Features

International Meeting of Chief Justices and Senior Justices on

Published

1 hour ago

2026/06/7

Thilina Walpola

The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct

Rio de Janeiro, 29 May 2026

I am deeply honoured to have been invited to participate in this International Meeting of Chief Justices and Senior Justices on the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct.

It was in 1997 when, after about three decades in the legal profession, public service and academia, I was persuaded by a friend to come down from the ivory towers to join him in Berlin at Transparency International. That non-governmental organization, formed with assistance from the World Bank, was then in its formative years, and one of its principal objectives was to identify sectors that were vulnerable to corruption, and then to formulate strategies to combat such corruption.

Evidence of corruption

I had barely settled down at Transparency International when credible evidence began to surface of corruption in judicial systems in many countries across the continents. For example, a household survey in Bangladesh revealed that 63% of those involved in litigation in the lower courts had paid bribes to court officials, judges, and even to the opponents’ lawyer. A Commission of Inquiry in Tanzania documented numerous instances of court staff, magistrates, and prosecutors soliciting or accepting bribes.

People who participated in public perception surveys considered the judiciary to be only somewhat less corrupt that the police. In Argentina, 57% said they felt that corruption was the main problem with the judiciary. In Honduras, three out of four believed the judiciary was corrupt. In Costa Rica, 54% believed that judicial decisions were subject to external “pressures”. A UNDP funded study in Peru found that three of four penal cases were influenced by corruption. According to the Geneva-based Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, out of 48 countries covered in its annual report for 1999, judicial corruption was pervasive in 30 countries.

In the early 1970s, as a young lawyer serving as Secretary for Justice in the Government of Sri Lanka, I saw and experienced, with considerable unease and sadness, how some serving judges could demean themselves and the sanctity of their office, in the pursuit of preferential treatment from the executive branch of government. When some of these efforts proved to be rewarding, it was difficult not to become sceptical. It was time for the illusions of youth to disappear.

Corruption in the judiciary, therefore, extends beyond conventional bribery. An insidious form of corruption arises from the interaction between the judiciary and the executive, and from the relationship between the judiciary and the legal profession. For example, the political patronage through which a judge may have acquired his office, a promotion, an extension of service, preferential treatment, or the promise of employment after retirement, gives rise to corruption when the executive makes demands on such judge.

Similarly, when a family member regularly appears before a judge, or when a judge selectively ignores sentencing guidelines in cases in which a particular counsel appears, or statistics reveal a high rate of decisions in favour of the executive, the conduct of the judge is almost certain to raise, in the minds of others, the suspicion that the judge is susceptible to undue influence in the discharge of his judicial duties.

Judicial Independence

Independence has for long been regarded as a fundamental requirement for a national judiciary. What is often overlooked is that judicial independence is not a privilege of judicial office. It is an essential pre-requisite for the protection of the people. Judicial independence is essential because it is the judiciary that stands between the government and the people, determining whether actions taken by public officials comply with the standards laid down by law.

It is the judiciary that stands between the individual and the powerful corporate sector, which is increasingly becoming the primary employer and producer of national wealth. The question, therefore, began to be asked how real that protection is if the evidence surfacing was an accurate reflection of the state of the judiciary. Was judicial independence being traded for money or other benefits? Was adherence to the principle of judicial independence, by itself, sufficient to ensure the delivery of justice?

Judicial Accountability

It was against that background that my colleague at Transparency International, Jeremy Pope, and I convened a pilot workshop on “Strengthening Judicial Integrity” in October 1999 during the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Durban, South Africa. Its participants included judges, lawyers, legal academics, justice ministry officials, members of parliament, and human rights activists. From that workshop, which I had the privilege to chair, the message that came through clearly was the need to formulate and implement a concept of judicial accountability, without eroding the principle of judicial independence.

