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Neurodharma

Neurodharma

New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness
by Rick Hanson 2020 352 pages
3.87
500+ ratings
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Key Takeaways

1. Steadying the Mind: The Foundation of Awakening

Concentration stabilizes attention and brings it to a laser-like focus that fosters liberating insight.

Concentration is key. Steadying the mind is the first step on the path to awakening. It involves developing focused attention and mental stability, which form the foundation for all other practices. This steadiness allows us to observe our thoughts and experiences without getting caught up in them.

Practical techniques:

  • Mindfulness meditation
  • Focused breathing exercises
  • Body scan practices
  • Cultivating present-moment awareness

By consistently practicing these techniques, we can strengthen our ability to concentrate and develop a more stable mind. This stability not only enhances our meditation practice but also improves our daily life, helping us stay focused, make better decisions, and respond more skillfully to challenges.

2. Warming the Heart: Cultivating Compassion and Kindness

Compassion involves sensitivity to suffering, a caring response, and a desire to help if one can.

Cultivate loving-kindness. Warming the heart is about developing compassion and kindness towards ourselves and others. This practice helps us break down the barriers that separate us from others and fosters a sense of connection and empathy.

Key aspects of compassion:

  • Self-compassion: Being kind to ourselves, especially during difficult times
  • Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others
  • Loving-kindness meditation: Generating feelings of goodwill towards all beings

By regularly practicing compassion and kindness, we can transform our relationships, reduce stress and anxiety, and create a more positive and supportive environment for ourselves and those around us. This warmth of heart is essential for our own well-being and for creating a more compassionate world.

3. Resting in Fullness: Finding Peace in the Present Moment

Resting in fullness is about developing a bone-deep sense of peacefulness, contentment, and love—no small thing in itself—which also reduces the "craving," broadly defined, that causes so much suffering and harm for ourselves and others.

Contentment is freedom. Resting in fullness means finding a deep sense of peace and contentment in the present moment, regardless of external circumstances. This practice helps us overcome the constant craving and dissatisfaction that often drive our actions and cause suffering.

Steps to rest in fullness:

  • Recognize the sufficiency of the present moment
  • Cultivate gratitude for what we have
  • Let go of unnecessary desires and attachments
  • Develop equanimity in the face of life's ups and downs

By learning to rest in fullness, we can experience a profound sense of peace and well-being that isn't dependent on external conditions. This state of contentment allows us to engage with life more fully and authentically, without the constant drive to acquire or achieve more.

4. Being Wholeness: Embracing Your Complete Self

Accepting yourself will help you feel whole, and feeling whole will help you accept yourself.

Embrace your entirety. Being wholeness involves accepting and integrating all aspects of ourselves, including the parts we may find difficult or uncomfortable. This practice helps us move beyond inner conflicts and fragmentation towards a more unified and authentic sense of self.

Key aspects of wholeness:

  • Self-acceptance: Embracing all parts of ourselves, including flaws and imperfections
  • Integration: Bringing together different aspects of our personality and experience
  • Non-judgmental awareness: Observing ourselves without criticism or condemnation
  • Embodiment: Fully inhabiting our physical and emotional experiences

By cultivating a sense of wholeness, we can experience greater inner peace, self-confidence, and authenticity. This practice allows us to move through life with more ease and grace, fully embracing our complex and multifaceted nature.

5. Receiving Nowness: Living in the Eternal Present

It's as if you live in a deep valley surrounded by mountains. Then one day you're standing on top of the highest peak. The perspective is amazing.

Be here now. Receiving nowness is about fully inhabiting the present moment, free from preoccupations with the past or future. This practice helps us experience life directly and vividly, without the filters of our habitual thoughts and judgments.

Techniques for receiving nowness:

  • Mindful awareness of sensory experiences
  • Letting go of past regrets and future anxieties
  • Cultivating a sense of wonder and curiosity about the present moment
  • Practicing "don't know" mind, approaching each moment with freshness

By learning to receive nowness, we can experience a profound sense of aliveness and presence. This state of being allows us to engage more fully with our lives, relationships, and the world around us, leading to greater joy, creativity, and insight.

6. Opening into Allness: Connecting with Everything

Softening the edges inside the mind…everything blending together…still being fine…breathing and being…

Embrace interconnectedness. Opening into allness involves recognizing and experiencing our fundamental connection with all of existence. This practice helps us move beyond the sense of separation that often causes suffering and conflict.

Aspects of allness:

  • Recognizing our interdependence with all life
  • Cultivating a sense of unity with the natural world
  • Developing empathy and compassion for all beings
  • Experiencing the dissolution of boundaries between self and other

By opening into allness, we can experience a profound sense of belonging and connection. This state of being fosters greater empathy, compassion, and ecological awareness, leading to more harmonious relationships with ourselves, others, and the environment.

7. Finding Timelessness: Exploring the Transcendental

Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present, and leave your mind alone.

Touch the eternal. Finding timelessness involves exploring states of consciousness that transcend our ordinary sense of time and self. This practice helps us connect with a deeper, more enduring aspect of reality and our own nature.

