Buddhism & Happiness
Thanks to Paul Hsieh for pointing out this tidbit from Reuters about Buddhism and happiness:
Meditation Shown to Light Up Brains of Buddhists
LONDON (Reuters) – Buddhists really are happy, calm and serene people — at least according to their brain scans.
Using new scanning techniques, neuroscientists have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists, which indicates positive emotions and good mood. This happens at times even when they are not meditating.
“We can now hypothesize with some confidence that those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes across in places such as Dharamsala, India, really are happy,” Professor Owen Flanagan, of Duke University in North Carolina, said Wednesday.
Dharamsala is the home base of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
The scanning studies by scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal lobes of experienced Buddhist practitioners. The area is linked to positive emotions, self-control and temperament.
Other research by Paul Ekman, of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, suggests that meditation and mindfulness can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which is the hub of fear memory.
Ekman discovered that experienced Buddhists were less likely to be shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people.
Flanagan believes that if the findings of the studies can be confirmed they could be of major importance.
“The most reasonable hypothesis is that there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek,” Flanagan said in a report in New Scientist magazine.
In 1996, during one of Nathaniel Branden‘s reunion-with-the-Objectivist-movement talks at the TOC summer seminar, Branden said something to the effect that, while Objectivists were in his experience no happier than the general population, if he were to pick one group who, for whatever reason, did seem more happy, it would be Buddhists.
I thought of that comment often as I began studying Buddhism in early 2000 and, in my experience, the observation certainly has held true. While not all Buddhists are happy—and some are decidedly unhappy—there does seem to be a strong contingent who have found “the on button” for lasting happiness.
Study question: What does this say about Objectivism? What does it say about Buddhism? Explain.
In my experience, the answers are complex. You know, there’s a reason the Dalai Lama is an exile from his own country, and it has more than a little to do with the practicality of your social and political philosophy. (Can you imagine what would happen if China tried doing to Israel what it did to Tibet?) Yet Objectivism has analogous weaknesses when it comes to the psychology of personal development, which Buddhists seem to have mastered at a much higher level.
In any case, if you want a taste of Buddhist-like tranquility, sans the religion (and politics), check out Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now audio CD series (cheaper used copies are available at Half.com). I have found Tolle’s ideas to be powerfully effective in cultivating a meditative-like inner peace and happiness, without reliance on formal meditation; and in certain respects, his teachings are better than traditional Buddhism, insofar as they go to the heart of the experience of enlightenment, without getting bogged down in techniques, traditions, and rituals.
great article! I’m doing a paper on buddhism and happiness for an english course. peace and many blessings!
to be contented – to have content – to see what is and have it be that way – the buddhist’s way of BEING HAPPY…