Accountability is a constitutional requirement in a democratic society. In such a society, every power holder, whether it be the legislature or the executive, is, in the final analysis, accountable to the people. Was there any reason why the judiciary, which is entrusted with the exercise of judicial power, should not, individually and collectively, be accountable for the due performance of the functions vested in it?

It had been argued that a judge is accountable only to the law and to the judge’s conscience. But, as Justice Michael Kirby, the longest serving member of the High Court of Australia, once observed, judges share the infirmities of other human beings. There is invariably, in most courts, a rude judge, a slow judge, an ignorant judge, a prejudiced judge, a sleeping judge, an absentee judge, and an eccentric judge.

The challenge, therefore, was to determine how the judiciary could be held to account in a manner that is consistent with the principle of judicial independence. How does one achieve the right balance between autonomy in decision-making and independence from external forces on the one hand, and accountability to the community on the other? My colleague and I agreed that these were issues that were best resolved by the judges themselves.

Judicial Integrity Group

For that purpose, I initiated discussions with eight Chief Justices from four African and four Asian countries. All of them responded positively to the suggestion that a small group be established to address the issue of judicial accountability. These eight jurisdictions – Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Karnataka State in India, Bangladesh and Nepal – shared a common judicial tradition. Justice Michael Kirby of Australia, agreed to be the rapporteur, and Dato Param Cumaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, agreed to participate as an observer. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, designated the Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee and former Chief Justice of India, Justice Bhagwati, as her representative.

The choice of a chairperson to preside over a meeting of Chief Justices was a sensitive issue, but that was happily resolved when Judge Christopher Weeramantry, Vice-President of the International Court of Justice agreed to perform that task. At a crucial moment, Transparency International decided that the funds I had secured for the meeting would be more profitably spent on addressing corruption in the banking sector. Fortunately, the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention (now UNODC), which was about to launch a Global Programme Against Corruption, agreed enthusiastically to convene the preparatory meeting in Vienna in April 2000.

At that first meeting, the Judicial Integrity Group (as it is now known) agreed that judges (unlike ministers or civil servants) should be accountable to the community they serve through their absolute adherence to a set of judicial values. They believed that by adopting and enforcing appropriate standards of judicial conduct, the judiciary would be able to earn and retain the respect of the community. They agreed that this statement of core judicial values should be enforced by the judiciary without the intervention of the executive and legislative branches of government. They also believed that transparency at every critical stage of the judicial process will enable the community, especially through its legal academics, civil society and a free media, to judge the judges.

The Bangalore Draft

At the request of the Group, I prepared a draft statement of principles of judicial conduct, identifying Independence, Impartiality, Integrity, Propriety, Equality, and Competence and Diligence as being the core judicial values. I did not attempt to reinvent the wheel. Instead, I drew on rules and principles which were already articulated in national codes of conduct (wherever they existed) and in regional and international instruments. At its second meeting which was hosted by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Karnataka in Bangalore in 2001, that document was carefully scrutinized, analysed, criticised, revised, and finally adopted by the Group, and became known as the Bangalore Draft Code of Judicial Conduct.

I should mention a major setback that occurred when arrangements were being made for the Bangalore Meeting. The new Italian head of UNODC withdrew support for the project, arguing that if there was corruption in the judiciary, it was a problem not for judges but for the police. Fortunately, we were able to convince the Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom that our project was one which they ought to support, and which they quite enthusiastically did for the next four years.

Over the next 20 months, the Bangalore Draft was widely disseminated among senior judges of both common law and civil law systems in over 75 countries. It was presented to, and discussed, at several judicial conferences. It was translated into the national languages of Central and Eastern European countries and reviewed by judges’ associations and supreme courts of these countries. The Consultative Council of European Judges, which functions under the Council of Europe and represented at that time the judicial systems of 30 countries, commissioned an expert study of the Bangalore Draft. Thereafter, at a meeting held in Strasbourg in June 2002, to which the UN Special Rapporteur and I were invited, it conducted a full and frank discussion from the perspective of the civil law system and then adopted a comprehensive report on specific provisions of the draft.

