Most of us became familiar with Buddhism in elementary school and middle school through our study of different religions. The Buddhist idea that often comes to mind is reincarnation. However, we often don’t see Buddhist practices past the religious aspect of it.
Robert Wright, in his book Why Buddhism Is True, explores the connection to science and philosophy that Buddhism correlates to. Wright compares Buddhism to the popular movie The Matrix. The character Neo is stuck living in a hallucination, which he believes to be very real. His body is kept inside of a pod along with many others who were put there by robots. The dreams were designed to keep them pacified. Rebels entered in to Neo’s dream to inform him of his delusional life. Because it’s a difficult thing to explain without seeing, Neo is offered a red pill in order to break through his shell of delusion, but he is also given the chance to take a blue pill to return to his dream world. He chose the red pill.
Following the practices of Buddhism is taking the red pill. The basic premise of Buddhism is to see the metaphysical truth, the way things truly are. Our feelings, thoughts, and perceptions are often illusions. Our brains were designed to delude us. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist, said “Happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.” Buddhists believe that you must deal with the discomfort of being aware of your problems in order to solve them. Meditation is a common way that people choose to reflect on their feelings and see clarity and truth.
Then, there’s the idea of natural selection. We’re all familiar with the idea of natural selection (hopefully), so I’ll describe it briefly to refresh our memories. The idea of natural selection is accredited to Charles Darwin (remember the birds?) and is defined as the process that organisms developed and changed over time to suit their environment to increase their chance of reproduction and survival. One of the ideas expressed by the Buddha was that feelings are often delusional, and he said our feelings are judgments about things within our environment. We can decipher our real feelings from our illusional ones by determining if our feelings lead to the benefit of our well-being, pulling us back to the idea of natural selection.
Two other fundamental ideas of Buddhism are the ideas of not-self and emptiness. The term self is used to describe the mental and physical experiences that make up a person such as feelings, thoughts, ideas, and attitudes. The Five Aggregates (Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations, and Consciousness) can be used to support the idea of not-self. The aggregates are aspects that are out of your control and are constantly changing, so the Buddha create the idea of not-self to stop clinging to these ideals. For example, we cannot willingly change our feelings by saying so; therefore, feelings are not-self. Emptiness is the idea that all things are empty of inherent, independent existence, and this means that nothing stands alone.
Quiz:
1) Name one fundamental principle of Buddhism.
2) How many aggregates are there?
3) What idea do the aggregates help us understand?
4) What movie does Robert Wright use to make a comparison to Buddhism?
5) How can we decide if our feelings are illusional or not?
6) How are feelings described by the Buddha?
Discussion Questions:
1) Have you ever practiced meditation? If so, describe your experience. If not, do you personally believe meditation could positively benefit you?
2) Do you believe it’s possible for everyone to reach nirvana? Why or why not?
3) Does the idea of natural selection share a relation with Buddhist ideas?
4) It could be viewed that Buddhist philosophy could be separated from the religious views. Do you see this concept within other religions? Do you agree? Why or why not?
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