His Holiness the Dalai Lama discusses the importance of the Mind & Life dialogues between Buddhism and science and suggests that all the dialogue participants can find common ground in trying to be of benefit to humanity.

Diana Chapman Walsh speaks to the trajectory of the Mind & Life dialogues and provides the social context and cultural relevance of this topic of craving, desire, and addiction.

Richie Davidson provides the scientific context for the forthcoming discussion on craving, desire, and addiction.

Lewis begins by describing a typical episode of pursuing and taking drugs based on his own experience of addiction during his 20s. This vignette demonstrates how thoughts about drugs and feelings of craving grow together in a person’s mind, until he or she finally gives in. Then comes the loss and despair, and the cycle repeats itself. According to psychological theory, the attraction to the cycle of craving and the use of drugs increases over months and years.

Brain mechanisms for intensely “wanting” something are different from the mechanisms for “liking” that same thing. “Wanting” generators, robust and large mechanisms that include many brain structures, are easily stimulated into highly reactive states. In stimulated brain states, encountering cues related to the temptation (or vividly imagining it) triggers intense pulses of craving. In addicts, the brain “wanting” generators may become further stimulated through neural sensitization by drugs (or by natural causes).

The early Buddhist sutras–scriptures attributed to the Buddha–speak of how attachment or craving constitute a primary source of our suffering, and how true freedom from suffering emerges through letting go of attachment or craving. Underlying these statements is an important psychological insight that draws an intimate connection between our perceptions of the world and the experience they give rise to on the one hand, and the arising of craving and how this leads us to act in a particular way on the other.

Chemicals that activate the reward system are reinforcing to a wide variety of species from reptiles to humans. Their physiological activation of brain reward systems is believed to be the starting point for the neurobiological changes that launch the addiction trajectory. Research on addiction has started to uncover the sequence of events and long-lasting sequelae that can result from the persistent abuse of addictive substances. These studies have shown how repeated drug use can target key molecules (both common and specific for various drug types) and brain circuits, and eventually disrupt the higher order processes that underlie emotions, cognition, and behavior, and enable an individual to exert self-control.

Research on addiction or problematic substance use has been dominated by a biomedical model focused on choices individuals make and problems that ensue, including damage to the brain and body, health, and well-being. However, it is also crucial to consider the contexts that may shape and constrain individual choices.

A vast and selfless aspiration can be the source of the greatest human qualities and accomplishments; an egocentric aspiration offers no guarantee of genuine satisfaction. Desire is natural, and it plays an essential role in helping us to realize our aspirations. Yet, it is a blind force that is capable of either providing inspiration to our life or poisoning it. Desire degenerates into a “mental toxin” as soon as it becomes craving, obsession, or unmitigated attachment. Craving is all the more frustrating and alienating in that it is out of sync with reality.

Based on texts from 12th-century Beguines (contemplative laywomen) and 4th through 7th-century desert ascetics (early monastics), Farley offers an early Christian interpretation of desire and craving. Contemplative Christianity recognizes healthy and diseased forms of desire. In its unhealthy form, desire becomes a kind of craving, somewhat cognate to addiction. The ego, tormented by anxiety and craving, encounters the world as a (meretricious) promise of relief and happiness.

As an approach to treatment for addiction, Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) integrates cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness practices to reduce risk and severity of relapse to harmful, addictive cycles of behavior. Clients learn to observe seemingly “automatic” cognitive and behavioral patterns, strengthen the ability to experience triggering events without reactivity, and practice skillful and compassionate responses that ultimately serve their highest good.