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why do the six paramitas work

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neuroscience has an answer

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twenty five hundred years ago

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someone wrote a prescription

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six ingredients were listed on it

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take them all and you reach the other shore

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for twenty five hundred years

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countless people have followed it

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some say it works

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some say they feel nothing

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the problem is

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nobody ever broke down the molecular structure of these six

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today

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neuroscience is finally able to do that

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and the result is chilling

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each of these six ingredients

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hits one core circuit of the brain precisely

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it is not that six remedies happen to work

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each one targets one of six key bottlenecks in human cognition

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hello

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everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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a viewer left a comment on an earlier episode

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since I had mentioned the six paramitas

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could I break them down properly

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today I am doing exactly that

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but I will not repeat the Buddhist framing

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the Samdhinirmocana Sutra episode already covered the practice framework

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today I take a different angle

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I will use neuroscience

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cognitive psychology and behavioral economics data

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to verify them one by one

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why six

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not five

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not seven

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why exactly generosity discipline patience

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diligence meditation and wisdom as a set

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here is the conclusion first

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the six paramitas are not six randomly chosen virtues

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they are a systematic repair plan

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for the six most stubborn factory defects of the human brain

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each paramita targets one defect

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put the six together

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and they cover the entire cognitive system

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every key node from the bottom layer to the top

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let us take them one at a time

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the first ingredient

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generosity

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most people think generosity is a moral act

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something only good people do

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wrong

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generosity is surgery on the default mode of the brain

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in 2007

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Paul Zak and his team sprayed oxytocin into the noses of their subjects

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their generosity ran eighty percent above the control group

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eighty percent

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but the reverse is even more interesting

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when a person actively gives

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the brain releases oxytocin dopamine and serotonin on its own

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in other words

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giving is itself a neurochemical event

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the moment you give

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the ventral striatum the core reward center of the brain

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lights up

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the brain treats giving away as a reward

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the same region that fires when you eat great food or get a red envelope

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that is deeply counterintuitive

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by evolutionary logic

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the brain should treat having as a reward

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and losing as a punishment

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so why is giving away rewarding

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because humans are social animals

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how badly the brain wants social connection

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outranks individual possession in evolutionary priority

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generosity does not fire the I own it pleasure circuit

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it fires the I belong to a group bonding circuit

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Zak calls oxytocin the moral molecule

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because it does two things at once

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it lowers amygdala reactivity to threat

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and sharpens your empathy for the state of other people

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now do you see why the Buddha put generosity first

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because mine

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is the thickest rope of all attachments

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everything you cling to

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my money my time my face my opinion

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comes down to that one word

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generosity is not about doing good deeds

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it is loosening the thickest rope first

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and the reward system of the brain cooperates

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every time you loosen it

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it hands you a chemical reward

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this is not a moral appeal

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this is neural engineering

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the second ingredient

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discipline

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as I said before

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discipline is not a moral restraint

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it is a trainer for awareness

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today I will give you a sharper scientific definition

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discipline is strength training for the prefrontal cortex

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your prefrontal cortex is the executive control center of the brain

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it inhibits impulses delays gratification

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and makes decisions aligned with long term goals

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the problem is

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the prefrontal cortex fatigues just like a muscle

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make too many decisions during the day

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and by night it goes on strike

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psychology calls this decision fatigue

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but here is the good news

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muscles can be trained

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and so can the prefrontal cortex

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Peter Gollwitzer and his team found

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that setting one clear behavioral boundary

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what psychology calls an implementation intention

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a preset program of if situation A comes up I run action B

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raises your goal completion rate sharply

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a meta analysis of ninety four studies

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with more than eight thousand subjects

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found an effect size of zero point six five

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medium to large

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why

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because you take a decision that needs live prefrontal computation

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and turn it into a preprogrammed automatic response

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you no longer wrestle the impulse every single time

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you just let the program run itself

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that is exactly the logic underneath discipline

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you set precepts for yourself

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no false speech no stealing

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not in order to become a saint

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but to cut the real time load on your prefrontal cortex

