Mind Science

“The neophytes sit on the ground, cross-legged and naked. Sheets are dipped in the icy water, each man wraps himself in one of them and must dry it on his body. As soon as the sheet has become dry, it is again dipped in the water and placed on the novice’s body to be dried as before. The operation goes on [in] that fashion until daybreak. Then he who has dried the largest number of sheets is acknowledged the winner of the competition. Besides drying wet sheets on one’s body, there exist various other tests to ascertain the degree of heat which the neophyte is able to radiate. One of these tests consists in sitting in the snow. The quantity of snow melted under the man and the distance at which it melts around him are taken as measures of his ability…

Buddhism confronts modern psychology with two facts: that the systematic study of the mind and its workings dates back to well before the Christian era, and that this exploration is at the heart of spiritual life. Indeed, every major world religion harbors an esoteric psychology, a science of mind, usually little known to its lay practitioners. In Islam, for instance, it is to be found in Sufism; in Judaism, in the kabbalah; in Christianity, in monastic meditation manuals. In Buddhism, the classical mind science is called “Abhidharma.”

Developed, systematized, and refined over the thousand years after Gautama Buddha’s teaching in the fifth century B.C.E., Abhidharma is an elaborate model of the mind. Like any thorough psychological system, it describes in detail the workings of perception, cognition, affect, and motivation. A dynamic model, Abhidharma analyzes both the roots of human suffering and a way out of that suffering—the central message of Buddhism cast in the technical language of a psychology. Apart from the metaphysical context of Abhidharma, it represents a significant entity from the perspective of modern psychology: it is a psychological system with completely different roots. As such, for the first time it offers modern psychology something akin to a “close encounter of the third kind”—a meeting with an alien intelligence that few, if any, really thought existed. Certainly, most psychologists and psychiatrists, if asked, would have said that there is no other fully mature psychology beyond the fold of modern Western thought.

Now, though, it is clear that there is one, and that it has something of significance to say to the psychologies of the West. Buddhist psychology offers modern psychology the opportunity for genuine dialogue with a system of thought that has evolved outside the conceptual systems that have spawned contemporary psychology. Here is a fully realized psychology that offers the chance for a complementary view of many of the fundamental issues of modern psychology: the nature of mind, the limits of human potential for growth, the possibilities for mental health, the means for psychological change and transformation…

Western psychologists will discover that, just as there are many schools of thought in Western psychology, there is an equally diverse range of schools within Buddhist psychology - Abhidharma is the classical Buddhist psychology, but there are several versions of it by now. And, especially within Tibetan Buddhism, there are many more psychological systems, each elaborating its own practical applications in psychospiritual development…

His Holiness the Dalai Lama describes the Buddhist concept of mind, bridging the views of scientific materialism and religion. He points out that understanding the nature of mind is fundamental to Buddhist thought. Tibetan teachings include a detailed map of how changes in the mind and body affect each other, and techniques for bringing those affects under voluntary control. The Tibetan view of the subtle relationships between mind and body holds that it is possible to separate mind from body—one of many notions that can be tested by researchers as their studies enrich our understanding of mind/body links.

His Holiness addresses several issues that are particularly challenging to Western science. These include whether or not mind can observe and understand its own nature; similarities between mathematical lawfulness of occurrences and the workings of karma; the Buddhist concept of emptiness and the ultimate nature of mind; the roots of psychological confusion and disturbances. Also explored is the question of gross and subtle levels of mind, and the provocative possibility that a subtle level of mind might exist independent of body…”

~ Daniel Goleman, Introduction to 'MindScience: An East-West Dialogue' by His Holiness the Dalai Lama