When the average non-Buddhist westerner thinks of Buddhism, they often think of meditation, kindness, and monks with shaved heads in orange robes. But what lies beneath these surface-level artifacts is profound understanding. Few wisdom traditions have delivered as much insight into the nature of the human mind as Buddhism. It’s impossible to know how much of the Buddha’s teachings were actually uttered by him, because they have been debated, refined, and adapted over the centuries. What remains today is a body of practical insight into the human condition. To say that Buddhism and modern psychology go hand-in-hand would be an overstatement. Modern science has, however, corroborated several core Buddhist teachings. Let’s unpack some of the areas in which Buddhism and modern psychology converge. I hope that among the factoids and findings, you’ll extract some value from this article, as it is also written with practical mental well-being protocols in mind.

Nature of the mind 

In modern neurobiology, they call it the Cortical Midline Network. In Buddhism, it’s referred to colloquially as the ‘monkey mind’. Both terms can represent the same phenomenon, which is that in most cases the human mind’s default state is one of wandering. This is why psychologists and neurobiologists sometimes refer to the Midline Network of the nervous system as the ‘default mode network’. It’s also why a seemingly simple meditation instruction like ‘focus on the breath’ can be so challenging.

In the Buddhist context, the term ‘monkey mind’ comes from the analogy which likens the default nature of the mind to a monkey swinging from branch to branch high up in the canopy. The monkey never stays on one branch for very long before jumping to the next. As it turns out, this is a fairly apt analogy. Studies indicate that when unengaged with a specific task or object of focus, the average person’s mind tends to wander about half the time. These same studies also indicate that these wanderings tend to tilt towards negative thoughts. This has an evolutionary basis. During our long evolution, it was more important to remember where the lions were lurking than where the berries were growing. You can survive a day without berries, but you can’t endure a lion attack. 

The Buddha and the Buddhist philosophers that came after him were wise to define the predicament of the wandering mind. Being aware that the mind does this, as it’s running on its predominant default mode, is a major step towards viewing our wandering thoughts as simple constructs of the mind, and not so much as hard reality. It’s a major leap forward when we begin to notice the wandering mind, rather than being led on by it, unaware.

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Awareness and self-reflection

I’m a huge fan of The Huberman Lab Podcast. The host, Dr. Andrew Huberman, is a neurobiologist and professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His podcast covers a broad range of topics within the sphere of human health and performance. In late 2023, he and his expert guest, psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti, M.D. did a four-episode series on mental health. In it, Conti described the importance of self-awareness and self-reflection. He described a practice of ‘opening the cupboards’, in which we can, either under the guidance of a trusted psychiatrist or on our own, examine core areas of our existence, such as the unconscious mind, our defense mechanisms, or our ability to channel natural affective states such as anxiety or restlessness into something positive and productive. 

In some Buddhist meditative practices, including some forms of mindfulness meditation, we’re instructed to simply observe our thoughts. The formal practice involves noticing thoughts, sensations, and feelings arise, without clinging to them, building upon them with more wandering thoughts, or labeling them as good or bad. The result of such a formal practice is that over time we do become more aware of ourselves. Through this type of meditation, we develop the skill of noticing unhealthy thought patterns, which would have otherwise just entered our experience as apparent reality. 

If nothing else, meditation provides a moment of self-reflection. Without self-reflection, we cannot have self-awareness. When mental health challenges arise, it’s crucial to have the ability to openly and honestly identify where things are going off the rails. Conti also spoke about the importance of becoming aware of our thoughts, because thoughts become behaviors, and behaviors become striving. He explained that striving is perhaps the pinnacle of self, because it represents where we spend large amounts of resources. In other words, we are what we strive for (or fail to strive for). And since the great tree of striving starts with the seedling of thought, it’s important to have practices and protocols that develop awareness of thought. Mindfulness meditation and other forms of meditation common in Buddhist traditions are proven means of achieving this type of awareness.

Agency and the Eightfold Path

In those same episodes, Conti defined the two major constituents of happiness or general mental well-being. They are agency and gratitude. He and Huberman discussed at length how agency—our ability to activate our own intrinsic motivation and generative drive to accomplish things out in the real world—is best thought of as a verb. It’s not something we have. It’s something we do. When faced with challenges, we must be able to muster up some degree of response. We have to be able to manipulate and move through our environment to meet our needs. In modern society, this means we’re able to write a resume, contact potential employers, and interview for jobs. It means going to the immigration office to get definitive answers on doubts regarding your visa application. It means starting a regular exercise program because your body needs it. 

