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

by Robert Wright

We were built by natural selection, and natural selection works to maximize genetic proliferation, period. In addition to not caring about the truth per se, it doesn’t care about our long-term happiness. It will readily delude us about what does and doesn’t bring lasting happiness if that delusion has propelled our ancestors’ genes forward. In fact, natural selection doesn’t even care about our short-term happiness. Just look at the price of all those false positives: being terrified by a snake that isn’t there ninety-nine times in a row could take a toll on a person’s psychological well-being. The good news, of course, is that on the hundredth time the fear may have helped keep our ancestors alive and thus led ultimately to the creation of us. Still, we are the heirs of this tendency toward false positives—not just in the realm of snakes but in the realm of other fears and everyday anxieties. As Aaron Beck, who is sometimes called the founder of cognitive-behavioral therapy, has written, “The cost of survival of the lineage may be a lifetime of discomfort.” Or, as the Buddha would have put it, a lifetime of dukkha. And the Buddha might have added: But this cost is avoidable, if you address the psychological causes of it head-on.