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every precept is an implementation intention

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when the urge to lie rises

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the program intercepts it automatically

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you do not have to decide on the spot every time

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that frees your prefrontal cortex

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to do something more important

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watching yourself

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and there is more

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every time you keep a precept successfully

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the pathway between prefrontal cortex and striatum gets stronger

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and the next time costs you less

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that is why practitioners say discipline turns natural over time

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you did not become a saint

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your neural circuits were rebuilt

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the third ingredient

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patience

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patience is not swallowing your anger

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I said that last time

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today I will show you what it actually does inside the brain

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cognitive psychology has a core concept called cognitive reappraisal

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when an emotional trigger shows up

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say someone insults you in public

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your amygdala launches fight or flight within milliseconds

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but if you can reinterpret the meaning of that event right then

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he is projecting his own anxiety

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or this is only a string of sound waves

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your prefrontal cortex applies top down inhibition on the amygdala

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in 2014 the journal Cerebral Cortex published

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a meta analysis

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that pooled dozens of brain imaging studies

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and confirmed the neural circuit of cognitive reappraisal

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the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reorganizes information in working memory

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the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex handles verbal reframing

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the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex handles theory of mind

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understanding why the other person acts that way

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these three regions work together

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to push amygdala activation down

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even more important is a 2023 study

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that used transcranial magnetic stimulation on the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

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and activity in the amygdala and the insula dropped sharply

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that is causal evidence

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not correlation

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causation

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the prefrontal cortex really can hold the amygdala down

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so what is patience training really

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it is repeated practice of cognitive reappraisal

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until that circuit where the prefrontal cortex suppresses the amygdala

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becomes strong enough and fast enough

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most people need thirty minutes to cool down after being attacked

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a practitioner may finish the reappraisal in three seconds

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it is not that it does not hurt

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his prefrontal cortex simply responds a hundred times faster than yours

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the fourth ingredient

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diligence

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diligence is the most misunderstood of the six

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many people read it as pushing yourself to the limit

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but the Buddha warned clearly

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diligence must not become another attachment

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so what is diligence really

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self determination theory gives a precise answer

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diligence maps onto intrinsic motivation

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a 2017 review in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

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gathered evidence from many directions

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and named the dopamine system as the key substrate of intrinsic motivation

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but there is a subtle distinction here

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dopamine driven by extrinsic motivation comes from expecting the outcome

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dopamine driven by intrinsic motivation comes from the process itself

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here is an analogy

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extrinsic motivation is working late for the year end bonus

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dopamine fires the moment you imagine getting the money

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while the actual work is misery

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intrinsic motivation is digging in because the question fascinates you

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dopamine fires at every step of the exploration

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you are absorbed in the process

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you even forget the time

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which kind of diligence did the Buddha mean

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the second kind

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sustained action without attachment to the result

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at the neural level that means

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a process oriented pattern of dopamine release

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not an outcome oriented one

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that explains why the Buddha said diligence must not turn into attachment

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if you chase enlightenment as a KPI

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your dopamine circuit flips into extrinsic mode

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you only feel driven while imagining the beautiful scene of awakening

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and the practice itself becomes torture

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real diligence runs in intrinsic mode

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the practice is the reward

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no result is needed to cash it out

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this lines up perfectly with what modern psychology found about flow

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one precondition of flow is a clear goal with no attachment to the result

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the moment you start worrying about the result

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the flow shatters

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the fifth ingredient

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meditation

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we have already covered a lot of the neuroscience of meditation

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today I will only add one set of numbers you may not have heard

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in 2004

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Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz

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published a groundbreaking study

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in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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they took long term meditators

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monks with ten to fifty thousand hours of practice

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and fitted them with EEG caps

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and found something astonishing

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as these people moved from an ordinary state into meditation

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their gamma wave activity rose thirty times more than the control group

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gamma waves run between twenty five and forty two hertz

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they are linked to highly integrated states of consciousness unified attention

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and the binding of information across brain regions

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even more important is what Brewer and his Yale team found in 2011

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in experienced meditators across every type of meditation

