Though many thinkers challenge the declarations made by religions, Buddhism has so far been more compatible with both scientists and thinkers. The reason for this could be the fact that most scientific, psychological and philosophical thoughts today share some amount of commonalities with Buddhism. Jean Piaget in his ‘Theory of Cognitive Development’ argued Buddhism to be a fourth mode of thought which went beyond science, religion or magic. Many thinkers have stumbled upon similarities between Buddhism, Epicureanism and Stoicism which are well known ancient philosophies. Let us check out 6 reasons why most of the thinkers prefer Buddhism.

4. Buddhism and Psychotherapy

Thinkers love the concept of ‘Insight’ discussed in Buddhism. With progress made in psychological science, many theories support the concept of insight today, which is also been proven through many experiments. Mark Epstein in his book ‘Thoughts Without a Thinker’ has written about the power of meditation as preached by Buddhism for healthy emotional life of a person. Jean Piaget also saw the influence of Buddhism on psychotherapy and how it could help in maintaining good mental health. We can see strong parallels between Buddhism and Rogerian Psychology. Considering growing evidence proving the success of Buddhist meditation producing insights into a wide range of psychological states; Chögyam Trungpa, a renowned Buddhist teacher predicted that “Buddhism will come to the West as psychology.

3. Commonness with American Philosophy

The thoughts like human suffering, personal identity, and perspectives on life, compassion, love and social nature of human beings found in Buddhism have been found also in the American Philosophy, especially in the work of Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Pierce, J. Royce, William James, Charles Hartshorne and many other American thinkers. One can observe a great interrelationship between the ancient orientation of life known as Buddhism and philosophical perspectives given out by great thinkers during the golden age of American philosophy