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From the Blog

Writings on Well-Being Dr. Rick Hanson

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Turn Toward Suffering, from Frank Ostaseski

In Western culture, we are taught that if suffering exists, something is wrong. It is a mistake. I had a boss years ago who, when something didn’t work out, demanded, “Whose fault is this? Who is to blame?” When I would explain that sometimes things just don’t go...

Interview with Dr. Randy Kamen

Dr. Randy Kamen interviews Dr. Rick Hanson for the Finding Fulfillment and Joy in Midlife online summit. Learn how you can live a rich and meaningful life despite inevitable challenges that may arise as we grow older.

Train Your Brain: Letting Go

Use letting go whenever you relax, get stress relief, release painful feelings like worry or anger, take things less personally, or drop thoughts that make you and others unhappy.

Train Your Brain: Positive Emotions and Taking in the Good

For most people, the point of living boils down to one or more of these three things: Quality of life, Contribution and Learning. So if you have been wondering what you’re doing here on this earth, you might look to one or more of those categories!

Train Your Brain: Awareness of Your Body

Awareness of the body has been a fundamental practice within most contemplative traditions. The body as a temple, the body as a source of beauty, the body as repulsive, the body as transitory—all of these concepts have had their place in spiritual practices.

Continuity of Mindfulness

Any mindfulness is a good thing. It’s one of the seven factors of enlightenment and the one that catalyzes the others – so the more mindfulness, the better.

Ways to Deepen Householder Practice

The Buddha taught that complete enlightenment was possible for householders and monastics alike. It’s wonderful news that ordinary activities such as going to work, raising a family, driving in traffic, paying bills, raking the leaves, etc. are not inherent barriers to complete freedom, joy, love, and inner peace.

Knowing and Living the Truth: The Perfection of Wisdom

Wisdom (sometimes called “discernment”) is one of the ten “paramis” or perfections of a Bodhisattva, an Awakened person who postpones their ultimate enlightenment to bring all beings to liberation.

The Noble Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path is the fourth of the Buddha’s Noble Truths, and he described it as the way that leads to the uprooting of the causes of suffering, and thus to increasingly stable and profound peacefulness, wisdom, virtue, and happiness.

5 Tips to Wire for Compassion

During this time, we could all use more understanding and relating to one another. Did you know that requires a healthy prefrontal cortex (PFC) otherwise we will biologically default to our fight-or-flight response? It's simply in the way we are wired. Relating to one...

The Caring Quilt Creative Activity

Check out this great creative activity that will deepen and internalize your sense of being cared about - an important inner resource for resilience, happiness, and satisfying relationships, and a key part of the Foundations of Well-Being. This 12-minute video guides...

Find the Facts

Find the Facts

When you find the facts, you’re more able to handle threats and fulfill opportunities, understand others, and make wise choices.

Cultivating Wholesome Motivation

Here is a talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled, “Cultivating Wholesome Motivation”.

Intimacy: Me and We Video Clip

In relationships, it's natural to join with others, but it's also fundamentally important to have a strong sense of your own autonomy. In this clip from my Foundations of Well-Being program I explain how you can create a secure base of "me" inside yourself to be more...

Here is a talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled, “The Third Foundation of Mindfulness.”

Here is a talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled, “Play and Practice.”

Love More, Cling Less

Love More, Cling Less

Here is a talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled, “Love More, Cling Less.”