Today we’re going to nerd out about what enlightenment (or, if that word is triggering, let’s just call it “high doses of meditation”) can do to your brain — and, more practically, how we can derive these benefits even if we don’t plan to spend decades living in a cave. My guest is Rick Hanson, Ph.D., psychologist and author of the new book Neurodharma. We go into the deep end, yes, but we also get very down-to-earth, talking about how anyone, including you, can “reverse engineer enlightenment,” and have “Nirvana operationalized in your nervous system.” Quick note that this was recorded right before the pandemic, but enlightenment is evergreen.
Where to find Rick Hanson online:
Website: https://www.rickhanson.net/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drrhanson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rickhansonphd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickhansonphd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RickHanson
Book Mentioned:
Neurodharma by Rick Hanson: https://www.rickhanson.net/books/neurodharma
You can find meditations from our world-class teachers and more wisdom from Rick Hanson on our app. Visit tenpercent.com to download the Ten Percent Happier app and kickstart your meditation practice. Visit tenpercent.com to sign up today.
Other Resources Mentioned:
Hippocampus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus
U Pandita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Pandita
Enlightenment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_in_Buddhism
Nirvana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(Buddhism)
Robert Thurman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Thurman
Mark Epstein: http://markepsteinmd.com/
Joseph Goldstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldstein_(writer)
Jhanas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism
Stephen Batchelor: https://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/
Neurodharma Online Program: https://www.rickhanson.net/teaching/neurodharma-online-program/
More Books: https://www.rickhanson.net/books/
Being Well Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-well-with-dr-rick-hanson/id1120885936
Additional Resources:
Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live
Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide
Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/rick-hanson-264
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
As you know, we're in the middle of a big series on work here on the pod cast, which was a good time to point out that, even if you love your job, you will experience stress. However, stress does not necessarily have to be a bad thing can actually be something you harness to your own advantage to help you navigate stress this fall. We ve taken one of our most popular courses from the ten percent happier
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This is the ten percent happier podcast, I'm dan harris hey guys today we're going to nerd out about what enlightenment or if that word is triggering to you just think of it as high doses of meditation can
to your brain and more practically how we can derive these benefits. Even if we don't plan d spent decades living in a cave. My guest is rick hansen phd he's a psychologist.
And he's the author of a new book called neuro darpa
We go away into the deep and here for sure, but we are also very down to earth in this discussion. Talking about
how anyone, including you, can reverse and
near enlightenment, that's his term. Another term that he uses that hey like is that we can we can.
Nirvana operational lies in our nervous system, quick note that this was recorded before the pandemic, but am of the view that enlargement is evergreen. So here we go with reconsider
The kind of dirty little secret in the growth world is that most positive, most beneficial experiences people have useful into it
wholesome and leave no lasting value behind, while due to the negativity buys in the brain. The negative experiences tend to get lodged right into a so. I've had a long standing interest in what could be called taking in the good, I think of it as a really the fundamental process of social, emotional learning and getting more
skillful ourselves in helping experiences were having really land inside based on
understanding of how the nervous system is most effectively changed for the better and how that boils down. In concrete terms, a lot you just stay with the experience for a brother longer rather
and channel surfing to onto the next shiny object. First point:
So if you buy me a moment where you fill strong,
determined or relieved or close to another person, or you realize how to be more effective with your teenager, whatever it might be made this a sense of inner peace.
maybe this sense of self worth, maybe just enjoy petting your cat. Your lap stay with it for a rather longer so that
in the famous saying neurons, tat fire together wire together, so the
the longer you keep them firing the more they're going to tend to be wiring, feel it in your whole body. Second, you know the more the richer the experience
says the worm body is the more can attend to leave a trace by and
Also, another easy good, simple, private autonomous thing to do is to focus on what's rewarding about it. What's enjoyable, what's meaningful about this experience, there are different things that happened in the hardware that occur when you do these practices that increase the conversion of the experts,
and to a lasting change of neural structure function and, for example, when you focus on which rewarding about it that increases the activity of dope and nor up enough front in your hippocampus two of them, technic klaiber people speak of them in the singular. So I have a headache
purpose and the pattern of activation in the moment that underlies experience your having of let's say self worth or determination or commitment or inner peace.
