The Buddhist Concept of Mind

by

Prof. O. H. De A. Wijesekera

Buddhist Publication
Society Kandy Sri
Lanka

Bodhi Leaves, No. A 9

Copyright Kandy; Buddhist Publication Society (1962) Second Impression 1962
BPS Online Edition (2008)
Digital Transcription Source: Buddhist Publication Society
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in
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clearly marked as such.
The Buddhist Concept of Mind
It is in no wise an exaggeration to claim that of all the religions it is Buddhism that gives
the greatest importance to mind in its scheme of deliverance. That is to say, Buddhism is the
most psychological of religions. Even ethics and logic in Buddhism are studied from the
psychological standpoint. This remains a fundamental characteristic of Buddhism throughout
all its stages of historical development. There are some who believe that this trait is confined to
the Abhidhamma Piaka and the subsequent literature, but no serious student of the subject can
agree with such an opinion. The principal doctrines regarding the nature of mans mind are to be
found already in the early discourses, ascribed to the master himself, as preserved in the
major books of the Sutta Piaka, such as the Dgha and Majjhima Nikyas. In fact it may be
asserted without the slightest fear of contradiction, that the later Buddhist books show no idea
that is fundamental to the religion, which is not found in the early Nikyas. They are the very
main-spring of all that Buddhism is, whether in the psychological, ethical, or generally
philosophical aspect.
This importance of psychology in Buddhism is well brought out by Mrs. Rhys Davids in one
of her earlier works. All serious departures in religion and ethics, she points out, have striven to
cope with the tendency to let life be swallowed up in the quest of sensuous gratification. And,
among the remedies sought, have been pure ascesis, or the suppression to the utmost limit
consistent with life, of the channels of sense- impression, and again the cultivation of the object-
world apart from sense-pleasure, namely, in relation to ethical and intellectual interests. A third
course is so to study and regulate the subject-world, or mind, that we can regard it as one object
among other objects. Now, the extent to which the Buddhist initiated and developed this third
course is a notable and practically unique feature in the Buddhist religious culture.

Early Buddhism and Asceticism

In Early Buddhism asceticism, as such, is clearly rejected. In the very first Sermon ascribed to
the Buddha, he declared his method to be a middle way (majjhima-paipad) between asceticism
and self-indulgence. In another Dialogue he is reported to have asked a young man called
Uttara, a pupil of a Brahmin teacher, whether and how Prsariya, his master, taught a method
of disciplining the senses. Yes, was the students reply, one does not see sights with the eyes
nor hear sounds with the ear. This is his method. On that basis, rejoined the Buddha, the
blind and the deaf would have their senses the best under control. Then he proceeds to show
this Brahmin student how his own method of spiritual training differed. According to him, the
sense-impressions are to be consciously discriminated psychologically, as agreeable or
disagreeable or neither, and then the resultant attitudes of loathsomeness or unloathsomeness
towards them are to be discarded, and finally replaced by equanimity accompanied by
mindfulness. Man must study his own mind, cognize and analyse his mental components, and
learn to dictate to his own feelings. By this method the trainee would acquire two results: control
over sense and impulse on the one hand, and on the other insight into the compound and
conditioned nature of the mind itself, which appears to the ignorant to be a unitary Ego,
unchanging and abiding in experience.

Psychological Ethics
Thus we see that the main task of the Buddhist, as he commences his spiritual training, is to
study and analyse his own mind, to observe its inner nature and how it works; and how good
and bad ethical states arise therefrom. That is why in Buddhism so much emphasis is laid on the

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psychological aspect of ethics. In fact, it is perfectly correct to describe the Buddhism of the
Abhidhamma Piaka as psychological ethics. The motive of Buddhist psychology is not just a
scientific curiosity having no bearing on living, but the ultimate desire to cultivate the good
mind, avoiding all evil psychological states. The mind has to be made wholesome by a
particular method, which is seven-fold, according to the Sabbsava Sutta of the Majjhima
Nikya. Both in its method and in its purpose of bringing about peace and harmony of mind,
Buddhism agrees far more with modern psycho-analysis than with any system of theoretical
psychology. While, however, Buddhism is the most psychological of religions, it is not a mere
system of psychology, but a perfect scheme of deliverance. Now it should be clear that the
concept of mind that is found in early Buddhism forms a most important factor in the whole
religion. But what exactly does one mean by using the English word mind with reference to
Buddhism? It does not need much reflection to realize that the word is used in several senses
in English. The best way to get even a rough idea of the Buddhist use is first of all to see what
the Pali terms are for the English word mind.
Students of Buddhism will know that there are several terms in Pali that have been translated
in some context or other by the English word mind, the three common ones being mano,
citta, and via. Each of these terms may sometimes indicate in Pali what may be called the
nonphysical factor in man and other living beings, as is implied in the Dgha Nikya, when it
condemns the erroneous opinion of some metaphysicians that: Whatever there is to be called
citta or mano or via, that is the soul, permanent, constant, eternal, unchanging, etc. This
shows that in the common usage of the times these three terms were applied more or less
synonymously for the mind. But the more technical applications of these, in the psychological
parts of the Canon, reveal significant differences in their use in certain contexts. Mano is
employed generally in the sense of the instrument of thinking, that which cogitates, and,
sometimes, in the sense of that which purposes and intends, citta has more or less the sense of
heart (hadaya), the seat of feeling, and refers to the affective aspect of mind as experiencing.
The term via, usually taken as cognitive consciousness, has also a deeper connotation
than the other two, and in certain contexts indicates the psychic factor, which is the cause for
the rebirth of an individual after death. One may say that these particular shades of
meaning are typical of these three terms in the early Discourses. There is no doubt that they
all indicate some aspect of the inner, immaterial or subjective nature of man, and as such, they
are all included in the Buddhist concept of mind, using that English word in a general sense.

Analysis of Man
Buddhism analyses the whole of man into five aggregates, the pacupadnakkhandh, namely, the
aggregate of material form (rpa), the aggregate of feelings and sensations (vedan), the
aggregate of perception (sa), the aggregate of disposition (sakhra) and consciousness
(via). It will be seen that in this scheme the last four are non-physical factors in man, which
are generally implied by the word mind. In Pail these five aggregates are said to be the
nma-rpa (body and mind) comprising an individuality, which shows that the last four, viz.
vedan, sa, sakhra and via are collectively regarded as nma which is generally
rendered mind. Of these four nma components, it is to be pointed out that the first two,
vedan and sa, are phenomena that arise depending on rpa, or the material basis of
individuality, which alone determines the duration of their continuous rise and passing away.
That is to say, feeling and perception (or cognition) can take place only where there are senses
(indriyas) and these exist only in the physical body. But the other two, sakhra and via,
are rooted deeper in the flux of bhava or sasric continuity, and they are in some sense the
cause for that continuity. This is seen in the two famous postulates of the paiccasamuppda

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formula namely,1 Sakhra-paccay via, via-paccay nmarpa. Thus we must
understand the two terms, sakhra and via, as occurring in the pacupadnakkhandh
analysis, in the narrow sense of those dispositions and acts of consciousness, which manifest
themselves only so long as the body and mind are together. But they have a deeper significance
in the formula of dependent origination. It is their sasric aspects that receive emphasis in that
context. That is why the formula says: via-paccay nmarpa, that nmarpa arises
depending on via, and hence in a passage in the Aguttara Nikya both sakhra and
via seem to be grouped under the term bhava which means becoming or continuity of
the flux of sasric life. In view of these considerations it will not be difficult to understand
now the significance of the important idea that occurs in the Dgha Nikya that the nma-rpa
depends on via and via depends on the nma-rpa. In modern terms this would mean
that the individual as a compound of body and mind is dependent on the presence of the
(individual) psychic-factor for his continued existence, and the psychic-factor in turn, has to
depend on a body-mind compound to have any empirical existence.
Students of modern philosophy will not fail to see how close this analysis of the individual
approaches the Compound Theory of Professor Broad, the Cambridge philosopher, as put
forward in his famous treatise on The Mind and its Place in Nature. Might not what we know as
a mind he writes, be a compound of two factors, neither of which separately has the
characteristic properties of a mind. Let us call one of these constituents the psychic factor
and the other the bodily factor. The psychic factor would be like some chemical element
which has never been isolated, and the characteristics of a mind would depend jointly on those
of the material organism with which it is united. It must be remembered that Professor Broad
uses the term psychic factor exactly as a Buddhist would use the word for via when
referring to the factor in man which causes sasric continuity, that is to say, becomes the cause
for a new birth after death.

A Complex Concept
Now, it would be clear that the Buddhist concept of mind is a far more complex one than
the notion of Western psychologists, who understand by it what are generally called the
affective, cognitive, and conative functions in man. Like the modern schools of psycho-analysis
Buddhism regards mind as both conscious and unconscious in its working. Such concepts as
sakhra and bhavaga, occurring in the early Pali literature, show that the Buddhists knew of
the existence of unconscious states of the mind long before the West. An analysis of the term
sakhra will clearly establish this point. The Buddhism of the Pali Canon is largely devoted
to the examination and analysis of the mind, both in its conscious and unconscious aspects.
This examination, which is in this case self-examination and introspection, is held to be
fundamentally important in the practice of the religion. The importance of self-examination, the
correct observation of how the mind works and the good and evil mental states arise, are
necessary if we are to practise the Noble Eightfold Path. Right effort consists in suppressing the
rising of evil mental states, in eradicating those which have arisen, in stimulating good states
and perfecting those which have been brought into being. Thus, as Professor Radhakrishnan has
pointed out, the Buddhist has to consider that the habit of self-observation is an effective way
to deal with the underworld of the human mind, to root out evil desires and craving, to
maintain an equilibrium between the conscious mind and the other part of our equipment,
the complicated psychic and physical apparatus. In fact, the whole of Buddhist psychology is
meant for this purpose. This is the sole motive of the Abhidhamma analysis.

1
See The Wheel No. 15: Dependent Origination (Paicca Samuppda) by Piyadassi Thera.

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Man Slave to Mind
Man is by nature more a slave of his own mind than its master. As Mah
Moggallna once explained to Sriputta one must have the mind under control (citta
vasa vatteti) and not allow the mind to get the better of one (cittassa vasena vattati).
The great optimism of Buddhist psychology, unlike for instance the Freudian system, is
that man can restrain, curb and subdue his mind by his own mind (cetas citta
abhiniggahti), and thus check and eliminate evil propensities by himself, without
necessarily going to an analyst. It has to be remembered that the will in Buddhism,
though an aspect of the mind, can yet act as the controller of the mind, both in the
conscious and the unconscious spheres. This is possible because as the Aguttara
Nikya says the mind if cultivated is the most pliable (kammanya) thing to handle. By
cultivated (bhvita) is here meant the process of mental culture which is called
bhvan in Buddhism. This is possible because Buddhism holds that causation is as
true of the mind as of external things.
Hence the fundamental ethical teaching of the Buddha is that the mind must be
trained and cleansed of evil propensities. To purify ones mind
(sacittapariyodapana) is said to be the sum-total of the Buddhas ethical teaching.
The Abhidhamma takes up and enlarges upon this teaching of psychological ethics. For
instance, there the immoral mental states are said to be fourteen, viz., dullness,
impudence, recklessness of consequences, distraction, greed, error of judgment, conceit,
hate, envy, selfishness, worry, sloth, torpor and perplexity. These have to be
suppressed and eliminated. Among the nineteen psychological properties said to be
good and therefore to be cultivated are the following: Confidence, mindfulness,
prudence, discretion, disinterestedness, amity, balance of mind, calming of the bodily
impulses, buoyancy of these, etc.

Mind No Permanent Entity

But the greatest good that comes to the practising Buddhist by this self-examination
and analysis of his own mind, is the uprooting of that heresy (micchdihi), which
regards the mind or any of its derivative states as a Self or Soul, that is to say, as an
abiding and permanent, subject or entity. Buddha does not deny a subject-object
relationship in experience but this subject (whose innermost being is simply the flux of
via) is not in any sense a permanent and unchanging Soul. Buddhism even asserts the
activity or agency of the subject (attakra, purisakra) but it is not simply the mind as
man which Mrs. Rhys Davids held to be the same as Upanishads soul or tman, in her
later writings. Buddhism does not say that ideas and feelings are just scattered about the
world as loose and separate existences, to use a phrase of the psychologist McDougall,
but for Buddhism just as for McDougall they cohere in systems each of which
constitutes a mind. The difference between the Buddhist and most other psychologists
pertains to the real nature of this mind or the individual psychological unit. As I have
attempted to show in this essay the individual mind does not consist of such solid
metaphysical stuff as the Self or Soul of certain religions and philosophies is made of. It
is whether conceived as citta or mano or via just an aspect of those dynamic Vital
Impulses (sakhra) which are categorically stated in Buddhism to be anicca,
impermanent, dukkha, subject to ill and pain, and anatt, void of any abiding
substances. To the Buddhist, mind is only a flux, a derivative ripple on the surface of the
1
stream of becoming (bhavasota). The Buddhist can, therefore, in no way entertain the
belief that the mind in any sense can be an unchanging entity, a permanent ego. And this
indeed is the most important lesson taught by the Buddhist analysis of the concept of
mind.

Theory of Mind

Alvin I. Goldman

To Appear in:

Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Cognitive Science (2012)

Edited by Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels, and Stephen Stich

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1. Introduction.

Theory of Mind refers to the cognitive capacity to attribute mental states to self and
others. Other names for the same capacity include commonsense psychology, nave
psychology, folk psychology, mindreading and mentalizing. Mental attributions are
commonly made in both verbal and non-verbal forms. Virtually all language communities, it
seems, have words or phrases to describe mental states, including perceptions, bodily feelings,
emotional states, and propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, hopes, and intentions). People
engaged in social life have many thoughts and beliefs about others (and their own) mental
states, even when they dont verbalize them.

In cognitive science the core question in this terrain is: How do people execute this
cognitive capacity? How do they, or their cognitive systems, go about the task of forming
beliefs or judgments about others mental states, states that arent directly observable? Less
frequently discussed in psychology is the question of how people self- ascribe mental states. Is
the same method used for both first-person and third-person ascription, or entirely different
methods? Other questions in the terrain include: How is the capacity for ToM acquired? What
is the evolutionary story behind this capacity?
What cognitive or neurocognitive architecture underpins ToM? Does it rely on the same
mechanisms for thinking about objects in general, or does it employ dedicated, domain- specific
mechanisms? How does it relate to other processes of social cognition, such as imitation or
empathy?

This chapter provides an overview of ToM research, guided by two classifications. The
first classification articulates four competing approaches to (third- person) mentalizing, viz., the
theory-theory, the modularity theory, the rationality theory, and simulation theory. The second
classification is the first-person/third-person contrast. The bulk of the discussion is directed at
third-person mindreading, but the final section addresses self-attribution. Finally, our discussion
provides representative coverage of the principal fields that investigate ToM: philosophy of
mind, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. Each of these fields has its
distinctive research style, central preoccupations, and striking discoveries or insights.

2. The Theory-Theory

Philosophers began work on theory of mind, or folk psychology, well before empirical
researchers were seriously involved, and their ideas influenced empirical research. In hindsight
one might say that the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars (1956) jump- started the field with his seminal
essay, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. He speculated that the commonsense concepts
and language of mental states, especially the propositional attitudes, are products of a proto-
scientific theory invented by one of our fictional ancestors. This was the forerunner of what was
later called the theory-theory. This idea has been warmly embraced by many developmental
psychologists. However, not everyone agrees with theory-theory as an account of commonsense
psychology, so it is preferable to avoid the biased label theory of mind. In much of my
discussion,

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therefore, I opt for more neutral phraseology, mindreading or mentalizing, to refer to the
activity or trait in question.

The popularity of the theory-theory in philosophy of mind is reflected in the diversity of

philosophers who advocate it. Jerry Fodor (1987) claims that commonsense psychology is so
good at helping us predict behavior that its practically invisible. It works well because the
intentional states it posits genuinely exist and possess the properties generally associated with
them. In contrast to Fodors intentional realism, Paul Churchland (1981) holds that commonsense
psychology is a radically false theory, one that ultimately should be eliminated. Despite their
sharp differences, these philosophers share the assumption that nave psychology, at bottom, is
driven by a science-like theory, where a theory is understood as a set of lawlike generalizations.
Nave psychology would include generalizations that link (1) observable inputs to certain mental
states, (2) certain mental states to other mental states, and (3) mental states to observable outputs
(behavior). The first type of law might be illustrated by Persons who have been physically active
without drinking fluids tend to feel thirst. An example of the second might be Persons in pain
tend to want to relieve that pain. An example of the third might be People who are angry tend
to frown. The business of attributing mental states to others consists of drawing law-guided
inferences from their observed behavior, stimulus conditions and previously determined
antecedent mental states. For example, if one knows that Melissa has been engaged in vigorous
exercise without drinking, one may infer that she is thirsty.

Among the developmental psychologists who have championed the theory-theory are
Josef Perner, Alison Gopnik, Henry Wellman, and Andrew Meltzoff. They seek to apply it to
young children, who are viewed as little scientists who form and revise their thinking about
various domains in the same way scientists do (Gopnik and Wellman, 1992; Gopnik and
Meltzoff, 1997). They collect evidence, make observations, and change their theories in a highly
science-like fashion. They generate theories not only about physical phenomena but also about
unobservable mental states like belief and desire. As in formal science, children make transitions
from simple theories of the phenomena to more complex ones.

