May all beings be happy. May they live in safety and joy.... As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart... cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving kindness... During all your waking hours, may you remain mindful of this heart and this way of living that is the best in the world. - Shakyamuni Buddha
Paul H. Greene, PHD - Buddhism and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) are very different ways of understanding people. They were developed thousands of years apart, in different hemispheres. Yet they don’t conflict as much as you would think.
“In the words of the Buddha, … ’We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.’ It’s an idea that’s in line with current thinking in psychology. In fact, this simple philosophy – that changing the way we think can change the way we feel – underpins the practice of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), an approach widely used in clinical psychology and counseling, as well ss management programs.” So writes Kathy Graham, in a thoughtful article on Buddhism and happiness. as stress management programs.” So writes Kathy Graham, in a thoughtful article on Buddhism and happiness.
What Is Reality, Anyway?
The radical and powerful notion that our thoughts make up our realities may seem silly at first. It certainly doesn’t seem to stand up when we think of how important circumstances can be in our lives. Even the word “reality” itself is often used in such a way as to connote external circumstances. For example, the phrases “back to reality,” “harsh reality,” or “the real world” usually refer to external circumstances — not our own thoughts.
For example, someone might describe their “reality” as including facts like the following: they are a single mother, 42 years old, working as a project manager at a big company, and making mortgage payments on a condominium. But are these facts enough to explain our whole experience?
This question deserves some thought; on one hand, this is how we usually define our “reality.” On the other, it’s easy to imagine two people in the same circumstances having quite different experiences. One person might be more optimistic and cheerful. They may tend to enjoy each day, whereas someone else might be more pessimistic and anxious, and enjoy life less.
PERSONALITY’S IMPACT
But what is it that makes one person anxious and other person optimistic? We each have our tendencies toward different thought patterns. We can call these tendencies by various names: personality traits, temperaments, reactions to formative experiences, genetic predispositions, or what have you. However we understand these tendencies, their moment-by-moment impact on us happens via our thoughts.
CBT’s Theoretical Basis
One of the most important aspects of CBT is the idea that we can change the content of our thoughts. This, theoretically, can impact how we feel. This is called the “cognitive model.” Many of us have tried to change the way we think about something, with varying degrees of success. For example, take someone who is trying to resist temptation to reunite with their ex-partner. He or she resolves to think only of the person’s bad qualities in order to convince themselves that their ex is a horrible person.
This is not the focus of CBT, of course. In CBT the therapist focuses on helping you understand how certain thought patterns are
- contributing to making you more depressed or anxious, and
- not necessarily based on sound reasoning.
For example, someone who is depressed may tend to think things like, I can’t do anything right, or No wonder he doesn’t like me, I’m a loser. Someone who tends to be anxious, on the other hand, may tend to have thoughts like, This is going to be a disaster or Why hasn’t she called? She must have been in accident.
For whatever reason, we have a tendency to believe these thoughts a bit more than they deserve. Looking at the examples above, it’s not hard to see how the thoughts may be based on insufficient evidence. Although on some level we know this, we have difficulty extricating ourselves from the sadness and anxiety such thoughts bring on. This is where CBT can help.
The Buddhist View of Reality
Let’s return to the quote excerpted in the Kathy Graham article.
The third sentence in this excerpt, ‘with our thoughts we make the world’ seems most consistent with the cognitive model. It indeed represents a point of some agreement between Buddhism and CBT.
At least, the notion that with our thoughts we influence our mood and anxiety is consistent with the cognitive model. But let’s look at what Griffin’s quote is really getting at. The quote is a statement about something deeper than just mood or anxiety, it’s talking about reality. The idea that “we are what we think” may sound like a cute maxim suitable for bumper stickers. However, it refers to an important Buddhist principle — the notion of anatman.
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