Abstract
The Buddha’s strategies for managing emotions are directed towards the goal of reducing human pain and tribulation, as well as a complete liberation from the basic human predicament of unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). Today, noteworthy research influenced by Buddhist techniques of meditation in the domains of psychology, medicine and neuroscience have opened up the question can the mind heal the body? According to the hypothesis of ‘neuroplasticity’ developed by Richard Davidson the brain continually changes as a result of experience (Goleman, 2003, 21–3). This hypothesis has opened up new vistas for research on meditation. The claim that the brain, immune system and the emotions are interconnected point towards the emergence of new insights into health and emotional well being. Against the backdrop of the current interface of Buddhism and science on emotion studies, this presentation is designed first to attempt a clarification of the intricate relationship between the body and mind in emotional experience. In the light of these new developments, a viable conceptual map of the mind-body relation in Buddhism would be very relevant. Why is this task important? As I have mentioned in a previous study, the Buddha has discouraged people from pushing the logic of the body-mind relationship into extreme limits and getting entangled in metaphysical debates.
Hysterics behave as if anatomy did not exist.
Sigmund Freud
I now proceed to urge the vital point of my whole theory, which is this: If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the characteristics of bodily systems, we find we have nothing left behind, no ‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains.
William James
Just as, friend, two bundles of reed were to stand one supporting the other, ehéritageen so consciousness is dependent on name-and-form (physical and mental phenomena) and name-and-form on consciousness.… If friend, I were to pull towards towards me one of those sheaves of reeds, the other would fall.
(Samyutta Nikāya, II, 114)
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Notes
Joseph Ledoux, The Emotional Brain, (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1998), pp. 64–5.
Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions, (Bloomsbury, London, 2003) p. 141.
Padmasiri de Silva, An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology, (Macmillan, London, 2000), pp. 72–5.
Robert C. Solomon (ed.), Thinking about Feeling, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004).
K. Nanananda, Concept and Reality, (Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1971), p. 5; also see, Padmasiri de Silva, Twin Peaks: Compassion and Insight (Emotions and the Self in Buddhist and Western Thought) (Buddhist Research Society, Singapore, 1992), pp. 44–8.
Gerald E. Myers, William James, His Life and Thought, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987), p. 240.
Robert M. Gordon, The Structure of Emotions: Investigations in Cognitive Philosophy, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987), p. 92.
Paul Ekman, Emotions Revealed, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003).
Daniel Goleman (ed.) Healing Emotions, (Shambala, Boston, 1997), p. 128.
Padmal Silva, ‘Buddhism and Behaviour Change: Implications for Therapy, in Guy Claxton (ed.) Beyond Therapy, (Unity Press, N.S.W., 1996), pp. 217–31.
Zindel V. Segal, J. Marks, G. Williams and John D. Teasdale, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, (Guilford Press, London, 2002).
E. Fromm, The Art of Listening, (Constable, London, 1994).
Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without A Thinker, (Basic Books, New York, 1995), p. 127.
H. Saddhatissa Thero, Translation, The Sutta-Nipata, Curzon Press, Richmond, 1998.
Padmasiri de Silva, Buddhism, Ethics and Society: The Dilemmas of Our Times, (Monash University Press, Clayton, 2002), pp. 188–200.
Ajahn Sumedho, ‘Rationality and Emotions’, in Ajahn Sumedho, The Four Noble Truths, (Amaravati Publication, Hempstead, 1992), p. 64.
Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004), p. 2.
W. P. Alston, ‘Emotion and Feeling’, in Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 2, (New York, 1967), p. 481.
Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001).
Albert R Ellis, in Collin Feltham (ed.), Which Psychotherapy, (Sage Publications, London, 1997), pp. 51–67.
Bhikkhu Thanissaro, The Wings to Awakening, (Dhamma Dana Publications, Barre, 1996), p. 73.
Ajahn Sumedho, Cittaviveka: Teachings From the Silent Mind, (Amaravati Publications, Hempstead, 1992), p. 57.
Sharon Salzberg, Loving Kindness, (Shambala, Boston, 1997), p. 21.
John Wellwood, ‘Befriending Emotion’, in J. Welwood (ed.), Awakening the Heart, (Shambala, Boulder, Colorado, 1983).
Graham Little, The Public Emotions, (ABC Books, Sydney, 1999), p. 17.
Tara Benett-Goleman, Emotional Alchemy, (Rider, London, 2001; Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart, (Bantam Books, New York, 1993), pp. 71–81
Mark Epstein, Going On Being, (Continuum, London, 2001), pp. 163–6.
Nyanaponika Thera, The Power of Mindfulness, (Buddhist Publication, Kandy 1986), p. 10.
For a more detailed discussion of managing anger, see, Visuddhicara Bhikkhu, Curbing Anger, Spreading Love, (Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1997)
Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, vol. 1, trans. D. F. and L. M. Swenson, (Anchor Books, New York, 1959), p. 36.
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© 2005 M.W. Padmasiri de Silva
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de Silva, P. (2005). A Holistic Perspective on Emotion Theory and Therapy in Early Buddhism. In: An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230509450_8
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