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Buddhism & Modern Psychology MOOC?
ZenBadger
Derbyshire, UK Veteran
I have been a bit lost since I graduated from the Open University so I have been sampling MOOCs on Coursera, Futurelearn and EdX. I found one that might be of interest to the inhabitants of Newbuddist;
https://www.coursera.org/course/psychbuddhism
Anyone else done this one before or signed up for this presentation?
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Comments
just signed up. Many thanks.
I did, too! I've never taken a Buddhist course of any sort online but it looks interesting. Thank you for sharing it. I have taken other online courses before.
I looked at the link, but couldn't find what MOOC stands for. What is it?
MOOC=Massive Open Online Course
Is it basically humanist Buddhism?
It seems to be an investigation of some of the claims made for meditation and Buddhist theories of the mind using the tools of modern psychology. I am guessing that this will be more at the "Buddhism Without Beliefs" and of the spectrum than an investigation into Tantric theory but it could prove interesting. It does not seem to be hostile to Buddhism but being a course delivered by a mainstream American University (Princeton) I would not expect it to be too religious in tone.
The video in the link gives a good description of what the course is about. I'm interested because the comparison about Eastern and Western psychology is pretty interesting. We consider western psychology to be the most modern, but in learning more Buddhism I think we miss the mark in quite a few ways. This is more of course comparing Buddhism to western psychology but Buddhism has a LOT of psychology in it. The man teaching the course is not a professor and is not a Buddhist. He attended some college but I don't think he graduated (not that one has to have a degree, just giving information here). He is a guest lecturer (and has been for many years) and an author.
thanks for this, I have signed up also.
Thanks - I signed up too
This course is now up and running for anyone interested.
How are we all enjoying the course so far? I think it's good - I like the lecturer too. He is straight forward and doesn't mind people pulling him up on some of his commentary.
I enjoy it. I had a busy weekend and have not started the second week. I will probably start it tonight, or in the morning. I like the lecturer. I find the FB discussion more interesting than the course site discussion. But the content on the site is easier to sift through. Anyhow, it's certainly a positive addition to my study time. I would take another one if he offered it. I really enjoy the topic of Buddhism and western psychology. One of the questions asked in the office hours section kind of caused me to sigh, but I know not everyone knows Buddhism. It's more in a way of wishing they could see things differently, but it's obviously not the time for that for them. I think the person's question or statement rather was that she disagreed that people live in a state of suffering or unsatisfactoriness due to the happiness studies that have shown people report themselves as happy.
I am also enjoying it. The Buddhist stuff is nothing new, but the psychology is very interesting to me, especially the natural selection/evolutionary talk.
I am doing the course too, and especially like that the professor is NOT a 'professional Buddhist' lol, he's a learner with a few retreats under his belt, and the questions he asks are very helpful. There are quite a few interesting interviews he does on Bloggingheads.tv aside from the course material with well known Buddhist teachers. He has no pretense of being a professor of Buddhism, and it's like he is learning along with the rest of us.
I watch the forums and find the diversity of where people are coming from VERY interesting. From people wondering if there is some pressure to become a Buddhist (which they have no intention of) to true believer Buddhists wondering why something as mundane as evolutionary psychology is being used to sully the sacred teachings, it's all fascinating. There are people shouting for more moderation because of the 'anonymous' trolls picking on them for being Christian, people who can barely type English, people who appoint themselves as Resident Buddhist Experts, the works.
At first I was impatient with all the people asking if Buddhism is a religion or philosophy, or if you become an emotionless automaton, or if Buddhism really means to stop wanting anything and everything. Actually, these are 'reasonable' questions based upon poor translations and understandings that somehow take root in popular culture.
Being raised in a sort of Christian culture, it never occurred to me how 'odd' it is to worship someone who allowed himself to be crucified for MY CURRENT sins, or how weird it is to eat the body and blood of this same poor dead man as an act of devotion. Really! So the loopy questions being asked on the forums are pretty tame compared to what a person completely unexposed to Christianity would end up asking.
I don't know if I expect to get anything out of it. I didn't realize the emphasis would be on evolutionary psychology, something I knew very little about and cared even less if I'm honest. The kind of psychology I've always been interested in does not include why we do what we do because of natural selection. But it's important enough to connect as many dots as I am aware need connecting. You can't connect too many dots, methinks.
What did you guys think of the new lecture about self/not self? I found Bhikku Bodhi's input interesting.
It was great, I think I get another piece of the 'puzzle' so to speak with each new encounter. Especially interesting is how modern psychology (like modular psychology, but there are others I'm not so familiar with) comes to similar conclusions about not-self.
On the forum someone posted a link to an article describing an fMRI test done on healthy volunteers to map their brain function while they were rendered unconscious with propofol. Awake and "conscious", the neuronal activity in the brain was like a storm of communication among the areas of the brain, and as the propofol knocked the person out, the brain areas lost touch with each other and the 'storm' went quiet.
The conclusion of the researchers was that 'consciousness' arises from the organized storm of communications zipping back and forth and around and around the brain areas, and disappears when this activity is suppressed.
It backs up the Buddha's assertion that consciousness is conditional and not in itself deathless/unconditioned (like Nibbana). And what do you know, there is consciousness sitting there with the other aggregates but at least to me, being quite unlike them. This sense that consciousness is a more transcendent thing than the gross physical body for instance, or the "I like this/I don't like this/I don't really care about this" might be . . . well, wrong. What do you think?
Will have to check that out. A good read if you want to examine Buddhist teachings from a philosophical standpoint, as opposed to psychological, would be "Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction" by Mark Siderits. They can be complementary.
Ah, and I almost forgot! A great book that compares Buddhist teachings and modern science, including psychology and neuroscience, is "The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness" by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. I'm almost done reading it myself; first half is all about the ideas/concepts and how they correlate (Buddhism and Science), second half is about practice (i.e. different types of meditation and how to change your mind for the better).
Me too. Non-self is a tricky one, but the lecturer handled it very well.
Now that the course is done, what did you guys think? I really enjoyed it, I like Robert Wright and would take other courses by him. The forum content was more than I could attempt to keep up even in a few discussions, but I enjoyed the time I did interact there. I enjoyed the ongoing spiritual development of Milo and Frazier, especially when Milo (I think it was Milo) ate the Buddhist book cover, LOL.
I'm not sure I can say I learned a lot of information, but I enjoyed the 2 topics being covered at one time, and I enjoyed the mostly civil FB and forum discussions. I was surprised how many non-Buddhists "attended".
I thought it was great too. I really enjoyed the stuff on evolutionary psychology.
I should have said, I didn't learn a lot of new information. I took a lot of psych classes in college and I don't think there was anything earth shattering in what he taught about Buddhism. But I still really enjoyed it. I found the modules thing kind of hard to follow, but I think I need to watch it during a less distracted time. I watched in the evening with headphones on but had a lot of interruptions.
I even enjoyed the writing assignments. I got really good feedback on the stuff I wrote (as opposed to simply "nice writing" or something to that effect and I enjoyed reading what others had to say in their writings, too. .
Very interesting course.
This is terrible . . . I lost interest at about class #4. Not at all due to Dr Wright or even the content of the class. Well, OK, the content of the class stopped seeming relevant, but not because it wasn't worthy of study LOL. I did sign up for a couple more classes though, on Coursera, what a neat resource that is.