Pathways of Somatic Intelligence

EMOTIONS AND THE
BODY IN BUDDHIST
CONTEMPLATIVE
PRACTICE AND
MINDFULNESS-
BASED THERAPY
Pathways of
Somatic Intelligence
Padmasiri de Silva
Emotions and The Body in Buddhist Contemplative
Practice and Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Padmasiri de Silva
Emotions and The

Body in Buddhist
Contemplative
Practice and
Mindfulness-Based
Therapy
Pathways of Somatic Intelligence
Padmasiri de Silva
Faculty of Philosophical, Historical
and International Studies
Monash University
Springvale, VIC
Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-55928-5 ISBN 978-3-319-55929-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55929-2
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The willingness to pay deep attention to the inner wisdom and the
movement of your body is a fully sufficient teacher to move you into a state
of utter wholeness and aliveness.
Risa F. Kaparo, Awakening Somatic Intelligence (2012, 6)
To my family
Working through a tough winter at my desk, my family gave me the warmth
and affection I needed and I am grateful to Maneesh, Adeesh, Chandeesh,
Harini, Ananga and Sharon, Ishka, Ashan, Keisha, and Ged and Novah.
I also extend my heartfelt gratitude to the loving memory of my wife,
Kalyani and the memory of my beloved parents.
With gratitude
To Prof. Venerable Kammai Dhammasami and the International
Theravada Buddhist Missionary University, Myanmar for sponsorship
of the MYANMAR LECTURES (2012–2016)
To three great architects of pain management:

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Vidyamala Burch and Risa Kaparo
Somatic learning is the art and practice of embodied mindfulness
Preface
I wish to present the thematic relationships of the different chapters, as

applied to the main objectives of this book. Somatic intelligence has been
described by Risa F. Kaparo, whose specialty is pain and trauma manage-
ment, as the ‘art and practice of embodied mindfulness’, or in ordinary
language, the wisdom of the body. The centrality of the body is carried
to another strand of this study: embodied emotions, theories of emotions
and the use of mindfulness-based contemplative practice in managing
afflictive emotions and developing positive emotions.
Somatic intelligence is directly related to the body. Thus, together
with pain and trauma management, the sub-theme of this study refers
to the emotions and the body in Buddhist contemplative practice and
mindfulness-based counselling. Emotion theories focussed on the mind
and the body have been a subject of my research for many years and this
illuminates issues that emerge in this study. My work was partly stimu-
lated by Howard Gardner’s ground breaking study, Multiple Intelligence
in which he claims that bodily kinaesthetic intelligence in relation to
the body is a neglected subject. Thus, this study is partly a response
to Gardner’s request for research in this field. The subject of embod-
ied emotions against the background of a historical perspective is pre-
sented through the classical emotion theories of Charles Darwin and
William James, the more contemporary studies by Paul Ekman and
Antonio Damasio, the neurological studies of Daniel Siegel and Richard
Davidson, and the philosophical analysis of Jesse Prinz. So, I am not
ix
x Preface
restricting the intelligence of the body to pain and trauma management

but to the intelligence of the body in emotion management. The body
in Buddhist contemplative practice is presented with a highly focussed
in-depth study of the emotion of disgust, the first of its kind in Buddhist
studies. The study was highly acclaimed for its originality as an impor-
tant contribution to the emerging field of moral psychology at the
International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University (ITBMU) con-
ference in Myanmar. While I present the emotions mainly from a soma-
togenic perspective, in dealing with theories of emotions, I also briefly
introduce the ideogenic perspective of Sigmund Freud who said that his
‘clients acted as if anatomy does not exist’, and that hysterics suffer due
to ideas.
The subject of ethics and the moral dimensions of managing the pas-
sions has been elaborated into this study. An anonymous reviewer of my
original publishing proposal mentioned that Gardner (1993) had writ-
ten in a preface to a later edition of his book that he had neglected the
subject of moral intelligence, and requested that I explore this field.
Chapters on bondage and passions, moral pain and moral indignation
have been written as a response to this request, though the request is
strongly linked to emotion studies. If a librarian wishes to classify this
book, somatic intelligence, emotion studies and mindfulness practice are
possible thematic labels. My previous book (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
offers a comprehensive background to Buddhist psychology and mind-
fulness-based therapies. I conclude this preface with a quotation from
Jesse Prinz who summarizes the meaning of the term ‘somatic’:
Emotion researchers tend to use the term ‘somatic’ broadly. On a nar-

row use, the ‘somatic system’ refers to the part of the nervous system that
receives information about the muscles of the body. In this context, how-
ever, the term ‘somatic’ encompasses any part of the body. Somatic states
include states of the respiratory system, circulatory system, digestive sys-
tem, musculoskeletal system, and endocrine system. A somatic change can
be a change of facial expression, an increase in heart rate, a secretion of
hormones, and so on.
William James thought that the range of bodily states underlying emo-
tional experience is much more inclusive. James talks of changes in the
viscera, facial expressions, and instrumental action—everything from
tremors and tears to striking out in rage. It is this somatic feeling theory
PREFACE xi
that was developed by the neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. This book

will specifically focus on the somatogenic dimension of emotions or the
body in emotions.
Springvale, Australia Padmasiri de Silva
Reference
Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligence. London:
Fontana Press.
Acknowledgements
I greatly appreciate the guidance I received from Prof. G. Somaratne,

an eminent Pali scholar for helping me with refining the Pali diacritical
marks. I am also indebted to several staff members of the Palgrave psy-
chology department for helping me with this project at various stages of
evaluating the proposal, and receiving the first draft of this book. I wish
to place on record the assistance and encouragement I received from
Laura Aldridge throughout the progress of the project and also thank
the production team for advice and help as the text goes to print. Last
but not the least, I appreciate Anne Murphy’s assistance for finalizing
the footnotes to the text with meticulous care. Joanna O’Neil and Grace
Jackson have been exceptionally active during the final stages of going
for a Pivot edition of the book and I convey my gratitude to them.
I wish to record a special debt of gratitude to Professor Constant
Mews and Maryna Mews for refining the text and recommending many
changes to the text.
xiii
Contents
1 Somatic Psychology in Historical Perspective 1
2 The Body and the Emotions: Anger, Disgust

and Contempt 13
3 Embodied Emotions and Body–Mind Reactivity 31
4 Pain Management and Somatic Intelligence 51
5 Pain and Trauma Management 63
6 Emotion Studies: Darwin, James and Freud 69
7 Escaping Bondage to the Somatic Passions 89
8 The Nature of Human Volition and Intentions 107
9 A Journey of Self-Awakening 113
10 Free Will 125
xv
xvi Contents
11 Moral Pain 129
Author Index 139
Subject Index 143

CHAPTER 1
Somatic Psychology in Historical Perspective
Abstract  The historical background to the present book is found

in the emergence of Somatic Psychology and body-oriented therapies,
presented as an excellent narrative by Barratt (The emergence of somatic
psychology and bodymind therapy, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2013).
The present work goes beyond this study, introducing the more recent
development of somatic intelligence, very much visible in the work
and writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Risa Kaparo and Vidyamala Burch to
whom this book is dedicated as a mark of appreciation. But the present
book works on a larger area in focussing on theories of the relationship
between the body and emotions, the linkages between mindfulness-
based emotion studies and neuroscience and meditation.
The historical background to the basic focus of this book on somatic intel-
ligence is found in the emergence of somatic psychology and some of the
early body-oriented therapies. Barnaby B. Barratt’s work, The Emergence
of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy (Barratt 2013),1 provides
an excellent narrative, where the emergence of somatic psychology
is presented against the background of the modern history of psychol-
ogy as well as the philosophical milieu that nourished the emergence of
somatic psychology:
Somatic Psychology is the psychology of the body, the discipline that

focuses on our living experience of embodiment as human beings and
© The Author(s) 2017 1

P. de Silva, Emotions and The Body in Buddhist Contemplative Practice
and Mindfulness-Based Therapy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55929-2_1
2 1 SOM ATIC PSYCHOLOGY IN HISTOR ICAL PERSPECTI V E
recognizes this experience as the foundation and origination of all our

experiential potential. (Barratt 2013, 21)2
I will not get immersed in the historical perspective of the emergence

of somatic psychology, but would rather wish to illustrate that Barratt’s
prediction of the future extension of somatic psychology is remark-
ably insightful. In the present work, I shall focus on a new wave of
somatic psychology—somatic intelligence emerging within the con-
text of mindfulness-based pain management as described by Jon Kabat-
Zinn, Vidyamala Burch and Risa Kaparo (Kaparo 2012).3 This involves
an innovative body–mind approach to transformative healing and self-
renewal. The present study will go beyond Barratt’s sketch of spiritual
awakening and his brief reference to Buddhism. Of course, the present
study will confirm Barratt’s prediction about the future of somatic psy-
chology. Furthermore, based on the Myanmar Lectures (2012–2015) I
presented at the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University
(ITBMU), I shall go beyond the current work of Burch and Kaparo
by exploring authentic Buddhist sources in the fourfold analysis of the
nature of the body, feelings, thought patterns and phenomena in classical
Satipaṭṭhāna and valuable Buddhist suttas.
In addition to my long years as a therapist using mindfulness tech-
niques, and over 8 years of vipassanā meditation practice under
Venerable Uda Eriyagama Dhammajiva, this work is a rich harvest.
There is an additional factor attributed to this development. My profes-
sional training and prolonged interest in emotion studies have nourished
an enlivened interest in the present study. For 2 years, I was a member
of the cross-cultural emotions study research group organized at the
East-West Centre Culture Learning Institute in Hawaii, directed by Jerry
Boucher, by a student of Paul Ekman. The chapters in this book concern-
ing James, Darwin and Freud are strongly rooted in my professional train-
ing. While Darwin and James provided the somatogenic dimension of
emotions, my prolonged study of Freud for my Ph.D. at the University
of Hawaii provided the ideogenic perspectives on emotions. Buddhism
combines the somatogenic and ideogenic perspectives on emotions and
therapy. In the area of my clinical work, this was mostly limited to issues
like stress and anger management, grief counselling, and addictions. Also,
I developed a mindfulness-based emotion-focussed therapy (EFT). My
previous book on Buddhist psychology and counselling gives a more com-
prehensive view of my work as a therapist (de Silva 2014).4
THE LOGIC OF SOM ATIC INTELLIGENCE: EIGHT SIGNIFICA NT STR A NDS 3
The Logic of Som atic Intelligence: Eight Significant

Str ands
When Gardner (1993)5 presented his epoch-making theory of multiple
intelligence, his research was influenced by his critique of the IQ test as a
mark of intelligence. He presented seven varieties of intelligence: visual-
spatial, such as that used by architects and sailors; bodily-kinaesthetic,
using the body effectively like a dancer or a surgeon; musical, having sen-
sitivity to rhythm and sound; interpersonal, having the skill for under-
standing other people; intrapersonal, having the skills of self-knowledge;
linguistic, using words effectively; logical-mathematical, being able to
reason, being able to calculate.
Of these our immediate concern is with what Gardner described as
bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence:
A description of the use of the body as a form of intelligence may at first

jar. There has been a radical disjunction in our recent cultural tradition
between activities of reasoning, on the one hand, and the activities of the
manifestly physical part of our nature, as epitomized by our bodies, on the
other. This divorce between the ‘mental’ and the ‘physical’ has not infre-
quently been coupled with a notion that what we do with our bodies is
somehow less privileged, less special, than those problem-solving routines
carried out through the use of language, logic, or some other abstract
symbolic system. (Gardner 1993, 208)6
It is this bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, which at the hands of a genius

like Risa Kaparo for both the body and its language, was transformed
into, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Embodied
Mindfulness (Kaparo 2012).7
Another new strand that illuminated the epistemic qualities of the
concept of somatic intelligence was the emergence of a new dialogue
between cognitive science and Buddhist contemplative/meditational
psychology. Chapter 2 in the present book focuses on ‘contemplative
emotions’, two distinctive types of body meditation which need to be
balanced. One is contemplation on the unattractive facets of the body
which is developed as a countermeasure to sensuality. Nevertheless,
despite the benefits, loathing of the body may feed frustrated desires and
may not help the calming of desires. The Buddha even had to person-
ally deal with misguided practices among the monks that led to suicide.
A balance is obtained in the Kāyagata sutta which takes the physical bliss
of absorption as the object of body contemplation that is not linked to

repugnance and loathing. ‘The fact that a firm grounding of awareness of
the body provides an important basis for the development of both calm
and insight may be why, of the four satipaṭṭhānas, body contemplation
has received the most extensive and detailed treatment in the discourses
and commentaries’ (Anālayo 2003, 124).8 Chapter 2 of the present work
adds some illuminating insights into contemplative emotions linked to
the body. The new emphasis on the embodied mind was a major para-
digm shift: ‘One of the major key realizations of the last few years in sci-
ence has been to understand that one cannot have anything close to a
mind or mental capacity without it being completely embodied, enfolded
with the world’ (Varela et al. 1999, 72–76).9
A fifth strand is the work on embodied emotions and research on
body–mind reactivity in neuroscience. Valuable research on the subject
ëmerged from the work of Antonio Damasio on the somatic marker the-
ory (Damasio 1994),10 in the work of Daniel Siegel on the mindful brain
(2007)11 and in the work of Richard Davidson on the brain (Davidson
2013).12 In the stream of philosophical writings on emotions, Jesse
Prinz, in his book Gut Reactions (Prinz 2004a),13 had already carved out
a new interpretation of William James, that ‘emotions are perceptions of
changes in the body’, allowing us to literally perceive danger (fear) and
loss (grief). As demonstrated in current writings, there was a significant
revival of James’s perspectives on emotions, in Joseph LeDoux’s ground
breaking book, The Emotional Brain (1996).14
The notion that cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent
on the physical body led to new paradigms and re-conceptualization of
the relationship between the body and the emotions. For instance, the
value of meditation in an emerging mindfulness-based psychotherapy
emphasized the epistemic value of mindfulness. The cognitive behav-
iourists developed the Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
model, emphasizing the model of a non-dualistic explanation of rein-
forcement where the mind and body constantly interacted. By observ-
ing fleeting thoughts and corresponding (co-emerging) bodily sensations
objectively, without reacting to any experience, trainees gain sufficient
insight to realize and accept that all experience (including rumination,
symptoms of anxiety and even physical pain) is in essence, transient and
impersonal events. Thus the integration of Cognitive-based Therapy
(CBT) to mindfulness techniques helped clients to have a more objec-
tive view of reality without any body–mind reaction/emotional reactivity.
Thus, in the work of the three great architects of pain management,

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Vidyamala Burch and Risa Kaparo to whom this work
is dedicated, you will encounter a noble expression of somatic intelli-
gence for pain management. Mindfulness-integrated CBT, as presented
by Bruno Cayoun with great clarity and insight, has given a great deal
of depth and direction to my personal practice and has equipped me to
link the dimensions of somatic intelligence to the deep levels of vipassanā
practice.
The co-emergent model of reinforcement is presented as follows: this
model posits that reinforcement is dependent upon learned reactions
towards intrinsically coupled cognitions and body sensations. In accord-
ance with the Eastern conceptualization of mind and connectivist models
of information processing, associations stored in the memory can mani-
fest spontaneously in the form of co-emerging thought networks and
body sensations (Cayoun 2011, 21–41).15
A more contemporary ingredient to the logic of somatic intelligence
comes from neuroscience and the neuroscience and the neuroplasticity
thesis. They are the most recent pastures of somatic learning. As Daniel
Siegel observes, recent studies of mindfulness practice reveal that they
can result in profound improvements in the physiological, mental and
interpersonal domains of our lives. Cardiac, endocrine, and immune
functions are improved with mindfulness practices. Empathy, compas-
sion, and interpersonal sensitivity also seem to improve (Siegel 2007).16
In the ultimate analysis, we need to look for a higher level of somatic
intelligence in the upper reaches of Buddhist contemplative practice as
that is directed towards insight meditation more than to any therapeutic
goal. Chapter 2 deals with two such contemplative approaches: one is
directed towards the ‘disgust’ of the body, revulsion and positive disen-
chantment (nibbidā), and the other towards the positive meditative emo-
tions of joy (pīti) and rapture/wellbeing (sukha). It also discusses how
the Buddha strikes a balance by recommending each type of meditation
in terms of different personalities. For instance, the anger-dominated
person (dosa-carita) may attempt to develop joy and rapture through
insight meditation and the one dominated by lust and sensuous desires
may turn towards the refinement of disgust as disenchantment (nibbidā).
A comprehensive analysis of personality types is available in an earlier
publication (de Silva 2014, 68–69).17
I am grateful to an anonymous evaluator of my publication proposal
for noticing my emphasizing the value not just of bodily-kinaesthetic
intelligence but also of Gardner’s ‘argumentation and hesitation on the

topic of moral intelligence’. I have made a clear and comprehensive
attempt in the present book to acknowledge in a specific chapter what
the Jewish philosopher, Spinoza, referred to as human bondage to the
passions of the body:
The impotence of man to govern or restrain the emotions I call ‘bondage’,

for a man who is under their control is not his own master, but is mastered
by fortune, in whose power he is, so that he is often forced to follow the
worse, although he sees the better before him. I propose in this part to
demonstrate why this is, and also to show what of good and evil the emo-
tions possess. (de Spinoza 1963, 187)18
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was also grappling with the same
phenomenon and labelled it akrasia (moral weakness). It is the loss of
self-control which we may describe as the lure of temptation for sensual
passions:
Akrasia is a multi-layered experience. Self-control is the virtue of living

according to one’s values in so far as one has the capacity to do so by exer-
cising courage, persistence or simple discipline. Lack of self-control often
takes the form of weakness of will in which we judge that we ought to do
something; have the power to do so and fail to do so; when the judgment
is specifically moral, it is moral weakness. (Martin 2007, 190)19
Howard Gardner in his work, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple

Intelligences (1993, p. xxviii),20 briefly refers to the value of the ethical
dimensions of human intelligence and how such intelligence is used for
positive ends, as perhaps in issues of social engineering. I wish to con-
sider the realm of ethics and morality as an autonomous issue, along with
the need for empathy for others. I shall explore separately the deeper
issue of ‘social awakening’, which goes beyond social engineering.
It is heartening to find that neuroscientists like Daniel Siegel have
provided a neurological basis for morality. ‘Studies reveal the partici-
pation of the middle pre-frontal cortex in the mediation of morality’
(Siegel 2007, 44).21 He also observes that eventually we develop the
resonance of the social circuitry, seeing how we and others link up in
the wider moral arena. Compassion and empathy can be seen as natu-
ral outcomes when they are seen as being relational processes. Another
route for blending moral and psychological studies will be evident from
the fresh breeze that is flowing into this study from the emerging field of
moral psychology.
The Darwinian and the Jamesian contributions to the linkages between
body and the emotions will receive more concentrated attention in a
separate chapter, but some preliminary notes with a historical perspec-
tive will emphasize significant linkages in my narrative on the body and
emotions. During contemporary times, the revival of Darwin’s con-
tributions to emotion studies by Paul Ekman, and of William James by
Antonio Damasio, the neurologist, Joseph LeDoux, the neurologist, and
Jesse Prinz, the philosopher, stands out as significant signposts that mir-
ror the current focus on somatic intelligence heralded by Risa Kaparo. I
shall briefly refer to Charles Darwin’s early work, especially as presented
by Paul Ekman. Regarding the work by Darwin, The Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals,22 Ekman says that in addition to the study
of facial expressions, it is a brilliant book forecasting many of the fun-
damental features of emotions. Darwin treated emotions such as anger,
fear, surprise sadness, happiness and disgust as separate discrete entities or
modules. His focus was primarily the expression of emotions:
Charles Darwin, in his book on the expression of emotions, wrote that

facial expressions are innate, evolved behaviour. In this century, many social
scientists have argued that facial expressions of emotions are language-like,
socially learned, and culturally variable. In the last 25 years the first meth-
odologically rigorous studies on the universality of facial expressions have
supported Darwin’s view. (Rosenberg and Ekman 1993, 51–52)23
Paul Ekman claims that cross-cultural research and comparison of

humans with great apes have revealed similarities in facial morphology.
The central thesis that emotions are automatically expressed by the mus-
cles of the face needs to be applied to basic emotions, though this con-
cept has raised debates. Of course, higher cognitive emotions like guilt,
envy and jealousy do not fall into the category of basic emotions. Also,
at the level of facial expression, assessing the differences between joy,
delight, gladness and elation is a confronting issue (Deigh 2004, 24).24
But, within the display of basic emotions, Ekman and Frierson have
developed a facial, action, coding system.
It is interesting that Darwin was a great influence on William James,
and it is Darwin’s impact on James that helps us to understand James’s
celebrated thesis that ‘emotions are perceptions of bodily changes’.
There have been different interpretations of the Jamesian theory of emo-

tions but I tend to follow Jesse Prinz who says, ‘there is no knockdown
argument for the hypothesis, but the collective force of several consid-
erations adds considerable plausibility’ (Prinz 2004b, 44).25 While I shall
explore Darwin, James and Freud on emotions, body and mindfulness
practice, in a separate chapter, I shall close this section with a passage
from Darwin’s work quoted by James (1890, 446)26 as summarized by
Prinz: Darwin’s list of symptoms of fear includes, widely opened eyes and
mouth, raised eyebrows, dilated nostrils, stiff posture, motionlessness,
a racing heart, increased blood supply to the body, pallor of the skin,
cold perspiration, piloerection, shivering and trembling, hurried breath-
ing, dry mouth, faltering voice, fists that are alternatively clenched and
opened, and so on (Prinz 2004a, 45).27 A hundred years later Levenson,
Ekman and Frierson systematically studied the autonomic changes asso
ciated with six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and
surprise).
Risa Kaparo’s thesis on somatic intelligence emerged as her own solu-
tion to a battle with injury, stress, pain and trauma. She says, ‘Somatic
Learning is not something I learnt from a book or teacher, I learnt from
within my own body and consciousness, just as I assist you in doing this
book. The willingness to pay deep attention to the inner wisdom and
movement of your body is a fully sufficient teacher, to move you into a
state of utter wholeness and aliveness’ (Kaparo 2012, 6).28 In Kaparo’s
life, there was a profound emotion that generated a rejuvenation in her
life through her discovery of the paths of somatic intelligence. In fact,
I can only capture this transformation by Pugmire’s description of pro-
found emotions:
For this reason, it is an arresting movement in life when a person is genu-

inely transported by something. Fullness of emotion lifts the person from
the half-lit drift and small concerns of ordinary life and gives a transfig-
uring importance to things (which reflect on action). For this reason,
the capacity for genuine emotion and the presence of deep emotional
responses, where apt, invite respect: and the absence of such responses,
and still more of an incapacity for them, is an impoverishment – a thing to
be regretted. (Pugmire 2005, 33)29
It is difficult to find definitions of profound emotions but the life and work
of Risa Kaparo captures the resonance of profound emotions. She says that
NOTES 9
somatic learning helped her to lift herself from the half-lit drift and small
concerns of ordinary life and to transform it to something profound:
Somatic Learning provides a discipline for a new participation in life. It

is a practice for awakening to who we really are by receiving the gift of
embodiment – not what we mistake as our ‘body’ as ‘object’, but as the
embodiment of spaciousness in the actual blooming of life, in the here and
now. (Kaparo 2012, 23)30
Like Pugmire, Kaparo uses the image of the ringing of a temple bell as
the vibration travels to capture the resonance of somatic intelligence.
I emphasize this point because Kaparo’s significance is not limited to
finding a clinically effective method for pain management but somatic
intelligence has almost spiritual overtones.
Notes
1. Barnaby B. Barratt, 2013, The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and
Bodymind Therapy, Palgrave Macmillan, London.
2. Barratt (2013, 21).
3. Risa F. Kaparo, 2012, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and
Practice of Embodied Mindfulness, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA.
4. Padmasiri de Silva, 2014, An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology and
Counselling, Palgrave Macmillan, London.
5. Howard Gardner, 1993, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
Intelligence, Fontana Press, London.
6. Gardner (1993, 208).
7. Kaparo, 2012, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and Practice of
Embodied Mindfulness.
8. Anālayo, 2003, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, Windhorse
Publications, Cambridge, p. 124.
9. Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, 1999, The
Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, MIT Press,
London, pp. 72–76.
10. Antonio Damasio, 1994, Descartes’ Error: Reason and the Human Brain,
Putnam, New York.
11. Daniel Siegel, 2007, The Mindful Brain, Norton, New York.
12. Richard Davidson, 2013, The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Hodder,
London.
13. Prinz (2004a).
14. Joseph LeDoux, 1996, The Emotional Brain, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

London.
15. Bruno Cayoun, 2011, Mindfulness-Integrated C.B.T., Wiley-Blackwell,
Oxford, pp. 21–41.
16. Siegel (2007).
17. de Silva (2014, 68–69).
18. Benedict de Spinoza, 1963, Ethics, Hafner, New York, p. 187.
19. Mike Martin, 2007, Everyday Morality, Thompson Wadsworth, Belmont,
p. 190.
20. Gardner (1993, 3rd edn, p. xxviii).
21. Siegel (2007, 44).
22. Charles Darwin, 1998, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals,
with commentary by Paul Ekman, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press,
New York (Darwin 1998).
23. Erika Rosenberg and Paul Ekman, 1993, ‘Facial Expression and
Emotion’, Neuroscience, Supplement 3 to the Encyclopaedia of
Neuroscience, pp. 51–52.
24. John Deigh, 2004, ‘Primitive Emotions’, in Robert C. Solomon (ed.)
Thinking About Feelings, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 24.
25. Prinz (2004b, 44).
26. William James, 1890, Principles of Psychology, Dover, New York, p. 446.
27. Prinz (2004b, 45).
28. Kaparo (2012, 6).
29. David Pugmire, 2005, Sound Sentiments: Integrity in the Emotions,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 33.
30. Kaparo (2012, 23).
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Windhorse Publications.
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London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cayoun, B. (2011). Mindfulness-integrated C.B.T (pp. 21–41). Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell.
Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: Reason and the human brain. New York:
Putnam.
Darwin, C. (1998). The expression of emotions in man and animals, with commen-
tary by Paul Ekman (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Davidson, R. (2013). The emotional life of your brain. London: Hodder.
de Silva, P. (2014). An introduction to Buddhist psychology and counselling.
REFERENCES 11
de Spinoza, B. (1963). Ethics. New York: Hafner.

Deigh, J. (2004). Primitive emotions. In R. C. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about
feelings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligence. London:
Fontana Press.
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Dover.
Kaparo, R. F. (2012). Awakening somatic intelligence: The art and practice of
embodied mindfulness. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Martin, M. (2007). Everyday morality. Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth.
Prinz, J. (2004a). Gut reactions: A perceptual theory of emotions. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Prinz, J. (2004b). Embodied emotions. In R. C. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about
Pugmire, D. (2005). Sound sentiments: Integrity in the emotions. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rosenberg, E., & Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and emotion.
Neuroscience, Supplement 3 to the Encyclopaedia of Neuroscience, 51–52.
Siegel, D. (2007). The mindful brain. New York: Norton.
Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1999). The embodied mind: Cognitive sci-
ence and human experience (pp. 72–76). London: MIT Press.
CHAPTER 2
The Body and the Emotions: Anger,

Disgust and Contempt
Abstract  Carroll Izard, a pioneer in emotion studies, considered anger,

disgust and contempt as the ‘hostility triad’ and this chapter has a focus
on the physiological, psychological, moral and metaphysical facets of dis-
gust, as well as an entry into the contemplative meditative discernment
in Buddhist practice. There is also a short entry into ‘disenchantment’ in
the life of Prince Siddhār tha, and concluding reflections on self-disgust
and beyond to wholeness in the Sri Lankan novel, Dispassion (Virāgaya).
The chapter examines the thematic strands of the concept of disgust.
Carroll Izard, a pioneer in emotion studies who presented the hostility

triad, anger, disgust and contempt, says:
Disgust combined with anger can be very dangerous, since anger can
motivate ‘attack’ and disgust the desire ‘to get rid of’. Disgust, like anger
can be directed towards the self, and self-disgust can lower self-esteem
and cause self-rejection…. research with normal people and hospitalized
patients has shown that inner-directed anger and disgust are usually char-
acteristic of depression. (Izard 1977, 377)1
The Buddhist approach to deal with such negative emotions as anger,

lust and conceit, manifested in cittānupassanā (mindfulness of thoughts),
does not involve active measures to oppose unwholesome states, but
lets the task of mindfulness be receptively aware, recognizing the state
of mind underlying a particular thought pattern—and does not oppose,
14 2 THE BODY AND THE EMOTIONS: ANGER, DISGUST AND CONTEMPT
ignore, repress or find methods of self-deception. It is non-reactive

awareness. Below, I shall cite the different forms of anger examined in
the suttas.
Body–Mind Relations
While this study will have a focus on feelings, emotions and thought pat-
terns, I am especially concerned with body–mind relations in both whole-
some and unwholesome emotions. In fact, somatic intelligence refers to
embodied emotions and disgust, both in meditation and in non-medita-
tion settings that have a strong focus on the body. An important reason
for this concern is that the meditation of disgust is centred on the repul-
siveness of the body. We need to look at both the impact of subliminal
anger (paṭighānusaya) on the attitude to the body, and also a point of
contrast, an alternative form of meditation, where the physical bliss of
body contemplation is the focus. Thus, there is a need for balance, inte-
grating the unattractive aspect of the body without overdoing the feeling
of repugnance and loathsomeness. Furthermore, there is also the pos-
sibility of positive insight described in Pāli as nibbidā, often translated
as ‘disgust’. The alternative route is presented in the Kāyagatāsati sutta,
which takes the physical basis of absorption attainment as a goal. In this
context, the contemplation of the body is not necessarily linked to any
repulsiveness. The sense of balance in contemplative emotions directed
towards the body is important. In fact, this sense of balance comes out in
a graphic simile which compares contemplation on the anatomical parts
of the body to examining a bag full of grains and beans. Thus, it has no
affective overload of repulsiveness.
The sense of balance pervades many other contexts in the suttas, as
when the Buddha advises Venerable Soṇa, who was a musician before he
became a monk. He tells him that when playing a lute the strings should
neither be too tight or too loose: over-aroused persistence leads to rest-
lessness, overly slack persistence leads to lassitude (de Silva 2010, 657–
672).2 Regarding the relationship between body and mind, the Buddha,
as an analytical philosopher (vibhajjavādi), perceived the working of
kāyānupassanā (meditation focussed on the body (rūpa)) and the work-
ing of cittānupassanā meditation focussed on the mind (nāma), as well
as feelings, as separate regions. On the other hand, however, he saw an
integral connection between body and mind and recognized embodied
emotions, seeing the mind as embodied, thus shifting gears in different
ANGER 15
contexts. At another level, more deeply, when a meditator has achieved

the culminating body-based experience in kāyasaṅkhāra-passambhayaṁ
(stilling of the bodily dispositions), the meditator has to be extra-diligent
to notice any messages verging on nāma (mind). Furthermore, sharp-
ening the body–mind distinction is achieved in the first stage of insight
meditation: nāma-rūpa-pariccheda-ñāṇa.
The Buddha’s focus was on the shifting contours of concentrated medi
tation practice rather than on any metaphysical debates, as sharpening
meditation skills helps one to discern new distinctions. The Buddha dis
couraged his followers from getting entangled in finding an ultimate
solution to the to the body–mind relationship and described it as an
indeterminate issue. A dominant contextualism and pragmatism pervades
his philosophy and the practice of ethics and meditation. The Buddha
accepted a form of body–mind interaction and did not try to reduce the
body in terms of the mind or the mind in terms of the body. Speculative
involvement in their ultimate status leads to unprofitable metaphysical
wrangling.
Anger
Anger as described in the suttas (sermons of the Buddha) is one of the
roots of unwholesome behaviour (dosa). It is one of the hindrances
(vyāpada) and is included among bodily fretting (pariḷāha), malice
(upanāha) and subliminal anger (paṭighānusaya). As a disguised vis-
itor (vañcaka-dhamma), it feeds the craving for self-destruction (vibhava-
taṇhā), which may take a negative form of repulsion/disgust in the
misguided contemplation of the body. Anger also makes inroads into other
emotions, converting simple greed to envy and covetousness (abhijjhā) and
malice. In addition, it is a silent presence in boredom and depression, and
generates a whole dynamism of reactivity. In this chapter, we are looking at
anger as an inroad to negative forms of disgust and more briefly contempt.
We are also looking at techniques of meditation and therapy to deal with
negative forms of disgust. In particular, we are looking at the very concept
of emotions at different levels—at the feelings/affects level, the cognitive/
thinking level, and also the neurological, physiological and motivational
levels. In Buddhist psychology, an emotion may be described as an inter-
active complex emerging within a causal framework. It is an interaction
of perception (saññā), feeling (vedanā), intention/directed dispositions
(saṅkhāra), consciousness and neurophysiology (rūpa). The causal series
is described in Buddhist sermons as follows: when the eye that is internal

interacts with material shapes, there is sensory impingement: feelings arise
because of sensory impingement, feelings, conditions, desires/craving and
thought patterns which give way to clinging, dispositional, intentional
activity and so on.
The first three facets of the Satipaṭṭhāna present a progressive pat-
tern. Contemplation of the body progresses from the experience of
bodily postures and activities to the anatomy. This refined sensitivity is
followed by the contemplation of feelings. This contemplation of feel-
ings ranges from its hedonic/affective quality into pleasant, unpleasant
and neutral, and proceeds to consideration of their nature as wholesome
and unwholesome, bringing an ethical dimension, which is foreign to
Western psychologies. Then follow the contemplation of the mind and
thought patterns, especially focussed on lust, anger, delusion and distrac-
tion.
Thematic Strands of Disgust