The Bangalore Principles

At the end of the consultation process, in the light of the comments and criticisms received, and with a view to ensuring that the final document faithfully reflected the position of civil law jurisdictions as well, the Bangalore Draft was revised. In November 2002, at a meeting held at the Peace Palace at The Hague, Netherlands – the seat of the International Court of Justice, the revised draft was placed before a Round Table Meeting of Chief Justices drawn from the civil law system, and at which Judges of the International Court of Justice also participated. The civil law jurisdictions represented were Brazil, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Norway and the Philippines. The Judges of the International Court of Justice present were drawn from Madagascar, Hungary, Germany, Sierra Leone, United Kingdom, Brazil, Egypt and the USA The final draft that emerged from that meeting – the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct – is the document that we have today.

In April 2003, the Bangalore Principles were annexed to the annual report presented to the 59^th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Dato Param Cumaraswamy. In a resolution which was unanimously adopted, the Bangalore Principles “were noted” and brought “to the attention of Member States, the relevant UN organs and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations for their consideration”.

Commentary on the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct

Following the adoption of the Bangalore Principles at the Hague Meeting, several other initiatives were launched, with the assistance of the Vienna-based UNODC. National surveys of court users and other stakeholders in the justice system were conducted in Nigeria, Uganda and Sri Lanka to identify systemic weaknesses. A Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees was drafted. Most significantly, with the assistance of GTZ, it was decided to draft a Commentary on the Bangalore Principles. It was a task which I undertook. The product was a 175-page document which also included a section on the cultural and religious traditions that underpin the contemporary concept of judicial integrity.

Endorsement by the United Nations

By 2006, UNODC was actively involved in efforts to secure the endorsement of the Bangalore Principles by the UN General Assembly. With that objective, it forwarded the Bangalore Principles to all the Member States of the UN, seeking their comments and observations. A resolution was co-sponsored by the Governments of Egypt, France, Germany, Nigeria and the Philippines, and submitted to the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. That resolution invited Member States to encourage their judiciaries to take into consideration the Bangalore Principles when developing rules with respect to the professional and ethical conduct of members of the judiciary; and requested UNODC to convene an open-ended inter-governmental expert group to review the Bangalore Principles and the Commentary, taking into account the views expressed and the revisions suggested by Member States. That resolution was unanimously adopted and was thereafter adopted without a vote by the UN Economic and Social Council whose annual report was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly later that year.

In March 2007, UNODC convened the meeting of the Inter-Governmental Expert Group consisting of over a hundred participants. At that two-day meeting, held in Vienna and presided over by Judge Weeramantry and Chief Justice Pius Langa of South Africa, the draft commentary was considered in detail and amendments were agreed upon. The Commentary on the Bangalore Principles was thereafter published by UNODC in the official UN languages, and has since been re-published by a few national judiciaries in their own languages.

In 2010, the Judicial Integrity Group met in Lusaka, on the invitation of the Chief Justice of Zambia, and agreed on Measures for the Effective Implementation of the Bangalore Principles. I had the opportunity of incorporating these Measures in the UNODC publication An Implementation Guide and Evaluative Framework in respect of Article 11 of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). That Article imposes an obligation on states parties to take measures to strengthen judicial integrity, and cites a code of judicial conduct as one such measure.

Meanwhile, UNODC has launched a Global Judicial Integrity Network to promote the implementation of the Bangalore Principles and Article 11 of UNCAC. It is an initiative that seeks to provide capacity-building support, advisory services, tools, networking opportunities and other relevant resources to national judiciaries.

Another significant instrument which complements the Bangalore Principles is the Istanbul Declaration on Transparency in the Judicial Process which I had the pleasure of preparing at the request of the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Turkey. It was reviewed and approved at three conferences of Chief Justices of the Asian-Pacific region, the Balkan region, and finally from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa.

