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

by Robert Wright

So if the conscious self isn’t the thing that changes our channels, putting a new module in charge, what is? Well, the activation of modules is closely associated with feelings. The Shining makes you feel fearful, and this fear seems to have played a role in activating the self-protection module, with its tendency to seek shelter in a crowd. Before Sunrise activates feelings of romance, and these feelings seem to have invoked the mate-acquisition module, with its inclination toward intimacy. This idea—that modules are triggered by feelings—sheds new light on the connection between two fundamental parts of Buddhism: the idea of nonattachment to feelings and the idea of not-self. We’ve already seen one kind of connection: when you let go of a feeling by viewing it mindfully, you’re letting go of something you had previously considered part of your self; you are chipping away at the self, bit by bit. But now we see that calling this a “chipping away” may understate the magnitude of what you’re doing. 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. It’s feelings that “decide” which module will be in charge for the time being, and it’s modules that then decide what you’ll actually do during that time. In this light, it becomes a bit clearer why losing attachment to feelings could help you reach a point where there seems to be no self.