Hi. I am really amazed with this secular approach to Buddhism. It really helps us to understand and try all these things in our daily life. I just miss a Spanish approach to all of this information. This language barrier makes these marvelous themes UNAVAILABLE for many people. I would have to be translating all your videos for Spanish speaking people to access them . However thank you very much.

Hi Doug, Perhaps you've talked about this in another video, but Yuval Noah Harari, who is a meditator who spends some months every year on silent retreat, makes a pretty compelling case in his book Sapiens for his version of the evolutionary basis of delusion and ignorance (my interpretation -- Sapiens is not a book about Buddhism). Essentially, it is born of a capacity for abstraction that sets us apart (as far as we know) from other species. It is well known that animals have language, but it's mostly limited to "Look out! There's a tiger!" or "Look out! There's an eagle!" Animal language is limited to the here and now. As far as we know, they are not able to remove themselves in time and space and say, "Yesterday, I saw a tiger stalking a herd of buffalo at the bend of the river." Humans, however, can do this, giving us a unique capacity for elaborate planning. But our consciousness has an even higher level of abstraction: the mythic. We are able to come up with and communicate things that have no actual basis in reality, such as, "The lion is the totem of our clan." Harari argues that this third-level abstraction ability is what empowered us to dominate the planet, in that it enables us to align ourselves in common cause with people we've never met (whereas animals that cooperate must personally know the individuals they're cooperating with, giving them a strict upper limit to the number of individuals in a group). We make these myths "real" by building sociocultural and physical infrastructure around them (for example banks, built upon the myth of money). Multiply this many thousand-fold and it's no surprise that it's almost impossible for humans to penetrate the mythology that we've woven all around us, and distinguish reality from imagination. While Sapiens is not a book about Buddhism per se, as a meditator who knows a little bit about the author, I can see the fruits of Harari's Vipassana practice all over it. I highly recommend it, and would love to see you review it from a Buddhist perspective.

I read Wright's book and found much of value in it, and I found much of value in this review of it. However, if you want to begin to understand emptiness and non-self, no one speaks more simply and more beautifully on these subjects than Thich Nhat Hanh.

Gather Gems were you find them... don't remember were I first heard this but I like it....

I am at 2:37 and you have hit the nail on the head as to the title. It only means you do not need to accept anything on faith but empirically try yourself and adopt if you want. Thus the truth is now in your hand rather than dictated to you. And yes, it is the secular Buddhism which does not talk about "Mara" and other dualistic things which may be syncretic with existing Hindu sects.

Hi Doug! Another contemporary book I have just read is 'Unsubscribe' by Josh Korda. Quite gritty and anecdotal but also talks about the suttas. I feel it is harder hitting than 'Why Buddhism is True' which compares quite weakly I would say imho :-)

wonderful wonderful!!

I have read the book multiple times and enjoy Robert Wright as an author. I think he makes a compelling case for affective emotional responses and how we create meaning in the world through our attachment to feelings. 'The Moral Animal' and 'Non Zero' (also written by Wright) makes the case for evolutionary psychology as the driver of human action through selection pressure - it is a compelling theory IMO.

Great review Doug. From my perspective the big questions were welcomed! (However, I was, like you said, "new to the secular understanding of buddhism"). However, I am wondering if there are any secular buddhist associations in Canada you know of or if you think that traditions like Zen and Shambhala having any qualities that inherently interfere with a secular approach? What is it in Shambhala or Zen that isn't secular? Best wishes and Happy New Year.

As far as I remember reading, the author fore-warns that he is going to go into emptiness, desire and suffering (anatta, shunyata, tanha and dukka). He has wantonly skipped moralistic teachings like hatred or ignorance. I think this book was widely read as the author teaches a first year Undergraduate class at a top University. I have also read and tried mindfulness which I think was discussed. I agree with you that this is a secular coverage. At the time of the first Buddha, as far as I know, society was feudal and he was a warrior prince. He gave up on extremist approaches to liberation and adopted a moderate path. Whether the origin story is more important or whether Mr Doug is more important is a matter of mindset. Great interpretation. 🙏🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍

In eary Buddhism, there is Suñña (emptyness) Sutta & Cula-suññata Sutta. I think - it's better to practice Buddhism than it is to get people to explain it, dont u think? Theory & practice should go together. After experience both, one can explain Buddhism.