Finally, in 2016, a 16-year journey ended when the United Nations formally included the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct in its Compendium of UN Standards and Norms relating to the Administration of Justice.

A quarter century later

It is now 24 years since the Bangalore Principles were adopted, and almost 20 years since the Commentary was published. During this period, there have been several technological and social developments that impact on judicial conduct.

= It has been questioned whether the six judicial values are exhaustive, or whether there are others as well. We are now considering whether “courage” and “empathy” ought to be recognised as additional values.

= It has been suggested that some serious social issues, such as sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and “sextortion” have not been adequately addressed or not at all.

= The use of social media by judges can impact on judicial integrity and public confidence in the judiciary. Therefore, should their use be regulated, and if so, to what extent?

= While artificial intelligence may contribute to the improvement of access to justice and case-management, what steps are necessary to ensure that justice is not thereby dehumanized?

= Should a judge enjoy personal immunity from civil suit for conduct in the exercise of a judicial function, even if it can be established that the judge has acted mala fide?

= Should post-retirement employment of judges be regulated?

I hope this Conference will be able to address these sensitive issues.

Judicial values are eternal

In conclusion, I wish to highlight two matters. The first is to emphasize that the strength and, indeed, the legitimacy of the Bangalore Principles and related instruments are derived from the fact that they were crafted by judges, based on their own experience as judges and are intended to be utilized by judges who form the core of the justice system.

Finally, I wish to note what a humbling experience it was for me, when preparing the draft Principles, and thereafter the draft Commentary, to learn that these core judicial values and principles and even detailed statements of their applicability were to be found –

in the texts of ancient Egypt and in Hindu Law in or around 1500 BC;
in Buddhist philosophy in 500 BC;
in the Twelve Tables of Rome in 450 BC (which contains the injunction that “The setting of the sun shall be the extreme limit of time within which a judge must render his decision”);
in Chinese law around 312 BC;
in the legal systems that flourished in Africa at the same time as they did in Greece and Rome;
in the writings of Jewish scholars in or about the 12^th century AD;
in the teachings in the Old Testament; and,
in very specific and comprehensive terms, in Islamic Law.

The judicial values are not only global; they are also eternal.

Keynote Address:
A Brief History of the Bangalore Principles
Dr Nihal Jayawickrama
Coordinator and Rapporteur of the Judicial Integrity Group

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Features

Is power devolution under JVP-NPP a political daydream?

Published

1 hour ago

2026/06/7

Thilina Walpola

Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga

The JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva’s recent remarks at a news conference in Jaffna where he ruled out the possibility of holding provincial council elections this year has been widely reported and widely criticized. About the same time there was another media event in Jaffna that went largely unnoticed and unreported outside Jaffna. What was said at the second media event may carry far more political implications than Tilvin Silva’s election timing talk. A veteran Tamil political participant made the startling yet not implausible statement that the prospect of having political devolution under the JVP-NPP government is becoming “a daydream”. The statement was made by Dr. K. Vigneswaran, who served as Provincial Secretary to the only North-East Provincial Council Government that was elected under the auspices of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Dr. Vigneswaran is a Professional Civil Engineer who studied at Royal College, graduated with First Class Honours in Engineering in 1964, and went on to complete a pioneering PhD at the university of Waterloo, Canada, applying the finite element method (FEM) in the field of Geotechnical Engineering. His engineering career has always been at the Irrigation Department where he rose to a Deputy Director. That was when the department was in its golden years, and Vigneswaran was known for his technical mentorship, meticulous administrative skills, and for knowing the fine print of everything. While at the Irrigation Department, Vigneswaran married Ramya de Silva, a fellow irrigation Engineer. After 1983, Vigneswaran became a fulltime political activist and a powerful resource in Tamil politics, but with unwavering commitment to nonviolence, democracy and federalism. The family moved first to India and then Canada, and Vigneswaran has been shuttling between Canada and Sri Lanka.

