Buddha's Brain (Intro & Chapter 1)
These are my notes from the book.
In the past they said that the mind is the activity of the brain. Mental activity creates new neural structures
Neurons that fire together wire together
We can use the mind to change the brain itself
The adult brain is open to change
The mind is an embodied, relational process that regulates flow of energy and information
How we focus attention and intentionally direct the flow of energy and information can alter the brain's activity and its structure
Relationships are fundamental to how minds function. Social interactions shape neural connections which shapes brain. Science verifies that cultivating compassion and mindful awareness harnesses the social circuits which enable one to transform the relationship with self.
Compassion refers to letting go of judgments
Mindful awareness means to attend fully to the present
Our goal is to build circuits of kindness and well-being
We'll seek to answer:
What brain states underlie the mental states of happiness, love and wisdom
How can you use your mind to stimulate and strengthen the positive brain states
Chapter 1 - The Self-Transforming Brain
Taxi drivers in London develop a larger hippocampus (region for making visual spatial memories). Happy people have more activity in the left frontal brain region.
The brain is the basis of the mind, but that's an oversimplification.
The body, natural world and human culture also shape the mind.
Perhaps importantly, the mind also shapes the mind.
It's probably best to understand the brain and mind as a single system. All mental activity maps to neural activity. The current working hypothesis is that the mind is what the brain does. Most animals don't have sufficiently complex nervous systems to allow them to experience significant distress (long term significant distresses).
Worrying about the future, past, present; getting what you want, suffering for the sake of suffering, sadness, etc is constructed by the brain.
It is made up.
The brain is the cause and cure of suffering
The three pillars of Buddhism are:
Virtue
Mindfulness (concentration)
Wisdom
Virtue is regulating actions, words, thoughts to create benefit for oneself and others
Prefrontal cortex regulates this, top-down and bottom-up
Relationships is where virtue is challenged
Mindfulness is using attention on both inner and outer worlds
Since the brain learns by what it focuses on, mindfulness helps take in good experiences and makes them a part of oneself
Wisdom is applied common sense
Understand what hurts and what helps
That is, the causes of pain and the path to its end
Let go of things that hurt and strengthen things that help.
Over time one feels:
more connected with everything
more serene about how things change and end
more able to meet pleasure and pain without grasping after one and struggling with the other
*The most seductive and subtle challenge to wisdom is the sense of being a self who is separate from and vulnerable to the world
Virtue → (Brain) Regulation → Green light (excite) / Red light (inhibit) Mindfulness → (Brain) Learning → Strengthen / Weaken circuits
Attention shapes neural circuits
Wisdom → (Brain) Selection → Trained by what experience tells it to value
Regulation, Learning, Selection regulate all levels of the nervous system. The happy and loving parts deep below the surface are what is considered to be the true nature. Like constant rain verses a single raindrop, little actions over time add up.