The most famous empirical discovery in the developmental branch of theory of mind is
the discovery by Wimmer and Perner (1983) of a striking cognitive change in children between
roughly three and four years of age. This empirical discovery is that three-year-olds tend to fail
a certain false-belief task whereas four-year-olds tend to succeed on the task. Children watch a
scenario featuring puppets or dolls in which the protagonist, Sally, leaves a chocolate on the
counter and then departs the scene. In her absence Anne is seen to move the object from the
counter to a box. The children are asked to predict where Sally will look for the chocolate when
she returns to the room, or alternatively where Sally thinks the chocolate is. Prior to age four
children typically answer incorrectly, i.e., that Sally thinks its in the box (where the chocolate
really is).
Around age four, however, normal children answer as an adult would, by specifying the place
where Sally left the chocolate, thereby ascribing to Sally (what they recognize to

4
be) a false belief. What happens between three and four that accounts for this striking difference?

Theory theorists answer by positing a change of theory in the minds of the children. At
age three they typically have conceptions of desire and belief that depict these states as simple
relations between the cognizer and the external world, relations that do not admit the possibility
of error. This simple theory gradually gives way to a more sophisticated one in which beliefs are
related to propositional representations that can be true or false of the world. At age three the
child does not yet grasp the idea that a belief can be false. In lacking a representational theory of
belief, the child has as compared with adults a conceptual deficit (Perner, 1991). This
deficit is what makes the 3- year-old child incapable of passing the false-belief test. Once the
child attains a representational theory of belief, roughly at age four, she passes the location-
change
false-belief test.

A similar discrepancy between 3- and 4-year olds was found in a second type of false-
belief task, the deceptive container task. A child is shown a familiar container that usually holds
candy and is asked, Whats in here? She replies, candy. The container is then opened,
revealing only a pencil. Shortly thereafter the child is asked what she thought was in the
container when she was first asked. Three-year-olds incorrectly answer a pencil, whereas 4-
year-olds correctly answer candy. Why the difference between the two age groups, despite the
fact that memory tests indicate that 3-year-olds have no trouble recalling their own psychological
states? Theory-theorists again offered the same conceptual-deficit explanation. Since the 3-year-
olds theory doesnt leave room for the possibility of false belief, they cant ascribe to
themselves their original (false) belief that the container held candy; so they respond with their
current belief, namely, that it held a pencil.

This explanation was extremely popular circa 1990. But several subsequent findings
seriously challenge the conceptual-deficit approach. The early challenges were demonstrations
that various experimental manipulations enable 3-year-olds to pass the tests. When given a
memory aid, for example, they can recall and report their original false prediction (Mitchell and
Lacohee, 1991). They can also give the correct false-belief answer when the reality is made less
salient, for instance, if they are told where the chocolate is but dont see it for themselves
(Zaitchik, 1991). Additional evidence suggests that the 3-year-old problem lies in the area of
inhibitory control problems (Carlson and Moses, 2001). Inhibitory control is an executive ability
that enables someone to override prepotent tendencies, i.e., dominant or habitual tendencies,
such as the tendency to reference reality as one knows it to be. A false-belief task requires an
attributor to override this natural tendency, which may be hard for 3-year-olds. An extra year
during which the executive powers mature may be the crucial difference for 4-year- olds, not a
change in their belief concept. A meta-analysis of false-belief task findings encourages Wellman,
Cross, and Watson (2001) to retain the conceptual-deficit story, but this is strongly disputed by
Scholl and Leslie (2001).

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 Even stronger evidence against the traditional theory-theory timeline was uncovered in
2005, in a study of 15-month-old children using a non-verbal false-belief task. Onishi and
Baillargeon (2005) employed a new paradigm with reduced task demands to probe the possible
appreciation of false belief in 15-month-old children, and found signs of exactly such
understanding. This supports a much earlier picture of belief understanding than the child-
scientist form of theory-theory ever contemplated.

A final worry about this approach can now be added. A notable feature of professional
science is the diversity of theories that are endorsed by different practitioners. Cutting-edge
science is rife with disputes over which theory to accept, disputes that often persist for decades.
This pattern of controversy contrasts sharply with what is ascribed to young children in the
mentalizing domain. They are said to converge on one and the same theory, all within the same
narrow time-course. This bears little resemblance to professional science.

Gopnik takes a somewhat different tack in recent research. She puts more flesh on the
general approach by embedding it in the Bayes-net formalism. Bayes nets are directed-graph
formalisms designed to depict probabilistic causal relationships between variables. Given certain
assumptions (the causal Markov and faithfulness assumptions), a system can construct
algorithms to arrive at a correct Bayes net causal structure if it is given enough information about
the contingencies or correlations among the target events. Thus, these systems can learn about
causal structure from observations and behavioral interventions. Gopnik and colleagues (Gopnik
et al., 2004; Schulz and Gopnik, 2004) report experimental results suggesting that 2- to 4-year-
old children engage in causal learning in a manner consistent with the Bayes net formalism. They
propose that this is the method used to learn causal relationships between mental variables,
including relationships relevant to false-belief tasks (Goodman et al, in press?).

Here are several worries about this approach. Can the Bayes net formalism achieve these
results without special tweaking by the theorist, and if not, can other formalisms match these
results without similar special handling? Second, if the Bayes- net formalism predicts that
normal children make all the same types of causal inferences, does this fit the scientific inference
paradigm? We again encounter the problem that scientific inference is characterized by
substantial diversity across the community of inquirers, whereas the opposite is found in the
acquisition of mentalizing skills.

3. The Modularity-Nativist Approach to Theory of Mind

In the mid-1980s other investigators found evidence supporting a very different model of
ToM acquisition. This is the modularity model, which has two principal components. First,
whereas the child-scientist approach claims that mentalizing utilizes domain-general cognitive
equipment, the modularity approach posits one or more domain-specific modules, which use
proprietary representations and computations for the mental domain. Second, the modularity
approach holds that these modules are innate cognitive structures, which mature or come on line
at pre-programmed stages and are not acquired through learning (Leslie, 1994; Scholl and Leslie,
1999). This approach

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comports with nativism for other domains of knowledge, such as those subsumed under Spelkes
(1994) idea of core knowledge. The core-knowledge proposal holds that infants only a few
months old have a substantial amount of initial knowledge in domains such as physics and
arithmetic, knowledge that objects must trace spatiotemporally continuous paths through space
or that one plus one yields two. Innate principles are at work that are largely independent of and
encapsulated from one another. Modularists about mentalizing endorse the same idea.
Mentalizing is part of our genetic endowment that is triggered by appropriate environmental
factors, just as puberty is triggered rather than learned (Scholl and Leslie, 2001).

Early evidence in support of a psychology module was reported by Simon Baron-

Cohen, Alan Leslie and Uta Frith in two studies, both concerning autism. The first study (Baron-
Cohen et al., 1985) compared the performance of normal pre-school children, Down syndrome
children, and autistic children on a false-belief task. All children had a mental age of above 4
years, although the chronological age of the second two groups was higher. Eighty-five percent
of the normal children, 86 percent of the Down syndrome children, but only 20 percent of the
autistic children passed the test. In the second study (Baron-Cohen et al., 1986) subjects were
given scrambled pictures from comic strips with the first picture already in place. They were
supposed to put the strips in order to make a coherent story, and were also supposed to tell the
story in their own words. The stories were of three types: mechanical, behavioral and
mentalistic. The autistic children all ordered the mechanical strips correctly and dealt adequately
with the behavioral script. But the vast majority of autistic children could not understand the
mentalistic stories. They put the pictures in jumbled order and told stories without attribution of
mental states.

The investigators concluded that autism impairs a domain-specific capacity dedicated to

mentalizing. Notice that the autistic children in the 1986 study were not deficient on either the
mechanical or the behavioral script, only on the mentalistic one. Conversely, the Down syndrome
children, despite their general retardation, were not deficient on the false-belief task. Thus autism
seems to involve an impairment specific to mentalizing, whereas mentalizing need not be
impaired by general retardation as long as the ToM-dedicated module remains intact.

These conclusions, however, are not entirely secure. Some children with autism pass
theory-of-mind tasks, including false-belief tests. The number who pass varies from one study to
the next, but even a small percentage calls for explanation. If autism involves a failure to develop
a theory of mind, how could these participants with autism pass the tests? Others therefore argue
that failure on tasks that tap mentalizing abilities may be more directly interpreted in terms of
domain-general deficits in either executive functions or language (Tager-Flusberg, 2000).

Nativist modularists adduce additional evidence, however, in support of their view,

especially evidence for an appreciation of intentional agency in preverbal infants. A variety of
cues are cited as evidence for the attribution of intentionality, or goal- directedness, in infancy,
including joint attention behaviors (gaze-following, pointing,

7
and other communicative gestures), imitation, language and emotional referencing, and
looking-time studies.

In one study of gaze following, Johnson, Slaughter and Carey (1998) tested 12- month-
old infants on a novel object, a small, beach-ball sized object with natural-looking fuzzy brown
fur. It was possible to control the objects behavior from a hidden vantage point, so that when the
baby babbled, the object babbled back. After a period of familiarization, an infant either
experienced the object reacting contingently to the infants own behavior or merely random
beeping or flashing. Infants followed the gaze of the object by shifting their own attention in
the same direction under three conditions: if the object had a face, or the object beeped and
flashed contingent on the infants own behavior, or both. These results were interpreted as
showing that infants use specific information to decide when an object does or does not have the
ability to perceive or attend to its surroundings, which seems to support the operation of a
dedicated input system (Johnson, 2005). Woodward (1998) used a looking-time measure to show
that even 5-month-olds appear to interpret human hands as goal-directed relative to comparable
inanimate objects. They looked longer if the goal-object of the hand changed, but not if the
hands approach path to the goal-object changed. This evidence also suggests an early, dedicated
system to the detection of goal-oriented entities.

All of the above findings post-date Alan Leslies (1994) postulation of a later- maturing
cognitive module: the theory-of-mind mechanism (ToMM). Leslie highlighted four features of
ToMM: (a) it is domain specific, (b) it employs a proprietary representational system that
describes propositional attitudes, (c) it forms the innate basis for our capacity to acquire theory of
mind, and (d) it is damaged in autism. ToMM uses specialized representations and computations,
and is fast, mandatory, domain specific, and informationally encapsulated, thereby satisfying the
principal characteristics of modularity as described by Fodor (1983).

An initial problem with the modularity theory is that ToMM, the most widely discussed
module postulated by the theory, doesnt satisfy the principal criteria of modularity associated
with Fodorian modularity. Consider domain specificity. Fodor says that a cognitive system is
domain specific just in case only a restricted class of stimulations can throw the switch that
turns [the system] on (1983: 49). It is doubtful that any suitable class of stimulations would
satisfy this condition for ToMM (Goldman, 2006: 102-104). A fundamental obstacle facing this
proposal, moreover, is that Fodors approach to modularity assumes that modules are either
input systems or output systems, whereas mindreading has to be a central system. Next consider
informational encapsulation, considered the heart of modularity. A system is informationally
encapsulated if it has only limited access to information contained in other mental systems. But
when Leslie gets around to illustrate the workings of ToMM, it turns out that information from
other central systems is readily accessible to ToMM (Nichols and Stich, 2003: 117-121). Leslie
and German (1995) discuss an example of ascribing a pretend state to another person, and
clearly indicate that a system ascribing such a pretense uses real-world knowledge, for example,
whether a cup containing water would disgorge its contents if it were upturned. This knowledge
would have to be obtained

8
from (another) central system. Perhaps such problems can be averted if a non-Fodorian
conception of modularity is invoked, as proposed by Carruthers (2006). But the tenability of the
proposed alternative conception is open to debate.

4. The Rationality-Teleology Theory

A somewhat different approach to folk psychology has been championed by another

group of philosophers, chief among them Daniel Dennett (1987). Their leading idea is that one
mindreads a target by rationalizing her, that is, by assigning to her a set of propositional
attitudes that make her emerge as far as possible as a rational agent and thinker. Dennett
writes:

[I]t is the myth of our rational agenthood that structures and organizes our attributions of
belief and desire to others and that regulates our own deliberations and investigations.
Folk psychology, then, is idealized in that it produces its predictions and explanations by
calculating in a normative system; it predicts what we will believe, desire, and do, by
determining what we ought to believe, desire, and do. (1987: 52)

Dennett contends that commonsense psychology is the product of a special stance we take
when trying to predict others behavior: the intentional stance. To adopt the intentional stance
is to make the default assumption that the agent whose behavior is to be predicted is rational,
that her desires and beliefs, for example, are ones she rationally ought to have given her
environment and her other beliefs or desires.

Dennett doesnt support his intentional stance theory with empirical findings; he
proceeds largely by thought experiment. So let us use the same procedure in evaluating his
theory. One widely endorsed normative principle of reasoning is to believe whatever follows
logically from other things you believe. But attributors surely do not predict their targets belief
states in accordance with such a strong principle; they dont impute deductive closure to them.
They allow for the possibility that people forget or ignore many of their prior beliefs and fail to
draw all of the logical consequences that might be warranted (Stich, 1981). What about a
normative rule of inconsistency avoidance? Do attributors assume that their targets conform to
this requirement of rationality? That too seems unlikely. If an author modestly thinks that he
must have made some error in his book packed with factual claims, he is caught in an
inconsistency (this is the so-called paradox of the preface). But wouldnt attributors be willing
to ascribe belief in all these propositions to this author.

These are examples of implausible consequences of the rationality theory. A different

problem is the theorys incompleteness: it covers only the mindreading of propositional
attitudes. What about other types of mental states, such as sensations like thirst or pain and
emotions like anger or happiness? It is dubious that rationality considerations bear on these
kinds of states, yet they are surely among the states that attributers ascribe to others. There must
be more to mindreading than imputed rationality.

9
 Although first inspired by armchair reflection, rationality theory has also inspired some
experimental work that at least at first blush seems to be supportive. Gergely, Nadasdy,
Csibra, and Biro (1995) performed an intriguing experiment that they interpreted as showing that
toddlers take the intentional stance at 12 months of age. They habituated one-year-old infants to
an event in which a small circle approaches a large circle by jumping over an obstacle. When the
obstacle is later removed, the infants show longer looking-times when they see the circle take the
familiar jumping path as compared with a straight path toward the target. Apparently, infants
expect an agent to take the most rational or efficient means to its goal, so they are surprised when
it takes the jumping path, although thats what they have seen it do in the past.

The title of their paper, Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age, conveyed the
influence of Dennetts rationality theory. Their first interpretation of the results articulated this
theme, viz., that infants attribute a causal intention to the agent that accords with a rationality
principle. Toward the end of their paper, however, they concede that an infant can represent the
agents action as intentional without attributing a mental representation of the future goal state to
the agents mind. Thus, the findings might simply indicate that the infant represents actions by
relating relevant aspects of reality (action, goal-state, and situational constraints) through a
principle of efficient action, which assumes that actions function to realize goal-states by the most
efficient means available. Indeed, in subsequent writings they switch their description of infants
from the intentional stance to the teleological stance, an interpretational system for actions in
terms of means-ends efficiency (Gergely and Csibra, 2003). The teleological stance is a
qualitatively different but developmentally related interpretational system that is supposed to be
the precursor of the young childs intentional stance. The two stances differ in that teleological
interpretation is nonmentalistic it makes reference only to actual and future states of reality.
Developmentally, however, teleological interpretation is transformed into causal mentalistic
interpretation by mentalizing the explanatory constructs of the teleological stance (Gergely and
Csibra, 2003: 232).

Three problems can be raised for this approach. First, can the teleological stance really
be transformed into the full range of mentalistic interpretation in terms of rationality principles?
One species of mindreading involves imputing beliefs to a target based on inferential relations to
prior belief states. How could this interpretational system be a transformation of an efficiency
principle? Inference involves no action or causal efficiency. Second, the teleological stance
might equally be explained by a rival approach to mentalizing, namely, the simulation theory.
The simulation theory might say that young children project themselves into the shoes of the
acting object (even a circle) and consider the most efficient means to its goal. They then expect
the object to adopt this means. Third, as already noted above, there are kinds of mental states and
mindreading contexts that have nothing to do with rationality or efficiency. People ascribe
emotional states to others (fear or delight, disgust or anger) based on facial expressions. How
could these ascriptions be driven by a principle of efficiency? We dont have the makings here
of a general account of mindreading; at most, a narrow

10
segment of it. And even this narrow segment might be handled just as well by a rival theory
(viz., the simulation theory).

5. The Simulation Theory

A fourth approach to commonsense psychology is the simulation theory, sometimes

called the empathy theory. Robert Gordon (1986) was the first to develop this theory in the
present era, suggesting that we can predict others behavior by answering the question, What
would I do in that persons situation? Chess players playing against a human opponent report
that they visualize the board from the other side, taking the opposing pieces for their own and vice
versa. They pretend that their reasons for action have shifted accordingly. Thus transported in
imagination, they make up their mind what to do and project this decision onto the opponent.

The basic idea of the simulation theory resurrects ideas from a number of earlier
European writers, especially in the hermeneutic tradition. Dilthey wrote of understanding others
through a process of feeling with others (mitfuehlen), reexperiencing (nacherleben) their
mental states, or putting oneself into (hineinversetzen) their shoes. Similarly, Schleiermacher
linked our ability to understand other minds with our capacity to imaginatively occupy another
persons point of view. In the philosophy of history, the English philosopher R. G. Collingwood
(1946) suggested that the inner imitation of thoughts, or what he calls the reenactment of
thoughts, is a central epistemic tool for understanding other agents. (For an overview of this
tradition, see Stueber, 2006.)

In addition to Gordon, Jane Heal (1986) and Alvin Goldman (1989) endorsed the
simulation idea in the 1980s. Their core idea is that mindreaders simulate a target by trying to
create similar mental states of their own as proxies or surrogates of those of the target. These
initial pretend states are fed into the mindreaders own cognitive mechanisms to generate
additional states, some of which are then imputed to the target. In other words, attributors use
their own mind to mimic or model the targets mind and thereby determine what has or will
transpire in the target.