Devolution: Tortuous Trajectory

Since 1987, the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement, and the 13th Amendment, Vigneswaran has been a permanent fixture in all the politics and institutional dynamic of implementing 13A and establishing provincial councils. He served as Secretary to the only elected Provincial Government for the Northern and Eastern Provinces. After 1994 and the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President, Vigneswaran became a key participant in all the civil society efforts and government initiatives to restore the PCs and implement 13A, both during the Kumaratunga presidency and the succeeding administrations of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo.

Devolution efforts stalled after the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who in so many words declared that he had no time for 13A or PCs in his presidential agenda, whatever it was. Only that his whole agenda turned out to be a wholesale disaster for the country. Already by then, all the nine Provincial Councils had fallen into abeyance with the cancellation of the 1988 PC elections by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo, with the TNA standing by. The abeyance continues under the JVP-NPP government with no apparent end in sight after Tilvin de Silva’s statement in Jaffna.

I say all this to provide the proper context for Vigneswaran’s statement in Jaffna that the prospects for power devolution under the JVP-NPP government are becoming a political daydream. He said something else as well: that of all the government leaders he has encountered over the years, the only leader who has been genuinely sincere about power devolution is former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and no one else. I am constrained to add that the insincere category would include Ranil Wickremesinghe, who for all his handsome promises, never matched any of them with experiential sincerity. The present JVP-NPP government still has time to show that they are not an insincere lot.

It is not my purpose to agree with or question Dr. Vigneswaran’s assertions, but to use them as cue and context to comment on the widening mismatch between the JVP-NPP government’s promises and its practices on the matter of power devolution and the restoration of the PC system. With a stalling economy, rising prices and external shocks, it is obvious that the government has all the economic matters to worry about, but that does not mean that it can ignore all the other government responsibilities. No government is put in power to solve a single problem or address a single issue. It is in the nature of governments to deal with multiple problems with varying priorities. Otherwise you could have a single cabinet minister to deal with one problem at a time. That is never going to be the case.

The economy is of course the top of mind priority for the government even as it is a top of mind concern for the people. Even on the economic front, the government is holding steady but is showing little progress. And there are other government initiatives where political accountability will call for answers: to wit, the catchall Clean Sri Lanka programme, ambitious educational reforms, contentious energy sector reforms and, yes, power devolution as well as the overpromised constitutional reforms. Not to mention the sprawling unforced errors over substandard coal imports, foreign exchange fraud, and the chronic neglect of developing the renewable energy sector. Correcting these fields of errors may require a separate ministry for each.

Devolution: Daydream or Deliverable

On the PC system and constitutional reform, there has been scant progress in spite of handsome promises. On both, the government is inadvertently deepening the holes that it had dug itself into through indifference, inaction or procrastination, or all of them and more. In the matter of devolution and provincial councils, the government can simply defuse the situation by directing the Election Commission to conduct elections at the earliest opportunity that is logistically possible. Making his statement in Jaffna, Mr. Tilvin Silva alluded to funding shortfall and legal complications as reasons for the necessity to postpone PC elections until next year. Neither reason holds water.

The funding question would seem to have been put to rest by the statement of Health Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa, presumably reflecting cabinet consensus, that there are no funding issues and if needed additional funds could be arranged through supplementary allocations. It is also disingenuous to cite legal complications as a reason. The so called legal complications arose because of the collective stupidity of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe parliament that included the then miniscule NPP and the politically-lost TNA. The JVP-NPP has now ballooned from a handful MPs to a two-thirds majority and it can expedite any legislation that it wants to enable the PC elections to be held without delays.

Alternatively, the elections can be held under the old arrangement of proportional representation with assurance by political parties to honour their commitment to fielding more female candidates. Already at a gathering of all political parties, including the NPP (but not the JVP), and civil society groups, convened by People’s Action For Free & Fair Elections (PAFFREL), the political parties jointly committed to a 25% quota for women and youth under the old electoral system. The ongoing parliamentary committee exercise studying the legal matter, headed by the overstretched Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, is also an unnecessary red herring. The Election Commission is ready to go under whatever law or electoral system that is before it. So, there is no reason to hide behind legal complications to further delay the PC elections.

