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

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ALSO BY ROBERT WRIGHT

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Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2017 by Robert Wright

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4391-9545-1

ISBN 978-1-4391-9547-5 (ebook)

For Terri, Mike, Becki, and Linda

A Dream Play by August Strindberg, as adapted by Caryl Churchill

A ny book with a title like Why Buddhism Is True should have some careful qualification somewhere along the way. We might as well get that over with:

1. Im not talking about the supernatural or more exotically metaphysical parts of Buddhismreincarnation, for examplebut rather about the naturalistic parts: ideas that fall squarely within modern psychology and philosophy. That said, I am talking about some of Buddhisms more extraordinary, even radical, claimsclaims that, if you take them seriously, could revolutionize your view of yourself and of the world. This book is intended to get you to take these claims seriously.

2. Im of course aware that theres no one Buddhism, but rather various Buddhist traditions, which differ on all kinds of doctrines. But this book focuses on a kind of common corefundamental ideas that are found across the major Buddhist traditions, even if they get different degrees of emphasis, and may assume somewhat different form, in different traditions.

3. Im not getting into super-fine-grained parts of Buddhist psychology and philosophy. For example, the Abhidhamma Pitaka, a collection of early Buddhist texts, asserts that there are eighty-nine kinds of consciousness, twelve of which are unwholesome. You may be relieved to hear that this book will spend no time trying to evaluate that claim.

4. I realize that true is a tricky word, and asserting the truth of anything, certainly including deep ideas in philosophy or psychology, is a tricky business. In fact, one big lesson from Buddhism is to be suspicious of the intuition that your ordinary way of perceiving the world brings you the truth about it. Some early Buddhist writings go so far as to raise doubts about whether such a thing as truth ultimately exists. On the other hand, the Buddha, in his most famous sermon, lays out what are commonly called The Four Noble Truths, so its not as if the word true has no place in discussions of Buddhist thought. In any event, Ill try to proceed with appropriate humility and nuance as I make my argument that Buddhisms diagnosis of the human predicament is fundamentally correct, and that its prescription is deeply valid and urgently important.

5. Asserting the validity of core Buddhist ideas doesnt necessarily say anything, one way or the other, about other spiritual or philosophical traditions. There will sometimes be logical tension between a Buddhist idea and an idea in another tradition, but often there wont be. The Dalai Lama has said, Dont try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a better Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are.

Robert Wright

A t the risk of overdramatizing the human condition: Have you ever seen the movie The Matrix ?

Its about a guy named Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), who discovers that hes been inhabiting a dream world. The life he thought he was living is actually an elaborate hallucination. Hes having that hallucination while, unbeknownst to him, his actual physical body is inside a gooey, coffin-size podone among many pods, rows and rows of pods, each pod containing a human being absorbed in a dream. These people have been put in their pods by robot overlords and given dream lives as pacifiers.

The choice faced by Neoto keep living a delusion or wake up to realityis famously captured in the movies red pill scene. Neo has been contacted by rebels who have entered his dream (or, strictly speaking, whose avatars have entered his dream). Their leader, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne), explains the situation to Neo: You are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, into a prison that you cannot taste or see or toucha prison for your mind. The prison is called the Matrix, but theres no way to explain to Neo what the Matrix ultimately is. The only way to get the whole picture, says Morpheus, is to see it for yourself. He offers Neo two pills, a red one and a blue one. Neo can take the blue pill and return to his dream world, or take the red pill and break through the shroud of delusion. Neo chooses the red pill.

Thats a pretty stark choice: a life of delusion and bondage or a life of insight and freedom. In fact, its a choice so dramatic that youd think a Hollywood movie is exactly where it belongsthat the choices we really get to make about how to live our lives are less momentous than this, more pedestrian. Yet when that movie came out, a number of people saw it as mirroring a choice they had actually made.