Buddhism: A Psychology for Understanding the Mind
Buddhism is primarily a philosophical system and a psychology that aims to understand the nature of the human mind and guide our actions. Its ancient wisdom provides us with tools to navigate life with greater awareness and eradicate the root of our suffering.
Buddhism is a practice that can be applied by any human being who wants to work on themselves with the clear awareness that one is responsible for one's actions and the consequences they generate.
This philosophy was not born as a religion. Before his death, the Buddha himself pleaded, "Let no statue be raised in my name..." However, over time, his message attracted followers who, instead of embodying his teachings, began to worship them. Thus, a person became a god, and a life philosophy became a religion.
Transpersonal Psychology takes Buddhism, as it has been from the beginning, as a discipline for working on the mind. When applied to daily life, it makes us more lucid, ethical, coherent, and thus more awake to make decisions.
Enlightenment is another central concept of Buddhism to demystify. It is not something mysterious, esoteric, or inaccessible; in plain words, it means "realising" what is true and ceasing to be deceived by what is false and imperishable. To enlighten is to "wake up" from the delusions we often fall into and see reality as it is. Indeed, Buddha is not a name but a "state," the state reached by Siddhartha Gautama, who, after his enlightenment, was called "The Buddha" (the awakened one).
Working on oneself from the Buddhist philosophy requires the practice of compassion towards ourselves and others. This means recognising ourselves as human beings who sometimes act out of ignorance but always return, time and again, with the firm conviction of increasing our awareness so that the gaps of unconsciousness that cause us to lose lucidity narrow until they disappear.
The antidote to ignorance is wisdom, which, like a rough diamond, we can polish by training our attention to distinguish between real and fictional. In fact, the violence that surrounds us and lies within us is the result of ignorance, not malice. Ignorance has nothing to do with erudition but with not knowing the ultimate reality of everything around us and the laws that govern the nature of all existence. In fact, what eradicates violence is wisdom put into practice
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, pointed us the way to this wisdom; it depends on each one of us to follow it, each at their own pace and knowing that getting lost is part of finding oneself and that it is always possible to return if we err more than once.
Getting lost is part of finding oneself and that it is always possible to return if we err more than once.
The Four Noble Truths
On his path of evolution, Buddha discovered what he later called the Four Noble Truths:
- All existence is unsatisfactory.
- Suffering comes from desire, attachment, and ignorance.
- Suffering and dissatisfaction can cease.
- The path to the cessation of suffering is the Eightfold Path.
These truths express that we tend to cling to transient states incapable of satisfying us. Everything in life is impermanence; not recognising this reality leads us to yearn for what we believe will content us and to the pain of loss when impermanence reminds us that the only constant over time is the changing nature of all existence. The people we love will cease to be, and we will stop to be, for the people who love us, circumstances change all the time, and the happiness we feel today will be tomorrow's sadness.
Life is a wheel that never stops turning, and we end up dizzy and immersed in suffering if we cannot jump off and observe this movement with distance and detachment.
From a "Western" perspective, Buddhism's acknowledgement of the reality of suffering, ageing, and death may seem "depressing," a pessimistic philosophy, right? However, Buddha only revealed the reality of an existence we try to deny. Buddha is neither for nor against a life of satisfaction; he simply reminds us that those who cling to the illusion of permanence will end up disillusioned sooner or later. We cannot ignore the realities of death, ageing, and illness. Yet, in a society like ours that promises eternal youth, denies death, even tries to cheat it, and attacks illness without even listening to it, we come to see death as very distant and harbour the baseless fantasy of being eternal and indestructible. Being aware of our finiteness and impermanence is an invitation to live life with full consciousness and to make the privilege of experiencing a human life an interesting contribution to both our own existence and that of others.
The Eightfold Path: A Way to Eradicate Suffering
Buddha enunciates his four noble truths but goes a step further... he proposes a method to avoid suffering. The path Buddha points us to stop spinning on that wheel consists of eight steps, and he called it the Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
If we orient our lives according to this ethic, we will have mental clarity and spiritual peace to navigate our existence without suffering and without harming others. The first part of this path is oriented towards avoiding causing harm to others, and the second part towards working on our minds to not harm ourselves with the mental impurities that afflict, harass, torment us, and cause illness. However, not harming others is also not harming ourselves since any negative action exerted towards others to harm will suffer the inevitable consequences of the law of karma: cause–effect. As the saying goes: "whoever sows the wind reaps the whirlwind..." Sometimes, these effects are not visible in the short term; just as a seed has its latency period, the consequences of an action need to occur. However, sooner or later, the apple tree will bear apples just as the nettle will produce its thorns.