Thanks, Doug great content ! Could you please clarify the difference between dhamma and dharma?

thank you so much sir 🙏🙏🙏🙏😇😇😇😇

I would like to see your response on What the Buddha taught by Walpola Rahula Thera

Thank you for this review. I have just finished Prof. Wright's course on Buddhism and Modern Psychology (available on Coursera, I can recommend it) and would like to read this book in particular. In the course, he also emphasises the view of evolutionary psychology (I believe that at some point he also states that its theories tend to be rather speculative). I agree that we can't blame everything on evolution, however I like the idea that Buddhism is a kind of rebellion against natural selection. Hopefully, it's much more than that. But understanding our mind is a useful and necessary starting point.

Definitely worth reading are the two LIONS ROAR SUTTAS...translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi .......words of the Buddha .....

5:59 exact point made in book.

I'll give the 📚 book another look. Passed it over at the book shop because of the title... thought it was evangelizing.

Hi Doug! I have recently read the book. On the whole I would very much agree with everything you have said about it; although I came away feeling a little disappointed in it. My critique was on Amazon was not quite as eloquent as yours and a little brutish. I gave it 3 stars and described it as 'slightly rambling'. If not for the title I don't believe it would have garnered that much attention. It is in fact 'click-bait'. I certainly did not come away thinking that 'yes indeed, Buddhism is true'. A tad mercenary on his part I would say. Although I may be being overly critical; I expected more.

Yes

Is there significance to the fact that the word "is" is in italics? Just noticed that last night.

Won't bother, but thank you, Doug, a long time in the future. Very interesting review, though.

I love how you say "sexy elements" 😂

interesting

NAMO BUDDHAYA. NAMO AMITUOFO. NAMO AMITABHA. Budu saranai........................

Ok. This will be my next book

so the 2nd point is detachment, to detach ourselves from things, if i understood it correctly

It was interesting to me that the person who made this video wished so often that the author would have written a large portion of the book differently.

Have you read Charles Allen books on Buddhism and Indian history 🤔

In german, the title is: why Buddhism works. Maybe this title is a better approach to the book and its aim..

Evolutionary psychology isn't just an interest of Wright's, it is what he does - he is an evolutionary psychologist and so I don't think that aspect of the book could be scaled back - that's really what the book is about.

Sir Here we understood that mind work somewhat differently than other organs of body . If someone understood the nature of mind , it realy show amazing things. My be we are not able to deeply meditate to reach to the hight of aharta. I think we need some practical to do this method to penetrated our mind . Actualy I understdood that beside vipassana as taught by s n goyanka, there is one more point I noted . Beyond observation one can even ruined out the heavyness in the body. Mind enen come out of our body. This show it is possible to go beyond this and get truely what buddha said. This can possible by the way shown by buddha. We can try it. We need sincer effort. Buddhism survive just because of this curiacity and suppose to exist of long time.

I do believe evolutionary phsicology has more things right than wrong. Beside the examples in the book about the issue have a lot of sense

let's all chant the heart sutra.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo :)

Lesson to take away from emptiness is not to get too attached to anything or crave. This will lead to suffering.

sir Have you been Kathmandu Nepal?

It is interesting to use evolutionary psychology to prove whether Buddhism is true, while evolutionary psychology itself is under scrutiny by many scientists. This is not to say evolutionary psychology is not legit. After all, one's psychological condition is more or less depending on one's physical/biological conditions. I personally prefer to think of evolutionary psychology as a result of mainly social evolution. One's mind and behavior are very much influenced by the society and community one is part of. However, there is yet always so much variations among individuals in terms of psychology at any given time. People who live in the same society or community, or even born into the same family could have very different mindsets, belief, and behavior. How could anyone prove or even say whether Buddhism is true or not true? And for that matter, whether any religion or philosophy is true or not true? To me, Buddhism as well as any other religions and philosophies are simply different sets of thinking that help us to shape our own thinking and our mindsets, hopefully for the better. We all have the freedom to choose whether to follow it or discard it as rubbish. The important thing is to use our best judgments without any bias. Buddhism happens to have the very best guideline for unbiased judgments, that is, to be detached from everything.

