Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

by Robert Wright

More than once I’ve heard a meditation teacher say, “Thoughts think themselves.” By the end of a retreat, oddly, that can start to make sense. So if the conscious mind isn’t in control, what is in control? As we’ll see, the answer may be: nothing in particular. The closer we look at the mind, the more it seems to consist of a lot of different players, players that sometimes collaborate but sometimes fight for control, with victory going to the one that is in some sense the strongest. In other words, it’s a jungle in there, and you’re not the king of the jungle. The good news is that, paradoxically, realizing you’re not king can be the first step toward getting some real power. Of course, it’s hard to admit you’re not king, and that’s not just because king seems like a great thing to be. It’s because we feel like we’re king; we feel that our conscious self is in charge of our behavior, deciding what to do and when. But a number of experiments over the past few decades have cast doubt on this intuition.