Somewhat amusingly, Public and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananda Wijepala has trotted out the argument that the NPP government has already conducted two nationwide elections during the one and a half years it has been in office, and that unlike the Ranil Wickremesinghe government the JVP-NPP is not in the business “to delay elections for our personal benefit” – whatever that means. Unfortunately, the good minister is missing the point. The question is not how many elections can the JVP-NPP hold in how many years, but how many years do people in the provinces have to wait before they vote in another provincial election? How many more years? That really is the question.

We know the current situation in the provinces. There are provincial governments but no elected provincial councils. The government administration in every province is being run by the President of the Republic through his handpicked governors and unelected government officials. This is a travesty of democracy and the euthanizing of the PC system. Already under 13A, the office of the provincial governors has been constitutionally and legally compared to the office of the Governors of old Ceylon who represented the monarch in what was then a crown colony. The irony is that a JVP-NPP President may have inadvertently positioned himself as the monarch of all he provincially surveys, courtesy of the Thirteenth Amendment!

The JVP was in the forefront of the litigation that caused the demerger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. If Dr. Vigneswaran’s assertion were to prove correct, a potential dissolution of the provincial system under the JVP-NPP government would be the consummation of the JVP’s original opposition to the introduction of the provincial council system itself. The whole system may not be eradicated, but it could be devoured of its democratic essence while preserving the administrative shell as the medium for the country’s president to overreach into the provinces. That would be worse than a daydream, a real nightmare.

by Rajan Philips ✍️

Features

‘Spectrum’ Art Exhibition Showcases Emerging Talent at Lionel Wendt

Published

1 hour ago

2026/06/7

Thilina Walpola

A new art exhibition, titled Spectrum ,will be held at the Lionel Wendt Art Centre on the 20th and 21st of June 2026, bringing together a collection of works by ten emerging artists.

Athsara Wijegunawardena

Neha Thirumavalavan

Dillai Joseph

Wasantha Siriwardena

Champika Dias

Nipun Dias

Dr. Prasanna Siriwardena

Kalhari Perera

Siromi Samarasinghe

Chandana Illankone

All ten artists have trained under the guidance of renowned Sri Lankan artist Royden Gibbs, and this exhibition marks an important point in their individual journeys.

Dr. Prasanna Siriwardena

Spectrum brings together a mix of styles, subjects and approaches, giving visitors a chance to experience a wide range of work in one place. The exhibition will include pieces in watercolors, soft pastels, oils and charcoal, reflecting both the discipline and personal direction of each artist. The work ranges from scenery and portraits to still life and studies of the human form, offering different ways of seeing and interpreting familiar subjects.

: Nipun Dias

: Wasantha Siriwardena

Dillai Joseph

Although they share the same mentor, each artist presents a distinct point of view. The result is a show that feels varied yet connected, with each piece carrying its own character and intent. It is this balance that gives Spectrum its identity.

The exhibition aims to support and highlight emerging talent within Sri Lanka’s art scene, while also creating a space where artists and audiences can connect. Visitors will find work that shifts between quiet observation and more expressive pieces, making it an engaging experience for both seasoned collectors and those simply interested in art.

Spectrum is expected to draw art lovers, collectors, students and members of the wider creative community. It also offers an opportunity to discover and support new artists at an early stage in their careers.

Open to the public over two days, Spectrum invites visitors to experience a range of work in a venue that has long been part of Colombo’s cultural landscape.

