Dubious Connections: Oxytocin and Equinimity

Welcome to the first installment of Dubious Connections where I attempt to take a story from the mainstream media and spin some dharma magic from it.

In the May/June 2011 issue of Scientific American Mind, Janelle Weaver describe a study in which scientists at the University of Amsterdam had Dutch men inhale oxytocin.  More on that in a minute. It’s already well established that oxytocin, a hormone/neurotransmitter, is implicated in the development of the bonding in humans.  Activities like breast feeding, love making, and greco-roman wrestling can cause the surges of hormone that help bond mother to child, and lovers to one another.  The aforementioned psychologists found a flip side  to this mechanism previously never suspected to be coin-like.

After the study subjects inhaled the oxytocin they “were more likely to associate positive words, such as joy and laughter, and complex positive emotions, such as hope and admiration, with Dutch people than with Germans and Arabs.”  But are you satisfied with just knowing word associations?  Neither were the Dutch scientists, so they set-up an experiment that apparently didn’t remind the ethics committee enough of Dr. Stanley Milgram.  They created a scenario in which the participant could prevent a runaway trolley from hitting and killing five people by diverting it down a different track which would lead it to hitting and killing only one person.  Not a bad deal in the touch-and-go world of ethical dilemmas.  According to Ms. Weaver, the study found that Dutch men high on oxytocin “were less likely to sacrifice a Dutch male than a German or Arab.”

Notice to Germans and Arabs: Stay away from the trolleys in Amsterdam!

If I’ve read the reporting correctly, and given my reading comprehension I should be second-guessed, it seems as though oxytocin simultaneously strengthens intra-group bonds and makes it easier for us to throw everybody else under the bus, er, trolley.  If there was ever an anti-equanimity drug, oxytocin is it.

No wonder the four limitless qualities can seem impossible to achieve.  Not only ought we develop love, compassion and empathetic joy, but we should be shining these heart lights on every sentient being equally.  At times I want to hit every being with a trolley equally, but I’m guessing that doesn’t count as having achieved the four limitless qualities. But doesn’t oxytocin make equanimity impossible?  Sure it makes me love more  those I already love, but it also makes the other even more other-y. Whether it’s the guy who beat me up in high school or a fan of the opposing baseball team, oxytocin makes me dislike him, or at least care less about him more than ever.  Let’s keep in mind though that oxytocin seems to intensify feelings, thoughts and biases that we’ve already established.  What if we can change those feelings, thoughts and biases?  Would oxytocin still be an anti-equanimity menace?

As Geshe Wangyal stated in the Door of Liberation, we should make the resolution:

All beings are the same. Each wants happiness and doesn’t want misery. All beings are relatives. Therefore I will learn equanimity and be free from attachment and aversion to near and far, helping some and harming others…

To consider all beings family, or to believe that all other beings have at one point been our mothers, are strong, emotional images; believe me, you haven’t met my family. Regardless of your particular take on reincarnation, one could propose working through the exercise of imagining we have tight bonds with all beings.  This exercise, if done diligently and in earnest, could utilize oxytocin’s effects to generalize those positive bonds to everybody else.  Even the guy who beat you up in high school?  Well that’s the trick, but why not?