We are in unprecedented times. We have all lost some part of our lives, even if simply our regular routines. Our minds naturally move toward helping us survive, yet if we don’t know how they work, we can easily slip into behaviors and habits that perpetuate suffering rather than help us collectively move forward together.
For example, fear is a normal human response to danger, yet when coupled with uncertainty, can spin into anxiety and panic. Frustration and anger can easily flare-up in unfamiliar situations, causing us to disconnect. Knowing how our minds work helps us work with them so that we don’t get caught in samsaric habit loops; we can use whatever circumstances we are given to grow, connect, and flourish together.
Understanding how habitual behaviors are formed and perpetuated is critical for helping us break out of these cycles. Ancient Buddhist teachings are now lining up surprisingly well with modern-day psychology and neuroscience in their descriptions of the mechanistic underpinnings of samsaric existence–the habitual perpetuation of suffering driven by craving and aversion. Additionally, insights from these “sciences” clearly point to pragmatic tools for awakening, whether waking from a daydream, working with fear and anxiety, not getting addicted to checking the news, or breaking lifelong addictions. In this online program, we will combine lecture, discussion, and experiential practices to carefully unpack our lived experience of craving and how we can step out of our own cycles of suffering that are fueled by it. Topics will range from dependent origination to operant conditioning, to the neuroscience underlying these processes. A key focus of the program will be to learn how ancient wisdom is brought together with modern science and technology in order to develop practical tools that we can use in our own lives, and step out of our own cycles of suffering. Recommended reading: The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Addicted and How We Can Break Unhealthy Habits by Judson Brewer.
Learning Intentions:
To understand the links and parallels between ancient Buddhist models of suffering (e.g. dependent origination) and modern psychological models of habit formation (e.g. reinforcement learning); to learn current behavioral and brain mechanisms underlying how mindfulness training changes habitual and addictive behavior (e.g. smoking, stress eating, anxiety); to learn core elements of what makes a substance, behavior or technology (e.g. social media) “sticky" or addictive; and to experience linking conceptual learning with direct practice in working with cravings, urges, and habitual behaviors.