A lot of these concepts christianity also discusses. They discuss how to actually seek the morally right things and good vs bad, more or less the new testimony.. They discuss also the emptiness and how to combat the dark with light. Because of spiritual warfare and testimonies, I’m afraid I’m just not convinced. Maybe if it were less philosophical and more factual, I would better understand. Also, not to complain, but there just is no answers and no answers with where souls go. It’s just the acceptance without diggin too far into christianity it seems. Also I used to be an atheist, so it takes a lot for me to talk about this stuff and christianity.

You can still be a secular Buddhist and believe in or at least be open to the concept of reincarnation, considering that there is some evidence i.e people that remember past lives and have been tested.

In fact it isent. It is just an idea that adops to your own mind. And it is like all other ideas submited to change and cant be truth. Holding in to an idea creates just more suffering and confusion.

sir are u a buddhist?

I think the book takes a lot of time to come to a point. Certain passages were pretty repetitive.

I think secular buddhism is great, but I do think rebirth is philosophically coherent with a secular or atheistic/naturalistic view if you think about the fact you exist that in and of itself shows it’s possible for you to come into existence, look at two brains and the difference between them why the have two different illusionary consciousness is because they have different numbers, your number(s) are some number between 0 and trending towards infinity and if those number(s) are chosen that creates an illusionary experience factor that by any amount of time and it stands to reason if there is any chance of being born given enough time it will happen and over and over again maybe not in this physical reality but if you factor there could be any number of physical realities independent of ours I believe that reincarnation is inevitable. I believe most people put too much emphasis on scientific reasoning when you can’t always find the answers to some questions scientifically. If you have some argument against mine please do I’m very interested to see your reasoning.

Why Buddhism is True pdf - free @ Internet Archive

And THIS👆, everybody, is how Holy Crusades are started-the WEAPONISATION of one faith against another. Well demonstrated, Rev!

You dont have to consider yourself secular to address the question of rebirth. Its not simple and there is a lot of hotly debate ongoing but i see It in the following way, and found backing in some scholars. Anattman and antiesentialism are just incompatible with the idea of transmigration of souls or a personal soul, at least. How rebirth can be seen its just the ripple effects that our karma (actions) will have on the world long after we are gone. Patterns that will repeat because of our doings. What is rebirthed? I dont know and i dont care to know, maybe just the idea of a self.

I recently noticed the German edition. The title is so, so, so much better: Warum Buddhismus Wirkt ("Why Buddhism Works")

I swear I’m sick of those Christina’s who studied no Buddhism claim that Buddha was in hell 😂😂😂😂😭

Why do Buddhists say ‘’BCE’’?

so i budism a religon meaning there is a god / making claims of the non seable things? I have a flat mate who belive budda who belives in recarnation and because some people have seen these visions he beleives it.

Eastern philosophy is in my opinion not the same as western philosophy so maybe we are trying to conflate the two which is not fair . We have to be careful in understanding eastern thought and not critique it based on a biased western thought

Evolution seems to be so hard for the ego to accept

I'm confused. Do buddhist feel empty inside, like a pain in their chest, also meaning their souls feel empty and what they are trying to do is fill the pain by fighting the feeling? Are they feeling empty inside in other words?

You should go to speakers corner!! Represent the buddha

Nirvana can not be attained through a secular approach to Buddhism. The two pillars to understand Buddhism is Shraddha and Sarana, meaning Belief and Refuge in the Buddha.

I think this was a click baitey book. It's as if Wright wanted his buddhist followers who hadn't read the moral animal to read the moral animal.

Matter can never be created nor destroyed. This is physics. Assuming one understands the concept of non-self. How can one deny the inevitability of rebirth. Regardless of the egoic aspects we project upon the idea of reincarnation. The ego dies. No Buddha ever claimed otherwise to my knowledge, but I’m open to correction lol.

JABB ...MAARUNGAA TABB DEKH LENAA KHUD SE....BUDDHISM ....PATAA CHALL JAAYEGA...

