Rick Hanson Quotes

Three Poisons: greed makes me rigid about how I want things to be, hatred gets me all bothered and angry, and delusion tricks me into taking the situation personally.

Every human being has three basic needs — safety, satisfaction, and connection — that are grounded in our ancient evolutionary history.

Richard and I both believe that something transcendental is involved with the mind, consciousness, and the path of awakening — call it God, Spirit, Buddha-nature, the Ground, or by no name at all. Whatever it is, by definition it’s beyond the physical universe. Since it cannot be proven one way or another, it is important — and consistent with the spirit of science — to respect it as a possibility.

[I]f you can be with the pleasant without chasing after it, with the unpleasant without resisting it, and with the neutral without ignoring it - [...] that is an incredible [...] freedom.

Impatience combines all three ingredients of toxic stress: unpleasant experiences, pressure or urgency, and lack of control.

it’s the needs we push away that are often the most important to embrace. So try to be aware of needs, or aspects of needs, that have been unmet. Listen to the longings of your heart. As you go through your day, be mindful of your needs for: • Safety.

the importance of developing grit in the first place for the challenges you know about and the ones waiting around the corner to surprise you.

bring to mind the feeling of being with someone who loves you, while calling up heartfelt emotions such as gratitude or fondness. Next, bring empathy to the difficulties of the other person. Opening to his (even subtle) suffering, let sympathy and goodwill naturally arise. (These steps flow together in actual practice.) Then, in your mind, offer explicit wishes, such as May you not suffer.

The Reactive mode tears us down, while the Responsive mode builds us up. Adversity is certainly an opportunity to develop resilience, stress-hardiness, and even post-traumatic growth. But for a person to grow through adversity, there must also be Responsive resources present such as determination and sense of purpose. Plus most opportunities in daily life to experience and develop mental resources do not involve adversity: there is simply a moment of relaxation, gratitude, enthusiasm, self-worth, or kindness.

It’s easy to be kind when others treat you well. The challenge is to preserve your loving-kindness when they treat you badly — to preserve goodwill in the face of ill will.

[K]eep in mind the big picture, the 1,000-foot view. See the impermanence of whatever is at issue, and the many causes and conditions that led to it. See the collateral damage - the suffering - that results when you cling to your desires and opinions or take things personally. Over the long haul, most of what we argue about with others really doesn't matter that much.

There is a saying in Tibet: “If you take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.” What’s the most important minute in life? I think it’s the next one. There is nothing we can do about the past, and we have limited influence over the hours and days to come. But the next minute — minute after minute after minute — is always full of possibility.

Just before bed, your mind is very receptive, so no matter what went wrong that day, find something that went right, open to it, and let good feelings come and ease you into sleep.

The wolf of love sees a vast horizon, with all beings included in the circle of “us.” That circle shrinks down for the wolf of hate, so that only the nation, or tribe, or friends and family — or, in the extreme, only the individual self — is held as “us,” surrounded by threatening masses of “them.

Unfortunately, while we’re no longer running from saber-toothed tigers, our modern multitasking, racing about, and frequent stresses keep pushing us into the red zone. Then it’s hard to leave due to what researchers call the brain’s negativity bias.