Buddhist View of Mind and Emotion

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Buddhist View of Mind and Emotion

• September 2003
• Gross Lab presentation

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Scientific Method

• Principles and procedures for the systematic
  pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition
  and formulation of a problem, the collection of
  data through observation and experiment, and the
  formulation and testing of hypotheses. Websters
  Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
• Does Buddhism include this procedure in its
  inquiry into the nature of the mind and
  consciousness?
• Fundamental spirit of empiricism and skepticism
• Repeated examination of philosophical views,
  third-person reports, and first-person experience

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Framework of Buddhist theory and practice Four
Noble Truths

• The truths of suffering
• recognize the nature and full range of
  conditioned suffering to which humans are
  vulnerable
• The source of suffering
• hypothesis that the fundamental causes of
  suffering are to be found within the mind,
  specifically in terms of cognitive, emotional,
  and attentional imbalances
• The cessation of suffering together with its
  source
• afflictive tendencies can be incontrovertibly
  dispelled from the mind
• The path leading to that cessation
• detailed procedures for collecting data by
  observing mental processes and experimenting with
  techniques for understanding core mechanisms and
  then adjusting mental processes and dissolving
  the potency of afflictive components

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The Buddhist Endeavor

• Primary emphases
• Normal mind is habitually conditioned to specific
  modes of attentional, emotional, and cognitive
  imbalances, but is not intrinsically or
  irrevocably dysfunctional
• Identification and extrication of primary cause
  of confusion invalid cognitions about
  ontological status of self and objects
• Facilitate development of long-term beneficial
  qualities
• (i.e., patience, compassion, skillful means,
  clarity, insight, spontaneity)
• Fundamentally pragmatic orientation
• Ethical conduct (ahimsa - not harming others and
  self)
• self-regulation of behavior, thought, and emotion
• Mental concentration (agility and awareness)
• attention training to dispel imbalances of laxity
  and excitation, and to attain stable, lucid, and
  calm mind
• Wisdom understanding nature of existence
  (flexibility, non-dual perception and cognition)
• free the mind of afflictions, obscurations,
  misconceptions

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Is it possible to observe mental states and
processes with the mind?

• Even with no mental training, we can detect
• Emotional states
• Observe thoughts and images arising in the mind
• Introspectively recognize from moment to moment
  whether our minds are calm or agitated
• Perceive that we are consciously aware of
• objects of consciousness
• the presence of our own consciousness of other
  things

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Madhyamaka Middle Way View

• Pinnacle of Buddhist philosophy
• Both physical and mental phenomena have no
  independent or permanent ontological status
• Mere localized appearances emerging from a
  network of non-local correlations
• Things exist as dependently related events, not
  as autonomous, inherently existent, localized
  entities

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5 Aggregates of Personhood

• Forms
• Feelings
• Discernments
• Compositional factors
• Consciousness

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Consciousness

• Mind cognizes the mere entity of an object
• 6 types visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory,
  sensory, mental awareness
• Mental factors cognizes features of an object
• 5 omnipresent, 5 determining, 11 virtuous,
• 6 root afflictions 6 root afflictions, 20
  secondary afflictions,
• 4 changeable

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5 Omnipresent Mental Factors

• Necessarily accompany all levels and states of
  mind
• All 5 are needed to experience an object
• Feeling
• pleasure, pain, neutrality the fruitions of
  previous virtuous and non-virtuous actions
• Discernment
• Differentiation and identification of objects
• Attention
• Moves and directs mind towards its object in
  general mental action of intention
• Contact
• Serves as basis for feeling and distinguishing an
  object as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral
• Mental engagement
• Directs min to a specific object

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5 Determining Mental Factors

• Aspiration
• Observes a contemplated object and seeks it
• Serves as basis for initiation of effort
• Faith, aspiration, effort and pliancy are the
  antidotes to laziness
• Belief
• Keeps the mind from being captivated by another
  view
• Mindfulness
• Non-forgetfulness, non-distraction for a familiar
  object
• Stabilization
• One-pointedness of mind for an imputed object
  mental equipose serves as the base for vipassana
  (special insight)
• Knowledge/wisdom
• Differentiates faults and virtues of objects of
  analysis overcomes doubt

