Intentions and Strength

The neuroaxis has two hubs: the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the amygdala.  The ACC-based network manages top-down, deliberate, centralized, reasoned motivation, while the amygdala-based network handles bottom-up, reactive, distributed, passionate motivation.

The two networks-- metaphorically the head and the heart-- can support each other, be awkwardly out of sync, or struggle in outright conflict.  Ideally, your intentions will be aligned with each other at all levels of the neuroaxis: that's when they have the most power.

At all levels of the neuroaxis, the intentions-- the goals and related strategies-- at work in your life operated mainly outside of your awareness.

Usually the longer the view, the wiser the intentions.

Strength is often quiet, receptive determination rather than chest-thumping pushiness.

Get in the habit of deliberately calling up a sense of strength-- not to dominate anybody or anything, but to fuel your intentions.

-- from Buddha's Brain, pp. 100-108

Two Wolves in the Heart

I heard a story once about a Native American elder who was asked how she had become so wise, so happy, and so respected.  She answered: "In my heart, there are two wolves: a wolf of love and a wolf or hate.  It all depends on which one I feed each day."

-- Buddha's Brain, p.121

Equanimity and Steadiness of Mind

With equanimity, your initial reactions to things-- reach for the carrot, push away the stick-- are left in a mental mud-room so that the interior of your mind remains clear and clean and peaceful.

With equanimity, what passes through your mind is held with spaciousness so that you stay even-keeled and aren't thrown off balance.  The ancient circuitry of the brain is continuously driving you to react one way or another-- and equanimity is your circuit breaker.

Equanimity is neither apathy nor indifference: you are warmly engaged with the world but not troubled by it.

The primary point of equanimity is not to reduce or channel that activation, but simply not to respond to it.  This is very unusual behavior for the brain, which is designed by evolution to respond to limbic signals.

Since your brain doesn't naturally stay engaged with neutral stimuli, you must make a conscious effort to sustain attention to them.  Through sensitizing yourself to the neutral aspects of experience, your mind will become more comfortable staying with them, and less inclined to seek rewards or scan for threats.

Buddhism has a metaphor for the different conditions in life.  They're called the Eight Worldly Winds: pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and ill repute.  As you develop greater equanimity, these winds have less effect on your mind.  Your happiness becomes increasingly unconditional, not based on catching a good breeze instead of a bad one.

-- All notes taken from Buddha's Brain, pp. 109-117

Parasympathetic nervous system

The most powerful way to use the mind-body connection to improve your physical and mental health is through guiding your autonomic nervous system (ANS).  Every time you calm the ANS through stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), you tilt your body, brain, and mind increasingly toward inner peace and well-being.

You can activate the PNS in many ways, including relaxation, big exhalations, touching the lips, mindfulness of the body, imagery, balancing your heartbeat, and meditation.

-- Buddha's Brain, p. 96

Whitman quote

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.

-- Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road"

Negativity bias of memory

Your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences…. Even when positive experiences outnumber negative ones, the pile of negative implicit memories naturally grows faster.  Then the background feeling of what it feels like to be you can become undeservedly glum and pessimistic.

The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen.  Rather, it is to foster positive experiences-- and in particular, to take them in so they become a permanent part of you.

-- Buddha's Brain, p.68