In Buddhism, too, there is a recognition that we not only have the capacity for agency, but that we must take active steps if we’re to become more peaceful, compassionate humans. The most fundamental teaching in Buddhism is known as the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth simply stated that human suffering was inevitable. To be human is to suffer. We all experience it. The Second Noble Truth identified the causes of suffering: craving, delusion, and ignorance. The Third Noble Truth was the critical step. The Buddha taught that since there was an identifiable cause for suffering, then there had to be an identifiable method for ending human suffering. That method was the Fourth Noble Truth.

Buddhism and modern psychology: Right effort

The Fourth Noble Truth was the path to the end of suffering, what the Buddha called the Eightfold Path. The Fourth Noble Truth was a systematic approach to the end of human suffering—the dispelling of ignorance and the liberation of the mind. I won’t get into each of the eight folds of the Eightfold Path, because I have already done that in another article and will be publishing more in-depth looks at each of them in the months to come.

Related article: The Eightfold Path: Guidance For Life’s Challenges

Essentially, the eight folds provide specific guidance regarding things like our perceptions, thought, speech, actions. One fold of the path is called Right Effort, and it teaches us that none of this comes for free. To become truly compassionate and understanding—to rid ourselves of the cravings, delusions, and ignorance that come with being human—we must accept that it requires our active participation. Then, crucially, we must do the work. So both Buddhism and modern psychology tell us that a fundamental component of mental well-being involves stepping outside our comfort zone and embracing challenges while taking steps out in the real world to improve our behaviors and circumstances. 

Dukkha and dopamine 

In Buddhism, Dukkha is a fundamental concept that is often translated as ‘suffering’. However, there is a lot of division over this translation. Many assert that a more faithful translation would be ‘unsatisfactoriness’. In Buddhism, Dukkha is not limited to pain and discomfort, but it also includes the nuances of unease, restlessness, and a state of longing for things to be different. It is thought that we must cultivate a deeper understanding of impermanence—the open-hearted acceptance that all things are in a constant state of change—to free ourselves from this kind of unsatisfactoriness. 

Today, the scientific community has a deep understanding of the neurotransmitter called dopamine. The other day, however, I saw a scammy YouTube ad that opened by saying dopamine is the happiness molecule. This is inaccurate (no surprise, coming from a cheap online ruse) and a common misconception. Rather, dopamine is involved in many core human functions. Notably, it is largely responsible for motivation and reward. It’s the neurochemical that pushes a hungry hunter-gatherer to search for food, no matter how painstaking the search may be. 

Endless chasing

Thus, dopamine works to motivate us in anticipation of a reward. This is a critical point, so I want to make it clear. Indeed, dopamine makes us feel good. But it feels best in pursuit of some reward. It’s the drive to the 7-Eleven to get the box of donuts that actually feels better than eating them. It’s the flirting and foreplay before sex. 

Dopamine peaks in anticipation of the thing we’re seeking. After we’ve obtained the thing, dopamine dips, often below baseline, which can leave us feeling unsatisfied. This is why no one feels amazing after scarfing down a box of donuts. Evolutionarily speaking, this makes sense. If the fulfillment of eating was everlasting, then we’d never need to eat another meal. 

The problem is that dopamine dictates all sorts of behaviors, not just ones fundamental to our survival as a species like eating and having sex. The social media companies know this. A social media scroll is all about anticipation. TikTok is dubiously unfulfilling. It’s nothing but an endless feed of 60-second clips, none of which contain any elements of a real story (which is what we’re unconsciously seeking on there). So it’s all anticipation and no reward.

When we engage in multiple unhealthy behaviors like social media scrolling, we gain nothing but a gaping feeling of unsatisfactoriness—of Dukkha—of dopamine crashes with no lasting actual benefits like nutrition or intimacy. So both Buddhism and modern psychology advise us to avoid empty chasing. We need to define limits for ourselves. There’s nothing worse than being trapped in a senseless pursuit of the ever-evasive and never-defined ‘more’. 

Buddhism and modern psychology: Feeling whole

Dopamine is a good thing. It’s a human thing. It’s OK to pursue things, but those things should be net positive. Exercise is an excellent example. With regular practice, we get a dopamine response in anticipation of exercise, even when just a few weeks before we had dreaded it. But unlike social media and donuts, exercise has a lasting benefit, which makes it the perfect substitute for unhealthy behaviors. 

