Buddhism and science

Buddhism and science have increasingly been discussed as compatible and Buddhism has increasingly entered into the ongoing science and religion dialog. [Yong, Amos. (2005) "Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (review)" Buddhist-Christian Studies - Volume 25, 2005, pp. 176-180] The case is made that the philosophic and psychological teachings within Buddhism share commonalities with modern scientific and philosophic thought or at least are less at odds with them. For example, Buddhism encourages the impartial investigation of Nature (an activity referred to as "Dhamma-Vicaya" in the Pali Canon) - the principal object of study being oneself.

With a special focus on the nature of mind and its implications for the concept of reality, Buddhism offers explanations for metaphysical issues within psychology and studies of consciousness. Some popular conceptions of Buddhism connect it to discourse regarding evolution, quantum theory, and cosmology, though most scientists see a separation between the religious and metaphysical statements of Buddhism and the methodology of science.Fact|date=January 2008

Modern Buddhism has been described as rational and non dogmatic, though this is likely a modern invention and reinterpretation. [Snodgrass, Judith. (2007) "Defining Modern Buddhism: Mr. and Mrs. Rhys Davids and the Pāli Text Society" Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Volume 27, Number 1, 2007, pp. 186-202] Not all forms of Buddhism eschew dogmatism, remain neutral on the subject of the supernatural, or are open to scientific discoveries. Buddhism is a varied tradition and aspects include fundamentalism, [http://www.buddhistethics.org/6/fenn991.html Journal of Buddhist Ethics "A Review of Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka"] ] devotional traditions, [Safire, William (2007) "The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge" ISBN 0-31237-659-6 p.718] supplication to local spirits, and various superstitions. [Deegalle, Mahinda (2006) "Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka" ISBN 0-79146-897-6 p.131] Nevertheless, commonalities have been cited between scientific investigation and Buddhist thought. The Dalai Lama, in a speech at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, listed a "suspicion of absolutes" and a reliance on causality and empiricism as common philosophical principles shared between Buddhism and science. ["The Neuroscience of Meditation." November 12, 2005 speech given by the Dalai Lama]

Buddhism as science

Buddhist teacher S.N. Goenka describes "Buddhadharma" as a 'pure science of mind and matter' [ [http://www.vri.dhamma.org/newsletters/en/en1998-08.shtml] ] . He claims Buddhism uses precise, analytical philosophical and psychological terminology and reasoning.facts|date=July 2008 Goenka's presentation describes Buddhism not so much belief in a body of unverifiable dogmas but an active, impartial, objective investigation of things as they are.facts|date=July 2008

What is generally accepted in Buddhism is that effects arise from causation. From his very first discourse onwards, the Buddha explains the reality of things in terms of cause and effect. The existence of misery and suffering in any given individual is due to the presence of causes. One way to describe the Buddhist eightfold path — a personal path from misery to the bliss of nirvana — is a turning towards the reality of things as they are right now and understanding reality directly. Though it is debated the degree to which these investigations are metaphysical or epistemological.

Scientific method

More consistent with the scientific method than traditional, faith-based religion, the Kalama Sutta insists on a proper assessment of evidence, rather than a reliance on faith, hearsay or speculation:

The general tenor of the sutta is also similar to "Nullius in verba" - often translated as "Take no-one's word for it", the motto of the Royal Society. [ [http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=14&article=briefs_3 Robin Padilla (2008) "Karma and the Cortex" in Berkeley Science Review] ]

Buddhism and psychology

During the 1970s, several experimental studies suggested that Buddhist meditation could produce insights into a wide range of psychological states. Interest in the use of meditation as a means of providing insight into mind-states has recently been revived, following the increased availability of such brain-scanning technologies as fMRI and SPECT.

Such studies are enthusiastically encouraged by the present Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso who has long expressed an interest in exploring the connection between Buddhism and science, and regularly attends the Mind and Life Institute Conferences. [Christina Reed, " [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000EF3FB-FDDE-13CB-BC1C83414B7F012A&colID=5 Talking Up Enlightenment] ." "Scientific American", 6 February 2006.] However, some scientists are concerned by the popular coverage given to Buddhism's applications in neuroscience, believing that it will open up the field to mysticism.

In 1974 the Kagyu Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa predicted that "Buddhism will come to the West as psychology". This view was apparently regarded with considerable skepticism at the time, but Buddhist concepts have indeed made most in-roads in the psychological sciences. Some modern scientific theories, such as Rogerian psychology, show strong parallels with Buddhist thought. Some of the most interesting work on the relationship between Buddhism and science is being done in the area of comparison between Yogacara theories regarding the store consciousness and modern evolutionary biology, especially DNA. This is because the Yogacara theory of karmic seeds works well in explaining the nature/nurture problem. See the works by William Walron on this topic.

