Scientific American: Can Buddhism save us?

John Horgan (Scientific American, 8/24/17); Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A golden Theravada Buddhist statue of the Buddha (Prowpatareeya Tan/Pixabay)

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A cool book argues that meditation can benefit us individually and globally.

I’m a friend and fan of mega-pundit Robert Wright. We’re obsessed with the same ridiculously big questions:

• What is the meaning of life?
• Does God exist?
• What is human nature?
• How constrained are we by our biology?
• What hope is there for us?

In The Moral Animal, Nonzero and The Evolution of God, Wright explores these riddles with such crisp, assured intelligence that it’s hard figuring out where he goes wrong. But I try to rise to the challenge.

Why Buddhism is True

Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, which hit the bestseller lists, is Wright’s most ambitious book.

Guided by evolutionary psychology (his intellectual lodestar) and Buddhism, he diagnoses humanity’s ills and prescribes a treatment:

We are prone to excessive emotions, like desire, fear, and anger -- and to self-deception, which were instilled in us by natural selection.

But we can overcome these harmful tendencies through meditation, which helps us gain insight into and control over ourselves.

As Wright says in a Wall Street Journal essay, “The Meditation Cure,” meditation “turns out to be one of the best ways to deal with the anxieties and appetites bequeathed to us by our evolutionary history.” More