An initial worry about the simulation idea is that it might collapse into theory
theory. As Dennett put the problem:

How can [the idea] work without being a kind of theorizing in the end? For the state I put
myself in is not belief but make-believe belief. If I make believe I am a suspension
bridge and wonder what I will do when the wind blows, what comes to me in my
make-believe state depends on how sophisticated my knowledge is of the physics and
engineering of suspension bridges. Why should my making believe I have your beliefs be
any different? In both cases, knowledge of the imitated object is needed to drive the
make-believe simulation, and the knowledge must be organized into something rather
like a theory. (1987: 100- 101)

11
Goldman (1989) responded that there is a difference between theory-driven simulation, which
must be used for systems different than oneself, and process-driven simulation, which can be
applied to systems resembling oneself. If the process or mechanism driving the simulation is
similar enough to the process or mechanism driving the target, and if the initial states are also
sufficiently similar, the simulation might produce an isomorphic final state to that of the target
without the help of theorizing.

6. Mirroring and Simulational Mindreading

The original form of simulation theory (ST) primarily addressed the attribution of
propositional attitudes. In recent years, however, ST has focused heavily on simpler mental states,
and on processes of attribution rarely dealt with in the early ToM literature. I include here the
mindreading of motor plans, sensations and emotions. This turn in ST dates to a paper by Vittorio
Gallese and Alvin Goldman (1998), which posited a link between simulation-style mindreading
and activity of mirror neurons (or mirror systems). Investigators in Parma, Italy, led by Giacomo
Rizzolatti, first discovered mirror neurons in macaque monkeys, using single cell recordings
(Rizzolatti et al., 1996; Gallese et al., 1996). Neurons in the macaque premotor cortex often code
for a particular type of goal- oriented action, for example, grasping, tearing, or manipulating an
object. A subclass of premotor neurons were found to fire both when the animal plans to perform
an instance of their distinctive type of action and when it observes another animal (or human)
perform the same action. These neurons were dubbed mirror neurons, because an action plan
in the actors brain is mirrored by a similar action plan in the observers brain. Evidence for a
mirror system in humans was established around the same time (Fadiga et al., 1995). Since the
mirror system of an observer tracks the mental state (or brain state) of an agent, the observer
executes a mental simulation of the latter. If this simulation also generates a mental-state
attribution, this would qualify as simulation-based mindreading. It would be a case in which an
attributor uses his own mind to model that of the target. Gallese and Goldman speculated that
the mirror system might be part of, or a precursor to, a general mindreading system that works on
simulationist principles.

Since the mid-1990s the new discoveries of mirror processes and mirror systems have
expanded remarkably. Motor mirroring has been established via sound as well as vision (Kohler
et al., 2002), and for effectors other the hand, specifically, the foot and the mouth (Buccino et al.,
2001). Meanwhile, mirroring has been discovered for sensations and emotions. Under the
category of sensations, there is mirroring for touch and mirroring for pain. Touching a subjects
legs activates primary and secondary somatosensory cortex. Keysers et al. (2004) showed
subjects movies of other subjects being touched on their legs. Large extents of the observers
somatosensory cortex also responded to the sight of the targets legs being touched. Several
studies established mirroring for pain in the same year (Singer et al., 2004, Jackson et al., 2004,
and Morrison et al., 2004). In the category of emotions, the clearest case is mirroring for disgust.
The anterior insula is well-known as the primary brain region associated with disgust. Wicker et
al. (2003) undertook an fMRI experiment in which normal subjects were scanned while inhaling
odorants through a mask either foul, pleasant, or neutral -- and also while observing video clips
of other peoples facial expressions while inhaling

12
such odorants. Voxels in the anterior insula that were significantly activated when a person
inhaled a foul odorant were also significantly activated when seeing others make facial
expressions arising from a foul odorant. Thus, there was mirroring of disgust.

The critical question for theory of mind, however, is whether mindreading, i.e., mental
attribution, occurs as an upshot of mirroring. In 2005 two similar experiments in the domain of
motor intention were performed by members of the Parma group, and are claimed to provide
evidence for mirror-based hence, simulation-based -- prediction of motor intentions. One
experiment was done with monkeys (Fogassi et al., 2005) and the other with humans (Iacoboni
et al., 2005). I shall sketch the latter study only.

Iacoboni et al.s study was an fMRI study in which subjects observed video clips
presenting three kinds of stimulus conditions: (1) grasping hand actions without any context
(Action condition), (2) scenes specifying a context without actions, i.e., a table set for drinking
tea or ready to be cleaned up after tea (Context condition), and (3) grasping hand actions
performed in either the before-tea or the after-tea context (Intention condition). The Intention
condition yielded a significant signal increase in premotor mirroring areas where hand actions
are represented. The investigators interpreted this as evidence that premotor mirror areas are
involved in understanding the intentions of others, in particular, intentions to perform subsequent
actions (e.g., drinking tea or cleaning up).

This mindreading conclusion, however, is somewhat problematic, because there are

alternative deflationary interpretations of the findings (Goldman, 2008). One deflationary
interpretation would say that the enhanced activity in mirror neuron areas during observation of
the Intention condition involved only predictions of actions, not attributions of intentions. Since
actions are not mental states, predicting actions doesnt qualify as mindreading. The second
deflationary interpretation is that the activity in the observers relevant mirror area is a
mimicking of the agents intention, not an intention attribution (belief). Re-experiencing an
intention should not be confused with attributing an intention. Only the attribution of an intention
would constitute a belief or judgment about an intention. Thus, the imaging data do not
conclusively show that mindreading took place in the identified premotor area.

However, the Iacoboni et al. study presented evidence of intention attribution above and
beyond the fMRI evidence. After being scanned, subjects were debriefed about the grasping
actions they had witnessed. They all reported representing the intention of drinking when seeing
the grasping action in the during-tea condition and representing the intention of cleaning up
when seeing the grasping action in the after-tea condition. Their verbal reports were
independent of the instructions the subjects had been given at the outset. Thus, it is quite
plausible that their reported intention attributions were caused by activity in the mirror area. So
the Iacoboni et al. study does provide positive evidence for its stated conclusion, even if the
evidence isnt quite as probative as they contend.

13
 Where else might we look for evidence of mirroring-based mindreading? Better
specimens of evidence are found in the emotion and sensation domains. For reasons of space,
attention is restricted here to emotion. Although Wicker et al. (2003) established a mirror process
for disgust, they did not test for disgust attribution. However, by combining their fMRI study of
normal subjects with neuropsychological studies of brain- damaged patients, a persuasive case
can be made for mirror-caused disgust attribution (in normals). Calder et al. (2000) studied
patient NK, who suffered insula and basal ganglia damage. In questionnaire responses NK
showed himself to be selectively impaired in experiencing disgust, as contrasted with fear or
anger. NK also showed significant and selective impairment in disgust recognition (attribution),
in both visual and auditory modalities. Similarly, Adolphs et al. (2003) had a patient B who
suffered extensive damage to the anterior insula and was able to recognize the six basic emotions
except disgust when observing dynamic displays of facial expressions. The inability of these two
patients to undergo a normal disgust response in their anterior insula apparently prevented them
from mindreading disgust in others, although their attribution of other basic emotions was
preserved. It is reasonable to conclude that when normal individuals recognize disgust through
facial expressions of a target, this is causally mediated by a mirrored experience of disgust
(Goldman and Sripada, 2005; Goldman, 2006).

Low-level mindreading, then, can be viewed as an elaboration of a primitive tendency to

engage in automatic mental mimicry. Both behavioral and mental mimicry are fundamental
dimensions of social cognition. Meltzoff and Moore (1983) found facial mimicry in neonates less
than an hour old. Among adults unconscious mimicry in social situations occurs for facial
expressions, hand gestures, body postures, speech patterns, and breathing patterns (Hatfield,
Cacioppo, and Rapson, 1994; Bavelas et al., 1986; Dimberg, Thunberg, and Elmehed, 2000;
Paccalin and Jeannerod, 2000). Chartrand and Bargh (1999) found that automatic mimicry occurs
even between strangers, and that it leads to higher liking and rapport between interacting
partners. Mirroring, of course, is mental mimicry usually unaccompanied by behavioral mimicry.
The sparseness of behavioral imitation (relative to the amount of mental mimicry) seems to be
the product of inhibition. Compulsive behavioral imitation has been found among patients with
frontal lesions, who apparently suffer from an impairment of inhibitory control (Lhermitte et al.,
1986; de Renzi et al., 1996). Without the usual inhibitory control, mental mimicry would produce
an even larger amount of behavioral mimicry. Thus, mental mimicry is a deep-seated property of
the social brain, and low-level mindreading builds on its foundation.

7. Simulation and High-Level Mindreading

The great bulk of mindreading, however, cannot be explained by mirroring. Can it be

explained (in whole or part) by another form of simulation? The general idea of mental
simulation is the re-experiencing or re-enactment of a mental event or process; or an attempt to
re-experience or re-enact a mental event (Goldman, 2006, chap. 2). Where does the traditional
version of simulation theory fit into the picture? It mainly fits into the second category, i.e.,
attempted interpersonal re-enactment. This captures the idea of mental pretense, or what I call
enactment imagination (E-imagination), which consists

14
of trying to construct in oneself a mental state that isnt generated by the usual means
(Goldman, 2006; Currie and Ravenscroft, 2002). Simulating Minds argues that E-
imagination is an intensively used cognitive operation, one commonly used in reading others
minds.

Let us first illustrate E-imagination with intrapersonal applications, for example,

imagining seeing something or launching a bodily action. The products of such applications
constitute, respectively, visual and motor imagery. To visualize something is to (try to)
construct a visual image that resembles the visual experience you would undergo if you were
actually seeing what is visualized. To visualize the Mona Lisa is to (try to) produce a state that
resembles a seeing of the Mona Lisa. Can visualizing really resemble vision? Cognitive science
and neuroscience suggest an affirmative answer.
Kosslyn (1994) and others have shown how the processes and products of visual perception and
visual imagery have substantial overlap. An imagined object overflows the visual field of
imagination at about the same imagined distance from the object as it overflows the real visual
field. This was shown in experiments where subjects actually walked toward rectangles mounted
on a wall and when they merely visualized the rectangles while imagining a similar walk
(Kosslyn, 1978). Neuroimaging reveals a notable overlap between parts of the brain active during
vision and during imagery. A region of the occipitotemporal cortex known as the fusiform gyrus
is activated both when we see faces and when we imagine them (Kanwisher et al., 1997).
Lesions of the fusiform face area impair both face recognition and the ability to imagine faces
(Damasio et al., 1990).

An equally (if not more) impressive story can be told for motor imagery. Motor imagery
occurs when you are asked to imagine (from a motoric perspective) moving your effectors in a
specified way, for example, playing a piano chord with your left hand or kicking a soccer ball. It
has been shown convincingly that motor imagery corresponds closely, in neurological terms, to
what transpires when one actually executes the relevant movements (Jeannerod, 2001).

At least in some modalities, then, E-imagination produces strikingly similar experiences

to ones that are usually produced otherwise. Does the same hold for mental events like forming a
belief or making a decision? This has not been established, but it is entirely consistent with
existing evidence. Moreover, a core brain network has recently been proposed that might
underpin high-level simulational mindreading as a special case. Buckner and Carroll (2007)
propose a brain system that subserves at least three, and possibly four, forms of what they call
self-projection. Self-projection is the projection of the current self into ones personal past or
ones personal future, and also the projection of oneself into other peoples minds or other places
(as in navigation). What all these mental activities share is projection of the self into alternative
situations, involving a perspective shift from the immediate environment to an imagined
environment (the past, the future, other places, other minds). Buckner and Carroll refer to the
mental construction of an imagined alternative perspective as a simulation.

15
 So E-imaginative simulation might be used successfully for reading other minds. But
what specific evidence suggests that we deploy E-imaginative simulation in trying to mindread
others, most of the time or even much of the time? This is what simulation theory concerning
high-level mindreading needs to establish. (This assumes that simulation theory no longer claims
that each and every act of mindreading is executed by simulation. Rather, it is prepared to accept
a hybrid approach in which simulation plays a central but not exclusive role.)

Two lines of evidence will be presented here (for addition lines of argument, see
Goldman, 2006, chap. 7). An important feature of the imagination-based simulation story is that
successful mindreading requires a carefully pruned set of pretend inputs in the simulational
exercise. The exercise must not only include pretend or surrogate states that correspond to those
of the target but also exclude the mindreaders own genuine states that dont correspond to ones
of the target. This implies the possibility of two kinds of error or failure: failure to include states
possessed by the target and failure to exclude states lacked by the target. The second type of error
will occur if a mindreader allows a genuine state of his own, which he knows that the target
lacks, to creep into the simulation and contaminate it. This is called quarantine failure. There is
strong evidence that quarantine failure is a serious problem for mental-state attributors. This
supports ST because quarantine failure is a likely affliction if mindreading is executed by
simulation but should pose no comparable threat if mindreading is executing by theorizing.

Why is it a likely problem under the simulation story? If one tries to predict someones
decision via simulation, one sets oneself to make a decision (in pretend mode). In making this
decision, ones own relevant desires and beliefs try to enter the field to throw their weight
around, because this is their normal job. It is difficult to monitor the states that dont belong
there, however, and enforce their departure.
Enforcement requires suppression or inhibition, which takes vigilance and effort. No analogous
problem rears its head under a theorizing scenario. If theorizing is used to predict a targets
decision, an attributor engages in purely factual reasoning, not in mock decision making. So
theres no reason why his genuine first-order desires or beliefs should intrude. What matters to
the factual reasoning are the mindreaders beliefs about the targets desires and beliefs, and these
second-order beliefs pose no comparable threat of intrusion.

Evidence shows that quarantine failure is in fact rampant, a phenomenon generally

known as egocentric bias. Egocentric biases have been found for knowledge, valuation, and
feeling. In the case of knowledge, egocentric bias has been labeled the curse of knowledge, and
its been found in both children (Birch and Bloom, 2003) and adults (Camerer et al., 1989). To
illustrate the bias for valuations, Van Boven, Dunning, and Loewenstein (2000) gave subjects
Cornell coffee mugs and then asked them to indicate the lowest price they would sell their mugs
for, while others who didnt receive mugs were asked to indicate the highest price they would
pay to purchase one. Because prices reflect valuations, the price estimates were, in effect,
mental-state predictions.
Both owners and sellers substantially underestimated the differences in valuations
between themselves and their opposite numbers, apparently projecting their own

16
valuations onto others. This gap proved very difficult to eliminate. To illustrate the case of
feelings, Van Boven and Loewenstein (2003) asked subjects to predict the feelings of hikers lost
in the woods with neither food nor water. What would bother them more, hunger or thirst?
Predictions were elicited either before or after the subjects engaged in vigorous exercise, which
would make one thirsty. Subjects who had just exercised were more likely to predict that the
hikers would be more bothered by thirst than by hunger, apparently allowing their own thirst to
contaminate their predictions.

Additional evidence that effective quarantine is crucial for successful third-person

mindreading comes from neuropsychology. Samson et al. (2005) report the case of patient WBA,
who suffered a lesion to the right inferior and middle frontal gyri. His brain lesion includes a
region previously identified as sustaining the ability to inhibit ones own perspective. Indeed,
WBA had great difficulty precisely in inhibiting his own perspective (his own knowledge,
desires, emotions, etc.). In non-verbal false-belief tests, WBA made errors in 11 out of 12 trials
where he had to inhibit his own knowledge of reality. Similarly, when asked questions about
other peoples emotions and desires, again requiring him to inhibit his own perspective, 15 of 27
responses involved egocentric errors. This again supports the simulationist approach to high-level
mindreading. There is, of course, a great deal of other relevant evidence, which requires
considerable interpretation and analysis. But ST seems to fare well in light of recent evidence (for
contrary assessments, see Saxe, 2005 and Carruthers, 2006).

8. First-Person Mindreading

Our last topic is self-mentalization. Philosophers have long claimed that a special method
introspection, or inner sense is available for detecting ones own mental states, although
this traditional view is the object of skepticism and even scorn among many scientifically-minded
philosophers and cognitive scientists. Most theory theorists and rationality theorists would join
these groups in rejecting so-called privileged access to ones own current mental states. Theory
theorists would say that self-ascription, like other-person ascription, proceeds by theoretical
inference (Gopnik, 1993). Dennett holds that the intentional stance is applied even to oneself.
But these positions can be challenged with simple thought experiments.

I am now going to predict my bodily action during the next 20 seconds. It will include,
first, curling my right index finger, then wrinkling my nose, and finally removing my glasses.
There, those predictions are verified! I did all three things. You could not have duplicated these
predictions (with respect to my actions). How did I manage it? Well, I let certain intentions
form, and then I detected, i.e., introspected, those intentions. The predictions were based on the
introspections. No other clues were available to me, in particular, no behavioral or environmental
cues. The predictions must have been based, then, on a distinctive form of access I possess vis-a-
vis my current states of mind, in this case, states that were primed to cause the actions. I seem to
have similar access to my own itches and memories. In an important modification of a well-
known paper that challenged the existence or reliability of introspective access (Nisbett

17
and Wilson, 1977), the co-author Wilson subsequently provides a good example and a
theoretical correction to the earlier paper:

The fact that people make errors about the causes of their own responses does not mean
that their inner worlds are a black box. I can bring to mind a great deal of information
that is inaccessible to anyone but me. Unless you can read my mind, there is no way you
could know that a specific memory just came to mind, namely an incident in high school
in which I dropped my bag lunch out a third-floor window, narrowly missing a gym
teacher. Isnt this a case of my having privileged, introspective access to higher order
cognitive processes? (2002: 105)

Nonetheless, developmentalists have adduced evidence that putatively supports a

symmetry or parallelism between self and other. They deny the existence of a special method, or
form of access, available only to the first-person. Nichols and Stich (2003: 168-192) provide a
comprehensive analysis of this literature, with the clear conclusion that the putative parallelism
doesnt hold up, and fails precisely in ways that favor introspection or self-monitoring.