The experience they are having at the time if there is increased dopamine in europe and effort actively in the hippocampus at the time, based on focusing on what's rewarding or enjoyable about it. Well, the pattern of activation at the time is flagged for prioritization and protection, and during
solidarity into long term storage, that's kind of a long way of putting that. If you stay
the sense of enjoying an experience. It's going to more efficiently turn into a lasting change in your body. It's gonna be more hard wired into your nervous system, so I'm
reaching for sending my life in thinking about how I could operational eyes this night?
I love my four year old, probably be by the time. This goes, I feel, be five and eight more than probably was the love him
and snuggling with him, feels really
yeah for him to get our hopes. Sometimes I feel like I'm coercion, but them sit
feel if I can be with it and really take it in all of it. In my body. In my mind, then
Is it
I in a more lasting way in my nervous system, which then may make me more
warm men, affectionate person generally going forward exactly right and the whole point of this is not to cling to the experience or crave it as it were, or turn it into a thing, but rather to help yourself heel and grow
your experiences hand intuitively people who are good growers have to her. You know people who
intuitively get the most out of a mindfulness training or who get the most out of a therapy aura anything conversation with a friend. They tend to do this implicitly and teachers.
europe has tend to have good results, tend to do this implicitly, but people usually don't systematically a handful of times a day.
Really less than ten minutes a day, probably closer to max five minutes a day, slow it down to let the good learning land to help it singing in and
really striking to me, as someone has been involved in the growth. Does
for a long time in both the wild west forms of it and human potential in the button deb, you know
julie, our school, a music forms of it in terms of our formal psychotherapy, it's really striking that,
tending not focus on the actual. How of growth, and in particular we tend to not teach the skills of it to the people we work with,
Hmm, it's interesting! You know a fourth grade schoolteacher. I love schoolteachers. I had an awesome fourth grade teacher mrs hall. Thank you, mrs hall, shout out to ms yeah. Anyway. They have a theory. They'd have a theory of what they're trying to do in terms of the kids nervous system, and they also are trying to help kids learn how to learn. You know they're
teaching them to be active learners. They treat kids is active learners in memorizing, the state capitals in america or something
but we were working with other people. Typically, is teachers or therapists or coaches
we tend to nod, teach them how to be active learners.
round social, emotional, motivational, somatic or spiritual learning. For me, that's a big, missed opportunity and solve written a fair amount about that, and I think that you know that. That's a really important thing.
What is the book about? What is due? Neuro dharuma even mean yeah. For me, it's of
word, but when a really means. Basically, yes, we can know ourselves into s right. We can know ourselves subjectively in what is called the first person perspective, our own experience.
From the inside out. We can also know ourselves objectively, through the third person perspective, a science from the us,
idea what is actually happening in the nervous system once actually happening in the body when we feel all right
or strong and determined but not frustrated and addicted and driven was actually happening or was happening.
and we start moving into more and more so
a ball qualities,
being an inner peace that we can see demonstrated by our in our teachers or other people known throughout history
actually happening inside. So for me, neuro dogma is worth
two ways of knowing ourselves intersect, there's the neuro and then there's the door.