Features

Rewiring Brain: Meditation to Break the Cycle of Craving

Published

1 hour ago

2026/06/7

Thilina Walpola

“Craving begets sorrow, craving begets fear. For him who is free from craving there is no sorrow; how can there be fear for him,” Dhammapada verse 216 states. The mental factor craving, Tanha in Pali, is central to Buddhist Teaching, as its ultimate goal is the cessation or extinction of it—tanhakkhaya. Even though Tanha is translated as craving here, it can sometimes mislead modern readers into thinking tanha only refers to extreme or physical addictions. Just as with any Pali term, it has broad meanings. Venerable Walpola Rahula describes it as “thirst” or unceasing wanting, one of the deep-rooted proclivities or latent tendencies (anusaya) of life (Rahula 1959), without which life as we know would not exist.

Even though the Buddha recognized this natural phenomenon two and a half millennia ago, it was only in the late 20th century that science took note of it and gave it a captivating term—the Hedonic Treadmill. The advantage of this empirical investigation to us Buddhists is that it provides a way to gain penetrative, experiential comprehension (anubodha) of this concept using the vernacular of this technology-savvy age—an alternative to struggling with the language of a bygone era.

These investigations have revealed that there are no hard-to-comprehend metaphysical or mysterious elements involved with this phenomenon; it is a biochemical process fundamental to sustaining life. What is more, an effort to grasp this concept would be well within the goals of Vipassana meditation described in the Sutta Pitaka, incorporating the four elements of investigation: body (kayanupassana), sensations (vedananupassana), mind (chittanupassana), and natural laws (dhammanupassana).

Vipassana and modern science

Vipassana meditation is an in-depth exploration of how humans perceive the world, gain knowledge, and interact with themselves and the environment. Knowing this with wisdom allows one to lead a harmonious way of life (samadhi), a condition conducive to curbing the “thirst” and achieving the Buddhist ideal. The goal of modern science is also to investigate life, but humanity has often used that knowledge to increase material wealth and comfort, providing only lip service to spirituality on the fringe.

An attitude that tends to ignore the consequences of wanting more and more – thirst, potentially endangering the planet. However, that does not prevent us from using scientific information as and aid or a tool to grasp Buddhist concepts. The scientific method bears parallels to the Buddhist approach: it is based on causality (paticcasamuppada), empirical verification (ehipassiko), systematic observation (meditation), and rejecting dogma and beliefs. The primary difference is simply the vocabulary used.

The process of perception: five aggregates

Our five external sense organs receive data (vedana) containing information on the environment: Eyes: receive light, Ears: receive sound, Skin: senses physical contact and temperature, Nose & Tongue: sense chemical properties of substances. The data received by the sense organs is transmitted to the brain, where it is registered as neural networks (sanna). Neural networks, which are interconnected groups of nerve cells (neurons) can be viewed as mind-readable QR codes.

The activity of the brain, or mind (mano), processes this data and converts them into actionable information (sankhara). Modern neuroscience and psychology have made great advances in understanding these processes at the molecular level. This process allows the individual to become aware of their environment, build an autobiographical memory or the notion of a self (atta), and take actions to protect and perpetuate life.

The Pali term vinnana refers to the collection of information committed to memory. Translating vinnana as “consciousness” can be confusing, as the latter often refers to all brain activities. All physical phenomena that sense organs encounter and the mental constructs (sankhara) are referred to as Rupa. This activity of mind forms the basis of all knowledge, representing the entire world as perceived by the individual. This process is what the Teaching refers to as the Five Aggregates (pancakkhanda). The critical takeaway is that the world we perceive is merely a mental construct. While an objective world exists, our sense organs have limitations in seeing it—a fact easily realized through the hundreds of illusions used for entertainment.

Evolution and emotion

The evolutionary purpose of this data processing mechanism is to enable living beings to respond to environmental factors for survival. The psychological and physiological state that arises prior to acting is called emotion. Primarily, emotions can be of three kinds: desire (loba) – seeing a new phone causes an urge to buy it, even though the current one works fine; aversion (dosha) – encountering a vicious dog triggers a “fight or flight” response; delusion (moha) or illusion – an unanswered message to a loved one triggers worry or speculation. Thus, tanha or thirst represents how we connect to the world in its entirety; it can be desire, aversion, and delusion, not merely simple greed. Consequently, these are natural phenomena beyond our immediate control, which are intended to sustain life. In other words, emotions are the forerunner to volitions or intentions, which the Teaching defines as kamma.