If there is such a special method, how exactly might it work? Nichols and Stich present
their own model of self-monitoring. To have beliefs about ones own beliefs, they say, all that is
required is that there be a monitoring mechanism that, when activated, takes the representation p
in the Belief Box as input and produces the representation I believe that p as output. To produce
representations of ones own beliefs, the mechanism merely has to copy representations from the
Belief Box, embed the copies in a representation schema of the form I believe that , and
then place the new representations back into the Belief Box. The proposed mechanism would
work in much the same way to produce representations of ones own desires, intentions, and
imaginings. (2003: 160-161)

One major lacuna in this account is its silence about an entire class of mental states:
bodily feelings. They dont fit the model because, at least on the orthodox approach, sensations
lack representational content, which is what the Nichols-Stich account relies upon. Their account
is a syntactic theory, which says that the monitoring mechanism operates on the syntax of the
mental representations monitored. A more general problem is what is meant by saying that the
proposed mechanism would work in much the same way for attitude types other than belief.
How does the proposed mechanism decide which attitude to ascribe? Which attitude verb should
be inserted into the schema I ATTITUDE that ? Should it be belief, desire, hope, fear, etc.?
Each contentful mental state consists, at a minimum, of an attitude type plus a content. The
Nichols-Stich theory deals only with contents, not types. In apparent recognition of the problem,
Nichols and Stich make a parenthetical suggestion: perhaps a distinct but parallel mechanism
exists for each attitudes type. But what a profusion of mechanisms this would posit, each
mechanism essentially duplicating the others! Where is Natures parsimony that they appeal to
elsewhere in their book?

18
 The Nichols-Stich model of monitoring belongs to a family of self-attribution models
that can be called redeployment theories, because they try to explain self- attribution in terms
of redeploying the content of a first-level mental state at a meta- representational level. Another
such theory is that of Evans (1982), defended more recently by Gordon (1996), who calls it the
ascent-routine theory. Gordon describes the ascent routine as follows: the way in which one
determines whether or not one believes that p is simply to ask oneself the question whether or
not p. The procedure is presumably to be completed as follows. If one answers the whether-p
question in the affirmative, one then ascends a level and also gives an affirmative answer to
the question, Do I think/believe that p?

The ascent-routine theory faces a problem previously encountered with the monitoring
theory. The basic procedure is described only for belief and lacks a clear parallel for classifying
other attitudes or sensations. How is it supposed to work with hope, for example? Another
problem concerns the procedures details. When it says that a mindreader answers the
whether-p question, what exactly does this mean? It cannot mean vocalizing an affirmative
answer, because this wont cover cases of self-ascription where the answer is only thought, not
vocalized. Apparently, what is meant by saying that one gives the answer p is that one judges
the answer to be p. But how is one supposed to tell whether or not one judges that p? Isnt this
the same question of how one determines whether one (occurrently) believes that p? This is the
same problem we started with, so no progress appears to have been made.

Returning to an introspectivist approach, notice that it is not committed to any strong

view about introspections reliability. Traditionally, introspection was associated with
infallibility, but this is an easily detachable feature that few current proponents espouse.
Introspectionism is often associated with a perceptual or quasi-perceptual model of self-
knowledge, as the phrase inner sense suggests. Is that a viable direction? Shoemaker (1996)
argues to the contrary. There are many disanalogies between outer sense and introspection,
though not all of these should deter a theorist, says Shoemaker. Unlike standard perceptual
modalities, inner sense has no proprietary phenomenology, but this shouldnt disqualify a quasi-
perceptual analogy. A more serious disanalogy, according to Shoemaker, is the absence of any
organ that orients introspection toward its cognitive objects (current mental states), in the manner
in which the eyes or nose can be oriented toward their objects. Shoemaker considers but rejects
attention as a candidate organ of introspection.

This rejection is premature, however. A new psychological techniques called

descriptive experience sampling has been devised by Hurlburt (Hurlburt and Heavey, 2001)
for studying introspection. Subjects are cued at random times by a beeper, and they are
supposed to pay immediate attention to their ongoing experience upon hearing the beep. This
technique revealed thoughts that they hadnt initially been aware of, though they were not
unconscious. Schooler and colleagues (2004) have made similar findings, indicating that
attention is typically required to trigger reflective awareness via introspection. Actually, the
term introspection is systematically ambiguous. It can refer to a process of inquiry, that is,
inwardly directed attention, that chooses selected

19
states for analysis. Or it can refer to the process of performing an analysis of the states and
outputting some descriptions or classifications. In the first sense, introspection is a form of
attention, not something that requires attention in order to do its job. In the latter sense, its a
process that performs an analysis once attention has picked out the object or objects to be
analyzed.

If introspection is a perception-like process, shouldnt it include a transduction process?

If so, this raises two questions: what are the inputs to the transduction process and what are the
outputs? Goldman (2006: 246-255) addresses these questions and proposes some answers. There
has not yet been time for these proposals to receive critical attention, so it remains to be seen
how this new quasi-perceptual account of introspection will be received. In any case, the
problem of first-person mentalizing is as difficult and challenging as the problem of third-person
mentalizing, though it has thus far received a much smaller dollop of attention, especially
among cognitive scientists.

20
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26
The Relationship between the Psychology of Religion and Buddhist
Psychology Hiroki Kato (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpr.12121/full)
Abstract
The psychology of religion and Buddhist psychology have deep historical connections. However,
there has been a lack of discourse between these fields of study. Therefore this paper focuses on the
relationship between the psychology of religion and Buddhist psychology as well as the history and
research trends of each field. Recently, studies on the psychology of religion and Buddhist
psychology have attracted attention based on the concepts of spirituality and mindfulness.
Moreover, there have been a number of psychotherapeutic techniques developed that are based on
mindfulness meditation. The relationship between the psychology of religion and Buddhist
psychology is complex and often the subject of confusion. The complexity results from the fact that
Buddhism could be seen as an alternative to psychology in the analysis of the mind; and moreover,
Buddhism also contains aspects of psychotherapy that bring peace of mind.

Studies on the psychology of religion began at almost the same time that the field of psychology
itself was established as a science by prominent psychologists, such as Wilhelm Wundt, William
James, Stanley Hall, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and Gordon Allport, in the 18th century.
However, after some initial studies during this period, research on the psychology of religion
decreased dramatically and there were very few notable studies for many years, in part due to the
development of J. B. Watson's theories on behaviorism.

An important event in terms of Buddhist psychology was William James invitation to the monk
Anagarika Dharmapala (18641933), known as Father Dharmapala of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), to
speak to one of James classes when Dharmapala was in attendance at Harvard University in
December 1903. James said to Dharmapala: Take my chair, and I shall sit with my students. You
are better equipped to lecture on psychology than I am. Dharmapala outlined some elements of
Buddhist doctrine, after which James turned to his students and remarked, This is the psychology
everybody will be studying 25years from now (Guruge, 1965, p. 681). However, James
prediction did not come to pass in such an immediate fashion.

Nevertheless, in recent years, studies on the psychology of religion and Buddhist psychology have
attracted attention, particularly in terms of the concepts of spirituality and mindfulness. For
example, the name of American Psychological Association (APA) division 36, Psychology of
Religion, was renamed The Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality in 2012.
Even in non-religious areas of psychological study, there is attention being paid to these ideas. For
example, the January 2015 issue of Developmental Psychology was a special edition entitled
Mindfulness and Compassion in Human Development.

Moreover, since the late 1980s, a number of psychotherapies mainly or partly making use of
mindfulness meditation have been developed; these are discussed in more detail later in the article.
Mindfulness meditation is originally a technique unique to Theravda Buddhism (Southern
Buddhism) and was used to attain peace of mind. Until the 1970s, Zen Buddhism was the main
interest of study in the United States and Europe among persons interested in Oriental thinking and
techniques related to psychology. After this initial inquiry into Zen and its relationship to
psychology, which further included studies on the physiological psychology of Zen, attention began
to be focused on mindfulness meditation. In those days, few studies had addressed this topic.

Even when looking at events solely in Japanese Buddhist psychology, one can see remarkable
27 years. One is the foundation of the Japanese
developments in the research environment in recent
Association for the Study of Buddhism and Psychology in 2008, and in line with this, the
encyclopedia Keywords for Buddhism and psychology was published (Inoue, Kasai, & Kato, 2012).
Another important development was the establishment of the Japanese Association of Mindfulness
in 2013. These events show a trend in letting research develop as an evidence-based approach
independent from study based in a particular religious or sectarian area. However, so far, there has
been less interchange or discussion between the fields of psychology of religion and Buddhist
psychology. Therefore this article focuses on the relationship between the psychology of religion
and Buddhist psychology, taking into account the histories and research trends of both fields.

Beginnings of the Psychology of Religion

The term psychology of religion was first used in the book, The psychology of religion: An
empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness by Edwin Diller Starbuck, a student of
William James and Stanley Hall (Starbuck, 1899). In this book, Starbuck presented results from
questionnaire surveys he conducted of religious phenomena in which he asked respondents about
their age of conversion, their motivation for conversion, and their mental and physical conditions at
the time they adopted a new religion. The results were summarized in 13 figures and 32 tables. This
book contributed greatly to the field, as it demonstrated that it was possible to quantify religious
feelings and experiences through questionnaires using psychological methods.

In contrast, William James used documents, such as biographies, autobiographies, and diaries,
recording religious experiences; he also found information on this topic from books, letters,
magazines and press clippings. James then detailed these religious phenomena, adding some of his
own mystical experiences in his book, The varieties of religious experience: A study in human
nature (James, 1902). This book of qualitative research and Starbuck's volume of quantitative
reporting represent two of the most remarkable studies on the psychology of religion in terms of
scale and quality.

Moreover, Stanley Hall's books, Adolescence: Its psychology and its relations to physiology,
anthropology, sociology, sex, crime and religion and education (Hall, 1904) and Jesus, the Christ,
in the light of psychology (Hall, 1917), also contributed greatly to the field during this period.

In this way, the study of psychology of religion originated with studies examining individual
personality before and after conversion, the development of religious faith, and attitudes towards
Christianity. However, modern research on the psychology of religion has mainly concerned topics
connected to Buddhism, in particular mindfulness meditation, discussed later in this article. The
percentage of Buddhist worshippers in the United States is estimated to be approximately 3,000,000
people, a 15-fold increase over the past 30years (Tanaka, 2010). Reasons for a shift in emphasis in
the psychology of religion from primarily focusing on Christianity to including Buddhism and
other religions range from increased interest in Asian thought and practice to criticism of
materialism in the United States. Moreover, the increase in mindfulness practice may reflect a
desire among individuals not to be constrained by privatized religion.

Differences between the Psychology of Religion in the Field of the Study of Religion and the
Study of Psychology

The study of the psychology of religion, in fact, is an interdisciplinary field consisting of the study
of religion and the study of psychology. Unfortunately, both approaches have had little interaction
with one another. Some reasons for the lack of dialogue between these two areas are firstly, that
both approaches may have a common goal, but their methods are different. One factor here is that
the results of psychological studies on religion using experimental or questionnaire methods are
often very technical, so a limited number of people can understand and adopt results found in
research using psychological methodology. Another 28 reason is that there is a gap or estrangement
between the contribution to psychology of religion by psychologists and the expectations for
psychologists to reveal human factors from other academic fields. Psychologists can often only
reveal scientific aspects of human nature through experiments using psychological methodology to
elucidate a cause and effect relationship or employ a survey to show correlations between various
psychological phenomena. Therefore, conclusions based on quantitative data are considered to be
significant in psychological research. In contrast to traditional psychological study, in the
psychology of religion, this call for strict methodology does not pose the same problems. Research
done on the psychology of religion seeks to gain a greater understanding of the human factors in
religious phenomena, and not focus on social, cultural, geographical, or historical factors (see
Figure 1). Therefore, in the psychology of religion, religious scholars are not bound by specific
research methods, as psychologists. What is popular in the understanding and interpreting of human
factors in natural religious phenomena are the theories and principles taken from the
psychoanalytical approach, the psychopathological approach, and the qualitative psychological
approach. Specifically, the object relational approach and the Jungian approach have led to some
original views on psychology and spirituality (Jones, 1991; Pargament, 2013, pp. 147168;
Spiegelman & Miyuki, 1985).

Figure 1. Psychology of religion in the fields related to religion and psychology.

Sugiyama (2001) summarized Japanese research on the psychology of religion. She describes both
the psychology of religion in religious studies and the study of religion in psychology. Her work
examines the background of religious circumstances and contains a detailed review and list of
books and journal articles concerning psychology and religion in each era. Sugiyama noted that the
main problems of the study on psychology of religion are found in both the research itself and the
researchers. In both cases these were seen to be problems with methodology. Kaneko (2001a)
recounts the methodology of psychology of religion in detail; the author insists that a combination
of both laboratory experiments and quasi-experimental research is desirable and notes the lack of
theoretical background and the questionable validity of data as reasons for a lag in the study on the
psychology of religion. Imada (1947), Matsumoto (1979) and Kaneko (2001b) have all written
books outlining the psychology of religion. The difference between the psychology of religion in
religious studies and the study of psychology was previously documented in Matsumoto (1979).
Kaneko (2001b) is a more recent book outlining the psychology of religion. The author looks at
both similarities and differences in religion and29spirituality, the main subject of debate being
whether spirituality and religion are the same thing or essentially different issues. Although this
debate is not settled, Kaneko states it is necessary to make a clear definition of spirituality and there
is greater need for social contribution in this area. The APA Handbook of psychology, religion, and
spirituality is widely circulated, and the problems with the psychology of religion have been well
documented (Pargament, 2013). However, there have only been a few articles published on
Buddhism covering areas such as Zen, the Jodo-Shin sect, the Nichiren school, the Tendai sect and
the Shingon esoteric sect (Pargament, 2013). For example, Wuff (1996) stated the classic and
contemporary views of the psychology of religion, examining the work of psychologists as well as
social scientists, philosophers and clergy; however, there is no analysis of Buddhism in his work.

Development of the Psychology of Religion in Terms of the Keywords Spirituality and

Mindfulness

Recently the keywords spirituality and mindfulness have become common in the study of the
psychology of religion. In January 1998, the following draft amendment of the definition of
health was submitted to the 101st World Health Organization Executive Board meeting. The
results were 22 votes of agreement, 0 objections, and 8 votes of abstentions. Health is a dynamic
state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 1999). It should be noted that the
words dynamic and spiritual in the definition above were added to the text during the
Executive Board meeting.

Additionally the 36th division of the APA, which covers issues of religion and psychology and
became an official part of the APA in 1976, has undergone numerous name changes. It was first
called The American Catholic Psychological Association in 1949 when it was created as a
separate group. It was renamed as Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues in 1970, then
Psychology of Religion in 1993, and finally in 2012, The Society for the Psychology of
Religion and Spirituality (Piedmont, 2013). Here we can see the key term spirituality has
become an essential part of recent views on the psychology of religion.

The trends of the psychotherapies using mindfulness meditation

The term mindfulness has gained common usage in the field of the psychology of religion.
Beginning in the late 1980s, some new psychotherapeutic techniques using mindfulness
meditation were developed. Ron Kurtz (19342011) developed Hakomi therapy in the early 1980s.
This might be the first type of psychotherapy that applied mindfulness meditation in conjunction
with Buddhism with Loving Presence and therapeutic physical exercise.

A landmark in psychotherapy using the concept of mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-

Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1979, which was developed at the University of Massachusetts
Medical Center (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). This book will be remembered as the publication that first
introduced the concept called mindfulness to cognitive behavior therapy. MBSR began as an
alternative medicine for chronic pain and during its first decade of use achieved reduction of
various symptoms, which has been documented in clinical research. MBSR contains 8weeks of
Buddhist mindfulness meditation; however, the program uses a scientific approach and therefore is
regarded as evidence-based cognitive behavior therapy. Clients still continued daily meditation
after finishing the 8weeks program. Therefore the MBSR program became not simply an
application of meditation technique for therapy but rather a part of these individuals lifestyle.
Because the three important symbols of BuddhismBuddha, teachings of Buddha and Buddhist
monksdo not appear in this practice, clients may not feel a religious connection on this program.
However, according to an instructor, clients maintaining a daily meditation practice may constitute
the modern face of Buddhism. That is, this is a practice of engaged Buddhism for members of
society who do not choose to become monks. This30is reflected in the Forward to the book by Thich
Nhat Hanh, who used the term engaged Buddhism for the first time.
The action mechanism of mindfulness is complex and paradoxical. The second wave of cognitive
behavior therapy aims to change cognitions of irrational beliefs like there is no excuse for failure
or don't do it unless it is perfect. However, changing one's cognition in this manner often means
remembering a past trauma and causing a rehearsal of that memory, which may cause an
unconscious automatic reaction when remembering tragedy. In this case, the psychological
treatment is a detriment as it reinforces negative feelings. In contrast, mindfulness thinking seeks to
create a feeling of well-being without evaluation and acts to free individuals from automatic
thought. As a result, it has been said that mindfulness is the keyword of the next generation of
psychotherapy, as it lacks the above adverse effects.

Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams and John D. Teasdale studied mindfulness meditation under
Kabat-Zinn and subsequently developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in 1987
(Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002). This program is effective in prevention of reoccurring
depression.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha M. Linehan, uses techniques from both
mindfulness meditation and psychoanalytical therapy (Linehan, 1987). Similarly, Mark Epstein
integrated the use of Buddhism and psychoanalysis in coping with trauma in his book Thoughts
without a thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective (Epstein, 1995). Osamu Ando sought
to combine Buddhism and transpersonal psychiatry (Ando, 1993), and also indicated that Buddhism
could be used as psychotherapy (Ando, 2003). David Brazier first looked at these topics in his book
Zen therapy (D. Brazier, 1995). Subsequently he combined psychotherapy, early Buddhism, Zen
Buddhism, and Jodo-shin (pure land) Buddhism and founded the Amida Trust as a charity group in
England, and the activities of this group have reached Spain, Canada and Korea. In the same vein,
Caroline Brazier published a book entitled Buddhist psychology: Liberate your mind, embrace life
(C. Brazier, 2003).

In 1999, Steven C. Hayes developed Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), based on
behavior therapy and applied behavior analysis. Later, Hayes and his colleges published
Mindfulness and acceptance: Expanding the cognitive-behavioral tradition (Hayes, Follette, &
Linehan, 2011).

These modern psychotherapies using mindfulness meditation are known as the third wave of
cognitive behavior therapies, following the second wave of cognitive behavior therapy, which did
not include mindfulness, and the first wave of behavior therapy, which applied respondent and
operant conditioning. The third wave of cognitive behavior therapy has a common point of
watching one's feelings plainly and not adding any evaluation by using mindfulness.

However, psychotherapy integrating early Buddhist concepts or other Oriental thinking and
practices does not have a deep history in Asia. Zen therapies based on the study of Zen psychology
by Yoshiharu Akishige (19041979) and Koji Sato (19051971) were put forward, but were not
widely adopted in Japan. Buddhist counseling originated by Toshio Kikawa urging persons not to
depend on denomination as well as Jodo-Shin (Pure Land) counseling developed by Gisho Saiko
(19252004) were both advocated but gained only slight popularity. The most popular method of
psychotherapy based on Buddhism has been Naikan therapy, which uses introspection applying
Jodo-Shin Buddhism and was developed by Ishin Yoshimoto (19161988). Naikan therapy is used
by counselors in correctional institutions, educators looking to address attendance problems,
doctors and psychologists specializing in alcohol dependence, as well as by individuals who desire
deeper introspection.

Masatake Morita's (18741938) Morita therapy has been said to be influenced by Zen Buddhism
31
(Kora & Sato, 1958). His pupil, Usa Shinichi (1927), subsequently combined Morita therapy and
Zen Buddhist concepts (Usa, 2004). Currently, Morita therapy is also popular in China as can be
seen from the establishment of the China Congress of Morita Therapy and the Morita Foundation
(Wen, 1997).

Buddhist Psychology

Buddhist psychology has a very long history. Its beginnings date back to the classification of the
mind as pacak-khandha in the Pli language: the five aggregates ( rpa: body or physical
phenomenon; vedan: sensation; sa: perception; sakhra: mental fashionings; and
via: consciousness) were laid down by Gautama Buddha about 2,500years ago. At least since
the era of sectional Buddhism (Abhidharma Buddhism), this Buddhist psychology has been the
subject of professional study by monks. This ancient Buddhist psychology is still learned and
practiced primarily in Theravda Buddhism.

The middle era of Mahayanist Buddhism, which took place from about the 3rd to 5th century BC,
was a period when another ancient Buddhist psychology, known as Vijnavda (consciousness-
only doctrine Buddhism), gained popularity. The concept of laya-vijna in this type of
Buddhist teaching is often compared to the idea of the unconscious in psychoanalysis.

In contrast, modern psychological studies on Buddhism, which represent a new type of Buddhist
psychology, began at almost the same time as psychology itself began to be studied in Japan.
Yujiro Motora (18581912) is considered to be the first modern psychologist in Japan, and he also
studied under Stanley Hall. Motora had a chance to experience Zen meditation under the Zen
master Shaku Soen (18601919) at the Engaku-ji Temple of the Rinzai Zen sect in Kamakura.
Thereafter he described his personal experience of this Zen practice through the psychological
method of introspection developed by Wundt in his Sanzen niishi [A diary of practicing Zen
meditation] (Kato, 2014; Motora, 1895). This text detailed the process in which one gains a small
enlightenment in Zen meditation with a koan, which in the Rinzai Zen sect is a riddle with no
solution. Later Motora presented An essay on Eastern philosophy (Idea of ego in Eastern
philosophy) at the 5th International Congress of Psychology in Rome, Italy (Motora, 1905).

Tomosada Iritani (18871957), who was a government official in the Ministry of Education, and
later a professor at Komazawa University, a school run by the Soto Zen sect, was the first person to
conduct an investigation on enlightenment in Zen Buddhism using a questionnaire in a fashion
similar to that done by Starbuck (1899). Iritani (1920) investigated the mental and physical
conditions of respondents before they stated they reached enlightenment and then surveyed
physical and psychological changes, including different intellectual, emotional and expressed
aspects, in the respondents after they reached enlightenment. His methods comprised a
questionnaire given to 43 out of 345 Zen practitioners and interviews with 15 Zen monks at the
local temples; additionally, he included an interpretation of Buddhist sermons, Zen sayings, and
Zen speeches in order to present a greater understanding of enlightenment for ancient and modern
Zen monks and a detailed picture of practice in a Zen meditation hall.

The first attempt to apply a physiological approach, including respiratory movement and whole
body exercise, to Zen meditation was made by Noboru Ohtsuka (19051989) under the direction of
professor Ryo Kuroda (18901947) at Keij Imperial University (now Seoul University in Korea;
Kuroda, 1937, pp. 57113). More recently, Tomio Hirai (19271993) and his teacher Akira
Kasamatsu conducted a famous study using electroencephalographic measurement during Zen
meditation (Hirai, 1960; Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1963), and this research was initially based on a
hypothesis by the psycholinguist Kanae Sakuma (18881970). Hirai also considered Zen to be a
method for psychotherapy (Hirai, 1975). Taniguchi32 (1992) conducted an overview of
psychophysiological approaches to meditation in Japan. Taniguchi insists that it is necessary to
pursue long-term change in order to measure the effect of ascetic practices. Chihara (1989) revealed
an underestimation of time in looking at Zen meditation, insisting that we should consider the body
rhythm, the influence of the circadian rhythm in the physiological measurement, during Zen
meditation. Unfortunately, these findings have not been incorporated into the study of mindfulness.
Finally, as of the year 2000, there were more than 707 books and journal articles, excluding
abstracts of the presentations at annual psychological conferences, published on the subject of Zen
psychology (Kato, 2002). An article by Kato (2005) presents a detailed overview of this research on
Zen psychology. Thus, we can see that scientific psychological studies on Buddhism have focused
almost exclusively on Zen Buddhism.

Buddhist psychology or other oriental philosophies by modern philosophers and psychologists

In addition, there have been a number of modern philosophers and psychologists devoted to early
Buddhist psychology or other oriental philosophies. Enryo Inoue (18581919) is one such
philosopher; he published a large number of books in the fields of basic and applied psychology on
a variety of topics, including dreams, sleep and hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, optical
illusions, mnemonics, heredity, intelligence, personality, parapsychology and psychotherapy (Toyo
University, Inoue Enryo Memorial Center, 1999). However, Inoue was concerned not only with
these concepts taken from Western psychology but was also interested in the subject of oriental
psychology, writing two books, Oriental psychology (Inoue, 1894) and Buddhist psychology
(Inoue, 1897), as well as an article entitled Psychology of Zen-sect (Inoue, 1893) on this topic. In
Oriental psychology (Inoue, 1894), he argued that this type of psychology is a comparative study of
the theories of different philosophies, such as Skhya (one of the six schools of classical Indian
philosophy that created the idea of dualism), Vaieika (one of the six schools of classical Indian
philosophy that sought to explain the real world through natural philosophy) and Buddhism.
However, in this book, in terms of Buddhist thought, he only described Abhidharma-koa-
Abhidharma Buddhism developed by Vasubandhu (c. 320c. 400).

Subsequently, Ryo Kuroda, an animal psychologist, planned a trilogy of books on oriental

psychology: Vijnavda psychology (consciousness-only school), History of Chinese
psychological thoughts and Zen psychology (Kuroda, 1944; Ohtsuka, 1948, pp. 450457). However
the third book, Zen psychology, was never completed.

Koji Sato (19051971) began the publication of the journal, Psychologia: An International Journal
of Psychology in the Orient in 1957 with the aim of providing a channel between the East and the
West in cooperation with Asian psychologists (Sato, 1957). Jerome S. Bruner (1915), a New
Look psychologist, Erich S. Fromm (19001980), a Neo-Freudian, and Wolfgang Metzger (1899
1979), a Gestalt psychologist, contributed to this journal. A conversation and letter between Carl G.
Jung (18751961) and Shin-ichi Hisamatsu (18891980), a Buddhist philosopher, were also
included (Bruner, 1959; Fromm, 1959, 1967; Jung, 1960; Jung & Hisamatsu, 1968; Metzger,
Murphy, Nuttin, & Russell, 1971).

In 1972, Yoshiharu Akishige (19041979) commented on Asian psychology at the 20th

International Congress of Psychology in Tokyo, Japan (Akishige, 1973). He spoke about Persian
psychology, Hindu psychology, Chinese psychology, and Zen psychology.

Seirou Kitamura (19082005) investigated holistic psychology, Vijnavda psychology

(consciousness-only school), karma and selflessness (Kitamura, 2001).

The Relationship between the Psychology of Religion and Buddhist Psychology

Belzen and Hood (2006) indicated the relationship between the psychology of religion and general
33
psychology. They also outlined three types of research. The first type limits itself to using or
adapting standard research methods (such as questionnaires, scales, tests, and experiments). The
second type includes research methods from a broader social-scientific range generally used in
sociology and anthropology (such as interviews, observation, ethnographies, and biographical
analysis). The third type relies on data and insights from other disciplines (such as history,
theology, literature, and cultural studies).

Specifically in the psychology of religion, the study of religion is, in a wide sense, divided into four
groups as shown in Figure 2 (Kishimoto, 1961, p. 8, Figure 2 adapted by the author). Kishimoto
also referred to the study of religion in a narrow sense (Figure 2, lower right). Figure 2 shows this
concept of the study of religion as a science. The study of religion as a science in a narrow sense
means viewing religion through a scientific perspective and includes not only the psychology of
religion but also comparative religion, the sociology of religion, religious anthropology, religious
folklore, the geography of religion, the ecology of religion, and so on.

Figure 2. Classification of the study of religion as a science (Kishimoto, 1961, p. 8, this figure
adapted by the author).

In this classification, ancient Buddhist psychology as handed down by Guatama Buddha and his
followers is located in the same position as Christian theology (Figure 2, upper left). But because
Buddhist psychology involves analyzing the mind itself, as mentioned above, ancient Buddhist
psychology will involve a part of the philosophy of religion (Figure 2, lower left). Modern
psychological studies on Buddhism are located in the lower right position of Figure 2. Moreover,
Kasai (2011) regards Buddhist psychology as a movement focusing on the interchange between
Buddhism and psychology and psychotherapy, similar to the psychology and religion movement
outlined by Homans (1987). Therefore, the third course of Buddhist psychology will be an
interchange between Buddhism and psychology and psychotherapy, such as in socially engaged
Buddhism presented by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk. In short, there are three types of
Buddhist psychology. First, ancient and middle Mahayana Buddhist psychology by Guatama
Buddha and his monks; second, modern psychological studies on Buddhism; and third, the
movement involving an interchange of research and practice between Buddhists and psychologists
or psychotherapists. This last type calls for a contribution to society through psychology,
psychotherapy, and Buddhism. I would rather the recent movement and social contribution
involving the interchange of Buddhism and psychology or psychotherapy be called Buddhism-
based psychology to distinguish it from the ancient and middle Mahayana Buddhist psychology
(see Figure 3). The clinical application and social support of mindfulness must be involved in
Buddhist-based psychology. The efforts of supporting people in this, the psychological aspect from
each sect of Buddhism, will define what should be known as Buddhist-based psychology.

34
Figure 3. Classification of the study of Buddhism-based psychology.

At a minimum, mindfulness meditation in early Buddhism has begun to have a great influence on
the field of the psychology of religion, which is now unable to be ignored and is gaining wider
recognition. Similarly, mindfulness meditation has even been used recently in company training
and has begun to have a large influence on daily life (Hanh, 2015). As for the study of religious
techniques, such as mindfulness, there need not be an emphasis on faith, doctrine, and religious
background. We can see that in the future, spirituality will play a much larger part in the
psychology of religion in such moves as The American Catholic Psychological Association being
renamed as The Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Originally, meditation
itself has carried a psychological element, as it employs first-person psychology through
introspection. That is why meditation has become not only a simple effective clinical technique but
also may influence psychological methodology in future. However, the basic use of meditation
techniques, without a deeper religious connection, may have a limit. To lose the religious context
may indicate this type of meditation has a small effect on those who practice it and the increase in
meditation is a boom that will soon subside. Therefore, quantitative or empirical approaches should
be used to investigate mindfulness meditation in order to assess the motivations behind individuals
using this technique. At the same time, it is desirable to perform measurements examining the
effectiveness of spiritual practice on the cognitive style and subjective well-being for persons in
different religious sects without regard to technique. To do this, it is necessary to present and
publish data collected from studies on each religion or each sect in English so that this information
can be shared across different countries. Dudley-Grant, Bankart, and Dockett (2003) raised the
possibility that Buddhism contributes to alleviation of suffering at the individual, community, and
35New York, and proposed that this could have a
global levels after events such as the 9/11 attacks in
positive effect on Buddhist practice.
Figure 4 shows the relationship between psychology of religion, Buddhist psychology and
psychological study of mindfulness meditation. If Buddhism in itself has a function that allows for
self-analysis and brings peace of mind, Buddhism could be seen as a type of alternative
psychology, such as first-person psychology, which employs introspection. Futhermore, it could be
said that Buddhism carries aspects of self-psychotherapy. For these reasons, the relationship
between the psychology of religion and Buddhist psychology is complex and subject to confusion.

Figure 4.

The relationship between psychology of religion, Buddhist psychology and psychological study of
mindfulness meditation.

Research Organization on the Psychology of Religion and Buddhist Psychology

There is not yet an independent society for the psychology of religion in Japan, whereas in the
APA, there is a formally dependent and functionally independent division called The Society for
the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. However, a dependent group known as the Society
for the Study of Psychology of Religion was established within the Japanese Psychological
Association in 2003, and workshops or open calls for participant symposiums have been performed
at annual conferences since that time. In fact, there are some societies for the study of religion,
oriental thought, and Buddhism elsewhere in Japan. The Japanese Psychological Association
(established in 1927), the Japan Association of Applied Psychology (1931), the Japanese
Association for Humanistic Psychology (1982), the Japan Transpersonal Association (1996), and
the Japan Association for Transpersonal Psychology/Psychiatry (1998) do not have formal
objections to presentations on the study of the psychology of religion or Buddhist psychology.

In terms of specialized groups devoted to the study of religious aspects of psychology, both the
Japanese Society of the Transnational Network for the Study of Physical, Psychological and
Spiritual Well-being (1989) and the Association for Oriental Philosophy and Psychotherapy (1999)
were active or still are in this area. Above all, the former functions as a network between
researchers who are involved in the study or practice of oriental religion or philosophy as
individuals in both foreign and domestic locales. The foundation of such societies or groups, their
main academic conferences, and any publications or special issues are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Societies or groups, conferences and publications

36
Year Publications and special issues in other
Society and conference
founded journals

Yujiro Motora, An essay on Eastern philosophy:

1905 Idea of ego in Eastern philosophy, 5th
International Congress of Psychology, Rome, Italy

Erich Fromm, Daisetsu Suzuki, & Richard De Koji Sato, Publication of Psychologia: An
1957 Martino Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, International Journal of Psychology in the
Cuernavaca, Mexico Orient, Kyoto University

Zen philosopher Shinichi Hisamatsu of Kyoto

1958 University pays a personal visit to Carl G. Jung in
Zrich, Switzerland

Special Issues in Psychologia:

1959
Psychotherapies in East and West

1960 Psychology and the self

1961 The problem of unconsciousnessSelf

Akishige, Y. (Ed.). Psychology of Zen I.

Psychological studies on Zen I. Komazawa
University. Tokyo: Maruzen.
1977
Akishige, Y. (Ed.). Psychology of Zen II.
Psychological studies on Zen II. Komazawa
University. Tokyo:Maruzen.

