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A Path Religion and Science Can Follow
Today, with the ongoing controversy about the teaching of intelligent design as a counter balance to Darwinian evolutionary theory, and the growing rhetoric from the secularists, such as of “end of faith” and “God delusion,” the conversation between science and spirituality in the public arena appears to be moving towards greater confrontation.
Many are alarmed by this increasingly polarizing trend and yearn for a more constructive engagement between these two important avenues of human quest for truth. His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s long engagement with science represents one such powerful example that suggests how science and spirituality can engage with each other in a mutually enriching manner. Although the Dalai Lama’s interest began, as he puts it, “as a curiosity of a restless young mind,” he later began to appreciate the colossal importance of science for humanity as a whole. Furthermore, given the emphasis in Buddhist philosophy on direct observation and inference as a means of gaining knowledge, the scientific methodology appealed deeply to the Dalai Lama.
As a result, the Dalai Lama was inspired to embark upon a long journey of close conversations with some of the 20th century’s greatest scientific minds, including the physicists David Bohm and Von Weisacker as well as Sir Karl Popper and the Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela. From 1987 onwards, through the auspices of the Mind and Life dialogues, the Dalai Lama has held week-long bi-annual conversations with scientists on such diverse topics as quantum physics, astronomy, brain plasticity, human emotions, the origin of life, and consciousness.
What characterizes these exchanges between the Dalai Lama and the scientists is, first and foremost a spirit of openness on both sides, a sense of genuine humility that allows the possibility that legitimate sources of knowledge may lie in modes of knowing other than one’s own discipline. In addition, there is a deep ethical commitment where a guiding motivation remains the betterment of humanity as a whole. Finally, there is the acknowledgment of a need for and the willingness to change in the light of a deep engagement with the other. The Dalai Lama is well-known for his remark that if science conclusively disproves aspects of traditional Buddhist concepts, then Buddhists will need to modify their beliefs accordingly. The Dalai Lama is suggesting what is perhaps the most important benefit of such an interdisciplinary dialogue, namely that it can serve as a process whereby the other side becomes a point of reference for one’s own critical self-reflection. For this to happen, there needs to be a genuine respect for each other so that one side does not feel the need to reduce the other side into the framework of one’s own discipline.
For Buddhism, the spiritual tradition involved in these dialogues in the person of the Dalai Lama, clearly the benefits are obvious. From the amazing discoveries of the minutest aspects of matter to the origin of the cosmos and life itself, the insights of modern science can clearly enrich the classical Buddhist worldview. The critical question is what can science gain from such a close engagement? As someone who has been privileged to be present as a principal interpreter at many of these meetings, I see this question to be most critical, especially from the point of view of the wider question of the interface of science and spirituality. For one thing, such dialogues could help remind the scientists of the key objective that motivated the very enterprise of science in the first place. All too often, in the midst of their minute analysis of a specific field of science, scientists forget that, like religion, science too is a human enterprise whose primary goal is to serve humanity. This naturally raises the critical question of the place of ethics in science. Engaging with spirituality, science can, for example, bring a much deeper appreciation of the ethical challenges raised by new discoveries such as human genome and the attendant powers these new knowledge tend to bring to us humans.
Another important corrective function such dialogues could serve is to challenge what could be called the naïve tendency that often result in conflating scientific facts with reductionist, scientific materialistic assumptions. Equating “absence of evidence” with “evidence of absence,” proponents of scientific materialism promote a totalizing conception of scientific knowledge as embracing the entire spectrum of reality. The danger of this is, as the Dalai Lama writes in his recent book Universe in a Single Atom, “our conception of the world, including our own existence, will be limited to the facts adduced by science, leading to a deeply reductionist, materialist, even nihilistic worldview.” By engaging deeply with spirituality, scientists can appreciate that science represents a unique, but not by any means an exclusive, mode of knowing.