I saw dogma. The way I use that word is not restricted to buddhism, yet I use the book
road map of the mind in a basically secular way, to kind of orient us as we climbed the mountain of awakening as it were, but dharmu basically just means truth, the truth of things which, for me as a very deeply scientific. We have
things once the dearth of things and then neuro dogma is was the truth of things particularly was the truth of various kinds of well being very well developed in the living body. So that's what it's about em! I get really interested in taking a fresh look at the peaks of human potential. What is awakening? What is it to be awakened? What are the qualities that we see in people throughout history and in the present day, are models for us of stable, mindfulness and kindness and in her peace and inner strength, and an often tissue tee and really being in the present moment and feeling connected to everything like what's goin on their side?
what the book's about basically is seven qualities that I see in people who are really far along see them in myself, or I see them in you and I it's about developing them, so we grow them by practicing them. So it's a book or practice. It's not a airy fairy magic carpet ride to the peak
If enlightenment, I don't consider myself enlightened, I think, enlightenment,
this when you're stably fulfilled and perfected, and these having qualities and irreversibly
The old man, so the seven qualities are steadying the mind. These are practices to steady your mind. Let's think about that, that these qualities are described in the book and then followed up with practice. Yeah you. How do you develop it? How do you steady your mind these days and including in very deep weiss? How do you do that? Okay, second warming, the heart cultivation of compassion, kindness, sense of belonging, healing of old wounds that happen in relationships, feelings of inadequacy, insecure attachment. How do you actually practice with all that?
third, I call arresting and fullness. That's material relate attack when it's also related to what we were talking about earlier. But how do you stand a green zone when you're challenged and
how do you develop there's a teaching from upon data of really pithy line? He says the purposes
actors is to expand the range of experiences which were free, really
Interesting, it's easy to feel great when let's say you're calling her your four or five year old. That's really that's good!.
How do you deal with rejection? How do you deal with physical pain on this challenge over time? You know those of the range of experiences in which we want to be increasingly free, so resting informers
and then those three clustered together steadiness of mine, warmth, of hard gun above happy equanimity,
and then the next three also closer together? I call it being homeless. What I mean by that is accepting yourself fully and being less divided internally and increasingly having a kind of
non dual sands of awareness and the contents flowing through awareness
just one single field of consciousness fed and do some that, for
is not do old, maybe a bit of a yet argue term from you
dual meaning there isn't me
here and everything else out there,
There is not a duality between observers of object and subjects. The me impact that I just went right past that
So there are two kinds of non duality, really three kinds think about it. The first kind is is internal in terms of our subjectivity. Very often, we have a sense that there is- and I
inside who is witnessing thoughts, reactions, plans, sensations and so forth, and that somehow that's all happening in a kind of implicit field of awareness. It's possible and you see people do it in a developed, as myself is possible for those testing
since to soften internally, so there's more and more of a sense of consciousness occurring without a sharply divided. I, whose watching things
and there is more of a sense of just being your mind is a whole being the stream of consciousness in this moment, and this moment as a whole and what is good about
There's by the well are a lot of neuroscience about each one of these things. When you meet
of more into that sense. That holistic way of experiencing yourself things taken as a whole. The structure of suffering, search changing because the structure of sufferings parts struggling with parts in her conflict starts to abate
and the other things really need about. It is that when you move more in that sense of things as a whole, you begin to activate neural circuits on the size of your brains, pressure, the right side and you deactivate circuitry
as aware reduced activity and circuitry in the midline of the cortex, the front part of which is about stressful task oriented doing, but the back part of which is that default mode network,
where people go when they're doing a lot of ruminating, including anxious ruminating, with a lot of self preoccupation me myself,
So when you move in more of a sense of things is a whole yunus watch it to be aware of the sense of your body as a whole. Breathing is
whole body or the sense of breathing and a large part of your body, all at once at the whole torso left, right, left and right together or, as you get a sense of the whole space you're in the whole environment. Just watch your mind very quickly: you'll calm down, it'll you'll be calmer, the have less sense of self preoccupation, less sense of inner division really great, and that's just being honest, the one after that, the fifth practice I call receiving notice.
everybody says be here now right power. Now, while how you know, how do you actually do that? How do you come really close to the front edge of now and there's neurology about how to do that having to do with
front circuits of attention that we have and
More fundamental circuits are involved with being alerted by the next new thing, it's sort of like the front page of the windshield of
justice so's you move closer and closer to the subject of now. You move closer and closer to the object of now and as you do that again suffering source falling away.
it's what great teachers have set your more in a moment and technically in the brain you move closer and closer to the.
