Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

As Wright sees it, 'The Truth' of the human condition is to be found in natural selection, as described through evolutionary psychology in his early book The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology . And he argues that this truth is uniquely addressed by 'The Way' of Buddhism, or at least naturalistic Buddhism. This 'secular Buddhism' is Buddhism without reincarnation, spirits or gods. Even the concept of complete or lasting enlightenment is held at arms length. Secular, naturalistic Buddhism rests on a few key ideas: the idea that people don't have an essential 'self' (no-self), the idea that dissatisfaction (dukkha) is caused by the 'hedonic treadmill' of pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, and that meditation can help us to get off this treadmill. The philosophical approach is similar to that of Stephen Batchelor in Confession of a Buddhist Atheist and Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World . There is a decidedly Gnostic bent to the writing here, right from the beginning, when the movie The Matrix is cited. Here natural selection is the process which holds us in a state of delusion, warps our perceptions of reality, prevents us from experiencing lasting contentment and satisfaction, and keeps us trapped on the hedonic treadmill. And secular-Buddhism is The Way (the 'red pill') that will liberate us from this endless drama of delusion and frustration. This view of evolution stands in marked contrast with that of Wright's previous book, The Evolution of God (Back Bay Readers' Pick) , in which biological and cultural evolution are instead 'divine' processes by which the Good becomes manifest in the world. (The God-as-Evolution view is also that of the 'Integral' spirituality of Ken Wilber, Steve McIntosh, and others.) Part of this book is dedicated to showing that the key ideas of secular-Buddhism are scientifically true, through discussion of studies in psychology and neuroscience (an approach shared with Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion , by Sam Harris). This would be more convincing if the studies were cited as a way of evaluating Buddhism against competing theories of well-being, such as modern positive psychology, but the book generally avoids this type of direct comparison. This is reflective of the basic approach of secular-Buddhism: the concepts which don't find support in scientific studies, such as reincarnation, or lasting enlightenment, are abandoned or de-emphasized. Secular-Buddhism is reformulating Buddhism to be more consistent with modern psychology, a dynamic which complicates the question of whether science can be used to show that 'Buddhism is True'. Wright expands on the concept of 'no-self' by presenting a 'modular' model of the mind. The idea is that our mind is composed of modules with different goals, desires, and thought patterns. The modules jostle and compete with each other on the subconscious level. Only when one of them carries a sufficiently strong feeling, do we then become aware of its associated thought on a conscious level. While Wright finds some support for this modular model from the Insight Meditation school, and from psychological research, he formulates it through his own preferred perspective of evolutionary psychology (Darwinian competition within the subconscious mind). Interestingly, the model is extended to suggest how mindfulness can improve our 'self'-control, and to weaken the pull of indulgent or addictive behavior. One of the pleasures of The Evolution of God was its detailed historical examples of the ways in which the 'spiritual marketplace' of competing ideas, and the needs of merchants, kings, and rulers all influenced the development of ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Wright could have also taken this approach with Buddhism, exploring how its history as the state religion of multiple empires has shaped its development over time and place. I was hoping for this, and am disappointed not to find it here. However, Wright instead manages to tackle some pretty subtle philosophical issues, such as the distinction between the Buddhist concept of 'emptiness' (sunyata) and Hindu non-dualism, in a manner that is unusually accessible. He enlivens the discussion with narrative accounts of past conversations and interviews. This book is in many ways a personal account: Wright has found a version of secular-Buddhism that is True for him in his life, and he is bringing us along through his experience and thought process. Unlike many authors on Eastern spirituality, he is in no way trying to present himself as enlightened, or a spiritual teacher or guru. He is refreshingly unpretentious--humorously self-effacing, and transparent about his motivations for writing. And he is a clear writer--he does not try to intimidate us with obtuseness and paradox, even when addressing difficult concepts. The book is not always convincing, but it is engaging, approachable, and thought-provoking.

