A Scientific Approach to Buddhist Psychotherapy

Book Review

[A treatise on MIND-BODY STRESS (Based on the philosophy of Dependent Arising) By Don G. Athukorala. A Stamford Lake Publication. 2010. 179 pages.]

by Carlo Fonseka

(January 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) From an ostensibly scientific stance, when a devout, octogenarian Buddhist with an impressive track record of knowledge and experience in engineering science declares that "Ven. Buddhaghosa got it wrong" on Paticcasamuppada the foundational premise of Buddhist philosophy, he commands my serious epistemological attention. For I believe that scientific methodology is a surer guide to the nature of reality than philosophical speculation. Moreover, to dispute Ven. Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of a Buddhist doctrine is not necessarily to doubt a teaching of the Compassionate Buddha. Be it remembered that in the 6th century BC the Buddha never set forth his teachings in writing. As a matter of historical fact, the traditional orally preserved hearsay Theravada version of what the Buddha taught came to be documented at Aluvihare, Sri Lanka, only in the 3rd century AC. Students of Buddhism will recall that whilst endorsing the epistemological legitimacy of the skepticism of the Kalamas, the Buddha cautioned them against the error of being led, among other things, by mere reports, tradition, hearsay, authority of religious texts and speculative opinions.


Interpretation of Paticcasamuppada(PS)

Ven. Buddhaghosa himself was born to an Indian Hindu family around the 5th century AC, migrated to Sri Lanka and settled down in the Mahavihara at Anuradhapura. He is the renowned author of Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification), and Sammohavinodani (Dispeller of Delusion) which are classic expositions of Theravada Buddhism. Engineer Don Athukorala (Eng. DA) notes that in Visuddhimagga, having judged that the central doctrine of Buddhism – Paticcasamuppada (PS) or Dependent Origination – is very difficult to understand and explain Ven. Buddhaghosa nevertheless laid it down that it is a process that applies on "a lifetime to lifetime basis", that is, to past, present and future lives. Eng. DA also observes that in his subsequent work Sammohavinodani Ven. Buddhaghosa alludes to another possible interpretation of PS, namely, that it applies to "One-Mind-Moments" (OMM) but definitively rejects it in favor of the "lifetime to lifetime" interpretation. In Eng. DA’s judgment, it is in plumping for the "lifetime to lifetime" application rather than the OMM application that Ven. Buddhaghosa "got it wrong". At any rate, for the purpose of his treatise on mind-body stress and its relief, theoretical considerations demand the OMM application. And so the pragmatic engineer that he is, DA opts for the OMM interpretation and uses it as the basis of the therapy he prescribes for the modern malady called "STRESS".


Structure of Treatise

The book is divided into three parts titled Mind (Part One), Mind-Body (Part Two) and Mind-Body-Stress (Part Three). Part One explores the nature of the human mind from which, as the opening words of the Dhammapada memorably proclaims, "all phenomena arise" (mano pubbangama dhamma). In Eng. DA’s understanding, sensory information, consciousness, vedana (or feeling) perception and so on cluster together to generate "yet another mental state called the mind". To me this sounds perilously circular as a definition. The inveterate positivist physiologist in me would rather say that the cluster in question generates "a state of the brain" called mind, but let that go. Part Two called Mind-Body attempts to explain the relationship between mind and body in terms of modern neurophysiology which – so Eng. DA contends – is compatible with the concept of PS. Part Three titled Mind-Body-Stress seeks to explain how certain mental states can generate ‘stress’ and even stress related diseases including anxiety states, depression and addiction to substances such as alcohol. On the basis of his analytical understanding of PS, the author then goes on to declare confidently that the appropriate and effective remedy for such states is not MEDICATION but (Buddhist) MEDITATION (page 132).