It's the only religion which teaches the true nature of life.This whole life is just to suffer and buddha taught us how to end it

Verily Buddhism is a very much confusing & complicated Concept that has no logic// Purpose of life// Goal// Target. But Digha Nikaya Says God Has Exist. Why shall we follow with out an aim in life ???????????????Many man says many things about Buddha's Teachings. With out Desire how can we develop we don't under stand????. Again 4 th Desire is God itself not???Digha Nikaya says about God . Now it is nothing but Paganism.as like as Hinduism. They take refugee to Buddha but theu don't admit Buddha as God Reply

I start to get allergic reactions when a religion/philosophical view/life path starts saying it is "true". What is next? Buddhism is the only true way? Sounds like the claim abrahamic religions make.😅

Do buddhist feel empty inside like an ache in the soul? And they are trying to fight it. Confusing why they'd stay in a religion that makes a sense of emptiness in the soul. It's a yucky feeling. Why would anybody want to feel that sense of nothingness. I really can't understand.

Is buddhisim not true so you dont exist

You know I love to talk to people who accept buddhism as the true religion. Christians are so annoying judging other religions while: 1) It was the most evil and aggressive religion in the world. Just think about it how many people were killed in the name of god, there are lots of great books about christian secrets like Dan Brown - the Davinci code, if you want read it, it is a very interesting book about a fictional story based on real historical events and theories about christianity. 2) They judge everyone who isn't christian and say that other religions are fake, but still don't know nothing about their religion but only what they are told. 3) Most of them aren't even real christians, they have so many churches but they don't use them while the muslims are strong enough to build their own mosques in christian countries. I'm christian, just officially and one day I want to convert into a more real religion like Buddhism.

So you met your stone God? Lol

Rebirth is critical to this doctrine and can't be separated from it, maintaining coherency. Secular buddhism is not true, but non-secular Buddhism is.

I'd like to hear some rational argument as to why Buddhism is true. I completely disagree with the Buddhist interpretation of rebirth - for example, that your karmic seeds can be reborn into a dog after you physically die - so to me, Buddhism is false. A person who has an understanding of emptiness would not teach such false things. I'm not sure that the Buddha taught this false rebirth teaching, but a huge number of modern Buddhist teachers do.

BDDHISS IS CRIDIBLE A TEACHING ON AN TEACHINGS. THE CIRCLE OF LIVE AND DEATH AND THE REINKARNATION AND KARMALICS FOR ELEGANT THE GODS ,....NOT A MAD GOD WITH POWER ON MONSTERS POWER

Oh, these extremely weird Buddhist ontology speculations always make me flabbergasted, because of their sheer absurdity. 3:44++ This notion that the universe is empty. (Really? Does science support that, really?) And this emptiness _"is a substance ... er ... lack of substance"_ pervading universe. "Emptiness of essence", would then mean that _"everything is always changing?_ (I think science dismiss this notion, especially regarding the speed of light). And you _"approach a table or something, as though there was something prominent there"_ Yeeeh! (A table is a table, and it is "prominent" in table usage respects). I suspect Buddhism is actually a giant logic error somehow imprisoning people in a giant mind-trap, like: _"everything is always _*_essentially_*_ meaningless, so let's have some mindfulness here"_ -- There are some deep troubling aspects in this kind of thinking: 1. this kind of attitude doesn't help in practical problem solving, where something's "essence" is "prominent" (all philosophers may forgive me for this mishandling of the real meaning, but I'm trying to speak Buddhist here!) only so far as context dictates, such as if you absolutely must put something down at a height of 1 meter over the ground, then a table is "prominent" and it's "essence" to context is relevant. 2. The second is that it creates a wall of intellectual indifference between the practitioners of Buddhism and the lay men, which may be the reason that Buddhist nations are not less violent than Christian and Islam nations.

Buddhism stole from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and Hinduism's meditative tools. Buddha was not enlightened. To be enlightened an individual would be transformed by purification of the Subconscious mind and then the Purification of the Unconscious mind which allows the surface individual to connect with Brahma. Buddha never connected with Brahma and in fact was defeated by Mara (The Evil One) in the deepest levels of the Unconscious mind. Buddha never reached Brahma....as a result, he thought all life is pain and suffering. Yogis who reach Nirvikalpa samadhi have brief glimpses of Brahma. Buddha really Siddhartha Gautama highly likely never reached Nirvikalpa Samadhi.