Favorite Quote: Imagine if our negative feelings, or at least lots of them, turned out to be illusions, and we could dispel them by just contemplating them from a particular vantage point. Synopsis: Recommended by Ryan Holiday, I was curious to read Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright to learn more about how Buddhism and Stoicism are alike. I’ve had a long-standing interest in Buddhism, meditation, and the concept of enlightenment. Wright does an excellent job of taking an extremely nuanced topic and breaking it down for an everyday audience. Why Buddhism is True shares how meditation can help improve your life. Leaning on evolutionary psychology and the move, The Matrix, Why Buddhism is True will help you better understand your mind and actions. Why does this book beguile? This book did not disappoint. Wright comes across as extremely intelligent, yet approachable, and a wee bit irreverent. Wright does a great job throughout Why Buddhism is True to make such philosophical discussions approachable. There are times in the book that are hilariously frustrating when Wright seems to be arguing himself in circles - but that’s the point. Buddhism contradicts itself (much like all religions and mythologies) and Wright works to break out of the infinite loops the literal texts present.

Robert Wright’s book on Buddhism and meditation is an engaging introduction to some of the central tenets of Buddhism as rooted in basic principles of evolutionary psychology. Given the bad press that evolutionary psychology has received recently as a virtual geyser of just-so stories and flawed statistics, I was initially skeptical of what Wright has to bring to the table. But it turns out that most of the evolutionary psychology he talks about is pretty basic and logical. Wright also describes his own experiences with meditation and conversations with leading Buddhist teachers. One of the central points in the book is how our modern life presents us with stimuli that were useful in our prehistoric environment but which cause us to overreact. Meditation makes us realize this and temper down or eliminate our responses and bring peace to our mind. A good example is road rage; in hunter gatherer societies where almost all of the people you met were part of the same group, being angry at someone who might cut you off when you were traveling would have been a useful trait since you would almost certainly deal with this person again and it would be important to keep track of his transgressions, both as payback and as a signal to other members of the tribe to be war of him. In the modern age, the person who cuts you off on a highway is quite certainly someone who you are never going to encounter again in your life, so why bother being angry with him or her? Another example of a trait that is wrongly wired for the jet age is our gratuitous reaction to sugar; while desirous in a prehistoric environment in which sugar was a scarce resource, this response leads to a world of trouble when directed against donuts and ice cream. One can think of other misguided reactions to all kinds of stimuli, especially on social media, that while being useful thousands of years ago, now simply cause anxiety and rage. In general the book does a good job explaining some of the main messages of Buddhism as experienced through meditation, especially the detachment from the “essence” of an object, the very basic realization of the impermanence of feelings, thoughts, objects and events and the foundational value of mindfulness. As someone who has had a limited but rewarding experience with meditation and mindfulness, I can attest to the remarkable reality of recognizing the fleeting and transitory nature of even deeply held beliefs or strongly felt feelings through mere observation of these thoughts and emotions (next time when you feel or think something strongly, simply watch how strong that thought or feeling remains after some time, after even five minutes). Buddhism is supposed to have emerged from Siddhartha Gautama's epiphany that suffering is the bedrock of the world. Assuming suffering to be the default state of life might point to a rather depressing existence, but it's actually better than assuming happiness as the default state, precisely because states of happiness are often illusory and temporary and therefore actually lead to disappointment and pain. And while meditation does not necessarily help us connect with suffering, it certainly allows us to experience the impermanence of happiness; this experience can lead to a much richer, much more real appreciation of life's changing fortunes, and consequently to a mind that is far more at peace than one which is constantly chasing mirages of joy. For me, the most interesting part of the book was where Wright describes our distracted mind through what is called the modular theory of mind. Many neuroscientists now recognize that far from being monolithic, our brain operates through the workings of different modules that compete with and cooperate with each other. Much of these workings are at an unconscious level. How the modules are exactly delineated and whether they are rigid or fluid are open questions, but as Wright describes, what is becoming increasingly clear is that when our