Another excellent substitute for unfruitful chasing is mindfulness meditation. A part of the nervous system called the Lateral Cortical Network (LCT) has been shown to become active when we come into the present moment by means of, for example, paying attention to the bodily senses. The LCT supports interoception, which is the ability to notice sensations and feelings in the mind and body. So it promotes internal awareness, but another incredible thing happens when the LCT is active: the Cortical Midline Network (aka the default mode network), responsible for the ‘monkey mind’ that we discussed earlier, becomes inactive. 

When our unintentional, wandering thoughts are suppressed and when we become more aware internally, anchored in the present moment, the ensuing feeling is one of wholeness. It’s amazing how we can cultivate a deep sense of satisfaction simply by focusing on present-moment anchors such as the breath or the bodily senses. A sense of wholeness is the opposite of unsatisfactoriness. The more we can anchor ourselves in the here and now without allowing our monkey mind to run unchecked, the less we’ll engage in the unhealthy pursuit of harmful actions or substances. 

Compassion and empathy

In neuroscience, there’s a saying that has become somewhat of a trope: “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Whether you think it’s a corny phrase or not, it’s true. It stems from our understanding of neural plasticity, which is the irrefutable fact that our brain and nervous system are capable of changing, at any age. When we perform certain actions, behaviors, or even thoughts repeatedly, the specific neural connections involved in those activities become stronger. This is the basis for learning, skill development, and habit-forming. 

In his book Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness (paid link), Rick Hanson, Ph.D. explains that compassion-focused meditation, common in many Buddhist traditions, activates the areas of the brain involved in connection, positive emotion, and reward. Furthermore, he cites a study that measured neural activity in the brains of experienced practitioners of compassion-based meditation. 

The study showed that the neural response in these folks when shown an image of another person’s face versus that of being shown an image of their own face was almost identical. It’s an interesting finding, and one that could lead us to conclude that these meditators developed a deep capacity for empathy through their repeated use of the neural pathways involved in connection. Just by sitting and internally repeating phrases of loving kindness towards others was enough to build up pathways in the brain involved in empathy and compassion. 

Buddhism and modern psychology: The physiology of empathy

It makes sense. It’s no different than learning to shoot free-throws. You do it thousands of times, you’re going to get good at it. The behavior becomes automatic—etched into the nervous system. The takeaway here is that we can all do this. Compassion-based meditation is simple. You sit and repeat the phrases, ‘May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you be at peace,’ directing them towards specific people or all living beings. 

This is one of my go-to meditation practices, so I can share my case study ‘of one’ and attest that it really works. I always feel a deep sense of calm and peace after the practice. Even if I had been annoyed at my wife before beginning the practice, after silently directing these thoughts and words of compassion towards her, I see the ephemeral nature of my annoyance, and remember that my love for her is stronger than whatever relatively small thing had annoyed me.

There are scientific explanations for the feeling of calmness that I get from compassion-based meditation. It helps to understand a bit about the vagus nerve. One branch of the vagus nerve is associated with social engagement, whereas the other branch is associated with the heart and lungs. The two are connected, which is why maintaining a calm physical state allows you to be kinder and more open to others. In the same way, focusing on compassion and warmheartedness allows you to feel calmer physically. Deep breathing or other calming practices actually make us more capable of and prone to compassion and empathy. In turn, acts and words of kindness can make us physically calmer. It’s a two-way street. 

Final thoughts

Many experts claim that we’re in a mental health crisis. I can see it. I work in a fairly high-pressure environment, and unfortunately, I’ve witnessed more than a few of my colleagues go down with burnout. As a fairly new parent, I’m also a fairly new regular at the neighborhood playgrounds. On more than a few occasions, I’ve noticed other dads pushing their kids on the swings while staring at their phone. It’s one thing to stare at your phone on the bus or waiting in line. But at the playground with your kid? 

Buddhism and modern psychology offer much in the way of practical advice for mental wellness. It all starts with understanding. We would all benefit from a little more first-hand observation into how the mind works. This kind of self-awareness doesn’t happen, though, while we’re swiping on a piece of glass covering some microprocessors. It takes some effort, and in some cases, the courage to seek help, but the healing wisdom of the Buddha (or of modern science) is available to all of us to illuminate our path of self-discovery.

Related article: No Self In Buddhism & Science: Tame The Ego, Start Living

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