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1-Page Summary of Waking Up

Overview

Buddha’s Brain is a guide to achieving more happiness, love, and wisdom in life. It teaches you how to unlock your brain’s potential for greater peace of mind by using practical skills and tools that pay attention to the contemplative technique “mindfulness” and neurological findings that support it.

We think we need to go to a higher plane in order to be spiritual, but that’s not true. We can all find spirituality here on Earth if we know how.

To find spiritual enlightenment, we must change the way we think. We can’t just see ourselves as pleasure-seekers or pain-avoiders; instead, we have to focus on becoming more aware of our thoughts and our true selves.

The author lists three key points in this passage. First, we all have more than one self. Second, you shouldn’t always trust gurus or experts because they may not know what they’re talking about. Lastly, the path to spirituality may lie with acid (LSD).

Big Idea #1: If we seek pleasure and avoid pain, then we won’t be happy.

What’s the best way to live a happy and fulfilled life? It doesn’t involve seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. Children may kick and scream for cookies, but that doesn’t work out so well when you’re an adult.

Part of the reason we chase pleasures is because they are fleeting. Even if you find that perfect moment, it will soon pass and you’ll start chasing a new one.

Our lives consist of constant changes and adjustments. For example, you may go to the beach for a day of fun in the sun, but then you start to sweat. You seek relief from that in the shade until it gets too cold. As you reach for your t-shirt, you notice how tattered it is and want a new one. This desire for change can be applied to many situations in life

It’s not just the positive or negative feelings that are fleeting; it’s our perception of those feelings. If you’re wired to a “feeling machine” and experience great pain, your body will react with all the normal symptoms of stress: tensing muscles, sweating, rapid breathing and heart rate.

Our experience is what we perceive as pain. It’s not enjoyable and people would do anything to avoid it. However, when you lift weights at the gym, that feeling is similar to how our bodies feel when we’re in pain. Some people love lifting weights! So clearly there are other factors involved with finding happiness than just avoiding pain.

Big Idea #2: Although we think of ourselves as a single unified person, this is not the case.

Most people identify themselves with a single entity that exists in the brain. They assume that this is their sense of self and that it observes through the eyes and originates thoughts.

However, that’s not the case. First of all, we don’t even control our own thoughts. We think they come from our brains and are under our control, but that’s totally false. Try this exercise: sit comfortably for one minute without thinking about anything at all. How did you do? You couldn’t do it because you were thinking during those sixty seconds! Indeed, we have little or no control over what comes into our minds; thoughts just pop up uninvited.

In addition, the idea of a single entity that is our self is an illusion. Our brains are made up of different hemispheres with their own personalities.

However, we know this because of a medical procedure called callosotomy. It is performed on patients who have brain damage to the hemisphere in their brains. People who undergo callosotomy are affected differently depending on which side of the brain is stimulated.

Studies have shown that the left side of your brain controls what you say, while the right side controls how you say it. In one study, a young man was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. His left hemisphere said “I want to be a draftsman,” while his right hemisphere said “I want to race cars.” Clearly, we overestimate our control over our thoughts and words. If we can’t even control them ourselves, how much power do they really hold?