mind wanders, it’s not so much that the mind is wandering as that it’s getting “hijacked” by these unconscious modules, each of which vies with the others for grabbing our attention. There is thus an intricate connection between our conscious and unconscious mind, a connection that even flawed theorists like Freud recognized a long time ago. The utility of things like mindfulness and meditation is that they allow us to observe and thus tame this constant competing dance of modules. Wright does a good job talking about some of the very interesting research from behavioral neuroscience that has confirmed the deep influence of subliminal or unconscious thinking on conscious thoughts and actions. It’s also useful to read about Wright’s own experiences with mindfulness, mostly at week long retreats in beautiful places like Barre, Massachusetts, although he sometimes sound too much like a man who has all the answers; has he ever met a Buddhist master who did not validate his already existing beliefs? It would have been enlightening to read about cases where someone actually punctured his deeply held assumptions. Even less satisfying is Wright’s lack of curiosity regarding what actually happens in our brains when we are meditating; while the book bills itself as an account of the "science and philosophy of meditation", there is much more philosophy here than science. There is a short section describing the impact of meditation in calming the brain’s so-called default mode network (DMN) that is active when we are thinking about ourselves and our past and future, and about other people’s thoughts and behavior. There is now good evidence that the default mode network is much less active and more stable in long-term meditators. But apart from this discussion, those who want to find out about the latest research on the neuroscientific basis of meditation will have to look elsewhere. Ultimately, as Wright says in the last part of the book, having everyone get in touch with themselves by following the way of the Buddha might lead not only to personal enlightenment but would also lead to a world that is much more compassionate, peaceful and productive. While this goal is laudable, it reminds me of that quote about theory and practice; in theory there is no difference between the two, but in practice there is. Generally speaking then, Wright’s book is a pleasant introduction to the benefits of meditation and some of the foundational concepts of Buddhism. I have read something of these topics so there was relatively little in here that was novel for me, but if someone is looking for a good, thought-provoking foray into the basic psychological basis of mindfulness, they could easily do worse than this volume.

This is a book that I've been picking away at little by little. I'm not reading it in a big glut, I'm taking it in in pieces. I hesitate to give anything a fully fledged maximally positive review because if you rate something as such, then what do you rate the rare perfect work of complete, utter, unparalleled genius? It's the same argument we use against superlative adverbs like very and super. Gotta reserve those adverbs for the truly rare occasions of greatness. This is a long-winded way for me to say that Robert Wright's book is very very good. I wouldn't say it's perfect. I can't actually describe a flaw, but at the same time it doesn't seem perfect. Then again perfect is rare and is a peak life event. Still -- it seems wrong to give Why Buddhism is True four stars... Some books have an authorial voice that is off-putting (using certain words too much, maybe), or boring. Or discursive. Or overly dry and academic. Or impersonally dispassionate. There are a lot of ways a book can go wrong. Why Buddhism is True has none of these weaknesses. Wright is able to present complex ideas with concision, candor, and intellectual force. I am not well-read on Western psychology but Wright's treatment of Buddhism seems to encompass Western psychology. It applies our Western preference for intellectualization to a subject that seems to be to prefer to exist more on a level of practice. Based on my experiences with meditation and what I've read about it, I do think meditation should be something that's practiced without too much intellectualization. That is, we should just DO IT and not expect things out of it and/or contemplate the mechanisms behind it or the benefits of doing it. It's just something you should do. Why? Maybe the simplest and least controversial answer is that we meditate to experience a different kind of awareness. I'd argue that we meditate to escape the intoxication of egocentric perception, even if for just a moment (and in the act, to find some truths that alleviate our personally-stewed and hair-brained anxieties; but that's just me). Any way around it, this book is great. If you crave an intellectual background for the things you devote yourself to, this book will do it. Meditation however is also an act that is supposed to be carried out w/o motive, w/o need for specific benefit -- allegedly. So, I'd say... Use this book to quell your Western mind, let it anodize your conviction. Ultimately, as far as I'm aware, you do want to practice meditation without putting goals or expectations on it. You just do it.

