0.10 Biology and personality  (Page 2/22)

Testing Personality Theories Across the Full Range of Human History

This chapter has the broadest context of any chapter in this book. Some 2,500 years ago, Gotama Buddha presented what can be considered the first psychological theory, a theory on the nature of the human mind and how one can work to control it in a mindful way. Doing so can help to lead one toward a more peaceful life, both individually and in relation to others. Today, neurobiologists using cutting edge technology are trying to determine what actually happens to the state of the human mind during the techniques of meditation taught by the Buddha. In addition, the usefulness of meditation and mindfulness in psychotherapy is a popular area of clinical practice and research, as well as a means toward enhancing the cross-cultural perspectives of psychology in general.

Wilhelm Reich, a student and highly respected colleague of Sigmund Freud, was one of the first Western psychologists to consider the connection between body and mind as essential for psychology health. According to Reich, we can be psychologically healthy only if we are able to fully express and satisfy our biological, sexual needs. Reich devoted his career to helping individuals do just that, and in recognizing the role of the body, he anticipated the field of sociobiology. Sociobiology addresses the ways in which our behavior might have been shaped by evolution. In other words, behaviors are naturally selected if they provide an advantage for our genetic reproduction (having children, grandchildren, etc.).

Whereas Reich and the sociobiologists focus on the expression and pursuit of our biological desires, Eastern tradition taught ways to train the body and mind to control these desires. Indeed, the Buddha taught that through mindfulness training we could detach ourselves from these needs, and live a life in which we acknowledge desires, but feel no attachment to them. Such mental discipline, however, requires practice. As monks became physically weak from spending all their time meditating, the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma, developed the first formal techniques of Kung Fu. Since the martial arts arose out of the desire to remain healthy during meditation practice, they have always been associated with a spirituality devoted to nonviolence and mental discipline.

The popularity of martial arts, meditation, Yoga, and a variety of Eastern philosophies and practices in the United States today tells us that there is a strong interest in combing the traditions of East and West. The interest of cognitive neuroscientists in the brain’s changes during meditation shows us that Eastern philosophy need not stand in opposition to our tradition of formal scientific inquiry in the West. And so, Buddhist mindfulness, somatic psychology, behavior genetics, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and the martial arts all seem to fit together as a grand theory of the nature of body and mind and their inherent connection.