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Via Lion’s Roar magazine: Why Buddhism is True

Buddha photo: © Liewluck / Dreamstime. Darwin photo: Paul D Stewart / Science Photo Library.

Darwin and the Buddha agree on the problem, says evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright. The Buddha solved it. From the November 2017 Lion’s Roar magazine.

Melvin McLeod: Your new book, Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, is getting more mainstream attention than any other Buddhist-oriented book I can think of. Were you consciously trying to reach people who would normally turn their nose up at a book about Buddhism?

Robert Wright: I wanted to show people that the Buddhist diagnosis makes sense from a modern point of view. It is compatible in many ways with modern psychology and evolutionary psychology. It makes perfect sense in light of the modern understanding of the evolutionary process that created us.

There are many people who are resistant to Buddhism — perhaps because they think it’s unscientific. I hope my trying to place the practice, philosophy, and psychology of Buddhism in the context of modern science will help make it more credible in the eyes of people who are currently suspicious of it.

Tell us about your background as a Buddhist practitioner.

Since college I tried to meditate every once in a while, but I never had what I considered success. Finally, in 2003, I went to a one-week silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. That kind of flipped the switch. By the end of the week I felt much more appreciative of beauty, much less judgemental, and much calmer. I did another retreat in 2009, and since then I have been pretty consistent in my mindfulness practice.

So what have you discovered that Buddhism is right about?

In 1994, I wrote a book about evolutionary psychology called The Moral Animal. That project convinced me that natural selection did not design us to be lastingly happy. It did not design us to always see the world clearly. In fact, evolutionary theory predicts that if certain illusions help genes get into the next generation, then those illusions — about the nature of the self, and about other people and other things — will be favored by natural selection.

In my study of evolutionary psychology, I came to appreciate three things about the human condition: that, by its nature, happiness tends to evaporate; that in many ways we don’t see ourselves or the world clearly; and that, by nature, we are not always morally good, even though we’re good at deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re moral people.

I see Buddhist practice as, in some sense, a rebellion against natural selection.

Buddhism claims that these three things are connected. It says the reason we suffer, the reason we’re not enduringly satisfied, is that we don’t see the world clearly. That’s also the reason we sometimes fall short of moral goodness and treat other human beings badly. I was naturally interested in this proposition, given my background in evolutionary psychology.

What I’m arguing in this book is that looking at Buddhism through the lenses of modern psychology — and evolutionary psychology specifically — tends to validate Buddhism’s claims. When we look at the subtle ways natural selection has built illusion into us, that tracks the two most fundamental Buddhist claims about our illusions, namely that we fail to see the truths of not-self and emptiness.

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Via Daily Dharma: Rule No. 1

Just do your best. This is the whole of practice, the whole of our life.

—Elihu Genmyo Smith, “Do Your Best”

Via Daily Dharma: Do What Feels Right

Find one thing that makes you feel good and put it into practice. It is through this kind of action that we learn to live in harmony.

—Nikkyo Niwano, “A Cheerful 'Good Morning'”

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"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 24, 2017

You and I are in a situation of very dramatic change, and the interesting question is how you respond to change, whether it’s in your own body, or it’s in the social structures you’re in. What happens when the family breaks down? What happens when the government isn’t functional? What happens? What happens when your IRA isn’t as good as it was? Feel the chills run through you.

It’s interesting to look at whether change is your friend or you enemy, and whether you can find a place in yourself from which you can see phenomena changing without being trapped in the fear that is generated by being identified with that which changes. That’s what the issue is.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Practice for When You're Suffering

You can reverse the normal habit of turning to each new arising and instead turn to each new passing. Micro-relief is constantly available.

—Shinzen Young, “The Power of Gone”

Via TEDX / Theo E.J. Wilson

Via Daily Dharma: The Journey through Grief

With awareness, the journey through grief becomes a path to wholeness. Grief can lead us to a profound understanding that reaches beyond our individual loss.

—Mark Matousek, “A Splinter of Love”

Via Jim Parsons Opens Up About Marriage And Why He Didn't Hurry Into It

Via Daily Dharma: Helpful Habits

Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.

—Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, “Tortoise Steps”

Via Daily Dharma: Defining Freedom

What is freedom? It is the moment-by-moment experience of not being run by one’s own reactive mechanisms.

—Ken McLeod, “Freedom and Choice”

Via Daily Dharma: The Fear in Love

The most wrenching fear that one experiences is the fear one feels for others. Love is like that. When one loves, one fears for the other.

—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “The Gift of Fear”

Via Ram Dass /

You and I are not only here in terms of the work we’re doing on ourselves. We are here in terms of the role we’re playing within the systems of which we are a part, if you look at the way change affects people that are unconscious.

Change generates fear, fear generates contractions, contraction generates prejudice, bigotry, and ultimately violence. You can watch the whole thing happen, and you can see it happen in society after society after society.

The antidote for that is a consciousness that does not respond to change with fear. That’s as close to the beginning of that sequence as I can get.