I haven't finished the book yet....1 quarter left. I first listened to it as an audio on cd's....loved it and am now reading the book as the audio was a bit too fast paced....found myself going back to listen to the last part as I was distracted so often by my own thoughts. Reading allows me to pause and reflect or acknowledge some confusion and clear it up. The book belongs to the local library and so I have purchased a copy for myself so I can underline and make comments in the margins. My background in Buddhism and meditation is in the Vipassana tradition. Attended retreats from one day long to two weeks long. Retreats with Goenka, Shinzen Young, John Travis....multiple times as wall as a few others whose name escapes me. Have studied extensively in the field reading first Ken Wilber, No Boundry....followed by several books by Krishnamurti, Ram Dass, Stephen Levine, Ramana Maharshi, Joseph Goldstein, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, and many, many others....just to let you where I'm coming from. I really like Wrights style....easy and friendly and honest with a great wit. His non-expert, struggling to understand is helpful when he talks with the Pros at retreats. Very reinforcing and supporting with my background. I like the continual emphasis and reminders about mindfulness. It is simply a very good fit for me. I like the depth he goes into of his understanding or lack of. Seems like a great intro to the system as well, and is very encouraging to people to try a meditation retreat and see what's there for them. I have recommended the book to others and sent a copy to my daughter and am looking forward to discussing it with her.

Just a note to say that I listen to this book frequently for its wisdom and also for the narators incredibly calming voice. Buddhism is a life philosophy not a religion. Buddha was a mortal man with no intention of being considered a god. But his wisdom is well worth learning about. The author provides an analysis of the science behind enlightenment. Meditation trains the mind to separate ones feelings from oneself. The biology of the organism is programmed to survive and reproduce in response to the laws of natural selection. In this respect much of what we experience as human is more instinctual and functional than it is under the control of the Self as we believe. The author builds a case that the practice of meditation builds a capacity within to create an objectivity about the feelings which otherwise control our lives and give us more Self Control, appreciation for and symbiosis with beauty. I’m adding to my review to say how much I am enjoying listening to this audiobook. The author speaks in a very calm and soothing, informative and conversational voice. There are no theatrics or dramatizations but he is genuinely communicating his thoughts on the subjects he covers and you can feel his sense of inquiry and discovery. There is no purpose or effort in this book to prove anything, especially in opposition to anything else. The truth in Buddhism that the author is describing is truths that are shared in Christianity as well as psychology and evolutionary science. Truths that philosophers, religious leaders and scientists are all seeking, which is a better understanding of what makes us human and what makes us humane.

One of the main tenets of Buddhism and this book is that our thoughts inevitably come with feelings attached. These feelings can be good or bad, but they are always deceptive. It seems a bit unfair, therefore, to ask reviewers to pick 1-5 stars in order to provide an arbitrary overall rating of the book. You may love it or you may not. For me, there were times when I thought of putting it down. In the end, however, I’m very glad I read it. If you practice mindfulness meditation or are thinking about trying, you should definitely read this book. The author devotes considerable time and effort to his own meditative journey, readily admitting that he wasn’t very good at it to begin with. (Personally, I don’t meditate. But I lived in China for nine years and have a keen interest in Eastern philosophy.) If you’re considering this book because you believe it offers some scientific proof that Buddhism is true, there’s a good chance it won’t quite get there for you. But it all depends on your perspective of science. If, as the phrase popularized by Karl Popper suggests, you hold the conviction that a theory