These are described by William Miller thus:
Here we have the most embodied and visceral of emotions, and yet even
when it is operating in and around the body its orifices and excreta a world
of meaning explodes, coloring, vivifying, and contaminating political,
social and moral orderings. Disgust for all its visceralness turns out to be
one of our most aggressive culture-creating passions. (Miller 1997, xii)3
Disgust differs from other emotions by having a unique aversive style. The
idiom of disgust invokes the sensory experience of what it feels like to be
put in danger by the disgusting, of what it feels like to be close to it, to
have to smell it, see it, or touch it… disgust is more visceral than other
emotions. (Miller 1997, 9)4
The facial expression for disgust is described as having a raised upper lip,
wrinkling of the nose and having raised cheeks.
In the early studies of disgust in the West, disgust was described in
terms of things which are inedible, that have deteriorated, are spoilt,
unclean, infectious and associated with a bad smell. Paul Rozin was an
expert on the potential for oral incorporation of offensive objects. He
discussed the risk of contamination by urine, mucus, and blood, and
commented on the ensuing symptoms such as vomiting and nausea.
THEMATIC STRANDS OF DISGUST 17
Rachel Herz’s book, The Scent of Desire, a collection of literature on dis-

gust, is a fascinating study which I picked up from a roadside bookshop:
The connection between smell and emotion is not only metaphorical but
is also founded on the evolution of the brain. A primitive olfactory cortex
was the fabric of our brain and from the neural tissue grew the amygdala,
where the emotion is produced, and parts of the brain that are responsible
for memory and motivation – the collective structure of the limbic system,
in other words the ability to express and experience emotion grew out of
the ability of our brain to process smell. (Herz 2007, 4)5
Disgust is inherent in the satisfaction of sensual desires to excess and

can be very aggressive. The Buddha has described the inherent disarray
and emptiness in the kāmasukhallikānuyoga lifestyle of ‘pure hedonism’.
Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, describes in a graphic way
the collapse of the ‘pleasure lover’ into tiresome monotony and bore-
dom. Thus, there is disgust felt by the outsider as well as the self-disgust
felt by the pleasure lover himself. Kolnai’s insightful work, On Disgust,
refers to the tiresome monotony of the sensualist (Kolnai 2004, 63).6
The collapse of the lifestyle of the sensualist is also a kind of somatic
intelligence with a valuational strand, a perspective of unwholesome
clinging to the sensualist tempo of the body.
Soren Kierkegaard’s masterly analysis of the collapse of the pleasure
lover is graphically presented in his novel, Either/Or (Kierkegaard 1937,
43–44; see de Silva 2007, 84–109).7 It is a remarkably insightful expres-
sion of somatic intelligence, the predicament of a sensualist attached to
the body. But these pleasures contain within them the potentiality to
decay. With the onset of loss and decay, delight turns into melancholy.
Substitute forms of pleasure can be found, and a variety of diversions are
within one’s reach as the pleasure drive is always fed with new fuel. So,
the endless process continues (de Silva 2007, 85)8:
Though the aesthete may get engrossed in commonplace and ordinary

pleasures, it is the enigmatic, the surprising and the secretive kind of pleas-
ure that can keep him fully absorbed. The aesthete has to drown the dull-
ness and boredom that overtakes him in the search for pleasure. This sense
of dullness has to be kept away by the category of the ‘interesting’ but yet
does not make any commitment. That is why he renounces the bond of
marriage. Searching for immediacy, variety, and novelty, he avoids any kind
of stability or resting place. (de Silva 2007, 87)9
As presented in the sketch of Nero, however, though the pleasures seem-

ingly focus on despair and melancholy, they cannot find a metamorphosis:
Nero sought pleasures to drown his melancholy. He has gone through

every conceivable pleasure. His life depraved as it may be, has matured his
soul; at least he experiences melancholy. But a metamorphosis is not pos-
sible, as a higher level of existence is necessary for that. However, if that is
to come about, ‘an instant will arrive when the splendour of the throne,
his might and power, will pale, and for this he has not the courage’.
(de Silva 2007, 92)10
William Miller’s classic study, The Anatomy of Disgust (1997),11 has

been described as a book where moral psychology is at its best. It is a
work that is directly relevant to the call of moral intelligence in Howard
Gardner’s work, The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. Miller’s work is able
to absorb Kierkegaard’s graphic study of the collapse of the pleasure
lover towards self-disgust. His concept of tedium vitae refers to a kind of
disgust with life—despair, boredom, depression, melancholia and ennui.
There is a danger, however, of describing genuine sadness and mel-
ancholy as depression, as I have shown elsewhere (de Silva 2012).12 In
fact, the Buddha made a point of emphasizing that periods of anxiety
and melancholy are a necessary part of life and to use Freud’s thinking,
in his brilliant paper, ‘Melancholia’, we need to replace neurotic unhappi-
ness with normal unhappiness.
Ethical Categories
Apart from the psychological perspectives, I shall now move on to ethical
categories. Jonathan Haidt, who has a record of interesting research in
moral psychology, says:
Our idea was that moral disgust is felt whenever we see or hear about peo-
ple whose behaviour shows them to be low on this vertical line. People feel
degraded when they think about such things just as they feel elevated by
hearing about virtuous actions. A man who robs a bank does a bad thing,
and we want to see him punished. But a man who betrays his own parents
or enslaves children for the sex trade seems monstrous – lacking in some
basic human sentiment. Such actions revolt us and seem to trigger some of
the same of the physiology of disgust as would seeing rats scampering out
of a trash can. (Haidt 2012, London)13
ˉ VANA
NEGATIVE VERSIONS OF ASUBHA BHA ˉ 19
Haidt also refers to obsessive rituals for cleansing sin/wrongs and calls
it the ‘Macbeth effect of washing hands’. In fact, the Buddha refers to
a kind of ritual cleansing or converting ethics into a ritual as sīlabbata-
parāmāsa. Appiah says that the category of perceptions of purity and pol-
lution is one of the psychological modules of moral experience (Appiah
2008).14 Aaron Ben-Zeév also observes that disgust plays an important
moral role in presenting intense resistance to immoral deeds and viola-
tion of norms (Ben-Zeev 242, 402).15 But, it can take an excessive turn
by getting converted into moral contempt, with anger hiding one’s own
conceit of one’s morals. Moral anger, as we shall see later (Chap. 11), is a
complicated emotion.
Converting ‘Disgust’ into a Spiritual Exercise

At the contemplative level, the mortality, dissolution and decay to which
the human body succumbs is a subject for contemplation in Buddhist
practice. The term nibbidā may be translated as disgust, revulsion or
even disenchantment, but it is better to render it as disenchantment, as
disgust has many meanings:
In insight meditation there is a revulsion which emerges in relation to for-

mations (saṅkhāra) of the phenomenon of five aggregates. When the true
nature of formations is realised through insight knowledge, the delight
that the worldly mind takes in formations subsides and revulsion then
emerges. (Venerable Gnanarama 1997, 50)16
Thus, we see that in this context, nibbidā is a positive experience and

is described as revulsion or disgust. Disgust felt towards residual attach-
ments of the body and defilements adds a sense of urgency for final lib-
eration. Venerable Nyanaponika Mahathero says that such disgust is a
sign of the practitioner’s detachment. It is also said that the contempla-
tion of dispassion (virāgānupassanā) and the contemplation on revulsion
(nibbidānupassanā) go together and closely related.
Negative Versions of Asubha Bhāvanā

The Venerable Dhammajiva Mahathero says:
An overemphasis of repulsiveness could lead to loathing which could

manifest as an expression of frustrated desire. The discourses recollect an
example of excessive contemplation of the anatomical parts of the body.

After the Buddha had instructed a group of monks on this practice and
retired to solitude, the monks contemplated the anatomical parts of the
body and their repulsiveness with such fervour that thy became disgusted
by it, resulting in a number of them committing suicide.17
On the positive practice of nibbidā, Venerable Nyanaponika says:
The snake feels disgust towards its old skin when the sloughing is not yet
complete and parts of the old skin still adhere to the body. Similarly the
disgust felt towards the residual attachments and defilements will give to
the discipline an additional urgency in the struggle for final liberation.
Such disgust is a symptom of growing detachment. (1983, 9)18
Positive responses are not fed by aversion (paṭigha) and hatred (dosa).
The purpose of contemplating the nature of the body is to bring its
unattractive aspects, previously emphasized, into a more balanced con-
text. The aim is a balanced and detached attitude towards the body
(Anālayo 2003, 122).19
A good contrast is the Kāyagatāsati sutta which takes the physi-
cal basis of the attainment of absorption as an object of contemplation.
Thus, the contemplation of the body is not necessarily linked to any
loathing/repulsiveness. ‘The fact that a firm grounding of awareness in
the body provides an important basis for the development of both calm
and insight may be the reason, why, of the four satipaṭṭhānas, body con-
templation has received the most extensive and detailed treatment in the
discourses and commentaries’ (Anālayo 2003, 124).20
In fact, in the Theravāda school of vipassanā, contemplation of the
body takes a central place. In the practice of higher meditative absorp-
tions, there is a crowning experience of the stilling of the bodily dis-
positions, described in Pāli as passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāraṁ. These
experiences are non-sensory and the development of consciousness
occurs at a primordial level (indriya-paṭibaddha-viññāṇa): this highlights
the deep value of the contemplation on the breath.
Interoception
The sixth sense in neurology or non-sensory intuition (anindriya-
paṭibaddha-viññāṇa) is described by the term ‘interoception’:
INTEROCEPTION 21
Our sixth sector of the rim includes sensations in our limbs, our body’s
motion, the tension or relaxation in our muscles, the state of our internal
milieu, including our organs as lungs, hearts and intestines. These bodily
aspects of potential awareness serve as a deep source of intuition and shape
our emotional state. (Siegel 2007, 122)21
Siegel also says that, the hormonal state of our body, the tensions of the
muscles and limbs, torso, and face, have an impact on our feelings. The
notion that physiological changes in the body have linkages not merely
to fear and anger but also to positive meditative experience is a crucial
insight for the Buddhist contemplative tradition. Physiology is one aspect
of emotional experience: its role in emotions will be taken up in the
chapter on Darwin and James. It has of course been observed that, ‘In
meditation and relaxation the calming effects are achieved by means of
feedback from the body. The rhythmic breathing and the relaxed state
of the muscles are interpreted by the brain as a calm state of the mind’
(Evans 2001, 104).22
The argument referred to is also presented by Jesse Prinz in describing
four basic strands of the Jamesian analysis, where for the present, I shall
quote only one of them:
James also supports his theory by appeal to parsimony. We know that the
mind can register bodily changes. If emotions are constituted by such
mental states, we do not need to postulate some further faculty to explain
affective phenomena. He also says, that voluntary change of bodily states
can impact our emotions. (Prinz 2004a, 56)23
James’s theory of emotions has sometimes been considered as a form of

‘reductionism’ but as Dylan Evans very skilfully argues, James assumes
a two-way relationship between body and mind: ‘There is a feedback
mechanism by which the body can affect the mind just as much as the
mind affects the body. As with any feedback loop, this allows for amplifi-
cation. James described the body as the mind’s ‘sounding board’, allow-
ing the emotional signals to resonate much as the soundbox of a guitar
amplifies the sound of the strings’ (Evans 2001, 105).24 Evans also says,
‘Conversely as the body technologies of emotion makes clear, the feed-
back mechanisms also allow us to exercise some measure of control over
our emotions by deliberately suppressing some automatic bodily changes
and consciously making others’ (Evans 2001, 106).25
In clinical psychology, according to Yana Suchy, the value of intero-

ceptive awareness is receiving a great deal of attention from psychologists
concerned with mental health (Suchy 2011).26 Thus, it is important that
in the higher reaches of the mind, in insight meditation, the tranquiliza-
tion of the breath leads to joy (pīti) and tranquillity (passaddhi) concen-
tration (samādhi), and equanimity (upekkhā).
Disgust and Contempt
While anger does belong to the emotional initiative of ‘attack’, con-

tempt is focussed towards the ‘exclusion’ of another person or group.
As the main focus of this chapter is the study of the emotion of dis-
gust, I shall be brief about the nature of contempt. Contempt involves
a judgement that because of some moral or impersonal standard, the
person who makes the judgement considers the object as worthless. It
involves a comparison of one’s superior standing with someone else, and
that the other person is inferior. Though there is an outward expres-
sion of indifference in the person displaying his contempt to others, the
indifference is manipulated to cover a hot emotion with a cold jacket.
Contempt against a group may have bad consequences in generating
intergroup tension. Contempt has even been described as a corrosive
emotion of social exclusion. But, contempt towards those in power may
be felt by an angry person whose rights have been violated and who then
calls for redress. Ekman and Frierson, in their pan-cultural study of facial
expressions and emotions, found that contempt is found across all cul-
tures. Contempt is seen as a moral emotion related to the transgression
of a code of ethics. In general, contempt is not associated with extreme
behaviour but that of silent ignoring of another person, and coldness.
From Disenchantment to Dissonance
The renunciation of Prince Siddhārtha is a paradigmatic example of the

experience of disenchantment (saṁvega): the emotional cluster of oppres-
sive shock of dismay and alienation, realizing the futility and meaning-
lessness of life as it is normally lived, with an anxious sense of urgency
in trying to find a way out of the saṁsāric circle (Thanissaro 1999, 4).27
There is a clear distinction between the saṁvega of Prince Siddhārtha and
the self-disgust, tedium and boredom cited by Miller.
FROM DISENCHANTMENT TO DISSONANCE 23
Although my initial stimulation to look at disenchantment, dissonance

and disgust came about partly to make a more complete response to
Miller, another line of stimulation emerged unexpectedly after reading
a much celebrated Sri Lankan novel, Virāgaya (‘Dispassion’) by Martin
Wickramasinghe28: a novel written in Sinhalese, but translated into
English and several other languages. The literary controversy in translat-
ing the Pāli term nibbidā was the initial point of stimulus for me, an issue
I have discussed in greater detail elsewhere (de Silva 2013, 17–22).29 I
shall present a very short summary of the thematic thrust of the novel.
The novel depicts Aravinda, who experiences the dissonance and mel-
ancholy of a person torn between the conflicting attractions of a simple
rustic life, the wilderness and the monastery, and the subliminal passions
aroused due to an inability to commit to Sarojini, a potential partner,
for life. The passions he experienced were not crude sensual passions but
the expression of love with some depth. The tension was not resolved,
but the elegance with which Wickramasinghe generates the luminosity of
self-analysis within the wavering mind of Aravinda is one of the signifi-
cant strengths of the novel. Aravinda’s awareness of the contradictions
within himself was a kind of wisdom in a dark corner, a point of lumi-
nosity, and my mind was enthralled by these Zen Buddhist strands of
wisdom. In Buddhist mindfulness practice, apparent defilements are con-
verted into realization—they are seen as evolving states of the mind—
dharmatā:
My love for Sarojini brought me to the great cross-roads of life. I hadn’t

the strength of mind to choose my path and step out boldly. When Sarojini
married Siridasa I hadn’t the courage to take the path left to me either:
it takes courage and resolution to go alone into the wilderness or enter
a monastery, or to rid oneself of desire and I lacked both these qualities.
(Virāgaya, 131)30
Although some readers of the novel feel that Aravinda was a ‘lonely’
person, in spite of his lack of decisiveness to make a full commitment
to Sarojini, he was also a lover of ‘solitude’ and part of his personality
was drawn to a kind of disenchantment with the world. As Krishnamurti
expresses it: ‘“alone” has a different meaning: alone has beauty. When
a man frees himself from the social structures of greed, envy, ambition,
arrogance, achievement, status—when he frees himself from these, then
he is completely alone’ (de Silva 2007, 56).31
Aravinda was completely free of any egoistic pursuits of power, accu-

mulation of wealth, arrogance and ambition and though his personal-
ity fell apart and broke into pieces, during the last phase of his life, he
moved into wholeness. In the words of Mark Epstein in Going to Pieces
without Falling Apart, he was ‘converting the cracks and asymmetry in
his life to a thing of beauty’. The compassionate nursing he received dur-
ing the last stages of his life made him realize that compassion and love
are more complex in terms of maturity and are more lasting than sublim-
inal passion. ‘I no longer feel despair, for I find myself in a place where
kindness, charity, love are still valid’ (Virāgaya, 246).32 The cracks, and
fissures, and emptiness is the real heart of dharma—to be with the feeling
of emptiness without rushing to change them:
This is the task that faces nearly all of us. We must learn to be with our
feeling of emptiness without rushing to change them. Only then can we
have access to the still, silent center of our awareness. (Epstein 1995, 26)33
I have already referred to the use of the term nibbidā above as a refined
meditative state. The author of the novel uses the same term in rela-
tion to Aravinda. This caused some literary controversy, which was
partly instrumental in my reading the novel afresh after many years. As
Maddegama quite clearly states in a review of the novel: ‘the concepts of
“virāgo” or “vītarāga” are used in Buddhist writing as states devoid of
lust attained by those who have conquered the defilements of the mind,
as exemplified in the Buddha or the arahants, but we do not discover in
the novel Virāgaya anyone who displaced these qualities’ (Maddegama
1997, 9).34
Although I fully agree with Maddegama’s analysis, Aravinda’s profile
has many positive features, and I have used this novel in a clinical context
as a therapist to deal with issues of self-disgust. Of note is that Aravinda
rejuvenates himself through insight towards the close of his life: a resur-
gence of deep human sentiments of compassion and love. It is obscured
by tensions in the earlier part of his life. As Carl Jung observed, the sub-
liminal and the repressed contains not merely repressed passions but
positive human sentiments in revolt, which emerge as a person moves
towards wholeness. Virāgaya is a narrative therapy of optimism for man-
aging people drowned in apparent self-disgust and depression—the
thematic strand in Virāgaya is the rejuvenation of Aravinda towards the
latter part of his life.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON THE BODY: SOME APPARENT PARADOXES 25
Concluding Thoughts on the Body:

Some Apparent Paradoxes
My recent work on pain management is focussed on what is described as
embodied mindfulness and somatic intelligence (Chap. 4). In this con-
text, we consider the body as a veritable treasure house. Somatic learning
can be used as a skilful means to transform pain, trauma and some of the
effects of ageing and make people more empathetic and compassionate.
Recent neuroscience has shown that developing embodied mindfulness
practice enhances neural networks of positive states.
In fact, the development of contemplative meditation generates a spir-
itual turning point on the way to ultimate liberation from the cycle of
suffering. But, studies indicate that in such a progress there is a quali-
tative positive change in the neural network, as was evident from the
ground breaking work of Richard Davidson on neuroplasticity. This was
followed by the research of Siegel (2007, 346–362).35 This work gives a
great deal of credence to the claim that the higher stages of the Buddhist
path produce profound psychological changes as the experience of
nibbidā (revulsion), along with those of virāgo (dispassion) and vimutti
(liberation), is a spiritual turning point,
At another level, mindfulness practice that is highly developed builds
what some scientists are calling our resonance circuitry for enhanced
compassion and empathy and also assists in developing prefrontal self-
regulation for affect regulation. The practice of compassion as mettā
meditation brings about great changes at both the secular and the spir-
itual levels. Aravinda was transformed by the compassion and empathy
he received. It helped him to triumph over loss, depression and social
exclusion. As we move to the next chapter, the positive transformation of
embodied emotions is discussed and illustrated at great length.
According to Yana Suchi, even among non-religious practitioners, the
practice of insight meditation and developing our skills of ‘interoception’
has been recognized in the area of mental health. It has been found that
there is a correlation between interoception (awareness of our internal
body states), empathy, heightened immune function and a sense of well-
being. One way of reconciling these different levels of spiritual develop-
ment and mental health, which sometimes generate apparent paradoxes,
is to contextualize the different approaches to the body: as we have
already done in reconciling the meditative perspectives on revulsion as
positive and excessive disgust and hate directed to the body. Also, the
physical bliss and rapture captured in the kāyagatāsati sutta adds a sense
of balance. Above all, the Buddha used the techniques of contextualism
in running through apparent theoretical muddles.
Interoception and the Emotions

One of the most important concepts that we take from this chapter to
the next and beyond, is the Buddhist perspective on interoception or
what was described as the ‘sixth sense’. In her book, Clinical Psychology
of Emotion, Yana Suchy defines the concept as follows: Interoceptive
awareness refers to our ability to detect the physiological responses that
take place within our bodies. In other words, it refers to the ability to
detect changes in our own heartbeat, breathing patterns, and peristal-
tic motion, as well as perspiration, temperature and piloerection on our
skin.36
Suchy says that this concept is very important for understanding
our emotions. It was William James who first suggested that the feel-
ings (emotions) we experience are our interpretations of physiological
changes in the body. In a special chapter on the pioneers of emotions,
William James and Charles Darwin, we shall explore all the ramifications
of William James’s standpoint on emotions, interoception and the body.
Notes
1. Carroll Izard, 1977, Human Emotions, Plenum Press, New York, p. 377.
2. Padmasiri de Silva, 2010, ‘Mental Balance and Four Dimensions of Wellbeing
in Buddhist Perspective’, UNDV Volume, Bangkok, pp. 657–672.
3. William Miller, 1997, The Anatomy of Disgust, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, p. xii.
4. Miller (1997, p. 9).
5. Rachel Herz, 2007, The Scent of Desire, Harper Collins, New York, p. 4.
6. Aurel Kolnai, 2004, On Disgust, Open Court, Chicago, IL, p. 63.
7. Soren Kierkegaard, 1937, Either/Or, vol. 1, trans. by D. F. and L. M.
Swenson, Anchor Press, New York, pp. 43–45; see, Padmasiri de Silva,
2007, Explorers of Inner Space: Buddha, Krishnamurti and Kierkegaard,
Vishvalekha Publishers, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka, pp. 84–109.
8. de Silva (2007, 85).
9. Ibid., 87.
10. Ibid., 92.
11. Miller (1997).
NOTES 27
12. Padmasiri de Silva, 2012, ‘The Lost Art of Sadness’, in Kathleen Higgins

and David Sherman, eds, Passion, Death and Spirituality: The Philosophy of
Robert Solomon, Springer, Heidelberg, New York and London.
13. Jonathan Haidt, 2012, The Righteous Mind, Penguin Books, New York,
London.
14. Kwame Appiah, 2008, Experiment in Ethics, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
15. Aaron Ben-Zeév, 2000, The Subtlety of Emotions, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, p. 402 (Ben-Zeev 2000).
16. Gnanarama Mahathero, 1997, The Seven Contemplations of: A Treatise on
Insight Meditation, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, p. 50.
17. Dhammajiva Mahathero, 2008, Towards An Inner Peace, Mitirigala
Forest Hermitage Publications, Mitirigala, Sri Lanka, pp. 61–62
(Dhammajiva 2008).
18. Nyanaponika Mahathero, 1983, The Wornout-skin, Buddhist Publication
Society, Kandy, p. 9.
19. Anālayo, 2010, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, Windhorse
Publications, Cambridge, p. 122 (Anālayo 2010).
20. Anālayo (2003, 124).
21. Siegel, 2007, The Mindful Brain, Norton, New York, p. 122.
22. Dylan Evans, 2001, Emotion: The Science of Sentiment, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, p. 104.
23. Prinz (2004a, 56).
24. Evans (2001, 105).
25. Ibid., 106.
26. Yana Suchy, 2011, Clinical Psychology of Emotions, Guilford Press, New York.
27. Thānissaro Bhikkhu, 1999, Noble Strategy, Mettā Forest Monastery,
Valley Center, CA, p. 4.
28. Martin Wickramasinghe, 1985, The Way of the Lotus: Virāgaya, trans. by
Ashley Halpe, Tissaraprakhasakayo, Dehiwala (Wickramasinghe 1985).
29. Padmasiri de Silva, 2013, ‘Managing the Hostility Triad’, presented at the
ITBMU conference in Yangon, Myanmar, pp. 17–22.
30. Wickramasinghe (1985, 131).
31. See, de Silva (2007, 56).
32. Wickramasinghe (1985, 246).
33. Mark Epstein, 1995, Thoughts Without a Thinker, Basic Books, New York,
p. 26.
34. Udaya Maddegama, 1997, Commentary on Virāgaya (in Sinhalese), Ariya
Publishers, Warakapola, p. 9.
35. Siegel (2007, 346–362).
36. Yana Suchy, 2011, Clinical Neuropsychology of Emotions, The Guildford
Press, New York.
References
Appiah, K. (2008). Experiment in ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Ben-Zeev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
de Silva, P. (2007). Explorers of inner space: Buddha, Krishnamurti and
Kierkegaard. Ratmalana: Vishvalekha Publishers.
de Silva, P. (2010). Mental balance and four dimensions of wellbeing in Buddhist
perspective, UNDV Volume, Bangkok, pp. 657–672.
de Silva, P. (2012). The lost art of sadness. In K. Higgins & D. Sherman (Eds.),
Passion, death and spirituality: The philosophy of Robert Solomon. Heidelberg,
New York, and London: Springer.
de Silva. P. (2013). Managing the hostility triad. Presented at the ITBMU con-
ference in Yangon, Myanmar, pp. 17–22.
Dhammajiva Mahathero. (2008). Towards an inner peace. Mitirigala: Mitirigala
Forest Hermitage Publications.
Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts without a thinker. New York: Basic Books.
Evans, D. (2001). Emotion: The science of sentiment. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gnanarama Mahathero. (1997). The seven contemplations of: A treatise on insight
meditation (p. 50). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind. New York and London: Penguin Books.
Herz, R. (2007). The scent of desire. New York: Harper Collins.
Izard, C. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1937). Either/Or (vol. 1, pp. 43–45) (D. F. Swenson & L. M.
Swenson, Trans.). New York: Anchor Press.
Kolnai, A. (2004). On disgust. Chicago: Open Court.
Maddegama, U. (1997). Commentary on Virāgaya (in Sinhalese). Warakapola:
Ariya Publishers.
Miller, W. (1997). The anatomy of disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Nyanaponika Mahathero. (1983). The wornout-skin. Kandy: Buddhist Publication
Society.
REFERENCES 29
Suchy, Y. (2011). Clinical neuropsychology of emotions. New York: The Guildford

Press.
Thānissaro Bhikkhu. (1999). Noble strategy. Valley Center, CA: Mettā Forest
Monastery.
Wickramasinghe, M. (1985). The way of the lotus: Virāgaya (A. Halpe, Trans.).
Dehiwala: Tissaraprakhasakayo.
CHAPTER 3
Embodied Emotions and Body–Mind

Reactivity
Abstract  Managing Negative Emotions: The initial challenge in the

use of mindfulness is not to suppress or oppose destructive mental states
but to see their emergence, the arising and passing away. The obstruc-
tions to this process are many and need reflective and deep contempla-
tive insights. Recent research in neuroscience has presented three kinds of
contemplative experience: focussed attention on the in-and-out breathing
cycle; open-monitoring meditation on a number of facets—sensations,
internal bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions. This is the area related
to the working framework of the present chapter; cultivation of benevo-
lence, compassion and kindness and there will be some focus on the third
area in different chapters.
What is new in the area of emotion studies and its relation to meditation
(mindfulness) practice is the emergence of the insights of neuroscience.
Within neuroscience, a very recent study by Ricard, Lutz and Davidson
research has presented three varieties of contemplative experience
(2014, 39).1 They group contemplative experience into three types:
1.
Focussed attention, which typically directs the meditator to
concentrate on the in-and-out cycle of breathing. A brain scan
study at Emory University has pinpointed distinct brain areas
that become involved in attention shifts. The capacity to remain
vigilant to distractions is the significant feature of this technique.

32 3 EMBODIED EMOTIONS AND BODY–MIND REACTIVITY
2. Mindfulness or open-monitoring meditation is the awareness

of internal bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions. This kind
of meditation helps the practitioner cultivate a less emotionally
reactive awareness to emotion, thoughts and sensations occur-
ring in the present moment, to prevent them from spiralling out
of control and creating mental distress. Expert meditators have
diminished the anxiety-related areas, such as those in the insular
cortex and the amygdala.
3. Cultivation of benevolence directed towards others. Compassion
and loving kindness foster areas that fire up these emotions
towards others. This is understood to happen in the temporopari-
etal junction, the area of the brain that has been recognized as the
region that controls our self-awareness.
In the light of this analysis, the focus of attention on the breath is

assumed as fundamental to most contemplative meditation sittings, and
the focus of this chapter is mainly the second area—open-monitoring
meditation, body–mind responses and body–mind reactivity in emotional
experiences. I shall refer to the value of cultivating benevolence and
compassion at different places in this book.
Managing Negative Emotions

I first summarize six perspectives for managing negative emotions and
then shift to a more concentrated analysis of the central theme of this
chapter. Anger is a paradigmatic negative emotion. Buddhists and psychol-
ogists accept the thesis that emotions strongly influence our lives: some
emotions are afflictive and others non-afflictive. The afflictive negative
emotions like anger are reactive. Some ingrained states are more ‘sticky’
and restrictive, locking us into old patterns of neural firing, tying us to
previously learned information and priming us to react in rigid ways. Non-
reactivity reveals an important facet of the resilience of managing afflic-
tive emotions. Buddhist mindfulness practice helps in developing resilience
towards an emotion like anger. Richard Davidson says that both resil-
ience and outlook need to be developed: ‘The capacity to sustain posi-
tive emotions over time is a key measure of the Outlook dimension of your
Emotional Style. It can be thought as the compliment to Resilience, which
reflects how quickly you recover from adversity. Outlook reflects how long
and how well you can sustain positive emotions’ (Davidson 2013, 49).2
MANAGING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS 33
The initial challenge of Buddhist mindfulness practice is not to sup-

press or repress such destructive mental states, but rather to identify
with diligence the rise and experience of these states, creating an open
space. Thus, the focus is on acceptance instead of experiential avoidance.
The Buddha says, ‘see anger as anger and lust as lust’, without judge-
ment and self-identification, as in guilt and remorse; develop curiosity
and tolerance. The Satipaṭṭhāna emphasizes the following: not to oppose
unwholesome states but to be receptively aware and to recognize the
states of mind; not to ignore those that go against your ego, and not to
use deception (vañcaka dhamma). As you identify the five hindrances,
be aware of the subliminal states of anger (paṭighānusaya) that feed your
emotional reactivity. In fact, if you look closely at the five hindrances
there is a component of aversion in almost all of them: sensuous desire,
ill-will, boredom and slothfulness, restlessness and sceptical doubt (see
Chap. 9). In the purābheda sutta, lust is a visible enemy and anger an
invisible enemy. The nine forms of anger are also given consideration.
The second strand in our analysis is the strong link between the body
and mind and thus we speak of embodied emotions. The Satipaṭṭhāna is
divided into four sections: the first is on the body, which fact indicates its
importance. Cognition is embodied when it is dependent on the body at
a deeper level, a fact that was ignored by the existing cognitive sciences
till the groundbreaking work emerged: The Embodied Mind (Varela et al.
1999).3 Based on this new paradigm, there was an emerging interest in
inner experiences and contemplative practices which had been blocked
by followers of behaviourism in psychology. Another new strand that
has given a momentum to contemplative studies is the emerging field
of neuroscience. In psychology and neurology, the linkages between the
body and brain have given a new direction to emotion studies. Antonio
Damasio who has provided a new interpretation of William James stands
out with his direct evidence for the bodily basis of emotions: ‘Think of
the muscles in the face adopting the configurations of joy, sorrow or
anger, or the skin blanching a reaction to bad news or flushing in a state
of embarrassment or bodily postures that signify joy, defiance, sadness…’
(Damasio 2000).4
The third strand in this study is the ability to access the body
through the vipassanā meditation technique of developing a sixth sense
(anindriyapaṭibaddha viññāṇa), non-sensory consciousness. Our con-
sciousness is normally connected to the six doors of the senses: seeing,
hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and mind-door (mano-dvāra). But, as
we develop our meditative sittings and refine our consciousness, we move

into a form of consciousness that is not related to the senses (Dhammajiva
2008, 8).5 Neurologist Daniel Siegel describes this experience as interocep-
tion (Siegel 2007, 168).6
When you are immersed in observing the in-breath and the
out-breath, the focus is on the draught of air (rather than the breath).
Basically, the draught will touch the area surrounding the nose or the
lips/the point of touch (solidity): the point where one rubs the nose/
lips (ignition); and the various points where saliva touches the lips
(liquidity). Another explanation is that the ‘water element’ represents
‘compactness’. The whole process is seen in terms of the four elements
and soon emerges as patterns of vibrations: for instance, degrees of tight-
ness, looseness, expansion and contraction, hot and cold temperature,
dry and wet, and so on. As the gap between the in-breath and out-breath
decreases, there is an emergence of the awareness of the whole body—
the breath-body. Gradually, the movement of the breath will calm down
and settle (passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāraṁ) and there is a deep state of
absorption/concentration. The tranquilization of the breath-body leads
to the experience of the contemplative emotions of joy (pīti) and rap-
ture (sukha). At this stage, we develop non-sensory consciousness of the
body, a kind of ‘sixth sense’ or interoception as described by Siegel.
In Western traditions of emotion studies, there is hardly any discus-
sion of ‘contemplative emotions’ at the upper reaches of joy and rap-
ture, mentioned above. But, in the area of contemplative neuroscience,
a study of the mindful brain, there is a reference to the mind’s ability
to steer through both dullness and excitement and to regain clarity and
stability. This description reveals that even for the early practice of medi-
tation, the focus is on the balance of states of arousal. At their extreme,
these states represent chaos (for excitement) and rigidity for dullness.
Achieving non-reactivity in large measure can be seen as a way of paus-
ing externally and responding and then attaining a balance of the neural
circuits involved in the ‘accelerator and brakes’ functions of the brain.
In the Buddhist path, dullness (sloth and torpor) and excitement/agita-
tion are hindrances. In this context, both Siegel and Davidson emphasize
the links between affective style and mindfulness practice (Siegel 2007,
213).7 In general, Siegel says that ‘non-reactivity’, which is a central
concept in the present chapter, is likely to involve both internal affec-
tive and autonomic balance, and interactive flexibility. The pre-frontal
cortex exercises the coordinating and balancing functions. Affective style
involves the capacity to regulate negative emotions and to decrease the

