logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2021
44m 40s

188: Evolutionary Psychology versus Medi...

Growth Mindset Psychology
About this episode

Why Buddhism is True written by Robert Wright 'Why Buddhism is True' looks at the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment.


Robert Wright is a devout non-meditating anger prone evolutionary psychologist and writer. He dives headlong into the world of meditation with surprising results, and explain why it works from an evolutionary standpoint.


Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain. But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do?


Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people.


In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.


- - -


On the growth mindset podcast with Sam Webster Harris, we explore the psychology of happiness, satisfaction, purpose, and growth through the lens of self-improvement. Success and happiness is a state of mind unique to ourselves and is our responsibility to create.


Through a process of honest self-reflection of what is holding us back and what is driving us forward, we can lose the ego and build awareness of how to be our best.


- - -


Connect with Sam:


Creativity Newsletter - Explosive Thinking

Watch the pod - YouTube (Growth Mindset)

Twitter - @samjamharris

Instagram - @SamJam.zen


- - -


Show: Growth Mindset, psychology of self-improvement


Episode: Evolutionary Psychology versus Meditation

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Up next
Aug 22
Defining Your Own Success in a World Full of Self-Appointed Experts - w/ Mike Winnet (Worlds #1 Demotivational Coach)
What if success isn’t about working harder or even more achievement, but about how we feel day to day? In this episode, Mike Winnet invites us to reconsider the very stories we tell about ambition and achievement. The culture around entrepreneurship often creates illusions; mirag ... Show More
41m 42s
Aug 19
Why Taking Life Less Seriously Could Be the Productivity Boost You Need
The art of making work not suck; how playing helps you stress less (and achieve more). In today’s episode, we challenge the architecture of adulthood, built brick by brick with “shoulds”. Using stories of ancient ancestors and modern cubicles, we’ll ask: Why do we surrender to se ... Show More
25m 8s
Aug 15
How to Stay MOTIVATED When You Keep LOSING - w/ Gold Medal Olympian Sir Ben Hunt-Davis
Imagine training every day for a decade… and still losing. Then figuring out one question that changes everything. Olympic gold medallist Ben Hunt-Davis didn’t win because he trained harder, he’d been doing that for years and kept losing. He won because he and his crew started as ... Show More
44m 54s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2022
Why Buddhism Is True
This week, Ashto and Jonesy venture on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and meditation practices and learn how Buddhism encourages moral clarity and enduring happiness. Written by Robert Wright, Why Buddhism Is True uses the concept of evolutionary psychology and progres ... Show More
28m 8s
Jan 2023
Dr. Sam Harris: Using Meditation to Focus, View Consciousness & Expand Your Mind
My guest is Sam Harris, Ph.D. Sam earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Stanford University and his doctorate (Ph.D.) in neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is the author of multiple best-selling books and is a world-renowned public-fa ... Show More
4h 17m
Sep 2023
Dr. Richard Davidson: What We’re Getting Wrong with Meditation
Dr. Richard Davidson (Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Founder & Director of the Center for Healthy Minds) shows us what it truly means to be well in your emotional self by harnessing our trauma mechanisms into well-being! He breaks down the scientific data he’s gathered o ... Show More
1h 5m
Dec 2021
EP13: Meditation & Dream Yoga
Ryan J Burton is a Meditation instructor & the Host of a podcast called After Awakening.  He has been on multiple meditation retreats that have helped him deeply understand why incorporating meditation into his lifestyle was game changer. We talk about the benefits meditation can ... Show More
34m 21s
Dec 2020
#227 — Knowing the Mind
Stephen Laureys interviews Sam Harris about meditation practice and the scientific study of the mind. They discuss why Sam began to practice meditation, the difference between dualistic and nondualistic mindfulness, the search for happiness, wisdom vs knowledge, our relationship ... Show More
46m 49s
Jul 2018
Culadasa on How the Mind Works
Culadasa is a meditation master with over 4 decades of experience in the Tibetan and Theravadan Buddhist traditions. He taught classes in neuroscience and psychology at the Universities of Calgary and Brittish Columbia. He now lives in the Arizona wilderness and leads the Dharma ... Show More
42m 56s
May 2023
#320 — Constructing Self and World
Sam Harris speaks with Shamil Chandaria about how the brain constructs a vision of the self and the world. They discuss the brain from first principles; Bayesian inference; hierarchical predictive processing; the construction of vision; psychedelics and neuroplasticity; beliefs a ... Show More
51m 20s
Jun 2023
Making Sense of Meditation | Episode 10 of The Essential Sam Harris
In this episode, we traverse a decade of Sam’s conversations on the topic of meditation. We start with the very first recorded episode from the archives: a conversation with Sam’s meditation teacher and friend, Joseph Goldstein. Goldstein recalls how his thinking was unlocked—all ... Show More
39m 42s