EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Buddhism and Modern Psychology
Robert Wright, Princeton University
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Eightfold Path and the Matrix Notes taken on August 31, 2014 by Edward Tanguay |
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first two noble truths
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the bad news and good news respectively
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the bad news is that life is full of unsatisfactoriness
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the good news is that we have at least isolated the cause: craving, clinging to things that don't last
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third and fourth noble truth
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more good news and then some bad news
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the third noble truth tells us what the cure is, i.e. the abandonment of craving and clinging
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the fourth noble truth spells out the path you are going to have to follow to obtain full liberation, and it turns out that it is an eightfold path, i.e. eight things you have to master if you want to be liberated:
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1. Right View
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2. Right Intention
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3. Right Speech (virtue)
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4. Right Action (virtue)
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5. Right Livelihood (virtue)
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6. Right Effort
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7. Right Mindfulness (meditation)
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8. Right Concentration (meditation)
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many people are surprised that so many items on the list do not have to do with mediation
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most lay Buddhists in Asia don't meditate at all
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many Buddhist monks meditate
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many people in the West feel that Buddhism doesn't have this hangup that the Abrahamic religions have, that there are not all these oppressive lists of do's and don'ts
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however, 3, 4, and 5, have quite a bit of overlap with the ten commandments and in some ways they are more demanding
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e.g. 3. Right Speech
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don't say things that are not true, avoid idle gossip, don't say mean things about people
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7 and 8
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more heavy lifting: abandon craving and clinging, lose our aversion to unpleasant things
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this isn't just liberation, it's enlightenment
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meditative practice exists on a spectrum
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one end: therapeutic practice
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come home from work stressed out
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ten minutes of medication
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don't think about any Buddhist doctrine
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if you can't eliminate all of your unsatisfactoriness, you can eliminate some of it
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other end: practice with goal to achieve nirvana
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in the middle: spiritual practice
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not just about self help
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desire to become a better person
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see world more clearly
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desire to strip yourself from delusions and misconceptions that seem to be happy for human beings
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spiritual practice is about more than self-help
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the Matrix
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modern psychology nor mainstream Buddhism tells us that we are as deluded about reality
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as in in The Matrix movie
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many western Buddhists identify with this film
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call it a Dharma movie
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allegory of a process of overcoming delusion in a significant sense and fighting for liberation
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Buddhist practice in this sense involves having a little Keanu Reeves
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someone who is adamant about seeing things more clearly
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Buddhist enlightenment
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what a psychologist today would say your consciousness would be like if you stripped it of all the misconceptions and delusions that seem to be built into us by natural selection