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the two core nodes of the default mode network

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the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex

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were both significantly suppressed

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what is the default mode network

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it is the system that spins stories by itself while you space out

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I should not have said that yesterday

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does he not like me

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what do I do about the interview tomorrow

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it is that self narration machine that never stops

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meditation switches the machine off directly

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not a temporary mute

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after long practice its baseline activity itself drops

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think of it as a fan

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most people idle at five thousand rpm

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an experienced meditator has been dialed down to five hundred

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quiet is the default

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not a state you strain to hold

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the sixth ingredient

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wisdom

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the first five all have concrete neural counterparts

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what about wisdom

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wisdom maps onto a function higher than any of the first five

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metacognition

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metacognition is cognition about cognition

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you are not only thinking

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you also know that you are thinking

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you not only have emotions

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you can also watch your own emotions

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this is not simple self awareness

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this is a particular cognitive stance

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psychology calls it decentering

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you step back from your own stream of thought

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and watch thoughts as events

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instead of buying into them as facts

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why is wisdom the soul of the six

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because without metacognition

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00:11:32,912 --> 00:11:34,969
all of the first five go wrong

280
00:11:36,316 --> 00:11:37,513
generosity without wisdom

281
00:11:37,836 --> 00:11:39,595
becomes a trade for merit points

282
00:11:39,595 --> 00:11:40,472
I gave this much

283
00:11:40,755 --> 00:11:42,613
so heaven owes me a return

284
00:11:43,196 --> 00:11:44,432
discipline without wisdom

285
00:11:44,715 --> 00:11:46,413
becomes moral superiority

286
00:11:46,436 --> 00:11:47,432
I am above all of you

287
00:11:47,676 --> 00:11:49,373
you are just ordinary people who break the precepts

288
00:11:49,916 --> 00:11:51,153
patience without wisdom

289
00:11:51,355 --> 00:11:52,555
becomes repression

290
00:11:52,556 --> 00:11:53,552
I take it I take it

291
00:11:53,916 --> 00:11:55,373
until one day you explode

292
00:11:55,676 --> 00:11:56,873
diligence without wisdom

293
00:11:57,115 --> 00:11:58,332
becomes anxiety

294
00:11:58,395 --> 00:11:59,233
I am still not awake

295
00:11:59,436 --> 00:12:00,893
am I not trying hard enough

296
00:12:01,156 --> 00:12:02,513
meditation without wisdom

297
00:12:02,796 --> 00:12:04,373
becomes spiritual opium

298
00:12:04,436 --> 00:12:07,332
I want to get back into that gorgeous meditative experience

299
00:12:08,078 --> 00:12:08,915
so what is wisdom

300
00:12:09,397 --> 00:12:13,714
wisdom is the pair of eyes standing higher watching you give keep precepts endure

301
00:12:13,917 --> 00:12:16,135
strive and meditate

302
00:12:16,238 --> 00:12:18,854
it makes sure every paramita points toward liberation

303
00:12:18,877 --> 00:12:20,854
instead of building a new cage

304
00:12:21,388 --> 00:12:23,205
from the angle of neuroscience

305
00:12:23,268 --> 00:12:26,565
metacognition rests on the highest order prefrontal function

306
00:12:26,748 --> 00:12:27,786
not inhibiting impulses

307
00:12:28,069 --> 00:12:29,485
not delaying gratification

308
00:12:29,589 --> 00:12:32,485
but monitoring your own cognitive process in real time

309
00:12:32,829 --> 00:12:36,228
this is the last ability the human prefrontal cortex ever evolved

310
00:12:36,228 --> 00:12:37,926
and it is also the most fragile one

311
00:12:38,228 --> 00:12:40,708
when you are tired sleepy or drunk

312
00:12:40,709 --> 00:12:42,886
metacognition is the first thing you lose

313
00:12:43,268 --> 00:12:46,485
that explains why practitioners say wisdom is the hardest

