Know Truth, Live True

Truth? What’s truth? This is really about what passes for truth. More people are able to agree on scientific truth than any other truth. Interestingly, science is proving through brain imaging that there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving ^(1,2,3). Wise people have known this for ages. It is an essential pillar of most religions, yet only science can prove it’s true! Knowing that giving makes me happy, all I need do is to find a way to live true to that knowledge!

Giving mostly centers around social altruism, where giving is about helping others. However, there can be negative consequences that result when we overdo this. For one thing, it can foster dependency in the recipients that can cripple them long-term. As they say, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. In addition, you can only give so much until you run out of things to give; you can only help so much until you run out of ways to help… not that these last two are usually a problem.

Altruistic giving arises from emotions, which accounts for many of the negative consequences. Fortunately, altruistic giving is not the only way to give. Buddha’s Eight Fold Path ⁽⁴⁾ offers a way to give, be happier, and cause virtually no adverse consequences when applied sincerely. Four of the steps specifically concern the mind: “Right Understanding, Right Mindfulness, Right Attentiveness, Right Concentration” ⁽⁵⁾. Clearly, this type of giving, hinges on one’s state of mind. This is about self-honesty more than emotion. As Buddha said, “Mind only”. (Skt. Cittamātra)

Plainly, these Buddha “Rights” don’t typically guide our approach to life. On the other hand, it is not that we are not innately inattentive and unmindful either. It is just that we are not innately all that Right. What is the difference between ordinary attentiveness and Right Attentiveness? In a word, Balance … underlined with a capital B! If we’re over-attentive, we can’t see the forest for the trees.  When under-attentive, we can’t even see the trees, let alone the forest… or the snake or tiger in the forest.

Nature employs this continuous ebb and flow of attentiveness to help thin the herd, i.e., predators would starve is their prey were flawlessly attentive. This makes living “Right” difficult. The assertion voiced in chapter 63, even the sage treats some things as difficult pertains to this. Maintaining balance requires paying attention moment-to-moment, along with enough reflective awareness to see whether we are paying too much or too little attention. That is a tall order! What can we do? What choice do we have?

If we actually had free will, none of this would be an issue, right? This is where Buddha’s “Letting your sole desire be the performance of your duty” can become a game changer. Approaching all action as personal duty (Dharma) helps intentionally guide watchfulness: in sweeping the floor, in walking, in working, in resting… in everything! Such action has a better chance of being balanced than action driven by whims of the moment. Of course, even actions prompted by whims of the moment can be balanced, when “Right Attentiveness” is awake, i.e., watching life attentively helps avoid life’s potholes.

As long as life is action, we might as well get the most out of it by giving our sincere attentiveness to it — Right Attentiveness. This moment-to-moment watchfulness is invisible to the outside world. The difficulty here is that there is no external stimuli—medal or merit—to motivate Right Attentiveness. That means no action, from washing the dishes to winning an Olympic race, is more exceptional with respect to watchfulness and integrity of living true. Naturally, from a Taoist perspective, all action is the same when seen in the light of mysterious sameness, as chapter 56 calls it. (photo: just sitting… bzzzz… giving blood)

In summary, attentively giving my mind to each moment of life feels particularly fulfilling. Naturally, the hitch here is that external stimulus is the inherent way the moment captures the mind’s attention.  Knowing that science corroborates the real benefit of giving helps wisdom stir up the necessary internal stimulus. As chapter 41 hints, When the best student hears about the way, He practices it assiduously.

⁽¹⁾ In Europe, taxation rates are high, and services are funded by government spending, whereas in the United States, low taxes and higher philanthropic donations are the norm. Not surprisingly, in the Science report, (google [Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving]) we see this:

Subjects experienced a hedonic reaction when tax revenues were transferred to a charity, and subjects who showed greater neural activation under this regime were more generous when charitable contributions were made voluntary. The sense of well-being in the voluntary giving condition surpassed that seen when subjects were taxed.

⁽²⁾ Research using brain scans is lending empirical support to the long held belief that it is better to give than to receive. Consider this quote from PNAS.org:  (Google [Human fronto–mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation].)

Remarkably, more anterior sectors of the prefrontal cortex are distinctively recruited when altruistic choices prevail over selfish material interests.

⁽³⁾ This excerpt from Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving also stands out:

In the automatic transfer of funds to the foodbank, pleasure areas of the brain (that are traditionally stimulated by food, sex, sweets, shelter and social connection) were significantly activated. In the second part of the study when the subject chose to donate the money, the effect was even greater.

⁽⁴⁾  Study the Bhagavad Gita and you will probably notice the rational seeds from which Buddha’s message later sprouted. This verse, for example, could pertain to the useful role science has in a spiritual life, “But the man who knows the relation between the forces of Nature and actions, sees how some forces of Nature work upon other forces of Nature, and becomes not their slave.” Doesn’t “forces of Nature” sound like what I call the bio-hoodwink? (See Peeking in on Natures Hoodwink, p.11.)

⁽⁵⁾  I found what for me feels a more accurate translation of Buddha’s Eightfold Path. These correspond closer to certain core Taoist views of thought: ♦ Right Understanding -> Comprehension ♦ Right Mindedness -> Resolution ♦ Right Attentiveness -> Thought ♦ Right Concentration -> State of Peaceful Mind. See Right state of peaceful mind for details.