Buddhism And Science
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The relationship between Buddhism and science is a subject of contemporary discussion and debate among Buddhists, scientists, and scholars of
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
. Historically, Buddhism encompasses many types of beliefs, traditions and practices, so it is difficult to assert any single "Buddhism" in relation to science. Similarly, the issue of what "science" refers to remains a subject of debate, and there is no single view on this issue. Those who compare science with Buddhism may use "science" to refer to "a method of sober and rational investigation" or may refer to specific scientific
theories A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...
, methods or technologies. There are many examples throughout Buddhism of beliefs such as
dogmatism Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...
,
fundamentalism Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that are characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguis ...
, clericalism, and devotion to
supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
spirits and
deities A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
. Nevertheless, since the 19th century, numerous modern figures have argued that Buddhism is rational and uniquely compatible with science. Some have even argued that Buddhism is "scientific" (a kind of "science of the mind" or an "inner science"). Those who argue that Buddhism is aligned with science point out certain commonalities between the
scientific method The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and ...
and Buddhist thought. The
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
, for example, in a speech to the Society for Neuroscience, listed a "suspicion of absolutes" and a reliance on causality and
empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
as common philosophical principles shared by Buddhism and science. Buddhists also point to various statements in the
Buddhist scriptures Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons: the Pāli Canon of the Therav ...
that promote rational and empirical investigation and invite people to put the teachings of the Buddha to the test before accepting them. Furthermore, Buddhist doctrines such as
impermanence Impermanence, also known as the philosophical problem of change, is a philosophical concept addressed in a variety of religions and philosophies. In Eastern philosophy it is notable for its role in the Buddhism, Buddhist three marks of existe ...
and
emptiness Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation, nihilism, and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression (mood), depression, loneliness, anhedonia, wiktionary:despair, despair, or o ...
have been compared to the scientific understanding of the natural world. However, some scholars have criticized the idea that Buddhism is uniquely rational and science friendly, seeing these ideas as a minor element of traditional Buddhism. Scholars like Donald Lopez Jr. have also argued that this narrative of Buddhism as rationalistic developed recently, as a part of a
Buddhist modernism Buddhist modernism (also referred to as modern Buddhism, modernist Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism, and Protestant Buddhism) are new movements based on modern era reinterpretations of Buddhism. David McMahan states that modernism in Buddhism is similar t ...
that arose from the encounter between Buddhism and western thought.Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed
(University of Chicago Press 2008)
Furthermore, while some have compared Buddhist ideas to modern theories of
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
, quantum theory, and
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
, other figures such as the
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
have also highlighted the
methodological In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
and
metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
differences between these traditions. For the Dalai Lama, Buddhism mainly focuses on studying
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
from the first-person or phenomenological perspective, while science focuses on studying the objective world.


Pre-modern Buddhism


Rational inquiry in Buddhist texts

Some modern commentators assert that
Buddhist texts Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and Schools of Buddhism, its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons: the Pāli C ...
contain ideas which share commonalities with modern scientific methods, such as encouraging an impartial investigation of nature (an activity referred to as ''dhamma-vicaya'' in the
Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...
) — the principal object of study being the nature of one's mind or self. Several passages from the
Buddhist scriptures Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons: the Pāli Canon of the Therav ...
have been seen as indicating the importance of free thinking and empirical inquiry to Buddhism. Perhaps the most popular Buddhist discourse used in this way is the '' Kālāma Sutta'' ( AN 3.65).Verhoeven, Martin J. (2001).
Buddhism and Science: Probing the Boundaries of Faith and Reason.
' Religion East and West, Issue 1, June 2001, pp. 77–97
In this discourse, the Buddha is speaking to a number of villagers that are unsure of which ideas to believe. The key passage which is widely quoted states:
Come, Kālāmas, do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think: 'The ascetic is our guru.' But when, Kālāmas, you know for yourselves: 'These things are unwholesome; these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if accepted and undertaken, lead to harm and suffering,' then you should abandon them.
The exact meaning of this passage has been widely debated and interpreted. Buddhist modernists consider this passage to show that the Buddha promoted a skeptical empirical investigation which rejected
faith Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, inc ...
,
dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...
, scripture,
Revelation Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...
s and even rationalistic metaphysical speculations. Buddhist philosophers like K.N. Jayatilleke argue that this and other passages from the Buddhist scriptures indicate that early Buddhism promotes an "honest, impartial search for truth" as well as "critical investigation and personal verification" which is compatible with a scientific outlook. However,
Bhikkhu Bodhi Bhikkhu Bodhi (born December 10, 1944) () born Jeffrey Block, is an American Theravada Buddhist monk ordained in Sri Lanka. He teaches in the New York and New Jersey area. He was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publication Soci ...
notes that this sutra does not rule out
faith Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, inc ...
as an important component of the path. Another discourse, the '' Vīmaṃsaka Sutta'' (MN 47, with a Chinese parallel at MA 186) has been called "a remarkable advocacy of free inquiry" by
Bhikkhu Analayo Bhikkhu Anālayo is a bhikkhu (Buddhist monk), scholar, and meditation teacher. He was born in Germany in 1962, and went forth in 1995 in the Theravādin monastic tradition of Sri Lanka. He is best known for his comparative studies of Early Bu ...
.