Thought Experiments

For Eng. DA, PS appears to comprise a central concept, a phenomenon, a mechanism and a theory all rolled into one. It is the basis that he uses to formulate and elaborate his thesis. (As it happened, he had been invited by the Vice Chancellor of the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka to present a research paper titled Paticcasamuppada at the Third National Congress of Buddhist Studies held in Colombo in July 2007. This paper seems to have been the stimulus that led Eng. DA to write the book). According to Eng. DA, PS "is a theory with the most wide-ranging set of applications" and was "the outcome of the Buddha’s thought experiments through insight, not from laboratory findings" (page 6). The question whether "pure thought" can generate reliable knowledge independently of sense perception is an old unsettled epistemological conundrum. Eng. DA knows better than I do that no part of the knowledge on which the marvelous engineering inventions are based (e.g. aeroplane, television, electronic pace-maker of the heart, dialysis machine, the internet and so on) has been discovered by ‘pure thought’. Laboratory findings have been crucial, critical and indispensable for the acquisition of such knowledge. Consequently, over the centuries there has been increasing skepticism as to whether "pure thought" enables us to reliably understand the "objective world", that is to say, the world of things (as opposed to the world of ideas and concepts). But a review of a useful book such as the present one is not the place to embark on a discursive digression on epistemology. For all his devotion Eng. DA himself appears to be less than absolutely certain about the reliability of pure thought as a path to knowledge. Perhaps that is why in two places of his book (p. xiv and p.113) he has thought it prudent to publish a disclaimer to the effect that his prescription for stress related diseases is certainly not intended to be an alternative to consulting a health professional.

Appraisal

In his popular book "What the Buddha Taught" Ven. Walpola Rahula, an authoritative modern exponent of Buddhist philosophy, explains that in the ultimate analysis PS or the doctrine of Dependent Origination can be reduced to the formula:

When A is, B is

A arising, B arises

When A is not, B is not

A ceasing, B ceases

When it is so formulated PS seems to be very simple and in fact reducible to the familiar modern concept of causality. However, as Albert Einstein once warned, things must be made as simple as possible but not simpler. The concept of causality, that is to say the question of what it means for one state of affairs to bring about another state of affairs is a very complex matter. As Eng. DA points out in his prologue (page xxi) when Ven. Ananda the Buddha’s amiable cousin and disciple who was better known for the quality of his voice than for the quickness of his mind once said that PS was simple, clear and easy to grasp, the Buddha gently told him not to be silly. Ven. Buddhaghosa himself found the concept hard to comprehend. In the 18th century the great Scottish philosopher David Hume asserted that when we say that Event A causes Event B, what we actually observe is that Event A is followed by Event B. The question arises whether such a sequence necessarily implies causation. To elucidate the matter let us consider a stock example. We observe that day invariably follows night, and night invariably follows day. Does this invariable sequence imply that day is the cause of night and night is the cause of day? Surely not, would be the obvious answer. In this phenomenon invariant conjunction is all that we actually observe and it is easy to see by thinking for a moment that invariant conjunction is not the same thing as causal connection. It is this kind of problem that the Buddha’s doctrine of Paticcasamuppada sought to address. In such a context when Eng. DA declares that PS is a principle of relativity, a definition of mind, an analysis of the process of thought and an insight into the cause of suffering and stress, I fear that he is obfuscating instead of clarifying the complex issue. However that may be, there is no doubt that in a range of psychological disorders such as acute stress reaction, adjustment disorder, abnormal grief and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Buddhist psychotherapy including meditation could be an exceedingly useful and effective therapy for people nurtured in a Buddhist culture.


Conclusion

To make his case for such therapy Eng. DA has had to re-examine the cardinal Buddhist concept of PS and decisively reject its traditional interpretation in favor of a less established one (OMM). As a devoted Buddhist he has the epistemological right to do so, duly sanctioned by the Buddha in the Kalama Sutra. He has ventured to formulate his treatise in terms of modern neurophysiology which he has expounded more or less accurately. His less accurate expositions of neural science as well as the minor imperfections resulting from careless editing and proof reading with which the book is littered, do not, however, invalidate the major claim of his treatise that for some psychological disorders, Buddhist meditation is effective therapy. As an empiricist physiologist with a special interest in how the human brain works, I can only envy the acuity, industry and daring of Eng. Don G. Athukorala’s octogenarian brain!