Mind, Brain and the Path to Happiness

A GUIDE TO BUDDHIST MIND TRAINING AND THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MEDITATION

Dusana Dorjee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415626149
• eBook ISBN: 9781134517749
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Mind, Brain and the Path to Happiness presents a contemporary account of traditional Buddhist mind training and the pursuit of wellbeing and happiness in the context of the latest research in psychology and the neuroscience of meditation.

Following the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Dzogchen, the book guides the reader through the gradual steps in transformation of the practitioner's mind and brain on the path to advanced states of balance, genuine happiness and wellbeing. Dusana Dorjee explains how the mind training is grounded in philosophical and experiential exploration of the notions of happiness and human potential, and how it refines attention skills and cultivates emotional balance in training of mindfulness, meta-awareness and development of healthy emotions. The book outlines how the practitioner can explore subtle aspects of conscious experience in order to recognize the nature of the mind and reality. At each of the steps on the path the book provides novel insights into similarities and differences between Buddhist accounts and current psychological and neuroscientific theories and evidence. Throughout the book the author skilfully combines Buddhist psychology and Western scientific research with examples of meditation practices, highlighting the ultimately practical nature of Buddhist mind training.

Mind, Brain and the Path to Happiness is an important book for health professionals and educators who teach or apply mindfulness and meditation-based techniques in their work, as well as for researchers and students investigating these techniques both in a clinical context and in the emerging field of contemplative science.

Chapter 1

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Kinds of happiness

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Science and Buddhism: On happiness

We spend our lives searching for happiness. Indeed, both science and Buddhist teachings acknowledge happiness as the main motivating factor of human behavior. However, interpretations of what happiness is differ greatly across traditions and people, as do ways to find it. Many people think that family, relationships and work achievements will make them happy. Others would put money on the top of their happiness list; and some seek happiness in the pursuit of truth or justice. So while we all seek happiness, one of the main tasks in our lives is to understand what happiness is and to choose the right path to find it.

As we start our exploration of kinds of happiness, it can be useful to distinguish two basic types. First, there is hedonistic happiness, bound to pleasure of possessing something desirable. For example, the pleasure of having a fine dinner, driving a new car, looking good, achieving at work, being popular and so on are on the hedonistic scale, all supposed to result in more happiness. If simply judging based on the number of TV programs and events devoted to culinary competitions, popularity contests and fashion shows, hedonistic happiness dominates Western culture. It is, for the most part, the focus of the consumer-oriented society in which various products promise to make us look more attractive, smart or successful. The downside is that hedonistic happiness is usually short-lived and closely bound to its source – if the fine dinner is over, the pleasure which accompanied it is gone as well.

The second type of happiness seeks fulfillment not in pleasure, but in the pursuit of something worthy in the deeper sense. This type of happiness comes from accomplishing our highest potential, from looking for meaning in life, going beyond the ordinary and often reaching beyond our own self. Aristotle used the term eudaimonic happiness to describe this view (Aristotle 1985). In contrast to hedonistic happiness, eudaimonic happiness is longer-lasting. This is because it is linked to our long-term goals, our ways of thinking about life and its meaning, our general mind set or level of awareness. Importantly, eudaimonic happiness is usually not bound to an external source. For the most part, it does not depend on our material possessions and their limitations. So its long-term effects and less reliance on the material make eudaimonic happiness more available and worth pursuing, even though our culture, sadly, does not highlight this enough.

Hedonistic and eudaimonic happiness also differ in their consequences for our well-being. If we focus on hedonistic happiness, we spend our lives constantly seeking new or more potent sources of pleasure. Our minds and brains easily get used to the pleasure-inducing experiences and we want to experience more of them and in a more intensive way. If this craving slips out of control, we can develop an addiction. There are plenty of examples of addictions, ranging from the most obvious kinds such as alcohol and nicotine, to more subtle ones, for instance obsessive shopping. Most of them share similar mechanisms of disruption in brain systems related to motivation, inhibition of behavior and affect (Goodman 2008). For example, some research shows that, at least to some extent, overeating resulting in obesity is linked to an imbalance in pleasure-related neurotransmitters in the brain (Cota et al. 2006).

In contrast, eudaimonic happiness directly supports our well-being and is much less subject to harmful addictions. It is linked to nourishing experiences which encourage our potential for self-exploration, understanding of the world and our place in it. Reliance on worthy goals develops stability and balance in our lives and helps us overcome challenges and difficulties (Ryff and Singer 2008). In this way, some people are able to turn their struggles with illness, loss and misfortune into a drive to improve the lives of others similarly affected. One example for many: mothers of recently deceased UK soldiers have set up a charity in support of similarly affected families. There are also everyday situations where we can see people developing themselves and contributing to their community: sports coaches helping young people find more grounding in their lives, young people volunteering their time and energy to improve environmental awareness and many more.

