Buddhism always fascinated my imagination: it's not a religion, there's no god but there are rules - and there's a discovery of those rules very closely connected to a person and his journey - and why? how? what?
My current take is: Gautama had an extremely dopaminergic built and the essence of the relief he found was “strengthen the work of here&now neurotransmitters (serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, and endocannabinoids)”
So, let's weave it all together: dopamine, N&H neurotransmitters, and Siddhartha Gautama.
The immediate physical surroundings of you is your peripersonal space. Acting within that space is controlled by your H&N neurotransmitters. Everything beyond it is the dopamine world - represented by dopamine (models, abstractions, projections, predictions) and controlled by dopamine (motivation, execution, addiction).
Gautama was definitely a dopamine junkie - the legend goes that he had a pretty sheltered life, being prince and all, never a worry, pretty things all around, etc. until one time he went for a drive in his royal carriage and happened to meet on his way a sick person, an old man, and a funeral procession - and was like, “oh shit!” and ran away from home to find his way out of sickness, old age, and death.
What gives away a dopamine person here? The power of abstraction/imagination. I'm willing to bet that some random spoiled prince dude would be like “ewww, let's take another route, this is gross” but Gautama instead extrapolated from these symbolic/singular data points, applied to himself, tripped really bad (courtesy his imagination), and was able to totally turn his life on a dime to stubbornly pursue this new goal that his mind just conjured and immediately - and absolutely - committed to. Uber-D-mensch if you ask me.
So, he used his D powers to have a peek into the future (or all possible bad futures) and decided he wanted out. But how? Legend goes he also saw an ascetic during the same joyful ride and decided if anyone has answers, it'd be those people.
So he hung out with (yogas, medidators) ascetics a lot, many years but the most he achieved is to lose a bunch of weight. Way out? Gautama decided not close enough and went on his own. His own started with a combo of a nice meal and a childhood memory. That kicked off his enlightenment process, the end result of which is (my take - as everything in this post): every moment in life has a variety of potential (normal distribution, yo) - stick to the median of possibilities.
How does this all translate to neurotransmitters?
Siddhartha’s vision that scared him so much was that of inability to accept whatever the peripersonal situation is - and wanting to escape it - longing for some other dopamine-painted reality (healthy, strong, young, rich man cannot fit an old dying sick version of himself). So he tried to deny the peripersonal reality altogether - no woman, no cry - via trance, emaciation, any other available escapism methods ca. 480-400 BCE. Turns out it's kinda like blowing up the exit of the mine - from the inside, while being locked up in the mine.
So when he regrouped and nourished his body (=invested in his peripersonal), his mind went back to the time when as a child he lived still in one reality - that of here and now. So he saw that the answer is to stay with it - the only reality - like a surfer stays with a wave.
Technically speaking, to begin with, our H&N circuits are weaker/more fragile than the dopamine one (we even have two of dopamine ones, to be precise), so Buddhism teaches you how to strengthen the H&N circuits and not to be carried away by the dopamine.
So, what's that about newborn?
Funny you ask. Gautama split from home and his fam right after his newly wed wife had a baby. There's nothing in my experience that pushes you into here and now more than having to care for a newborn. Gautama should have stayed home and changed diapers. To cover his tracks, he came up with “everyone has their own path”.
Nuff said.