Jon Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress

1979 reduction (MBSR) program was developed at the
University of Massachusetts Medical Center

Shoji Nakamura and Yutaka Haruki, the foundation

of the Japanese Society of the Transnational
Network for the Study of Physical, Psychological
1989
and Spiritual Well-being and yearly workshop or
symposium at the Annual Convention of the
Japanese Psychological Association

Special Issue: Eastern techniques for

mental and physical health around the
world and Eastern approaches to mental
and physical health, in Japanese Health
1992
Psychology, 1(1)

37 Psychology of Oriental practice, in

Japanese Psychological Review, 35
Year Publications and special issues in other
Society and conference
founded journals

Gathering to regard the point of contact between

1998 Buddhism, Psychology and Psychotherapy, Kofuku-
ji, Nara, Japan

Kouzo Shimosaka, the foundation of the

Association for Oriental Philosophy and
Psychotherapy
1999
Polly Young-Eisendrath and Shoji Muramoto, the
Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy conference,
Myoshin-ji in Kyoto and Rinsoin in Shizuoka, Japan

Special Issue: Psychological approach to

2002 Buddhism. In Japanese Journal of
Transpersonal Psychology/Psychiatry

The foundation of the Society for the Study of

Psychology of Religion and yearly workshop or
2003
symposium at the Annual Convention of the
Japanese Psychological Association

Special Issue: New currents of Zen and

2005 Modern Psychology I, in Japanese Journal
of Transpersonal Psychology/Psychiatry

Dale Mathers, Melvin E. Miller and Osamu Ando,

the Kyoto 2006 conference on self and no-self in
2006
psychotherapy and Buddhism, Hanazono
University, Kyoto, Japan

Special Issue: New currents of Zen and

2007 Modern Psychology II, in Japanese Journal
of Transpersonal Psychology/Psychiatry

Vimala Inoue, Moriya Okano and Kenneth Tanaka,

general meeting for the establishment of Japanese
2008
Association of Buddhism and Psychology,
Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan

Journal of the Japanese Association for the

Study of Buddhism and Psychology in the
Japanese Association for the Study of
2010 Buddhism and Psychology

38 The book of Keywords for Buddhism and

psychology
Year Publications and special issues in other
Society and conference
founded journals

Fusako Koshikawa, the foundation of the Japanese

2014 Association of Mindfulness, Waseda University,
Tokyo, Japan

One reason for the delay in establishing religion associations in Japan as compared to the United
States may be because the primary religions in Japan are Shinto and Buddhism. However, this fact
has led to a variety of associations on Oriental thought and spiritual technique in Japan.
Additionally, since many sects of Buddhism have existed and thrived simultaneously in Japan, each
sect has made efforts to help people in their own way. However, there has not been a movement
toward original elements of Buddhism, such as mindfulness. Meanwhile, since the establishment of
the Japanese Association of Mindfulness, this organization has seemed to focus on applying
meditation as a clinical technique and excluding the characteristics of faith and religious rituals. On
the other hand, the Japanese Association for the Study of Buddhism and Psychology appears to
focus on combining the psychological and religious in the various sects.

One positive aspect of the establishment of societies or groups exclusively devoted to the study of
the psychology of religion or Buddhist psychology is that these groups help promote a deeper
discussion of issues related to both religion and psychology. However, there are also some
drawbacks. One problem is that an increase in the number of these organizations may force
researchers to belong to many societies in order to follow the trends of each group; this may prove
to be time-consuming and a financial burden. Additionally, a larger number of specialized societies
may inhibit sharing of the knowledge if no efforts are made to promote intentional interchanges.
Multiple groups might also result in the needless duplication or overlap of study and research
activities. One solution would be to make an umbrella design in the Japanese Psychological
Association for integrating these groups.

Conclusion
The study of the psychological aspects of religions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, began at
the end of the 19th century; this type of research was known as either the psychology of religion or
Buddhist psychology, depending on the area of focus, and used psychology, which was at the time
a new scientific methodology. Because research on the psychology of religion and Buddhist
psychology developed separately, there was not a great deal of interchange between these fields. If
researchers in these domains had been familiar with the research trends in both fields, each of these
areas of study might have developed more quickly. Similarly, because Buddhism itself has a
psychological element, Buddhist practitioners and psychologists might have areas in common that
would benefit from interchange of ideas. It is assumed, as Akishige (1973) noted, that future
psychological research will examine oriental religions and practices, such as Persian psychology,
Hindu psychology, Confucian psychology, and Taoist psychology. Therefore, interchange between
societies or groups studying both the psychology of religion and Buddhist psychology will greatly
help members of these groups gain greater understanding of their own areas of focus. This type of
interchange should comprise exchange of information, collaboration at symposiums, as well as
knowledge sharing through encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies or reviews. Moreover this
type of interchange will allow researchers to systematize or visualize a comprehensive picture of
research in each domain. The relationship between the psychology of religion and Buddhist
psychology is complex, and as noted above, can also be the subject of confusion. Moreover,
Buddhism might be considered an alternative form 39 of psychological analysis, such as first-person
psychology, as Buddhism has elements of psychotherapy that allow it to bring us peace of mind.
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translated by the author of this article.)
Motora, Y. (1895). Sanzen nisshi [A diary of practicing Zen meditation]. Japanese Religion,
1, 9194. (In Japanese, translated by the author of this article.)
Motora, Y. (1905). An essay on Eastern philosophy: Idea of ego in Eastern philosophy.
Leipzig: R. Voigtlnders Verlag.
Ohtsuka, N. (1948). Kuroda Ryo hakasewo omou [Memory of Dr. Ryo Kuroda]. In R.
Kuroda (Ed.), Shina shinri shiso-shi [History of Chinese psychological thoughts] (pp. 450-
457). Tokyo: Koyama Shoten. (In Japanese, translated by the author of this article.)
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Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
41 psychology of religion and spirituality:
Piedmont, R. L. (2013). A short history of the
Providing growth and meaning for division 36. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5,
14.
 Sato, K. (1957). Editorial. Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in the
Orient, 1, 1.
Segal, Z. V. , Williams, J. M. G. , & Teasdale, J. D. (2002). Mindfulness-based cognitive
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John Wiley and Sons.

42
Buddha philosophy and western psychology Tapas Kumar Aich

Abstract

Four noble truths as preached by Buddha are that the life is full of suffering (Duhkha), that there is
a cause of this suffering (Duhkha-samudaya), it is possible to stop suffering (Duhkha-nirodha), and
there is a way to extinguish suffering (Duhkha-nirodha-marga). Eight fold Path (astangika-marga)
as advocated by Buddha as a way to extinguish the sufferings are right views, right
resolve/aspiration, right speech, right action/conduct, right livelihood, right effort right mindfulness
and right concentration.

Mid-twentieth century saw the collaborations between many psychoanalysts and Buddhist scholars
as a meeting between two of the most powerful forces operating in the Western mind. Buddhism
and Western Psychology overlap in theory and in practice. Over the last century, experts have
written on many commonalities between Buddhism and various branches of modern western
psychology like phenomenological psychology, psychoanalytical psychotherapy, humanistic
psychology, cognitive psychology and existential psychology. Orientalist Alan Watts wrote if we
look deeply into such ways of life as Buddhism, we do not find either philosophy or religion as
these are understood in the West. We find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy.

Buddha was a unique psychotherapist. His therapeutic methods helped millions of people
throughout the centuries. This essay is just an expression of what little the current author has
understood on Buddha philosophy and an opportunity to offer his deep tribute to one of the greatest
psychotherapists the world has ever produced!

Keywords: Buddha philosophy, western psychology, Buddhism, psychotherapy

INTRODUCTION

Most of us know the life and basic teachings of Siddhartha or Gautama Buddha since our childhood
days. He was born in a royal family at Kapilavastu, on the foot-hills of Himalaya, in the 6th century
BC. The sights of disease, old age and death impressed the young prince with the idea that the
world was full of suffering and he renounced the world early in life.

As an ascetic, he was restless in search of the real source of all sufferings and of the path or means
of cessation from these sufferings. He sought answers to his questions from many learned scholars
and religious teachers of his time, but nothing satisfied him. He practiced great austerities, went
through intense meditations with an iron will and a mind free from all disturbing thoughts and
passions. He endeavored to unravel the mystery of world's miseries. Finally, his mission was
fulfilled and Prince Siddhartha became Buddha or Enlightened. The message of his
enlightenment laid the foundation of both the Buddhist religion and philosophy.

Like all great teachers of ancient times, Buddha taught by conversation and our knowledge of
Buddha's teachings depends on the Tripitakas or the three baskets of teachings of Gautama
Buddha. The third part or basket is known as the Abhidhamma in Pali; and Abhidharma in
Sanskrit. Abhidhamma Pitaka articulates simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology, and an ethics,
all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation.

TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA: A BRIEF ESSAY

43
The four noble truths

Buddha was primarily an ethical teacher and reformer, not a metaphysician. He disliked
metaphysical discussions devoid of practical utility. Instead of discussing metaphysical questions,
which are ethically useless and intellectually uncertain, Buddha always tried to enlighten persons
on the most important questions of sorrow, its origin, its cessation and the path leading to its
cessation. The answers to these four questions constitute the essence of the Buddha's
enlightenment. These have come to be known as four noble truths. They are: (a) Life is full of
suffering (Duhkha), (b) There is a cause of this suffering (Duhkha-samudaya), (c) It is possible to
stop suffering (Duhkha-nirodha), (d) There is a way to extinguish suffering (Duhkha-nirodha-
marga).[1,2]

The first noble truth is life full of suffering. The very essential conditions of life appeared to be
fraught with suffering-birth, old age, disease, death, sorrow, grief, wish, despair, in short, all that is
born of attachment, is suffering. The second noble truth is that there is a cause of this suffering.
Suffering is due to attachment. Attachment is one translation of the word trishna, which can also be
translated as thirst, desire, lust, craving, or clinging. Another aspect of attachment is dvesha, which
means avoidance or hatred. A third aspect of attachment is avidya, meaning ignorance.

Buddha preaches about the chain of 12 links in the cause and maintenance of suffering. These chain
of causes and effects lead to sufferings in the world. The suffering in life is due to birth, which is
due to the will to be born, which again is due to our mental clinging to objects. Clinging again is
due to thirst or desire for objects. This again is due to sense-experience, which is due to sense-
object-contact, which again is due to the six organs of cognition. These organs are dependent on the
embryonic organism (composed of mind and body), which again could not develop without some
initial consciousness, which again hails from the impressions of the experience of past life, which
lastly are due to ignorance of truth. These constitute the wheel of existence (bhaba-chakra): Birth
and rebirth.

The third noble truth about suffering is that suffering can be extinguished. Nirvana is the state of
being wherein all clinging, and so all suffering, can be eliminated here, in this very life. Buddha
pointed out that work without attachment, hatred and infatuation (rga, dvea, moha) does not cause
bondage. The fourth noble truth about suffering is that there is a path (marga)-which Buddha
followed and others can similarly follow-to reach to a state free from misery. He called it the
Eightfold Path to liberation.

Eightfold Path (astangika-marga): This gives, in a nutshell, the essentials of Buddha Ethics. This
Path is open to all, monks as well as laymen. The first two segments of the path are referred to as
praja, meaning wisdom:[1] Right views-understanding the Four Noble Truths, especially the
nature of all things as imperfect, impermanent, and insubstantial and our self-inflicted suffering as
founded in clinging, hate, and ignorance.[2] Right resolve/aspiration-having the true
desire/determination to free oneself from attachment, hatefulness, and ignorance.

The next three segments of the path provide more detailed guidance in the form of moral precepts,
called sila:[3] Right speech-Abstaining from lying, gossiping, and hurtful speech generally.
Speech is often our ignorance made manifest, and is the most common way in which we harm
others.[4] Right action/conduct-Right conduct includes the Pancha-Sila, the five vows for
desisting from killing, stealing, sensuality, lying and intoxication.[5] Right livelihood-Making one's
living in an honest, non-hurtful way.

The last three segments of the path are the ones Buddhism is most famous for, and concern samadhi
44
or meditation. Despite the popular conception, without wisdom and morality, meditation is
worthless, and may even be dangerous.[6] Right effort - Taking control of your mind and the
contents thereof, effort to develop good mental habits. When bad thoughts and impulses arise, they
should be abandoned. This is done by watching the thought without attachment, recognizing it for
what it is and letting it dissipate. Good thoughts and impulses, on the other hand, should be
nurtured and enacted.[7] Right mindfulness - Mindfulness refers to a kind of meditation (vipassana)
involving an acceptance of thoughts and perceptions, a bare attention to these events without
attachment. This mindfulness is to be extended to daily life as well. It becomes a way of developing
a fuller, richer awareness of life.[8] Right concentration - One who has successfully guided his life
in the life of last seven rules and thereby freed himself from all passions and evil thoughts is fit to
enter into deeper stages of concentration that gradually take him to the goal of his long and arduous
journey cessation of suffering.

Right concentration, through four stages, is the last step in the path that leads to the goal-nirvana.
(i) The 1st stage of concentration is on reasoning and investigation regarding the truths. There is
then a joy of pure thinking. (ii) The 2nd stage is unruffled meditation even free from reasoning.
There is then a joy of tranquillity. (iii) The 3rd stage of concentration is detachment from even the
joy of tranquillity. There is then indifference to even such joy but a feeling of a bodily case still
persists. (iv) The 4th and final stage of concentration is detachment from this bodily case too. There
are then perfect equanimity and indifference. This is the state of nirvana or perfect wisdom. This is
the highest form of Buddhist meditation, and full practice of it is usually restricted to monks and
nuns who have progressed considerably along the path.

BUDDHISM AND WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY

Assessment of Buddhism in terms of modern western psychology started when British Indologist
Rhys Davids translated Abhidhamma Pitaka from Pali and Sanskrit texts in 1900. She published the
book entitled it, Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics.[2] In 1914, she wrote another book
Buddhist psychology: An inquiry into the analysis and theory of mind.[3]

The mid-twentieth century saw the collaborations between many psychoanalysts and Buddhist
scholars as a meeting between two of the most powerful forces operating in the Western mind. A
variety of renowned teachers, clinicians and writers in the west such as Carl Jung, Erich Fromm,
Alan Watts, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Sharon Salzberg among others have
attempted to bridge and integrate psychology and Buddhism, from time to time, in a manner that
offers meaning, inspiration and healing to the common man's suffering.

Buddhism and Western Psychology overlap in theory and in practice. Over the last century, experts
have written on many commonalities between Buddhism and the various branches of modern
western psychology like phenomenological psychology, psychoanalytical psychotherapy,
humanistic psychology, cognitive psychology and existential psychology.

Buddhism and phenomenological psychology

Any assessment of Buddhism in terms of psychology is necessarily a modern western invention.

Western and Buddhist scholars have found in Buddhist teachings a detailed introspective
phenomenological psychology. Rhys Davids in her book Buddhist Manual of Psychological
Ethics wrote, Buddhist philosophy is ethical first and last. Buddhism set itself to analyze and
classify mental processes with remarkable insight and sagacity.[2] Buddhism's psychological
orientation is a theme Rhys Davids pursued for decades as evidenced by her other writings.[3,4]

Abhidhamma Pitaka articulates a philosophy, a psychology, and ethics as well; all integrated into
the framework of a program for liberation. The primary concern of the Abhidhamma (or
Abhidharma in Sanskrit), is to understand the nature 45 of experience, and thus the reality on which it
focuses is conscious reality. For this reason, the philosophical enterprise of the Abhidhamma shades
off into a phenomenological psychology.[4]
Later on long-term efforts to integrate Abhidhammic psychology with Western empirical sciences
have been carried out by other leaders such as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the 14 th Dalai
Lama.

In introduction to his 1975 book, Glimpses of the Abhidharma, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote:
Many modern psychologists have found that the discoveries and explanations of the abhidharma
coincide with their own recent discoveries and new ideas; as though the abhidharma, which was
taught 2,500 years ago, had been redeveloped in the modern idiom.[5]

Every two years, since 1987, the Dalai Lama has convened Mind and Life gatherings of
Buddhists and scientists.[6] Reflecting on one Mind and Life session in March 2000, psychologist
Daniel Goleman, the author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence and Destructive
Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama noted; since the time of Gautama Buddha
in the 5 th century BC, an analysis of the mind and its workings has been central to the practices of
his followers. This analysis was codified during the first millennium, after his death within the
system called Abhidhamma (or Abhidharma in Sanskrit), which means ultimate doctrine.[7]

Buddhism and psychoanalytical psychotherapy

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote the foreword to Zen's scholar Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's introduction
to Zen Buddhism, first published together in 1948. In his foreword, Jung highlights the
enlightenment experience as the unsurpassed transformation to wholeness for Zen practitioners.
The only movement within our culture which partly has, and partly should have, some
understanding of these aspirations for such enlightenment is psychotherapy.[8,9]

Psychoanalysts like Karen Horney and Fritz Perls studied Zen-Buddhism. Karen Horney was
intensely interested in Zen Buddhism during the last years of her life. Richard Wilhelm was a
translator of Chinese texts into German language of the I Ching, Tao Te Ching and the secret of
the golden flower, with a forward written by Carl Jung. R D Laing, another noted psychoanalyst,
went to Ceylon, where he spent two months studying meditation in a Buddhist retreat. Later on, he
spent time learning Sanskrit and visiting Govinda Lama, who had been a guru to Timothy Leary
and Richard Alpert. Suzuki, Fromm and other psychoanalysts collaborated at a 1957 workshop on
Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In his contribution to this workshop,
Fromm declared: Psychoanalysis is a characteristic expression of the Western man's spiritual
crisis, and an attempt to find a solution. The common suffering is the alienation from oneself, from
one's fellow men, and from nature; the awareness that life runs out of one's hand like sand, and that
one will die without having lived; that one lives in the midst of plenty and yet is joyless.[9]
Fromm continues: Zen is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being; it is a way from bondage
to freedom; it liberates our natural energies; and it impels us to express our faculty for happiness
and love.[9] What can be said with more certainty is that the knowledge of Zen, and a concern
with it, can have a most fertile and clarifying influence on the theory and technique of
psychoanalysis. Zen, different as it is in its method from psychoanalysis, can sharpen the focus,
throw new light on the nature of insight, and heighten the sense of what it is to see, what it is to be
creative, what it is to overcome the affective contaminations and false intellectualizations which are
the necessary results of experience based on the subject-object split.[10]

Referencing Jung and Suzuki's collaboration as well as the efforts of others, humanistic philosopher
and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm noted; there is an unmistakable and increasing interest in Zen
Buddhism among psychoanalysts.[9] Erich Fromm also wrote the forward to a 1986 anthology of
Nyanaponika Thera's essays on Buddhist philosophy.[11,12]
46
There have been many other important contributors,[13,14] to the popularization of the integration
of Buddhist meditation with psychology, including Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach,
Epstein and Nhat Hanh.
Psychoanalysis, pioneered and popularized by such philosophers/psychoanalysts rests upon the idea
that uncovering and making conscious buried complexes and memories is a therapeutic process.
The relocation of a complex or neurosis from the unconscious to the conscious easily equates to the
principles inherent in right meditation and right understanding. One might recall that on Jung's
deathbed, he was reading a translation of Hsu Yun's dharma discourses and was reputedly very
excited by the succinct and direct methods of Chan's practice in working with the unconscious.

