Over the past few months, I
participated in “Buddhism and modern psychology” course taught by Prof. Robert
Wright of Princeton at Coursera.org. It wasn’t my
first MOOC but it was the first one where I had a buddy-student, my wife Gauri.
Having a sounding board made a huge difference, at least to me.
Primary objective of the
course was to look at scientific evaluation of Buddhist ideas such as the Four Noble Truths and
the concept of no-self
(Sunyata). In particular, it
explored following two questions: (1) Is Buddha’s diagnosis of human
predicament true? and; (2) Is Buddha’s prescription powerful and effective? It
didn’t delve into Buddhist ideas such as reincarnation that were not amenable
to scientific evaluation. While the course used various experimental results
from psychology as a reference point, it borrowed primarily from one branch of
psychology called evolutionary psychology.
The question that led Prof. Wright
to this course is: Is there a religion that is compatible with modern science?
I feel he made a good case for Buddhism through this course. However, I was
primarily interested in a much narrower question: Can I build spiritual stamina
systematically through a practice such as meditation? I was more interested in experiential
learning rather than intellectual understanding – perhaps in the same spirit
that Buddha advocated. Here are my 3 take-aways from the course including the as-of-now
answer I found to my question.
Buddha
as a rebel against Natural Selection: Which recording artist
sang the most Buddhist song in the history of popular music? Prof. Wright felt
that Rolling Stones vocalist Mick
Jagger is a strong contender for his famous song “(I can’t get no) satisfaction”.
Buddha has identified perpetual unsatisfactoriness (Dukkha) as a key characteristic of human mind (The first Noble Truth).
Whether it is a toy in the childhood or the salary in the adulthood, we don’t
seem to have enough. Psychologists refer to a closely related concept called hedonic treadmill.
That makes sense from
“selfish gene’s” point of view. Its primary objective is to propagate itself
into the next generation. Hence, it is natural to strive to stand out from the
crowd or outsmart your competition. Hence, if you overestimate the threats from
competitors then that seems fine from natural selection’s point of view. Similarly,
if you overly worry over what you will say on your date, then that makes sense
too. It is not Natural Selection’s agenda that you see the world clearly.
Buddha made a claim that we
can counterprogram our brain to see the world more clearly. As a result, he
said, we will reduce and eventually eliminate the perpetual unsatisfactoriness
altogether. Moreover, he offered a systematic path to move towards to the goal.
That was a bold claim to make 2600 years ago. Hence, Prof. Wright called Buddha
a rebel against Natural Selection.
Clinging
to impermanent things: Buddha says that the root cause of
perpetual unsatisfactoriness is our tendency to cling to impermanent things
(Second Noble Truth). Impermanence as a concept is not new to us. We know that
everything in nature – clouds, trees, animals, you and I as well as things we
make and own such as clothes, phone, car, money come and go. So what’s the big
deal here? Well, according to Buddha, the mistake we make is to cling to these
objects and make them a part of our “self”. As a result, whenever my car gets a
dent, I am hurt.
Buddha says that just observing
this clinging process is itself an important step in reducing the clinging. How
do we do it? The idea is to focus our attention inward on the objects in our
experience such as sense-perceptions, thoughts, emotions etc. as they arise and
pass away. For example, we can put attention on irritation as it arises and
subsides. When I did that on some occasions something strange happened. The intensity
of the emotion decreased. I found it easier to try this in simple situations
like waiting in grocery checkout counter or while stuck in the traffic jam etc.
You might say, these are really simple situations. Will this really work in
conflicts where we are deeply hurt ? Well, it depends upon whether your
spiritual muscle is sufficiently developed. That is where we turn to the systematic
practice Buddha recommended.
Mindfulness
meditation: Prof. Wright interviewed four Buddhist monks / spiritual
teachers and three psychologists during the course. One of the spiritual
teachers Prof. Wright interviewed
is Joseph Goldstein.
Joseph has been practicing and teaching Mindfulness meditation (also called
Vipassana or insight meditation) for the past forty years and is a co-founder
of Insight Meditation Society. Accordingly
to him, Mindfulness involves three things: (1) living in the present moment (as
opposed to thinking of past and future) (2) presence of an awareness that
watches and; (3) presence of an open and compassionate filter through which
this observation happens (as opposed to aversion and greed). Note that this
definition does not include any particular sitting posture or a secluded
environment. As per this definition you could be meditating while in a meeting with
your boss. So why do we associate meditation with the image of sitting cross
legged with eyes closed?
Well, it is like practicing
in a laboratory environment where we have reduced the number of distractions to
the minimum. That makes it easy to get started. In fact, the silent retreats prohibit
phones, reading, TV and even talking. Sometimes
the sitting practice is considered analogous to a musician doing scales
practice. However, unless you are able to integrate this practice with
day-to-day activities, it does not take you very far. Are there any progress
indicators in meditation?
Joseph offers an interesting
progress indicator. He calls it Noticings Per Minute (NPM). How many things can
you notice arising and passing away in a minute? Apparently a novice notices
perhaps 10 or 15 things. But as you advance in your practice, your perception
is heightened, compulsive thinking has slowed down and your NPM goes way up
(perhaps several hundreds). For starters, I have begun to notice the dust on my
table J and
have begun cleaning it more regularly.
One of the psychologists Prof.
Wright interviewed is Dr.
Judson Brewer. Brewer is an addiction psychiatrist at Yale. He belongs to a
group of scientists who study the science of meditation and investigate if it
can be used as a tool to improve life. For example, in a randomized control
trial, Brewer and team found that Mindfulness training was twice as effective
as the gold standard “Freedom from smoking” in reducing the smoking addiction
(see his TED talk).
These scientists have used real-time neural feedback from brain during
meditation and found out how wandering mind activity can be seen visually. In
an unrelated Harvard study (2010) titled “A
wandering mind is an unhappy mind”, Killingsworth and Gilbert present the
result of a study involving a quarter of million samples from 5000 people in 83
countries representing 86 occupational categories.
Sources: Photos: Buddha (from my wife Gauri), Prof. Wright (from his
class video), fMRI scan (from Dr. Brewer’s TED talk). Thanks to Gauri for
reviewing the post and useful suggestions.
