The problem of self-discipline concerns each person, no matter what their beliefs or background. There is no need to expand on why self-discipline is important. Naturally, many approaches to practicing it have developed with time, each with its own ideological slant.
Throughout history, different types of individuals have emerged, each a product of their own time. First, there was Religious Man, who considered self-discipline as a force of good in the battle against evil.
Then came Economic Man, who viewed self-discipline as a surmountable challenge towards economic efficiency.
In modern times, we have witnessed the emergence of Psychological Man, who sees self-discipline as a mechanism that helps strike a peaceful compromise between opposing drives.
(See The Triumph of the Therapeutic, The Culture of Narcissism).
But how did self-discipline evolve?
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright is about how insights into the mind that were reached by the Buddha have recently been corroborated by neuroscience. In one section, Wright discusses the nature of addiction and a technique to combat any form of addiction using mindfulness.
Any addiction (media, smartphone, games, shopping, smoking, drinking, gambling, chocolate) involves short term deliberation the first time you do it. With time, opportunities for gratification go up and less time is spent deliberating. Eventually the drive for immediate gratification becomes so strong that resistance becomes futile. You no longer deliberate, the behavior becomes automatic.
Enter the idea many are familiar with – self-discipline is like a muscle. With more practice, self-discipline gets stronger. And this appears to be true, generally.
if the part of you that’s arguing against indulgence prevails a few times—if it gets successfully “exercised”—its chances of success will be better next time, whereas if it loses a few times in a row, it will be headed toward a very long losing streak.
Why Buddhism is True, Wright
Early successes at self-discipline lead to more successes whereas early lapses lead to more lapses. But if self-discipline is so good for the organism, why would natural selection allow a few early lapses to destroy self-discipline?
Yet we know that a few injections of heroin can be the end of a productive life. Why are brains designed this way?
First, we must depart from the self-discipline-as-muscle metaphor.
Think of the brain as being made up of different modules – each module representing a form of behavior. One module can consult the urge to have a drink, while another module can consult the urge to resist the drink.
…after the module favoring indulgence wins a few debates, its strength grows to a point where countervailing modules don’t even bother trying to muster counterarguments. Why would natural selection design things that way, such that the winning module gets stronger and stronger?
Why Buddhism is True, Wright
Wright gives the example of someone who lived 20,000 years ago. Imagine that one of his modules (the libido) encouraged him to make sexual advances towards a woman. Another module would have warned him “maybe you will get rejected and humiliated.” Or, if she already had a mate, “What if her husband feeds you to the lions?”
If the first module wins, and the libidinous module was right (advances were accepted, sex ensues, and the husband doesn’t know), then the next time there is conflict between the modules, it makes sense to give the benefit of the doubt to the first module.
But if the advances had been rebuffed, or he was roughed up by the husband, then things would be different, the libidinous module will be given less power next time. And the module counseling restraint would gain more power (it was right the last time around).
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky alludes that it is impossible to be good without being bad first. Without getting one’s advances rebuffed, the module responsible for restraint is not strengthened. “Good” behavior is not promoted in the future. Of course, this is a hypothesis for how behaviors were reinforced. Nonetheless, it is a useful metaphor.
In the modern environment, this works differently. A module that advises cocaine snorting can give you a boost in self-esteem. 20,000 years ago, this would have been the reward for impressing your peers, and you would have strengthened the module that urged you to repeat that behavior. But this reward (feeling of self-esteem) was a proper response to reality. Your reputation did increase, and you had a better chance of surviving in the future. In the modern environment, the brain’s reward circuits are constantly being tricked.
Any addictive behavior begins as an idea. It is then tested. If it brings rewards (pleasure, self-esteem) and no consequences (pain), then it is pursued again in the future. And it will be more likely to be pursued in each subsequent instance as long as grave negative repercussions don’t come along.
It’s hard to imagine why natural selection would design a “muscle” called “self-discipline” in such a way that a few early failures lead to enduring impotence. But it’s easy to imagine why natural selection would design modules that get stronger with repeated success and why natural selection would use, as its working definition of success, gratification in one sense or another.
Why Buddhism is True, Wright
As a thought experiment, imagine two gamblers who don’t know each other: Arnold has 100,000 dollars to play with and Mark has the same amount. Every Friday, they go to the same casino and play blackjack. Arnold risks a small amount each time (no more than 100 dollars), while Mark risks a large amount (no less than 100 dollars). They are both risking the same percentage of their total wealth (1/1000 or 0.1 percent). Who is more likely to quit gambling first assuming that both players will eventually lose the total amount (100,000 dollars)?
Arnold has put a cap on his losses, so even when he loses, he doesn’t lose too much, and when he reflects on his night the next morning, he feels pretty good no matter what happens. He had a good time and his financial situation couldn’t have gotten much worse than when he started. He can’t wait for next week.
But Mark doesn’t have an upper limit, and in the fourth week, after having a bad streak of luck, he decides to gamble everything he has and loses it all. The next day, feeling terrible about what he had done, Mark realizes that he has a serious problem and takes important steps to make sure he doesn’t gamble again. Arnold, on the other hand, continues to gamble for many years – continuing to dig into his savings account and finding more money to play with. Mark never gambles again.
A behavior will continue, even if it is bad for you, as long as it is not too bad and gives some kind of short term reward.
RAIN
Judson Brewer created an approach (mindfulness meditation) to overcome addictions of any kind. Brewer also did studies that showed that meditation quiets the default mode network. He said the basic idea to fight an addiction is to not fight the urge itself. This is not to say that you should follow the urge, but that you should not try to push the urge out of your mind.
Rather, you follow the same mindfulness technique that you’d apply to other bothersome feelings – anxiety, resentment, melancholy, hatred. You just calmly (or as calmly as possible, under the circumstances) examine the feeling. What part of your body is the urge felt in? What is the texture of the urge? Is it sharp? Dull and heavy? The more you do that, the less the urge seems a part of you; you’ve exploited the basic irony of mindfulness meditation: getting close enough to feelings to take a good look at them winds up giving you a kind of critical distance from them.
Why Buddhism is True, Wright
Their grip on you loosens, and if it loosens enough, it ceases to become a part of you. An acronym (RAIN) is given to describe this technique.
First you Recognize the feeling. Then you Accept the feeling (rather than try to drive it away). Then you Investigate the feeling and its relationship to your body. Finally, the N stands for Nonidentification, or, equivalently, Non Attachment. Which is a nice note to end on, since not being attached to things was the Buddha’s all-purpose prescription for what ails us. Brewer described this therapy as being about not “feeding” the urge to smoke. He said, “If you don’t feed a stray cat, it quits coming to your door.”
Why Buddhism is True, Wright
In the cigarette-smoking study Brewer conducted, this technique worked better than an alternative approach recommended by the American Lung Association.