World Brain Day: the 'Buddha's Brain'

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Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom is an Audible audiobook (unabridged) by Dr. Rick Hanson, PhD. He is the author and narrator and has 4.7 out of 5 stars with 1,984 ratings.

Change your brain, change your life with this essential classic from New York Times bestselling author Dr. Hanson—now celebrating 15 years in print with more than 500,000 copies sold.

Great teachers like the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi were all born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s—and then they changed their brains in ways that changed the world.

Neuroscience now reveals how the flow of thoughts actually sculpts the brain. More and more, we are learning that it’s possible to strengthen positive brain states. By combining breakthroughs in science with insights from thousands of years of mindfulness (sati) practice, we too can shape our own “Buddha’s Brain” for greater happiness, love, and wisdom.

Buddha’s Brain draws on evidence-based neuroscience to show how to stimulate our brain for more fulfilling relationships, a deeper spiritual life, and a greater sense of inner confidence and self-worth.

Using guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, readers learn how to activate the brain states of calm, joy, and compassion instead of worry, sorrow, and anger. Most importantly, they will foster positive psychological growth that will literally change the way we live our day-to-day life.

This book provides an essential intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice, and is filled with practical tools and skills that anyone can use every day to tap into the unused potential of the brain and rewire it over time for greater well-being.

PLEASE NOTE: Purchase of this title is accompanied by a PDF in the Audible Library along with the audio. More: Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom by Dr. Rick Hanson, PhD, and Daniel J. Siegel, MD, with foreword by Dr. Richard Mendius, MD and contributor Jack Kornfield for preface (Brilliance Audio)

LEARN: How to RAP (video)

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Chris Turner  2/5/20, 10/9/19

I needed my flow state for B-ball (Kobe B)

If you want to rap well, study, memorize (rote), and practice. Maybe one day you'll be "OK" at it. If you want to sound like a pro, the first thing to do is get into the flow. The best rappers on the stage and schoolyard into a state where everything's a rap. Learning that ability comes from exercising a part of the brain called Broca's Area.

I'ma gonna kick like my boi Chris T.

There's a strange kind of brain damage, an injury of the cerebrum called Expressive Aphasia, which makes expression and articulate speaking a problem. This hints at what area of the brain needs to be burning up on an fMRI readout.

Meditation is one way to get in a cool "Zen" state, realize absorption (jhana), then emerge with the mental register cleared into a coveted flow state perfect for any action like performance.

It's beginner's mind (shoshin) rather than a nervous monkey mind. It's a tabula rasa. Touch the Tao, tap into Source, get to the roots of human creative potential, cleverness, and mental associations. Relax. Then do it. Look at this clown (comedian Chris Turner). If he can, you can. You didn't need to grow up in South Central L.A. or the wrong parts of New York City or Chicago.

White Boy drops unbelievable freestyle rap

Jeffrey Epstein and friends are child molesters

(Chris Turner) Hey, impressed? Then order a personalized, custom freestyle rap (cameo.com/christurnercomedy). How do I do it? These help: Mind Lab Pro Nootropics (affiliate link, ctcnoots). Discord, IG, subscribe. All my freestyles: moreraps.

British comedian and rapper Chris Turner absolutely CRUSHES an insane off-the-dome dope freestyle rap about the Hindenburg, the Doppler Effect, Harry Potter tequila, crypto-currency, and the yuan (Chinese dollar), toenails, quantum mechanics (and sausage). Get this guy on Sway in the Morning!

• Beat: "After" by Malu
• For fans of: #SwayIntheMorning #SwaysUniverse #LilDicky #macmiller #logic #eminem #freestylerap #rapbeats #5fingersofdeath
• Pizza Gate is real: ask Hillary, Biden, Trump, BBC, and friends
• 
  

Buddhist Brains: Meditation and Science (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Anne Harrington (hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute)

(BU) Eastern Brains: Probing the Partnership Between Buddhism and and Brain Science

  

MRI brain scan of meditating monk (BBC)

Harvard University's Professor Anne Harrington (Ph.D., Oxford University) discusses the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) and the brain. The presentation was hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute.
 