314
00:12:46,829 --> 00:12:48,988
not because it takes some special gift

315
00:12:48,988 --> 00:12:50,468
but because it demands

316
00:12:50,469 --> 00:12:53,646
that the observer stays online in every single moment

317
00:12:54,268 --> 00:12:58,325
the other five can be practiced at set times in set situations

318
00:12:58,709 --> 00:13:01,685
wisdom asks you to stay awake every waking second

319
00:13:02,289 --> 00:13:02,486
alright

320
00:13:02,848 --> 00:13:04,146
that is all six

321
00:13:04,169 --> 00:13:06,626
now let us put them side by side

322
00:13:06,968 --> 00:13:07,405
generosity

323
00:13:07,769 --> 00:13:09,425
loosens the possession circuit

324
00:13:09,728 --> 00:13:10,126
discipline

325
00:13:10,488 --> 00:13:12,586
trains the executive control circuit

326
00:13:12,809 --> 00:13:13,246
patience

327
00:13:13,569 --> 00:13:15,665
strengthens the emotion regulation circuit

328
00:13:15,848 --> 00:13:16,285
diligence

329
00:13:16,569 --> 00:13:18,705
switches the mode of the motivation circuit

330
00:13:18,929 --> 00:13:19,405
meditation

331
00:13:19,728 --> 00:13:21,665
shuts down the self narration circuit

332
00:13:21,809 --> 00:13:22,246
wisdom

333
00:13:22,488 --> 00:13:24,386
turns on metacognitive monitoring

334
00:13:24,766 --> 00:13:25,522
six circuits

335
00:13:25,886 --> 00:13:27,765
from chemical reward at the very bottom

336
00:13:27,766 --> 00:13:29,823
to metacognitive monitoring at the very top

337
00:13:29,965 --> 00:13:32,703
covering the full stack of human cognition

338
00:13:33,285 --> 00:13:34,162
drop any one layer

339
00:13:34,526 --> 00:13:35,823
and the system has a hole

340
00:13:36,165 --> 00:13:36,843
add one more layer

341
00:13:37,565 --> 00:13:38,463
and you cannot

342
00:13:38,886 --> 00:13:41,982
because above it there is no higher neural structure

343
00:13:42,405 --> 00:13:44,885
the top order prefrontal function behind wisdom

344
00:13:44,886 --> 00:13:47,662
is already the ceiling of human brain evolution

345
00:13:48,227 --> 00:13:49,184
twenty five hundred years ago

346
00:13:49,587 --> 00:13:50,644
there was no brain imaging

347
00:13:50,666 --> 00:13:52,185
no concept of neurotransmitters

348
00:13:52,186 --> 00:13:53,524
no cognitive psychology

349
00:13:53,666 --> 00:13:55,425
one man through pure introspection

350
00:13:55,426 --> 00:13:58,963
identified six key bottlenecks in the human cognitive system

351
00:13:58,987 --> 00:14:02,363
then wrote a matching repair plan for every one of them

352
00:14:02,386 --> 00:14:05,843
ordered from coarse to fine from low to high

353
00:14:05,867 --> 00:14:08,324
as precise as a software architecture document

354
00:14:08,627 --> 00:14:09,503
is that a coincidence

355
00:14:10,066 --> 00:14:10,883
I do not know

356
00:14:11,066 --> 00:14:12,404
but I know one thing

357
00:14:13,186 --> 00:14:17,804
put the best cognitive neuroscientists alive today in one room

358
00:14:17,947 --> 00:14:22,204
and ask them to design a full fix for human cognitive defects from scratch

359
00:14:22,347 --> 00:14:24,123
what they finally come up with

360
00:14:24,386 --> 00:14:27,284
would probably look structurally very close to the six paramitas

361
00:14:27,627 --> 00:14:30,123
because the human brain only has so many bottlenecks

362
00:14:30,186 --> 00:14:32,483
and the space of solutions converges

363
00:14:33,142 --> 00:14:33,498
of course

364
00:14:33,862 --> 00:14:35,719
there is one thing I have to say

365
00:14:35,941 --> 00:14:38,181
every scientific parallel I drew today

366
00:14:38,181 --> 00:14:39,940
is an isomorphism at the structural level

367
00:14:39,941 --> 00:14:40,998
not an equivalence

368
00:14:41,341 --> 00:14:43,638
generosity does not equal the oxytocin experiment

