It all just depends on what you are free from and what you are free to do. True freedom is just a perspective.
@ EM > "in Dutton's book, … he does compare the test results of Buddhist monks to psychopaths in their unique ability to refrain from reacting to stressful stimuli which normally affects people."
Isn't the foundational difference, that monks aim to detach from the self or the 'ego' and psycho/socio/narcs/ are completely attached to the ego and detached from anything outside themselves?
While the overall experience of 'detachment' is similar the cause is completely opposite.
(A) Of course, there is a "difference" if you use objective detachment to "seek the good of others without ego"
or to seek "the desires of the ego" without equal remorse/regard for the desires of others.
But while the "motivation" is the opposite, there was commonality in the PROCESS.
(B) the sociopaths, even though driven by selfish ego, had cerebral/neural responses that were VOID of the emotional reactions that other people have. And so did the monks.
regardless what the intent is that these people "use" their thought process for (which is opposite in nature)
both their thought process exhibited this same "lack of reaction" to emotionally charged stimulus
(in a severe case of sociopathic conditions, a young man who was mentored by a woman I met who told me about this, did not even feel "cigarette burns" -- he physically was devoid of senses of pain to that degree)
in the case of monks, this was developed by mental discipline; with sociopaths it was from nature or environment
??? I didn't say anything about putting psychopaths on a pedestal. ???
I said they were caught in the karmic cycle of retribution, and not aware as the Buddhist monks.
As for Buddhists beind deluded, it depends on the person. If they get stuck in their own religion, not only are they deluded but they contradict their own teachings, similar to Christians who miss the point about forgiveness and stay stuck in retributive judgment/punishment mode
* That is not just Buddhists/Christians, but people of any given beliefs go through stages of religious development. Swinging from phases of liberalism to fundamentalism, to reach a reconciliation of views somewhere in the middle. That's just a condition/process of humanity in general. That isn't from Buddhism or any particular religion.