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11 Virtuous Mental Factors

• Faith (clarity, conviction, with to attain)
• Shame
• avoidance of misconduct due to ones own
  disapproval)
• Embarrassment
• (avoidance of misconduct due to others
  disapproval)
• Non-attachment (for this cyclic existence and its
  content)
• Non-hatred (absence of intent to harm)
• Non-ignorance (analytic prowess)
• Effort (mental delight in virtue)
• Pliancy (of mind and body towards virtue)
• Conscientiousness (keeps mind from contamination,
  distortions)
• Equanimity (evenness of mind)
• Non-harmfulness (compassionate attitude)

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6 Root Afflictions

• Cause mental imbalance
• Desire (that generates suffering)
• Anger (that intends to harm)
• Pride (enhanced and mistaken self-view)
• Ignorance (obscuration with respect to
  intentional action and their effects and to mode
  of existence of all phenomenon)
• Doubt (ambivalence)
• Afflicted view ( 5 types self and others)

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20 Secondary Afflictions

• Belligerence
• Resentment
• Concealment
• Spite
• Jealousy
• Miserliness
• Deceit
• False countenance
• Haughtiness
• Harmfulness

• Non-shame
• Non-embarrassment
• Lethargy
• Excitement
• Non-faith
• Laziness
• Non-conscientiousness
• Forgetfulness
• No-introspection
• Distraction

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4 Changeable Factors

• Become virtuous, non-virtuous, or neutral by the
  power of motivation
• Sleep
• Contrition (remorse, regret)
• Investigation
• Analysis

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Four Applications of Mindfulness

• 1) contemplation of the body as impure
• 2) contemplation of feeling as suffering
• 3) contemplation of thoughts as impermanent
• 4) contemplation of all phenomenon as devoid of
  inherently existing self

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Emotion in Varjayana Practice

• Commitment not to reject the five poisons the
  emotions of attachment, anger, ignorance, pride
  and jealousy because they are the basis of
  realizing wisdom, since they will never be found
  anywhere other than in the emotions
• Necessary to work with the different objects that
  give rise to emotional reactions in order to
  experience the corresponding wisdom
• The very objects of attachment, hatred and so
  forth, become the means to liberation from
  emotional conflict
• Extracting the energy, dissolving the affliction

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Buddhist View of Emotion

• A definite feeling in the mind that is both a
  reaction and a driving force
• A mental state that starts the instant the mind
  functions in a dualistic mode, long before the
  normal person is conscious of it
• The habitual clinging that makes us automatically
  categorize our experiences according to whether
  our ego finds them
• attractive (desire, grasping at an object)
• unattractive (anger, aversion, rejecting,
  repulsion)
• neutral (ignorance that drives a view of reality
  that induces suffering a definite state
  of mind which causes us to act in a certain way)
• considering our own experience as predominant
  (pride)
• judging our own position in relation to the
  object perceived (jealousy)
• These are the 5 poisons because these reactions
  poison and obscure our mind and prevent the
  development of balanced mind and wisdom.
• The more clinging there is, the stronger our
  reactions will be, until we reach a point where
  they finally break into our conscious mind and
  manifest as the obvious feelings we usually call
  emotions
• Ideal qualities spontaneous, instantaneous
  compassion, skillfulness and penetrating wisdom
  of all contexts, people, and states of mind

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Meditation and Immune Research Findings

• randomized, controlled study 8-week mindfulness
  meditation stress reduction program applied in a
  work environment with healthy employees
• significant increases in left-sided anterior EEG
  activation, a pattern previously associated with
  positive affect, in the meditators compared with
  the nonmeditators 4 months post-program
• significant increases in antibody titers to
  influenza vaccine among subjects in the
  meditation compared with those in the wait-list
  control group
• magnitude of increase in left-sided activation
  predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to
  the vaccine
• Davidson et al. Psychosom Med. 2003
  Jul-Aug65(4)564-70

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Eight-fold Path

• right view
• right thought
• right speech
• right action
• right mode of living
• right endeavor
• right mindfulness
• right concentration