duration of the negative affect once it arises: and also the capacity to
maintain a high level of positive affect. Basically, the emergence of con-
templative neuroscience has opened a new window to develop a concept
of contemplative emotions.
The fourth strand comes from dhammānupassanā, a meditative tech-
nique, which makes the negative emotions the object of contemplation.
I refer to the Aṅgulimāla ethic, where defilements (kilesa) are converted
into dharmatā. What I call the Aṅgulimāla ethic, however, needs some
clarification.
Aṅgulimāla was an innocent boy who was influenced by his corrupt
schoolmates. They were jealous of him and converted him into a crimi-
nal. His ultimate mission was to collect a hundred fingers and make a
garland of them. As he was near the completion of his mission he came
under the direction and influence of the Buddha. One day he was walk-
ing behind the Buddha and was trying to get close to him, but no mat-
ter how quickly he walked the distance between him and the Buddha
remained almost the same. He was puzzled by this and shouted, ‘Hey
man, are you running?’ The Buddha turned towards him and said, ‘It is
a long time since I stopped running (on the saṁsāric road)’. The Buddha
was able to convert a thief/murderer who was completely misguided and
transform him so that eventually he was liberated. Even if it is a kind of
myth, it may have some historical content. It is a story with the message
that compassion has the potential to transform many a disrupted mind,
and that defilements may be converted into a liberating insight. It is a
message of compassion and optimism.
A heavy sense of guilt or a socially conditioned shame may be trans-
formed by making a predicament into an object of reflection and cathar-
sis, but more to the point a legitimate object of meditation. Venerable
Nyanaponika gives an example from advice given to a meditator, where
a meditator is persistently disturbed by a noise outside: ‘For example,
if resentment arises, it should be clearly recognized in its own nature
whenever it arises’. In doing so we shall be practising the contemplation
of mind objects (dhammānupassanā) according to the following passage
of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta: ‘He knows the ear and sounds, and the fetter
(resentment) arising to both’. If the noise is intermittent or of varying
intensity, one will be able to discern the rise and fall (udayabbaya) in its
occurrence, thus adding to one’s direct insight of the nature of imperma-
nence (Nyanaponika 1986, 21).8 ‘The attitude towards recurring mental
defilements, such as thoughts of lust and restlessness, is similar. One

should face them squarely, but distinguish them from one’s reactions to
them, e.g. fear, resentment, irritation.’ Venerable Nyanaponika quotes a
graphic passage to get his central point across, from The Little Locksmith
(K.B. Hathaway)9:
I am shocked by the ignorance and wastefulness with which persons who

should know better throw away things that they do not like. They throw
away experiences, people, marriages, situations, all sorts of things because
they do not like them … almost all those things which get thrown away
are capable of being worked over by a little magic into just the opposite of
what they are… (Nyanaponika 1986, 22)10
A fifth dimension is the initial safety and security from negative emotions
preserved at the level of sīla. The celebrated fourfold methods of deal-
ing with defilements are the following: taking necessary steps through
restraint (saṁvara); abandoning them once they have emerged (pahāna);
developing positive emotions (bhāvanā); stabilizing positive emotions
once they have emerged (anurakkhanā). Thus, we see the emergence of
a coordinated sensibility to deal with defilements/negative emotions and
for developing positive ones. This sensibility is captured through some
graphic metaphors used by the Buddha, found in the suttas: the watch-
fulness of a doorkeeper; instilling discipline like a horse trainer; the per-
sistence of an army defending a fortress; the balance and vigilance of an
acrobat.
The sixth perspective is both literally and metaphorically taken from
medicine. This is the use of specific antidotes to deal with a specific mal-
ady: for the malady of ill-will, the remedy is in the development of for-
giveness, patience and loving kindness; for sensuous lust, the remedy is
impermanence, decay and disgust. The Jewish philosopher Spinoza says,
‘An emotion cannot be restrained or removed unless by an opposed and
stronger emotion’ (Spinoza 1963, 195).11 He also considers the impor-
tance of the body: ‘An emotion, in so far as it is related to the mind,
cannot be removed unless by the idea of a bodily modification opposed
to that which we suffer and is stronger than it’ (Spinoza 1963, 195).12
Spinoza also says, ‘hatred has to be conquered by love or generosity, and
is not to be met with hatred in return. But in order that we may always
have this prescript of reason in readiness whenever it be of service, we
may think over and often meditate upon the common injuries inflicted
by men, and consider how and in what way they may best be repelled
by generosity’ (Spinoza 1963, 261).13 He also observes that to get rid
of fear, one should enumerate and imagine the common dangers in life
and develop presence of mind and courage; vanity is pursued by a man
who pursues glory too eagerly, and thinks of the abuse of money, who
torments himself, ‘achieving nothing save to torment himself and show
to others that he is unable to bear with equanimity not only his own
poverty but also the wealth of others’ (1963, 262).14 Spinoza makes a
beautiful analysis of positive and negative emotions, which is Buddhist
to the core. In the Buddhist context, remembering the good within us
and in others, mettā removes any trace of self-hate or anger towards oth-
ers; karuṇā (kindness) is a powerful ally to deal with grief, and when
joined with gratitude to those who have been separated, adds a reflective
and dedicatory quality to grief; muditā (taking pleasure in the happiness
of others) is hard to cultivate but is the best antidote for envy and jeal-
ousy; and equanimity (upekkhā) steers clear of undue elation and conceit
(māna) as well as steering clear of dependency and dejection.
The sixth technique is that of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. But, as
some of these facets as found in the Tibetan and Zen Buddhist tradi-
tions may be shared with the early Buddhist (Theravāda) tradition, this
dialogue is very important and I shall attempt a balanced study.
Working with the Emotions (Rinpoche 1992)15 is an elegant mono-
graph which cites five techniques centred round the graphic metaphor
of the Great Peacock, where the negative emotions are described as poi-
sons. Though the peacock eats the poisons this process generates the
resplendent feathers of the peacock. The techniques are described as
abandoning, remedying, controlling, transforming, recognizing their
true wisdom nature and taking emotions as the path. Negative emo-
tions are generated by clinging to the ego and giving them considera-
tion as attractive (desire), unattractive (anger) or neutral (ignorance).
Overemphasizing one’s experience is pride: judging our position in
relation to others is jealousy. Thus the five poisons are desire, anger,
ignorance, pride and jealousy. To abandon emotions is not to suppress
them but to understand their unattractive side. Distancing oneself from
them gives us space to work with them.
Anger may be abandoned by not building up enmity and desire but
by appreciating the value of contentment. Mental dullness has to be
cleared by clearly distinguishing the ethics of good and bad. Those who
are virtuous should not inflate their standing by comparing themselves
to others, as pride may emerge in virtuous people. The most important

result of abandoning negative emotions is our readiness to let go of neg-
ativities and of developing spaciousness and flexibility at the level of emo-
tions.
Remedying involves working with antidotes. There is the remedying
of desire by contemplation on the body’s impurities; love and patience
are the antidotes for anger and hatred. In general, loving kindness
(mettā) is one of the most powerful antidotes for anger and hatred.
The demolition of pride is done by reflecting on our predicament in the
saṁsāric round of existence. Pleasure at the success of others counteracts
jealousy.
The transformation of emotions has two facets, one by insight medita-
tion and the other by visualization. The former is shared with Theravāda
(early Buddhist tradition) and the latter is basically Tibetan Buddhist tra-
dition (Vajrayāna). In fact, the section on abandoning and remedying
has a great deal of similarities with the early Buddhist tradition, which
Rinpoche refers to as the srāvaka tradition (hearers). In visualization
techniques, the five poisons are directed towards five Dhyāni Buddhas,
universal images of the purified images of the Buddhas: anger—Dorje
Sempa; pride—Ratnasambhava; desire-attachment—Amitābha; jeal-
ousy—Amoghasiddhi; ignorance—Vajirocana. The fourth technique in
Rinpoche’s book, indicating the true nature of things, emphasizes the
significance of the above images of the Buddha as repositories of wis-
dom. The fifth and last section deals with managing emotions as a path
to enlightenment. This section is too complex to be given in detail for
the present book, but may be summarized: ‘In this approach, the emo-
tions are neither given up nor modified in any way, instead they become
the path towards wisdom’ (2009, 41).16 This is to use the emotions as a
path to enlightenment.
Zen and Emotions
Zen Buddhism is a large reservoir of apparently disconnected insights
with an underlying unity. Zen masters turn things upside down and unify
when wisdom emerges, as was evident in the Zen-like profile of the leg-
endary Thai monk, Ajahn Chah, who said that you need a transparent
mind to see the subtleties of desire in your very attempt to rid yourself of
desire: ‘Buddhism teaches us to make earnest efforts in the things we do,
ZEN AND EMOTIONS 39
but our actions should not be mixed with desire. They should be per-
formed with the aim of letting go and realizing nonattachment. We do
what we need to do, but with letting go. The Buddha taught this’ Ajahn
Chah (2001, 118).17 Ajahn Chah was, in a subtle way, emphasizing the
point that there can be a kind of self-contradiction in trying to get rid of
desire but with desire at another level.
Now the Zen perspective sounds different from most of the meth-
ods for managing negative emotions. Rinzai Zen, as presented by Parks
(1990)18 in an illuminating study, was critical of the ‘stultifying dogma-
tism and rigidity of conventional Buddhism’, and above all Zen was open
to the emotions, a point which Nietzsche realized, as he was very criti-
cal of the Platonic tradition that was trying to ‘annihilate the passions
and desires simply because of their stupidity’. One of the interesting par-
allelisms between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Zen is that they ‘reverse
and undercut the distinction between positive and negative emotions’
(Parks 1990, 13)19—a point that would have emerged in my discussion
of the instances where apparent defilements become sources of insights
into dhammānupassanā. The non-judgmental perspective pervades the
mindfulness-based perspective of emotions.
According to Parks, a student of Nietzsche would find some of the
following of great interest: the importance of suffering, as well as inca-
pacitation and lack of power, which paradoxically leads one to under-
stand suffering and facilitates the process; as well as what Nietzsche
called the ‘warrior spirit’:
Of the forces that move our souls, the emotions are among the most sig-
nificant, with the closest ties to the body. They also have a special con-
nection with pathology, being capable themselves of engendering illness
as well as participating in its cure. The similar estimations of the impor-
tance of sickness on the part of Hakuin and Nietzsche may be grounded
in a similarity of physical and psychical make-up: like Nietzsche’s, Hakuin’s
bodily constitution was initially weak. (Parks 1990, 19)20
Together with certain truths about the human condition, Nietzsche gave
the emotions an important cognitive and hermeneutic role. Some of
these insights may be shared with Zen Buddhism and early Buddhism at
a certain level of depth.
Prejudices of Psychologists and Philosophers
Having presented six strands in the management of afflictive negative

emotions, the central focus of this part of the study is embodied emo-
tions and body–mind reactivity, using anger as a paradigmatic emotion.
I shall also give examples of positive emotions, especially those that I
refer to as contemplative emotions. This analysis is presented against the
outstanding fabric of the Buddhist and Pali culture in Myanmar, to indi-
cate and emphasize the value of the inexhaustible wellspring that is the
Satipaṭṭhāna. Renewed interest today in Buddhist meditation practice, in
the context of recent trends in Western psychotherapies, cognitive sci-
ence and most importantly the interface between Buddhism and neuro-
science, provides the background for this information. In fact, before the
emergence of this new wave of interest, there was a complete misunder-
standing of the goals of Buddhist meditation practice:
A new series of issues arose for Western Buddhists who entered psycho-
therapy. Buddhist teachers counsel to abandon anger, develop patience,
give up attachment, and understand the absence of Self, this is taught in
a context of disciplined communal practice—the Saṅgha. Therapists con-
versely encourage those who are emotionally shut down to experience feel-
ings of anger, and they facilitate the request for relationship and intimacy,
this is done in a context that supports self-assertion and individuality. How
are we to follow both approaches? (Aronson 2004)21
Similarly, Owen Flanagan says that in the West, anger is a basic emo-
tion that can be suppressed or managed but not eliminated from one’s
basic emotional constitution, as the Buddha advocates (Flanagan 2000,
259–281).22 Jack Engler provides a similar refrain: ‘The labelling of
aversive emotions as “defilements” or as “unwholesome” in Buddhist
practice can lead to thinking that the goal is not to feel any disturbing
emotion, and then feel guilty if you do’ (Engler 2006, 26).23
All Buddhists and non-Buddhists need to understand that this is a
basic distortion of how we manage anger using the Satipaṭṭhāna. While
agreeing with the recent mindfulness-based therapies, and appreciating
their work has drawn the best from the Buddhist practice of mindfulness,
and aware that Buddhism is a liberation-oriented message for those suf-
fering depression, a few qualifying comments need to be made. Besides
observing anger from a non-judgmental acceptance point of view,
we also discern anger-related emotions like kodha and kopa as mental
ISSUES A BOUT SELF-CONTROL AND MINDFULNESS 41
defilements; dosa as an unwholesome root; vyāpāda as a hindrance; and

paṭighānusaya as subliminal anger—at the level of morality. But, in the
meditation sitting there is a contextual change—where anger is neither
good nor bad, neither yours nor mine, and it is a process which emerges,
stays for a while and then passes away.
As I have already clarified, in dhammānupassanā, the meditator makes
anger an object of meditation; in cittānupassanā, as in Mindfulness-based
Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) the meditator becomes aware of the thought
processes, the thought components of the emotion and the autopilot pro-
cesses that feed anger; in vedanānupassanā one ‘puts on the breaks’, at the
initial emergence of disagreeable feelings (dukkhā vedanā), and does not let
them develop into anger. In tranquillity meditation (samatha), the devel-
opment of bodily and mental calm may temporarily push the anger aside,
but may not radically deal with the roots, though it helps the meditator
to move around in daily life with calm and composure. In kāyānupassanā,
which is focussed on the body and is the preliminary section of the
Satipaṭṭhāna, the focus is on the body, and here we are able to focus on a
central feature of negative emotions. Body sensations are the earliest indica-
tors of emotions like anger, fear and sadness. Thus, you will see clearly, how
Western commentators like Aronson, Flanagan and Engler have distorted
the Buddhist perspectives on managing negative emotions. Cognitive
therapists like Jon Kabat-Zinn were on the correct track and their wonder-
ful, compassionate work is recognized, though Buddhist contemplative
therapy within a liberation quest may have yet more to offer. As described
by the three scholars cited above, it is crude to describe the Buddhist per-
spective on anger as saying Buddhists try to ‘destroy’ anger. But, as I have
shown, Buddhist practitioners convert anger into a transforming insight,
make anger the object of contemplation and use antidotes like forgiveness,
patience and compassion to manage anger. Furthermore, tranquillity medi-
tation generates calm and peace. Tantric Buddhism, using the image of the
peacock, metabolizes anger and converts it into power and strength and
Zen Buddhism uses paradoxes and turns things upside down.
Issues About Self-Control and Mindfulness

Like Aronson, Flanagan and Engler, Simon Blackburn, a philosopher of
good standing and an expert on emotion studies, whose skills we recog-
nize also showed some misunderstanding of the Buddhist management
of emotions:
Emotions that threaten self-control, such as panic or, anger, or grief or

lust, are the enemies, but stoic self-command enables us to overcome
them. Returning to Plato’s image, the Stoic charioteer pretty much starves
his horses to death, aiming, like a Buddhist, at a life free from care and
concern, a life of stark insensibility. (2004, 45)24
Blackburn has fallen into the spell of the Platonic idiom of reason as a
charioteer directing anger, grief, lust and panic. Setting Buddhism
against this idiom, he has also said that the charioteer exhibits ‘stark
insensibility’. Twenty-six centuries ago, the Buddha replaced reason as
the charioteer model for managing afflictive emotions, with the ‘mind-
fulness as charioteer’ model. Furthermore, the discussion on anger has
displayed the Buddha’s compassion and the variety of techniques that
he used. These techniques depended on whether the emotion dealt
with was melancholy and sadness, anger, conceit, greed, a very refined
‘sensibility’ and compassion close to the hearts of men and women.
The tremendous admiration that emerges regarding the Buddhist man-
agement of emotions from the dialogue between The Dalai Lama and
Paul Ekman (Chap. 6 of the present work) is enough evidence that
Blackburn’s passing remarks on Buddhism are misplaced.
Cultural Perspectives on Negative Emotions:

Guilt and Shame
Compared to anger, guilt and shame are more interesting from a cross-
cultural perspective. Ajahn Sumedho, though a Westerner, has made
Thailand a kind of home. He presents a stimulating reflection on guilt
and shame, and tendencies towards negativity:
It is interesting that there are now all kinds of stress reduction pro-
grammes; people are aware of stress and tension in society. A modern life
is very stressful and things move too quickly for us, actually. We’re pro-
pelled through high technology and a fast lane type of life whether we like
it or not, and this does not affect us. We get a sense of this kind of driven
life, this quality that makes us restless, and we tend to distract ourselves
endlessly. This then creates tension and stress and when we do this to the
body, the body stops. It can’t take any more and starts creating problems
for us. Relaxation is therefore something that is encouraged now very
much in society, just on a popular worldly level. (Sumedho 2012)25
EMBODIED EMOTIONS AND WILLIAM JAMES 43
Against this background, Ajahn Sumedho argues that in the Western

world people have a lot of problems about guilt. In the West, people feel
guilty all the time and this is ‘very much a cultural tendency we have’,
but in Thailand, where he lived for many years, not many people have
this obsessive guilt. ‘They’ve know when they have done something they
shouldn’t, and they feel a sense of shame when they tell a lie… but it
becomes guilt when it is taken personally’. He says in the West people
hold on to their shame and feel guilty about it.
Mark Epstein reflects on the clinical implications of meditators in his
clinic when he says, ‘Clinically, many of the meditators whom I have seen
in psychotherapy suffer from a tendency to dissociate themselves from
that which is seen as unwholesome in themselves, be it aggression, sexual
longing or rationality. Because they are seen as impediments in the realm
of the ego, and because the way to egolessness is felt to be via surren-
der, such qualities are often repudiated, rather than noted, as fast as they
arise….’ (Epstein 2007, 87).26 Epstein says that this is a perversion of the
basic teaching of mindfulness.
In recent times, a new therapeutic school, described as ‘Restorative
Practice’, has emerged. It is focussed on self-reflective emotions like
shame and guilt (Kelly and Thorsborne 2004).27 This response to prob-
lems has emerged in the West and is utilized in institutions of education
and schools. It is too early, however, to make a critical assessment of its
prospects for managing guilt and shame in a healthy manner.
Embodied Emotions and William James

The subject of embodied emotion has received much attention in con-
temporary trends and discussions in Western psychology, philosophy
and neurology. The subject illuminates the thematic thrust of the pre-
sent chapter, in so far as we moved across to issues pertaining to body
reactivity. There is a remarkably insightful harvest on the subject about
which much has been written in recent years. The most outstanding con-
tributions are those of the psychologist/neurologist LeDoux (1988),
Damasio (2000),28 the philosopher Prinz (2004a) and Siegel (2007),
who skilfully blends research into mindfulness practice and neuroscience.
In the background is the revival of interest in two of the central claims
of William James, coming from two directions. James (1884),29 together
with Lange (1885),30 introduced what is described as the somatic feeling
theory: James’s almost prophetic utterance is the celebrated claim, ‘Our

feeling of the (bodily) changes as they occur is the emotion.’ While I
shall devote a complete chapter on the subject of James and Darwin on
emotions, in the present context, it is necessary to spell out the different
meanings of the term somatic.
Jesse Prinz has analysed the term with great clarity: in a narrow sense,
the somatic system refers to parts of the nervous system that receives
information from the body. But in this context it includes—the respira-
tory system, circulatory system, digestive, musculoskeletal and endocrine
system; for example, change of facial expression, heart rate or hormonal
changes. Prinz says that for James the ‘range of bodily states underly-
ing emotional experience is much more inclusive—changes in the viscera,
facial expression, and instrumental actions, ranging from tremors and
tears to rage’ (Prinz 2004a, 5).31
William James on Mindfulness
In the chapter devoted to James and Darwin, I discuss Damasio’s modi-

fication of Jamesian theory. Now, however, I wish to cite another of
James’s prophetic statements: ‘The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a
wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment,
character and will’ (James 1890, 424).32 Commenting on this passage
which has provided an axiom for Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behaviour
Therapy (CBT), Jon Kabat-Zinn makes the following observation:
William James obviously didn’t know about the practice of mindfulness

when he penned this passage. But I am sure he would have been delighted
to have discovered that there was indeed an education for improving
the faculty of bringing back over and over again. For this is exactly what
Buddhist practitioners have developed into a fine art over a millennium,
based on the Buddha’s original teaching, and this art is replete with practi-
cal instructions for bringing this kind of self-education about. (Kabat-Zinn
2005, 118)33
In what follows, I shall illustrate how these two prophetic statements

referred to above, one on the emotions and the body, the other on
mindfulnesss practice, eventually provided the two strands that go to
make up ‘somatic intelligence’, though different versions/applications of
somatic intelligence have emerged, as for instance on pain and trauma
management. These will be covered in the subsequent two chapters.
WILLIAM JAMES ON MINDFULNESS 45
In his works, The Physical Basis of Emotions (1884), and Principles

of Psychology (1890), James introduced an interesting rider: ‘Common
sense says we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep: we meet a bear are
frightened and run, we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike.’ He
defends the notion, however, that we feel sorry because we cry, angry
because we strike, afraid because we tremble. This hypothesis looks as
if he is putting the cart before the horse. This thesis has been discussed,
debated, criticized, over and over again in the history of psychology.
In fact, this theory emerged in a new form with modern thinkers like
Antonio Damasio, the neurologist, and Jesse Prinz, the philosopher.
They have provided a new and modified interpretation of James’s the-
ory of the emotions, which makes the Buddhist concept of embodied
emotions valuable and workable in practice. The Buddha introduced an
interactive theory of the body, which will be presented in detail in a later
chapter. What is important for the present is that the body can affect the
mind and the mind can affect the body: ‘James described the body as
the mind’s “sounding board”, allowing the emotional signal to resonate
much as the sound box of a guitar amplifies the sound of the strings’
(Evans 2001, 105).34 Though this theory sounds somewhat narrow,
James’s lasting contribution was that it is the experience of the bodily
symptoms that gives the emotional quality to our consciousness:
If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from our con-
sciousness of it all the feelings of its characteristic bodily symptoms, we
find we have nothing left behind, no ‘mind stuff’ out of which the emo-
tion can be constituted, and that a cold intellectual perception is all that
remained. (James 1884, 193)35
What is of special importance in Evans’s analysis is that ‘in meditation

and relaxation the calming effects are achieved by the feedback from the
body. The rhythmic breathing and the relaxed state of the muscles are
interpreted by the brain as conducive to a calm frame of mind’ (Evans
2001, 104).36 According to James, when we use common sense we think
that emotions occur before bodily movements, but by deliberately sup-
pressing some of our automatic bodily changes, we can exercise some
measure of control of our emotions.
Evans quite correctly observes that what was new in James was the
focus on the body. His analysis leaves room for a two-way relationship
between the body and mind:
James was pointing to the fact that the relationship between the mind and
the body is not just one way. There is a feedback mechanism by which the
body can affect the mind just as much as the mind affects the body. As
with any feedback loop, this allows for amplification. James described the
body as the mind’s ‘sounding board’, allowing the emotional signal to
resonate much as the soundboard of a guitar amplifies the sound of the
strings. (Evans 2001, 105)37
James makes a classic reference to the activation of the body: ‘Everyone

knows how panic is induced by flight, and how giving way to grief
increases those passions themselves, Each feat of sobbing makes the sor-
row more acute….’. The notion that some measure of control of our
emotions can be exercised by suppressing some automatic bodily changes
is a key point that emerges in this analysis.
The Buddhist path to managing emotions can be focussed on the
body (kāyānupassanā), on feelings (vedanānupassanā) and on thought
patterns (cittānupassanā). It has been observed by Anālayo presenting all
the four facets of the Satipaṭṭhāna: ‘Through such observation one can
become aware of how a particular state of mind expresses itself through
one’s bodily posture, or how the condition, position, and motion of the
body affects the mind. Bodily postures and states of mind are intrinsically
interrelated, so that clear awareness of the one naturally enhances aware-
ness of the other’ (Anālayo 2010, 138).38
Notes
1. Mattieu Ricard, Antoine Lutz and Richard Davidson, 2014, ‘Mind of the
Meditator’, Scientific American, p. 39.
2. Davidson (2013, 49).
3. Varela et al. (1999).
4. Antonio Damasio, 2000, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions
in the Making of Consciousness. Vintage, London, p. 59.
5. Dhammajiva Mahathero, 2008, In this Life Itself, Mitirigala Forest
Hermitage Publications, Mitirigala, Sri Lanka, p. 8.
6. Siegel (2007, 168).
7. Ibid., 213.
8. Nyanaponika Mahathero, 1986, The Power of Mindfulness, Buddhist
Publication Society, Kandy, p. 21.
9. Katherine Hathaway, The Little Locksmith.
10. Nyanaponika (1986, 22).
NOTES 47
11. Spinoza (1963, 195).

12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 261.
14. Ibid., 262.
15. Lama Glendun Rinpoche, 1992, Working with Emotions, trans. from
Tibetan by Anila Rinchen, Dzambala, Carlton North.
16. Lama Glendun (1992, 41).
17. Ajahn Chah, 2001, Being Dharma, Shambhala, Boston and London,
p. 118.
18. Graham Parks, 1990, ‘The Transmutation of Emotions in Rinzai Zen and
Nietzsche’, The Eastern Buddhist, XXIII, 1.
19. Ibid., 13.
20. Ibid., 19.
21. Harvey Aronson, 2004, Buddhist Practice on Western Grounds,
Shambhala, Colorado.
22. Owen Flanagan, 2000, ‘Destructive Emotions’, in Consciousness and
Emotions, John Benjamins, New York, pp. 259–281.
23. Jack Engler, 2006, ‘Promises and Perils of the Spiritual Path’, in Mark
Unno, ed., Buddhism and Psychoanalysis across Cultures, Wisdom,
Boston, p. 26.
24. Simon Blackburn, 2004, Lust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 45.
25. Ajahn Sumedho, 2012, ‘Guilt and Tendencies towards Negativity’,
Buddhism Now, https://buddhismnow.com/2012/10/13/guilt-ten-
dencies-negativity-ajahn-sumedho/.
26. Mark Epstein, 2007, Psychotherapy Without the Self, Yale University Press,
New Haven and London, p. 87.
27. Vernon Kelly and Margaret Thorsborne, 2004, The Psychology of Emotion
in Restorative Practice, Jessica Kingsley, London and Philadelphia.
28. Antonio Damasio 2000, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions
in the Making of Consciousness, Vintage, London.
29. William James, 1884, ‘What is an Emotion?’, Mind, pp. 188–205.
30. Carl Lange, 1885, ‘One leuds beveegelser’, in K. Dunlap, ed., The
Emotions. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore.
31. Prinz (2004a, 5).
32. James (1890, 424).
33. Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2005, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the
World Through Mindfulness, Piatkus, New York, p. 118.
34. Evans (2001, 105).
35. James (1884, 193).
36. Evans (2001, 104).
37. Ibid., 105.
38. Anālayo (2010, 138).
References
Ajahn Chah. (2001). Being dharma. Boston and London: Shambhala.
Ajahn Sumedho. (2012). Guilt and tendencies towards negativity. Buddhism
Now. https://buddhismnow.com/2012/10/13/guilt-tendencies-negativity-
ajahn-sumedho/.
Aaronson, H. (2004). Buddhist practice on western grounds. Colorado: Shambala.
Blackburn, S. (2004). Lust. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotions in the mak-
ing of consciousness. London: Vintage.
Davidson, R. (2013). The emotional life of your brain. London: Hodder.
Dhammajiva Mahathero. (2008). In this life itself. Mitirigala: Mitirigala Forest
Hermitage Publications.
Engler, J. (2006). Promises and perils of the spiritual path. In M. Unno (Ed.),
Buddhism and psychoanalysis across cultures. Boston: Wisdom.
Epstein, M. (2007). Psychotherapy without the self. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press.
Evans, D. (2001). Emotion: The science of sentiment. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Flanagan, O. (2000). Destructive emotions. In Consciousness and emotions
(pp. 259–281). New York: John Benjamins.
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9(34), 188–205.
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Dover.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to our senses: Healing ourselves and the world
through mindfulness. New York: Piatkus.
Kelly, V., & Thorsborne, M. (2004). The psychology of emotion in restorative prac-
tice. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.
Lama Glendun Rinpoche. (1992). Working with emotions (Anila Rinchen, Trans.
from Tibetan). Carlton North: Dzambala.
Lange, C. (1885). One leuds beveegelser. In K. Dunlap (Ed.), The emotions.
Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.
Nyanaponika Mahathero. (1986). The power of mindfulness. Kandy: Buddhist
Publication Society.
Parks, G. (1990). The transmutation of emotions in Rinzai Zen and Nietzsche.
The Eastern Buddhist, XXIII , 1.
REFERENCES 49

feelings (p. 44). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ricard, M., Lutz, A., & Davidson, R. (2014). Mind of the meditator. Scientific
American, 311(5), 39.
Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1999). The embodied mind: Cognitive sci-
ence and human experience. London: MIT Press.
CHAPTER 4
Pain Management and Somatic Intelligence
Abstract
Traditional sensory neuropsychology that dominated pain
research was influenced by Cartesian Dualism: the brain detects and per-
ceives pathological processes passively and mechanically—they looked
at the body and mind as separate entities. According to this new view,
pain is subjective and physical pain is invariably tied to our emotions.
Pure pain is never detected as an isolated phenomenon as it is always
accompanied by emotion and meaning to each individual. There is a
difference between primary pain and secondary pain as secondary pain
is bound up with physical and emotional responses. Craig Hassad says
that the second layer to physical pain may be described as STRESS.
(i) Stress increases the output of inflammatory chemicals, we have
poured fuel on the inflammatory fire. (ii) Secondly, we may be physi-
cally tensed and stressed, which may add to the muscle spasms that is
presented at the site of pain.
Contemporary research studies on pain behaviour, from a number of

approaches, indicate the richness and complexity of pain and pain behaviour.
That is the approach I am taking in this chapter. As Mark Williams puts it:
The pain cannot be ignored or washed away. But underneath the clang-
ing noise of the pain there is a deep wholeness that cannot be damaged
by illness and disease, a wholeness that can be re-inhabited if, just for a
moment, we could approach willingly, sense precisely and befriend tenderly
the body that seems to be letting us down badly. (Williams 2013, xix)1

52 4 PAIN MANAGEMENT AND SOMATIC INTELLIGENCE
Joanna Bourke’s recent book, The Story of Pain: From Prayers to

Painkillers (Bourke 2014),2 observes that pain is not an objective entity
but rather the way we experience something. A toothache is not the
property of the tooth. She says that she is not denying the importance
of the sensory nature of the pain but emphasizes a point made by the
celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that pain is not a positive
event. She also says that from the moment of birth, infants are initiated
to the culture of pain.
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) offers a
definition that most health professionals use: ‘an unpleasant sensory
and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue
damage’. They add that pain is always subjective. Vidyamala Burch, who
wrote a classic work on pain management, says that she uses the term
in a very broad sense to describe any unpleasant experience that has a
physical dimension. Acute pain is what one experiences in the short term
following an injury. This pain is part of the signalling that one’s system
is under attack—it is the body’s in-built alarm system. Patrick Wall,
summing up the complexity of pain, concludes from his research:
Pain is never detected as an isolated sensation. Pain is always accompanied

by emotion and meaning so that each pain is unique to the individual. The
word ‘pain’ is used to group together a class of sensory-emotional events.
The class contains many different types of pain, each of which is a personal,
unique experience for the person who suffers. (Wall and Melzack 1982, 31)3
The growing complexity of pain has generated a number of alternative

programmes, and mindfulness-based pain management, which is the
subject of this chapter, is one such programme. This chapter, following
the deeper argument of this book, focusses on physical and emotional
pain. New and exciting studies of emotions as related to pain manage-
ment and also emotional imbalance are made possible by what Wallace
(2007)4 describes as the emergence of contemplative science. This gives
an ideal philosophical background to the practical work done by the
great icons of pain management, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Vidyamala Burch and
Risa Kaparo:
With the emergence of cognitive psychology during the 1960s, sub-
jective experience was again allowed back into the realm of scientific
research, but the role of introspection in exploring the mind was still
marginalized, just as it is in the rapidly progressing field of neuroscience.
4 PAIN MANAGEMENT AND SOMATIC INTELLIGENCE 53
Rather than equating mental processes with behavioural dispositions,

cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists now equate them with neural
processes and their functions (Wallace 2007, 55).5 In the field of the phi-
losophy of mind, however, the old framework dominated by behaviour-
ism still existed, and for them as Lyons says, ‘Reference to consciousness
and the interior life was taboo’ (Lyons 2001, 63).6 The inadequacy of
behaviourism is clearly seen in their weak analysis of emotions. Firstly,
it was ‘externalism’ with its close relative, virulent ‘anticentralism’ that
began to reveal the flaws in the behaviourist model of mind. Their tool-
box did not allow them to give sufficient explanation to all aspects of our
mental life. Secondly, their attempt to explain emotions, in terms of ‘dis-
position’, did not account for different emotions like anger, irascibility
and affection. An angry man may pound the table, slam the door or pick
a fight but there are lots of other things an angry man is predisposed to
do, depending on his gender, age, education and social status. Now it
is accepted that different ‘cognitions’ in addition to colouring our emo-
tions also colour our behaviour.
The emergence of cognitive psychology and the new neuroscience
gradually presented an ideal background for the emergence of what Alan
Wallace described as contemplative science (de Silva 2014, Chap. 1).7 Thus,
within these changing perspective towards the emergence of contemplative
science, there was a movement away from the theoretical bases to focus on
practical concerns like pain and trauma management. There is no doubt
that Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was a child of these
changing visions of the art of generating a new science of the study of
consciousness. Writing in 2007, Wallace made the following observation:
James further speculated that the stream of consciousness may be a dif-

ferent type of phenomenon than the brain, one that interacts with the
brain while alive, absorbs and retains the identity, personality, and memo-
ries constitutive in this interaction, and can continue with the brain. While
James is still widely respected among contemporary cognitive scientists, his
view on the origin and nature of consciousness have been largely ignored
or rejected. (Wallace 2007, 13)8
Nevertheless, since Wallace made this observation, during the last

8 years, the Jamesian dream has been greatly realized. As I mentioned
in my last work, ‘Renowned Buddhist scholars have joined the psy-
chologists, cognitive scientists and neurologists in integrating the
methodologies of Buddhism to a specific discipline, which following Alan

Wallace may be described as ‘contemplative science’ (de Silva 2014, 3).9
Philosophical Perspectives on Pain Management

The traditional sensory neurophysiology that dominated pain research
was influenced by Cartesian dualism: the brain detects and perceives
pathological bodily processes passively and mechanically. The body and
mind were seen as separate entities. According to this new view, pain is
subjective and physical pain is invariably tied to our emotions. Pure pain
is never directed as an isolated sensation, as it is always accompanied by
emotion and meaning unique to each individual. There is a difference
between primary pain and secondary pain. Secondary pain is bound up
with physical and emotional responses.
Craig Hassed points out that with the mental and emotional
responses, the second layer to physical pain may be described as STRESS.
(i) Stress increases the output of inflammatory chemicals, we have
poured fuel on the inflammatory fire. (ii) Secondly, we may be physi-
cally tensed and stressed, which may add to the muscle spasm that is pre-
sented at the site of pain. (iii) When we become hypervigilant for the
pain (always looking for it), we sensitize the pain circuits of the brain.
This may be an important reason, why mindfulness is so therapeu-
tic for preoccupation about pain, as it helps to unhook attention from
the preoccupation about the pain and reduces emotional reactivity to it
when noticed. (iv) Stress seems to change the chemical composition of
the nerve endings, making them more liable to fire off pain messages.
It is just due to the unconscious/subliminal way we anticipate, react and
respond to pain. Hassed says that in this context, mindfulness can reverse
the situation (McKenzie and Hassed 2012, 132).10
Perspecti v e for Pain M anagement: Four Foundations

of Mindfulness
Our relationship to emotional pain is a key factor in how much we suffer.