Approaches to timelessness:

  • Deep meditation practices
  • Contemplation of the nature of consciousness
  • Exploring non-dual awareness
  • Investigating the concept of "no-self"

By exploring timelessness, we can gain profound insights into the nature of reality and our own existence. This practice can lead to a sense of peace, freedom, and connection that goes beyond our ordinary, time-bound experience.

8. The Neuroscience of Awakening: Understanding the Brain's Role

The brain is designed to be shaped by our experiences…and especially by those in childhood…particularly if they were painful and involved other people.

Brain plasticity matters. Understanding the neuroscience of awakening helps us appreciate how our practices can literally change our brains, leading to lasting transformation. This knowledge can inform and enhance our spiritual practices, making them more effective and grounded in scientific understanding.

Key neuroscientific insights:

  • Neuroplasticity: Our brains can change throughout our lives
  • The role of meditation in altering brain structure and function
  • The impact of compassion and kindness on neural networks
  • The neurobiology of self and non-self experiences

By integrating neuroscientific understanding with traditional practices, we can develop a more comprehensive and effective approach to awakening. This synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern science offers a powerful path for personal transformation and growth.

9. Practical Steps for Everyday Awakening

Moments of awakening—many times a day.

Practice consistently. Awakening is not just about peak experiences or intense retreats, but about bringing mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom into our everyday lives. By consistently applying these practices, we can gradually transform our habitual patterns and experience greater freedom and well-being.

Daily practices for awakening:

  • Start each day with a brief meditation or mindfulness exercise
  • Practice gratitude and appreciation throughout the day
  • Cultivate compassion and kindness in your interactions with others
  • Pause regularly to connect with your breath and body
  • Reflect on your experiences and learnings at the end of each day

By integrating these practices into our daily lives, we can cultivate a continuous process of awakening. This ongoing practice allows us to respond to life's challenges with greater wisdom, compassion, and presence, leading to a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

Last updated:

FAQ

What’s Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness by Rick Hanson about?

  • Integration of science and wisdom: The book explores how ancient Buddhist contemplative practices intersect with modern neuroscience to offer a practical path to awakening and happiness.
  • Seven practices of awakening: It presents a roadmap of seven interrelated practices—steadiness of mind, warming the heart, resting in fullness, being wholeness, receiving nowness, opening into allness, and finding timelessness.
  • Experiential and embodied approach: Hanson emphasizes grounding these practices in the body and nervous system, using scientific insights to support lasting personal transformation.
  • Accessible for modern readers: Written for people with busy lives, it provides tools to cultivate inner peace, resilience, and compassion in daily life.

Why should I read Neurodharma by Rick Hanson?

  • Bridges science and spirituality: The book uniquely synthesizes neuroscience and Buddhist wisdom, making profound concepts accessible and practical.
  • Practical, step-by-step guidance: It offers clear meditations and exercises that can be integrated into everyday routines, suitable for both beginners and experienced practitioners.
  • Addresses modern challenges: Hanson acknowledges the distractions and stresses of contemporary life, providing tools to foster steadiness, compassion, and contentment.
  • Expert endorsements: The book is praised by leaders in psychology, mindfulness, and spirituality as a transformative resource for personal growth.

What are the seven practices of awakening in Neurodharma by Rick Hanson?

  • Steadying the mind: Cultivating focused, sustained attention to create a stable mental foundation.
  • Warming the heart: Developing compassion, kindness, and loving feelings toward oneself and others.
  • Resting in fullness: Fostering a deep sense of peace, contentment, and love that reduces craving and suffering.
  • Being wholeness: Accepting oneself fully and experiencing the mind as an integrated whole.
  • Receiving nowness: Anchoring awareness in the present moment, engaging with the immediacy of now.
  • Opening into allness: Expanding the sense of self to include interconnectedness with all beings and phenomena.
  • Finding timelessness: Exploring the unconditioned nature of mind, including states of deep insight and transcendence.

What are the key takeaways from Neurodharma by Rick Hanson?

  • Awakening is accessible: Enlightenment is not just for monastics; anyone can cultivate the seven practices in daily life.
  • Mind and brain are inseparable: Mental activity shapes neural activity and vice versa, enabling personal transformation through neuroplasticity.
  • Suffering is optional: Much suffering is “add-on” pain created by craving, which can be reduced through mindful practice and self-compassion.
  • Presence and connection: Deep happiness arises from being present, feeling whole, and recognizing our interconnectedness with all life.

How does Rick Hanson explain the relationship between mind and brain in Neurodharma?

  • Mind as neural activity: The mind consists of experiences represented by the nervous system, especially the brain’s complex networks.
  • Bidirectional influence: Mental activity shapes neural pathways (neuroplasticity), and the brain’s structure influences mental states.
  • Integrated system: Mind and brain are two aspects of a single process; the brain makes the mind, and the mind uses the brain to shape itself.
  • Impermanence and emptiness: Both mind and brain are impermanent, interdependent, and empty of any permanent essence, reflecting Buddhist insights.

