into what I hope to be all kinds of great new experiences and opportunities by reading and interacting with Rich Hanson, PH.D & Richard Mendius, MD book
"the practical neuroscience of Buddha's Brain hapiness, love & wisdom".
* First new word I learned
Contemplative: expressing or involving prolonged thought.
* Vocab:
Virtue: simply involves regulating your actions, words, and thoughts to create benefits rather than harms for yourself and others.
Mindfulness: involves the skillful use of attention to both your inner and outer worlds.
Wisdom: is applied common sense, which you require in two steps. 1) you come to understand what hurts and what helps - in other words, the causes of suffering and the path to its end. 2) based on this understanding, you let go of those things that hurt and strengthen those that help.
* Working hypothesis:
the mind is what the brain does
* Favorite passage for today:
"Most animals don't have nervous systems complex enough to allow these strategies' alarms to grow into significant distress. But our vastly more developed brain is fertile ground for a harvest of suffering. Only humans worry about the future, regret the past, and blame ourselves for the present. We get frustrated when we can't have what we want, and disappointed when what we like ends. We suffer that we suffer. We get upset about being in pain, angry about dying, sad about waking up sad yet another day. This kind of suffering - which encompasses most of our unhappiness and dissatisfaction - is constructed by the brain. It is made up. Which is ironic, poignant - and supremely hopeful.
For if the brain is cause of suffering, it can also be it's cure." (page 12)
"IT'S MADE UP"!?!?!? This is definitely something to contemplative .... I'm pretty sure I'm not using my new word right..... but..... it is very exciting to think about and hopefully come to agree with. Think how freeing it would be for this to become your truth.