Want me to concentrate or bliss out? (MR)

She refers to the research of the University of Wisconsin's Dr. Richard Davidson on the brain functions of Buddhist monastics during long periods of meditation as well as American fascination with the Eastern-style of meditation of the human 1960s and 1970s counterculture.
 
She covers Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Dalai Lama's first visit to the U.S. as well as why he was so important to the West's academic and scientific investigation of mystical meditative states.
  

"Flatlining" the brain at will (video)

CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; self-proclaimed jhana expert Vern Lovic

What are the intricate workings of the mind, and how are they experienced within?

 

(Gavin Johnson/flickr.com)

Vern Lovic: I'm curious. Has anyone run MRIs (magnetic resonance imagings) of meditators that have reached a flatline mind -- no thought... stopped mind?

WQ: a flatline would seem to indicate that someone is dead. But, yes, it's been done. It is causing a wave in new medical research. There is neurotheology, where people have "GOD on the brain." There is scientific mind reading. There is at least one meditator sufficiently skilled as to directly manipulate his EEG readings. (See below). He is not a monk but can flatten his line at will, a skill of great subtlety and practice. Yet, it would seem, he must be thinking to intend it and be aware that he is getting the results he is after.

Monk's fMRI (Zoran Josipovic video still)

In a laboratory tucked away off a noisy NYC street, a soft-spoken neuroscientist (Zoran Josipovic) has been placing Tibetan monks into a car-sized brain scanner to better understand the ancient practice of Buddhist meditation. Could this unusual research unravel the secrets of leading a harmonious life and also shed light on some of the world's more mysterious diseases? Josipovic, a research scientist and adjunct professor at NYU, says he has been peering into the brains of monks. Brains of meditating monks get MRI scans.

VL: The monks are meditating, so they're doing something. There is another state -- the state of, well, "flatline" for lack of a better word. 

WQ: We tracked him down, Vern, so you could see it for yourself. A functional MRI scan would certainly show activity. "Flatlining" is for graphs with lines, which is characteristic of an EEG (electroencephalograph) machine. It is the remarkable speaker Ken Wilber, who videotaped his own flatlining to demonstrate the amazing level of self control he can exhibit. 

His proficiency is such that he can enter states that would seem to be reserved not only to arhats but wondrous masters. We covered him back in 2009. Look: "Family Guy" Meditation Master Ken Wilber!

Flatline

(IntegralNaked) Ken Wilber stops his brain, flatlines, at will.

This is incredible! (psychcentral.com)

Ken Wilber can stop his brainwaves on demand. Actually -- and in a more serious vein -- this is the famous EEG machine recording where Wilber enters various meditative states, one of which is a type of "thoughtless," "image-less," or "formless" state: 

His brainwaves come to an almost complete stop, as clearly recorded on this portable EEG machine. (This video is discussed in One Taste, April 10 entry).

Wilber was asked to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. He enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa samadhi with closed eyes, open eyes, sahaj ["ever present awareness"], and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern.

In his commentary, Wilber emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound states of consciousness can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlations in brain-wave patterns.

If nothing else, seeing somebody's brainwaves flatline in about four seconds is a sight not easily forgotten! It also explains why it was once heard that Wilber's girlfriend, upon delivering news that she thought might not be happily received, "Now, um, honey, make your brain waves go to zero..."

More seriously, as Wilber often says, "If you want to know God [Brahman], you've got to get your brain out of the way first. It's just one big stupid filter...."

"Mind-reading" experiment highlights brain

"Mind-reading" experiment highlights how brain records emories

(ScienceDaily) It may be possible to "read" a person's memories just by looking at brain activity, according to research carried out by Wellcome Trust scientists.

In a study published in the journal Current Biology they show that our memories are recorded in regular patterns, a finding that challenges current scientific thinking.

