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IS BUDDHISM TRUE?

An Interview with Dr Robert Wright by Sam Mowe

The Buddha said that the origin Sam Mowe: Why Buddhism is
of all suffering is craving — we True is a bold title. Let’s start
either don’t get what we want or by clarifying what you mean by
we get what we don’t want. But both “Buddhism” and “True.”
what is the origin of our craving? What Buddhist tradition are you
In his recent New York Times best- writing about?
selling book, Why Buddhism is
True: The Science and Philosophy Robert Wright: If you had to really
of Meditation and Enlightenment, boil down the Buddhist claim that
Robert Wright argues that the I’m defending, it’s that the reason
Photo by Jed Adan on Unsplash
process of natural selection we suffer—and the reason we make
designed the human mind to crave other people suffer—is that we
— and therefore suffer — because don’t see the world clearly. We have
never-ending dissatisfaction helped illusions about ourselves, other
our ancestors get their genes into people, and the world. Buddhism
the next generation. Though the posits that we tend to misperceive
Buddha predates Darwin by more fundamental aspects of our
than 2,000 years, Wright contends existence.
that Buddhism’s diagnosis of the
human condition is fundamentally Of course, there are a lot of different
correct and that its prescription — Buddhist traditions, but I’ve tried
primarily mindfulness meditation to focus on elements that are found
— can help us override our hard- across the great bulk of Buddhist
wired tendency to crave. traditions—for example, not-
self and emptiness. Not-self is the
Wright is currently the visiting idea that the self, in some sense,
professor of science and religion doesn’t really exist and emptiness is
at Union Theological Seminary the idea that things don’t possess
in Manhattan and the author of the essences that we usually
four books, including The Moral attribute to them. With both
Animal and The Evolution of God. of these ideas, I think modern
We spoke with him recently about psychology—and, in particular,
the relationship between natural evolutionary psychology—is on
selection and suffering, how my side in defending at least some
evolutionary psychology supports version of them.
the Buddhist idea of not-self,
and how meditation can lead to Is that what you mean when
everything from stress reduction you say that Buddhism is true—
to an understanding of Buddhism’s that certain Buddhist ideas
most radical philosophical concepts. are corroborated by modern