William James often drew on Buddhist cosmology when framing perceptual concepts, such as his term "stream of consciousness," which is the literal English translation of the Sanskrit vinnana-sota. In his text, Varieties of Religious Experience, James also promoted for modern psychology the functional value of meditation. [William James, Varieties of Religious Experience. (1902; New York: Viking Penguin, 1982).] He wrote: "This is the psychology everybody will be studying twenty-five years from now." [David Scott, "William James and Buddhism: American Pragmatism and the Orient," Religion 30 (2000): 335.]

Buddhism and linguistics

The Buddhist ideas of emptiness, impermanence and dependent arising have much in common with ideas within the Cognitive Linguistics school of thought such as subjectivity, cognitive grammar ("meaning is conceptualization") and frame semantics.

Buddhism and physics

The quantum interpretations of the advaitin conception of Brahman are the same as those made of the Mahayana shunyata. Capra describes both as attempts to define the single entity underlying all physical phenomena, and Mu Soeng concurs. [Mu Soeng, "The Diamond Sutra", page iii.] However, Buddhists describe shunyata as being neither entity nor non-entity. [David Loy, PhD thesis at the University of Singapore, http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/26715.htm]

Buddhism and philosophy

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote of Buddhism in terms of western philosophy:cquote|We find the doctrine of metempsychosis, springing from the earliest and noblest ages of the human race, always spread abroad in the earth as the belief of the great majority of mankind, nay, really as the teachings of all religions with the exception of that of the Jews and the two which have preceded from it: in the most subtle form, however, and coming nearest to the truth, as has already been mentioned, in Buddhism.
It almost seems that, as the oldest languages are the most perfect so also are the oldest religions. If I were to take the results of my philosophy as a yardstick of the truth, I would concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence of all religions of the world.

Notable Scientists on Buddhism

Einstein did comment that Buddhism "contains a much stronger element of [the cosmic religious feeling, by which] the religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished." [Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science". "New York Times Magazine", 9 November 1930 reprinted in "Ideas and Opinions", ISBN 0-517-00393-7, p. 36.]

Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), Austrian theoretical physicist, best known for his discovery of wave mechanics, which won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933, wished to see: "Some blood transfusion from the East to the West" to save Western science from spiritual anemia."

David Bohm, who had a series of meetings with the Dalai Lama, was impressed with Eastern transcendental practices:

Niels Bohr, who developed the Bohr Model of the atom, said,

British mathematician, philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Alfred North Whitehead (co-author, with Bertrand Russell, of Principia Mathematica, widely considered by specialists in the subject to be one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy) declared, "Buddhism is the most colossal example in the history of applied metaphysics."Fact|date=January 2008

Bertrand Russell, another Nobel Prize winner, discovered a superior scientific method—one that reconciled the speculative and the rational while investigating the ultimate questions of life:

The American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer made an analogy to Buddhism when describing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle thusly:

Fritjof Capra, in his book The Tao of Physics, says (p. 18):

See also

* Buddhism and Evolution
* Buddhism and psychology

References

* Rahula, Walpola & Demieville, Paul (1974) "What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas" ISBN 0-80213-031-3

Further reading

*B. Alan Wallace, "Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness" (Columbia Univ Press 2007)
*B. Alan Wallace (ed), "Buddhism and Science: breaking new ground" (Columbia Univ Press 2003)
*Matthieu Ricard, Trinh Xuan Thuan, "The Quantum and the Lotus" (Three Rivers Press 2004)
*Robin Cooper, "The Evolving Mind: Buddhism, Biology and Consciousness," Windhorse (Birmingham UK 1996)
*Daniel Goleman (in collaboration with The Dalai Lama), "Destructive Emotions," Bloomsbury (London UK 2003)
*B. Alan Wallace, "Choosing Reality: A Buddhist Perspective of Physics and the Mind," (Snow Lion 1996)
*Rapgay L, Rinpoche VL, Jessum R, "Exploring the nature and functions of the mind: a Tibetan Buddhist meditative perspective," Prog. Brain Res. 2000 vol 122 pp 507-15
*Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama XIV, "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality," (Morgan Road Books 2005)
*McMahan, David, “Modernity and the Discourse of Scientific Buddhism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 4 (2004), 897-933.

External links

* [http://www.cttbusa.org/other2/buddhism_science.htm Buddhism and Science]
* [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/46/16369 Full text of 2004 paper examining effects of long-term meditation on brain function]
* [http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/65/4/564 Full text of 2003 paper examining the effect of mindfulness meditation on brain and immune function]
* [http://www.investigatingthemind.org/ The Mind and Life Conferences]
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/dalai.html Buddha on the Brain - Dalai Lama on the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference]
* [http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/VerhoevenBuddhismScience.htm Collection of quotes regarding Buddhism and science]