When it comes to happiness, Western neuroscience has so far mainly focused on an exploration of pleasure-seeking behavior and avoidance of pain. This research suggests that neurotransmitter changes in frontal lobe structures of the brain, especially the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex, play a central role in pleasure and pain experiences (Kringelbach and Berridge 2009). The neural basis of eudaimonic happiness is virtually unexplored. It has been proposed, though, that brain structures linked to eudaimonia are mostly different from those involved in hedonistic happiness. They may involve temporal and frontal lobe areas subserving memory and thinking, including contemplations about self.

Buddhist notions of happiness resonate with the concept of eudaimonic happiness and extend it further. The meaning of life from the Dzogchen point of view is in finding the ultimate understanding of our existence and reality. Here the central idea is that genuine happiness cannot be found in the external world, but can only arise from a balanced, compassionate and wise mind. This involves balance of motivation and values, stabilized attention, emotional balance, and finally, a deep understanding of our mind and its place in the world. In this context, compassion and wisdom are the central attributes of a happy and healthy mind and they complement each other. Compassion represents the courage to see our existence, others and the world around us clearly without the preconceptions of stereotypes, fear and avoidance. It increases our ability to see the obvious and also more subtle forms of our and others' suffering, and results in a genuine wish to be free from suffering. This leads to a growing understanding that all forms of suffering originate from a profane and unbalanced mind.

The Buddhist notion of happiness and its development are quite revolutionary. The mind training typically starts with contemplations on the limitations of pleasure-based happiness. In the tradition of Dzogchen the practices show that lasting happiness is to be found in a deeper meaning of life, but what is meant here supersedes usual notions of eudaimonic happiness and includes the ultimate understanding of reality. This wisdom is closely bound to advanced well-being of a healthy balanced mind. Overall, the Buddhist emphasis on mind training provides a unique opportunity for enrichment of psychological and neuroscientific research on happiness. Such collaboration has the potential to transform our knowledge about happiness and well-being, and about ways to develop them fully.

Hedonistic happiness and time

Buddhist teachings point to some fundamental problems of hedonistic happiness, one of them being its impermanence. Pleasure-based happiness is closely bound to its source, and if its source is gone, the pleasure ends. If a relationship makes us happy, we are unhappy when the relationship is over. If we are proud of our achievements, we become unhappy once they are forgotten or when we do not receive the usual praise. In short, change is the ultimate enemy of hedonistic happiness and unfortunately, all sources of pleasure are subject to change. Let's examine this more closely.

Material possessions are the most obvious cases of the impermanent nature of hedonistic happiness. We often crave new things and, when we get them, we feel happy. Buying a new car is a good example. For most people a car purchase is a big event. It often becomes a sign of maturity or a mark of financial independence. In the USA, most teenagers cannot wait until they are 16 and can finally drive their first car. When we get our first job, often one of the first big purchases is a car and there is a lot of initial excitement and pleasure connected to getting it. But a couple of years later, the car we had been so excited about at the beginning shows signs of wear and tear. By now we are well accustomed to using it every day and the initial pleasure is lost. We get mad when the car does not perform reliably and eventually start wishing for a new, better car. This is just one example, but overall, the same cycle from the initial pleasure, through habitual use and then replacement with something new holds for all our material possessions.

From another angle, if we consider the cycle of birth, aging and death, our bodies are subject to the same pattern of change. Throughout life, our bodies create new cells, they serve their purpose and are replaced with new cells. Around the age of 25, our bodies start to show the first signs of aging. Gradually, more wrinkles appear, our cognitive reaction times slow down, our muscles and joints become increasingly worn and around our mid-sixties memory problems become more obvious. Our culture is obsessed with covering up the signs of aging, especially when it comes to appearance. The amount of age-defying cosmetics available is quite overwhelming and some people would literally do whatever it takes to maintain a youthful appearance. But no matter how hard we try, time eventually wins the battle and all of us age and face our inevitable death.

Impermanence takes its toll on our relationships as well. Consider, for example, your childhood friends. You probably do not know where many of them are now and what they are doing; you may have lost contact with most of them. Think about your best friends ten or 20 years ago and your friendships at the moment. Are they the same people? Did some of your former friends move into the category of people you do not have strong feelings for any more? In Buddhism, many teachings comment on the fleeting nature of our relationships, how our friends can become our enemies and our enemies sometimes become our friends. This holds for our romantic relationships as well. Suffice it to say that about 40% of marriages in the West end in divorce (US Census Bureau 2005). To sum up, our relationships are in a constant flux of change.

How about feelings and thoughts? Psychology and neuroscience distinguish between mood and immediate affect (Scherer 1984). Mood is an overarching way we feel for days or weeks whereas affect is the more immediate feeling. Some people are in general more positive than others, but we still have bad days and good days, difficult times when we experience a sad event and times of excitement when something we have hoped for becomes reality. With immediate affect, we often go through many ups and downs in one day or even in one hour. Within a couple of hours we can get good news and then be faced with a problem at work, but have an inspiring evening afterwards. You can try to observe your own experience. How are you feeling right now? How did you feel 20 minutes ago, an hour ago or a couple of hours or days back?