For example, in the latest wave of MBCT there is the understanding that
trying to change our thoughts/thought patterns directly is less effective
than creating a space for our experience—a less resistant, less avoidant
relationship to our thoughts and feelings. This view is expressed in the
MBCT maxim: ‘thoughts are thoughts, not facts’.
PER SPECTI V E FOR PA IN M A NAGEMENT: FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS 55
Thus opening and creating a space is important. The second strand

is acceptance: curiosity, tolerance, willingness and the ability to embrace
pain with friendship, as presented in the acceptance and commitment
therapy. MBCT draws a distinction between pain and suffering. When
we encounter painful content within ourselves, we want to do what we
always do: fix it and sort it out, so that we can get rid of it. One of the
central themes is that instead of experiential avoidance, acceptance is not
a heavy, sad, dark thing—it is an active vital embrace. The third point is
that while endorsing the first two strands, the Buddhist perspective con-
siders positive capacities like attention, compassion and empathy as skills
that can be learned, rather than being a product of good genes and a
fortunate childhood.
Christopher Germer offers an insightful path for befriending painful
feelings through self-compassion (Germer 2009)11:
Loving kindness meditation uses the power of connection whereas

mindfulness meditation primarily uses attention. Both mettā and
mindfulness transforms the way we relate to what’s happening in our
lives – they’re ‘relational’ practices – but mettā focuses on the person
who is suffering – mettā teaches us how to be a better friend to ourselves.
(Germer 2009, 132–133)12
The following three points are at the heart of the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta
(Fourfold Discourse on Mindfulness): (1) the contemplation of the
mind does not involve active measures to oppose unwholesome states
of mind like, anger or lust; the mind has to be receptively aware by
clearly recognizing the state of mind that underlies a particular train
of thought. As the Buddha says, see lust as lust and anger as anger;
(2) This is necessary, as there is a tendency to go against one’s self-impor-
tance; (3) If you are a meditator, there is also a tendency to use decep-
tion (vañcaka-dhamma), which can be of a subtle nature. I shall give two
examples, which may be applied to both mastering meditation and pain
management. We have a number of subliminal tendencies of which the
most important is anger (paṭighānusaya). If, after doing well, one day
you do badly, you may think that you are a failure in general: not only
in concentration. This might also generate some guilt and moral anger
towards your own self which is fed by subliminal anger. If you have an
elevated sense of yourself, subliminal conceit (mānānusaya) may emerge.
Deceptions often emerge in terms of the five hindrances: desire, aversion,
sloth and torpor, restlessness, worry and sceptical doubt. Sloth and tor-
por provide an ideal example, which may be applied to the practice of
mindfulness or pain management (where a person develops a defeatist
kind of mind):
This is not merely the feeling of sleepiness, but rather the deeper pat-
tern or tendency to, of withdrawing from difficulties. This is the habit
of retreating from challenges rather than arousing energy and effort to
engage with them. In these situations, sloth and torpor are like the reverse
gear in a car, never going forward to meet experiences but always pulling
back. (Goldstein 2013, 142)13
Goldstein also says that ‘sloth and torpor can masquerade as compassion
for oneself’ (Goldstein 2013, 143).14 Excessive energy leads to
restlessness and one has to strike a balance.
A fourth point needs to be emphasized. Namely, if we look at
anger/aversion of our pain as a negative emotion to be destroyed, we
lose sight of the fact that an emotion has a hermeneutical role, where
we discern its rise and fall: by discerning its impermanent nature, there
is no need to solidify. Instead of developing what neurologists describe
as reactivity, we convert it into deeper meditative knowledge—the law
of impermanence. Resilience is the skill par excellence that neurologists
admire as different from reactivity.
Thr ee Icons of Pain M a nagement: K a bat-Zinn,

Vidya ma la Burch a nd K a pa ro
Firstly, I have now given a perspective on the emergence of
contemplative science as providing a background to mindfulness-based
treatment for the management of pain. Trauma is the subject of the
next chapter. Secondly, I have illustrated how the techniques developed
in MBCT have authentic roots in the Satipaṭṭhāna. I have also briefly
touched on the theoretical issues regarding the meaning of the concept
of pain.
The distress that pain causes makes people seek escape routes, which
Burch describes as ‘blocking’: When you run away from something you
don’t like, you can feel restless, brittle and driven, as if you can’t stop;
you get caught in addictions as you attempt to block out the pain—alco-
hol, cigarettes, recreational drugs, shopping, chocolate, work, talking,
THR EE ICONS OF PA IN M A NAGEMENT: K A BAT-ZINN, VIDYA M ALA … 57
sleeping and so on. ‘When every time the pain breaks back into your
experience you reach for more … you are spinning in the hamster wheel
of avoidance, anxiety, panic’ (Burch 2008, 44).15 Burch also says that
alternatively one may get drowned and overwhelmed by pain. The feel-
ing of being dominated by pain is ‘a form of resistance’, as you want the
experience to be different. She says that most people with chronic pain
alternate between blocking and drowning.
What is most striking in this analysis according to Burch is that the
wise response to this predicament has been presented by the Buddha
in the celebrated Sallekha Sutta (Kindred sayings, S 36, 6): ‘When an
ordinary person experiences a painful bodily feeling, they worry, agonise
and feel distraught. Then they feel two types of pain, one physical, the
other mental. It’s as if the person was pierced by an arrow, and then
immediately afterwards by a second arrow, and they experience the pain
of two arrows’. Having been touched by painful feeling, they resist and
resent it. They sorrow, grieve, lament, beating their breast and become
distraught. In this context, subliminal anger (paṭighānusaya) is aroused,
and they know no other alternative except sensual pleasure and such
diversions, rousing subliminal lust (rāgānusaya), and thus seek diversions
like cigarettes, alcohol and the like. Even a wise person is subject to
physical pain, as when the Buddha was injured by a bamboo splinter.
Burch emphasizes the inevitability of suffering in the human predicament
and emphasizes the point that mindfulness is the key to breaking the
cycle. Buddhist Sati in the Satipaṭṭhāna and the Roots of Mindfulness as
presented in MBCT and also by Vidyamala Burch both promulgate this
view.
One way of describing mindfulness is living in the present, noticing
what is happening and making choices in how one responds to experi-
ence rather than being driven by habitual reactions. It has four aspects:
(i) mindfulness is intentional as it includes a sense of purpose that enables
us to make choices and act with awareness; (ii) It is experiential, focus-
sing on the present moment, which is awareness based on accurate and
direct perception; (iii) Mindfulness is non-judgmental or non-reactive;
(iv) Mindfulness also includes having an affectionate, open-hearted
attitude towards your own self and others.
Vidyamala Burch has a personal story and approach to pain man-
agement. In my book on Buddhist pyschology, the personal narratives
of Burch, Kaparo and Kabat-Zinn are important as they add an impor-
tant ‘existential facet’ to the personal lives of three great icons of pain
management. Howard Gardner did not include a moral dimension and

an existential dimension to his overall theory. The present work makes
some amends for this deficiency.
Vidyamala Burch suffered from chronic back pain for over 30 years
due to congenital weakness, a car accident, and multiple surgeries.
While I shall present the profile of Kabat-Zinn after completing my
account of the lives and works of both Burch and Kaparo, it is neces-
sary to mention that she was trained by Kabat-Zinn and owes a great
deal to Kabat-Zinn and Mark Williams. Burch is the co-founder of the
Breathworks organization which helps people experiencing chronic
pain, illness and stress, to manage their illness with mindfulness-based
body awareness and to develop a creative and positive attitude to life.
Amanda C. de Williams in writing a foreword to Burch’s book, observes
that people in pain are often described in medical literature in terms of
inactivity, avoidance, caution and withdrawal. She goes on to say that
Burch opened a new universe for them for creative living and peace
(de Williams 2013, 15–18).16
Risa Kaparo has a remarkable story, with a similar perspective. She says
that somatic learning is not something she learnt from books but ‘from
my own body’:
Somatic learning provides a discipline for a new participation in life. It is

a practice for awakening to who we really are by receiving the gift of our
embodiment – not what we mistake for our ‘body’ as ‘object’, but as the
embodiment of our spaciousness in the blooming of life, in the here and
now. (Kaparo 2012, 23)17
She was originally an artist and had received a government commission

to build a fibre-art playground. She imagined that the ground, a fine-
grained sedimentary rock, was easy to drill, was soft and could be
handled with a jackhammer. The rock proved hard and while trying
to use it, the hammer hit her body, causing severe injuries. She was
bedridden. As she gradually recovered she came under the influence of
what may be described as the perennial springs of mysticism, including
Brother Davis who was a blend of Buddhist monk and Benedictine
monk, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and some teachers of yoga.
Prior to the accident, while teaching sculpture to a group of blind
children, she discovered that they had a remarkable sense of the vibra-
tions of the body. This was the paradigmatic experience for accessing
THR EE ICONS OF PA IN M A NAGEMENT: K A BAT-ZINN, VIDYA M ALA … 59
what she called the wisdom of the body–somatic intelligence. It is strange

that while being nourished by the wellspring of deep mysticism, she also
integrated current research in psychology: neuroscience and the neuro-
plasticity thesis, embodied mindfulness, the idea of a sixth sense, and the
concept of interoception into her concept of somatic intelligence.
Kaparo had great innovative power. She also had the ability to ride
through challenging times. Although her book did not show any direct
influence from the philosophical and therapeutic perspectives of Mark
Williams and Jon Kabat-Zinn, she added with great ingenuity her own
programme which received recognition around the world. In contrast,
Risa Kaparo was a genius for understanding the language of the body
and offering an innovative manual for healing pain and awakening the
consciousness and spirit of her clients. It is not often that in the history
of healing therapies, we come across someone who blended insights
drawn from the wellsprings of traditional mysticism and spirituality
with the fundamental findings of contemporary science. She says that
in order to make the process of change ‘less esoteric and knowable …
Understanding fundamental principles as embodied mindfulness, dif-
ferentiation, precensing, proprioception, interoception, neuroplasticity,
learning and habituation cycles will provide a conceptual basis for utiliz-
ing the practices in the book’ (Kaparo 2012, 19).18 In my own work,
especially in Chaps. 2 and 3, I have related the concepts of embodied
emotions, the sixth sense, and interoception in the context of neuro-
science. These insights are facets of what may be described as contem-
plative science. One has to read Kaparo’s work, chapter by chapter,
however, to appreciate her skill in delineating the principles of somatic
learning.
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work is generally associated with that of Mark
Williams. They worked together and assessed the development of mind-
fulness-based therapies. They describe the whole movement as emerg-
ing at ‘the intersection of science and dharma’ (Williams and Kabat-Zinn
2013, 1–17).19 When the movement emerged in 1970 there was only
a dim possibility that ‘Buddhist meditation practices and perspectives
would become integrated into the mainstream of science and medicine
and wider society to the extent that they have at this juncture…’. They
consider this phenomenon as the convergence of science and contempla-
tive disciplines. Kaparo’s work is another version of this convergence.
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s early beginnings lay in the establishment of the Stress

Reduction Clinic. Nine years later he published Full Catastrophe Living
(1990).20 He says that he attempted to get to the essence of Buddhism
as ‘dharma’: basic principles accessible to mainstream Americans facing
stress, pain and illness. But later, he thought that labels of ‘Buddhist’ and
‘New Age’ may be damaging so he explored more neutral territory to
get his message across. When I heard his lecture at Monash University,
Australia, I engaged in a short personal conversation with him and pre-
sented him with a copy of my book on Buddhist psychology. At that
time, I had come to think that this tension between Buddhism and the
New Age had become blurred. He was quite comfortable in reading my
book and sent me a glowing tribute. Whatever nomenclature he uses, his
approach has been a sincere effort to skilfully communicate and apply the
insights of the Buddha at the level of health science and therapy. For me,
working as a therapist and going to a Buddhist retreat involves a differ-
ence but generally in my life the two approaches have converged. This is
the reason that I have written a book on somatic intelligence. Kabat-Zinn
has the freedom to choose the kind of universe he wishes to work in and
can get immersed in it. The following comments from Kabat-Zinn testify
as to what I am attempting to communicate to the reader:
It is my hope that people attracted to this field will come to appreciate

the profound transformative potential of the dharma in its most univer-
sal and skilful articulation through their own meditation training and prac-
tice. Mindfulness can only be understood from the inside out. It is not
one more cognitive behavioural technique to be deployed in a behaviour
change paradigm but a way of being and seeing that has profound implica-
tions for understanding the nature of our own minds and that of others,
and for living a life as if it really mattered. (2013, 284)21
It is what Francisco Varela termed a first person experience (Kabat-Zinn

2013, 284).22 He has re-affirmed 10 years later what he wrote in 2003.
Notes
1. Mark Williams, 2013, Foreword, Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman,
Mindfulness for Health, Piatkus, London, p. xix.
2. Joanna Bourke, 2014, The Story of Pain: From Prayers to Painkillers,
Oxford University Press, Oxford.
R EFER ENCES 61
3. Patrick Wall and Ronald Melzack, 1982, The Challenge of Pain, Penguin,
London, p. 31.
4. B. Alan Wallace, 2007, Contemplative Science, Columbia University Press,
New York.
5. Ibid., 55.
6. William Lyons, 2001, Matters of the Mind, Edinburgh University Press,
Edinburgh, p. 63.
7. de Silva (2014, Chap. 1).
8. Wallace (2007, 13).
9. de Silva (2014, 3).
10. Stephen McKenzie and Craig Hassed, 2012, Mindfulness for Life, Exisle
Publishers, Wollombi, NSW, p. 132.
11. Christopher Germer, 2009, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion,
Guilford Press, London.
12. Germer (2009, 132–133).
13. Joseph Goldstein, 2013, Mindfulness, Sounds True, Boulder, CA, p. 142.
14. Ibid., 143.
15. Vidyamala Burch, 2013/2008, Living Well with Pain and Illness, Piatkus,
London, p. 44.
16. Amanda C. de Williams, 2013, foreword, in Vidyamala Burch, Living
Well with Pain and Illness, pp. 15–18.
17. Kaparo (2012, 23).
18. Ibid., 19.
19.
Mark Williams and Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2013, Mindfulness, Routledge,
London and New York, pp. 1–17.
20. Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1990, Full Catastrophe Living, Dell, New York.
21. Williams and Kabat-Zinn (2013, 284).
22. Ibid.
References
Bourke, J. (2014). The story of pain: From prayers to painkillers. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Burch, V. (2013/2008). Living well with pain and illness. London: Piatkus.
de Williams, A. C. (2013). Foreword. In V. Burch, Living well with pain and ill-
ness (pp. 15–18). London: Piatkus.
Germer, C. (2009). The mindful path to self-compassion. London: Guilford Press.
Goldstein, J. (2013). Mindfulness. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living. New York: Dell.
Kaparo, R. F. (2012). Awakening somatic intelligence: The art and practice of

embodied mindfulness. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Lyons, W. (2001). Matters of the mind. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
McKenzie, S., & Hassed, C. (2012). Mindfulness for life. Wollombi, NSW: Exisle
Publishers.
Wall, P., & Melzack, R. (1982). The challenge of pain. London: Penguin.
Wallace, B. A. (2007). Contemplative science. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Williams, M. (2013). Foreword. In V. Burch & D. Penman, Mindfulness for
health. London: Piatkus.
Williams, M., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013). Mindfulness. London and New York:
Routledge.
CHAPTER 5
Pain and Trauma Management
Abstract  Today, issues pertaining to traumatology have received a great

deal of attention across the world and the United Nations Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC) has been at the centre of useful projects. The
reason for this wide concern is that the category of post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) has widened with large numbers coming under sexual
assault; being held hostage; the impact of natural disasters, refugees in
large numbers, asylum seekers with women and children and victims of
armed conflict. For those interested in the important therapeutic and
research that has been done, there are two important works. The first
is Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild. From the perspectives of
somatic intelligence, Rothschild presents an elegant portrayal in which
the body is a resource: Basic body awareness; making friends with body
sensations; identifying emotions, an area today developed by the ground
breaking research of Antonio Damasio.
Today, issues pertaining to traumatology have received a great deal of

attention across the world, as well as in organizations like the United
Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The reason for this
increased attention is that the category of post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) has widened with increasing numbers coming under the category
of sexual assault; those being held hostage; the impact of natural disasters;
refugees in large numbers, in particular the large proportion of asylum
seekers with women and children; domestic violence; victims of armed

64 5 PAIN AND TRAUMA MANAGEMENT
conflict; and people being thrown out of their homes. One specific exam-
ple with which I am familiarrelates to that of Australian soldiers returning
home from wars in Afghanistan after having experienced the heavy impact
of a traumatic experience that has also brought about in some, a break-
down of their family life. Trauma continues to intrude into their lives
with visual, auditory and other somatic experiences. The PTSD just cited,
is a relatively new diagnostic category, compared to pain management.
The suffering the soldiers go through naturally calls for compassion as
well as organization of well-knit programmes across several countries that
may look to the United Nations (UN) as a unifying agency. The concep-
tual structure of the somatic dimensions of trauma briefly outlined in this
chapter emerged out of a presentation I made to the United Nations Day
of Vesak celebration in Thailand, in 2015 (de Silva 2015).1
Expanding the Field of Traumatology
‘Trauma’, which means ‘wound’ in Greek, is often the result of an

overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope with
or integrate the emotions related to an experience. It is also said that
trauma victims organize their lives around repetitive patterns of reliving
and warding off traumatic memories. Psychologically traumatic experi-
ence generally involves physical trauma.
The philosophical background I am using is the concept of somatic
intelligence, which is the focus of the present book. I shall describe
the central image of the body in trauma and then refer to some of the
mindfulness-based therapies emerging within the realm of trauma man-
agement, a new visitor to a highly complex field.
The best work on the image of the body in trauma is an excellent
study by Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology
of Trauma and Trauma Treatment. The Body Remembers is meant to be a
bridge-building book. The first bridge spans the gap between the theory
developed by scientists, particularly in the area of neurobiology, and the
clinical practice of therapeutic work performed directly with traumatized
individuals and groups. The second bridge aims to connect the tradi-
tional verbal psychotherapies and those of body-oriented psychotherapy
(body psychotherapy) (Rothschild 2000).2
After a systematic review of those cases subject to trauma, it is now
accepted that implicit memory is expressed in the PTSD—nightmares,
flashbacks and dissociative behaviour. In general, it is the body along
EXPANDING THE FIELD OF TRAUMATOLOGY 65
with the brain of the traumatized person that is central to this study.
The treatment attempts to integrate the body and mind. In what follows,
I am not attempting to examine Rothschild’s detailed clinical practice,
but in line with our interest in somatic intelligence, I summarize her
graphic portrayal of seven facets of the body as a resource.
Body awareness implies the precise, subjective consciousness of the
body sensations arising from stimuli that originate both outside and
inside the body. Body awareness from exteroceptors originates from the
five senses while body awareness from interoceptors originates inside the
body (connective tissues, muscles, viscera). The link between body aware-
ness and emotions is important as one of the facets of certain basic emo-
tions is that this involves a combination of body sensations. For instance,
fear involves shallow breathing, elevated heartbeat and cold sweat.
Secondly, it is important to make friends with body sensations.
Sensations tell one when one is tired, alert, satiated, thirsty, and so on.
If a client with PTSD is scared to feel these sensations, communication
with the client is difficult but with training the client will become famil-
iar and acquainted with them. A third crucial feature is the ability of
using body awareness as a basis for identifying emotions. We have already
referred to the findings of the neurologist, Antonio Damasio, who intro-
duced the theory of somatic markers: each emotion has a discrete set of
sensations associated with it, though individual sensations may be found
in several emotions. There is, however, a psychological abnormality
called alexithymia: experienced by clients who cannot identify and name
their emotions. One way of helping the clients would be to focus on
facial expression, posture and tone of voice.
The body can be used as an anchor. Sensing the body in the cur-
rent situation, here and now, without getting lost in past memories
is another tool. It can also be used as a brake to reduce hyperarousal
and panic attacks. Finally, it can be utilized as a kind of diary: the sen-
sory storage and a messaging system. Even normal people can recall
past experiences associated with the body. This resource may be used
for identifying, assessing and resolving traumatic experiences. Very early
in the development of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud’s concept of
‘dynamic trauma’ was first brought to light by the use of hypnotism,
and later by the method of ‘free association’. There can be somatic
memories which are positive and thus a good resource. There are also
incidents in life which generate extreme grief, like the loss of a dear
one, which may be developed into a positive, inspirational, reflective
66 5 PAIN AND TRAUMA MANAGEMENT
and devotional experience. The therapist needs to have such skills and
patches when dealing with PTSD.
Mindfulness Practice for Trauma

During the time that Rothschild wrote on the psychophysiology of
trauma, the use of mindfulness had hardly entered the field of body
therapies. Today, there are several psychotherapeutic orientations using
mindfulness-based interventions. Following the comprehensive study of
mindfulness-based pain management with a special focus on the emo-
tional dimensions of pain in Chap. 4, I present some thematic strands
from a presentation I made at the conference in Thailand: Buddhism and
the World Crisis (de Silva 2015, 366–373).3 As a therapist I have devel-
oped a mindfulness-based, emotion-focussed therapy (EFT) in areas like
anger management and addictions. I have also investigated the research
on pain and emotions (Chap. 4). At the Thailand conference, however,
I explored the emerging work on mindfulness-based trauma manage-
ment. As the conference was sponsored by the United Nations (UN),
I briefly referred to some work on eco-social humanitarian care, pain and
trauma management, and the National Centre for PTSD:
The potential clinical utility of integrating mindfulness-based exercises

in extant PTSD treatment has yet to be made and examined empirically.
However, given the beneficial effects of mindfulness practice on enhancing
emotion regulation as well as decreasing anxiety and depressive symptoms,
mindfulness may serve clinically meaningful functions in alleviating PTSD
symptoms. (PTSD Overview, Internet)
The PTSD overview also refers to the fact that mindfulness practice can
lead to greater present-centred awareness and non-judgmental acceptance
not only of distressing cognitive and emotional states but trauma related
to both external and internal triggers. Also, the mindfulness practice
would help clients with PTSD to deal with experiential avoidance, reduce
arousal and foster emotion regulation. Also, it is claimed that regular
mindfulness practice may decrease physiological arousal.
The most outstanding work on a sensory motor approach to trauma
management, including the use of mindfulness techniques, is expressed
in the book, Trauma and the Body (Ogden et al. 2006).4 Daniel Siegel in
writing a foreword to the work comments:
REFERENCES 67
In Trauma and the Body, Pat Ogden and her colleagues offer us deep
experiential insights that can awaken our minds to the wisdom of the body.
By turning towards the body with mindful awareness of here-and-now
sensory experience, the pathways to integration are opened and healing
becomes possible. This receptive awareness involves an accepting, lov-
ing, non-judgmental attention that may be the essence of how the mind
can move from chaos and rigidity in non-integrated states to the coher-
ent functioning that emerges with integration. Mindful awareness of the
body enables the individual to move directly into previously warded-off
states of activation, which left the body out of the experience of mental life
following acute or chronic traumatisation. (Siegel 2007, xv)5
Siegel also says:
Focusing on the body for the achievement of mental wellbeing is an

approach spanning thousands of years. Somehow, in modern times, we
have forgotten the hard-earned wisdom of the ancient traditions. Modern
neural science clearly points to the central role of the body in the creation
of emotion and meaning. (2007, xv)6
Notes
1. Padmasiri de Silva, 2015, ‘New Dimensions for Humanitarian Care:
A Project on Mindfulness-Based Pain Management Education’, in
Buddhism and World Crisis, 12th United Nations Day of Vesak Conference,
Bangkok, 2015, Proceedings.
2. Babette Rothschild, 2000, The Body Remembers, Norton, London.
3. de Silva (2015, 366–373).
4. Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton and Clare Pain, 2006, Trauma and the Body,
Norton, London.
5. Siegel (2007, xv).
6. Ibid.
References
de Silva, P. (2015). New dimensions for Humanitarian care: A project on mind-
fulness-based pain management education. In Proceedings of Buddhism and
World Crisis, 12th United Nations Day of Vesak Conference, Bangkok.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Clare, P. (2006). Trauma and the body. London: Norton.
Rothschild, B. (2000). The body remembers. London: Norton.
CHAPTER 6
Emotion Studies: Darwin, James and Freud
Abstract  It was Ekman (Emotions revealed, St. Martin’s Press, New

York, 2007) who re-discovered the work of Darwin as a contribution to
emotion studies. He expanded the area of research to produce a facial
coding system of emotions and was engaged in a historic dialogue with
The Dalai Lama on Buddhist pathways for managing negative emotions.
Darwin’s classic work, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals,
has remained one of the classics of all time and the legacy was received
by William James who inherited a strong Darwinian flavour in his rev-
olutionary analysis of emotions. Darwin’s thesis on emotions was the
product of an evolutionary perspective, and the book was on animal
behaviour. Sigmund Freud’s contribution, in contrast, is described as an
ideogenic revolution as different from a somatic perspective.
This chapter is a central chapter of the present book, as it presents two

theoretical perspectives—one with a somatogenic perspective, that of
Darwin and James—and an alternative theory with an ideogenic per-
spective, that of Freud. They stand out as contrasting perspectives in the
history of emotion studies. In addition, this chapter will add a sense of
balance to this book as a whole.

70 6 EMOTION STUDIES: DARWIN, JAMES AND FREUD
Charles Darwin’s Contribution to Our Understanding

of Emotional Expression
In a celebrated dialogue between The Dalai Lama and the expert on

Darwinian studies on emotions, Paul Ekman, The Dalai Lama makes
the following observation: ‘Scientists are now beginning to look out-
side Western thinking to see what they can learn and study scientifically
that might be relevant. A growing number of scientists are interested
in what we can learn from Buddhist thinking on this.’ (Dalai Lama and
Ekman 2008, 5).1 This chapter as a whole relates Buddhist thought to
Darwin, James and Freud, especially in emotion studies and mindfulness
approaches.
Charles Darwin’s, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,
was published in 1872, but released and re-issued more recently.2 It was
not until more than one hundred years had passed after Darwin’s seminal
work, that systematically studied autonomic changes in the basic emo-
tions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise (Ekman 2008).3
In very recent times, Antonio Damasio has presented the main brain
structures that underlie emotional states associated with bodily change
(Damasio 2000).4 I am greatly indebted to Prinz (2004a), for his insight
into this remarkable somatic heritage descending from Darwin and
James, and more recently, Damasio.
Darwin treated emotions as separate discrete entities or modules: as
anger, fear, disgust, etc. Today, contemporary neuroscience and cross-
cultural emotion studies illustrate the value of Darwin’s work on emo-
tions. In fact, many years ago, Jerry Boucher, a student of Ekman,
invited me to join a cross-cultural study group coordinated by the
Culture Learning Institute of the East-West Centre in Hawaii. This
group was involved in collecting emotion words and emotion stories,
and looking for emotion antecedents. This project, which lasted 2 years,
provided valuable training. Since then, studying emotions has become
my hobby, and I have published a list of ‘emotion clusters’ for Sri Lanka.
Ekman’s book, Emotions Revealed (Ekman 2007),5 indicates his mas-
tery of the subject. Furthermore, the book outlines new creative work
on the emotions and lying (the distinction between spontaneous emo-
tions and false emotions). His focus was primarily on the face though he
did give some attention to vocalization, tears and posture. To date, facial
expression has been found to be the richest source of information about
emotions.
CULTURE-SPECIFIC EMOTIONS 71
Darwin used photographs and engravings, taking for granted that he

could obtain the much needed information when the emotion was dis-
played. According to Ekman, facial expression begins and then reaches
an apex of the maximum muscular contraction that is going to occur.
This muscular contraction is held for a few seconds with little variation
during the apex. Any time slice within that apex carries information
about which emotion is signalled—these are snapshot expressions that
are different from aggregate signals—which incorporate a sequence of
expressions. The extent of the muscular contraction provides information
about the intensity of the emotion signalled. Another important point
about what are called the basic emotions is that the facial expressions
of these emotions are universal/pan-cultural. Basic emotions include
sadness, happiness, anger, fear, wonder and disgust. Emotions are also
depicted in the life of animals. Darwin has a comprehensive coverage of
emotions in animals, who have the same biological heritage as humans.
Emotions like, guilt, shame, pride, jealousy and envy have different cog-
nitive and social strands and are sometimes described as higher cognitive
emotions. In the light of a distinction we are making in this book, these
emotions are of a more ideogenic strand as opposed to a somatogenic
strand as seen in anger and fear in Darwin.
Culture-Specific Emotions
In our East-West Centre projects, we also explored culture-specific
emotions. I have published my Sri Lankan emotion taxonomy, collected
in Sinhalese: happiness, greed, affection/kindness, anger, sadness, fear,
disgust, desolation, excitement, surprise, pride, sensuality, serenity and
shame (de Silva 1989, 34–40).6 Over the years, the experience of ‘guilt’
has emerged, though it was difficult to find a word for guilt. The emo-
tion stories, which were gathered within a project on attempted suicide,
indicated ‘shame’ as a typical Sri Lankan emotion in the villages. There
was a rich anger-related taxonomy of ten words. There were also cer-
tain linguistic blockages: íssā is a Pali word covering both jealousy and
envy and the Sinhala word was close to this usage. It was only in the
Abhidhammic vocabulary that I found the word ‘macchariya’ for envy,
which is hardly used at all in ordinary conversation. Usage in English has
also not found a clearcut distinction: ‘Both the O.E.D. and Webster’s
definitions are inattentive to the crucial distinction between envy and
jealousy’ (Epstein 2003).7 Linguistic curiosity regarding the words for
jealousy and envy in Sinhalese is one of the factors that motivated me to

explore this concern, though in the present book, I have not gone deeply
into this subject.
In terms of the history of a species, particular movements signal par-
ticular emotions. In dogs, the raised upper lip indicates the expression of
anger. Darwin described this feature as due to it having been a servicea-
ble habit: the exposed canine teeth threaten to harm and attack. Stripped
of its Lamarkian baggage, this explanation is consistent with contempo-
rary ecological accounts of how signals evolved from intentions to move-
ments, thus providing the foundation for current formulations of how
signals become ritualized or formalized. In the principle of antithesis, a
signal has a certain form as it is the opposite of another signal. For exam-
ple, a dog puffs itself up in a potentially antagonistic manner to appear
larger—the principle of serviceable habits. However, the antithesis is the
submissive sinking and lowering of the body.
Darwin’s thesis about emotions was the product of an evolutionary
perspective. He turned to the biology of emotions. He also drew from
the physiology of emotions—in his time much was known about the
anatomy of facial expressions. He focussed on the musculature—the
anatomy of each expression and displayed photographs of facial expres-
sions to observers and noted how they identified the expression.
While Darwin did not find a method for measuring facial expressions,
this has been the great mission of Ekman. Best-selling author, Malcolm
Gladwell, who interviewed Ekman and has himself written on emo-
tions and the face and wrote the blurb for the new edition of Ekman’s
book, says: ‘You’ll never look at other people in quite the same way
again. Emotions Revealed is a tour de force’.8 Gladwell in his book, Blink
(2005),9 describes the work of Ekman and Frierson to create a taxonomy
of facial expressions:
They combed through medical textbooks that outlined the facial muscles,
and they identified every distinct muscular movement that the face could
make. There were forty-three such movements. Ekman and Frierson called
them action units. Then they sat across from each other, for days on end, and
began manipulating each action unit in turn, first locating the muscle in their
minds and then concentrating on isolating it, watching each other closely as
they did, checking their movements in a mirror, making notes on how the
wrinkle patterns on their faces would change with each muscle movement,
and videotaping the movement for their records. (Gladwell 2005, 201)10
WILLIAM JAMES AND THE SOMATIC THEORY OF EMOTIONS 73
Later, they assembled all these combinations and produced the ‘Facial
Action Coding System’.
The Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman on Managing

Afflictive Emotions
Ekman started off the dialogue by first describing the nature of
emotions:
There is a signal, an automatic and a very quick appraisal of what is hap-

pening that gives rise to the impulse to become an emotion; one has to
develop a skill to get consciousness involved. Another feature of an emo-
tion is that it is a set of sensations. Ekman says that he has developed an
exercise for conscious awareness of the process of becoming emotional,
which is to be used in addition to meditation. Ekman’s methods comple-
ment Buddhist meditation techniques, as there is a similar framework: ‘The
notion that there is a part of us that can monitor, that can watch what we
are experiencing, is very important. It is in the nature of emotions to keep
consciousness out’. (Dalai Lama and Ekman 2008, 39)11
There are certain obstacles to constructive emotional experience: our

ignorance of the real emotion triggers; the gap between the spark and
the flame; individual differences of how each experiences the same emo-
tion. Ekman lists nine paths for managing emotions, by bringing them
within our consciousness. The most common is through the automatic
appraisers. In reflective appraising, where we consciously consider what is
occurring, we become conscious of our automatic appraisal mechanisms.
There is memory of past emotional experience. We also manage emotion
through imagination, through talking about a past experience, through
having empathy for how others experienced an afflictive emotion and
talking with others, through others instructing us what to be emotional
about: through violation of social norms, and through voluntarily assum-
ing the appearance of an emotion (Ekman 2007, 37).12
William James and the Somatic Theory of Emotions