Perhaps one of the most concrete benefits to come out of the Dalai Lama’s engagement with scientists is to bring to the forefront of scientific inquiry the question of how conscious, deliberate mental training can effect observable change on the brain level. Today, this inquiry has led to a whole new area of scientific study sometimes referred to as “contemplative science.” The Dalai Lama’s hope is that, through serious engagement with spirituality, there could emerge eventually a form of science that constitutes, in his Buddhist language, a “union of wisdom and compassion.” This would be a form of science where “the full richness and the simple wholesomeness of human values” are brought to bear upon “the course of science and the direction of technology in human society.”
Thupten Jinpa has been a principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama since 1985. He has translated and edited more than 10 books by the Dalai Lama including the New York Times bestseller "Ethics for the New Millennium." He is president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics in Montréal, Canada, and the editor-in-chief of the translation project The Library of Tibetan Classics, being developed by the Institute.
By Thupten Jinpa |
January 11, 2008; 12:30 PM ET
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Posted by: Tenzin Boepa | January 14, 2008 5:01 PM
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And, you know, JJ, the 'Intelligent Design' people could learn a thing or two from this.
Saying 'Photon' a lot doesn't make it *science.*
Posted by: Paganplace | January 12, 2008 8:22 PM
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Oh, and btw, JJ:
""Science w/out Religion is Blind and Religion w/out Science is Lame." [similar said]?????"
Actually, the reverse. Religion without science is blind, and science without religion is lame.
That's what he said. :)
""i" believe, that as a HUMATE, HE did! And Here's why:"
Well, whatever you believe, you could... look it up.
"POLY (more than One) THEISTIC (deity's & Supernaturals) are man made MYTHS (opposite of TRUTH) SYSTEM(s) & Zero genuine creator eponymous ECLATi made Of the Holy Cosmic FIAT-LUX!"
Or, they are myths that teach us things about ourselves that could come in useful while others are screaming and fighting about what the 'One Truth' is...
In fact, even as uncharitably-cast in Christian schools, the Gods may teach us that squabbling over authority isn't the best thing for human situations, ...not even for Kings.
"This includes POLY PAGAN's God(s)/Goddeses & Poly WICCANS & SHAMANS & IDOLATARY's & Worshippers of the Dead, Cannibals & Vampires & JUDEO's, Christians, Musloms, Hindu's & Buddhists et al!"
Call back when you can see the difference. You're a little behind the curve on this.
ALL are in Fact, (Please do not be in denial or in ALLOGORICAL refutation with self nor others, especially loved ones) POLY-THEO 'competing' G-D systems!
Posted by: Paganplace | January 12, 2008 8:17 PM
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Actually, JJ, Einstein considered his rejection of quantum theory, (never mind entanglement, which I'm pretty sure he couldn't have known a word about) on the theological basis that 'God Does Not Play Dice' to *be* his greatest scientific blunder.
Pretty much sidelined a great mind for his entire adult life, that idea.
Posted by: Paganplace | January 12, 2008 8:09 PM
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Well, Mr. Mark:
"1. When has religious teaching/belief/dogma ever refuted that which science has asserted to be a proven fact?"
See, I don't think it's about it being the place of religion to 'refute' anything: certainly not by making factual statements about the material world, as many who claim books as literal authorities have been prone to.
Still, Buddhism isn't really prone to do this.
Certainly, many products of mysticism and a lot of Pagan religious thought have been somewhat *vindicated* by increasing scientific knowledge, especially compared to the completely-mechanistic models of Newtonian physics and, really, the cultural presumptions that went with it, namely, of a universe that's like an engineered artifact:
In fact, we find it's a universe where there are (presently-)unknowables and uncertainties on the most basic levels of reality... things to the world which are unseen, ...that in fact the visible world is but the *visible part* of a much deeper universe.