Media sea of perceiving what's happening now, and you be
calm, less engaged with neural processing. That's
full of worries and angers and preoccupations. Sometimes you need to do that, but
most of us are not in a mom. You know you probably have heard about these studies. Were people or pinged routinely yeah.
And they have a wandering mine on average fifteen percent, the time so, let's say you're
or I ll acerra more present than average will it means a lot of people is gone. Eighty percent of the time right and as mind wandering increases
So it is negative rumination, statistically so are more inclined
go negative. The more mind is wandering suck being able to stabilize in the present moment, particularly to be here at will is a really useful strength to develop. So that's the practice of receiving notice and then I'll just finish and the last to practice
as and these are things again, we see and people are really far along. We also
with her like ourselves. Vall had flashes of these question is how to stabilize it right, so I call it open
and almost I'm reverse engineering enlightenment anyway, I'm that's what I'm trying to do here like what goes on with
People who are having his extraordinary quite frequent actually about a third of the people in the world report. Having had these kind of varied, non ordinary, sometimes called
self transcendent or non dual experiences in the second sense of non duality in that the boundary or or line between me and everything else softens fade. Sometimes, just while toy drops out what's goin on and more generally, how can we cultivate a sense
this, peaceful in which we feel less of a beleaguered self struggling with the universe around us, divided from it and more carried along and supported by a vast network of causes of factors? That is reality. So there's really interesting, neurology about how to shift from the kind of classic egocentric perspective its.
That doesn't mean negatively it's just self referential, where we're regarding with
happening around us. From my perspective, then there's this other perspective. This much more impersonal and holistic. Fancy term fortis, hallo, centric perspective, where we have a sense of things as a whole and
to cut of pull some threads together when we are feeling internally divided and caught up in the default mode? Let's say
and when we are doing mental time travelling down in the present, and when we have that kind of egocentric orientation to life that were divided from it and separated from add the neurology was actually
in our bodies for those three ways really
into life kind of come together? There are interrelated circuits that promote the sense of inner division lost in the past to the future and a sense of me myself in a strong sense of self. On the other hand, when people have a sense of things as a whole in the present peace,
They connected with everything else. Those experiences tend to come together and the underlying neural circuitry that promotes that way of being the three qualities of being his also interrelated and with pride,
We can train so that more and more stable we acquire the trade we developed. That's lasting learning, lasting growth is trait instead of just a passing state. Exactly right, so
Lebanon is more about how to do that. You have in terms of just putting some meat and bone meal. We have a nice phrase here. You shift from sea
yourself as an isolated some reading for your book, you can shift from seeing yourself as an isolated, accurate, sometimes
flailing against everything, to feeling that everything is manifesting locally. As you get, that sounds cool this club, but how do you do it? Practice practice really helps, and there are practices in the book. Oh yeah. Definitely, for example, just I was just kind of highlight some things here. So one really powerful practice is
If you are do any kind of meditation and you can do it in an informal way, be aware of the sense of your whole body as you breathe, you can start out with your chest, then torso then whole body, so you have a sense of whole body awareness and when you do that it naturally tend to quiet activity in those midline courtesies in ink.
