A secular examination of Buddhist ideas about the mind and the self, read through the lens of modern psychology.
The title is deliberately provocative, and a little misleading — this isn't a book arguing that a religion is literally correct. It's a secular reading of a few Buddhist ideas about the mind, tested against modern psychology. That framing is exactly why it belongs in this archive: it's a model of taking a tradition's claims seriously as claims, without either preaching them or dismissing them.
I came to it already curious about the Buddhist analysis of the self — the "not-self" idea that questions whether there's a permanent essence underneath our changing states. What Wright does well is make that abstract-sounding claim feel concrete and testable: not a mystical assertion, but a hypothesis about how attention and craving actually work. I finished it understanding the Buddhism page I'd been drafting far better than before.
He's careful about scope. He doesn't claim Buddhism-as-a-whole is validated by science; he isolates specific, modest claims and asks whether they hold up. That restraint is rare and admirable. It also gave me a useful template: when this archive says a tradition "holds" something, I now try harder to specify which claim, and to keep it separate from the larger belief system it sits inside.
Rating it a 9 doesn't mean I bought everything. The psychology he draws on is itself contested in places, and there's a risk in retrofitting an ancient tradition to whatever the current science happens to say. I read the strong claims as interesting convergences, not proof — and I think the book is better when read that way than as the vindication its title promises.
A sharper feel for why the self-question in Indian philosophy is so alive, and why I keep linking atman and samsara together. It also left me wanting to go back to the source material rather than the modern gloss — which is why I've queued a proper translation of the Upanishads next.
My own notes and summary only — no passages reproduced. See the citation to read Wright directly.
A term for the innermost self explored in the Upanishads — its nature, and its relation to ultimate reality, are debated across traditions.
The idea of a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — a shared framework across several traditions that nonetheless interpret it differently.
A major tradition originating in ancient India, spanning many schools and cultures, with a distinctive analysis of self, suffering, and conduct.
An accessible modern translation of principal Upanishads, aimed at general readers rather than specialists.