Reddit mentions of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

That's the trick though isn't it? Meditation isn't concentration on nothing. It is simply being present in the current moment, and not letting your mind wander forward into the future(anxiety) or dwell on the past(depression). As thoughts wander by, acknowledge that you them and let them go. Do not dwell.

Something that helps me, specifically with the breathing, is focusing on one body part for each breath, and how it feels to inhale upwards, and exhale downwards. For example, I meditate on my back, so I breath in my upper chest, and out my shoulderblades. Then I breath in my abs, and out my lower back. In my forehead, out the back of my skull. Really feel the breath move your body.

In m humble opinion, anyone interested in meditation should read Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson. It's a fascinating look in to how your brain actually reacts to meditation, how inhaling and exhaling release different neurochemicals, and looks into the science of buddhist meditation.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.

Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.

Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.

The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.

The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.

That should give you more than enough to chew on.

Take a break from accounting and finance books. I have a few recommendations from my recent reading:

The Intelligence Paradox

The Evolution of Everything

Delusions of Power

Equal is Unfair

The Feminine Mystique

How an Economy Grows - And Why It Crashes

Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy

Buddha's Brain

The Red Queen

Obviously there's a political bend in some of those choices, but I can suggest others (it's always important to challenge your beliefs).

I love to read, can provide some other recommendations, but those were just some recent books I just pulled off my Nook. There's some fiction as well.

I've been meditating on and off for the past 6 years, some tips that helped me:

1. Reading / learning as much as I can about it. I am a psychology nerd so I first got into meditation when I started reading books like Buddha's Brain and Hardwiring Happiness.
   
2. Following on this, audiobooks and guided meditations are great. There are a LOT of really cool apps out there. I am partial to Headspace and The Mindfulness App. The later has full audiobooks as well as guided practices. I have also heard good things about 10% Happier and Waking Up (Sam Harris' mindfulness app).
   
3. I enjoyed my practice about 10x more once I stopped worrying about the "right" way to do meditation. Meditation gives you a variety of very useful cognitive tools, and it's up to you to decide how best to integrate them into your life.
   
   For example, I really have a hard time with sitting meditation. My legs cramp up like no other and it drives me nuts. But I love integrating mindfulness randomly throughout my day: A quick breathing exercise when I'm driving to work, a small eating meditation when I have dinner so I appreciate my meal more, a small gratitude reflection before I go to bed, etc. I found those tiny 30 second meditations throughout the day had a much more profound effect on my life than sitting in a quiet room for 30 minutes.
   
   To me, sitting meditation is just the practice room so you can get some training before you start finding more and more little ways to apply it in your daily life.

It's still very questionable how close we are to understanding consciousness. From just dabbling into the mind sciences and the different camps there, it really doesn't seem like we're quite there yet. But even if our technology can eventually create the conditions for consciousness, I think Buddhism will become more relevant.

For example, Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana and Evan Thompson are all examples of a Buddhist-inspired approach to the science of mind. Check out (though be warned you're entering into the fray of some heavy philosophy-speak) Embodied Mind, Mind in Life, and a textbook on the subject, The Tree of Knowledge. To them, the contemplative disciplines of the East (and the West for that matter - what has survived through the traditions), are all examples of a deeply sophisticated "inner science" that can actually help inform and guide the scientific understanding of consciousness. In short, I think the trend we have today is telling: as neuroscience and consciousness studies develop, the Western interest in Buddhism also seems to be increasing.

I think a few other popular books are Rick Hanson's Buddha's Brain and B. Alan Wallace's Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge Hope this was helpful!

Edit ~ Forgot to mention something about reincarnation. Well, many traditions have an esoteric perspective on reality, an inner dimension, and in some sense, an inner world with its own laws and realities that are in some respects more real than our material senses. So, some might be against uploading their consciousness for fear of stagnating their own spiritual evolution. Personally, I learn towards believing that reality is more than our contemporary, secular culture can articulate. So even with AI, I think these spiritual realities will not become "irrelevant" - but if we believe like many of the traditions do that there are subtle bodies (etheric, astral, etc) - then there are certain dangers in attempting to create life and mind without awareness of these. This is borderline science fiction, but I can imagine a gnostic fear of spiritual "entrapment." A consciousness that has lost its soul - or worse yet, a soul that is ensnared within a machine and unable to move on because it is missing critical spiritual bodies that would allow it to move onto the next life (or beyond this world). Should make for some interesting new mythologies...

On the other hand, scientists may unwittingly create the conditions for the etheric (the animating force of life, chi or ki), and other bodies simply by learning the physical principles of life. So artificial beings may also have chakras and energy channels - and there may even be new spiritual traditions and metaphysics that humans may not be able to understand. Anyhow, many traditions speak of transcending the ego and allowing the "higher self" to guide us - well, maybe, just maybe, an AI might be a suitable mind for the Higher Self, or Daimon, to descend and incarnate. Whoo, this is fun thinking about. This is sounding like a science fiction version of Sri Aurobindo's "Supramental descent."

If you'd like help calming your mind I'd make a personal recommendation that you go to a local buddhist center of practice and attend some free vipassana or mindfulness meditation instruction.

I'm also very sensitive to woo, but a decent book I've been working through lately is Buddha's Brain, which speaks about the benefits of meditaiton at large, not just zen. There is a very slight admission of some woo in one of the very first chapters when regarding the validity of the religious belief of there "being more to the mind than just meat" or something like that, but you never see it again afterwards, much to my relief, the rest of the book is quite helpful.