Activity in the lateral on the side of the brain networks that are involved in cash or holistic processing, and as you do that you can again just watch her mind, internal chatter,
a quieter the lateral networks on the sides in the midland networks are connected like a seesaw when one goes up, a good pushes the other down. So as you increase
at lateral activity that those negative self preoccupations or stressful doing in the midline cortex decrease. So just doing that, that's a really useful thing to do. Another thing is useful to do
But how does that get me toward feeling like the world is manifesting locally, moving there so yeah? So now you have more of a sense of things as a whole. I feel like it's all right to go to the point when you're contracted inside yourself. How can you feel like the world is manifesting locally? As you you know so another thing you could do just try. It is to lift your gaze out from your body toward the horizon. Naturally, as we bring the gays closer, the egocentric perspective increases right. Is it going to eat me? Can I eat it or friend or foe? On the other hand, when your gaze moves out of ten feet away toward the horizon, maybe up above again watch your mind.
You'll natural become more peaceful. You'll have more of a sense of things as a whole, though be not such an intense sense of me myself and I, and in that process you will be active. It does nurture the circuitry, the neural circuitry of the ilo centric mode and through repeatedly stimulating that way of being. You will strengthen the circuits over time cause
bronzer a fire together wire together, for example, there are other ways also to develop that more sense of all organise a key part of that is to practice with a sense of self. So he in that sixth of seven practices, the oldest practice. That is where I drop in,
a lot of deep teachings about. Is there a self? What is the south? What does it mean to be a person without presuming and internal entity inside and is a self in the way that I'm meaning now word
and there are things we can do to be more comfortable with, regarding others and our selves as persons who exist to have rights who have dignity of needs who have responsibilities as persons
without being identified with some unified independent entity inside that we think is me
this non self herself was,
idea, that is sent
The buddhism is confusing to a lot of female their fire quote. I've heard it third hand, it was
some allegedly from a tibetan monk who set it to the scholar, robert
men who then set it to mark Epstein, the psychiatrist has written a bunch of books about buddhism and psychology who said
me or wrote at one of his books that the monks is said to have said to thurman. Of course, your real you're, just not really real
I like that, because of course you are you you've got just, as you said, before: you're a person with rights, you get your picture pants on and make a dense women, etc, etc. But if you look closely enough on some fundamental level, you can't find some core essence, and that is very important thing to know and and the constantly butting your head up against that the constant looking really over
time, I think, is what pounds and jeered neurons deeper felt said
oh yeah, I don't have to take this me so seriously and build up and defend it all the time you are you it's really interesting now and as people relax the sense of self him, I mean that word self, not as the person as a whole
and ass. He useful distinction, but as this presumption that there's some kind of entity inside right.
enduring and unified and independent. So when people relax that, when they relax ego relax can see
when they are less caught up in possessiveness you, my precious or
a I matter more than you or identification
that, right as they do, that they become more functional as persons. Myth me come more successful
as person. Why? Why why? That seems like a paradox? Why is it there's a lot to do
in sickness and stressful were caught up in trying to
press others or compare ourselves to others or judge yourselves routinely, and people can have compassion for persons, including a person that they are without thinking that there is some sort of entity inside
over there. Now, there's no other line. I wondered if you are going to quote this one that you have to be somebody before you can beat no by the jack angler that yet emissary asset that yeah and so there is definitely a place.
for being on your own, cited in recognising that in the body is continually constructing. A sense of the person process was how I think of it, that's ongoing as complete natural, but Why-
wild. Is it at this point? There is a lot of neuro imaging on what
happening in the brain, when people feel like me or I indifferent ways recognising your own picture among other
pictures appalling up a personal memory which your stand on
some big moral issue. They have people do this, while their brains are brains yet and yes, yeah what's wild is that the patterns of activation are scattered all over. The brain is like polka dots, there's everywhere in there
there are certain parts of the brain like a set in the midline. Cortex is pushing more towards the door
mode end of it. The tend to be particularly involved, but self thing as it were, as a process is scattered all over the brain. You know we all want to feel special, but there's no place in the brain.
