Tibetan Buddhism and research psychology: a match made in
Nirvana? Collaborations between monks and psychologists yield new directions in psychological
research. By SADIE F. DINGFELDER https://www.apa.org/monitor/dec03/tibetan
With an eye toward understanding the inner workings of the mind and using that knowledge to reduce
human suffering, psychologists and Buddhist monks may have more in common than they realize, and
possibly even compatible methodology. These commonalities are driving collaborations between some
psychologists and Buddhist monks.
Dealing with emotions
Buddhist monks have long been admired for their emotional control, and a previous MIT conference
participant, Paul Ekman, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of California, San Francisco
School of Medicine, thinks exploration of this skill may help psychologists better understand ways
people can deal with unpleasant emotions.
Tibetan Buddhist monks, explains Ekman, practice intensive mental awareness through mindfulness
meditation--where emotions and other mental events are recognized, but not reacted to. This training
may give them the ability to weather emotional experiences--such as fear--to an extent unheard of in
Westerners.
In the course of his research, Ekman and Robert Levenson, PhD, a psychology professor at the
University of California, Berkeley, may have found a man who cannot be startled. In a series of yet
unpublished experiments, Ekman exposed one Tibetan Buddhist monk to a sudden sound as loud as a
firecracker and monitored the participant's blood pressure, muscle movements, heart rate and skin
temperature for signs of startle. The Buddhist monk, possibly due to hours of practice regulating his
emotions through meditation, registered little sign of disturbance.
"We found things we had never seen before," says Ekman, who is in the process of verifying his results
through replication of the experiment.
Emotions, explains Ekman, have evolved to "run our behavior automatically," especially in situations
requiring quick response and little time for deliberation. Buddhist monks, says Ekman, practice a fine-
grained awareness of their own feelings through meditation "in order, in their words, to recognize the
spark before the flame."
This preventative mental work, says Ekman, is different from Western conceptions of emotional
control, where unpleasant emotions are considered almost inevitable. Western psychology tends to
focus on emotional damage control "after you are already burning up," he explains. By studying
Buddhist masters of calm, says Ekman, we may gain a better understanding of the extent to which
emotions can be controlled and moderated.
A model research population
In addition to practicing emotional control through mindfulness meditation, Tibetan Buddhist monks
calm the mind by envisioning complex mental images, including Buddhist deities and symbolic
geometric designs called mandalas.
Tibetan Buddhist monks, says Marlene Behrmann, PhD, a Carnegie Mellon University psychology
professor, are the "virtuosos of mental imagery"--a process where the mind transforms an idea into an
image. With upwards of 30 years of rigorous mental conditioning, these monks "represent the far end of
the sophistication continuum of mental imagery," says Behrmann, who attended the recent MIT
conference. So adept are the Tibetan monks, they report generating each complex image
simultaneously, whereas most theories on mental image construction maintain that people create images
one stroke at a time.
Mental imagery, says Behrmann, is critical in a number of tasks besides meditation, from assessing a
potential chess move to determining whether a new couch will fit in the living room. She speculates that
the current body of research on mental imagery focuses on the skills of amateurs--specifically, Western
college sophomores. By broadening the pool of research participants to include visualization experts
such as Tibetan Buddhist monks, psychologists might be able to get an idea of what the upper limits of
human visualization look like, says Behrmann. An increased understanding of the mechanism of mental
imagery could aid Buddhist practitioners in perfecting meditative techniques, as well as add to our
understanding of the way the visual system works, says Behrmann.
Buddhist concepts sharpen Western theories
Buddhist theories of the mind have also influenced the work of Stephanie Rude, PhD, an assistant
professor of counseling psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who is interested in applying
these ideas to work with people with mental illnesses such as depression. Rude sees particular merit in
an idea borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism: that the self--a belief in something permanent, stable and
integral to a person--hinders happiness.
"When you read Buddhist writings, you get a sense of self as an obstacle in achieving fulfillment,"
explains Rude. That is a huge difference in perspective from the West, where the concept of self-esteem
or a "healthy" self is central to both theory and clinical practice, she says. Yet, consistent with the
Buddhist view, some Western research suggests that focusing on the self can compound negative
emotions, explains Rude.
"A depressed person may make himself feel worse by interpreting his suffering as meaning he has failed
in some way," says Rude, explaining that a trained Buddhist monk might choose to see his suffering as
an inevitable part of being human.
Westerners are conditioned, says Rude, to take suffering more personally--to think about suffering as
something about themselves. Eschewing a concept of the self as something immutable and central may
help us to feel less harmed by the slings and arrows of misfortune, suggests Rude. Tibetan Buddhist
acceptance of mental suffering as an unavoidable condition of life, rather than a reflection on their
personal failings, may help monks face sadness with equanimity.
While Rude does not plan to study monks directly, she says she considers the body of knowledge of
Tibetan Buddhism to be a major resource in her continuing study of depression.
"It's a big challenge to Western researchers to figure out how these ideas might be used without losing
too much in translation," says Rude. Eventually, she says, psychologists may be able to use techniques
cut on the teeth of Buddhist theories to teach people with depression to reconceptualize their ideas of
self in ways that promote mental health.
Davidson agrees. Indeed, he says interdisciplinary understanding between Western psychology and
Tibetan Buddhism--not just borrowing concepts--can be beneficial to both traditions.
He adds that he hopes psychologists' work with Tibetan Buddhist monks and scholars can serve as a
model for future discourse between scientists and other contemplative religions--conversations that
could lead to a sharpened understanding of cognition, emotion and even consciousness. "There is a lot
we can learn from these traditions," says Davidson. "The time is right for collaboration."