- Ram Dass -

Via Toni Reis‎LGBT Brasil / FB: NOTA OFICIAL PÚBLICA DE DESCONTENTAMENTO DA ALIANÇA NACIONAL LGBTI SOBRE A DECISÃO LIMIAR MONOCRÁTICA QUE ABRE BRECHA PARA A “CURA GAY” NO BRASIL

NOTA OFICIAL PÚBLICA DE DESCONTENTAMENTO DA ALIANÇA NACIONAL LGBTI SOBRE A DECISÃO LIMIAR MONOCRÁTICA QUE ABRE BRECHA PARA A “CURA GAY” NO BRASIL

A Aliança Nacional LGBTI é uma entidade que atua em rede e cuja missão é contribuir para a promoção e defesa dos direitos humanos e cidadania de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis, Transexuais e Intersexuais.

Neste sentido, vimos a público manifestar nosso imenso descontentamento com a decisão do Juiz Federal Waldemar Claúdio de Carvalho, da 14ª Vara Federal, que em caráter liminar, acatou parcialmente a ação popular que requeria a suspensão da Resolução 01/1999 do Conselho Federal de Psicologia, deferindo que este não impeça os psicólogos de promover estudos ou atendimento profissional, de forma reservada, pertinente à reorientação sexual, sem nenhuma possibilidade de censura ou necessidade de licença prévia.

Entendemos que o deferimento da liminar é um passo retrógrado, violador dos direitos humanos, que contraria mais de quatro décadas de decisões de órgãos cientificamente qualificados que consideram que a homossexualidade não é doença e, logo, não é passível de processos de “reorientação sexual”:

- em 1973, nos Estados Unidos a American Psychiatric Association retirou a homossexualidade da lista de desvios sexuais, reconhecendo que não se trata de um distúrbio mental;

- em nove de fevereiro de 1985, o Conselho Federal de Medicina aprovou a retirada, no Brasil, da homossexualidade do código 302.0 (desvios e transtornos sexuais) da Classificação Internacional de Doenças; sendo o Brasil o 5º país do mundo a tomar essa decisão;

- em 17 de maio de 1990, a 43ª Assembleia Mundial da Saúde adotou, por meio da sua resolução WHA43.24, a 10ª Revisão da Lista da Classificação Internacional de Doenças (CID-10), sendo que nesta versão da CID a homossexualidade foi excluída como categoria;

- em 2012 a Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde publicou um documento com a seguinte introdução: “‘CURAS’ PARA UMA DOENÇA QUE NÃO EXISTE: as supostas terapias de mudança de orientação sexual carecem de justificativa médica e são eticamente inaceitáveis”.

Assim, proferir decisão judicial que permite “estudos ou atendimento de reorientação sexual” é referendar a submissão das pessoas homossexuais à condição de cobaias, em patente contradição da Declaração de Helsinque sobre os princípios éticos que regem a pesquisa com seres humanos. É promover o crime de charlatanismo e curandeirismo.

Abre precedente para que ocorram atos que venham a ferir a Constituição da República, já que nos remete a um cenário de retrocesso, haja vista ser notória a prática de tortura e até mesmo “exorcismos” ocorridos, principalmente, em face de jovens homossexuais, onde a própria família, por inconformismo com a orientação sexual dos seus filhos, os leva a profissionais dispostos a praticar a “reversão sexual”.

Solidarizamo-nos com o Conselho Federal de Psicologia e respectivos Conselhos Regionais de Psicologia e pedimos que a Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, a Defensoria Pública da União, o Ministério Público Federal e demais autoridades competentes se posicionem e tomem as medidas cabíveis para derrubar a referida liminar.

Recorreremos dessa decisão em todas as instâncias jurídicas nacionais e internacionais. Inclusive, através do email aliancalgbti@gmail.com gostaríamos de receber denúncias sobre psicólogos/as que estejam atuando profissionalmente na tentativa de realizar a “reversão sexual” para que possamos dar os devidos encaminhamentos éticos e jurídicos.

Curitiba, 18 de setembro de 2017

TONI REIS
Presidente da Aliança Nacional LGBTI

GISELE ALESSANDRA
Advogada
OAB/PR 74.812

Via Ivete Sangalo / FB:

É Brasilzão, a gente tentando ser forte, ser otimista, com inúmeras pendências que caberiam a uma administração decente resolver, e aí me resolvem dizer que homosexualidade é doença. Doentes são aqueles que acreditam nesse grande absurdo. Pessoas, pensem sobre o que é esse grande equívoco , absorvam a coragem e a luta dos homossexuais e apliquem às suas mofadas e inertes vidas. Tentem que vcs talvez possam ser felizes tb #respeito

Via Daily Dharma: Wisdom Is the Basis of Transformation

The goal of the Buddhist path is wisdom in service of personal and social transformation.

—David Loy, “Healing Ecology”

Via Daily Dharma: Set Your Direction

No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment.

—Jack Kornfield, “Set the Compass of Your Heart”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 17, 2017

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don't have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success... none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

- Ram Dass -