special herself right, even though there is a lot of localization of function for all kinds of other things and you watch it. These patterns of activation light up than they fade sick christmas tree
You really care that this idea we have that are self, is unified. You don't see that in the brain spread all over the place. The sense that we have that we are independent of the sense of self increases, decreases. Jude all kinds of causes rises in
ass is away, and we have a sense that were sort of enduring. You know no, it's very transient
it's like you said so, as you said, when you look closely from that third person perspective on the brain or when you look closely from the inside out at first person perspective, you see that the defining characteristics of the conventionally assumed self don't exist. I say the self as like a unicorn, some mythical beast we can have, we can think about it. We can have experiences of what we think it's there
it's always implicit. It's never found. The whole package is never found and was starting to happen. Is that you lighten up about it and which makes you a lot happier yam? It did my teacher Joseph Wilson
said, the one way to think about enlightenment is lightning up much more. My a conversation with rick handsome coming up red after this you I've heard about master class for years, but
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and just continue this talk about how we mortals we're not going to spend decades robes practicing get a taste of this. All of this. You have practices in the in the book where we can work meditated of lean toward this insight. We also talk about. Will you have some
native exercises to get us to think about how small we are within the universe, etc, etc. But then there are also
recommendation for a kind of like how,
to live your life that might bring us towards,
seeing this on a more regular basis, and you have some bullet points here. Like one is
simpler life with less self referential task doing makes me
more room for an undefended on contracted risk receptivity to every
and I saw that I found a pretty provocative because my life is not that simple yeah minds, not that simple either
I put that sense in their little bed to tell the truth about people who have simpler. Wives were more connected, denature, there's more room for this,
so this nature was the other thing you but
it's a long, sir? There's a reason why they have this experience like every tuesday yeah
It says, though, for all
like I'm gonna, get on a plane pretty soon today and I'll do little things multiple
today. In the larger point is the bigger the challenge, the bigger the resources need to be. So if you want to cultivate a greater sounds of taking care of business, are you have your ticket with you? I have my
passport with me, because my driver's license has expired, I haven't renewed a yet, so you take care of business, but if
interested in developing this
serve just interconnectedness, ingratitude, really
for everything it is, and yet more of a sense of being caught.
It along rather than oppressed. Even though you recognize ways you actually are oppressed.
by having more of a sense of interconnectedness. It draws you into a sense of resources and things that you can use. Well, if you want to cultivate that in
life like I have for you, have you really have to practice so multiple times a day, I'll, just sort of look like all step out on a busy cities,
wait pretty soon and I'll look around and I'll I'll just have a sense of wow. All this is here. So many things cause these skyscrapers to be here, cause the sidewalk caused the taxis to be here and part of a vast hole. That's enabling what's happening right now and is kind of carrying me along to the next thing looking at
report as you land, or take off their extraordinary places, so much human effort, so much technology and the rest
on previous generations of effort that have led to the capabilities we have today. That draws me out or crazy. You know
I like I've a bottle of water. Here I look at it. I go oxygen where they come from came from exploding stars were breathing start us and yeah till he goes to my geeky. You know science fiction background, but is also completely true and just little reflections like that in the flow of a day where you just gonna drop in it's like
You know it conceptually. Can you feel it like? You said earlier, you move from knowing it to feeling it, and if you give yourself that multiple little times a day, there's a proverb you drop by drop us a water pot filled likewise the wise one gathering it little by little fills oneself with the good and in these little drops as well. As you know, if you could do a
a practice like a weekend retreat or if they have meditation or twenty minutes straight great
but a lot of the other opportunities are to kind of weave these ways of being through practicing them again and again draw your day which to me is incredibly hopeful, because it means that we grow through lots of little steps that we are responsible to take in your mind. No one can defeat you, but no one can do it for you
it makes it real. You talked about. Big projects are some better murmured. The exact words require a lot of resources. What you're saying
Yes, so I think you know this
the big challenge and some people think. Oh, I need to rip my life up to go.
It isn't. I think that is if you can do it.