James’s indebtedness to Darwin is seen in his reference to Darwin’s
listing of the emotions of fear and hatred. Darwin describes hatred as
follows:
‘Withdrawal of the head backwards, withdrawal of the trunk; projection

forwards of the hands, as if to defend oneself against the hated object;
contraction or closure of the eyes; elevation of the upper lip and clo-
sure of the nose – these are all elementary movements of turning away.
Next, threatening movements, as: intense frowning; eyes wide open;
display of teeth, grinding teeth and contracting jaws; open mouth with
tongue advanced; clenched fists; threatening action of arms; stamping
with feet. …’.13
Darwin writes thus on fear: ‘Widely opened eyes and mouth, raised eye-
brows, dilated nostrils, stiff posture, motionless, a racing heart, increased
blood supply to the body, pallor of the skin, cold perspiration, pilocre-
tion, shivering and trembling, hurried breathing, dry mouth, faltering
voice, fists that are alternatively clenched and opened. …’.14
Although there may be controversies and debates regarding James’s
theory of emotions (James 1884),15 critics agree that James as well as
Lange (1885),16 who had a very similar theory broadly emphasized the
importance of the physiological dimensions of emotions. James says,
‘our feeling of the same (bodily) changes as they occur is the emo-
tion’ (James 1884, 190).17 Jesse Prinz, in introducing this theory,
describes it as the somatic feeling theory of emotions (Prinz 2004a,
5).18 Various arguments have been offered by James. One of them is
the subtraction argument. ‘If we fancy some strong emotion, and then
try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its char-
acteristic bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no
“mind-stuff” out of which the emotions can be constituted and that
cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains’
(1884, 193).19 Then there is the appeal to parsimony. We do not have
to postulate another faculty to explain and know that the mind can
register bodily changes. If emotions are constituted by such mental
states, we do not need to use another faculty to explain the emergence
of emotions.
Voluntary changes of bodily states can have an impact on emotions.
Paul Ekman had a similar argument with more refined use of experi-
ments. ‘Generating emotional experience, changing your physiology
by deliberately assuming the appearance of an emotion’ may occur,
though that is not the way we usually express emotions (Ekman 2007,
37).20 Lang referred to linguistic evidence, metaphors like shuddering,
heartache, feeling hot/cold, choked up. Some psychiatric patients have
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF JAMES 75
experienced emotions without an identifiable cognitive factor. Fear of

spiders, knowing that they are harmless is a good example of the emo-
tional inertia hypothesis, as we do get brute emotions without an intel-
ligible wellspring in belief (de Silva 2014, 57).21
Critical Evaluation of James

First, I cite a number of criticisms that have been presented and then
make a short evaluation from the perspective of the application of
Buddhist mindfulness practice. Gerald Myers, who has written an excel-
lent work on the life and work of William James, says: ‘If James had
worked out more clearly the link between an emotion and feeling, he
might have avoided the unfortunate conclusion not only in the elabora-
tion of the James-Lang theory, but in this very formulation of it’ (Myers
1987, 240).22 A significant point raised by Bennett and Hacker23 is the
distinction between emotion as an episodic emotional perturbation and
a long-standing emotional attitude or disposition. A person’s judgement
may be coloured not only by the distress and agitation of the moment
but also by long-standing resentments and jealousies and motivational
patterns as over time these are also important. In addition, Buddhism
also recognises subliminal dispositions (anusaya) of lust, anger and con-
ceit, a concept that emerged with Freudian motivational theory (de Silva
2010, xxxi–xxxiv).24 In fact, these subliminal proclivities are like sleep-
ing passions, that may be woken through certain triggers and invade us
in a quick impulsive manner. To expand on an example from LeDoux
(1996)25 writing on the emotion of fear: ‘let us imagine the case of a
man walking on a forest track trampling on dry twigs and [who] is sub-
ject to the fight or flight response, where he is about to run, thinking
that it is a rattlesnake’. LeDoux says, in this context, the central nervous
system has been hijacked by the amygdala and so impulsive action fol-
lows. The link between particular emotions and specific bodily feelings is
a complex concept which James did not examine in detail.
In another chapter, I have already discussed the importance of inten-
tionality and agency. Robert C. Solomon considers the link between will
and emotions important. It is a bit strange that though James did not
focus on emotions and will, in another context he says, ‘The faculty of
bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root
of judgment, character and will’ (1884, 424)26—a passage which has
been quoted with great admiration by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the context of
mindfulness practice. Maybe James’s philosophy has a complexity of its

own. The neglect of the cognitive dimension of emotions has been a fre-
quent criticism. There also appears to be an illicit logic from the position
‘the emotional quality of an emotion is caused by physiology’, to ‘our
emotions are caused by the bodily symptoms of emotions’.
In recent times, Dylan Evans in a very insightful analysis of James’s
discussion of emotions has observed:
James was pointing to the fact that the relationship between mind and
body is not just one way. ‘There is a feedback mechanism by which the
body can affect the mind just as much as the mind can affect the body. As
with any feedback loop, this allows for amplification.’ James described the
body as the mind’s ‘sounding board’ allowing the emotional signals to res-
onate much as the sound box of a guitar amplifies the sound of the strings.
This is what explains our capacity for ‘working ourselves up’27 into a florid
emotional state which James described with his customary eloquence:
Everyone knows how panic is influenced by flight, and how giving way to
the symptoms of grief increase those passions themselves. Each fit of sob-
bing makes the sorrow acute, and calls for another fit stronger still, until at
last repose ensues only with lassitude and with apparent exhaustion of the
machinery.28
What is interesting, as Evans observes, is that the feedback mecha-

nism allows us to exercise some control over our emotions by deliber-
ately making some automatic changes and consciously making others. As
Dylan Evans observes, the distinction between muscles that are and are
not under our voluntary control is not a hard and fast one, but people
can be trained to have some measure of control over automatic nerv-
ous system functions that are normally involuntary. ‘In meditation and
relaxation the calming effects are achieved by means of feedback from
the body; the rhythmic breathing and relaxed state of the muscles are
interpreted by the brain as conducive to a calm state of the mind’ (Evans
2001, 104).29
Sigmund Fr eud a nd the Ideogenic R evolution

John Deigh who has written the first chapter to an anthology deal-
ing with contemporary philosophers on emotions (2004, 9–27)30
observes:
SIGMUND FR EUD A ND THE IDEOGENIC R EVOLUTION 77
James’s ideas are the source of the view that one can fruitfully study
emotions by studying the neurophysiological processes that occur with
experience of them. Of course James did not identify emotions with these
neurophysiological processes. He identified them with feelings. (Deigh
2004, 25)31
Freud’s ideas are the source of the view that emotions transmit meaning
or purpose to the feelings and behaviour that manifests them. Though
Freud often described emotions as flows of nervous energy, his view of
them as transmitters of meaning or purpose was nonetheless implicit in
his notion of an unconscious emotion and the way he used to make sense
of feelings and behaviour and physical maladies that otherwise seemed
inexplicable. Widespread acceptance of his explanation has thus led to
studying emotions for the way they render feelings, behaviour, and bod-
ily conditions as meaningful products of the mind (Deigh 2004, 25).32
Deigh thus explains that the cognitivist and intentional theories of
emotions are close to Freud. But a more interesting distinction is that
between the broader meaning of somatogenic/somatic, body-based
theory to which James certainly contributed, and the fully blown body-
based theory of Jesse Prinz. This perspective stands in an interesting
contrast to what may be described as the ideogenic theory of Freud:
‘Hysterics behave as if anatomy does not exist’ (Freud).33
Initially, Freud was working with the brain as a neurosurgeon and dis-
secting frogs searching for a neurological explanation for mental health
issues. Being disappointed with this mission, he went to France to work
with Charcot and Joseph Breuer who were experts in the use of hypno-
tism. The work, Studies in Hysteria (Freud and Breuer 1953),34 written
with Joseph Breuer, heralded a new era for Freud. Their psychologi-
cal character of post-hypnotic suggestions played a key role in tracing
repressed ideas in the unconscious. The case study of Anna where the
patient could not move her arm, but did not have any physical defect,
is a case where through post-hypnotic treatment, the patient was able
to recover. After Anna’s recovery Freud made the classic statement that
hysterics behave as if anatomy did not exist. Later, Freud developed a
new method of his own. It was described as ‘The Method of Free
Association’, where unlike in hypnotism, the client was able to gain
insight into his/her problems. Then, Freud explored the unconscious in
the normal mind and wrote about it in works such as The Psychopathology
of Everyday Life (S.E., vol. 6), and Dream Interpretation (S.E., vol. 4).
Alasdair MacIntyre sums up the extent of Freud’s ideogenic revolution:
Freud’s is not an explanation simply of the abnormal but also of the nor-
mal and exceptional. The scope in principle of Freudian explanation is all
human behaviour; had it been less than this Freud would have been unable
to draw the famous comparison between the effect of his own work and
that of Copernicus. It is not surprising therefore that happenings as normal
as dreams, slips of the tongue and jokes should receive attention along with
melancholia, obsessive habits, and excessive anxiety. (MacIntyre 1958, 25)35
Buddhist Mindfulness and Fr eud’s Psychoa nalysis

Mark Epstein says that in popular imagination, Freud’s work is associ-
ated with the buried traumatic unconscious, but Epstein says that
Freud’s work went through a number of phases or strands ranging from
the deeply buried unconscious to the ever-present subliminal levels:
(i) the first is the cathartic view, when he used hypnotism for re-enact-
ing and re-living traumatic incidents; (ii) the second was when he gave
up hypnotism and used the method of ‘free-association’ to recall mem-
ories without inhibition; (iii) the third is the stage where Freud moves
from the forgotten past to the immediate present.36 Epstein says that
many interpreters have missed the third stage embodied in the paper,
‘Remembering, Repeating and Working Through’ (Freud 1958).37 This
insight of Epstein was so important that I changed the description of the
Buddhist concept, to subliminal rather than the unconscious. And, the
Pāli term is anusaya. I have also changed the archaeological metaphor of
digging into the unconscious, to opening out:
Yet in Buddhism – and even in more recent psychoanalytical schools, we

have a new perspective, one that is less about digging and more about
opening. At the root of this difference lies an alternative view of the
unconscious. (Epstein 2007, 5)38
Freud on Three Ideogenic Passions: Jealousy, Anxiety

and Melancholy
If I imagine that an object beloved by me is united to another person by

the same or closer bond of friendship than that by which I myself alone
held the object, I shall be affected with hatred toward the beloved object
itself, and shall envy that other person. (Spinoza 1963, xxxv)39
FR EUD ON THR EE IDEOGENIC PASSIONS: JEA LOUSY, A NXIETY … 79
Jerome Neu, in referring to these insightful passages on jealousy (1980,

425–463),40 refers to the fact that its internal complexity of the emotion
is instructive and also that the conceptual surroundings are rich, with a
wealth of discriminations such as envy, resentment, begrudging, malice,
spite ill-will, hatred, ingratitude, revenge, hostility and so on. The article
by Jerome Neu, ‘Jealous Thoughts’, and by Leila Tov-Ruach, ‘Jealousy,
Attention and Loss’, in the anthology, Explaining Emotions (Tov-Ruach
1980),41 are two fascinating studies. I shall select only the central points
for discussion, leaving interested readers to probe the subject further.
Attempting a short review of Neu first: the presence and persistence of
jealousy have more to do with self-identity than with the possession of
others; and while underlying fears may move us into even pathological
forms of jealousy, it is important to note that jealousy may be on many
occasions tied to genuine love; the same difficulties do not emerge with
for instance social reformers who wish to deal with envy; and we also
make a distinction between healthy/emulative envy and selfish envy,
which often borders on avarice.
For Tov-Ruach, jealousy is an emotion that has perceived danger to
the self at its centre, generating varieties of defence, as some jealousies
are attended by depression/withdrawal, some by anger and still others by
intensification of the original attachment or frenzied competitive behav-
iour. All the varieties of jealousy depend on a contextually determined
state of the ego.
In summary, the essential points about jealousy as found in Freud and
discussed by philosophers like Spinoza, Neu and Ruach are as follows:
1. One’s position as a favoured individual is threatened.

2. Jealousy may be understood in terms of ‘possessive behaviour’.
3. Jealousy may be understood as a crisis in personal identity, as a
wound to self-esteem and self-love.
4. Self-love as contained in Freud’s celebrated paper on narcissism
which I have discussed elsewhere (de Silva 2010)42 as having the
flavour of Buddhist insights, sheds light on the links between jeal-
ousy and romantic love. To be loved is the aim and satisfaction of a
narcissistic object-choice:
In the face of disappointment, the innate sense of narcissism suffers set-

backs. Thus with a sense of ego injury the pride of a person manifests in
the form of secondary narcissism. Primary narcissism is the original libidinal
ego-cathexis, part of which normally persists, while the rest gets transferred
into objects…. Freud defines secondary narcissism as that which arises
when the libidinal-cathexis is withdrawn. (de Silva 2010, 117)43
The next great pivotal shift in Freud was the ‘ego as the seat of anxiety’,
which I shall address later.
Jealousy is typically over what one possesses and fears to lose, while envy
may be over something one has never possessed, and may never hope to
possess. Going further with this, the focus of envy is typically the other
person, rather than the particular thing or quality one is envious over….
In jealousy there is always a rival, believed or imagined but, who may not
know the focus of concern is the valued object. (Tov-Ruach 1980, 433)44
What is special about it is fear, fear of loss connected with what is special
about people. But the immediate focus of envy isn’t oneself. Who is it in
fact who suffers but another person or other people, who may not know
that they are envied and have no hope of getting anything at all. It is a
self-defeating emotion as there is a radical diminution of self-esteem.
Helmut Schoeck became a useful ally for advertisers when he said
that envy is good for advertisers as it involves a competitive stance but
also some malevolence. Thus it has a double edge, damaging to one-
self and malicious to the other person. That is why it illuminates a dif-
ferent logic in jealousy. Like shame and guilt it involves a negative self,
but unlike these emotions, envy ‘lacks the dignity of a moral sense’.45
Maybe the rich man is satisfied with what he has rather than the envi-
ous man. Regarding spite and envy, Solomon says, that although envy
is self-destructive, it is not intentionally so, unlike spite, which is mali-
cious envy that reflects on the annihilation of the object. Solomon feels
that jealousy has something more than sexual intimacy but profound atti-
tudes like respect, concern and intimacy. That is where jealousy generates
a profound kind of suffering, deeper than any form of envy. However,
jealousy in a romantic tangle generates issues of self-esteem as both Neu
and Ruach emphasize.
Buddhist Perspectives on Envy and Jealousy
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is said that the multifaceted emo-

tions may be reduced to five: hatred, desire, confusion, pride and jeal-
ousy. In this context, jealousy is described as an ‘inability to rejoice in the
IDENTITY ISSUES IN BUDDHISM 81
happiness of other’. This definition comes close to the emotion of envy.

In the early Buddhist tradition, selfishness/envy in Buddhism is associ-
ated with the Pali word macchariya means wishing that the other person
not prosper. Stinginess is just attachment to money and property and is
merely lobha (greed), but envy does not want another person or even
group of persons to have wealth, houses, money and fame, rich relatives;
to having a reputation as a donor to the temple. It extends even to envy
of those with learning and beauty. In Buddhist parlance, the term issā is
often used to cover both jealousy and envy but there is an important dif-
ference. The subject of envy has been described as ‘malice that cannot
speak’ but paradoxically it speaks volumes.
Buddhist analysis of jealousy falls in line with Freud and interpreta-
tions of Neu and Ruach, and is similar to the clear analysis of Ernest
Jones, who wrote Freud’s biography: three elements make up jealousy–
fear at the thought of losing the loved one, hatred of the rival, and the
wound to self-esteem (narcissism). The latter point indicates also dimin-
ished self-worth. Spinoza adds the mechanism of ambivalence which is
also a Freudian concept; the vacillation between love and hatred directed
to the beloved; and also the sadness of losing the beloved. In the
Buddhist analysis, it is an ‘emotion blend’ of fear, anger, love, ambiva-
lence, sadness, prestige and humiliation and self-love (narcissism). Issā is
considered as a defilement of the mind (upakkilesa) and a form of entan-
glement/clinging (upādāna).
Identity Issues in Buddhism
It is of great interest that Freud gradually came to recognize that the ego
is the actual seat of anxiety. As a result, his work on narcissism acquired
a new meaning for him, and the probing of the emotions of anxiety and
jealousy gave him dimensions of the applied value of narcissism in cer-
tain emotion tangles. Freud’s beautiful paper ‘Narcissism’ has been one
of the rich possessions I have had since I made a comparative study of
Buddhist and Freudian psychology (de Silva 2010).46 But, as I have
discussed in detail elsewhere (2010, 130),47 Freud was baffled by the
theatre of the death instinct:
So immense is the ego’s self-love which we have come to recognise as the

primal state from which instinctual life proceeds and so vast is the amount
of narcissistic libido which we see liberated in the fear that emerges as a
threat to life, that we cannot conceive how the ego can consent to its own
destruction. (Freud and Breuer 1953)48
According to Jacobson, when we probe ‘Identity Problems in Buddhist

Perspective’ at a deeper level, we see the indeterminacy, ambiguity and
formlessness at the centre of our lives, and the unending battles with our
ego and injured conceits (secondary narcissism): ‘the basic indeterminacy
of the human creature, the ambiguity and the formlessness at the center
of their lives, and their tendency to fix their identity upon some cluster of
transient identifications with which they become involved in learning to
live in a particular time and place’ (Jacobson 1966, 61).49 Jacobson con-
cludes: ‘That the Buddha’s brilliant and unique grasp of this predicament
is found in his teachings of anatta (egolessness)’ Jacobson (1966, 61).50
Of course, there is sufficient space to develop a Buddhist lifestyle steered
along a razor’s edge through the pitfalls of eternalism (sassata-diṭṭhi) or
the shifting sands of nihilism (uccheda-diṭṭhi).
Fr eud on the R iddle of A nxiety

Freud says: ‘The ego is the actual seat of anxiety’. We have looked at the
role of the ego and narcissism in jealousy, but as some therapists observe,
the riddle is that the relationship between the self and the object breaks
down in anxiety, and it is the basic ambiguity between the self and the
world relationship that makes something like ‘objectless anxiety’ puz-
zling. Freud’s own views regarding anxiety underwent change. First, he
considered anxiety as the re-emergence of repressed libidinal wishes, but
he gradually shifted to the role of the ego in anxiety:
We thus find ourselves convinced that the problem of anxiety occupies a

place in the question of the psychology of neurosis which may rightly be
described as central. We have received a strong impression of the way in
which the generation of anxiety is limited to the vicissitudes of the libido
and the symptoms of the unconscious. There is a single point that we have
found disconnected a gap in our views: the single but yet undisputed fact
that realistic anxiety must be regarded as a manifestation of the ego’s self-
preservative instinct. (S.E., vol. XVI, 411)51
Gradually, Freud came to realize that the ego is the actual seat of anx-
iety and that the concept of anxiety is a nodal point where important
MOUR NING A ND MELANCHOLIA 83
questions converge. A good example is mourning. Freud was concerned

with anxiety, pain and mourning, which is the subject of the next section.
Freud’s paper on mourning and melancholia is both psychologically and
philosophically as fascinating as his celebrated paper on narcissism.
Mour ning a nd Melancholia
On mourning and melancholia Freud says the following
Although grief involves grave departures from the normal attitude to

life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a morbid condition and hand the
mourner over to medical treatment. We rest assured that after a lapse of
time it will be overcome, and we regard any interference with it as inadvis-
able and even harmful. (1957, 164–165)52
This point is taken up by Horowitz and Wakefield who say:
Sadness is an inherent part of the human condition, not a mental disor-

der. Thus to confront psychiatry’s invalid definition of a depressive disor-
der is also to consider a painful but an important part of our humanity that
we have tended to shunt outside in the modern medicalization of human
problems. As science allows us to gain more control over our emotional
states, we will inevitably confront the question whether normal intense
sadness has any redeeming features or should be banished from our lives.
Such a momentous scientific and moral issue should not be spuriously
resolved by using a semantic confusion in the DSM that mistakenly places
states of intense sadness under the medical category of disorder. We can
only adequately confront the complex and important concerns involved if
we clearly differentiate normal sadness from mental disorder. (Horowitz
and Wakefield 2007, 225)53
Freud, in examining the nature of grief in his reflections on mourning

differentiates it clearly from melancholia and clearly rejects the idea that
sadness is a medical disorder. Though at times, Freud sees melancholia
as an experience common to all humanity, he agrees with Horowitz and
Wakefield that sadness is an inherent part of the human condition and
not a mental disorder. While one strand of ‘melancholia’ is depression,
there is another strand contained in Burton’s celebrated work Anatomy
of Melancholy (Burton 1927, 277)54: which is of ‘deep reach, excellent
apprehension, judicious, witty and wise’. In a sense, commentators have
observed two faces of depression, one as a clinical disorder, and the other
as a discourse to be understood rather than as a pathology to be cor-
rected. Michael Ignatieff calls this ‘a lost paradigm’ (Ignatieff 1987,
939–940).55 The existential therapy of Irwin D. Yalom absorbs this
perspective to therapy. He integrates the voices of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,
Kafka and Camus. Thus, apart from his solid contribution to understand-
ing sadness, Freud’s thinking on melancholy stands at the crossroads of
a rich imagination. His understanding of sadness is a solid contribution.
Lewis Wolpert also says that when sadness is mishandled, it becomes
malignant sadness and opens the door to severe depression (Wolpert
1999).56 Psychiatrist, Maurice Drury, makes the following com-
ments, drawing attention to the parallel lines of thinking in Freud and
Buddhism on sadness:
Freud showed real profundity when he stated that the aim of psychoa-
nalysis was to replace neurotic unhappiness by normal unhappiness. A
psychiatry based on a purely hedonistic ethics, a psychiatry that does not
recognise that periods of anxiety and periods of melancholy are a necessary
part of human life, such a psychiatry will be more than a superficial affair.
(Drury 1973, 22)57
The Buddha was also attempting to replace neurotic unhappiness by nor-

mal unhappiness (dukkhā) and echoes Freud, for instance when Freud
said that he was ‘transforming hysterical misery into common unhappi-
ness’.58
At the time of the Buddha, there was no clinical concept of abnormal-
ity but he saw that a whole culture may be driven by craving, addictions
and psychologically harmful forms of self-indulgence. I have discussed
Freud’s views on sadness and depression in detail elsewhere (de Silva
2014).59 Just as Darwin and James present the classic somatogenic view
of emotions, Freud is the best and the most fertile thinker for an ideo-
genic theory of emotions. We get a better grasp of somatic intelligence
by understanding the opposite, the ideogenic perspective.
Notes
1. Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, 2008, Emotional Awareness, Times Books,
New York, p. 5.
2. Charles Darwin, 2015, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals, Harper Collins, London (Darwin 2015).
NOTES 85
3. Paul Ekman, 2007, Emotions Revealed, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
4. Antonio Damasio, 2000, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion
in the Making of Consciousness, Vintage, London.
5. Ekman (2007).
6. Padmasiri de Silva, 1989, ‘Logic of Attempted Suicide and Its Linkage
with Human Emotions’, in Padmasiri de Silva, ed., Suicide in Sri Lanka,
Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy, 189, pp. 25–33.
7. Joseph Epstein, 2003, Envy: The Seven Deadly Sins, Oxford University
Press, New York, p. 3.
8. Ekman (2007).
9. Malcom Gladwell, 2005, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,
Penguin, London.
10. Gladwell (2005, 201).
11. Dalai Lama and Ekman (2008, 39).
12. Ekman (2007, 37).
13. Darwin, quoted in James (1884, vol. 2, 447).
14. Ibid, 446.
15. James (1884).
16. Lange 1885).
17. James (1884, 190).
18. Prinz (2004a, 5).
19. James (1884, 193).
20. Ekman (2007, 37).
21. de Silva (2014, 57).
22. Myers, 1987, William James: His Life and Thought, Yale University Press,
New Haven, 240.
23. M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, 2003, Philosophical Foundations of
Neuroscience, Blackwell, Oxford (Bennett and Hacker 2003).
24. de Silva, 2010, Buddhist and Freudian Psychology, 4th edn, Shogam
Publishers, North Carlton, pp. xxxi–xxxiv.
25. LeDoux, 1988, The Emotional Brain, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
(LeDoux 1988).
26. James (1884, 424).
27. Dylan Evans, 2001, Emotion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 105–106.
28. James, quoted in Evans (2001, 105–106).
29. Evans (2001, 104).
30. John Deigh, 2004, ‘Primitive Emotions’, in Robert, C. Solomon (ed.),
Thinking about Feeling, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 9–27.
31. Ibid., 25.
32. Ibid.
33. Freud and Breuer, 1953, ‘Studies in Hysteria’, quoted in de Silva (2014,
258).
34. Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer, 1953, ‘Studies in Hysteria’, in The

Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,
vol. 1, James Strachey, ed., Hogarth Press, London.
35. Alasdair MacIntyre, 1958, The Unconscious: A Conceptual Analysis,
Studies in Philosophical Psychology, R. F. Holland, ed., Routledge and
Kegan Paul, London.
36. Mark Epstein, 1995, Thoughts without a Thinker, Basic Books, London
(Epstein 1995).
37. Sigmund Freud, 1958, ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working Through’,
in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud, vol. 12, James Strachey, ed., Hogarth Press, London.
38. Epstein (2007, 5).
39. Spinoza (1963, xxxv).
40. Jerome Neu, 1980, ‘Jealous Thoughts’, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty,
ed., Explaining Emotions, University of California Press, Berkeley (Neu
1980).
41. Leila Tov-Ruach, 1980, ‘Jealousy, Attention and Loss’, in Amélie
Oksenberg Rorty, ed., Explaining Emotions, University of California
Press, Berkeley.
42. Padmasiri de Silva, 2010, ‘Comparison of Freud’s Death Instinct and the
Buddhist Vibhava-Taṇhā (Craving for Self-destruction)’, in Padmasiri de
Silva, Buddhist and Freudian Psychology, 4th edn, Shogam Publishers,
Carlton, pp. 133–155.
43. de Silva (2010), 117.
44. Ruach (1980, 433).
45. Solomon (2007, 103).
46. de Silva (2010).
47. Ibid., 130.
48. Freud and Breuer (1953).
49. Nolan Pliny Jacobson, 1966, Buddhism: The Religion of Analysis,
Humanities Press, London.
50. Ibid., 61.
51. Freud, Standard Edition, vol. XVI, 411.
52. Sigmund Freud, 1957, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, in Collected Papers,
E. Jones, ed., vol. IV, Hogarth Press, London, 164–165.
53. Alan Horowitz and Jerome Wakefield, 2007, The Loss of Sadness, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 225.
54. Robert Burton, 1927, Anatomy of Melancholy, Paul Floyd Dell and Paul
Jordan, eds, Farrar Reinhart, New York, 277.
55. Michael Ignatieff, 1987, ‘Paradigm Lost’, in Times Literary Supplement, 4
September 1987, 939–940.
56. Lewis Wolpert, 1999, Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression,
Faber and Faber, London.
REFERENCES 87
57. M.O.C. Drury, 1973, The Danger of Words, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London, 22.
58. Freud and Breuer (1953, 305).
59. de Silva (2014).
References
Bennett, M. R., & Hacker, P. M. S. (2003). Philosophical foundations of neurosci-
ence. Oxford: Blackwell.
Burton, R. (1927). Anatomy of melancholy. In P. Floyd Dell & P. Jordan (Eds.).
New York: Farrar Reinhart.
Dalai Lama, & Ekman, P. (2008). Emotional awareness. New York: Times Books.
Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making
of consciousness. London: Vintage.
Darwin, C. (2015). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London:
Harper Collins.
Deigh, J. (2004). Primitive emotions. In R. C. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about
feeling (pp. 9–27). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Silva, P. (1989). Logic of attempted suicide and its linkage with human emo-
tions. In P. de Silva (Ed.), Suicide in Sri Lanka (189, pp. 25–33). Kandy:
Institute of Fundamental Studies.
de Silva, P. (2010). Comparison of Freud’s death instinct and the Buddhist
Vibhava-Taṇhā (craving for self-destruction). In P. de Silva (Ed.), Buddhist
and Freudian psychology (4th ed., pp. 133–155). Carlton: Shogam Publishers.
Drury, M. O. C. (1973). The danger of words. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Ekman, P. (2007). Emotions revealed. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts without a thinker. London: Basic Books.
Epstein, J. (2003). Envy: The seven deadly sins. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Epstein, M. (2007). Psychotherapy without the self. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press.
Evans, D. (2001). Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and melancholia. In E. Jones (Ed.), Collected papers
(Vol. IV, pp. 164–165). London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1958). Remembering, repeating and working through. In J. Strachey
(Ed.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund
Freud (Vol. 12). London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S., & Breuer, J. (1953). Studies in hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The
standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 1).
London: Hogarth Press.
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. London:

Penguin.
Horowitz, A., & Wakefield, J. (2007). The loss of sadness. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Ignatieff, M. (1987, September 4). Paradigm lost. Times Literary Supplement,
pp. 939–940.
Jacobson, N. P. (1966). Buddhism: The religion of analysis. London: Humanities
Press.
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9(34), 188–205.
Lange, C. (1885). One leuds beveegelser. In K. Dunlap (Ed.), The emotions.
Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.
MacIntyre, A. (1958). The unconscious: A conceptual analysis. In R. F. Holland
(Ed.), Studies in philosophical psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Myers, G. E. (1987). William James: His life and thought . New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Neu, J. (1980). Jealous thoughts. In A. O. Rorty (Ed.), Explaining emotions.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tov-Ruach, L. (1980). Jealousy, attention and loss. In A. O. Rorty (Ed.),
Explaining emotions. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wolpert, L. (1999). Malignant sadness: The anatomy of depression. London: Faber
and Faber.
CHAPTER 7
Escaping Bondage to the Somatic Passions
Abstract Self-control is the virtue of living according to a person’s accepted

moral values. He should have the capacity to do so by his skills with cour-
age and persistence. Lack of self-control is described as “weakness of will”.
Aristotle made a distinction between the incontinent man who gives into
sensual passions, knowing that it is morally unacceptable, while with the
intemperate man it is second nature to give into sensual passions and has no
qualms about its moral implications. Aristotle says that the incontinent man
can readily be persuaded to change his future behaviour. Socrates was pre-
senting a one-track ‘cognitive’ theory where knowledge automatically leads
to action. In a Buddhist Perspective on Weakness of Will:
Mindfulness lies at the core of Buddhist meditative practice, yet its essence
is universal. It has to do with refining our capacities for paying attention,
for sustained and penetrative awareness.
The impotence of man to govern or restrain the emotions I call ‘bondage’,

for a man who is under their control is not his own master, but is mastered
by fortune, in whose power he is, so that he is often forced to follow the
worse, although he sees the better before him. (Spinoza 1963, 187)1
While pursuing bodily pleasures of an excessive kind and contrary to right

principle, the incontinent man is so constituted that he pursues them with-
out the conviction that he is right, whereas the intemperate man has this
conviction, which he has come to feel because it is now second nature with

90 7 ESCA PING BONDAGE TO THE SOM ATIC PASSIONS
him to seek the gratifications. Hence the incontinent man can readily be
persuaded to change his behavior – but not the other. For virtue preserves,
while vice destroys that intuitive preservation of the true end of life which
is the starting point in conduct. (Aristotle 1959, 213)2
Mindfulness lies at the core of Buddhist meditative practice, yet its

essence is universal. It has to do with refining our capacities for paying
attention, for sustained and penetrative awareness, and for emergent
insight that is beyond thought but can be articulated through thought.
Strictly speaking, mindfulness is not a technique or method, although
there are many different methods and techniques for its cultivation.
Rather it is more aptly described as a way of being … It certainly implies
developing and refining a way of becoming more intimate with one’s own
experience through systematic self-observation (Kabat-Zinn 2002, viii).3
The Greek philosopher Plato compared ‘reason’ to a charioteer and
unruly passions to seven unruly horses, a metaphor that has come down to
modern times. Kabat-Zinn is at the forefront of the mindfulness-based ther-
apies for managing emotional difficulties, like Mindfulness-based Cognitive
Therapy (MBCT). He articulates ways of dealing with stress and pain
management but with a great potential for managing problems of moral
weakness (akrasia), which can be described in psychological terms: maladies
pertaining to loose and irresponsible sexuality, impulsive anger, obesity and
excessive consumption of food, alcohol and drug addictions, and gambling.
Though smoking does not have direct moral implications, it has indirect
moral implications: due to the deleterious impact on health. For instance,
cigarette advertising may be bound by specific legal restrictions. Though
Kabat-Zinn was basically concerned with stress and pain management and
later depression (Marlatt 20024; Bien and Bien 20025) recorded great suc-
cess in using mindfulness techniques for managing addiction to alcohol. As
a therapist, I have also successfully used techniques drawn from Buddhism
to deal with alcohol addictions (de Silva 2008, 60–81; 2014, 187–201).6
The Buddha himself is described as a charioteer able to manage human
impulses by his teachings: Anuttaro purisa-dhamma-sārathī.
Ethical R ea lism and Empir ical Psychology

