The presentation will offer an innovative model of how to attain well-being through the cultivation of four types of mental balance: conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective. The four-fold model draws on traditional Buddhist theory as well as relevant western psychological research to demonstrate how dialogue and empirical study can enrich both traditions. One of the fundamental Buddhist premises that underlies this presentation of well-being is that mental suffering is due in large part to imbalances of the mind. While mental suffering is often catalyzed by environmental and social influences and it presumably always has neural correlates, such suffering can often be traced to subjectively experienced mental imbalances. Buddhism suggests that many of them can be remedied through skillful, sustained mental training. The basic theory is that to the extent that the mind’s habitual “ground state,” prior to any sensory or conceptual stimulation, is in a state of imbalance, it is characterized by dissatisfaction. Based on this theory, a heuristic model of four kinds of mental balance: conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective will be presented. Finally, future directions and empirical questions that arise out of our four-fold model will be discussed.
