221: Robert Wright

• The Wolf Parable
• His book, Why Buddhism is True
• Evolutionary Psychology
• That according to Evolutionary Psychology we’re wired to do what’s best to propagate our genes into the next generation
• And how sometimes doing that might not be what’s best for ourselves or the world
• That we’re wired for a recurring dissatisfaction or discontented so we’d keep doing the things that would move us toward our goal of passing our genes on to the next generation
• Craving and Aversion
• Not following craving and aversion as guides are central to Buddhism
• According to Buddhism if we don’t run from unpleasant feelings like sadness, anxiety etc, they will actually become less painful over time
• That the Buddha intuited a lot of things that we now know to be true according to modern science and evolutionary psychology
• How our thoughts can sometimes subtlely influence us – ex Cognitive Bias
• Cognitive Bias being driven by emotion rather than being rational & Buddhism teaches that
• The Buddhist conception of the mind/brain and modern psychology’s conception of the mind/brain are very aligned
• In the cognitive battle for attention, the thought that “wins” is the one that has the most feeling attached to it
• How meditation can help give you clarity on thoughts and feelings and the difference between the two
• CBT & questioning your thoughts and feelings in Buddhism
• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Allowing and observing rather than acting on our strong feelings
• The anguish we add to physical pain by the anticipation of it or the lamenting of it
• Essences that we impute into things
• The idea of not self and what it means
• The benefit of parceling out the things that we identify – like anxious feelings – as not being ourselves
• Thinking you’re not cut out for meditation

Robert Wright Links