The idea of 'ecosystems' in fact, was almost ignored, and had been greeted as so much hocus-pocus gobbledygook by science for a very long time, when presented in terms of aboriginal religions:
The still-infant science of psychology, in fact, is learning much from spiritual points of view that have been around for a long time, which is a long way from the idea of 'neurosis' and comparing consciousness to some ideal of how things 'should' be.
To see what a religion has 'refuted,' one has to look at the history of both science and religion, look back to the things that were once taken *for granted as nonsense* that now are close to accepted and vigorously-tested scientifc knowings.
It's not all about backward Biblcal literalists and lingering models of 'sin and normalcy,' (for instance, people trying to study homosexuality still tend to fall down right from the base premise that it's an aberration or a problem, looking for 'causes' instead of studying how it *functions* among social animals such as ourselves.)
When religion *functions well alongside science* is when it's *not* set up as a rival authority, trying to refute or supplant or even, in the case of 'Intelligent Design' Creationism, *corrupt* it, ..it's when it informs our experience.
Buddhism is a great study and practice for scientists, in fact, because it teaches us how to *account for our own point of view* in ways that authority-based presumptions can fail to.
Certain religions tend to overstep this proper relationship, and in doing so, can also provoke an overstepping by science-people: when they get baited past simply saying, 'You can't claim this is an objective fact because it's unobserved and unproven that way' ...and into saying, say, 'God or Gods don't exist.'
To science's credit, it is perfectly *capable* of being a good tool for the spiritual, subjective creatures we are, and in fact benefiting from this perspective.
Many religions, including the Dalai Lama's, by his stated intent, are also perfectly capable of getting along with *science.*
Newton, himself, was quite an alchemist, after all, though theologically-conflicted by his Christianity in places.
What I call 'book-religions' can be very conflicted *because the books substituted for scientific learning so often in their history, and are often in fact based on a need to believe the book overrides reality.*
But, as more and more find out, and as others find *frightening,* this kind of literalism is neither necessary for faith, nor satisfactory as a substitute for science.
Posted by: Paganplace | January 12, 2008 2:16 PM
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Oooppppsssa
Please see "GAIA" movement. Thanks!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_philosophy.
Happy Every Day!
Posted by: Ja Joz | January 12, 2008 11:59 AM
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"The Dalai Lama is well-known for his remark that if science conclusively disproves aspects of traditional Buddhist concepts, then Buddhists will need to modify their beliefs accordingly."
All well and good, but when has any religion ever done so? Science explains the world, and religion takes the scientific explanation and shoehorns it into its existing dogma. Suddenly, the long-accepted definition that a "day" is 24 hours is tossed away when contemplating the Biblical week of creation. Now, a "day" might mean a billion years! We read Genesis in the "new light" that science has provided, but only to the extent that we can aver quite fantastically that "science has proved the Biblical account if we simply adjust our understanding of what the Bible REALLY meant when it said X." The religionists NEVER throw out the Biblical account entirely because to do so admits to the Bible being a highly fallible document, and documents that get SO MUCH wrong aren't to be trusted.
Before science deigns to enter into such a partnership, the following questions need to be asked openly and answered honestly:
1. When has religious teaching/belief/dogma ever refuted that which science has asserted to be a proven fact?
2. When has science refuted that which religion has asserted to be a proven fact?
You can't find an answer to the first question.
Everyone reading this had at least 3 examples in mind to answer the second question before their eye reached the question mark at the end of said question.
Ergo, the question is begged: why would science bother looking to religion for any insights whatsoever? Science looks to explain reality, not the fantastic. Where is there an intersection between science and religion?
Posted by: Mr Mark | January 11, 2008 4:24 PM
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I have observed with admiration the translation skill of Dr. Thupten Jinpa during lectures by H.H. the Dalai Lama. His presentation of the basis of a common ground between science and religion in this posting is really lucid. While I have not been able to be a serious Buddhist practitioner, I find the basic Buddhist tenet of testing anything, including the Buddha's teachings, before relying on them is a challenge to today's generation of skeptics.