Nutshell Secular Buddhism

The 4 Noble Truths And Your Brain

© Wil McPhail

2500 years ago there was a dude named Siddhartha Gautama, now commonly known as The Buddha. He was super intuitive about people and developed a philosophy about how to approach life in a way that could drastically reduce the suffering that everyone experiences. Modern psychology has confirmed and verified much of what the Buddha taught, and Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths are an example of that.

The Four Noble Truths (aka 4NT)

If you want to learn more about the traditional 4NT as is understood and expressed in Buddhism, please follow the above link and do some googling. Here’s a modern, secular version.

1. All people, ALL PEOPLE, experience suffering, stress, and are at least sometimes dissatisfied with their lives.
2. Suffering, stress, and dissatisfaction are caused by clinging to impermanent things (everything is impermanent, by the way), and the similar yet opposite experiences of craving and aversion (ie: there is no way that I will be ok or happy unless I experience pleasant experiences and/or avoid unpleasant ones).
3. There are things that we can do and ideas that we can explore that can help us to greatly reduce the amount of suffering, stress, and dissatisfaction that we experience
4. One way that has been very effective for many people in the reduction of suffering, stress, and dissatisfaction is the Noble Eightfold Path, which is a practice of living ethically, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom.

“So what?” you say. “This is just some generalized self-help new-age hippy-dippy bullshit.” OK maybe that was me saying that. Stick with me.

Our instinctive drive to stay alive and reproduce manifests itself in many ways, and our entire experience as humans is just a complex pile of context that we’ve heaped upon our instincts.

Take a minute and let that sink in. No, really. Read it again. I’ll wait.

Every single behavior we have can be peeled away until we arrive at some instinctive drive which operates in support of living and replicating. We feel driven to do something rewarding… like eat, or get a back rub, or get high, or finish a crossword puzzle, or get a promotion, or maybe have our opinions validated by strangers on the internet. This gives us a chemical reward in our brains. Then what happens? This chemical reward fades. Bummer, right? We then seek out another activity which our brains recognize as a past or possibly future activity that will activate the chemical reward again. Our behaviors and thoughts are constantly being trained and modified by this process. It’s like we all have an invisible human-whisperer feeding us treats when we do what it wants.

If an animal feels permanent satisfaction after having completed a task which is essential for survival, that animal will die. It won’t feel inspired to follow up that essential behavior with another. If eating and sex didn’t feel good, we’d starve and stop makin’ babies, and if doing those things once resulted in permanent satisfaction we’d never do them again! Additionally, if we don’t ever feel fear or disgust as a result of experiencing something dangerous, we will also probably die. So our brains reward us and take the reward away, which motivates us to do whatever it was again. Sure, we can reason and rationalize our way into and out of almost anything, but have you ever figured out how to do it in a way that actually works and lasts?

This is what seems to be an inexorable vicious cycle- up-down, empty-fulfilled, satisfied-dissatisfied, peace-turmoil, yadda-yadda. We start to crave that which activates our rewards, and become averse to that which activates our fear and/or disgust.

Craving and aversion keep us alive but don’t do jack for sustaining our happiness.

The Old Brain

Among the ways that our brain is separated into sections is the “Old Brain vs New Brain” idea. The first 2 of the 4NT describe how our old brain keeps the vicious cycle going. My description of this will be tragically general, but I think it’s accurate.

The old brain doesn’t want us to stay happy. It’s a dick. It’s Steve Bannon, the Koch Bros, Dick Cheney, the Illuminati, the string-puller of our marionette-like conscious mind.

Within the old brain you’ll find the stuff that governs our movement, hunger/thirst, sex drive, sleep, long-term memory, senses, emotions, reward system, and connects our brain to the sympathetic nervous system (which gets our “fight or flight” stuff happening), and parasympathetic nervous system (which helps us to chill out and translate physical affection into good feels). The old brain is how we stay alive, friends, and it’s always working in the background- facilitating its ulterior motives and temporarily rewarding us for doing stuff that it associates with living and replicating. This reward system trains our cerebral cortex (the new brain) to associate our experiences with rewards, memories, and emotions. As a result of the way that our brains work, the control that we think we have over what we do and why we do it is widely considered to be illusory- like a fake steering wheel in a self-driving car. Unless, that is, we can use our new-brain’s cognitive ability to be mindful of the cycle, why it happens, how it manifests, and do things that can reduce it.