Not hurting anybody or yourself, then go for it. I remember I have a lot of respect for people who go yeah, become monks or become meditation teachers and spend a lotta time on silent retreat, but you don't have to rip your life up you just have to, and this is gonna sound daunting, but make it the organizing
simple your life, which you can do within the current context of your life. You can live your life by all intents and purposes, for an answer,
purposes or at least by every objective,
the same way: you're still going to the same job and dragging the same people. But if your
integration is hey. I went to sweden
the station every day and I'm gonna do all these little practices and that they become just in a part of your life.
An everyday part and then you're going off on retreat once or once a year once every other year. That is a way in which it just over time. I think it takes on a big momentum as huge, and that's personally would have done honestly myself and I think it's doable that whole approach. I don't know if you'd accept this way of talking about it, but I've thought about your book, and I think that if people are ten percent, more practice oriented and know what I really mean is more like one percent. If people were to increase by one percent, the number of breaths in a day or minutes or seconds in a day in which they were purposefully, helping themselves grow in some way, helping something land really trying to understand something recognize what would be better to do next time when you're talking with your
partner, one percent, if people or lose one percent more effort for one percent more deliberate every day, they would definitely become ten percent happier and maybe even more yeah. I agree. I often joke that the ten percent compounds annually, and so I do think this is the room for infinite expansion. Here.
Final question: for me, which is just, is there more
They say about feeling
part of the all in your life, and what does that mean? Because you do you are running out of books. You darn treating patients in europe quite act,
in the world, and yet it sounds like you do. Some presented of the time feel like the world is manifesting locally through you, yeah that's accessible. There are people who had these huge fireworks experiences. I've had mid range fireworks experiences, the
problem. Is the fireworks usually fade? And then what do you do? How do you go forward in your life, but the
kind of open
good receptors?
present, mom and founded on
rounded? On those three first practices,
steadiness, of mind loveliness, of hard economist wellbeing.
Those are foundational, then yeah, allied, you really can feel like a much softer sounds of
Who you are and and where you are
where this really great swill accessible. I saw
I kept on it and I think that those fireworks experiences can often really help people because her breakthroughs they show you is actually really true, but through cultivation over time. People can definitely experience that, while still being functional anything, I missed
Our timeliness, their seventh yeah yeah yeah times
is really interesting. That takes us into the potentially third kind of
duality as it were, and big area of controversy,
buddhism and also elsewhere. In other words, when people are following the classic progression in the buddhist tray,
That basically says? Ok, you quite your mind. You steady did you bring it to single less you move into the john us
It's the right concentration or wise concentration, John or our deep state of comes or non ordinary is
very non ordinary, non kansas anymore, and I
about them in the book what they actually characterized by sea move.
These these already, not typical states usually experienced after days of not weeks on retreat, I've experienced them, and then you move into what are called a formless china's where it gets really exotic, and then you drop into the unconditioned dawn to do
What is that right? So people have been arguing about that ever since and two we understand the ultimate, the ultimate sense of unconditioned, the unconditioned or an fabricated and constructed. How do we understand that and the buddhist training is to encounter it?
In some way and be changed by it and then be increasingly able in small ways drop by drop over the course of the day to be in touch
so I wanted to honour that and for me there's a place, a practice. There's a place for
Be more aware and be nicer as kind of great concern of the alternative right, that's great, and if that's all, you want that's cool. On the other hand, the path goes all the way to the summit, and I am inspired by that. Ah, I think that, on all throughout the world across multiple passive practice, I think of them is different routes up to the fulfilment of
heights of human potential, whatever that is a different routes up the mountain to the peak, but on each of those different routes and different traditions, including second or traditions. You find the same steps, the same training
yeah, I'm standing some mind, warmth of hard wholeness now miss almost and more more deeply. What is unconditioned actually so one way to understand it is that we are
unconditional yourselves ourselves and we are getting more in touch with we're on on conditioning from what is reactive, habitual contracted and pressured- and we are opening
to what is unconditioned. In our ordinary mind, the unconditioned field of awareness which can represent anything, are thus great second way to understand.
