Two companion books by Rick Hanson, PhD: Buddha’s Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom (with Richard Mendius, MD) and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha brain one simple practice at a time.
As a culture, we continue to seek more understanding about how our brains work and how we can optimize brain function. We also have a growing fascination in the benefits of mindfulness—can meditation techniques from the Buddha really help us have more centeredness, happiness, and joy in our lives? Rick Hanson’s companion books, The Buddha’s Brain and Just One Thing provide compassionate insight and practical steps we can take to improve our lives in those directions one simple practice at a time.
In Buddha’s Brain, Hanson and Mendius synthesize the latest findings in neuroscience about how the brain functions with the ancient comtemplative practices of the Buddha to help guide us to learn how to better manage our emotions and bring more of the good into our lives. The book is easy to understand and explains the science with catchy phrases that makes learning easier and fun. For example, to help us understand how our brain stem evolved from fearing predators, Hanson uses the expression, “our brain is like Teflon for positive experiences and Velcro for negative ones.” At the end of each chapter, the key points are summarized to reinforce learning. Along with the science and explanation of how our brain responds to different stimuli, each chapter contains practical tips and practices for us to try to help encourage more peace, joy, compassion, and happiness in our lives.
Just One Thing is Hanson’s follow-up guide to Buddha’s Brain which contains 52 simple practices to help us develop a more mindful presence in our world. It is based on the principle, “how you use your mind changes your brain.” Hanson invites us to start changing our mind one simple practice at a time. His encouraging, compassionate voice makes this book a gem to read and inspires us to get started. The book’s short chapters and easy explanations of the practices make getting started easy. To learn more about Rick Hanson, check out his web site and free e-newsletters and other resources at: www.rickhanson.net.
Book Reviews by Pam McDonald, LCSW-C 301-712-9015, Ext 1022
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