Sometimes the most insightful commentaries to the Buddha’s teachings are not to be found in the sayings or writings of his acknowledged followers but rather come from indirect sources wholly unrelated to institutional Buddhism and thus unencumbered by the constraints of doctrinal orthodoxy. Such is the case in my opinion with evolutionary psychology (henceforth, EP), a relatively recent discipline that interprets the mechanisms of the human mind in view of our development as a species, stressing the tenacious imprint left on it by the hundreds of millennia our ancestors lived in primitive conditions. Anyone who is familiar with the central ideas of Buddha Dharma can now expand his/her perspective with an evolutionary appreciation of its psychological basis thanks to the compelling overview of EP presented by Robert Wright in his The Moral Animal. Why We Are The Way We Are –a study of great interest on its own merits that also happens to bring to light unsuspected parallels between both fields.
Obviously, coincidences between Dharma and EP, however conspicuous, are limited and do not constitute any kind of definitive scientific endorsement of the former’s ideas. After all, EP is a “soft” science that draws its conclusions about human nature from analysis and induction applied to behaviors and attitudes observed in substantial numbers, whereas the Buddha based his insights on a direct experience beyond the mind –an enormously consequential event, indeed, albeit statistically insignificant and only verifiable by reproducing it oneself. As a result, both outlooks on human nature cannot but differ. That being said, in order to properly approach the Dharma it is nevertheless highly advisable to keep science handy as a touchstone: although it does not follow the scientific method, Buddha Dharma must be compatible with the truths unveiled and confirmed by science over time. In this particular case, the theories of EP seem doubly useful, as they indirectly reinforce certain premises of the Buddha’s teachings while contributing a (pre-)historical explanation of how and why things came to be that way –something which Buddha Dharma, being a practical not speculative discipline, does not deal with explicitly.
In order to evaluate how far EP supports or disputes the Dharma, perhaps the best place to start is with their respective analysis of the mechanisms and consequences of pleasure, an area where both methods show a great deal of mutual agreement in the form of a shared reticence. It is well known that this reserved outlook is one of the hallmarks of Buddhism, where the call to moderation is accompanied by constant warnings on the risks intrinsic to running after pleasure for pleasure’s sake. The Dhammapada, an old Buddhist primer, abounds in such exhortations:
Do not indulge in thoughtlessness.
Do not become intimate with sensual pleasures.
He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled,
immoderate in his food, idle, and weak,
Mara (the tempter) will certainly overthrow him,
as the wind throws down a weak tree.
He who lives without looking for pleasures,
his senses well controlled, moderate in his food, faithful and strong,
him Mara will certainly not overthrow,
any more than the wind throws down a rocky mountain.
Death carries off a man who is gathering flowers,
and whose mind is distracted,
as a flood carries off a sleeping village.
Death subdues a man who is gathering flowers,
and whose mind is distracted,
before he is satiated in his pleasures.
Because of our culturally shared Christian background, statements like these can easily surprise and mislead us. Could there possibly be a place in Dharma for visions of a Hell where the devil hounds the damned with his trident amidst searing flames and clouds of sulfur? Not at all; however, it is entirely natural to sense an all too familiar Puritanism in such language if one doesn’t understand where it’s coming from or where it leads to. Fortunately, it is precisely here that the evolutionary perspective is helpful in bringing out the true dimension of the Buddhist path, which has nothing to do with the imposition of moral commandments. The question, therefore, is why this insistence on the dangers latent in sensual pleasures?
Well, just to make sure we’re walking on firm ground, let us begin by discarding a few possible but unlikely reasons. In the first place, it was not simply out of inexperience or envy that the Buddha chose to play party pooper in this regard. According to traditional accounts, he was well acquainted with sensual pleasures himself insofar as his father the king was determined to lavishly display before his first-born child all the perks of following in his footsteps and inheriting the throne; thus the young prince Gautama had known full well the charms and rewards of power, money, sex and revelling by the time he renounced his kingdom and started off on his arduous journey to awakening. Secondly, he did not formulate these ideas to serve as an instrument of social control intended to buttress the privileged position of the dominant priest class, because he elaborated them based on his own pioneering experience, having left behind all established groups, and after a search he had begun as an implicit challenge to the Brahmins of his day and age. And, lastly, it is hard to believe that he wished to wrest religious supremacy from the Hindu priests so as to hand it over to his own converts by instituting a new and revolutionary code of conduct. After all, advice against pleasure posed no threat to the Hindu creed, whereof it was part and parcel since time immemorial; and, moreover, the original Buddhist community was for many years little more than an unstructured tribe of nomads devoid of mundane ambitions.
All we know for now is that, if this defense of moderation is in line with the bulk of the Buddha’s teachings, it must be relevant to each person’s experience here and now. That’s why we must first examine the meaning of such claims under this light and check whether or not they are consistent with the rest of the Dharma. It may seem little, but if we eliminate the possibility that the Buddha’s reticence regarding sensual pleasures had anything to do with personal motives, political maneuvers or other external factors, we come closer to grasping their real subject: the human being’s inner realm and, more specifically, the application of his/her mind. And that’s no trifling matter.
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