What Can Be Done About My Dickhead of A Brain?

That’s what #s 3 and 4 of the 4NT are all about. #3 states that there’s a path to follow that can help. #4 names the path The Noble Eightfold Path. It’s typically thought of as an eight-spoked wheel, each spoke as important as the others. I’m gonna simplify it. The 3-spoked wheel to roll towards the reduction of suffering can be summed up thusly: ethical conduct, mental discipline, and cultivation of wisdom.

Don’t Be An Asshole (ethical conduct): “Who you callin’ an asshole?” ME. I’m a jerk sometimes. It doesn’t help anyone, including me. The thing is, humans have evolved into animals that require social collaboration in order to process our emotions and experiences. Being an asshole frequently causes isolation- not always physical isolation, but when folks don’t trust that they’re emotionally safe around you they’re far less likely to engage in the type of emotional collaboration that we all need. In support of not being an asshole, the Buddha suggested that everyone sticks to 5 “don’ts.” Here’s a modern, secular version of it:

• Don’t harm sentient beings (the Buddha said “don’t kill.” I dunno, I think this is too specific.)
• Don’t steal
• Don’t cause harm via your sexuality
• Don’t lie or gossip
• Stay sober, or at least don’t get wasted. When you’re super-intoxicated you’ll probably do at least one of the first 4. Go ahead, try to argue with that one.

Each one of these can be unpacked in a nuanced way, and the broad generality of this list allows us to make subjective judgments about how our behavior fits in. The Buddha also stresses the importance of compassion, but, baby-steps, right? Pro Tip: Don’t get hung up on perfection. Just try to keep doing the next right thing. This requires a patient consideration of the space between stimulus and response.

Meditation Helps (mental discipline): I’ll provide a very simple instruction below, but please follow the preceding link for a truly helpful resource. A daily meditation practice helps to cultivate our ability to make conscious, thoughtful decisions, and not being an asshole makes meditation more effective. Why? Ever been plagued by regret? Yeah, less of that means more peace of mind, and less distraction during meditation.

All you have to do to meditate is this:

• set a timer with a low-volume alarm. If you’re new to meditation, start with 5 minutes.
• sit comfortably, preferably with your back straight so that your body’s shape supports itself and your breath isn’t restricted by slouching.
• close your eyes or don’t, whatever.
• maybe take a few centering deep breaths, but the best practice is to allow your breath to happen naturally, without forcing it to be deep. If it’s shallow, cool. Just let it happen. No effort required.
• notice the physical sensation of your breath, and maybe focus on one specific part of it. For example, the breath going in and out of your nose, or your belly’s in-and-out.
• Count each in & out breath cycle, starting over when you reach 10.
• Pro Tip: Your mind will wander. That’s cool. They do that. When that happens, go back to focusing on your breath. If you lose count, just start over. Nobody’s grading you.

That’s it! Simple, but not easy. The “mindfulness” that you’re training yourself to give to your breath will eventually be able to be applied to your daily walkin’-around life — which will eventually empower you to avoid knee-jerk reactions that aren’t helpful.

You’re Probably Bullshitting Yourself (cultivating wisdom): The Old Brain is telling you what to do, and it’s lying to you. Happiness is sustainable, but not by way of attaining things. We need to see the world and the way that we interact with it in ways that contradict what our old brain tells us in order to be OK regardless of what happens in our life. Pro Tip: every thought isn’t true! Even if you’re not interested in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, using a CBT “Thought Worksheet” can help you figure out which internal voice to listen to.

“Real wisdom is the ability to understand the incredible extent to which you bullshit yourself every single moment of every day.”― Brad Warner, “Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen’s Treasury of the Right”

The wisdom piece is complicated. The Buddha walked around India for 45 years trying to help the people around him to see the world without delusion. His claim was that part of human suffering is caused by clinging to ideas that just aren’t true. The concepts of self-identity, creator gods, happiness through material possessions… The Buddha talked about all of these topics and many more in the interest of peeling our white-knuckled fingers off of stuff that just doesn’t help.

Look, I’m not some enlightened guru with claims of wisdom to bestow upon my readers. However, my investigation of Buddhism has definitely been incredibly helpful to me- which translates to being helpful to my loved ones as well.

Takeaway

January 30, 2020: I came back to this article today to see if it still holds up- and yeah, I think it does. I removed my promises to write more, because I’ve realized I’m in a learning stage rather than a teaching one right now. I hope it’s helped some folks!