Why Buddhism is true
- Simon & Schuster, 2017
- xii, 321 pages ; 24 cm
the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment
Taking the red pill Paradoxes of meditation-- When are feelings illusions?-- Bliss, ecstasy, and more important reasons to meditate-- The alleged nonexistence of your self-- Your CEO is MIA-- The mental modules that run your life-- How thoughts think themselves-- 'Self' control-- Encounters with the formless-- The upside of emptiness-- A weedless world-- Like, wow, everything is one (at most)-- Nirvana in a nutshell-- Is enlightenment enlightening?-- Meditation and the unseen order-- Appendix: A list of Buddhist truths.--
At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer -- and the reason we make other people suffer -- is that we don't see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: we can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly, and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. Robert Wright not only shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life -- how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred -- but also how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. Drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, Wright explains why the path toward truth and the path toward happiness are the same path. In the light of modern science, both the Buddhist diagnosis and the Buddhist prescription make a whole new kind of sense. This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright's book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world's most skilled meditators. It shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.