Demis Hassabis and Professor Eleanor Maguire at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have previously studied the role of a small area of the brain known as the hippocampus, which is crucial for navigation, memory recall, and imagining future events.

Now the researchers have shown how the hippocampus records memory.

When we move around, nerve cells (neurons) known as "place cells" located in the hippocampus, activate to tell us where we are.

Hassabis, Maguire, and colleagues used a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner, which measures changes in blood flow within the brain, to examine the activity of these places cells as a volunteer navigated around a virtual reality environment. The data were then analyzed by a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis.

"We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were," explains Professor Maguire, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow.

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words, we could 'read' their spatial memories." More

VIDEO: Brain scans of the future

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Brains of meditating monks get MRI scans

Matt Danzico (BBC News, New York)

VIDEO: Meditating Buddhist monk submits to brain scan in fMRI

In a laboratory tucked away off a noisy New York City street, a soft-spoken neuroscientist has been placing Tibetan monks into a car-sized brain scanner to better understand the ancient practice of Buddhist meditation.

But could this unusual research not only unravel the secrets of leading a harmonious life but also shed light on some of the world's more mysterious diseases?

Zoran Josipovic, a research scientist and adjunct professor at New York University, says he has been peering into the brains of monks while they meditate in an attempt to understand how their brains reorganize themselves during the exercise.

Since 2008, the researcher has been placing the minds and bodies of prominent Buddhist figures into a five-tonne (5,000 kg) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

The scanner tracks blood flow within the monks' heads as they meditate inside its clunky walls, which echoes a musical rhythm when the machine is operating.

Dr. Josipovic, who also moonlights as a Buddhist monk, says he is hoping to find how some meditators achieve a state of "nonduality" or "oneness" with the world, a unifying consciousness between a person and his/her environment.

Zoran Josipovic looking at brain scans on a computer. The study specifically looks at the default network in the brain, which controls self-reflective thoughts.

"One thing that meditation does for those who practice it a lot is that it cultivates attentional skills," Dr. Josipovic says, adding that those harnessed skills can help lead to a more tranquil and happier way of being.

"Meditation research, particularly in the last 10 years or so, has shown to be very promising because it points to an ability of the brain to change and optimize in a way we didn't know previously was possible."

When one relaxes into a state of oneness, the neural networks in experienced practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environments, Dr. Josipovic says.

And this reorganization in the brain may lead to what some meditators claim to be a deep harmony between themselves and their surroundings.

Shifting attention
Dr. Josipovic's research is part of a larger effort better to understand what scientists have dubbed the default network in the brain. More

Brain Science: amazing discoveries (listen)

The Amygdala Goes Hollywood
(NPR, On the Media, 10/2/09)

Peering inside our skulls to see our emotions in real time? What do you get when you cross an fMRI machine with the movie industry? It might be called Neurocinema. MindSign co-founder Phil Carlsen and neurologist Dr. David Hubbard explain how their brain scan re-search may help directors give the audience what it wants.

Download MP3

• OnTheMedia.org (WNYC)

The amazing information comes not from Hollywood's intention to make more pro-fitable movies, but rather what scientists can see about lust, fear/disgust, sorrow/anger, and how they light up the same part of the brain. They are indistinguishable on the functional MRI screen, according to Dr. Hubbard at the tail end of the interview. Compassion/empathy lights up a different part of the brain. Love and even emotion will need to be more precisely defined in light of these amazing discoveries.

Science Studies Daydreaming Brain

"Surprise! Daydreaming Really Works the Brain"

LiveScience

Got a tough problem to solve? Try daydreaming.

Contrary to the notion that daydreaming is a sign of laziness, letting the mind wander can actually let the parts of the brain associated with problem-solving become active, a new study finds.

Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia in Canada and her colleagues placed study participants inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects' attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects, and by tracking their performance on the task.

Until now, scientists had thought that the brain's "default network," which is linked to easy, routine mental activity, was the only part of the brain that remains active when the mind wanders. But in the study subjects, the brain's "executive network" — associated with high-level, complex problem-solving — also lit up. More>>

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