Buddhism and existential psychology

Buddha said that life is suffering. Existential psychology speaks of ontological anxiety (dread,
angst). Buddha said that suffering is due to attachment. Existential psychology also has some
similar concepts. We cling to things in the hope that they will provide us with a certain benefit.
Buddha said that suffering can be extinguished. The Buddhist concept of nirvana is quite similar to
the existentialists freedom. Freedom has, in fact, been used in Buddhism in the context of freedom
from rebirth or freedom from the effects of karma. For the existentialist, freedom is a fact of our
being, one which we often ignore. Finally, Buddha says that there is a way to extinguish suffering.
For the existential psychologist, the therapist must take an assertive role in helping the client
become aware of the reality of his or her suffering and its roots. Likewise, the client must take an
assertive role in working towards improvementeven though it means facing the fears theyve been
working so hard to avoid, and especially facing the fear that they will lose themselves in the
process.[15,16]

Buddhism and cognitive-behavior therapy principles

Buddhistic mindfulness practices have been explicitly incorporated into a variety of psychological
treatments. More specifically psychotherapies dealing with cognitive restructuring share core
principles with ancient Buddhistic antidotes to personal suffering.

Fromm distinguishes between two types of meditative techniques that have been used in
psychotherapy: (i) auto-suggestion used to induce relaxation; and (ii) meditation to achieve a
higher degree of non-attachment, of non-greed, and of non-illusion; briefly, those that serve to
reach a higher level of being. Fromm attributes techniques associated with the latter to Buddhist
mindfulness practices.[10]

Two increasingly popular therapeutic practices using Buddhist mindfulness techniques are Jon
Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR),[17,18] and Marsha M. Linehan's
dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Other prominent therapies that use mindfulness include
mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)[19] and Steven C. Hayes Acceptance and
commitment therapy (ACT).[20]

Mindfulness-based stress reduction

Kabat-Zinn developed the 8-week MBSR program over a 10-year-period with over 4,000 patients
at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Describing the MBSR program, Kabat-Zinn
writes: This work involves above all the regular, disciplined practice of moment-to-moment
awareness or mindfulness, the complete owning of each moment of your experience, good, bad, or
ugly. This is the essence of full catastrophic living.[17]

Kabat-Zinn, a one-time Zen practitioner, goes on to write: Although at this time, mindfulness
meditation is most commonly taught and practiced within the context of Buddhism, its essence is
universal. Yet it is no accident that mindfulness 47 comes out of Buddhism, which has as its
overriding concerns the relief of suffering and the dispelling of illusions.[18]
Not surprisingly, in terms of clinical diagnoses, MBSR has proven beneficial for people with
depression and anxiety disorders; however, the program is meant to serve anyone experiencing
significant stress.[19]

Dialectical behavioral therapy

In writing about DBT, Zen practitioner Linehan states: As its name suggests, its overriding
characteristic is an emphasis on dialectics that is, the reconciliation of opposites in a continual
process of synthesis. This emphasis on acceptance as a balance to change flows directly from the
integration of a perspective drawn from the practice of Buddhism with Western psychological
practice.[21] Similarly, Linehan writes:[22] Mindfulness skills are central to DBT. They are the
first skills taught and are reviewed every week. The skills are psychological and behavioral
versions of meditation practices from Eastern spiritual training. Linehan has drawn heavily from
the practice of Zen. Controlled clinical studies have demonstrated DBT's effectiveness for people
with borderline personality disorder.[21]

Dr. Albert Ellis, has written that many of the principles incorporated in the theory of rational-
emotive psychotherapy are not new; some of them were originally stated several thousands of years
ago, by Taoist and Buddhistic thinkers.[23] To give one example, Buddhism identifies anger and
ill-will as basic hindrances to spiritual development. A common Buddhistic antidote for anger is the
use of active contemplation of loving thoughts. This is similar to using a CBT technique known as
emotional training which Ellis described.[24]

The school of Behaviorism describe (or reduce) human functions to principles of behavior, which
can be manipulated to create positive effects in the life of the patient. In the Noble Eightfold Path
we see reflections of this approach in the exhortations to Right Action, Right Speech and Right
Livelihood. One may consider the story of the Buddha who was approached by a rich but miserly
man who wanted to develop his spiritual life but was constrained by his seeming inability to share
his wealth with others. The Buddha addressed this problem by telling him to get into the habit of
using his right hand to give his left hand items of value and in doing so learn the art of giving!

Cognitive and cognitive-behaviorists focus more on training the mind to review and question
assumptions, phobias, fears and beliefs. These therapists are typically associated with such
techniques as visualization and positive self-talk designed to teach, or unlearn, principles that are,
respectively, helpful or unhelpful. Again, the noble eightfold path and its focus on right
mindfulness and right thinking are the corollary in Buddhist thought.

Buddhism and other psychotherapy principles

Gestalt Therapy is an approach created by Fritz Perls, based heavily on existentialist philosophy
and significantly, Zen Buddhism (among other influences). In Gestalt, the premise is we must work
with the whole person, the gestalt in German, which echoes the wisdom of Right Understanding.
Its techniques encourage Right Mindfulness, and the focus on the immediate, phenomenological
and experiential reality of the here and now, in the physical, emotional and mental realms.[25]

David Brazier in his book Zen Therapy makes a thoughtful comparison of some principal Buddhist
concepts and person-centered (rogerian) Therapy.[26] Developed by Carl Rogers, this therapeutic
approach includes virtually all effective therapy, either in principle or technique. In basic terms, its
goal is to provide the patient a safe place, an environment where he or she may express their
problems. The therapist does not direct the process, but works on the assumption the patient has the
resources to deal with their own cure and self-growth,
48
provided the environment is supportive of
them. Like the Buddha, this non-authoritative approach suggests the patient can be a light unto
themselves. Although the therapist may do little more than provide active and empathic listening,
and reflect and validate the thoughts and emotions of the struggling patient, they nonetheless,
provide three crucial components for change to occur; unconditional positive regard, empathy and
congruence (or genuiness). These are the elements that are considered essential to create an
environment where the individual can grow, learn and evolve.

This is of particular interest to the Buddhist student who is taught that all suffering stems from the
three bitter roots or poisons of greed, hatred and delusion. Brazier demonstrates how, from a
therapeutic perspective, Person-Centered Therapy counters each of these poisons; empathy is the
antidote to hate, unconditional positive regard provides a model of acceptance of self and other
which counters the grasping, needy nature of greed, and congruence (genuineness) is the opposite
of delusion. Delusion itself, as Brazier suggests, could just as well be translated as incongruence,
the separation of self and mind from what is real and what is present.

CONCLUSION

Buddha was commonly referred to as the great physician and like any therapist, made it his aim
to identify, explain and end human suffering. All therapists do have similar aims. Four Noble
Truths are the method to adopt a diagnostic format to explain suffering and its cure; the 1st Noble
Truth identifies the disease, the 2nd provides etiology, the 3rd gives a prognosis, and the 4th suggests
a remedy.

Philosopher and Orientalist Alan Watts once wrote: If we look deeply into such ways of life as
Buddhism, we do not find either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. We
find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy.[27] The main resemblance between these
Eastern ways of life and Western psychotherapy is in the concern of both with bringing about
changes of consciousness, changes in our ways of feeling our own existence and our relation to
human society and the natural world.[28]

What Buddhism is really all about is returning to this life, your very own little life, with a new
attitude. By being more calm, more aware, a nicer person morally, someone who has given up
envy and greed and hatred and such, who understands that nothing is forever, that grief is the price
we willingly pay for love this life becomes at very least bearable. We stop torturing ourselves
and allow ourselves to enjoy what there is to enjoy.[15]

Buddha was a unique psychotherapist. His therapeutic methods helped millions of people
throughout the centuries. Today the Western world has realized the psychological essence of
Buddhism. Many Psychotherapeutic systems in the West are derived from Buddha's teaching.
Buddha showed empathy and non-judgmental acceptance to everyone who came to him. He helped
people to gain insight and helped in growth promotion while eliminating troubling and painful
emotions. His therapeutic methods are exceptional and can be applied for all times.[16]

Prince Gautama gave his entire life in understanding and then propagating his philosophy. People
have devoted their entire lives in studying and understanding his philosophy. Being a student of
modern psychiatry, I do not claim to be an expert in Buddhist philosophy and/or religion. This
essay is just an expression of what little I have understood on His philosophy and an opportunity to
offer my deep tribute to one of the greatest psychotherapists the world has ever produced!

REFERENCES

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1980. The Buddha philosophy.
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2nd ed. London: Luzac and Co; 1924. pp. 1636.

4. Rhys Davids CA. Birth of Indian Psychology and its Development in Buddhism. London: Luzac and Co;
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5. Chogyam TR. Glimpses of Abhidharma: From a Seminar on Buddhist Psychology. Boston, MA: Shambhala
Publications; 2001.

6. Goleman D, editor. Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and
Health. Boston: Shambhala Publications; 1997.

7. Goleman D. Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. NY: Bantam Dell; 2004.

8. Suzuki DT, Jung CG. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. Vol. 1991. NY: Grove Press; 1948.

9. Fromm E, Suzuki DT, Martino RD. Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. NY: Harper and Row; 1960.

10. Fromm E. The Art of Being. NY: Continuum; 2002.

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13. Kornfield J. A Path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life. NY: Bantam
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14. Epstein M. Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective. NY: Basic Books;
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psychotherapist/2010 .

17. Kabat-Zinn J. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and
Illness. NY: Dell Publishing; 1990.

18. Kabat-Zinn J. Coming to our senses: Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness. New York:
Hyperion; 2005.

19. Segal ZV, Mark J, Williams G, Teasdale JD. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New
Approach to Preventing Relapse. NY: Guilford Press; 2002.

20. Hayes, Steven C, Kirk DS, Kelly GW. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to
Behavior Change. NY: The Guilford Press; 2003.

21. Linehan MM. Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. NY: Guilford Press;
1993. 50
22. Linehan MM, Armstrong HE, Suarez A, Allmon D, Heard HL. Cognitive-behavioral treatment of
chronically parasuicidal borderline patients. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1991;48:10604. [PubMed]

23. Ellis A. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. NY: Carol Publishing; 1991.

24. Ellis A. Secaucus. NJ: Carol Publishing; 1997. Anger. How to Live with and without It.

25. Shakya FG. Buddhism and Psychotherapy: A Perspective. 2009. Available from:
http://www.hsuyun.org/chan/en/essays/essays-from-clergy/byfagong/276-psychotherapy.html .

26. Brazier D. Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind. NY: John Wiley and Sons, Inc;
1996.

27. Watts Alan W. The Way of Zen. NY: New American Library; 1959.

28. Watts Alan W. Psychotherapy East and West. NY: Random House; 1975.

51
Zen and psychology Hiroki Kato
Abstract
Abstract: The history of the study of Zen and psychology is divided into four periods based on
Kato (1999). The contributions of the psychophysiological study of the body and mind, such as the
use of the electroencephalogram during Zen meditation, are described. Key names in this field are
K. Sato and Akishige, who organized the project team for the study of Zen and endeavored to give
these studies international recognition through the publication of books and the journal,
Psychologia. Not only the practice of Zen meditation, but also the day-to-day practices of monastic
life, are given equal priority in the attempt to understand our true self and real nature. The year
1978 marks the turning point in the study of Zen and psychology because Akishige introduced the
idea of Zen psychology; which is the amalgamation of Zen thought with the study of psychological
problems, particularly related to the control of emotions. The metascience of the study of Zen is
cited by first-, second- and third-person psychology (Watanabe, 1994). Finally, the significance of
the idea of all three-person psychology is emphasized.

This paper examines the study of the relationship between Zen and psychology, and the
development of a body of research that can be described as psychological studies on Zen.

Buddhism is a philosophy that originated in India approximately 2500 years ago. Its founder was
Gautama Buddha. Bodhidarma, a Buddhist missionary, introduced Buddhism to China in the sixth
century. Zen Buddhism developed in China through a fusion with Confucianism and other native
Chinese ideas. As a result, it was separate from other sects. The term Zen comes from the Sanskrit
dhyna, which is translated as meditation. Zen meditation is defined as the practice of mental
concentration in which the reasoning process of the intellect is interrupted and consciousness is
heightened by the exclusion of extraneous thoughts, except for thoughts that are the subject of
meditation (Iwano, 1991).

There are three sects of Zen Buddhism in Japan: Rinzai-sect, Soto-sect and Obaku-sect. Both the
Rinzai-sect by Zen master Eisai (11411215) and the Soto-sect by Zen master Dgen (12001253)
were established during the Kamakura era (11921333). Later, the Obaku-sect was established in
the Edo era (16031867) by the Chinese Zen master Ingen (15921673). Although the Obaku-sect
was strongly influenced by Chinese culture and tradition, the Rinzai-sect and the Soto-sect were
colored by native Japanese culture. Therefore, these sects are often compared for their differences.
In the Rinzai-sect, mainly Zazen, and to a lesser extent Koan, is practiced. Zazen is a type of
meditation during which the person sits cross-legged in the lotus posture to meditate quietly. While
Koan is a statement used as a test of whether the disciple has really attained enlightenment or
reached the state of kensho (i.e., to see into one's original nature). The Soto-sect, in contrast, relies
solely on Zazen.

History of studies on Zen and psychology

The history of studies on Zen and psychology are divided into four periods (Kato, 1999).

I The period of one psychology of ZenFrom 1893, the year of Inoue's first publication on Zen, to the
1940s marks the first period. In this period, there was no distinction between the study of Zen and
Zazen.
II The period of Zen and psychologyThe 1950s, when there was confusion regarding the methods of
researching on Zen. During this period discussions
52 took place on Zen and psychotherapy.
III The period of psychological studies on ZenFrom the 1960s, when the electroencephalogram
(EEG) was used to study Zen, until the year 1977.
IV The period of Zen psychology
In 1978 Akishige proposed the concept of Zen psychology.

An outline of the history of Zen psychology was written during this period. For instance, The
period of one psychology of Zen and The period of Zen and psychology are dealt with in
Akishige (1968, 1977b) and Onda (1992d). Nakamura (1992) also summarized the history of The
period of the psychological studies on Zen. Furthermore, Taniguchi (1992) gives a detailed
explanation, particularly regarding the psychophysiological studies of Zen.

The period of one psychology of Zen

The first contact of psychologists with Zen

The publication, Psychology of Zen Sect by Inoue (1893) is probably the first article concerning
Zen and psychology. He founded the institute of philosophy, which was known as Tetsugaku-kan
and is today known as Toyo University. This publication was written to elucidate enlightenment
from the perspective of psychology. Inoue explained that Zen meditation prevented the intellect,
emotion, and will from arising. In 1895, Motora Yujiro (who created the psychological laboratory
at Tokyo University in Japan having studied scientific psychology under G. S. Hall in the USA),
wrote a diary after practicing Zen meditation for a week at the Enkakuji temple of the Rinzai-sect.
In this diary, he traced the movement of the mind throughout the whole day while practicing Zen
meditation with a given Koan statement: What is the sound of clapping with only one hand.
During Zen meditation, Motora thought of various answers to this question that would prove his
enlightenment, and let him pass the oral examination. He failed 15 times before finally passing with
the help of a hint given by the Zen master. Later he insisted that Zen was not enigmatic, but
rational, and was not to be taught by a master, but was to be understood through personal
experience (Motora, 1895). Consequently, Motora's experience with the practice of Zen had a
tremendous influence on the later psychological theory and thought in Japan (T. Sato, 2001).

In 1905, Motora made a presentation on the idea of self in Zen under the title, An Essay on Eastern
Philosophy: Idea of Ego in Eastern Philosophy, at the meeting of the 5th International Congress of
Psychology in Rome (T. Sato, 2002). In this presentation, Motora (1905) put forward the
psychological explanation for his experience with Zen.

The first psychological approach to Zen

In 1920, Iritani made the first psychological approach to the study of Zen using empiric evidence
by administering a questionnaire to 43 persons. He also conducted interviews with more than 10
persons. In addition, he used the invaluable documents written by 195 Zen masters. By using these
three methods of questionnaire, interview, and documentation, he tried to show the mental
processes involved in the realization of Kensho or enlightenment, and the physical and mental
activities that take place after attaining this goal.

Psychology of Zen by Ataka (1934) is the first article containing the keyword of Zen in the
PsycINFO Psychological Abstracts database on the Internet. He devoted his studies to the
interpretation of two issues: (a) the psychological processes involved in attaining enlightenment;
and (b) the psychological states that occur after reaching enlightenment.

