Saffron Robes and Lab Coats

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

True well-being, however, does not come from an outside stimulus, but from 'a healthy and balanced mind,' he said. The challenge lies in cultivating desires that lead to genuine well-being for oneself and others while minimizing craving.

The neuroscientific definition of craving focuses on what happens in brain cells when there is a motivation to reach a goal, countered Howard Fields, director of the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction at the University of California in San Francisco. 'The goal could be something needed to maintain a state that is necessary for individual survival, including food, drink, warmth, or rest,' he said. But individuals can also develop motivation for unhealthy actions such as overeating, drinking alcohol, or using tobacco or addictive drugs.

'Whatever the goal,' Fields said, 'the neurobiological view is that cravings arise from chemical changes in the brain that lead to activity in neurons that are connected to the sense organs and muscles. The activity of specific groups of these neurons leads to the unhealthy actions and to the subjective experience of strong craving.'

In the Tibetan language, the Dalai Lama said, the translation for craving is 'an afflicted state of desire.' Desire is not in itself wrong, he said, nor is it a form of affliction. 'It can be a neutral state of mind -- even a virtuous state,' he said. All participants agreed that a desire to alleviate suffering, for example, is virtuous.

The scientists and the Buddhists also agreed that the type of craving that leads to an unhealthy life is a misapprehension of reality -- desire taken to a destructive level. Buddhist practice holds that the correct view of reality comes through contemplation, while neuroscience focuses on localizing the brain activity associated with craving and then treating that specific brain function. It is not as simple as meditation versus medication, but those are the respective constructs from which each group begins.

Mathieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk and the Dalai Lama's private secretary, explained that suffering has many causes -- some of which we can control and some we cannot -- and that unhappiness is the way in which we experience suffering.

'Unhappiness may indeed be associated with physical or moral pain inflicted by exterior conditions,' Ricard said, 'but it is not essentially linked to it. Just as it is the mind that translated suffering into unhappiness, it is the mind's responsibility to master its perception.'

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print