Professor Premasiri made one of the significant contributions to Buddhist
ethics in his Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Hawaii. He pro-
posed that the basis of moral evaluation in Buddhism is a cognitive theory
ETHICA L R EA LISM A ND EMPIR ICA L PSYCHOLOGY 91
of ethics developing this theory further in his later writings: ‘Buddhism is

obviously cognitivist in its approach to moral issues. Buddhism asserts the
view that we can know what is morally right and wrong, and good and
bad’ (Premasiri 2006, 44).7 In the contemporary scene in moral philoso-
phy, there is an attempt to present relevant empirical facts to give a sound
and objective basis for ethical reflections. This Buddhist perspective is
clearly visible in examining the nature, roots and the management of akra-
sia. In Greek ethics, akrasia is described as the moral dimension of certain
emotional weaknesses. It opens up refreshing and new resources from the
perspectives of Buddhist ethics and psychology and is described by con-
temporary philosophers as ‘moral psychology’. Around the year 1990, a
group of philosophers in the West, Ameli Rorty, Owen Flanagan and David
Wong introduced the notion of ‘ethical realism’, the relevance of empiri-
cal psychology to normative ethics (de Silva 2014, 19–22),8 a facet that is
lacking in the great ethical traditions of Aristotle, Kant and Utilitarianism.
Good examples are Jon Elster’s book, Strong Feeling: Emotion, Addiction
and Human Behaviour (Elster 1999)9 and Ronald Ruden’s book, The
Craving Brain (Ruden 2000).10 Elster’s work illustrates how cognition,
choice and rationality are undermined by the physical processes that under-
lie strong emotions and cravings. In moving from chemical addiction to
behavioural addictions, Elster says, ‘craving is based on the incentive sali-
ence of stimuli rather than on their actual or anticipated hedonic proper-
ties. Like the sight of food for a starving person, they cannot be ignored’
(Elster, 62).11 Ruden says that the Buddha was the first to recognize the
conditioned response to an external sensory pattern, indicating the presence
of alcohol. In fact, in Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates says that our ignorance of
the good is like an optical illusion, as an object which is close to us appears
larger than a distant object of the same size (Protagoras, 352 BCE),12
sacrificing the immediate pleasures to long-range happiness. Ruden says in
this context, ‘Buddha’s clever solution was not to fight the craving once it
occurred, but instead to prevent the pattern recognition process before it
began. He explained that we had to fill our minds with the right thoughts,
do the right things, and act the right way so that nothing that might pos-
sibly stimulate the brain’s craving response can enter the field or the
backfield’ (Ruden, 87).13
Buddhism accepts the lawful nature of the laws of the mind (citta-
niyāma) and the lawful nature of the laws of morality (kamma-niyāma),
and accepts that there is an inner connection between the moral and psy-
chological landscapes of our lives. Buddhism does not merely limit itself
to the practice of mindfulness during a discrete time within our daily

agenda, but as Kabbat-Zinn says, this practice becomes the refinement
of a way of being, so that both one’s cognitive and motivational skills are
able to deal with morally weak passions and desires.
Building Blocks in the Unfolding

of Ak r atic Behaviour
In addition to the relation of sensory perception to akrasia, Cayoun

(2015),14 as a therapist inspired by mindfulness techniques, says that
objective awareness of body sensations is a central part of therapy: where we
learn to see them without reaction and thought components. Body sen-
sations are the building blocks of emotions: variation in sensuous desire,
craving for alcohol, anger, fear or sadness. There is also a craving for
what we do not have as well as a more silent craving related to what we
do not want such as unpleasant body sensations and feelings consequent
on excessive addictions or sexuality. Aristotle did not see this point, as
he did not wish to recognize the reactivity and importance of anger:
research has shown that much of the voluntary self-destructive behav-
iour in knowingly courting disaster in addictions is due to the craving to
avoid (aversion). Withdrawing from an addictive drug is greatly desired
but it causes misery: it is a two-edged issue. There is a silent masochistic
strand in extreme addicts of alcohol and excessive sexual addicts.
Cayoun says that there are unproductive ways in which people seek
happiness, that are attached to immediate pleasures (2015, 45).15
He presents an insightful four-stage path for recovery: increase aware-
ness of body sensations in an objective way; increase sensory perception
without judgements; decrease evaluation; and decrease reaction. Body
sensations are the consequence of our evaluative thoughts, and in the
co-emergent process, body and mind work together. During advanced
practice of Buddhist meditation, it is possible to develop ‘a sixth sense’
(indriya-paṭibaddha-ñāṇa). This is described in current neurology as
interoception, where the mediator can access co-emergent body sensation
(de Silva 2014, 10–11).16 Thus, Buddhist analysis provides an insightful
way to discern the different and devious paths along which we see the
emergence of different varieties of akrasia, and pathways of managing
them and moving towards a more lasting goal of happiness. Next, we
move to a detailed analysis of the nature of akrasia, as presented through
three celebrated Greek philosophers.
THE BODY A ND  MOR AL L A X ITY IN  A DDICTIONS 93
Introduction to Mor a l Wea k ness

A puzzle about the nature of moral weakness (akrasia) emerged in the
Greek philosophical scene within the philosophies of Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle, which has been described as the puzzle about akrasia. In ordi-
nary language, we are speaking about ‘temptations’, mostly associated
with the body like smoking, alcohol and drug consumption, food addic-
tions, excessive and irresponsible sexual behaviour, and also others like
gambling and addictions. Loss of temper in sudden impulsive anger is a
kind of weakness in Buddhist moral psychology. Although Aristotle clas-
sified greed and lust as moral weaknesses that had to be condemned he
did not classify anger in this category and even made a case for righteous
moral anger. ‘We conclude that it is more disgraceful to yield to desire
than to anger; now anger and bad temper are commoner human frail-
ties than desire for excessive and unnecessary pleasures’ (Aristotle 1959,
207).17 In the context of the five precepts for basic morality, Buddhism
is focussed on sexual abuse and the use of alcohol/drugs, lying/lack of
transparency and stealing and killing. Being transparent to oneself and
others is as important as that acceptance of wrongdoing is the first path
towards reform. In fact, Aristotle says that incontinence where a man is
aware of wrongdoing is in a better position than the wicked man who
justifies vice. The Buddha clearly says when it occurs, ‘see lust as lust and
anger as anger’ (satipaṭṭhāna).
The Body a nd Mor al La xity in A ddictions
Another very important point in the light of my current research is that

a greater number of these moral failures are related to the body. I find
my research on ‘somatic intelligence’ (wisdom of the body) relevant to
issues concerning moral weakness. Christine Caldwell, the body-centred
psychotherapist, gives a graphic description of the call of the body for
mental health:
We threaten our lives when we introduce large amounts of toxicity into

our bodies. We damage our lives when we practice addictions that cause
long-term illness or break the fabric of our families and societies. We
limit our lives when we fail to grow, when we keep ourselves sedated
or distracted, when we fail to contribute to others. We promote our
happiness and the happiness of others. Moving from life-threatening to
life-promoting actions is a tremendous step. (Caldwell 1996, 51)18
Bruno Cayoun, in a masterly analysis of the paths of human wellbeing,

says that (i) body sensations are neither physical nor purely mental and
are considered a link between the mind and the body. (ii) He found
in his regular therapy work, different emotions were consistently asso-
ciated with different patterns of body sensations and these emotion
maps are culturally universal. (iii) Objective observations indicate that
emotions are made up of a combination of thoughts, bodily sensations
and the need to react. As these patterns emerge so rapidly, it is not easy
for the untrained mind to separate the emotional event into its basic
components. (iv) The emergence of emotions starts at the preconscious
level of information processing and sometimes remains subconscious if
the emotion is very subtle. All these points converge beautifully with
my own work on emotions over the years (de Silva 2014, 46–67).19
Vipassanā practice provides a profound insight, regarding the linkage of
body sensations to the four basic elements. The four elements as vibra-
tory patterns have been a constant focus in my regular meditation (fol-
lowing the teachings of Venerable Dhammajiva), and I am delighted
that Cayoun says that there are four basic characteristics of these body
sensations: mass: from the lightest to the heaviest; motion: from the
most still to extremes of shaking, or agitation; temperature: from the
coldest to the hottest experience; and fluidity (also called cohesiveness):
from the loosest and most diffuse to the most dense, most constricted
and solidified bodily experience (Cayoun 2015, 109; Dhammajiva
2008, 26–30).20
Ar istotle and the Socr atic–Platonic View

of K nowledge as Virtue
Aristotle makes a distinction between ‘last-ditch akrasia’ (having deliber-

ated, we decide to do something, and then we fail to do that thing, or
do something else) and ‘impetuous akrasia’ (without having deliberated,
we rush into doing something which, if we had deliberated, we would
not have done). In this analysis, Aristotle appears to shift ground from
the importance of the ‘cognitive factor’ which is the Socratic perspective
embedded in the axiom ‘knowledge is virtue’, to a ‘motivational’ factor.
In the Buddhist analysis, as will be shown later, cognitive, motivational,
attentional and emotional factors play a role when a person falls prey to
akrasia. They also play a role when a person is moving out of akrasia:
A R ISTOTLE A ND THE SOCR ATIC–PLATONIC V IEW OF K NOW LEDGE … 95
Akrasia is a multi-layered experience. Self-control is the virtue of liv-

ing according to one’s values in so far as one has the capacity to do so
by exercising courage, persistence or simple discipline. Lack of self-control
often takes the form of weakness of will in which we judge that we ought
to do something; have the power to do so and fail to do so; and when the
judgment is specifically moral, it is deemed to be moral weakness. (Martin
2007, 190)21
Martin’s definition clearly goes beyond the classical Socratic–Platonic

axiom, knowledge is virtue. Such weakness may be occasional or habitual.
Sometimes it is limited to specific vices and it manifests different degrees
of control and awareness. In this study, I shall concentrate more on the
issues around alcoholic addiction. It is an important issue, where some
people virtually wreck their lives and even slip into drug taking and it
is becoming a problem with young people across the Western world.
My experience as a counsellor, of having been involved in cases of suc-
cessful counselling for alcoholic addiction, adds a personal note to my
reflections on this issue (de Silva 2008, 2014).22 Also, when dealing
with alcoholic addiction with some clients, a path would be opened to
other mixed weaknesses like the spell of illegitimate sensual/sexual pleas-
ures, boredom and strong repressed anger. Feelings of low status, in
more innocent cases, might call for grief counselling. Hiding one’s real
problems and lack of transparency make things difficult for counselling.
In the contemporary world, it is a real problem.
This kind of addiction also raises an important question: ‘Why do
people knowingly court self-defeating behaviour?’ In fact, some of
the extreme cases of addicts seem to display a demonic drive, which is
described by Sigmund Freud as aggression turned inwards—death
instinct/thanatos. Though the addict experiences a temporary state of
euphoria by walking into a bar, he is trying to drown the misery of the
pain that he is undergoing. Drinking often leads to a relapse: the mas-
tery of the load of pain, has been described as a repetition compulsion
by Freud (de Silva 2010, 134–153).23 This masochistic strand of pre-
occupation with what is painful frequently causes the addict to relapse.
Freud came to realize that the element of hate, later to be called the
aggressive instinct, was separate from sexuality. He was baffled that
there was an instinct that threatened the ego’s natural self-love. I have
shown elsewhere (de Silva 2010)24 that in the Buddhist motivation
theory, the craving for sexuality, narcissistic/self-centred preoccupation
and self-aggression (kāma-, bhava- and vibhava-taṇhā) work together

with ambivalence, and mutual interaction. The Buddha’s great discov-
ery was the claim that narcissistic self-love and self-aggression were two
sides of the same coin. Thus, the Buddhist perspective, unlike from the
Aristotelian analysis, provides a broader background of a variety of moti-
vational patterns generating moral weakness. This point will be explored
in greater detail with reference to addictions, as Aristotle did not con-
sider the akrasia of anger in loss of self-control important. The sub-field
of moral psychology has emerged as a contribution to ethical realism (de
Silva 2014, 19–21)25 and in this context, the network of the three forms
of craving and the subliminal base of desires and craving in Buddhism in
their complex relation to different types of moral weakness is an impor-
tant contribution to moral psychology. My personal experience in coun-
selling is that there is a strong strand of reactive anger that feeds not just
alcoholic addictions but relapses. The meditation guru, Venerable Uda
Eriyagama Dhammajiva, has a beautiful sermon on the Purābheda Sutta,
where he examines nine forms of anger and says that often lust is a visible
emotion but anger often may be an invisible emotion.
Gene Heyman’s book, Addictions: A Disorder of Choice (Heyman
2009),26 a ground-breaking study, makes two important central points:
(1) contrary to the common view that addicts display compulsive and
involuntary behaviour, they are making choices when they take to addic-
tions; (2) varieties of human destructiveness are at the heart of many
accounts of human misery. The fact that intentionality is central to addic-
tions, in getting into it and getting out of it, makes the Buddhist posi-
tion very relevant, as all morally significant actions emerge within the
context of human intention (cetanā). The term saṅkhāra emphasizes the
dispositional nature of conative activity that is morally significant.
We need to make a small modification to Heyman’s thesis, however,
as scientific evidence indicates that when an addict’s condition deterio-
rates there is a misbalance of the dopamine and serotonin levels. It is
only by raising and balancing them in the correct proportion through
treatment can one stop alcohol cravings (Ruden 2000).27 Ruden says
that early in the progression of addiction there is a point at which an
alcoholic can resist drink and remain sober. At other times, it appears
irresistible and thus drunkenness may be seen as a weakness of will, how-
ever, discovery of the ailment of extreme addicts converts it into a disease
(Ruden 2000, 76).28 Recovery through biobalance is one of his recom-
mendations, namely having a balanced state of dopamine and serotonin
A R ISTOTLE A ND THE SOCR ATIC–PLATONIC V IEW OF K NOW LEDGE … 97
levels. Under normal conditions, Ruden says the Buddha had the most
enlightened response, using the eight-fold path to avoid the conditioned
responses of the brain that led to craving (Ruden 2000, 87).29 Thus, his
solution was not to fight the craving once it has gone into one’s system
but to prevent its unfolding patterns of craving, attachment and fixation.
Socrates presented the time-honoured puzzle and paradox that those
who have genuine moral knowledge are bound to produce the genuine
good conduct which is contained in the axiom ‘virtue is knowledge’.
This appears as a paradox as there are many instances where people have
the requisite knowledge about moral rules but yet give into temptation.
The second critical point is that in this context there is an illegitimate
move from the ‘is’ to ‘ought’: the knowledge that a person has about
the moral rules is descriptive of his state of knowledge but there is no
normative logic that such a person will stick to the rules. But, some
recent commentators say that Socrates in Plato’s Dialogues, an earlier
work, had a different position from the Socrates in Plato’s later works,
like the Republic. In the earlier version of moral weakness, the Greek tri-
partite division into the appetitive, spirited and the rational provides a
basis for accepting that the appetitive part of the soul feeds the inconti-
nence or moral weakness of sensuality. If this interpretation is accepted,
early Socrates accepted a weak form of moral weakness, just a tempo-
rary forgetting. But generally, the Socratic position is summarized in
the phrase ‘virtue is knowledge’. As mentioned earlier, this position
generates a paradox, as there are many instances where people have the
requisite knowledge about moral rules but give into temptation, vio-
lating the moral rules or precepts. Why do people indulge in such self-
defeating behaviour, courting disaster, leading to bad addictions, to
alcohol or drugs? Socrates taught that to know what is morally right is to
do it, but Aristotle’s position is different, though in a very subtle way. In
his classic discussion of moral weakness (incontinence), he says that there
are three qualities of character: vice, incontinence and bestiality. Aristotle
deviated from the Socratic position in saying that the self-controlled
person can master the passions to which weak people fall a victim, thus
emphasizing the motivational factors rather than the cognitive factors:
Some thinkers maintain, that he cannot if he has full knowledge that the
action is wrong. It is, as Socrates thought, hard to believe that, if a man
really knows, and has the knowledge in his soul, it should be mastered
by something else, which in Plato’s phrase ‘hauls it about like a slave’.
Socrates to be sure was out and out opposed to the view that we are now
criticizing, on the ground that there is no such thing as this moral weak-
ness we call ‘incontinence’. For he said nobody acts against what is best –
and the best is the goal of all our endeavours – if he has a clear idea of
what he is doing. He can only go wrong out of ignorance. (Aristotle 1959,
195)30
Thus, Aristotle was emphasizing that cognitive awareness does not always
offer a kind of motivational magic. When we come to Buddhism, it must
be mentioned that both Socrates and Aristotle identified self-control with
the rational faculty, as epitomized in Plato’s classic metaphor of the chari-
oteer and the seven horses (presenting reason and the passions). It is a
metaphor that has dominated the long history of Western philosophy.
The Buddhist position is different and will be taken up, as we proceed
in this comparative study of moral positions. The Buddhist alternative is
mindfulness practice and even the cognitive behaviour therapy that uses
logic and reasoning in treatment is following on the groundbreaking
efforts of Jon Kabat-Zinn who developed the MBCT.
It is interesting to note that Aristotle makes a distinction between
moral weakness and incontinence: there is a difference between the
vicious man, who has bad moral principles and is hard to educate and
the incontinent man who has good moral principles but fails to live up to
them. Aristotle compares that man to a city that has good laws but does
not implement them. This difference between the vicious man and the
incontinent man has given Aristotle a very positive stance in understand-
ing moral weakness.
Buddhist Perspectives on the A r istotelian Sta ndpoint

Aristotle identifies self-control with rationality. Mele, however, says that
this is a very partial view and we need a more holistic perspective:
I follow Aristotle in understanding self-control and akrasia as two sides

of the same coin. However I distance myself from him on a metaphysical
matter. Aristotle identifies the self of self-control with the agent’s reason
(faculty). I identify it holistically with the person, broadly conceived. (Mele
1996, 100)31
Buddhism has a holistic focus on the acceptance of cognitive, motiva-

tional, affective, and most importantly, attentional factors that can both
BUDDHIST PERSPECTI V ES ON THE A R ISTOTELI A N STA NDPOINT 99
help and hinder self-control: the practice of mindfulness, qualities of

commitment, persistence in the face of adversity, ardency, presence of
mind and goal-directed activity. Free will is important in Buddhism as a
precondition, as intentional agency is central. These qualities of a multi-
dimensional nature cannot be subsumed under ‘rationality’ though the
image of reason as the charioteer and passions as the unruly horses was a
clear Platonic inheritance to modern Western thought.
Joseph LeDoux in his groundbreaking research said that some emo-
tions are triggered by perception rather than by cognition: that uncon-
scious emotional processing leads to emotional experience. The Buddhist
position is able to accommodate such hijacking of the normal cognitive
processes by unconscious/subliminal emotional processing as I have
discussed in detail elsewhere (de Silva 2010, xxxi–xxxiii).32 Buddhism
accepts subliminal activity: subliminal/dormant level (anusaya-bhūmi).
It may emerge as a thought process (pariyuṭṭhāna-bhūmi) or may
become fierce and ungovernable (vītikkama-bhūmi). Thus, the Buddhist
analysis is able to account for the impact of subliminal activity on lust
(kāma-rāgānusaya), anger (paṭighānusaya), narcissism, arrogance and
conceit (mānāunusaya) and thus influence the emergence of loss of self-
control in relation to these emotions. Also, the development of healthy
emotions helps self-control: shame and dread of evil (hiri-ottappa); emo-
tional balance (upekkhā), loving kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā)
altruistic joy (muditā) and equanimity (upekkhā). Though Aristotle did
not recognize anger as a base for moral weakness, Buddhism accepts
anger as a category that is fed by more subtle emotions as envy, mal-
ice and feelings of inferiority and the experience of jealousy. If there is
a strand of anger in depression, such states are more difficult to handle
compared with normal depression.
On the motivational side, Buddhism emphasizes the arousing,
upholding and exerting of one’s intentions for the non-arising of evil
(saṃvara); abandoning them once they have emerged (pahāna); devel-
oping positive emotions (bhāvanā); and stabilizing positive emotions
once they have emerged (anurakkhanā). Development of such a sensibil-
ity has been described in the suttas with a number of graphic metaphors:
the watchfulness of a doorkeeper; instilling discipline like a horse trainer;
the persistence of an army defending a fortress; and the balance and vigi-
lance of an acrobat. The use of antidotes is also effective in dealing with
different varieties of akrasia (moral weakness): self-hate, which emerges
in excessive addictions, may be counteracted by remembering the natural
100 7 Escaping Bondage to the Somatic Passions
good within oneself as self-compassion; karuṇā and display of gratitude

by generous actions is a good ally to deal with the powerful grief conse-
quent on the loss of a loved one, which may take a person to drinking;
muditā is hard to cultivate but it is a good antidote to pacify the anger
fed by envy and jealousy of others. In fact, defilements may be converted
into objects of meditation (dhammānupassanā). Thus, negative emotion
which figures in diverse forms of akrasia can be managed using emotions
rather than using reason or rationality.
Two-Layer ed Buddhist Ethics a nd Differ ent Levels

of Spir itua l Dev elopment
The presence of a higher order morality is clearly seen in the impor-

tance of the five hindrances to the meditative life. Loss of self-control by
succumbing to the five hindrances (nīvaraṇa) is a dimension not found
at all in Aristotle or even in almost all the great Western traditions of eth-
ics. As the hindrances in the Buddhist meditative life referred to above,
do not come within the purview of Greek Ethics (or even Western ethi-
cal traditions in general), I shall now discuss the concept of self-control
in relation to the hindrances. At a certain point in spiritual development,
it is assumed that the person has mastered the basic level of morality with
the five precepts and related rules. When a person moves into a medi-
tative life, the five hindrances represent the ethics: sense desires, anger,
sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and sceptical doubt. The seven
factors of enlightenment (bojjhaṅgas) do not deal with moral perfection.
The Sabbāsava Sutta teaches monks seven methods for restraining and
abandoning taints, the defilements that maintain bondage to the round
of birth and death.
Western commentators on Buddhism like George Ainslie, whose
book Breakdown of the Will, is an interesting study, distort the Buddhist
approach to managing addictions. This indicates that it is necessary to
state clearly the Buddhist perspective of morality on the long road to
final spiritual liberation. In Chap. 3, I made a critical analysis of four
distorted critics of the Buddhist management of passions in the West.
George Ainslie, while making an otherwise useful analysis of addic-
tions, displays a complete lack of knowledge of the Buddhist path and its
resources for managing addictions:
T WO-LAY ER ED BUDDHIST ETHICS AND DIFFER ENT LEV ELS … 101
Buddhism, for instance, concerns itself with the emancipation from ‘the
bond of Worldly passions’, and describes five strategies of purification,
essentially: having clear ideas, avoiding sensual desires by mind control,
restricting objects to their natural uses, endurance, and watching out for
temptation in advance. However, the ways that non-western religions
enumerate causes of and solutions to self-defeating behaviours seem
a jumble from any operational viewpoint of trying to maximise a good.
(Ainslie 2001, 5)33
He also observes that nothing new has come from Buddhism regarding
these problems. There are a number of critical points to be made. This ref-
erence is taken from B.D. Kyoki, The Teachings of the Buddha (1995, 5).34
This translation refers to six methods, though the Sutta contains seven
methods, and the translation and Ainslie’s comments do not capture the
context of the sermon given by the Buddha about the deepest and funda-
mental defilements that maintain a monk’s bondage to saṃsāra. The clarifi-
cations of the methods and the coordinated effort illustrate that it is not a
jumble and that it is not restricted to anything like the layman’s ethics for
moral weakness which is contained in the five precepts. Some of the meth-
ods mentioned have nothing to do with akrasia. At this point, we need to
make the distinction between the ethics of the five precepts; the ethics of
five hindrances related to the meditative life; and the deeper paths of lib-
eration for the monk that go beyond the ethics of moral weakness through
being a form of awakening. The detailed description given below indicates
Ainslie’s confusion of moral categories: taints, influxes (āsava) to be aban-
doned by seeing (dassana); things unfit for attention to be dealt with by
wise attention (yoniso manasikāra); taints to be abandoned by restraint
(saṃvara); taints to be abandoned by using (paṭisevana); by endurance
(adhivāsana); by avoiding (parivajjana), by removing (vinodana), by
developing (bhāvanā). Bhikkhu Bodhi (1995, 1168–1173)35 makes a
detailed analysis of the nature of the fivefold restraint (saṃvara), which
can be accomplished through virtue, mindfulness, knowledge, energy and
patience; restraint through virtue is illustrated by avoiding unsuitable seats
and resorts; restraint through mindfulness, by restraining the sense facul-
ties; restraint through knowledge by reflecting wisely; restraint through
energy, by removing unwholesome thoughts, and restraint through endur-
ance. Wise attention (yoniso manasikāra) implies attention to the right
means (upāya) and the right track (path).
Dea ling w ith the
Fi v e Hindrances as a For m
of Mor a l Wea k ness
The Buddha uses the image of clear water and when desires are p resent,
it colours perception as if the pool were suffused with ‘a coloured dye’;
when aversion is present, the water is seen as turbulence, caused by
anger; when sloth and torpor are present, like a pool overgrown with
algae; when restless and worry are present, like water stirred by the wind;
when sceptical doubt is present, like muddy water.
Social Dimensions of Akrasia
During the time of the Buddha, the kind of socio-pathology of addic-

tions found in modern times did not exist. Today, in addition to personal
counselling for addiction, there is a need for vibrant social discourse on
the subject. Rorty (1997)36 makes the following topical analysis:
1. The structure of the akrasia of anger differs from that of desire,

but the explanation of its obduracy is similar.
2. Both the akrasia of anger and the akrasia of greed are typically
dispositional rather than episodic and both express conflicts among
entrenched habits.
3. Because a good deal of akrasia is sustained and reinforced by
socio-political and economic arrangements, patterns of akrasia are
often a common form of social pathology.
4. The most effective form of reform of akrasia lies in the reform
of its epidemiological sources—its socio-political and economic
origins—rather than the attempt to correct the immediate beliefs
or desires that prompted individual cases. There is a diagnosis of
the social roots of akrasia. A morally vibrant social consciousness is
certainly necessary to make a critical assessment of advertising and
commercial interests without a moral backbone.
Concluding Thoughts
At a deeper level, the akrasia of sensuality and addictions that the Greek
philosophers reflected on, is an issue of importance that comes down
the ages, but today the sociopathology of addictions as described by
Rorty refers to a ‘greed is good’ culture where people fall a prey to many
NOTES 103
counterfeit forms of happiness, where attachment emotions of greed

and reactive emotions of anger and boredom underlie a culture ‘sepa-
rated from everything that is interesting in life, that’s exhilarating in life,
that is beautiful in life’ (Fromm 1994, 16; de Silva 2011, 571–580).37
I wish to emphasize that we need a recovery of the practice of mind-
fulness, an attentional stance: a concept succinctly described by Wallace
and Shapiro (2006).38 They say, ‘an attentional deficit is characterized by
the inability to focus on a chosen object. The mind becomes withdrawn
and disengaged even from its internal processes. Attentional hyperactivity
occurs when the mind is extensively aroused, resulting in compulsive dis-
tractions and fragmentation. Attention is dysfunctional when we focus on
things in afflictive ways, not conducive to our own or others’ well-being’.
Great meditation teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield are
working ceaselessly to open our minds to the message of the Buddha,
to energize life, enlarge the area of self-knowledge and convert the
moment-to-moment flow of life to a mindful pilgrimage.
I would also emphasize the broader function of counselling educa-
tion. There is an urgent need for a healthy attentional stance, slowing
down the speed of the automatism of daily living, distancing oneself
from the hustle and buzz of hectic life to enjoy a movement of stillness.
People get baffled when they encounter uncertainty, sudden setbacks,
ambiguity and paradox in their lives.
Notes
1. Spinoza (1963, 187).
2. Aristotle, 1959, The Ethics of Aristotle, J. A. K. Thompson, trans., Penguin
Classics, Victoria, p. 213.
3. Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2002, in Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, John Teasdale,
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, The Guilford Press,
London and New York, p. viii.
4. Allan Marlatt, 2002, ‘Buddhist Philosophy and the Treatment of
Addictive Behaviour’, in Cognitive and Behavioural Practice, 9,
pp. 44–50.
5. T. Bien and B. Bien, 2002, Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing
from Addictions, Wiley, New York.
6. Padmasiri de Silva, 2008, An Introduction to Mindfulness-Based
Counselling, Sarvodaya Vishvalekha, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka, pp. 60–81;
de Silva (2014, 187–201).
7. P. D. Premasiri, 2006, Studies in Buddhist Philosophy and Religion,

Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society, Singapore, p. 44.
8. de Silva (2014, 19–22).
9. Jon Elster, 1999, Strong Feeling: Emotion, Addiction and Human
Behaviour, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, and London.
10. Ronald A. Ruden, 2000, The Craving Brain: A Bold New Approach to
Breaking Free from Drug Addiction, Overeating, Alcoholism, Gambling,
Harper Collins, New York.
11. Elster (1999, 62).
12. See Plato, Protagoras.
13. Ruden (2000, 87).
14. Bruno Cayoun, 2015, Wellbeing and Personal Growth, Wiley Blackwell,
Oxford.
15. Cayoun (2015, 45).
16. de Silva (2014, 10–11).
17. Aristotle (1959, 207).
18. Christine Caldwell, 1996, Getting our Bodies Back, Shambhala, Boston,
p. 51.
19. de Silva (2014, 46–67).
20. Cayoun (2015, 109); Dhammajiva Mahathero (2008, 26–30).
21. Mike W. Martin, 2007, Everyday Morality, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA,
p. 190.
22. de Silva (2008, 2014).
23. See, de Silva (2010, 134–153).
24. de Silva (2010).
25. de Silva (2014, 19–21).
26. Gene Heyman, 2009, Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA.
27. Ruden (2000).
28. Ibid., 76.
29. Ibid., 87.
30. Aristotle (1959, 195).
31. A. R. Mele, 1996, ‘Addiction and Self-control’, Behaviour and Philosophy,
2, pp. 99–117.
32. de Silva (2010, xxxi–xxxiii).
33. George Ainslie, 2001, Breakdown of Will, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK, p. 5.
34. Bukkyo Dendo Kyoki, 1995, The Teachings of the Buddha, Kosaido,
Tokyo, p. 5.
35. Bhikkhu Bodhi, 1995, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A
Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, Wisdom Publications, Somerville,
MA, pp. 1168–1172.
R EFER ENCES 105
36. Amélie Rorty, 1997, ‘Social and Political Sources of Akrasia’, Ethics, 107,
pp. 644–657.
37. Eric Fromm, 1994, The Art of Listening, Constable, London, p. 16;
Padmasiri de Silva, 2011, ‘The Joyless Economy: The Pathology of a
Culture Which Calls for Awakening’, United Nations, International
Buddhist Conference, Bangkok.
38. B. Alan Wallace and Shauna L. Shapiro, 2006, ‘Mental Balance and Well-
Being: Building Bridges between Buddhism and Western Psychology’,
American Psychologist, 61, pp. 690–701.
References
Ainslie, G. (2001). Breakdown of will. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Aristotle. (1959). The ethics of Aristotle (J. A. K. Thompson, Trans.). Victoria:
Penguin Classics.
Bien, T., & Bien, B. (2002). Mindful recovery: A spiritual path to healing from
addictions. New York: Wiley.
Bhikkhu Bodhi. (1995). The middle length discourses of the Buddha: A translation
of the Majjhima Nikāya. Somerville, MA: Wisdom.
Caldwell, C. (1996). Getting our bodies back. Boston: Shambhala.
Cayoun, B. (2015). Wellbeing and personal growth. Oxford: Wiley.
de Silva, P. (2008). An introduction to mindfulness-based counselling. Ratmalana:
Sarvodaya Vishvalekha.
de Silva, P. (2010). Mental balance and four dimensions of wellbeing in Buddhist
perspective, UNDV Volume, Bangkok, pp. 657–672.
de Silva, P. (2011). The joyless economy: The pathology of a culture which
calls for awakening. In United Nations, International Buddhist Conference,
Bangkok.
Dhammajiva Mahathero. (2008). Towards an inner peace. Mitirigala: Mitirigala
Forest Hermitage Publications.
Elster, J. (1999). Strong feeling: Emotion, addiction and human behaviour.
Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Fromm, E. (1994). The art of listening. London: Constable.
Heyman, G. (2009). Addiction: A disorder of choice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2002). In Z. Segal, M. Williams, & J. Teasdale (Eds.),
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression. London and New York: The
Guilford Press.
Kyoki, B. D. (1995). The teachings of the Buddha. Tokyo: Kosaido.

Marlatt, A. (2002). Buddhist philosophy and the treatment of addictive behaviour.
Cognitive and Behavioural Practice, 9, 44–50.
Martin, M. W. (2007). Everyday morality. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Mele, A. R. (1996). Addiction and self-control. Behaviour and Philosophy, 2,
99–117.
Premasiri, P. D. (2006). Studies in Buddhist philosophy and religion. Singapore:
Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society.
Rorty, A. (1997). Social and political sources of Akrasia. Ethics, 107, 644–657.
Ruden, R. A. (2000). The craving brain: A bold new approach to breaking free
from drug addiction, overeating, alcoholism, gambling. New York: Harper
Collins.
Wallace, B. A., & Shapiro, S. L. (2006). Mental balance and well-being: Building
bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. American Psychologist,
61, 690–701.
CHAPTER 8
The Nature of Human Volition

and Intentions
Abstract
Patrick Haggard says that in our routine lives, most adult
human beings have a strong feeling for voluntary control over their
actions, making choices and acting accordingly (Haggard 2008).
The capacity for voluntary action is seen as essential to human nature. Yet,
neuroscience and behaviourist psychology have traditionally dismissed this
topic as unscientific, perhaps because the mechanisms that cause actions
have long been unclear. However, new research has identified network
of brain areas, including the pre-supplementary motor area, the anterior
pre-frontal cortex and the parietal cortex that underlie voluntary action.
These areas generate information for forthcoming actions, and cause the
distinctive conscious experience of intending to act and then controlling
ones actions. Volition consists of a series of decisions regarding whether to
act, what action to perform and when to perform it. (Haggard 2008, 935)
When one embarks on a project like the present one of writing a book,
having certain motives and intentions and going through a welter of
personal struggles to get the story in full perspective, one needs a tre-
mendous reserve of energy and direction. The psychological category
of human volition and intentions needs to be used to account for some
simple situations—like that of someone who is dealing with a sense of
control attempting to give up taking alcohol who is dealing with a sense
of control. In our discussion of akrasia (moral weakness) in Chap. 6, the

108 8 The Nature of Human Volition and Intentions
ability to control one’s sense desires or anger was crucial. This area of
psychological explanation is often described as conative/volitional and
is an independent dimension that is different from cognition and affect
(emotion).
In general, the lives of human beings are governed by the lawful
nature of things (dhamma-niyāma), the moral quality of our voli-
tional activities (kamma-niyāma), the psychological laws of the mind
(citta-niyāma), the biological laws (bīja-niyāma) and the physical laws of
seasons (uttu-niyāma). When it comes to intentional activity, a blend of
the psychological and moral laws pervades our activities, and in modern
terms it is moral psychology that emerges in the process of evaluating
actions. The chapter on moral weakness (akrasia) is a good study of
moral psychology.
The lives of both Vidyamala Burch and Risa Kaparo have been taken
as icons of pain management and though they do not directly write on
intentionality, Kabat-Zinn has described the concept of intentionality as:
‘Committing yourself to goals that are in your own interest is easy. But
keeping to the path that you have chosen when you run into difficulties
and may not see the “results” right away is the real measure of commit-
ment. This is where conscious intentionality comes, the intention to prac-
tice whether you like it or not on a particular day, whether it is convenient
or not, with the determination of an athlete’ (Kabat-Zinn 1990, 43).1
The illuminating findings of neuroscientist, Daniel Siegel, give the
concept of intention a scientific footing:
Two of the essential elements of all mindful awareness practice appear to

be an awareness of awareness itself and a focus of attention on intention.
We have examined the metacognitive process of self-monitoring and have
seen that it is associated with the activation of the pre-frontal regions.
But how do we pay attention to intention? We can imagine that inten-
tion, as a mental state of the internal world, is likely to be assessed by the
self-reflective middle frontal region. (Siegel 2007, 176)2
Why would intention be so pivotal in our lives? Intentions tie a given

movement of life together, link action now with the actions of the next
movement, creating the underlying ‘glue’ that directs attention, motivates
action, and processes the nature of reactions. (Siegel 2007, 178)3
Intention is what helps us to differentiate voluntary actions from reflexes.