Kuroda (1937) divided the psychological approach to Zen into two aspects. One is the philology for
analyzing the results of questionnaires. The other is the experiment for investigating physical
reactions, particularly respiratory movement and other body movements, after the administration of
some stimuli during Zen meditation. Kuroda 53 also regarded the study of the psychological
approaches to Zen and the study of the psychology of Zen as two different aspects. He thought that
the former must be based on objective methods. In contrast, the purpose of the latter is to explain
the state of mind after reaching enlightenment. After Kuroda, the study of Zazen and the study of
Zen became distinct. Gestalt psychologist Sakuma (1948; a friend of K. Lewin) predicted that there
would be a possibility of measuring the electrical potential of the cerebral cortex during Zazen.

The period of Zen and psychology

In the early 1950s two Western psychoanalysts, Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, became interested
in Eastern philosophy, particularly Zen. Horney visited Japan in 1952 with D. T. Suzuki, the most
famous Zen missionary in the West. While in Japan, they met Kora Takehisa, a leading disciple of
the originator of Morita therapy. Morita therapy was established in the 1920s by Dr Morita Shoma
and further developed by Dr Kora of Jikei University to treat patients who suffered from
hypochondriac neurosis and anxiety neurosis. Morita therapy is characterized by not relieving the
person of the symptom of anxiety, but similar to the practice of Zen, accepting the anxiety as it is,
and positively participating in daily life.

In 1957, K. Sato published a new Journal, Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in

the Orient, to introduce the study of psychology in Asia. Because of this publication, psychologists
all over the world became familiar, not only with the studies of general psychology in each Asian
country, but also with the psychological studies on Eastern philosophy and thought in English.
Famous psychologists such as Bruner (1959), Fromm (1959, 1967), and Jung (1960) have
contributed articles to the Psychologia. A special edition of this journal on the Psychotherapies in
East and West was published from 1958 to 1961. In the same year as the first publication of
Psychologia, 1957, a symposium of Zen and psychoanalysis was held in Mexico. The proceedings
of the symposium and a lecture delivered by Suzuki and Fromm was published (Fromm, Suzuki, &
De Martino, 1960). Hisamatsu Shinichi, a Zen Philosopher, visited Jung to talk about Zen and
psychology in 1958 (Jung & Hisamatsu, 1968; K. Sato, 1961). Some articles based on this dialogue
have also been published (Muramoto, 1998a, 1998b).

As a result of the opportunity to contact many psychologists, psychoanalysts, and Zen priests
through the publication of Psychologia, Sato (1959) was able to summarize the study of Zen and
psychology in Japan and in the world. In this publication, Sato pointed out six approaches to the
study of Zen and psychology. The first is the phenomenological approach to the experiences of
Zen. Here, each stage of the state of the mind should be dealt with separately. This approach
includes the study of processes for attaining enlightenment, and the study of one's experiences after
realizing the true self. The second approach is the study of the behavior and personality of Zen
masters or martial artists, such as masters of Japanese archery. The third, is the general semantics
approach, which is the study of Zen practice, particularly with Koan statements. The fourth is the
psychophysiological approach using EEG, or the concept of autonomic balance. This approach
includes both the tonic factor and the phasic factor. The fifth is the psychotherapeutic approach.
This includes psychotherapy using the theory of Zen, such as in Morita therapy, and a
psychoanalytical or existential approach. The last approach is the approach to motivate people to
practice Zen. It is believed that through the above-mentioned publication, Sato turned the entire
direction of the study of Zen and psychology into the psychological studies of Zen.

The period of psychological studies on Zen

Bagchi and Wenger (1957) were the first to examine the effect of yoga exercises on the human
brain through the use of the physiological equipment that measure brain waves. Later in the 1960s,
Kasamatsu and Hirai attempted a landmark study of Zen by measuring brain waves through EEG
based on the research of Bagchi and Wenger (Hirai, 1960; Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1963, 1969). In this
study, which was supported by the Ministry of Education,
54 it was found that alpha waves appeared
in the EEG even when the subjects kept their eyes open. Moreover, the habituation of alpha
blocking to a fixed interval clicking sound did not occur in expert priests during Zen meditation.
There was a reduction in the frequency of breathing. Some reverse or different consequences of this
study were, however, reported later.

Following this study, the Ministry of Education provided grants to representatives to commence
research projects on the Medical and psychological studies of Zen in eight laboratories (Sakuma,
1962), shown in Appendix I. These early joint scientific studies on Zen were conducted in several
laboratories, covering various subjects, such as psychiatry, physiology, and psychology. Some of
the results of these studies are published in English (Akishige, 1968, 1977b; Kasamatsu & Hirai,
1963; Sugi & Akutsu, 1968). Sugi and Akutsu (1964, 1968) found that the frequency of respiration
rapidly decreased by 24 b.p.m. during Zen meditation. The amount of ventilation and the
consumption of oxygen also decreased. These results suggest that Zazen-Zen meditation makes
expert priests relax and feel fresh in any surroundings through avoiding habituation.

Kasamatsu and Hirai produced an English film titled Science of Zazen, and the transcript was
also published (Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1963). This film was produced chiefly on the basis of the
following two studies: (a) the results of the Medical and psychological studies of Zen by grantees
of the Ministry of Education in 1961 and 1962; and (b) the results of An electroencephalographic
study of Zazen. This film contains an explanation of the history and the nature of Zen, and the
presentation of the following four approaches to Zen: (a) Rorschach test, (b) visus (vision), (c)
respiration and energy metabolism, and (d) EEG.

Akishige, who had originally devoted his time to the study of the constancy of perception,
continued his studies of Zen and presented the results at academic meetings every year. In his
presentations of these studies, he used the subtitle, Psychological studies on respiration- and mind-
regulation.

As soon as he retired from Kyusyu University, Akishige established a graduate school of

Psychology at Komazawa University in 1968, in order to continue his studies on Zen. Komazawa
University originally belonged to the Soto Zen sect. Many famous researchers, such as Sakuma,
Kasamatsu, Hirai, Sugi, Akutsu, and Chiba served here in the capacity of professor or part-time
instructor. Chiba proposed the idea of original thought and proper consciousness influenced by
vijapti-mtrat (consciousnesses only) and Zen meditation. In this school, all the faculties and
graduate students took part in psychological studies on Zen and a special lecture class on Zen
psychology was started. In 1970, Akishige added the phrase body-regulation to the subtitle,
Psychological studies on respiration- and mind-regulation to his presentations at academic
meetings. Later, these studies of Zen were published in two books and a journal, and sent to
universities and institutes in various parts of the world (Akishige, 1977a, 1977b, 1977c), as shown
in Appendix II.

The year 1978 marks the turning point in the study of Zen and psychology. Because Akishige put
forward the view that while scientific approaches to the psychological studies on Zen continue, the
thought and philosophy of Zen should also be introduced to the study of psychology as well.
Akishige emphasized the need to reconsider psychological problems, particularly the control of
emotions, in the light of Zen psychology. Therefore, the subtitle of presentations in the studies on
Zen at academic meetings was changed from psychological study of body-, respiration- and mind-
regulation to the study of Zen psychology. Unfortunately, however, Akishige died in 1979,
shortly after he proposed this change.

One other important feature about this period of psychological studies on Zen, which may not have
been purely coincidental, was the publication of two important journals reflecting a new paradigm
in the study of psychology: The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, published in 1961, and the
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, published 55 in 1969. They provided publicity to studies of
ecstasy, bliss, self-actualization, transcendence of the self, and so on.
Onda continued to work on studies that mirrored these new ideas by writing numerous articles
about Zen and psychology. These included topics such as satori (enlightenment) and creativity, Zen
as a technique for self control, altered states of consciousness, counseling and psychotherapy,
autogenic training, etc. (Onda, 1962, 1967, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c). More recently, Onda (2000)
attempted to deal with both Zen-concentrative meditation and Vipassan-mindful meditation. He
also had many personal experiences of Zen, Vipassan, jodo (the pure land teachings), yoga, and
Western psychotherapy.

Table 1 is a list of authors who have written on Zen in Japan, ranked according to the number of
publications. Onda wrote the greatest number of articles, up to 61, Akishige is next with 56 and K.
Sato is third with 40 articles. The table continues in rank order up to 10 articles.

Table 1. Quantity of literature by author

Rank Name of author Quantity of literature

1 Onda, Akira 61

2 Akishige, Yoshiharu 56

3 Sato, Koji 40

4 Nakamura, Shoji 33

5 Chihara, Tadashi 22

6 Shinohara, Eiju 17

7 Hirai, Tomio 16

7 Muramoto, Shoji 16

9 Yamaoka, Tetsuo 14

10 Taniguchi, Yasutomi 13

11 Motora, Yujiro 11

11 Sasaki, Yuji 11

13 Kuroda, Teruhiko 10

13 Takahashi, Yoshihiro 10

The period of Zen psychology

For many years after 1978, when Akishige proposed the idea of Zen psychology, psychological
studies of Zen continued, revealing the states of the human mind and body.
56
Table 2 and Table 3 provide a numerical list of the literature published in each decade in Japan and
the rest of the world.
Table 2. Quantity of literature in each decade until the 1990s on PsycINFO

Period Quantity of literature

1930s 3

1940s 0

1950s 17

1960s 33

1970s 95

1980s 105

1990s 157

Total 410

Table 3. Quantity of literature in each decade until the 1990s in Japan

Period Quantity of literature

1800s 4

1900s 11

1910s 3

1920s 3

1930s 15

1940s 8

1950s 36

1960s 139

1970s 167

1980s 153

1990s 158

Total 697

On PsycINFO, the online database of Psychological57

Abstracts, 410 journals and books were found
under the keyword Zen from 1872 to 1999. There is also an increasing trend in the literature on
Zen for each decade. However, because this literature is in peer-reviewed journals, there must be
other publications besides those listed on PsycINFO. In Kato's (2002) bibliography, there are 697
publications on Zen and psychology published in Japan in Japanese or in English from 1893 to
1999.

The psychophysiological approach of the 1960s is the start of the upward trend in Zen publications.
In the period of Zen psychology, there are some books and special issues on psychological studies
on Zen. A book titled The Psychology of Meditation provides an introduction and an overview of
meditation (West, 1987). This book contains the history, approaches, results of research, and effects
of meditation as a form of psychotherapy.

A special feature article in English is also found in Japanese Health Psychology, Volume 1 (1992),
This issue is in two parts: (1) Eastern techniques for mental and physical health practiced around
the world; and (2) Eastern approaches to mental and physical health. Another special article is
found in Japanese Psychological Review titled Psychology of Eastern Mental/Physical Practices
(1992). This special issue consists of six articles, as can be seen in Appendix III.

Moreover, two significant meetings concerning Zen and psychology were also held. In 1998, there
was the meeting about Buddhism, psychology and psychotherapy at Kofuku Temple (the
consciousness-only sect) at Nara in Japan. At this meeting, the relationship between early
Buddhism, consciousness-only, jodo (the pure land teachings) and depth psychology,
psychotherapy, and psychology was discussed. In 1999, the symposium of Zen Buddhism and
Depth Psychology was held by The International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism at
Hanazono University, which led to the origin of the Rinzai-sect in Kyoto (Young-Eisendrath &
Muramoto, 2001).

Discussion
The significance of psychophysiological approaches to Zen

As stated above, the history of the study of Zen and psychology was shown. In the second period
beginning in the 1950s, there was a distinction between the study of the Zen priest as an individual
on the one hand; the person leading a monastic life while engaging in various activities, as well as
the effect of these activities on his personality, behavior, emotions, motivation, cognition, and
mental state; and on the other hand, the mental state of the person during Zen meditation. Of these
four periods, the most achievements in the study of Zen and psychology were accomplished in the
1960s through the use of physiological approaches such as the EEG, electromyography, galvanic
skin response, respiration and pulse rate, plethysmogram, minor tremor, etc. Recently, however,
there has been an attempt to introduce neuroscientific approaches to the study of Zen. Arita (2001)
believed in the hypothesis that the changes in body and mind while practicing Zazen were
explained by the activation of serotonin- a biogenic amino acid- released during breathing while
doing Zazen.

Austin, a neuroscientist and Zen practitioner, in 1998 published a book titled Zen and the Brain,
which uses Zen Buddhism as the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of
consciousness. Furthermore, an article by Higuchi, Kotani, Higuchi, Minegishi, and Momose
(1999) provides an interesting record of measuring natural killer cell activity. A series of studies on
Zen and time experiences by Chihara (1977, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1999) is also a unique
experiment, because research on time theory and ontology is one of the fundamental problems in
Zen. Time was underestimated during Zazen even though EEG changes were not reported in his
study.

These psychophysiological approaches to Zen 58 are most useful because they resulted in the
accumulation of research on the subject. In this respect, the study of drawings of 10 bulls with a
verse drawn by the Zen Master Kao-an Shih-yan (Kuo-an) during the period 9601126 is also a
unique approach in that it did not use Zazen meditation itself (Takahashi, 1999). Nakamura (1977)
emphasized that one's daily activities in the monastery are more important for practicing the right
method and understanding the mechanism of Zen than one's state of mind while practicing Zen
meditation. The entire day-to-day life in the monastery is treated as part of the education system for
monks to reach the goal of their religious experiences: to attain satori or enlightenment.

The significance of the metascience of psychology for Zen and psychology

Let me discuss the significance of the metascience of psychology for the purposes of this paper.
The article titled A Review of the Psychological Research on Meditation That Can Be Observed
Through PsycLIT by Nakamura (1998) is a novel means of finding out the state of research by
examining the database of abstracts. In this article, 104 keywords concerning meditation are
selected, and the keyword meditation itself is retrieved using PsycLIT from articles published
from 1974 to 1997. Each keyword is related to meditation, such as, technique of meditation,
research areas in psychology, different physiological indexes, the mechanism of meditation,
psychotherapy, the effects of meditation, a variety of related personality traits, and some
questionnaires. In all there are 994 entries. The number of articles and the percentages for each
keyword accounted for are listed in all cases.

From the point of view of the metascience of psychology, the three-person psychology of Watanabe
(1994) is useful to cope with the study of Zen. The three-person psychology consists of a first-,
second- and third-person psychology. The first-person psychology is to reveal and describe the
structure of an experience of consciousness by means of introspection. The second-person
psychology is to understand and explain the denotation and connotation of various activities and
expressions of a human being by the use of interpretation. The third-person psychology is to
explain the law of behavior of organisms, including human beings, by the use of natural scientific
methods. The typical first-person psychology is consciousness psychology or introspective
psychology. Comprehensive psychology or psychoanalysis partly represents the second-person
psychology. The third-person psychology implies modern scientific psychology using
experimentation.

Empiric psychology (a first-person psychology), like introspection or meditation to reflect on one's

own self developed in the East from early prehistoric times. For the most part, this empiric method
of meditation has continued to be practiced even after the advent of scientific psychology.
Buddhism has a well-developed classification system for the mind. Levels of consciousness and
unconsciousness are divided into eight stages known as manas-consciousness and store-
consciousness (Table 4).

Table 4. Eight consciousness and unconsciousness

Sanskrit English Level of consciousness

paca- The five consciousnesses of the organs of

The first six of the eight consciousnesses
vijna the body

mano-
The thought-consciousness The sixth of the six or eight consciousnesses
vijna

manas- The seventh of the eight consciousnesses-

The manas-consciousness
vijna unconsciousness

laya- 59 The eighth of the eight consciousnesses-

The store-consciousness
vijna unconsciousness
The movement of the mind from the moment of feeling a stimulus to developing consciousness of
the stimulus is also divided into four stages: the Sanskrit vedan (sensation), samj (perception),
samskra (will), and vijna (a mental quality as a constituent of individuality) in Buddhism,
compared with sensation, perception, and cognition in psychology. The significance of the first-
person psychology is to deal with direct experiences, not to convert them into objective secondary
indexes verbalized or symbolized as a numerical value. The direct experiences are original and
singular and they are not to be experienced twice. Researchers such as Motora, K. Sato, Akishige,
Onda, and Nakamura realized the significance of first-person psychology well and had numerous
direct experiences through Zen.

The approach of second-person psychology is also important to know the exact person in your
presence. This description is not meant to undermine the importance of third-person psychology,
but to reiterate the importance of using all aspects of the three-person psychology. It is considered
that each person of the three-person psychology will achieve a different consequence. The concept
of pratitya-samutpda, the Sanskrit term for arising from a cause or idampratyayat, the Sanskrit
term for being causally connected, that is, matter A exists due to the existence of matter B
and B exists because of A. This is a central concept of Buddhism. These concepts are different
from the causal relationship that can be expressed through third-person psychology. This is why
first-person psychology and second-person psychology are equally as important as third-person
psychology. All three are essential for completely understanding the physical, psychological, and
spiritual existence.

Conclusion
It is accepted that Hirai and his colleagues initiated the scientific study of Zen and psychology by
the use of EEG. K. Sato and Akishige are the key persons in this research because they organized
the project team for the study of Zen and spread it around the world by the publication of books and
the journal, Psychologia. Both K. Sato and Akishige also took a keen interest in Zen as a vehicle
for psychotherapy.

The psychophysiological approaches to Zen expanded the knowledge of the subject, and will, no
doubt, influence further study on this important topic. However, it must be mentioned that, not only
the practice of Zazen meditation, but also the day-to-day practices of monastic life, are equally
necessary for realizing the Zen practitioner's goals. Besides, for a comprehensive understanding of
Zen, the complete three-person psychology must be used. Researchers who study the meditation
must also be aware of the difference between Zen (concentrative meditation) and Vipassan
(mindful meditation) for understanding the real nature of meditation. But, researchers devoted to
the study of meditation with all three-person psychology must accept that the goal of the study of
meditation is not merely to discover its effects, such as deep concentration, relaxation, and
psychotherapy. Our true goal is not only to understand the mechanisms of Zen meditation but also
to understand our true self and actualize it in daily life.

60