has to be disprovable for it to be scientific, the evidence, I think, will come up short. What Professor Wright does do, however, is use his own experience in meditation, and a whole lot of contemporary psychological research, to build a fairly strong circumstantial case, should you be open to it. Part of the author’s emphasis on meditation appears to be a personal bias toward experiential learning and I tend to share it. If you have the same experience he has had in your journey of meditation then the arguments he presents for the validity of secular Buddhist doctrine will be fairly easy to embrace. One caution, however. One of the limitations to effective debate of anything philosophical, and Buddhism in particular, is the fact that language itself is a human construct developed largely to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Efficient, however, isn’t always effective where issues of philosophy and the nature of the universe are involved. Often times, those attempting to communicate are forced to resort to words that are well outside the vocabulary of most Western secularists. In the case of Buddhism that means words and phrases like, dukkha, tanha, and paticca-samuppada. The professor explains them with clarity, but better to be prepared. Counter-intuitively, the complexity of language that can be necessitated when communicating the nuanced concepts of things like Buddhism can be a handicap for the brilliant and articulate, like Robert Wright. Because these scholars and teachers appreciate the nuance of language most of us don’t, their communication can sometimes present a challenge to the faint of heart. I realized shortly into this book that I should limit my reading to 20 pages at a sitting. Otherwise I experienced the same inability to focus that the author describes in his initial and quickly failed attempts to meditatively focus on his breathing. One concept that the author is crystal clear on is natural selection. Early in the book, Professor Wright notes, “Still, ultimately, natural selection cares about only one thing (or, I should say, “cares”—in quotes—about only one thing, since natural selection is just a blind process, not a conscious designer). And that one thing is getting genes into the next generation.” That belief, both in its veracity and in its relatively shallow depth, is the foundation for much of the connection he draws between Buddhism and the fundamentals of evolutionary psychology. I struggled with that for much of the book, to be honest. I fully embrace evolution, do not identify as a member of any organized religion, and am generally “scientific” in my world view. I resist, however, the characterization that the universe is guided solely by an indiscriminate need to perpetuate the gene pool. Why would it be? In the end, however, Dr. Wright lightens his grip. “I sometimes think this heightened sense of beauty is what can give emptiness [in the Buddhist sense] an ironic moral power.” And, “In any event, I remain flummoxed by what seems to be a natural tendency of contemplative practice to strengthen the sense of beauty.” Implying, of course, that beauty is itself transcendent. It becomes increasingly clear as you read, moreover, that Dr. Wright’s motivation in both pursuing meditation and writing this book itself transcends both meditation and Buddhism. He’s worried about the state of the planet and the destruction brought about by “the psychology of tribalism.” The boundaries of the tribe take many forms, from ethnicity and religion to ideology. All, he suggests, threaten our very existence, much less anything close to social progress. The money line for me was, “We don’t have to love our enemies, but seeing them clearly is essential. And one lesson from both Buddhist philosophy and modern psychology is that seeing them clearly involves dialing down the fear and loathing, but also more than that; it involves transcending much subtler distortions of perception and cognition, often distortions that are grounded in subtler feelings.” And that’s ultimately where the Buddhist notion of emptiness, whether secular or spiritual, places the marker of nirvana, I think. We may never get there, but the reward and the journey are incremental. And that may just be the one structural aspect of the universe we will never fully comprehend. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter. Thank you, Robert Wright, for a very good read.