What is the HEAL process in Neurodharma and how does it support personal growth?

  • Four-step method: HEAL stands for Have, Enrich, Absorb, and Link—a process for turning positive experiences into lasting neural traits.
  • Activation (Have): Notice or create a beneficial experience, such as calm or compassion, that you want to cultivate.
  • Installation (Enrich and Absorb): Deepen and sustain the experience, feeling it in your body and intending for it to sink in, strengthening neural pathways.
  • Optional linking: Connect positive experiences with negative material to soothe and heal suffering, building resilience.

How does Neurodharma by Rick Hanson address suffering and craving?

  • Suffering as added pain: The book explains that much suffering is “add-on” pain created by craving—attachment, aversion, and ignorance.
  • Sources of craving: Craving arises from unmet social, visceral, and cognitive needs, such as insecurity, loneliness, and misunderstandings about self.
  • Ending craving: The seven practices help understand suffering, let go of craving, and cultivate inner resources like peace and contentment.
  • Embodied healing: Working with buried emotional material through mindfulness and self-compassion is central to reducing suffering.

What role do mindfulness and meditation play in Neurodharma’s approach?

  • Foundation for awakening: Mindfulness stabilizes attention and awareness, enabling the cultivation of steadiness, warmth, and fullness.
  • Neural changes: Meditation alters brain regions involved in attention, emotion, and self-awareness, fostering resilience and well-being.
  • Types of meditation: The book distinguishes focused attention, open awareness, and abiding as awareness, forming a natural progression.
  • Practical integration: Hanson provides guided meditations and advice for weaving mindfulness into daily life.

How does Neurodharma define and approach the concept of self?

  • Person vs. self: Hanson distinguishes between the conventional existence of persons and the psychological self or ego, which is seen as a process, not a fixed entity.
  • Challenging self’s characteristics: The self is not stable, unified, or independent; it is impermanent, compounded, and interdependent.
  • Self as empty: The self is likened to a unicorn—an imagined entity without real, inherent existence, as shown by both subjective experience and neuroscience.
  • Meditation on self-ing: The book offers practices to observe the arising and passing of the sense of self, reducing identification and suffering.

What is the difference between egocentric and allocentric perspectives in Neurodharma by Rick Hanson?

  • Egocentric perspective: Focuses on “my body” or “my self,” engaging narrow, task-oriented attention and the “doing” mode in the brain.
  • Allocentric perspective: Involves a wide, open awareness of the whole environment, with less sense of self, linked to the “being” mode.
  • Reciprocal inhibition: When one system is active, the other is suppressed; cultivating allocentric awareness can reduce self-centeredness.
  • Practical application: Practices like sky gazing and horizon viewing help shift from egocentric to allocentric experiencing, fostering connection.

How does Neurodharma describe the experience and practice of “nowness” or the present moment?

  • Now as emergent: The present moment is endlessly ending and renewed, where all causes of past and future converge, though its nature is mysterious.
  • Neural basis: Experiencing now involves rapid sequences of wakefulness, alerting, and orienting, engaging multiple brain networks.
  • Training presence: Strengthening alertness and wakefulness helps reduce rumination and fosters receptive awareness of each moment.
  • Practical exercises: The book offers meditations to cultivate alertness and openness to the “front edge” of now.

What is the significance of timelessness and nibbana in Neurodharma by Rick Hanson?

  • Nibbana as unconditioned state: Nibbana is described as the unconditioned, deathless, and sorrowless state that transcends suffering and craving.
  • Timelessness as practice: The seventh practice involves resting in the nature of mind beyond birth, death, and change, culminating the path of awakening.
  • Natural and transcendental approaches: Hanson discusses unconditioning reactions, exploring extraordinary states, and considering transcendental aspects.
  • Eddies in the stream metaphor: The universe and mind are likened to rivers with eddies—patterns arising and passing away in a substrate of infinite possibility, with timelessness as the enduring ground.

Review Summary

3.87 out of 5
Average of 500+ ratings from Goodreads and Amazon.

Neurodharma received mostly positive reviews, with readers appreciating Hanson's blend of neuroscience and Buddhist concepts. Many found the book insightful, practical, and soothing, praising its guided meditations and accessible explanations of complex topics. Some readers noted it was best experienced as an audiobook for the meditation practices. A few critics found it dry or difficult to follow. Overall, readers valued the book's focus on achieving happiness and well-being through meditation and mindfulness techniques, though some desired more neuroscience content.

Your rating:
4.37
27 ratings

About the Author

Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and bestselling author. He has written seven books translated into 33 languages, focusing on neuroscience, psychology, and mindfulness. Hanson founded the Global Compassion Coalition and Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He co-hosts the popular Being Well podcast and has a large following for his newsletters and online programs. Hanson has lectured at prestigious institutions worldwide and is recognized for his work on positive neuroplasticity. He began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers globally. Hanson lives in northern California with his wife.

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