The biochemistry of craving

Emotions result from the interaction between the nervous system and biochemicals known as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators (e.g., dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, GABA, glutamate, acetylcholine, and endorphins). Just as the Buddha’s simile of two bundles of bamboo supporting each other describes, these two processes are interdependent and co-arising. Every thought or emotional state corresponds to patterns of neural firing. When neurons fire, they release these chemicals into synapses, influencing how one feels and acts. This release perturbs the body’s normal balance, or homeostasis. Once an action is complete, these chemicals are reabsorbed, and the body returns to its baseline.

Return to baseline is essential for survival. For example, if we stay satisfied with just one meal forever, we could not sustain life. Nature has developed another mechanism to prevent us from being satisfied – we also habituate. In the case of dopamine, the brain adapts by reducing the response to the same stimulus. To get the same level of satisfaction with repeated experiences, the amounts of neurotransmitters needed keeps increasing. This leads to the cycle of craving and dissatisfaction—the Hedonic Treadmill. You “run” toward happiness on the treadmill, but it does not take you anywhere, leaving you in the same emotionally unsatisfactory state, wanting more and more.

Breaking the cycle

This explains why achievements and possessions do not bring permanent happiness, and lead to a cycle of struggle, addiction, crime, and other ills of society. For Buddhists, it also explains why we cling to meaningless rituals. The Dhamma captured this complex phenomenon in the Four Noble Truths: pleasant experiences are impermanent (anicca), leading to grasping (tanha) and unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). The remedy is the Eightfold Path that involves wisdom (panna), conduct (sila), and harmony (samadhi).

Neuroplasticity and the point of liberation

While we cannot stop the sense organs from receiving stimulation (vedana) and sending them to brain, the mind can be developed to prevent vedana from leading to tanha. This is the “point of liberation,” the seventh link in the paticcasamuppada formula. We may not have free will, but we have ‘Free Won’t’ or the ability to say no to the natural tendency to act upon stimuli. We can rewire our neural connections to do so. This ability can be cultivated by practice and repetition, and neuroscience refers to it as neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to change with experience.

The natural tendency of the brain is to strengthen frequently used neural networks while weakening and eliminating lesser used networks and building new ones as needed. This is known as neural plasticity or rewiring the brain. As described in the Eight-fold Path, the way to weaken and eliminate dopamine-driven neural networks includes three aspects. First, the process leading to thirst must be understood. One must engage in sila – activities and thoughts that cultivate Metta: loving-kindness and goodwill, Karuna: compassion, Mudita: appreciative joy, and Upekkha: equanimity, emotional stability, calmness, and evenness of mind in the face of gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, pleasure, and pain. That must be done with wisdom, ritualistic behavior does not strengthen the correct neural networks. These activities promote a “cocktail” of oxytocin, serotonin, and GABA, subduing the role of dopamine and helping us step off the Hedonic Treadmill. This leads to a tranquil state of mind and a harmonious existence – samadhi. Again, it is an interdependent, co-arising process that improves upon repetition. Using mind altering substances hijacks this process, thus the need for adhering to the Fifth Precept.

The goal of Vipassana is to understand this process and train the mind to say “no” to tanha. It is not just about sitting on a mat; it requires developing a lifestyle that maintains homeostasis or harmony, samadhi, at every moment. Pali term bhavana means the development of wisdom and insight. In modern vernacular – rewiring brain. This model must be assessed for its efficacy by the individual and realize the benefits by themselves –ehipassiko; knowledge without practice does not work. According to what the Buddha taught, that is the path to cessation or extinction of craving – tanhakkhaya, the supreme goal.

by Geewananda Gunawardana, Ph.D. ✍️