Pun Salad

I'm afraid I didn't get a lot out of this book.

The author, Robert Wright, attempts to marry up "Buddhism" with the latest research on evolutionary psychology. I put "Buddhism" in quotes, because (like just about all popular religions) Buddhism is a large candy store where you can pick and choose the items you like, leave other stuff on the shelf.

Wright doesn't buy into any hint of supernaturalism, so near the end of the book he mentions the candy he left at the store: no karma, no reincarnation, no praying to the Buddha, no bowing to his statue. He goes into great detail on his experiences with meditation, and argues that it makes ones mind work better, in some senses. His spiritual journey is not without interest, and I wish him well, but its general applicability is iffy.

Moreover, Wright admits that a great deal of what we call "Buddhism" is pretty divorced from the Buddha himself: "There's roughly no chance that all the sayings attributed to him in Buddhist texts were uttered by him." Admittedly, kind of like Jesus.

The evolutionary psychology stuff is also kind of a candy store, and Wright picks out the stuff he likes there too. To match up the Buddhist concept of "not-self", he picks out the research that emphasizes our proclivity for self-deception, gullibility, fallacy, bias, … . He argues Buddhism (sorta) indicates this by arguing that your "self" isn't really in charge of your actions.

Fine, but it sometimes is in charge. Since I "believe" in free will (which Wright doesn't go into), I think we have "the capacity for conscious, rational, control of our actions". Take that, Buddha.

Wright's reliance on what "studies show" is kind of a warning flag to me. For example, on page 160, he discourses on "priming". He doesn't mention that a number of studies on priming have failed to replicate.

A brief appendix contains "A List of Buddhist Truths". I wish this had been a chapter up at the front of the book.