I should say as a preface that one of the things I need to work on is my tendency to be snarky about things that may be exactly what someone else needs, but that just don't appeal to me where I am right now. Having said that, I expect that there will still be some snark below, but be assured that prior drafts were much worse. My main criticism of this book is that, in the service of making the case that Buddhism (or a subset of it) is compatible with science (or a subset of it), the book presents superficial, and in some cases misleading, pictures of both. Also the author drops a lot of names, which always annoys me. :) If you haven't read the book yet, and are curious about Buddhism or doubtful that it could be true, I certainly wouldn't discourage you from reading it! And you might want to read it first, and then come back and read this after, so that my problems with it don't color your own reading of it. Now, onward to the content! Here is a sentence that captures in extremely compact form some of the things that I would critique in this book: "From the perspective that Einstein considered the truest perspective—the point of view from no particular point—feelings don’t even exist, and so essence doesn’t either." Pretty much everything here is questionable. It rests on the notion that Einstein's physics is based on some "point of view from no particular point"; but this is exactly backwards. The theory of Relativity came out of considering what it would be like if every measurement were seen as relative to its particular reference frame (point of view), and all reference frames were basically equal; there is no special Absolute, no "from no particular point", no "truest perspective". Even if Einstein's physics had included some "view from no particular point", I think we know enough about Einstein the person, to be confident that he would never have thought that in "the truest perspective", "feelings don't exist". Because feelings obviously do exist, and any perspective that says that they don't, is wrong, and therefore not "truest". Feelings may be helpful or unhelpful, rational or otherwise, and so on; but they certainly exist. I found the treatment of "feelings" in the book to be problematic in general. In places they are rather casually identified with the Buddhist categories of clinging and aversion and attachment, but to my mind that is a mistake. Certainly some feelings are feelings of aversion or attachment, but others are just feelings; the cool of water, the joy at beauty, normal hunger and thirst, and those can exist just fine without our clinging to them, or to their absence. The book's argument moves from noting that our feelings aren't always reliable guides to right behavior (which is perfectly reasonable), and that Buddhism counsels not clinging to them or fleeing from them but just letting them be (also fine) to suggesting that feelings don't actually exist, and that people further along the Buddhist path will have fewer of them. That last thing, I think, is confused in an important way. Elsewhere in the book, the author devotes a longish section to the worry that if Buddhist practice causes people to have fewer feelings, they will do less to help make the world a better place. We get somewhat wince-inducing sentences like "If full-on enlightenment means you quit making value judgments of any kind and quit pushing for change, then count me out." to which (and I'm guessing it's because early readers expressed concerns about that sentence) is attached a long footnote about how other people have worried about this, too, and after all "[T]here are people who follow the Buddhist path pretty far, and become happier people, with more equanimity than they had before—and this equanimity does indeed diminish their passion for making the world a better place." (Are there, really? People who were doing good in the world, took up a Buddhist practice, and stopped doing as much good? I'd have to see some evidence for that; if true, I'd say they were Doing It Wrong. On the other hand, if they did more good in the world, but just didn't have as much "passion", how is that a problem?) He concludes that, oh well, most people aren't advanced enough in Buddhism to have become sessile nihilists, and the few that have at least aren't out there making things worse, so maybe it's okay. Which seems like small comfort indeed! The answer to this concern seems very simple to me, and given the author's friends and credentials, it seems odd to me that he doesn't mention it. Maybe I'm wrong, but... Zen masters in stories are always saying things like "Chop wood, carry water", and "When hungry eat; when tired, sleep". No master ever says "Because I do not feel aversion for hunger, I do not eat; because I do not cling to cooking, I do not chop the wood." The author appears in places to be claiming that the only reason for doing anything is that we have an aversion to the way that things are now, and we cling to the idea of them being different, and so we take an action to make a change. But the point of all these stories is that that isn't it. I eat when I am hungry because