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neuroscience

The neural circuitry that governs emotional life is among the last part of the brain to become anatomically mature, and repeated experiences are among the stronger forces that sculpt the developing brain-as evidence from in cross-cultural and child development studies shows.

Emotions become destructive when normal neural systems for essential behavior go to extremes, compelling us to react in inappropriate, harmful ways. To understand why this happens so easily in modern life, we examine first the impact that the role of emotions as a survival mechanism in evolution has had on our neural architecture.

This philosophical dialogue investigates the transformation of negative emotions into ‘destructive’ forces, examining both Western and Buddhist perspectives. The Western view encompasses historical concerns in moral philosophy, spanning spiritual exercises for moral enhancement and addressing the biological dimension of emotions, while the Buddhist stance, rooted in phenomenology, identifies ‘Klesha’ as ‘mental affliction,’ attributing destructive emotions to obscurations that can be eliminated for lasting freedom or Nirvana.

This philosophical dialogue between Western and Buddhist perspectives examines when negative emotions become ‘destructive’ -that is, do harm. The discussion should surface implicit cultural differences-and points of agreements-in the most basic assumptions underlying our exploration.

Attention is defined as the ability to selectively process one source of information over others. Cognitive control is defined as the ability to act (or think) in accord with an intention. Both of these functions have been the subject of intense study in psychology and neuroscience, and yet our understanding of them, their relationship to one another, and their underlying neural mechanisms is still largely incomplete.

Meditation is likely to change mental functions in many different ways. My interest is to explore such changes in the domain of attention.Western psychology has developed experimental paradigms to measure different attentional skills and deployments.

Samatha meditation, the foundation of Tibetan Buddhist contemplative techniques, is devoted to achieving stability and vividness of the attention. Opposing these objectives, there are several serious hindrances, including attentional laxity and excitation (e.g., wandering thoughts and mental chatter), which must be surmounted in order for attentional stability and vividness to be achieved.