is that people are having extraordinary states of mind within ordinary reality when they go through these cessation experience
as they drop in nirvana, what is nirvana yet operational ized, as you said earlier,
What is nirvana operational lies in the nervous system, so I write about that. What might that actually be? So
the second way to understand we seen nirvana mri, that's it
the question you we ve seen people in deep, John us and what s interesting is the brain doesn't look that different, but there are some key distinctions that seem like plausible neural correlates for what the janitor described ass. So the third way, though, to understand it in its whether when some
is really really developed in this way or accessing pinprick of this over the course of their ordinary day. Are they accessing something? This channel
they transcendental genuinely transcending ordinary reality and in the book I talk about
those different ways relating to unconditioned the unconditioned on conditioning with respect for both of them. If someone is purely secular, they want to stop at the first to bind the very
strong tradition and put us on this. As now. The really is something genuinely transcendental that is transcendentally, unconditioned and thus timeless. It's not impermanent, it's not subject to arising in passing away and the ultimate aim.
Actors to have some access to it? That is a huge area debate. I vastly respect people like
even bachelor and others who argued very firmly track or keep practices,
I can frame. On the other hand, most people in the world right now, right now in the last twenty four hours right now,
the majority of people in the world who are doing something contemplative are doing it in the with reference to something transcendental for them, as in the frame of something the
Take if you will time having some porn honour that and try to think how might
Conditionality intersect worth
and ordinary reality, and I go after that without trying to preach in anybody so anyway, that's that those are the seven I just figures so cool and what an opportunity euro know to keep playing with it ourselves,
and every day have you know little opportunity to grow a little further and get a little deeper analysis.
Each one of them can be developed just as a taste or all the way, really really fulfilled and keep us busy a whole good life.
a man or saw do as they say in the british tradition. Well said: lucy deplore.
John. Can you just remind us in the name of the book, your other books, where you are digitally? It is a plug zone yeah, but at the end of every show, that's good, so
called neuro dharuma, and I could add that I also have an online program that people can do that's experiential, so it takes the book and has a whole bunch of guided met at once. She, u, R l for that, just cut
the website, rick Hansen, s, o n dot net; okay, and then you can find it there, Rick Hansen s, o n dot net and in that program,
it was based on a tender meditation retreat. I taught so it has all. The talks has guided meditations q and a lot of support of materials. That's the online programme, that's a good companion experiential to the book nor dogma.
And you ve written buddhist brainer six book. What else
right. My first book was mother, nurture, which me you we want
yeah in an obstetrician gynecologist. They murky polychrome. Basically, it's about promoting the long term
well being of mothers past the post pardon period, and
If we wanted to change the world, make our number one public policy priority. Taking care mothers, hello in general,.
no change. Everything over melinda gates. Talk about that. You just take off the names of the other
yeah, so mother nurture the followed by buddhist brain, followed by just one thing. Fifty two practices followed by hardware.
in happiness, followed by resilient, which I wrote with our son forrest, Hanson big shout out to you forest who helps me do a podcast. I actually I help him do his podcast, really the
well podcast. We try to learn from the master down here and then the most recent six book norodom excellent. Thank you were doing.
adulation is on the book all it's a real pleasure to do this, and I appreciate your graciousness honestly and having me here, you're free, big thanks to rick. I also won.
Think the team everybody who worked so hard on this shows him he'll Johns is our senior producer. Marisa Snyder men are new producer, are sound engineers that point and on yeah sure
of ultraviolet. Audio maria were tell us our production coordinator. We get it
I have useful input from t p, h, colleagues, that she had been ruben gent point in a toby lives, Levin also big. Thank you as always to the a b c news, comrades, ryan, kesler and Josh Cohen
we'll see on Wednesday for fresh epps.
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Transcript generated on 2023-09-15.