Released in March 2025, the 15th anniversary version of Buddha’s Brain features the following preface.
Buddha’s Brain — the book — began early in 2006 with the fanciful idea of creating a workshop on “The Neurology of Awakening” with my neurologist friend, Richard Mendius. When I mentioned this at dinner, my wife was pretty skeptical and asked, “What do you know about that?” I had to admit that there was a lot to learn – and what an important, interesting, and very cool topic to explore!
I had started meditating in 1974 and gotten involved with the human potential movement. A decade later, I started my journey of clinical training in psychology. Along the way, I’d always been interested in the tangible physical processes underlying the intangible streaming of our consciousness. For example, pioneers like Fred Travis, Daniel Goleman, and others had published papers on electroencephalogram (EEG) correlates of transcendental meditation. But there didn’t yet seem to be a large critical mass of brain science that we could use in systematic and targeted ways to strengthen the neural basis of healing, growing, and awakening.
That started to change during the “Decade of the Brain” in the 1990’s, with wonderful research into the physiological machinery of stress and suffering, and the neural structures and functions involved with meditation, emotional learning, a sense of oneness with all that is, and the cultivation of lasting
inner peace: research that has continued to this day.
Richard and I had been involved with Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California, and late in 2006 Spirit Rock let us present a very different kind of workshop – including PowerPoint slides and other razzmatazz – in a traditional Buddhist meditation hall. Of course, Buddhism has evolved over the past 2500 years, adapting to and embracing different cultures as it has spread through southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Japan, the Americas, Europe, and the rest of the world. So far, there have been four major “vehicles”: early Buddhism (sometimes called Theravadan), Tibetan, Chan/Zen, and Pure Land. We are now in the early days of the historic development of a fifth vehicle with multiple features, including the movement of lay practitioners in general and women in particular into positions of teaching and authority; cross-fertilization between the dharma and science; the exploration of Buddhist ideas and methods in healthcare, psychotherapy, education, and other sectors; the application of Buddhist principles to public policy and social justice; serious contemplative practice by nonmonastics; and more. Spirit Rock has been at the forefront of these developments, and I’m profoundly grateful for its support – including the very kind backing of Wes Nisker (bless his memory), James Baraz, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, and other senior teachers. I don’t think you’d be reading these words if they hadn’t taken a chance on Richard and me, two crazy kids with their share of gray hair.
The workshop led to more teaching and writing over the next couple years, some of it about more specific topics such as the neurodharma of love, not-self in the brain, and cultivating equanimity. All that became the raw material for this book, published in 2009, which caught a broad wave of interest in the brain – and in how to use the mind alone to change it for the better.
That wave has continued, with important research and applications from James Austin, Kent Berridge, Elizabeth Blackburn, Judson Brewer, Willoughby Britton, Richard Davidson, Elissa Epel, Norman Farb, Barbara Fredrickson, Paul Gilbert, Philippe Goldin, Steve Hayes, Britta Hölzel, Amishi Jha, Dacher Keltner, Gabriel Kram, Ellen Langer, Sara Lazar, Antoine Lutz, Steve Porges, Clifford Saron, Shauna Shapiro, Tania Singer, David Vago, Alan Wallace, Michael Yellow Bird, and others. Science marches on, of course, with new findings that expand on (but don’t contradict) the major themes of this book. There is also growing interest in methods that directly target the brain, including neurofeedback, neurostimulation, and the use of psychoactive chemicals in therapeutic settings such as ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA.
Your brain – three pounds of tofu-like tissue looking a bit like squishy cauliflower – is often considered to be the most complex physical object known to science. Related complexities abound when you explore the practical tools for happiness, love, and wisdom that exist at the intersection of neuroscience, clinical psychology, and contemplative practice. But the essence of this book is very simple: we each have the power to take in the good to grow the good that lasts inside. No one can stop you from using this power in the innermost temple of your being. And no one can do it for you. It’s your opportunity and your responsibility, and you will earn the fruits of your practice.
That’s positive neuroplasticity: deliberately internalizing beneficial experiences in order to produce durable changes in neural structure and function. When you find something in these pages that speaks to you, slow down and let it sink in. When you try the experiential activities, stay with them for a breath or longer, feel them in your body, and be aware of what feels good about them. These are three simple, evidence-based methods for increasing the conversion of mental states to neurally-embedded traits. (And you can find additional methods and their references in our 2023 paper, “Learning to Learn from Positive Experiences,” in the Journal of Positive Psychology).
In other words, you can guide who you are becoming, grounded in step-by-step – synapse by synapse – changes in the living body. This is such good news! Especially at a time when it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless in the face of vast social forces.
This process – this journey – takes time, and there are ups and downs, breakthroughs and swamps and plateaus, all under a starry sky of vastness and consciousness and possibility. Find what encourages you, and gives you refuge when things are hard. Be kind to yourself, be patient . . . and keep going. I like Stephen Batchelor’s translation of the last words of the Buddha: “Things fall apart. Tread the path with care.”
I’m on a path myself, trying to practice with my own challenges. As a shy and anxious child, the hills nearby were refuges, with their living ongoingness and givingness. Wild spaces are a true home – the heart is another – and many of our sorrows these days come from disconnecting from what is wild both around us and inside us. New Harbinger’s beautiful cover always somehow reminds me of a golden marmot high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, a small furry creature at home amidst its granite boulders and wind-twisted pine trees. Confident yet watchful, a local expression of the whole world in its time and place, on its life journey. May we tread our own paths with such care.
Deep practice involves the wild edges of the mind, its depths and surprises and wonders. So we balance useful instructions, routines, and understandings with beginner’s mind, curiosity, openness, and surrender. We remember that neuroscience is a baby science, with so much yet unknown. We know that the information in this book is just a start, and that it will be revised and elaborated over time. Still, we don’t need to know everything to do something, and many opportunities are already clear for using deliberate mental activity to stimulate and strengthen the neural substrates of greater resilience, skillfulness with thoughts and feelings and desires, a strong and open heart, a more spacious and untroubled sense of self, and a growing inner freedom and ease.
As you explore these opportunities in your own ways, you’ll be helping others as well as yourself. We practice with and for ourselves, and with and for others, too. Right now, millions of people around the world are engaged with some kind of deliberate practice with their own minds. We don’t know who they are, yet we still benefit from their efforts. In just the same way, I benefit from your efforts, and am truly grateful. May all our efforts ease the suffering of numberless beings!
Discover the practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom in this book from Dr. Rick Hanson – now available!