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| When will the world end? Are these End Times? |
Did the Buddha have anything to say about distorted perception, the world we are seeing being unreal, hallucinations, perversions, or wrong views?
The whole of the Teaching or Dharma is to develop right view, which is liberating. The meaning of "awakening" (bodhi, enlightenment) is seeing things as they really are. For in seeing things accurately, we would not cling or engage in such karma as brings about suffering.
We might misunderstand anything, but the Buddha focuses on four distortions, things we are misconstruing to our detriment here and now no matter what else we know or are seeing correctly. Andrew Olendzki translates:
SUTRA: "Distortions"
O meditators, there are four distortions of perception, distortions of thought, distortions of view [distortions of mind]. What are the four?...
Sensing no change in what is changing,
Sensing pleasure in what is disappointing,
Assuming "self" in what is impersonal,
Sensing beauty in what is repulsive —
Gone astray, full of wrong views, beings
Misperceive with distorted minds.
In bondage to Mara's bonds,
Such people are far from safety.
They are beings who go on flowing:
Going again from death to birth.
But when in a world of darkness
Buddhas arise to make things bright
They present a profound Teaching
That brings an end to all suffering.
When those with wisdom have heard this,
They recuperate their right minds:
They see change in what is changing,
Suffering in what is disappointing,
"Not-self" in what is impersonal,
Unloveliness in what is unlovely.
By accepting right view,
They overcome all suffering.
COMMENTARY
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: These verses from the Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya) give the traditional list of the "distortions" (vipallasas). This Pali word is sometimes translated as "perversions" of mind, but I find this language too strong and prefer the expression "distortions" of mind.
The term is composed of a prefix (vi-), which carries the sense of division, separation, or removal like the prefix (pari-), which means "around or complete" (as in the English word peri-meter) and a verb (-as), which can be taken to mean "to throw."
Putting it together, we have the image of the mind taking something up, turning it around, and throwing it back down — a perversion or distortion of reality by the perceptual and cognitive apparatus of the thinking process.
These distortions are fundamental to the Buddhist definition of delusion or ignorance.
It is not that we are inherently flawed by nature, but rather that we make some serious errors on many levels as we attempt to make sense of the world (sensory data) around us.
As we come to recognize — through calm and insight meditation practices — some of the ways we misconstrue things about our experience, we become more able to correct these errors and gain clarity.
Distortions of mind work on three levels of scale.
- First, distortions of perception (sañña-vipallasa) cause us to misperceive the information coming to us through the sense doors. We might mistake a rope on the ground as a snake, for example. Normally such errors of vision (optical illusions) are corrected by more careful scrutiny, but sometimes these sensory mistakes go unnoticed and remain.
- Distortions of thought (citta-vipallasa) have to do with the next higher level of mental processing, when we find ourselves thinking about or pondering over things in mind. The mind tends to elaborate on perception with these thought patterns, and if thoughts are based on distortions of perception, then they too will be distorted.
- Eventually such thought patterns can become habitual and devolve into distortions of view (ditthi-vipallasa). We might become so convinced that there is a snake on the ground that no amount of evidence to the contrary (from our own eyes or reason or investigation, nor the advice of others) will shake our wrong beliefs and assumptions. We are stuck in a mistaken view.
Furthermore, these three levels of distortion are cyclical. Our perceptions are formed in the context of our views, which are strengthened by our thoughts, and all three work together to build the cognitive systems that make up our unique personality.
People will no doubt recognize that the particular distortions mentioned in this text correspond to the Three Universal Characteristics of Existence:
- Taking what is impermanent (anicca) to be permanent,
- taking what is inherently unsatisfactory (dukkha) as a source of fulfillment,
- taking what is impersonal (anatta) to constitute a self.
These are the primary ways we distort reality to the profound disadvantage of ourselves and others.
4. Seeing the unlovely (asubha), the foul and repulsive, as lovely rounds out the traditional list of four vipallasas.
These verses say that when under the influence of these distortions, we have "lost our senses" (vi-saññino) and our mind is "broken" or "thrown" (khitta-citta) [distorted like clay thrown down on an off-kilter clay wheel of suffering].
When the distortions are corrected by right view, clear thinking and accurate perception, then the text says that we have "gotten back" or restored (
pacca-latthu) our "true mind" (
sa-citta).
This is the Buddhist view of mental disease and mental health. Delusion is a mental illness that causes all sorts of suffering; mental health can be restored by correcting the flaws in how the mind operates.
Buddhism and science
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| Freud and the Buddha |
Various modern therapists have written on the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy. These include Mark Epstein (Thoughts Without a Thinker, 1995, Psychotherapy Without the Self, 2008), Jeffrey B. Rubin, Andrew Olendzki, and Nina Coltart (1927–1997) [135].- Various authors such as William S. Waldron and David Galin have also written about the Buddhist assertion that there is no self (anatta, that all things are impersonal) and how it can provide insights to the development of more dynamic, conditional, and constructivist views of personality, personal identity and self [136]. Daniel Goleman has argued that the Buddhist view of emptiness (not-self) "may turn out to fit the data far better than the notions that have dominated Psychological thinking for the last century" [137].
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| The ego need not "die." It is unreal and unalive |
Robert Wright has argued (in his 2017 Why Buddhism Is True) that the Buddhist analysis of human suffering and delusion is fundamentally correct and that this is backed up by evolutionary psychology, which helps explain how natural selection hardwired humans with powerful but distorted cognitions and emotions which are effective at getting us to survive and pass on our genes in a pre-historic environment. These cognitive modules do not depict reality as it is and do not often lead to well-being [138]. Wright also thinks that the Buddhist view of not-self (anatta) is compatible with modern psychological understandings of the mind. He cites various modern studies... More: Buddhism and science- See also Buddhism and psychology, Buddhist personality types
- Andrew Olendzki (trans.), Vipallasa Sutta: "Distortions of the Mind" (AN 4.49 PTS: A ii 52) edited by Dhr. Seven and Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly, Summer 2024 plus Wiki edit
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