As Patrick Haggard quite clearly observes, voluntary actions involve two
INTENTION IN BUDDHISM 109
distinct subjective experiences that are absent from reflexes: ‘These are
the experience of ‘intention’—that is planning to do or being about to
do something—and the experience of agency, which is the latter feeling
that one’s action has indeed caused a particular event’ (Haggard 2008,
936).4 Volition matures later in the development of an individual,
whereas reflexes can be present at or before birth.
The capacity for voluntary action is seen as essential to human
nature. Yet, neuroscience and behaviourist psychology have tradition-
ally dismissed the topic as unscientific, perhaps because the mechanisms
that cause actions have long been unclear. However, new research has
identified networks of brain areas, including the pre-supplementary
motor area, the anterior pre-frontal cortex and the parietal cortex that
underlie voluntary action.
These insightful observations from neuroscience may be confirmed
by our routine lives, where most adult human beings have a strong feel-
ing of voluntary control over their actions and over making choices and
so act accordingly. In the social setting, imprisonment and prohibition
of certain actions are justified by the possibility of voluntary actions.
Accounts of responsibility and accountability, where people violate rules
laid down by the state, thus provide a rationale for Buddhist ethics. As
discussed earlier in the chapter on akrasia, it is only when people take to
alcohol/drugs that they become addicted, and get habituated to them,
that they cloud their vision, though they are responsible for the gradual
erosion of the skills they originally had for voluntary action.
Intention in Buddhism
Human life is geared and directed by decisions and plans. Often a vision
and philosophy and all intentional activity is coloured by one’s larger
philosophy of life. One could also have specific aims and purpose which
may grow into an interlinked organic whole. But for the moment spe-
cific purposes illuminate your intentions. Good athletes, musicians and
scholars in a particular discipline work within their field. In an area like
management studies, the training is geared to lead people towards inspir-
ing goals.
In the context of the Buddhist liberation path, let us contextualize
Siegel’s penetrating analysis of intention, as having a focus on awareness
of awareness, attention on intention and the meta-cognitive process of
self-monitoring. As clearly presented by the Venerable Thanissaro Thero,
110 8 The Nature of Human Volition and Intentions
there were three important elements that led to the Buddha’s awaken-
ing to the riddle of human suffering or Prince Siddhattha’s quest for
awakening. First, his remembrance of previous lives showed that death
is not annihilation, but yet that there is no core identity that remains
unchanged. Second, the insight into the death and re-birth of beings,
clarified, in greater detail, issues of causality and human happiness. Third,
is the central facet of the awakening:
The primary causal factor is the mind, and in particular the moral quality
of intentions comprising its thoughts, words, and deeds and the rightness
of the views underlying them. Thus moral principles are inherent in the
functioning of the cosmos rather than being mere social conventions.
For this reason, any quest for happiness must focus on the quality of the
mind’s views and intentions. (Thannissaro 1996, 10)5
The third insight entailed having a right view (sammā-diṭṭhi). The four
noble truths, set out in his first sermon, put the wheel of Dhamma in
motion, while the doctrines of dependent co-arising and this/that con-
ditionality provide the right view. Of this the most complex and radi-
cal is this/that conditionality. ‘In terms of its content, it explained how
past and present intentions underlay all experiences of time and the
present. The truth of this content was shown by its role in disband-
ing all experience of time and the present simply by bringing present
intentions to a standstill’ (Thanissaro 1996, 10).6 There is input acting
from the past and input acting in the present, which makes the process
complex. This creates the possibility for the causal principles to feed back
into themselves as the mind reacts to the results of its own actions. This
feedback can take a positive form but it can also create negative feed-
back. Venerable Thanissaro comes to an insightful inference: if causes
and effects were entirely linear, the cosmos would be entirely determin-
istic and if there were no relationship from one moment to the other it
would be synchronistic, as all events would be arbitrary. Thus, one can
get freedom from these patterns. Thus, the Buddha’s teaching is a com-
bination of two causal orders, linear activity connecting events over time
and synchronic activity connecting objects in the present. It is impor-
tant to focus on the significant point that the factors at work in the
larger cosmos are the same as the factors working within an individual.
In determining the moral quality of an action, perception, attention and
intention play a role, but intention is the most important.
REFERENCES 111
Notes
1. Kabat-Zinn (1990, 43).
2. Siegel (2007, 176).
3. Ibid., 178.
4. Patrick Haggard, 2008, ‘Human Volition: Towards a Neuroscience of
Will’, Reviews, vol. 9, Macmillan, p. 936.
5. Bhikkhu Thānissaro, 1996, The Wings to Awakening, Dhammadāna
Publications, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, MA, p. 10.
6. Ibid.
References
Bhikkhu Thānissaro. (1996). The wings to awakening. Barre Center for Buddhist
Studies. Barre, MA: Dhammadāna Publications.
Haggard, P. (2008). Human volition: Towards a neuroscience of will. Reviews
(Vol. 9, p. 936). Macmillan.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living. New York: Dell.
CHAPTER 9
A Journey of Self-Awakening
Abstract Like in Chap. 7 where an attempt was made look at the moral
intelligence related somatic passions, in this chapter we look at a higher
level of moral intelligence related to the five hindrances (nivarana).
These rules apply to those who accept higher seela during a period
of retreat or some others who are more active on the liberation path.
The five hindrances are as follows: desire, aversion, lethargy, agitation
and doubt. While there will be a reference to desire, aversion, lethargy
agitation and doubt, this chapter will have a central focus on lethargy/
slothfulness. Shall briefly introduce, desire, aversion agitation and doubt
and then do a highly focussed presentation of lethargy/slothfulness and
then the journey of self-awakening.
In Chap. 8, I presented the concept of intentional activity, which is

central to Buddhist psychology and ethics, and what is most important,
central to the energy of skilful intentions:
This is why the Buddha put so much emphasis on the question of

intention, because that’s where the energy shaping our lives really lies, in
the intention of the mind. What we experience consists of the intentions
themselves that together they create, the ripple effects they create – from
intentions in the present and intentions from the past – as those ripple pat-
terns intersect and interfere. And one of the main lessons in meditation is
in seeing how that happens. (Thānissaro 2003, 1)1

114 9 A JOUR NEY OF SELF-AWA K ENING
Now, there is an opposite facet to these emerging ripples, and they are
the undercurrents of the five hindrances and the great journey of self-
awakening in rising above them. Of the five hindrances, the one that eats
into our consciousness and blocks the energy of the intentions is the cor-
rosive hindrance of sloth and torpor nourished by aversion. The fourth
section of the Satipaṭṭhāna, Dhammānupassanā, presents the authentic
profile of the five hindrances and can assist with obstacles and provide
pathways in a meditator’s journey of self-awakening.
Sloth and Tor por, and Bor edom as a n Attentional

Crisis
The Venerable Gunaratana offers the following reflection on sloth and
torpor:
Lethargy comes in various grades and intensities, ranging from slight

drowsiness to total torpor. We are talking about a mental state here, not
a physical one. Sleepiness or physical fatigue is something quite different,
and in the Buddhist system of classification, it would be categorized as
physical feeling. Mental lethargy is closely related to aversion in that it is one
of the mind’s clever little ways of avoiding issues that it feels unpleasant.
Lethargy is a sort of turn-off of the mental apparatus, a dulling of sensory
and cognitive acuity. It is an enforced stupidity pretending to sleep. This
is a tough one, as lethargy is the reverse of mindfulness… Nevertheless,
mindfulness is the cure. The only thing of importance is catching the
phenomenon early. (Venerable Gunaratana 1992, 138)2
Boredom arises when we must not do what we want to do, or must do

what we do not want to do. (Fenichel 1953, 301)3
This chapter has an important thematic focus on issues of self-identity

that meditators encounter in the context of a meditative life as well
as the secular world, and some of these challenges present us a valu-
able context to master the five hindrances of desire, aversion, sloth
and torpor, restlessness and worry, and sceptical doubt. The central
focus of this study is sloth and torpor fed by aversion. It is strange
that a close look at the hindrances would reveal that forms of
aversion/anger have a sly entrance to all other hindrances, even scep-
tical doubt. But boredom as a form of aversion is the central focus of
the present study.
M A NAGING HINDR A NCES 115
Managing Hindr ances
Aversion arises due to contact with the unpleasant. Cognitive flexibility
for managing intruding thoughts is necessary. Gently bringing attention
to the breath is recommended. As initial reactions come from the body,
increased awareness of the body is very effective. Kindness to oneself is a
way of dealing with self-anger. Aversion to physical pain calls for equa-
nimity without reaction. In vipassanā meditation, the antidote for aver-
sion is to take the mind to subtle levels of rapture and delight. It is also
my thesis that aversion is perhaps the most dominant defilement and it
have a strand in all the hindrances, even sceptical doubt. But this chapter
covers sloth and torpor as a hindrance, and boredom at the base as an
entrenched feature of the human situation.
Sense desires arise because of unwise reflection. The mind is seduced
by temptations of the senses. This is the greatest hindrance to practice.
Sense control, meditation on ugliness, decay and decomposition, moder-
ation with food, having a good friend and suitable talk are recommended
by the teacher. In vipassanā meditation, concentration and one-
pointedness are the antidote. Other forms of craving are complex as they
may be attached to things that are seemingly good, and even attachment
to meditative states is basically captured by the practice of equanimity
(upekkhā).
Regarding restlessness, worry and remorse, it is said that mindfulness
is like wearing a good pair of spectacles, so that you see things clearly
and they are not blurred. When the mind is agitated and scattered, the
remedy is accepting what is going on, followed by patience, clarity and
discernment. When thoughts recur, move to the breath and stick to it.
This is a safe direction for getting one’s perspective steady. Avoid your
mental state as giving it flattering descriptions is the path to delusion.
In vipassanā meditation, physical and mental comfort is the antidote to
restlessness.
There can be doubt about the teacher, technique or one’s understand-
ing. At a retreat, clarification of facets of the doctrine through discussion
with the teacher and group is very effective. Continuous listening to a
teacher’s talks via CDs and downloads is also helpful. In vipassanā medi-
tation, attention or (as it were) continuous rubbing is the antidote to
restlessness.
Boredom is part and parcel of a meditator’s life and it intrudes during
meditation and the daily transition from meditation to getting immersed
in life. When there is a passion for sensation, lack of stimulation drives

you into boredom with meditation without realizing that different types
of ‘boredom’ pervade different layers of society and is inescapable in life
at large. This is the story of the discussion that follows. If there is a way
of desensitizing the boredom of meditation blockages, life at large will
be immensely interesting—this is the insight that comes from the ground
breaking, celebrated concept of the ‘flow experience’ by Csikszentmihályi
(1990).4 His research converted and transformed different types of con-
templative experience into a kind of peak experience, a resonance estab-
lished between action, external environment and the mind. According to
my interpretation, the heights of meditation of a yogi in a forest grove
have carved out a path to the flow experience. The attraction of mindful-
ness as a flow experience has been described as a new model for educa-
tion (Hassed and Chambers 2014, 28–34).5 People are happiest when
they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorp-
tion with an activity at hand and the situation: nothing else matters
(Csikszentmihályi).6
While cittānupassanā helps us to see clearly the different thoughts
and emotions that pass through our minds, dhammānupassanā has the
remarkable gift of converting defilements into objects of meditation as
dharmatā, as well as helping us insightfully to ‘see through’ misguided
direction of moral anger: to failures in one’s own practice or that of oth-
ers. This latter expression may take a compassionate but a very critical
look at a whole slothful culture which calls for an awakening. Thus, sloth-
fulness in a secular culture in the Buddha’s words is like a pool over-
grown with algae and it may be said that the Buddha’s constructive
effort was to awaken a society from its slumber, and slothfulness was
often drowned by traditional dogmas.
The interrelationship between sloth and torpor and the other defile-
ments calls for a deep reflective and meditative mind. I have already
referred to the relation of anger to sloth and torpor as clarified by
Venerable Gunaratana. Anālayo makes an interesting observation regard-
ing boredom/lethargy and sensual desires. During meditation, each of
the three unwholesome roots, greed, ill-will and delusion, can manifest
in a distinctive manner: the fever of lust is like a fire within the physi-
ological tension of anger being overpowered by and controlled by a
strong opponent, and the confusion of delusion being hopelessly entan-
gled in a net. Anālayo also makes an important point that the two states
M A NAGING HINDR A NCES 117
of mind disturbing meditation are a contracted mind (saṅkhitta) and a

distracted mind (vikkhitta). The distracted mind represents restlessness
and the ability to avoid both contraction and distraction requires balance
and integration at deeper levels of insight meditation. This is a profound
observation which provides illumination from neuroscience:
Tension between stability and clarity is expressed in the two main flaws
that hinder meditation, namely ‘dullness’ and ‘excitement’. When dull-
ness first arises, the focus on the object will be retained; but as dullness
progresses, the clarity of the object becomes progressively hindered and a
sense of drowsiness overtakes the meditator. (Lutz et al. 2007)7
Siegel, making a reference to the above study, adds his own insightful
comments:
This description reveals that even for early practices of meditation, the
focus is on the balance of states of arousal. At their extreme these states
represent chaos (for excitement) and rigidity (for dullness). Achieving non-
reactivity in large measure can be seen as a way of pursuing before exter-
nally responding and then attaining coordination and balance of the neural
circuits involved in the ‘accelerator and break’ functions of the brain. …
The regulation of the two branches of this system resides in the middle
aspects of the prefrontal cortex. (Siegel 2007, 213)8
This study has three dimensions: sloth and torpor in the medita-
tive sittings, sloth and torpor in a meditator’s secular life, the drown-
ing of a whole society in the lethargy and languor of a profoundly sick
society. The compassionate and insightful Dhamma talks of Venerable
Uda Eriyagama Mahathero skilfully go through all these dimensions
depending on the context and the listeners.
During recent times, I have been greatly interested in the link-
ages between Buddhist contemplative practice centred on the lower
and higher ethics and the psychology of the mind (citta-niyāma) that
nourishes our contemplative practice. The transition from the secular
ethics of a layman’s life to the higher ethics of a meditative life is found
in the Dhammānupassanā focus on the five hindrances. Under the influ-
ence of the hindrances one is unable to understand one’s own good and
why people engage in unproductive ways of seeking happiness, and even
when they realize the dangers they give into weakness of will.
Master ing the Hindr ances

The ability to master the five hindrances helps one to attain the five fac-
tors needed to attain absorption. The hindrances also obstruct the estab-
lishment of the awakening factors (bojjhaṅga), which is explained by the
Buddha with five graphic metaphors. Simple recognition of a hindrance
like anger presents the ingenious way of turning obstacles into a pathway
of awakening. As a modern commentator says, the benefit can be seen in
very tangible ways: ‘The arising of anger leads to an increase of adrena-
line, and such an increase in adrenaline will further stimulate anger. The
presence of non-reactive sati puts a break on this vicious cycle’.9 If one
resents or condemns anger, however, that reaction would be another
expression of aversion. In several expositions of the gradual path in
the suttas, it is said that the absence of the hindrances leads to delight,
joy and happiness. A tranquil mind unaffected by hindrances is often
described as ‘luminous’. Next, one tries to discern the conditions for the
arising of the hindrance and the conditions that assist in removing the
hindrance, and thus prevent future occurrence of hindrances. Thus, there
is a beautiful route via diagnosis, via cure, via prevention. There are also
antidotes as for example for lust, a decaying dead body; for anger, loving
kindness and patience. In deep meditative states of absorption (Kāyagata
sutta) there is a balancing with the meditative states focussed on the
unattractive facets of the body. There is a vital link between the mastery
of hindrances and deep contemplative meditations, in fact all types of
meditative experience, as well as the shadows of these hindrances in secu-
lar life—the bondage to passions that are below higher ethics.
Commenting on the refined art of mastering the hindrances,
Venerable Henepola Gunaratana says:
Mindfulness cannot be cultivated by struggle. It grows by realizing, by

letting go, by just settling down in the moment and letting yourself be
comfortable with whatever you are experiencing. This does not mean that
mindfulness happens all by itself. Far from it. Energy is required. Effort is
required … gentle effort.10
Sloth a nd Torpor in Meditative Pr actice

Joseph Goldstein, the well-known meditation teacher, says that there is
an aspect of hindrances that is hard to recognize:
SLOTH A ND TOR POR IN MEDITATI V E PR ACTICE 119
This is not merely the feeling of sleepiness, but rather the deeper pattern
or tendency to of withdrawing from difficulties. This is the habit of retreat-
ing from challenges rather than arousing energy and effort to engage
with them. In these situations, sloth and torpor are like the reverse gear
in a car, never going forward to meet experience but always pulling back.
(Goldstein 2013, 142)11
When one retreats from difficulties, inactivity, passivity and lethargy

creep into your system.
And, what bhikkhus, is the nutriment for the arising of unarisen sloth
and torpor, and for the increase and expansion of arisen sloth and torpor?
There are, bhikkhus, discontent, lethargy, lazy stretching, drowsiness after
meals, sluggishness of mind: frequently giving careless attention to them
is the nutriment for the arising of unarisen sloth and torpor and for the
increase and expansion of arisen sloth and torpor. (Trans. Bodhi, 1597)12
There is also the subliminal invasion of deceptive emotions/thoughts

(vañcaka-dhamma). As Goldstein observes, we can be fooled into
unwise attention as ‘sloth and torpor can masquerade as compassion for
oneself’ (Goldstein 2013, 143).13 If one has repressed difficult psycho-
logical concerns, then they should be clearly seen and not covered with
sloth and torpor. One has to be aware that excessive energy does not
work and needs to realize that there is a need for a balance. The Buddha
instructed the monk Sona, who was a musician before he became a
monk. He told him that in a musical instrument, the strings should be
neither too loose or too tight. One could also be the victim of another
hindrance, restlessness and worry.
According to the Venerable U. Sīlānanda, there are six methods that
can lead to the temporary abandonment of sloth and torpor. They can
be due to excessive meals. What is needed is to practice moderation, to
change posture and shift to walking meditation, to reflect on the per-
ception of light. He says stay open by going outside, for instance stand
under a tree. Have a good and energetic friend, as an example for
yourself. Use suitable talk related to the Dhamma (Sīlānanda 1990,
103–106).14 Daniel Siegel, the celebrated neuroscientist, has a method
succinctly described as COAL to deal with boredom: be curious about
what is happening; be open to what is going on; accept that this is the
present moment; let go judgments about it; have a loving stance towards
the experience and yourself (Siegel 2007, 222).15
The Phenomenology of Bor edom

It is strange that although boredom emerges as a hindrance and obstruc-
tion, understanding boredom is itself an invigorating experience. It has
been observed that:
Boredom is a window to the properties of time and understanding bore-

dom with wisdom is the key to living in the present. An hour for one
person comes in a flash – he is rushing against losing time; for another,
it’s a grey block of drudgery, when will this pass away; but for the fully
absorbed, it is eternity! With all the labour saving devices, we have much
less time, and this accounts for the ‘Manic quality of daily life’. (Loy and
Goodhew 2005, 166)16
For the meditator stuck in boredom and dullness, the man rushing
against time is a strange contrast:
The odd thing was, no matter how much time he saved, he never had
any to spare; in some mysterious way, it simply vanished. Imperceptibly at
first, but then quite unmistakably, his days grew shorter and shorter. …
Something in the nature of a blind obsession had taken hold of him, and
when he realized to his horror that his days were flying faster and faster,
as he actually did, it only reinforced his grim determination to save time.
(Figaro the barber, quoted in Loy and Goodhew, 166)17
Bor edom and Attentional Cr isis

To realize that boredom does not come from the object of attention, but
rather from the quality of attention is truly a transforming insight. Fritz
Perls, one of those who brought Gestalt therapy to America, said, ‘bore-
dom is lack of attention’. Understanding this reality brings profound
changes in our lives (Goldstein 1993, 80).18 There are three facets of a
person’s limitations of the attentional stance:
An attentional deficit is characterised by the inability to focus on a cho-

sen object. The mind becomes withdrawn and disengaged even from its
own internal processes. Attentional hyperactivity occurs when the mind is
extensively aroused, resulting in compulsive distractions and fragmenta-
tion. An attention is dysfunctional when we focus is on things in afflic-
tive ways, not conducive to our own or others’ well-being. (Wallace and
Shapiro 2006)19
THE PATHOLOGY OF A CULTUR E TH AT CALLS FOR A N AWA K ENING 121
A deficit occurs when there is some laxity in concentration and a fresh

interest in the subject or object is recommended. Hyperactivity indicates
that the mind is agitated and there is a need to relax. This is preferably
done with a relaxing meditation, like mettā meditation or walking medi-
tation. When attention is dysfunctional, there is a need for more radical
thinking and for changes in lifestyle and cognitive perspective. There has
to be a resurgence of the cognitive, motivational and affective side which
can enhance our attentional stance.
In life at large, we need to carry over our meditative life to our routine,
prosaic, silent, ordinary lives, where we like ants, in stages build our moral
dexterity with industriousness and integrity. In the words of a celebrated
novelist, Iris Murdoch, we convert our meditative life into a pilgrimage.
Similar sentiments have been expressed by the celebrated exponent of
the ‘flow’ experience, Csikszentmihályi (1990), who converted the con-
templative dimension into a kind of peak experience, a resonance estab-
lished between action, external environment and the mind. This concept
of the flow experience offers a fine-tuned model for meditators, though
Csikszentmihályi also worked with athletes, dancers, musicians and art-
ists. In the words of the celebrated Tibetan monk, meditator and scholar,
Ricard (2006, 234): ‘When all is going well, this fluidity produces a sense
of serene joy; self-awareness—that is a person observing himself—is prac-
tically absent; exhaustion is forgotten; and the time passes imperceptibly,
like the flow of a river….’.20 As Csikzentmihályi observes, boredom is
our window to the properties of time, and novel, creative and meaningful
ways of spending the time is the answer, and above all the ‘flow experi-
ence’ in a meditative life is a rich harvest for those who have integrated
their lifestyle into their practice as meditators.
The Pathology of a Culture that Calls

for an Awa k ening
Buddhists have developed a discipline of sobriety that can counter the

ills of our culture. Earlier, I referred to the dimension of ‘dysfunc-
tional attention’ when a person is drowned by afflictive ways of living,
like falling prey to alcoholism which does not contribute to his or oth-
ers’ well-being. When a whole culture, however, loses its way, throwing
away basic ethical precepts, people with a sound meditative life will be
rare to find. Bhikkhu Bodhi, a renowned scholar monk highly respected
by Buddhists across the world, was stricken by both sorrow and moral
anger at the corrosive impact of alcoholism on the lifestyle of Buddhists,

even in a place where the flame of arduous living burns (Bodhi, October
2015).21 I do not want to get into analysing this context, but that in a
deeper sense seems to express what Erich Fromm described in The Art of
Listening as a ‘sickness of the soul’. All the misery which is experienced
by many people lies to a large extent not in the fact that they are sick but
that they are separated from everything that’s interesting in life, that is
exhilarating, that is beautiful in life (Fromm 1994, 165).22 Erich Fromm
had been greatly immersed in Buddhism and had a close correspond-
ence with Venerable Nyanaponika, the German monk. Nyanaponika even
published a Buddhist Publication Society wheel publication with articles
on Fromm and Buddhism. Studies of boredom across society indicate
the erosion of normative guidelines and a drying up of vibrant interests
that energize life.
It is also of great interest that the development of lifestyles to coun-
teract this syndrome as cited by Fromm has been developed by Mihaly
Csikzentmihályi. He wrote about the contemplative dimension as a new
model of education and described it as the ‘flow’ experience. Hassed and
Chambers described the experience as follows: ‘This involves deep but
effortless concentration on the process, and thus the concentration is
fully drawn by engagement and interest in the activity itself and not to
some secondary goal, such as winning. Therefore these experiences are
the most alive, vivid, fulfilling and memorable’ (Hassed and Chambers
2014, 136–137).23 These peak experiences are found in long-time medi-
tators, athletes, musicians, artists, mountain climbers, etc. The following
features describe this zone of the flow experience: (i) a sense of control;
a unified and integrated state; (ii) absence of self-consciousness or ego;
(iii) enjoyment, relaxation, confidence and freedom; (iv) focus on the
goal without anxiety; (v) in the present moment; (vi) sense of time is
altered. Thus the flow experience offers a radically new way of dealing
with boredom and slothfulness in our life and extends the image of a
profound meditator to other spheres of life.
Notes
1. Bhikkhu Thānissaro, 2003, ‘Skilful Intentions’, Dhamma Talk, http://
www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2003/030928%20Skillful%20
Intentions.mp3.
2. Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, 1992, Mindfulness in Plain English,
Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA, p. 138.
R EFER ENCES 123
3. Otto Fenichel, 1953, Selected Papers of Otto Fenichel, Norton, New York,
p. 301.
4. Mihaly Csikszentmihályi, 1975, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety:
Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
5. Craig Hassed and Richard Chambers, 2014, Mindful Learning, Exisle
Publishers, pp. 28–34.
6. Csikszentmihályi (1975).
7. Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne and Richard J. Davidson, 2007,
Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness, in P. Zelazo, Morris
Moscovitch and Evan Thompson (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of
Consciousness, New York, pp. 19–497.
8. Siegel (2007, 213).
9. Anālayo (2010, 190).
10. Venerable Gunaratana (1992, 164).
11. Goldstein (2013, 142).
12. Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2000, The Connected Discourse of the Buddha: A
Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA,
p. 1597 (Bodhi 2000).
13. Goldstein (2013, 143).
14. Sayadaw U. Sīlānanda, 1990, The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA, pp. 103–106.
15. Siegel (2007, 222).
16. David Loy and Linda Goodhew, 2005, ‘Consuming Time’, in Stephanie
Kaza (ed.), Hooked: Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to
Consume, Shambhala, Boston and London, p. 166.
17. Figaro the barber, quoted in Loy and Goodhew, 2005, p. 166.
18. Joseph Goldstein, 1993, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom,
Shambhala, Boston, MA, p. 80.
19. Wallace and Shapiro (2006, 690–701).
20. Matthieu Ricard, 2006, Happiness: A Guide to Life’s Most Important Skill,
Little, Brown and Company, New York and London, p. 234.
21. Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2015, The Island, 26 October 2015, http://www.island.
lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_
title=134210.
22. Erich Fromm, 1994, The Art of Listening, Constable, London, p. 165.
23. Hassed and Chambers (2014, 136–137).
References
Bhikkhu Bodhi. (2000). The connected discourse of the Buddha: A translation of
the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom.
Bhikkhu Bodhi. (2015, October 26). The Island. Retrieved from http://www.
island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_
title=134210.
Bhikkhu Thānissaro. (2003). ‘Skilful Intentions’, Dhamma Talk. Retrieved from
http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2003/030928%20Skillful%20
Intentions.mp3.
Csikszentmihályi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in
work and play. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Csikszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New
York: Harper and Row.
Fenichel, O. (1953). Selected papers of Otto Fenichel. New York: Norton.
Fromm, E. (1994). The art of listening. London: Constable.
Goldstein, J. (1993). Insight meditation: The practice of freedom. Boston:
Shambhala.
Goldstein, J. (2013). Mindfulness. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Hassed, C., & Chambers, R. (2014). Mindful learning. Wollombi, N.S.W: Exisle.
Loy, D., & Goodhew, L. (2005). Consuming time. In S. Kaza (Ed.), Hooked:
Buddhist writings on greed, desire, and the urge to consume. Boston and
London: Shambhala.
Lutz, A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Meditation and the neurosci-
ence of consciousness. In P. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.),
The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (pp. 19–497). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Ricard, M. (2006). Happiness: A guide to life’s most important skill. New York
and London: Little, Brown.
Sīlānanda, S. U. (1990). The four foundations of mindfulness. Boston: Wisdom.
Venerable Gunaratana, H. (1992). Mindfulness in plain English. Boston:
Wisdom.
Wallace, B. A., & Shapiro, S. L. (2006). Mental balance and well-being: Building
bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. American Psychologist,
61, 690–701.
CHAPTER 10
Free Will
Abstract The Buddha in asserting the existence of free will took a

middle position between theories of determinism and indeterminism.

An individual may, to a certain extent, control the dynamic forces of the
past and present and also the course of future events. Man has free will
(attakāra) and there is provision for personal endeavour and a person
is capable of changing himself and the environment. The Buddha was
critical of the theists who upheld that the world is a creation of a God; he
rejected the materialists who said that death is the ultimate end; he was
critical of sceptics who said that concepts of after-life and moral respon-
sibility cannot be proved; he rejected natural determinists who could not
make a distinction between good and bad and the Buddha also rejected
other theorists like the categorists and relativists. The Buddha was able
to debate and explain why he accepted moral responsibility and free will
which provided a basis for leading a virtuous life.
The Buddhist philosophical background offers a contextual approach

to free will, determinism and intentionality, which provides a very flex-
ible base to understand the logic of emotions, as a two-way body–mind
process. There is a two-way interaction between the body and mind.
These concerns are interrelated and the Buddha displays clarity in chart-
ing these concepts. Issues about freedom and responsibility dominated
during the philosophical and the intellectual ferment of the times of the
Buddha—of ascetics and seers, philosophers with a diversity of views,

126 10 Free Will
materialists, sceptics, nihilists, determinists and theists. While we are

engaged in the analytic dissection of concept like somatic intelligence,
it is necessary to communicate to the reader that we inherit from the
Buddha some very sophisticated and rich philosophical resources.
The Buddha took a middle position between determinism and inde
terminism. According to strict determinism, the present and the past are
unalterable; however, the Buddha upholds a concept of free will accord-
ing to which an individual may, to a certain extent, control the dynamic
forces of the past and present and also the course of future events. Man
has free will (attakāra) and provision for personal endeavour and is capa-
ble of changing himself and the environment. There were six prominent
thinkers with whom the Buddha had dialogue, discussions and debate:
Makkhali Ghosāla, who was a theist upholding that the world was created
and guided by the will of God; Ajita Kesakambali, a materialist who main-
tained that man at death was annihilated and there was no basis for lead-
ing a virtuous life; Sañjaya Belatthaputta, a sceptic who upheld that certain
basic notions like the belief in an after-life and moral responsibility could
not be verified or rationally demonstrated; Pūraṇa Kassapa, who was a nat-
ural determinist and so was unable to see any meaning in distinguishing
between good and bad; Pakudha Kaccāyana, who attempted to describe
the nature of reality in terms of discrete categories and is described as a
categoralist; and finally, Nigaṇṭha Nāṭaputra, a relativist, who saw some
truth in every point of view.
In addition to debate and discussion, there is a wager argument: when
the Buddha addressed the materialists, sceptics, determinists or indetermin-
ists, who denied survival, freedom and responsibility, he did not presup-
pose the truth of these latter concepts, but used a ‘wager argument’. It is
reminiscent of Pascal and showed that on pragmatic grounds it was better
to base one’s life on the assumptions of survival, freedom and responsibility.
Otherwise, whatever happens, we tend to lose, whereas utilizing other
alternatives we stand to gain (Appanaka Sutta, Middle Length Sayings).
Jayatilleke, continuing this discussion, refers to four pseudo-religions
in the world and four religions which are unsatisfactory but not necessar-
ily totally false. The first of the pseudo-religions is materialism. It upholds
the reality of the material world alone and denies individual freedom and
responsibility, survival, and a good life. The second denies any legiti-
mate ethics, as everything is strictly determined. Third, there is a religion
which denies free will and moral causation, and holds that human beings
are miraculously saved or doomed. While the fourth is predestinarian
NOTES 127
deterministic evolutionism which asserts the inevitability of salvation for all.

The unsatisfactory religions, though false, are the ones which accept a con-
cept of survival, moral values, freedom and the non-inevitability of salvation.
Of these, the first claims omniscience for the founder. The second is based
on revelation. The third is based on only logical reasoning, and the fourth a
kind of pragmatism, which is either a form of scepticism or agnosticism.
The Buddha’s awakening went through three facets of knowledge:
recollection of past lives; insight into the death and re-birth of beings
throughout the cosmos; and insight into the mental fermentations
(āsavas) within the mind. The first two were not the exclusive prop-
erty of the Buddhist tradition, as they were found in early mystic and
shamanistic traditions, but the third was as it focussed on the phenom-
enology of the mind—a systematic account of phenomena as they are
experienced (Thānissaro 1996).1 While the first two insights provided
stimulus for him to have a fresh look at the notion of kamma, his cen-
tral focus was that the primary causal factor for both generating stress
and suffering, as well as happiness, was the mind and the moral qual-
ity of intentions, comprising thoughts, words, deeds and the rightness of
views. This standpoint discouraged his followers from getting entangled
in the cosmological and metaphysical controversies of the times and led
them to concentrate on the phenomenology and psychology of human
experience, motivation, intention and attention. Against determinism,
the Buddha pointed out that the cycle of action, result and reaction is
not entirely deterministic and that acts of perception, attention, and
intention can actually provide new input as the cycle goes through suc-
cessive turns. There has to be a gradual mastery of the skill. Jayatilleke’s
comprehensive analysis of the philosophical issues pertaining to free will
(Jayatilleke 1975)2 and Venerable Thānissaro’s insightful analysis of the
phenomenology and the psychological issues have helped me to get a
very clear idea of the issues. This short chapter may prove to the reader
that short and insightful analysis of the issues of free will and determin-
ism is a crucial background for understanding the logic of human inten-
tion in Buddhist perspective.
Notes
1. Thānissaro (1996).
2. K. N. Jayatilleke, 1975, Buddhist Attitude to Other Religions, Buddhist
Publication Society, Kandy.
128 10 Free Will
References
Bhikkhu Thānissaro. (1996). The wings to awakening. Barre Center for Buddhist
Studies. Barre, MA: Dhammadāna Publications.
Jayatilleke, K. N. (1975). Buddhist attitude to other religions. Kandy: Buddhist
CHAPTER 11
Moral Pain
Abstract  How is Moral Pain Different from “Righteous Indignation”?