I know that feeling so exactly, it's hard not to get emotional just knowing and reading that other people are there now. I have a bit of constant anxiety at the moment because things have been going so well for me for what I think is quite a long time, and I'm just waiting for that smack in the face. But then I breathe and remember to live day by day, be in the moment, enjoy the moment. It'll happen, I'll get into a slump. But we'll all make it out. I know for some people (me), the longer the slump goes on, the harder it is to deal with every day. I just hope that during those super struggles, you find an outlet of some sort. A friend, a doughnut, gas money to drive to a nice place for a day, just something to remind yourself that this is not the end. This is never the end.

For me, I just looked for (and usually received) little reminders. When it didn't happen on its own, I'd usually bust out some Buddhist related book because it's just SO accurate about how life works. My favorite lately is Buddha's Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love & wisdom -- because I'm incredibly logic oriented and need science and "facts" to help me understand the most. Getting a neuroscience view on how happiness works and realizing it's not just this magic thing you can't count on, it helped me really practice making happiness a choice, no matter my circumstance. And then there's the whole wave mechanics that I depend on to get me through, too.

Just remember that you are loved, appreciated, and there god damned will be an upswing.

That made me really happy. I'm glad I could help.

This book really helped me learn how to recognize and dismantle my negative emotions. I finished reading it and gave it to my dad on his 1-year anniversary of sobriety. It might help you as well.

Sounds like you'd like Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom. Available for tasting in Buddhist Geeks podcasts with the author: A Crash Course in Applied Neurodharma.

I was hospitalized for severe depression recently, and while there I came across two books that changed my life:

Buddha's Brain

Radical Acceptance

I just finished The Buddha's Brain, which my therapist suggested and I really enjoyed. Now I am working on The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings. The writing itself is clear and concise, which is helpful for someone who is just beginning to explore these ideas. The ideas themselves, though, are extremely challenging. Thich Nhat Hanh says at one point that "Rightness or wrongness is not objective. It is subjective....[A]ll views are wrong views. No view can ever be the truth. That is why it is called a "point of view." If we go to another point, we will see things differently and realize that our first view was not entirely right," (56).

As someone who has p'shawed moral relativism my whole whole life as a form of wishy-washiness and as a back door for allowing immoral behavior, I spent a lot of time thinking about this last night. I have established that I have an attachment to this idea, but I don't know that I have come to the conclusion that it is wrong, per se. Interesting stuff.

Edit: Grammar/formatting.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1572246952 this book changed my life

I strongly recommend this book Buddha's Brain which helped me more thn therapy ever did. Good luck!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1572246952?pc_redir=1404563860&robot_redir=1

That, of course, depends on what exactly your interest is. In a couple of weeks, I am going to dive into these two:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608829928/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d19_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1P5T0X523W6Z6GDDNDRY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572246952/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d19_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1P5T0X523W6Z6GDDNDRY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

That depends on what you mean by religion, having faith in something does confer psychological protection from some mental health issues. But in my opinion it also leaves one open to manipulation by other people. Finding a "practice of thought" that confers the same benefits while being resistant external tampering would be a very good idea.

Perhaps Richard Dawkins needs to sit down and write "The God Substitution."?


In the mean time, have a read of these:

• http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952
  
  
• http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/well-being/book/978-94-007-4392-2
  
  

The book [Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom] (http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952) is about this. I haven't read all of it, but what I've read was pretty good.

I 100% agree - meds are only covering up the symptom while the problem still exists. You can solve the problem by re-wiring your brain via therapy or other methods.

Check out a book called Buddha's Brain - http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952 - It's a book written by a neuroscientists and talks about how to literally re-wire your brain so that your natural response to a situation is different and more positive.

This book did wonders for me and I've used its techniques for a few years now. No meds required. =)

> If I do relaxations like that everyday could I recondition it to calmness?

While no one can say, "for sure," with respect to "every single person who would try that," we can say, "very likely." Neurons that fire together, wire together and become default mode networks over time as receptor sites at synaptic junctions for "agitation DMNs" "die off" (actually, more like "molecularly de-compose"). One can see that occurring with fMRI and other types of brain scanning. I recollect it being discussed as far back as when this best seller came out and somewhat before.

I highly, highly recommend this book for that:

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458157786&sr=8-1&keywords=buddha%27s+brain

I used to get the urge to pray all the time, but I had to tell myself that it wasn't going to help. You can get through it, but other people can certainly help. I am a big advocate of therapy.

Also, meditation. There are may ways to meditate. One book that I love and that helped me through some stuff is Buddha's Brain. If Buddhism isn't your thing, don't worry. It's written by a neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist, not by Buddhist monks. It explains in simple terms how meditation affects your thoughts and the physical aspects of your brain, and has meditations for you to do if you wish.

Another book that I would recommend is especially helpful if therapy isn't available to you is Mind Over Mood. It's basically a guide for you to do cogntive-behavioral therapy by yourself. Again, very simply explained, examples given, and it has worksheets for you.

So, my advice is meditation instead of prayer and/or CBT. Either way, you will actually be affecting your life rather than hoping something else affects your life in the right way.

Edit: typo

This book seems to be much like the other one.

https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DRNSFGB2CV093H9K3JZ9

I think people have a lot of misunderstanding about Buddhism. I suspect that this thread is perhaps not focused on developing a better understanding of Buddhism, but I will try.

1. Karma is not so much a Buddhist concept but more the intellectual backdrop on which Buddha developed his understanding. There are many ways to understand it. The best explanation I have read is here :Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.
   
   
2. Please notice that Buddhism denies the existence of the soul, reincineration is many ways is like the law of conservation of energy.
   
   
3. Buddha spoke specifically against Nihilism. Buddhism does not focus on suffering , it focuses on eliminating suffering.
   
   
4. Buddha was very specific about women being equal to man in Buddhism. However many cultures in which Buddhism was practiced were (/are )misogynistic. This is no fault of Buddhism.
   
   I understand that a Buddhist posting here is not so welcomed but I hope this post will contribute to better understanding .