that is the thing I do when I am hungry, not because I think or feel "oh, no, I am hungry again, I'd better eat!". The monk chops the wood so the fire can be made and the dinner cooked, not because they cling to and identify with and obsess about the shape of the wood, or the making of the fire. It is just the thing that needs to be done. We work to save all sentient beings because that is the thing that we do; we work to feed the hungry because that is what we do when people are hungry, just like we eat to feed ourselves when we are hungry. It's not because we cling to not-hunger, or because we feel aversion for hunger; it's just because it's what one does naturally. Someone far along the Buddhist path will not be burdened with aversion and clinging, and that can mean that they will be more, not less, effective in making the world a better place. In the inner rather than the outer world, the author notes that having fewer bad feelings is good, but we don't want to have fewer good feelings! And that in fact meditation seems to help him enjoy the beauty of nature, while letting him be grouchy less, so maybe it somehow reduces bad feelings more than good. Here, too, I think the answer is that meditation and Buddhist practice aren't about reducing "feelings" per se, at all; they are about reducing clinging to feelings (and to everything else). Reducing clinging helps with appreciating good feelings like beauty, because it quiets that voice that is bemoaning in advance the fact that the beauty is fleeting, and vainly wishing it would stay longer. And it helps in dealing with bad feelings because it helps us stay at just "owch", rather than "owch that hurts, argh why won't it stop, I hate pain, what if it hurts forever!?!?". Okay, so that's that. :) Then there's the "and so essence doesn't either" part. The book spends quite a lot of time on "essence". The idea is that one of the main ways that our senses (or our minds) fool us, is that we "see essence" in all sorts of things. It's not obvious to me just what this is referring to, and there's a footnote that acknowledges the obscurity in a way, by explaining that the meaning of "essence" in the book doesn't correspond completely to how either psychologists or Western philosophers use the term, but instead is "focusing more on people's 'sense' of essence" (where "sense" is both in quotation marks, and in italics), "-- a sense that may be highly implicit". He refers to "seeing essence-of-wonderful-daughter" when he looks at his daughters (and worries, as above, that attaining enlightenment might mean not seeing that anymore). Now I myself have a wonderful daughter, and a wonderful son, but when I look at them I don't see some abstract concept involving essence-of-something; I just see them. And they are wonderful! My impression is that the author's bringing up this notion of "essence", as a sort of pre-Renaissance Luminiferous Aether, lets him more easily make sense of the various Buddhist claims about emptiness, about things not really existing, or not really being what we think we are. By first saying that we see Essence in everything, he can interpret those statements as saying that things are empty of Essence, and that they aren't what we think we are because they don't contain Essence, and so on. And this is very plausible, since Essence isn't a thing at all, so if Buddhism says that things have no Essence, it's true! Unfortunately (or fortunately), I don't think it's that easy. It's not just that a chair doesn't "contain essence-of-chair"; it's that what we call a chair isn't really a thing at all, in the way we tend to assume. "Chair" is just a convenient label that we use. There's some heavy stuff here, both in the Diamond Sutra's constant repetition of phrases like that, and in the modern physics sense that the only underlying "real thing" is the Universal Wave Equation, and everything else is just convenient but inaccurate shorthands. See also Wittgenstein on language as pragmatically-useful symbols that we make at each other, rather than some magical "correspondence to reality". And in the more human realm, if I look at someone and think "oh, there is that mean guy", just realizing "oh, the mean guy doesn't contain essence-of-mean-guy!" isn't going to help me as much as realizing "oh, that's just a person like me, who is sometimes mean; like me!". It's possible, of course, that all this is exactly what the author means by "essence", and I'm just finding the abstraction to be unhelpful and distracting in getting there; maybe someone else will find it helpful. The same general concern applies to "the modular model of the mind", which the author discusses at some length. It's a moderately interesting model itself, but it's just a model rather than a theory, in that it gives us metaphors and ways of thinking about the mind, but doesn't really make any predictions. It's in the book here because one thing it proposes is that we think of the mind, not as a single unified thing, but as set of "modules" that have different goals and roles. It's subtler than, but I have the impression similar to, Freud's ego, id, and