Practical Wisdom with Dr. Rick Hanson
Aug 5, 2026 · 43 min · 10 segments
Many of us spend our lives quietly believing we need to do more, achieve more, or become more before we can finally feel at peace. What if the peace you’ve been searching for doesn’t come from…
Rick HansonHost
Reflecting on that meditation and as a way of bridging to my topic tonight, there's this lovely proverb in the Buddha Dharma from early Buddhism, which is our focus generally here rather than Tibetan or Chan or Zen or Pure Land Buddhism, although all of them are appreciated and certainly welcome, and I've gotten a lot from, from them.
In early Buddhism, there is this proverb that the mind takes its shape from what it repeatedly rests upon, for better or worse.
And the modern update with neuroscience is that since neurons which fire together wire together, or as someone said to me earlier today, neurons that play together stay together, the brain itself over time takes its shape from what our mind repeatedly rests upon.
So in meditation, as we rest in wholesome qualities, wholesome factors such as steadiness of mind or a growing sense of calming or easing.
As we rest our mind on those things, they become gradually, literally woven into the fabric of our nervous system with physical changes of structure and function.
And so increasingly, those states of being that we rest our mind upon repeatedly become traits of being woven into the living body.
And so it's lovely to use meditation as an opportunity to rest your mind on what draws your heart, to rest in what you are helping yourself grow into, and also to rest in various qualities of being that are typically quite emotional and somatic rather than, you know, airy-fairy and, uh, you know, philosophical.
Certainly, that's, uh, the, the bulk of what the Buddha draws us toward are felt states, felt knowings.
Even insight into something as central as impermanence is a feeling, a feeling of the endlessness of changing, right? A feeling of the losingness in every moment of what's here and the arrivingness endlessly of what's next.
So you might wanna ask yourself these days, what are you seeking to increasingly me-rest your mind upon? What are you increasingly encouraging as the habit of your heart? Would you like to feel a little calmer? Would you like to feel a little more loved? Would you like to feel a little more disengaged from the troubles of your adult children? [chuckles] That sounds like a good one.
You know, what are you seeking to grow these days? So it doesn't mean that we get caught up in any kind of stressful craving or clinging or striving toward what we're trying to grow.
Reflecting on that meditation and as a way of bridging to my topic tonight, there's this lovely proverb in the Buddha Dharma from early Buddhism, which is our focus generally here rather than Tibetan or Chan or Zen or Pure Land Buddhism, although all of them are appreciated and certainly welcome, and I've gotten a lot from, from them.
In early Buddhism, there is this proverb that the mind takes its shape from what it repeatedly rests upon, for better or worse.
And the modern update with neuroscience is that since neurons which fire together wire together, or as someone said to me earlier today, neurons that play together stay together, the brain itself over time takes its shape from what our mind repeatedly rests upon.
So in meditation, as we rest in wholesome qualities, wholesome factors such as steadiness of mind or a growing sense of calming or easing.
As we rest our mind on those things, they become gradually, literally woven into the fabric of our nervous system with physical changes of structure and function.
And so increasingly, those states of being that we rest our mind upon repeatedly become traits of being woven into the living body.
And so it's lovely to use meditation as an opportunity to rest your mind on what draws your heart, to rest in what you are helping yourself grow into, and also to rest in various qualities of being that are typically quite emotional and somatic rather than, you know, airy-fairy and, uh, you know, philosophical.
Certainly, that's, uh, the, the bulk of what the Buddha draws us toward are felt states, felt knowings.
Even insight into something as central as impermanence is a feeling, a feeling of the endlessness of changing, right? A feeling of the losingness in every moment of what's here and the arrivingness endlessly of what's next.
So you might wanna ask yourself these days, what are you seeking to increasingly me-rest your mind upon? What are you increasingly encouraging as the habit of your heart? Would you like to feel a little calmer? Would you like to feel a little more loved? Would you like to feel a little more disengaged from the troubles of your adult children? [chuckles] That sounds like a good one.
You know, what are you seeking to grow these days? So it doesn't mean that we get caught up in any kind of stressful craving or clinging or striving toward what we're trying to grow.
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