Why Buddhism is True

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

This book examines the science behind the claim that a mindfulness practice such as meditation has benefits such as a sharper attention span and decreased stress, anger and depression.

Wright, a professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary, is an authority on evolutionary psychology, having written The Moral Animal and The Evolution of God. This branch of psychology theorizes that memory, perception, language, moral foundations are the functional products of natural selection. Wright contends that evolutionary psychology echoes important themes in Buddhism.

For instance, Buddhism claims that the reason we suffer and make other people suffer is that we don't see the world clearly. Having illusions about ourselves, about others, and about the world leads to suffering. Evolutionary psychology says that the human mind was not designed to see reality clearly.  In fact, in some cases, natural selection actually favors illusions. Natural selection favors traits that will get the animal’s genes into the next generation. For example, naturally a middle-aged man will have illusions about having the charm, looks, and sex appeal that will attract a comely female half his age.

Lots of awkwardness – and suffering - just to get one’s genes into the next generation but that’s the way it goes. Having an illusion – i.e., a distorted view of yourself or of other people or of the world - has propelled genes into the next generation, so then distortion can be built into the human mind. The other problem, of course, is that our brains were designed to get along and prosper in hunting/gathering cultures in the Horn of Africa, not being efficient at project management in Zoom meetings.

Natural selection has not designed us human beings to be happy. If being unhappy, anxious, frustrated, dissatisfied, or restless has gotten genes into the next generation over millions of years, then those things will be encouraged by natural selection. Once we get what we think we want or need, we are prone to become discontented quickly and easily and want more or different.

The Buddha, Wright says, had a good bead on the connection between seeing the world in a faulty way and craving for more and novel and seemingly satisfying. We keep seeking more because the resulting gratification never lasts. We suffer from the illusion that it will last longer than it does.  “I’ll be happy now that I’m rich.” Then: “Gotta watch these employees every second. Frickin’ everybody thinks I’m the one who’s gonna pick up the tab. Cadging relatives. Taxes. Red tape. Everybody wants my money. But it’s mine!” According to Buddhism, not thinking about how fast the rush of accomplishment going to evaporate and how you will return to your normal amount of happiness is parts of illusion.

Meditation is method to break out of illusion and craving.  Mindfulness meditation in particular helps us develop a different kind of relationship to our feelings. While focusing on our breathing, our mind gets calmer and we become able to look coolly at feelings that normally we would just react to and go into suffering mode by ruminating, fretting, craving, whatever. It is not a matter of shutting hatred, anger, envy, sadness down but observing it. By paying attention to it, it has less of a grip on you, the less it is going to push you around, the less you are going to let it push you around.

So the less we see our minds as being the coach/CEO in total control, the more control we have over our feelings. May be worth thinking about, getting through the next six months.