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

by Robert Wright

I wouldn’t recommend relinquishing your sense of essence as thoroughly as Fred, the victim of Capgras delusion mentioned in the previous chapter. But that’s not something you have to worry about anyway. I’m not aware of any meditators having taken things that far—not even those who seem to have gotten somewhere in the vicinity of enlightenment. Fred was useful in illustrating the link between essence and affect, but he’s not useful in illustrating where the dharma leads. Still, he does raise an interesting question about where the dharma can lead. Even if it isn’t going to lead you to where Fred was—to a point where you see so little essence that you can’t figure out who is who—is it possible that it could lead you too far? Suppose, for example, that, though you can still accurately identify your spouse as your spouse, you see less essence-of-spouse than you used to, and suppose your feelings change accordingly. Will that mean you love your spouse less deeply now? Or, to take another example, will parents who meditate intensively come to love their offspring less intensely? Indeed, doesn’t the whole Buddhist idea that you should let go of your attachments encourage, in some sense, less parental love as we’ve always known parental love?