Simple anger is a reflex when something or some person obstructs our
plans, and we may even kick the ground through frustration. Anger
proper is based on a belief that there is an offence committed to one-
self and the desire to set the offence right or retaliate. Indignation is
the anger over a moral principle we cherish, for example, a friend who
spreads gossip about one’s weaknesses breaking the basic ingredients of
a genuine friendship, which calls for good advice rather than damaging
gossip. There can be complex social issues like the raping of young girls
in India recently—what do we do with our anger? It is not just a concern
that benefits an individual far away from the scene but it touches deep
human values in an objective way. I cite below a personal story which
was a blend of moral pain and moral anger.
Abbreviations for the Sutta Literature

A Anguttara Nikaya (Gradual Sayings)
D Digha Nikaya (Further Dialogues)
M Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Sayings)
S Samyutta Nikaya (Kindred Sayings)
We regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spir-
itual warriors – people have a certain hunger to know what is true – feelings

130 11 MORAL PAIN
like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy,

and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear movements that
teach us where it is that we are holding back. They teach us to perk up and
lean in what we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like mes-
sengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck, and
lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are. (Chodron 2007)1
Emotion Profiles of Anger, Righteous Anger

and Moral Pain
We react with simple anger when something or some person obstructs

our plans, and we may kick the ground in a mood of frustration. Proper
anger is based on the belief that an offence against oneself has been com-
mitted and there is the desire to set the offence right or to retaliate.
Indignation is anger over a moral principle we cherish. On a subjective
level, it can be caused by the behaviour of a friend who spreads gossip
about one’s weakness and so breaks the essential ingredients of a good
friendship. At an impersonal level, proper anger can be elicited when one
observes the exploitation of an innocent man’s cheap labour, or to take
a more difficult case, where moral anger speaks in a strong voice, such as
when one observes the violence against women and rape of women in
India. Issues about moral anger need a contextual approach. Each issue
has to be approached not merely through logical analysis but through
a deep contemplative, ethical and therapeutic entry, at least where the
issues are complex. As described in this chapter, the Buddhist contem-
plative approach for managing moral pain/anger transforms moral chal-
lenges into deep reflective ones. Anger is also managed through different
meditative techniques.
In Western moral tradition, however, typified in Aristotle’s concept of
righteous indignation, moral dilemmas have to be solved by the rules of
moral criticism advocated by Aristotle. The nature of the moral dilemmas
that Aristotle presented and his solutions have been clearly presented in
an article that offers a solution obtained from the later Buddhist Tantric
tradition (McRae 2015).2 Furthermore, the solution to moral dilemmas
may also be derived to some extent from an early Buddhist perspective.
In fact, the early Buddhist approach to mindfulness-based anger/moral
anger management is replete with a variety of contextual techniques, as
will be evident from several chapters of the present book. Mindfulness-
based techniques were not known to the Greek philosophers. They used
EMOTION PROFILES OF ANGER, R IGHTEOUS A NGER A ND MOR A L PA IN 131
the model of reason as the charioteer and passions as the seven unruly
horses. Chapter 7 makes a graphic comparison of the Aristotelian and the
Buddhist approaches to dealing with passions. It is not limited to anger
management, which task Aristotle thought was not important as he did
not value the importance of moral anger/indignation. While McRae’s
excellent portrayal of the dilemmas with the Aristotelian and Stoic posi-
tions is useful, the framework of the present book does not permit me to
discuss some of the important ramifications of the article.
One of the main obstacles to thinking clearly about the morality of
anger is that we tend to have two competing intuitions: we think that the
effects of anger—are both for self and others—often bad, destroying both
our relationships and our peace of mind, and that the expression of anger
in response to injustice can be good or even required. It may seem that
there is an easy solution to this obstacle: anger is usually bad except when
directed at actual wrongdoing or injustice, in which case anger is good or
even required, but at the very least permissible (McRae 2015, 466).3 This
is followed by a very insightful observation:
But this solution is too quick. First of all, it fails to take into account the
fact that human beings form emotional habits – in this case angry disposi-
tions – that can greatly alter our view of what counts as a wrongdoing and
our susceptibility to being (or at least feeling) wronged.4
My solution to moral anger is a long-range remedy cutting across quick

solutions. It is the cultivation of moral character and generating this
quality through meta-attentiveness, which goes beyond metabolizing
anger, which is advocated by McRae. I have some sympathy for a more
modified perspective on metabolizing anger, which I shall mention later.
This emerges as a dilemma, as Aristotle wrote a fascinating tract on
moral emotions: an insightful account of anger and a celebrated account
of the golden mean but had a soft preference for righteous anger. While
I shall discuss the limitations of Aristotle’s perspective on moral anger
(righteous indignation), in the latter part of this chapter, the best over-
all critique from a Buddhist perspective is to illustrate in detail how
Buddhism approaches moral anger. The Buddhist approach has many
facets but ‘meta-attentiveness’ is the most important and this con-
cept emerges in a celebrated dialogue between The Dalai Lama and
the world’s foremost emotion expert Paul Ekman. I shall present three
strands of discussion of mindfulness as alternatives to the Aristotelian
132 11 MORAL PAIN
moral universe: the concept of meta-attentiveness in a dialogue between

The Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman; on body sensations and emotions by
Bruno Cayoun, and on ‘bare attention’ by Nyanaponika Mahathero.
Buddhist Meta-Attentiveness
Ekman and The Dalai Lama offer a significant exchange:
[Ekman]: ‘I completely agree that each emotion can be enacted construc-

tively or destructively. To have a choice about how you are going to enact
an emotion you must be aware of the emotion as it is arising, of ‘spark
before the flame’, or in Western terms, the impulse before the action.
Then, if you are aware in your consciousness that an emotion is arising,
you should be able to adjust the level and the way in which you respond’.
(Dalai Lama and Ekman 2008, 23)5
[Dalai Lama]: This is very true, because in the meditation texts there is
the role of the two main faculties that are being constantly applied – one is
mindfulness and the other one, Alan Wallace calls ‘meta-attention’, a form
of self-awareness. (Dalai Lama and Ekman 2008, 23)6
In his study of contemplative science, he says, the concept of meta-atten-

tiveness, is a point where Buddhism and neuroscience converge (Wallace
2007).7 Meta-attentiveness indicates the role of self-awareness in training
the practitioner to a point where the person is able to detect, even before
the actual emotion or the proneness to the actual emotion has arisen.
Emotion triggers refer to a person’s appraisal of an event, though there
are some triggers with very little cognitive appraisal. It is often quick and
the person is not conscious of making it. The third point about triggers
is that is our typical lack of awareness of the emotion. The notion that
a part of us can monitor the emergence of the emotion and watch what
is being experienced is important. But often this does not happen. The
initial lack of awareness when experiencing is important. People differ in
how fast they can recover from the emotional episode says Ekman.
I shall illustrate moral anger through the story of a friend, Frank and
share through this experience the nature of the emotional episode which
was a virtual crisis. I am a person who handles both regular anger and anger
regarding episodic events well, but occasional and unusual incidents may
throw one off balance but yet provide great insights. One of the impor-
tant issues that this conversation examines is the concept of attachment.
THE STORY 133
In this story, I see a three-faced attachment: proper anger regarding lost

money; anger as possessive; attachment to the anger; and anger justified
as moral anger. They come together in this story of the experience of my
friend, Frank. He did not have meta-attentiveness. A fourth factor was
partly due to Frank’s digestion problems and partly to complex body sensa-
tions which were greatly minimized by taking hydrolyte and drinking lots
of water. After regular meditation practice, however, he learnt that the body
sensations were also emotional. Paul Ekman has provided me with a vir-
tual searchlight to look at moral anger, as I shall do after narrating Frank’s
story. As I discuss in Chap. 7, the body emotions linkage is very important
and whether it is moral anger or frustration anger, they are embodied emo-
tions and mindfulness of the body is important. This is a clear alternative to
metabolizing anger as discussed earlier.
Given that body sensations are the building blocks of emotions, or the
essential experiences that let us feel these emotions, imagine what would
happen if you trained your mind to feel and accept all sensations in the
body. … It would learn that it is safe and acceptable to feel strong sensa-
tions without needing to react. This is a process known as ‘emotion reg-
ulation’. Put in a different way, emotions become acceptable. Thus the
primary purpose of mindfulness of body sensations is to unlearn reactive
habits (Cayoun 2015, 95).8 The path of non-judgmental attention, also
presented in the chapter on pain management, offers an extensive area of
application.
The Story
While travelling through Bangkok to New Zealand, all of Frank’s
money was stolen at a checkpoint at the airport. In the excitement,
Frank nearly missed the flight. Frank said that what he had experienced
was more difficult than withstanding moral anger; it was moral pain.
Now this raises a big puzzle and initially I could not solve this puzzle,
as I had a similar predicament of moral anger blending with moral pain
when some years ago, my purse with two thousand dollars was stolen at
an airport.
Innocent compassion for the culprit, who has with skill paved his/her
pathway to hell, was not within Frank’s means at the time. For him, con-
verting moral anger to moral pain became a great journey. It was one of
the emerging blossoms from his broken world. Paul Ekman, in speak-
ing to The Dalai Lama, says: ‘we do not have to learn how to be angry.
134 11 MORAL PAIN
But we have to learn how to be angry with compassion’ (Ekman, 141).9

Once you have cultivated compassion it is a permanent part of you.
When you encounter suffering you respond compassionately:
So in my view, compassion differs from emotions in four ways. Com
passion needs to be cultivated, while emotions do not. Compassion once
cultivated is an enduring feature of the person, while emotions come
and go. Compassion does not distort our perception of reality, while
emotions do initially, during the refractory period. The focus of com-
passion is restricted to the relief of suffering (Dalai Lama and Ekman
2008, 141).10
Vipassa nā and Mor a l Pa in

Frank’s problem and my memories of a similar story of stealing my
belongings was at the heart of a deep reflective turn of mind during a
meditation sitting. I sent notes on my problem regarding moral pain and
moral anger to my guru, Venerable Uda Eriyagama Dhammajiva. With
his customary sharp insights he sent this note to me:
1. Morality, you drop on the way to vipassanā.

2. When moral pain happens without moral anger, the self cannot
claim this ‘as mine or me or myself’.
3. This very moral pain is something sympathetic and helps spiritual
beings to understand sentient beings and human mistakes.11
Points (2) and (3), mentioned by my guru above, had a deep impact
on me. I had recently presented a paper on the hindrances (Chap. 9) so
I became aware that the issue is deeper than mere morality, it is moral
psychology, a great backstage to vipassanā, where we practice ‘meta-
attentiveness’ as described above. When one struggles with moral pain/
moral anger, there is catharsis; resilience rather than reactivity and trans-
formation into a profound emotion (point (3) above). Though the term
‘catharsis’ is sometimes associated with purification or purgation, its
therapeutic meaning in Freud was, clearing away obstacles. The Greeks
asserted that the function of tragedy, as seen on the stage, is to deepen
the experience. Re-enacting a buried incident in Freud led to deep
understanding of the event. It has been observed by Richard Davidson,
‘Resilient people are somehow able not only to withstand but benefit
V IPASSA NĀ A ND THE BODY 135
from certain kinds of stressful events and turn adversity to advantage.

This in a nutshell, is the puzzle that has driven my research’ (Davidson
and Begley 2013, 2)… A graphic analogy of anger management to cook-
ing potatoes by Thich Nhat Hanh conveys my point. It offers an alterna-
tive metaphor to that of the peacock eating poison in Tantric Buddhism.
Cooking Anger: You need to sustain your mindfulness for a certain

amount of time in order for the flower of anger to open herself. It’s like
when you cook potatoes; you put the potatoes in the pot, cover it and put
it on fire. But even with a very high flame, if you turn the fire off after five
minutes, the potatoes will not be cooked. You have to keep the fire burn-
ing for at least fifteen minutes in order for the potatoes to cook. After that
you open the lid, and you smell the wonderful aroma of cooked potatoes.
Your anger is like that—it needs to be cooked. (Hanh 2001, 29)12
Regarding the cultivation of compassion (mettā), I had more intricate

discussions with my guru Venerable Dhammajiva. He said karuna (kind-
ness) need not be cultivated as it is a natural flow of a human being,
for instance when an animal is in pain. In fact, this insight sounds like a
biological base and may be extended to compassion, though of course
compassion is also cultivated through meditation exercises.
Vipassanā and the Body

After bringing some calm and reflective insights into moral pain, I
gradually found that the morning meditation sitting was exhilarating.
In Chap. 2, I have already summarized what is referred to as the sixth
sense: when you come into deep contact with the body. It takes time
to reach the first glimmering experience of a vipassanā state which I
have described as passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāra, when the bodily disposi-
tions slow down and the feverish activity of the body also slows down
and one experiences the ‘breath-body’, and where the gap between
the inner breath and outer breath dwindles. This state emerges in
some form within about 35 min and gives you the pleasant signal of
joy within roughly the next 20 min. In going through the life of Risa
Kaparo, I introduced the notion of a ‘profound emotion’ when you rise
above the ‘half-lit’ world, of ordinary people. At this point I did experi-
ence the resonance of a profound emotion—a moment of spiritual illu-
mination.
136 11 MORAL PAIN
Beyond Therapy and the Goals of Insight Meditation

The Buddhist concept of liberation through insight was not known to
Aristotle. Through it, we enter a completely different universe in first
developing bare attention. This universe demands the task of tidying up
and naming through bare attention. It is a non-violent and a non-coer-
cive procedure, involving the capacity of slowing down, and bestowing
directness of vision bestowed through bare attention.
In the normal world, we come across a vast number of causal sense
impressions, sights, sounds, vague, fragmentary and often misjudgements.
These dark, untidy corners of the mind, however, are hideouts for our
suppressed envy, anger, unsatisfied longings and sometimes initial resent-
ments and motives for revenge. We start by identifying and giving them
a name, and then we identify obstacles to meditation, like external dis-
turbances, mental defilements like anger, restlessness, dissatisfaction
and slothfulness arising during meditation. One should notice the dis-
turbances clearly but lightly, without attention to details, and repeat the
application of ‘bare attention’ to them and then if necessary make them
an object of meditation (dhammānupassanā).
‘The method of transforming disturbances into objects of meditation,
as simple as it is ingenious, may be regarded as the culmination of non-vio-
lent procedure. It is a device very characteristic of the spirit of Satipaṭṭhāna
… thus converting enemies to friends’ (Nyanaponika 1986, 21).13
Mindfulness, though seemingly of a passive nature, is in fact a very activat-
ing force, making the mind alert and ready for purposeful activity using the
two skills of activating and restraining. This illustrates the strength of tran-
quillity and the ability to defer action, using the brakes, suspending judge-
ments in making things end and making things start: there is nothing more
glorious than keeping still (Chinese proverb).14
Another Model: The Skilful Use of Anger

The skilful use of anger is the Tantric model of metabolizing anger.
According to the Tantric Buddhist view as presented by McRae,15 it
can capture the imperative to avoid the destruction caused to the per-
son exercising anger mentioned by the Stoics and some of the Buddhist
claims. It can also embrace the moral efficacy of anger found in Aristotle.
In Chap. 3, I have already referred to the metaphor of the Great
Peacock, where the negative emotion (anger) is described as poison and
NOTES 137
though the peacock eats the poison, this process generates resplend-
ent feathers in the peacock. Following the same image of the peacock,
McRae cites six points in favour of her model of metabolizing anger.
Tantric anger is not feigned anger, it is transformed anger; it is metabo-
lized into something like anger (rather than compassion); it metabolizes
one’s anger through meditative and contemplative practices that function
as therapies of emotions; it is non-compulsive; unlike normal anger, it is
not oriented toward harming others; it is related to the Buddhist view of
no-self.16
It is an elegant piece of writing and one of the best contemporary
presentations from a Tantric point of view but its weakness as an all com-
prehensive model would be apparent if one compares this model with the
conversation between The Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman above. McRae
says that dispositions and conditioned habits may transform a person’s
way of understanding anger and this is exactly the point about a grad-
ual training in meta-attentiveness. Thus as a long-range education pro-
ject or and even one of social engineering, Paul Ekman with The Dalai
Lama provide a model for managing anger and other negative emotions.
Of course, there are many other alternative methods of managing emo-
tions in the Tibetan tradition. Looking at the role of meta-attentiveness
discussed above and the role of bare attention and inner stillness as pre-
sented by Venerable Nyanaponika, we enter a different universe to man-
age moral pain/anger, not found in the Aristotelian universe.
In conclusion, while the Tantric model is of interest and may even
be useful as a special method, early Buddhism is replete with a variety
of approaches and a diversity of techniques for anger and moral anger
management and the present work, especially Chap. 3, confirms my
thesis about anger management in early Buddhism. The Satipaṭṭhāna’s
near immortal presence coming down through twenty-six centuries is
clear testimony and provides sufficient evidence regarding Buddhist
approaches for managing emotions and anger management, which is one
of the most central contributions of the Buddha.
Notes
1. Pema Chodron, 2007, The Places that Scare You, Shambhala, Boston, MA,
p. 12.
2. Emily McRae, 2015, ‘Metabolizing Anger: A Tantric Buddhist Solution to
the Problem of Moral Anger’, Philosophy East and West, 65, pp. 466–484.
138 11 MORAL PAIN
3. McRae (2015, 466).

4. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Wallace (2007).
8. Cayoun (2015, 95).
10. Ibid.
11. Dhammajiva Mahathero, 2014, Personal correspondence.
12. Thich, Nhat Hanh, 2001. Anger: Buddhist Wisdom for Cooling the
Flames. Rider, London, p. 29.
13. Nyanaponika Mahathero, 1986, The Power of Mindfulness, Buddhist
Publication Society, Kandy, p. 21.
14. Chinese proverb.
15. McRae (2015).
16. Ibid.
References
Cayoun, B. (2015). Wellbeing and personal growth. Oxford: Wiley.
Chodron, P. (2007). The places that scare you (p. 12). Boston: Shambhala.
Dalai Lama, & Ekman, P. (2008). Emotional awareness. New York: Times Books.
Davidson, R. J., & Begley, S. (2013). The emotional life of your brain. New York:
Penguin.
Hanh, T. N. (2001). Anger: Buddhist wisdom for cooling the flames. London:
Rider.
McRae, E. (2015). Metabolizing anger: A tantric Buddhist solution to the prob-
lem of moral anger. Philosophy East and West, 65(2), 466–484.
Nyanaponika Mahathero. (1986). The power of mindfulness. Kandy: Buddhist
Wallace, B. A. (2007). Contemplative science. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Author Index
A D
Aaron, Ben-Zeév, 19, 27 Damasio, Antonio, 4, 7, 33, 43–45,
Aaronson, Harvey, 40, 47 63, 65, 70
Ainslie, G., 100, 101, 104 Darwin, Charles, 2, 7, 8, 26, 44,
Ajahn, Chah, 38, 39, 47 69–74, 84
Ajahn, Sumedho, 42, 43, 47 Davidson, Richard, 4, 25, 31, 32, 34,
Analayo, 20, 46, 116 117, 134
Appiah, Kwame, 19, 27 Deigh, John, 7, 76, 77
Aristotle, 6, 89–94, 96–100, 103, 104, de Silva, Padmasiri, 2, 5, 14, 17, 18,
130, 131, 136 23, 53, 54, 64, 66, 71, 75, 79–
81, 84, 90–92, 94–96, 99, 103
Drury, M.O.C., 84, 87
B Dylan, Evans, 21, 76
Barrat, Barnaby, 1, 2
Belatthaputta, Sañjaya, 126
Bennett, M.R., 75, 85 E
Bien, T. and Bien, B., 90, 103 Ekman, Paul, 7, 8, 10, 22, 42, 69–74,
Blackburn, Simon, 41, 42, 47 84, 85, 131–134, 137, 138
Burton, Robert, 83, 86 Elster, Jon, 91, 104
Engler, Jack, 40, 41, 47
Epstein, Mark, 24, 43, 71, 78
C
Caldwell, Christine, 93, 104
Cayoun, Bruno, 5, 92, 94, 132, 133 F
Chodron, Pema, 130, 137 Flanagan, Owen, 40, 41, 47, 91
Csikszentmihályi, Mihaly, 116, 121, 123 Fromm, Erich, 103, 105, 122, 123
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 139

and Mindfulness-Based Therapy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55929-2
140 Author Index
G Kesakambali, Ajita, 126

Gardner, Howard, 3, 6, 18, 58 Kierkegaard, Soren, 17, 18, 26
Germer, Christopher, 55, 61 Kolnai, Aurel, 17, 26
Ghosāla, Makkhali, 126 Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 23, 26, 58
Gladwell, Malcolm, 72, 85 Kyoki, B.D., 101, 104
Goldstein, Joseph, 56, 61, 103,
118–120, 123
Goodhew, Linda, 120, 123 L
Lama, Dalai, 42, 69, 70, 73, 131–133,
137
H Ledoux, Joseph, 4, 7, 43, 75, 99
Hacker, P.M.S., 75, 85 Loy, David, 120, 123
Haggard, Patrick, 107–109, 111 Lutz, Antoine, 31, 46, 117, 123
Haidt, Jonathan, 18, 19, 27 Lyons, William, 53, 61
Hanh, Thich Nhat, 135
Hassed, Craig, 51, 54, 61, 116, 122,
123 M
Hayman, Gene, 96 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 78, 86
Herz, Rachel, 17, 26 Marlatt, Allan, 90, 103
Higgins, K.M., 27 Martin, M.W., 6, 10, 95, 104
Horowitz, Alan, 83, 86 McKenzie, Stephen, 54, 61
McRae, Emily, 130, 131, 136–138
Mele, A.R., 98, 104
I Miller, William, 16, 18, 22, 23
Izard, Carrol E., 13, 26 Minton, Kekuni, 66, 67
Murdoch, Iris, 121
Myers, G.E., 75, 85
J
Jacobson, Nolan Pliny, 82, 86
James, William, 2, 8, 21, 26, 33, N
43–46, 53, 69, 70, 73–77, 84 Nāṭaputra, Nigaṇṭha, 126
Jayatilleke, K.N., 126, 127 Neu, Jerome, 79, 86
Joanna, Bourke, 52, 60 Nietzsche, 39, 47
K O
Kabat-Zinn, Jon, 1, 2, 5, 41, 44, 52, Ogden, Pat, 66, 67
56–60, 75, 90, 98, 108
Kaccāyana, Pakudha, 126
Kaparo, Risa, 1–3, 5, 7–9, 56–59, P
108, 135 Pain, Clare, 66, 67
Kassapa, Pūraṇa, 126 Parks, Graham, 39, 47
Author Index 141
Penman, Danny, 60 U
Plato, 42, 90, 91, 93, 97, 98, 104 Unno, Mark, 47
Premasiri, P.D., 90, 91, 104
Prinz, Jesse, 4, 7, 8, 21, 43–45, 70, 74,
77 V
Pugmire, David, 8, 9 Varela, Francisco, 33, 60
Ven. Bodhi, Bhikkhu, 101, 104, 119,
121, 123
R Ven. Dhammajiva, 2, 19, 94, 96, 134,
Ricard, Mattieu, 31, 46, 121, 123 135
Rinpoche, Lema Glendum, 37, 38, 47 Ven. Gnanarama, 27
Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg, 79, 86, 91, Ven. Gunaratana, Henepola, 114, 116,
102, 105 118, 122, 123
Rosch, Eleanor, 33 Ven. Nyanaponika, 19, 20, 27, 35, 36,
Rothschild, Babette, 63–67 46, 122, 132, 136–138
Ruden, Ronald, 91, 96, 97, 104 Ven. Silananda, 119
Ven. Thanissaro, 22, 109, 110
Vidyamala, Burch, 1, 2, 5, 52, 56–58,
S 108
Shapiro, Shauna, 103, 105, 120
Siegel, Daniel, 4–6, 21, 25, 34, 43,
66, 67, 108, 109, 117, 119 W
Socrates, 89, 91, 93, 97, 98 Wall, Patrick, 52, 61
Solomon, Robert, 75, 80 Wakefield, Jerome, 83, 86
Spinoza, Benedict, 6, 36, 37, 78, 79, Wallace, Alan B., 52–54, 61, 103, 105,
81, 89 120, 123, 132, 138
Suchy, Yana, 22, 26, 27 Wickramasinghe, Martin, 23, 27
Williams, Mark, 51, 58–61, 103
T
Thompson, Evan, 4 Y
Tov-Ruach, Leila, 79, 86 Yalom, Irwin, 84
Subject Index
A compassion, 5, 6, 24, 25, 31, 32,

Amygdala, 17, 32, 75 35, 41, 42, 55, 56, 64, 99,
100, 119, 133–135, 137
contempt, 13, 15, 19, 22
B culture specific emotions, 71
Behaviourism, 33, 53 depression, 13, 15, 18, 24, 25, 40,
79, 83, 84, 90, 99
disgust, 5, 7, 8, 13–20, 22–25, 36,
C 70, 71
Cognitive science, 3, 33, 40 dread, 99
Contemplative education, 122 emotional awareness, 14, 32, 65, 66,
Contemplative ethics, 117, 118, 130 73, 84, 132
emotional pain, 52, 54
emotions and the body, 31, 44
E envy, 7, 15, 23, 37, 71, 78–81, 85,
Embodied emotions, 4, 14, 25, 33, 99, 100, 136
40, 43, 45, 59, 133 facial action coding system, 73
Emotions fear and anxiety, 4, 7, 8, 21, 36, 37,
anger, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13–16, 19, 21, 22, 41, 65, 70, 71, 73, 75, 79–81,
32, 33, 37, 38, 40–42, 53, 55–57, 92, 130
66, 70–72, 75, 79, 81, 90, 92, 93, guilt, 7, 33, 35, 40, 42, 43, 55, 71, 80
95, 96, 99, 100, 102, 103, 114, jealousy, 7, 37, 38, 71, 79–82, 86,
116, 118, 122, 129–137 99, 100, 130
anxiety, 4, 18, 32, 57, 66, 78, kindness, 24, 31, 32, 36–38, 55, 71,
80–82, 84, 122, 123 99, 115, 118, 135
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 143

P. de Silva, Emotions and The Body in Buddhist Contemplative Practice and
Mindfulness-Based Therapy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55929-2
144 Subject Index
managing negative emotions, 31, 98, 99, 101, 103, 114–116, 118,
32, 39, 41, 69 130–133, 135, 136
melancholy, 17, 18, 23, 42, 78, 83, 84 Multiple intelligence, 3, 6, 9, 18
nine paths of managing emotions, 73
pain management, 2, 5, 9, 25, 51,
52, 54–57, 64, 66, 90, 108, 133 N
shame, 35, 42, 43, 71, 80, 99 Neuroplasticity, 5, 25, 59
Neuroscience, 1, 4, 5, 10, 25, 31,
33–35, 40, 43, 52, 53, 59, 70,
F 85, 107, 109, 111, 117, 123, 132
Free will, determinism, 99, 125–127
P
H Pain
Hindrances emotional pain, 52, 54
aversion, 20, 33, 55, 56, 92, 102, moral pain, 129, 130, 133–135, 137
113–115, 118 physical pain, 4, 51, 54, 57, 115
boredom, 15, 17, 18, 22, 33, 103,
114–116, 119–122 S
restlessness and worry, 100, 114, 119 Sallekha Sutta, 57
sceptical doubt, 33, 56, 100, 102, Satipaṭṭhāna, 2, 16, 33, 35, 40, 41,
114, 115 55–57, 93, 114, 136
sense desire, 100, 108, 115 Self-control
sloth and torpor, 34, 56, 100, 102, akrasia, 6, 90–96, 98–102, 107
114–117, 119 alcoholic addiction, 95
moral weakness, 6, 90, 93, 95–99,
101, 107
I
subliminal activity, 99
Ideogenic, 2, 69, 71, 76–78, 84
Sharing values, 132
Intention, 15, 57, 72, 75, 77, 80, 96,
Somatic intelligence, 1–3, 5, 7–9, 14,
99, 107–110, 113, 114, 127
17, 25, 44, 51, 59, 60, 63–65,
Interoception, 20, 25, 26, 34, 59, 92
84, 93, 126
Somatic psychology, 1, 2, 9
M Somatogenic, 2, 69, 71, 77, 84
MBCT, 4, 41, 53, 54, 56, 57, 90, 98 Stress, 2, 8, 42, 51, 54, 58, 60, 63,
Meditation on repulsiveness 64, 90, 127, 135
Kāyagata sutta and positive absorptions
in meditation, 3, 14, 20, 26 T
Mind-body relationship, 2, 4, 14, 15, Trauma, 8, 25, 44, 53, 56, 63–67
21, 32, 33, 40, 45, 46, 54, 65,
76, 92, 94, 125
Mindfulness, 1–5, 8, 13, 23, 25, V
31–34, 39, 40, 42–44, 52–60, vipassanā, 2, 5, 20, 33, 94, 115, 134, 135
64, 66, 70, 75, 76, 89, 90, 92, Volition, 107, 109, 111

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EMOTIONS AND THE

Emotions and The

ISBN 978-3-319-55928-5 ISBN 978-3-319-55929-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936340

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: © nemesis2207/Fotolia.co.uk

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

To three great architects of pain management:

I wish to present the thematic relationships of the different chapters, as

restricting the intelligence of the body to pain and trauma management

Emotion researchers tend to use the term ‘somatic’ broadly. On a nar-

that was developed by the neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. This book

Springvale, Australia Padmasiri de Silva

I greatly appreciate the guidance I received from Prof. G. Somaratne,

1 Somatic Psychology in Historical Perspective 1

2 The Body and the Emotions: Anger, Disgust

3 Embodied Emotions and Body–Mind Reactivity 31

4 Pain Management and Somatic Intelligence 51

5 Pain and Trauma Management 63

6 Emotion Studies: Darwin, James and Freud 69

7 Escaping Bondage to the Somatic Passions 89

8 The Nature of Human Volition and Intentions 107

9 A Journey of Self-Awakening 113

10 Free Will 125

11 Moral Pain 129

Author Index 139

Subject Index 143

Somatic Psychology in Historical Perspective

Abstract The historical background to the present book is found

Somatic Psychology is the psychology of the body, the discipline that

© The Author(s) 2017 1

recognizes this experience as the foundation and origination of all our

I will not get immersed in the historical perspective of the emergence

The Logic of Som atic Intelligence: Eight Significant

A description of the use of the body as a form of intelligence may at first

It is this bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, which at the hands of a genius

of absorption as the object of body contemplation that is not linked to

Thus, in the work of the three great architects of pain management,

intelligence but also of Gardner’s ‘argumentation and hesitation on the

The impotence of man to govern or restrain the emotions I call ‘bondage’,

Akrasia is a multi-layered experience. Self-control is the virtue of living

Howard Gardner in his work, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple

Charles Darwin, in his book on the expression of emotions, wrote that

Paul Ekman claims that cross-cultural research and comparison of

There have been different interpretations of the Jamesian theory of emo-

For this reason, it is an arresting movement in life when a person is genu-

Somatic Learning provides a discipline for a new participation in life. It

14. Joseph LeDoux, 1996, The Emotional Brain, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

de Spinoza, B. (1963). Ethics. New York: Hafner.

The Body and the Emotions: Anger,

Abstract Carroll Izard, a pioneer in emotion studies, considered anger,

Carroll Izard, a pioneer in emotion studies who presented the hostility

The Buddhist approach to deal with such negative emotions as anger,

ignore, repress or find methods of self-deception. It is non-reactive

contexts. At another level, more deeply, when a meditator has achieved

is described in Buddhist sermons as follows: when the eye that is internal

Thematic Strands of Disgust

Rachel Herz’s book, The Scent of Desire, a collection of literature on dis-

Disgust is inherent in the satisfaction of sensual desires to excess and

Though the aesthete may get engrossed in commonplace and ordinary

As presented in the sketch of Nero, however, though the pleasures seem-

Nero sought pleasures to drown his melancholy. He has gone through

William Miller’s classic study, The Anatomy of Disgust (1997),11 has

2 The Body and the Emotions: Anger, Disgust

Somatic Psychology in Historical Perspective

Abstract  The historical background to the present book is found

The Logic of Som atic Intelligence: Eight Significant

14. Joseph LeDoux, 1996, The Emotional Brain, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

The Body and the Emotions: Anger,

Abstract  Carroll Izard, a pioneer in emotion studies, considered anger,

Thematic Strands of Disgust

Converting ‘Disgust’ into a Spiritual Exercise

Negative Versions of Asubha Bhāvanā

From Disenchantment to Dissonance

Concluding Thoughts on the Body:

Interoception and the Emotions

12. Padmasiri de Silva, 2012, ‘The Lost Art of Sadness’, in Kathleen Higgins

Embodied Emotions and Body–Mind

Abstract  Managing Negative Emotions: The initial challenge in the

2. Mindfulness or open-monitoring meditation is the awareness

Prejudices of Psychologists and Philosophers

Issues About Self-Control and Mindfulness

Cultural Perspectives on Negative Emotions:

Embodied Emotions and William James

William James on Mindfulness

11. Spinoza (1963, 195).

Pain Management and Somatic Intelligence

Philosophical Perspectives on Pain Management

Perspecti v e for Pain M anagement: Four Foundations

Thr ee Icons of Pain M a nagement: K a bat-Zinn,