Why Buddhism is True

The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

Robert Wright

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781982111601
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439195475
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy
• Index: Psychology

From one of America’s most brilliant writers, a New York Times bestselling journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness.

In this “sublime” (The New Yorker), pathbreaking book, Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. He also shows why this transformation works, drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, and armed with an acute understanding of human evolution.

This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright’s landmark book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world’s most skilled meditators. The result is a story that is “provocative, informative and...deeply rewarding” (The New York Times Book Review), and as entertaining as it is illuminating. Written with the wit, clarity, and grace for which Wright is famous, Why Buddhism Is True lays the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age and shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• A Note to Readers
• Chapter 1: Taking the Red Pill
• Chapter 2: Paradoxes of Meditation
• Chapter 3: When Are Feelings Illusions?
• Chapter 4: Bliss, Ecstasy, and More Important Reasons to Meditate
• Chapter 5: The Alleged Nonexistence of Your Self
• Chapter 6: Your CEO Is MIA
• Chapter 7: The Mental Modules That Run Your Life
• Chapter 8: How Thoughts Think Themselves
• Chapter 9: “Self” Control
• Chapter 10: Encounters with the Formless
• Chapter 11: The Upside of Emptiness
• Chapter 12: A Weedless World
• Chapter 13: Like, Wow, Everything Is One (at Most)
• Chapter 14: Nirvana in a Nutshell
• Chapter 15: Is Enlightenment Enlightening?
• Chapter 16: Meditation and the Unseen Order
• Appendix: A List of Buddhist Truths
• A Note on Terminology
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright