[Buddha-l] Buddhism and Psychology research

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard wrote:

> Not only are the tools vastly superior today, but the project of
> abhidharma has nothing whatsoever in common with the project of modern
> psychology.

You haven't read much abhidharma aside from Kosa excerpts and maybe some 
dabbling in the Dhammasangani, it seems. Abhidharmikas were very interested 
in how things like perception and judgement occur, what were the causes and 
conditions responsible. They sometimes drifted into religio-dogmatics, but 
then scientists today also take sides in their own ideological and 
"lineage-clinging" approaches.

Abhidharma aside, a very convincing case for the affinity between 
contemporary psychology and early Buddhist theories about the mind is 
Padmasiri De Silva's _Buddhist and Freudian Psychology_, which I've 
mentioned before on this list, and Richard has claimed to have read. One can 
read a good chuck of it on google.books
http://tinyurl.com/3yfmsls


>Most scientific pyschologists these days don't even believe
> in minds. They believe in brains, and they are interested in how brains
> work.

This is like saying that Buddhists don't believe in selves. They don't. 
Abhidharma breaks the skandhas down into numerous components whose 
interactions give a mental and physical world.

"Scientists" today, btw, are not the sort of strict behaviorists you are 
describing. That ideology petered out decades ago, but some old farts --  
some even pretending to be part-time Buddhists -- are too dogmatically 
committed to let go of old chestnuts.

>They are scientists, whereas ābhidharmikas were dogmatic religious
> apologists, most of whom didn't have a scientific bone in their bodies.

When you are better informed on the nature and literature of abhidharma we 
can return to this example of inappropriate nasty speech.

> As with so many of Freud's ideas, this false dichotomy has led to some
> very unfortunate consequences. One consequence is that people classed as
> psychotics (people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and Fox News
> Belief Syndrome) tend to be treated as brains in need of chemical
> manipulation, while neurotics are treated to very expensive talk
> therapy.

Wow -- reductionism, misinformation, and historical discombulation, all in 
two sentences. To start: Freud died in 1939. The "drug" revolution you are 
complaining about (have you been hanging out with Tom Cruise or the 
Scientologists?) didn't happen til the mid 1950s. Your impressions are way 
behind the times (I guess it takes a couple of decades for decriers to make 
it out to the N. Mexico lecture circuit). Places like Harvard Medical and 
MIT have much more progressive views. Time to catch up on current trends.

Dan