The law of karma it is based on the following fundamental truth: "Each human being is responsible and heir to their own actions."
We should not associate karma with any curse or an external entity that punishes or rewards us. Karma is a law based on the most objective reality, which states that every action or omission has consequences. There is nothing magical or curse-like in this law that is so basic we struggle to understand it. Considering the law of karma means acting according to an internal ethic that we can attend to or ignore. It is a choice of life that defines a lifestyle. It should not be a self-imposed obligation that originates from fear of retaliation, for no one is watching from above to harass or condemn you. It is about cultivating inner peace and mental calm that is the closest thing to the promised paradise, but here on earth, just as there is no worse hell than a mind full of bad thoughts and emotional disturbance.
There is no worse hell than a mind full of bad thoughts and emotional disturbance.
The journey is made by walking... and it leaves traces
The Eightfold Path
The Eightfold Path is the way to make Buddhist philosophy a practice. It is not a linear path. Its eight steps are developed simultaneously. Each step helps to cultivate all the others. Wisdom, ethical behaviour, and training to decondition the mind are the three main pillars of this path.
Within Wisdom:
1- Right View.
2- Right Intention.
Within Ethical Behavior:
3- Right Speech.
4- Right Action.
5- Right Livelihood.
Within Mind Training:
6- Right Effort.
7- Right Mindfulness.
8- Right Concentration.
I invite you to continue reading about the eight steps I mentioned to understand how these principles apply to everyday life.
I like to think of this path from the bottom up, that is, starting with mind training.
Mind training is what I call "working on oneself." Through the Right Effort (6), one can purify one's mind from the darkness that prevents clear seeing. Buddhism calls the three main mental impurities that cloud our mind and prevent us from thinking clearly Kilesas: ignorance, attachment, and aversion.
In our everyday lives, we cling to unhealthy thoughts, dysfunctional emotions, and harmful beliefs, and through aversion, we tend to exaggerate negative qualities, generating more pain and disturbance.
An untrained mind is a prey to many mental states that cloud its natural brilliance.
Right Mindfulness (7), trained through meditation and daily pauses, helps us dis-identify from the contents of our mind. With a serene mind, we can achieve the Right Concentration (8). From this state, we are capable of ceasing to react to the environment as automatons and beginning to act upon it, following the ethic of not harming.
Through personal work, one understands that there is more ignorance than malice in this world. When one awakens, one no longer seeks revenge but acts coherently, no longer aspires to be right but prioritises peace and benevolence.
The mind is the origin of any behaviour. From a trained mind, ethical behaviours naturally arise:
Right Actions (4) include refraining from taking life, from taking what is not given, from acting out of disloyalty and deceit.
Right Speech (3) involves understanding that words can cause great harm. Paying attention to our words means avoiding slander, lying, speaking aggressively, or engaging in trivial conversation.
When you speak, make sure your words improve upon the silence.
Speak to create concord where there is discord, utter soothing words to the ear of an anxious person, voice affectionate words for those in need, and pronounce words worth treasuring to someone bewildered and downcast. Words can cause great harm, but we can also do great good.
In my profession as a psychologist, words heal, accompany, soothe, calm, contain, warn, and are also liberating. There, I find the Right Livelihood (5), which aligns with the values I believe in. From this philosophy, it is crucial to earn a living by contributing to a good purpose and to question when doing one's work: What am I contributing to with my working hours? For what am I earning my salary?
It's not insignificant if we want to act in unity with the values of this ancient ethic, which are well worth it, and more than ever in this time of blurred lines between what is questionable and what is not.
Finally, we return to the starting point, where everything begins anew and correlates with the rest.
Right View (1) refers to the understanding of the Four Noble Truths, the comprehension of suffering, its origin, and its cessation.
Right Intention (2) means to direct our internal dialogues towards serene freedom tied to kindness and compassion for all sentient beings.
Buddhism reminds us that what we are today results from what we have thought and how we have acted. Likewise, our future will result from the ethics that govern our actions today. Training the mind to see clearly smooths the path to not constantly stumbling over the same obstacle and evolving towards a state of peace and serenity that arises from the coherence and correspondence between thought, speech, and action.