Why Buddhism is True - Robert Wright

is the struggle for enduring peace also the struggle for truth?

It would be nice to know that when people pursue the path to liberation - ...- they are helping humanity broadly, that the quest for individual salvation advances the quest for social salvation.

feelings are said to be true of false depending on whether they align with their evolutionary purpose. If the feelings promote well-being they are considered good or true; if they lead to things that are ultimately bad for a person, then we could say they are false.

environmental mismatch = a feeling designed by natural selection that is true in one natural environment, but false in another.

natural selection didn't design your mind to see the world clearly; it designed your mind to have perceptions and beliefs that would help take care of your genes.

false positive - you take remedial action even when its not called for

1. Our feelings weren't designed to depict reality accurately even in our natural environment.
2. The fact that we're not living in a "natural' environment makes our feeling even less reliable guides to reality.
3. Underlying it all is the happiness delusion. The longing for happiness itself is a delusion that leaves us with a desire for more of what we think makes up happy.

'The cost of survival might be a lifetime of discomfort'   Aaron Beck - Cognitive Therapy and The Emotional Disorders.

One thing all feelings have in common is that they were originally "designed" to convince you to follow them. They feel right and true almost by definition. They actively discourage you from viewing them objectively.

default mode network - a network in the brain that remains active when you're doing nothing. It is the network our mind wanders when it is wandering. What you're not doing in the default mode is focusing on the present moment. It is easy to overcome the default mode by participating in a task that requires active concentration.

concentration meditation = focus one's concentration on breath, a mantra, a visual image, a bodily sensation, a physical sound.

mindfulness meditation = experiencing whatever you are experiencing.

enlightenment - ridding yourself of the illusion of what is going on inside yourself, and outside of yourself.
asymptote  - something you can get closer to but never quite reach.

insight = apprehending the 3 marks of existence: impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.

deeply realizing that you are selfless - ...- can make you selfless in the more familiar sense of the term.

self - control, persists through time

in the deepest sense the self doesn't exist, human language isn't very good at describing reality at the deepest level. So as a practical matter - as a linguistic convention - we have to talk about there being an I and a you and a he and a she. In other words, the self doesn't exist in an "untimate" sense, but it exists in a "conventional" sense.

The Buddha believed that the less you judge things - including the contents of your mind - the more clearly you'll see them, and the less deluded you'll be.

We think we're better than average at not being biased in thinking that we're better than average.

So, all told, we're under at least two kinds of illusions. One is about the nature of the conscious self, which we see as more in control of things than it actually is. The other illusion is about exactly what kind of people we are - namely, capable and upstanding. You might call these two misconceptions the illusion about our selves and the illusion about ourselves.

benneffectance - the tendency to take credit for success, while denying responsibility for failure.

modular mind - the mind is composed of lots of specialized modules... and it's the interplay among these modules that shapes your behavior. And much of this interplay happens without conscious awareness.

three ways you shouldn't conceive of modules:

1. the modules aren't like a bunch of physical compartments.
2. The different modules aren't like the blades on a Swiss Army knife or the apps on a smartphone.
3. The modules aren't like departments in a company's organization chart.

Feelings aren't just little parts of the thing you had thought of as the self; they are closer to its core; they are doing  what you had thought "you" were doing: calling the shots.

Theory of Mind = thinking about what other people are thinking.

Psychologists who adhere to the modular model of the mind tend toward the idea that the conscious you isn't choosing the different modules so much as being commandeered by the modules that have prevailed....
Thoughts are directed toward what we think is the conscious mind... the conscious mind doesn't create thoughts, it receives them.

modules = attracting mates, keeping mates, enhancing your status, taking care of kin, tending to friendships, etc.

feelings are the things that give a particular module greater influence... "Every thought has a propellant, and that propellant is emotional." Akincano Marc Weber. Feelings are judgments about how various things relate to an animal's Darwinian interests.... feelings are the glue that makes thoughts stick to your consciousness.

Self Control - reason prevailing over feelings. "Reason alone," Hume argued, "can never oppose passion in the direction of the will." Nothing "can oppose or retard the impulse of passion but a contrary impulse."

both the problems we call therapeutic and the problems we call spiritual are a product of not seeing things clearly.