The main point of the foundational teachings of Buddhism is that ordinary pleasurable experiences based on what we have, how we look or feel never last. We can have a nice romantic dinner, but a couple of hours later or the next day the pleasure of the delicate food and pleasant company is lost. Of course, there is nothing wrong with healthy enjoyment of ordinary pleasures. The problem arises when they start to dominate our lives, when they become our main motivation and we do not recognize their fleeting nature. As a result, we develop strong cravings for one thing or another in the belief that they will bring us happiness. In that way we start to act like thirsty people in a desert chasing after the mirage of an oasis which can never quench their thirst. However, it is possible to enjoy the pleasures in the moment without craving and with a clear understanding of their impermanence. Rather than trying to enhance and sustain the pleasures, the sensible approach is to focus our efforts on training our mind in attitudes bringing lasting happiness and contentment without limitations.

The missing element

One of my good friends is a healthy, well-educated middle-class woman, happily married, with two wonderful grown-up children. Just like all of us, she has to deal with life's challenges, but overall, she would be considered quite fortunate by most. From a broader perspective, only a small fraction of a percentage of the world's population has a comparably good material and family situation as she does. Despite all this, my friend is definitely not among the happiest people I have met. Understandably, she is unhappy when faced with a difficulty, but even when everything goes as she wishes, she worries it may all change. So even in the moments of happiness, there is this subtle feeling of loss, as if there was always something missing. She is by far not the only person I know having such an experience. Perhaps most people are going through the same struggle.

Here is an interesting paradox. Most people think that having more money and pleasure will bring them more happiness. But a UNICEF survey shows that children in countries such as the UK and USA report less well-being than children in countries that are materially less developed (UNICEF 2007). Similarly, epidemiological comparisons of depression rates in developed and developing countries point to the same pattern – there is less depression in developing countries. Interpretations of these statistics are complex and many factors, including cultural and religious determinants, may play a role. Nevertheless, the lack of correlation between material wealth and happiness is quite striking here.

So, why is having all the material possessions we need, having friends and family not enough to make us happy? According to Buddhist teachings, the reason is that, regardless of what we have, our mind always oscillates between hope and fear. When we do not have something we desire, we develop a craving for it. Once we have it, we fear that we will lose it. In this way, we can never find contentment and peace. Let's take buying a new computer as a simple example. Maybe the old computer does not perform so well, or we just want to go with the latest trends… whatever the reason, we develop this strong wish to get a new computer. We save some money and finally buy the computer. The happiness of having it is often immediately tainted by the worry, sometimes a subtle one, that the new thing may get scratched, stolen, forgotten, broken.

As long as we go from fear to craving and back, again and again, there will always be something missing, no matter what we get or what we achieve. From the perspective of Dzogchen, the missing element is the ability to let go of hope and fear and find a deeper source of contentment that does not change. If we find this space in our mind, we find the genuine lasting happiness that was missing in the impermanent ordinary happiness.

Mind over matter, matter over mind

So how can we train our mind for lasting happiness? Simply put, we can do this through stabilizing our mind, understanding it better and developing highly balanced states of mind. The process of self-exploration we go through as we gradually uncover the ways of our mind can be likened to the cycle of scientific investigation in which one builds hypotheses, tests them and generates new knowledge to build new hypotheses. Instead of a scientific laboratory, our own mind is the laboratory in this case. So, in a way, in the process of mind training for well-being, we become experimenters, building hypotheses about how our mind works, what mental habits make us happy and what mental habits have negative consequences. We build a spiral of knowledge which leads to new hypotheses about our own mind and test these hypotheses on our own experience. Based on this new knowledge we consciously decide how to develop and sustain well-being, joy and happiness in our lives. Nothing is taken for granted; all assumptions and suggestions are put to a strict practical test.

In this process it is useful to consider what well-being is. Well-being usually describes a positive state of health and balance of body and mind. In the West, the emphasis is mainly on the physical aspects of well-being. For example, we know that regular exercise helps to enhance and maintain well-being and negative habits such as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption are destructive to well-being. But in our culture, there is much less focus on harmful mental habits, perhaps because there is limited scientific evidence in this regard. Among the findings that are available, there is a relatively large body of research which links anger and hostility to the development of heart problems (Smith et al. 2004). It has also been shown that increased negative thinking combined with suppression of negative emotions is associated with more risks of heart disease (Pedersen and Denollet 2003). Studies on positive mental habits supporting wellbeing show a connection between optimism and enhanced well-being (Carvera et al. 2010). However, there is very little scientific evidence on ways to develop positive mental habits.

From the perspective of Dzogchen, mind dominates any notions of health and well-being. When the mind is healthy and balanced, physical health follows naturally. When the body is ill, meditation can be as important in the process of recovery as any material medicine. And even in cases when the body suffers from an incurable illness, the mind can still be healthy and strong. According to this approach, the mind is essential for well-being and any health intervention needs to include a mind training element. Treatment of the body and the effects of medicine aim to support the transformation of the mind. For example, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition contains sets of practices focusing ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Kinds of happiness
• 2 Intention, human potential and Dzogchen
• 3 Attention training
• 4 Emotional balance
• 5 Exploring consciousness
• 6 Implications for the science of meditation and the practitioner
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index