369
00:14:43,821 --> 00:14:46,719
meditation does not equal default mode network suppression

370
00:14:46,941 --> 00:14:48,679
science describes the mechanism

371
00:14:48,821 --> 00:14:50,559
Buddhism points at the experience

372
00:14:50,821 --> 00:14:52,998
the two run on different dimensions

373
00:14:53,022 --> 00:14:55,878
but they face different sides of the same phenomenon

374
00:14:56,181 --> 00:14:58,238
science tells you why it works

375
00:14:58,421 --> 00:15:00,158
Buddhism tells you how to do it

376
00:15:00,181 --> 00:15:02,398
and what you see once you have done it

377
00:15:02,581 --> 00:15:03,418
the two complement each other

378
00:15:03,661 --> 00:15:04,878
they do not replace each other

379
00:15:05,525 --> 00:15:07,423
one last question for you

380
00:15:07,685 --> 00:15:08,903
the order of the six

381
00:15:08,925 --> 00:15:13,543
generosity discipline patience diligence meditation wisdom

382
00:15:13,765 --> 00:15:17,342
runs from coarsest to finest from easiest to hardest

383
00:15:17,685 --> 00:15:18,563
what does that mean

384
00:15:18,966 --> 00:15:22,245
it means that if you skip ahead and practice the later ones

385
00:15:22,246 --> 00:15:23,663
the foundation is empty

386
00:15:24,005 --> 00:15:27,183
meditate without ever loosening possession

387
00:15:27,285 --> 00:15:30,862
and that meditative state becomes your new possession

388
00:15:31,005 --> 00:15:34,262
chase wisdom without training emotion regulation

389
00:15:34,405 --> 00:15:35,924
and you think you have seen through it all

390
00:15:35,925 --> 00:15:38,663
when you are only using reason to suppress emotion

391
00:15:38,957 --> 00:15:40,574
the six do have an order

392
00:15:40,637 --> 00:15:42,855
not because the Buddha decreed one

393
00:15:42,918 --> 00:15:45,437
but because the architecture of the brain decides it

394
00:15:45,438 --> 00:15:47,396
you have to repair the lower layers first

395
00:15:47,398 --> 00:15:49,495
before the upper ones can run stably

396
00:15:49,678 --> 00:15:53,015
just as you cannot build a sixth floor on ground with no foundation

397
00:15:53,237 --> 00:15:54,694
if you are practicing

398
00:15:54,717 --> 00:15:55,834
ask yourself one question

399
00:15:56,438 --> 00:15:58,034
which layer am I stuck on

400
00:15:58,558 --> 00:16:00,135
is possession still gripping me

401
00:16:00,198 --> 00:16:02,015
is emotion regulation still not good enough

402
00:16:02,038 --> 00:16:03,794
or has the motivation mode not switched yet

403
00:16:04,438 --> 00:16:06,214
find the layer where you are stuck

404
00:16:06,278 --> 00:16:08,054
and practice honestly right on that layer

405
00:16:08,198 --> 00:16:09,534
do not rush upward

406
00:16:09,678 --> 00:16:11,077
build the foundation solid

407
00:16:11,078 --> 00:16:13,135
and the floors above will hold themselves up

408
00:16:13,637 --> 00:16:15,435
which paramita do you feel stuck on

409
00:16:15,838 --> 00:16:17,494
or have you ever noticed

410
00:16:17,517 --> 00:16:21,315
a breakthrough in one of them loosening several others at once

411
00:16:21,877 --> 00:16:23,114
if you have had that experience

412
00:16:23,478 --> 00:16:24,556
tell me in the comments

413
00:16:24,558 --> 00:16:25,775
I really want to hear it

414
00:16:26,078 --> 00:16:26,755
I am Leo Wang

415
00:16:27,117 --> 00:16:28,076
see you next time