superego; and very reminiscent of Minsky's Society of Mind. The author connects this not-unified model of the mind, to the Buddhist idea of not-self, the notion that the self, as a unified self-originating ongoing entity, doesn't exist. The suggestion is that this is compatible with science, because science also says at least that the mind isn't unified, because modular model. But again I don't think this quite works. The Buddhist teaching isn't just that the mind isn't unified. The mind doesn't exist as a set of distinct "modular" self-originating ongoing entities, either. Exactly what the Buddhist teaching of not-self means, and how it relates to subjective consciousness (my own favorite quandary) is a deep mystery, and just "it's like there are a bunch of different modules" doesn't really seem germane. And in fact his fondness for the module theory seems to get in the way of the author's understanding; here as in some other places in the book, he is like the visitor who gets a lap full of tea because his cup is too full for any more to go in: 'In fact, the modular model of the mind has led me to attribute less agency to thoughts than some meditation teachers do. Though these teachers are inclined to say that “thoughts think themselves,” strictly speaking, I’d say modules think thoughts. Or rather, modules generate thoughts, and then if those thoughts prove in some sense stronger than the creations of competing modules, they become thought thoughts—that is, they enter consciousness.' He can of course think that if he wants to, but from the point of view of Buddhist work, it seems like a step backwards: now rather than just realizing that the mind is empty, he's going to have to realize that all of these modules he's convinced himself of, and the metaphorical competition between them, are empty also. Better to have skipped the module stuff altogether, I tend to think. I don't mean to say here that the book is all wrong, or bad. The basic point, that both Buddhism and science tell us that our feelings and thoughts and reactions to things aren't always correct or optimal, and that there are things we can do to improve them, is a good one. But I found the specifics a bit off, not really accurate readings of either the Buddhism or the science, and because of that not especially compelling. So probably it's good that I pretty much already agreed with the basic conclusion. :)

Deep, interesting and highly recommended.

宗教的、儀礼的側面を削ぎ落とし、最新の心理学、脳科学的側面から仏陀の教えの正当性を検証する。 集中力散漫でイラチな著者が悪戦苦闘しながら、悟りに至ることを半ば諦めつつも(？)、瞑想を継続してその効用を説くため妙に説得力がある。retreatでの坐禅中に、先入観(essence)の消失により近所の工事のチェーンソーの雑音が音楽となり、自他の境界が曖昧になることで(not-self)自分の足の痒みと小鳥のさえずりを等値する部分など面白い。 瞑想による個々人の覚醒のみならず、大袈裟に聞こえるかもしれないが最終的には世界平和への道筋までをも考慮。最近のノアハラリ氏の著書とも通ずる部分あり？

Interesting perspective and a great deal of valuable information. The only negative for me was his stated meditation experiences used as examples in the book seem limited and at times trivial.

This is the most wonderful exposition of Buddhism and Mindful Meditation that I have ever read, and I've read a lot of them! Wright has an unashamedly Western perspective and this is what really works about it for me. His is an à-la-carte brand of Buddhism which is secular, scientific, and utterly rational. It leaves out those more supernatural parts of Buddhism which have always been a barrier for me (e.g. Karma and Reincarnation are first mentioned only in the very last chapter, and then only to say that he doesn't believe in them). He has thereby licensed me to be similarly choosey. If I had to single out just one area of the book that really shines, it would be the chapters on emptiness and the absence of essence. I found these hugely helpful, albeit two weeks too late: I started this book having just finished Thich Nhat Hanh's recently published The Other Shore, which is a new translation (paraphrase?) of the Heart Sutra. I wish that I had read Wright's book first! I need to re-read Hahn's book now. As might be expected in any book on Buddhism, a large amount of the discussion is allocated to emotions. Anger, jealously, lust, sadness, etc. all get plenty of airtime. But one emotion that gets conspicuously little explicit mention is love. This for me was the only real gap in the book, so much so that I reckon its omission was no accident. If emotions aren't "real" (excuse my shorthand) and if love is an emotion, then wouldn't it follow that love isn't real, at least as the term is traditionally understood? Perhaps this would be too unpalatable a truth to commit to print. My only other quibble with the book is the very ill-advised title. Although provocative, I think it comes across as preachy and proselytising, even though the book itself is anything but. If the raised eyebrows in my sample size of 4-5 potential readers is anything to go by, the title will be a huge turn-off for many. And that is a terrible shame because this book needs to be read.

Consiglio caldamente la lettura di "The moral animal", dello stesso autore, che è un po' la premessa logica del presente volume. Gli insegnamenti buddisti visti criticamente alla luce della moderna psicobiologia evoluzionistica.