Reason and logic in Buddhist scholasticism

Buddhist texts contain exhortations to examine the teachings of the Buddha through
reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...
and experience.
Śāntarakṣita (Sanskrit: शान्तरक्षित; , 725–788),stanford.eduŚāntarakṣita (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)/ref> whose name translates into English as "protected by the One who is at peace" was an important and influential In ...
's (725–788 CE) '' Tattvasaṃgraha'' cites a well known scriptural passage that is also cited by the 14th Dalai Lama and other Buddhists:
"O monks, like gold that is heated, cut, and rubbed, my words should be analyzed by the wise and then accepted; they should not do so out of reverence." – ''A Sutra on Pure Realms Spread Out in a Dense Array''
Buddhism also has a long tradition of epistemology and logic. Buddhist philosophers in this tradition, such as
Dignāga Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the grou ...
and Dharmakīrti, developed complex theories of knowledge which held that there were only two "instruments of knowledge" or "epistemic tools" (''
pramana ''Pramana'' (; IAST: Pramāṇa) literally means " proof" and "means of knowledge".
''): perception and inference."Coseru, Christian. Reason and Experience in Buddhist Epistemology in Steven Emmanuel (ed.), ''A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy''. Wiley-Blackwell (2013) According to Cristian Coseru, Dignāga's theory of knowledge is strongly grounded on perception. Furthermore, unlike other Indian theories of knowledge, Indian Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakīrti (fl. c. 6th or 7th century) generally rejected scripture as a major epistemic instrument. Dharmakīrti held that one should not rely on scripture to decide issues that can be discovered through rational means and that one could reject unreasonable parts of scripture. However, he did argue that when it came to "radically inaccessible things" (such as karma), one could turn to scripture (which was an uncertain and fallible source).


Natural philosophy and proto-scientific practices

The early Buddhist texts contain various ideas about the nature of the world and the universe. However, they also warn against certain speculative questions regarding about the universe. In various early discourses, the Buddha rejects certain questions about the world as "unfathomable" or "unexplainable" (Skt. ''avyākṛta''). These include questions about the eternity and the infinity of the universe. In the ''Cūḷamālukya Sutta,'' the Buddha uses the parable of a poisoned arrow to explain his approach to these questions, his teaching is focused on how to remove the arrow of suffering, not on the particular details about the arrow and who shot the arrow (and so forth).Gyatso (2005), pp. 77–79. As Paul David Numrich writes, there are thus certain questions about the world that the Buddha sees as "irrelevant to the ultimate religious goal of liberation from the human condition." In spite of this warning found in the Buddhist texts, Indian Buddhists developed complex theories about the
physical world The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
, including atomic theories, theories of sense perception, theories of time and space and
Buddhist cosmology Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to Buddhist Tripitaka, scriptures and Atthakatha, commentaries. It consists of a temporal and a spatial cosmology. The temporal cosmology describes the ...
. Apart from teaching Buddhist philosophy, medieval Buddhist universities such as Nālandā (in modern day
Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...
) were important centers for the study of
natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...
and applied sciences such as
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
, medicine and
astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
. Ancient Buddhist philosophy explored key questions about the natural world such as the nature of space and time, the nature and existence of atoms (and their indivisibility), the origin of the world and the relationship between mind and matter. It explored these questions through philosophical analysis and
Thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...
s. Medicine was a particularly important concern for ancient Buddhists, and references to it can be in all historical layers of Buddhist literature. Nālandā University was also said to have been the site of the composition of the ''Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya-saṃhitā'', an influential medical work by the physician Vāgbhaṭa. According to Pierce Salguero "Buddhist texts mentioning various aspects of medicine proliferated across the Buddhist world throughout the first millenium." Because of this, Buddhism was "one of the most important vehicles for the cross-cultural diffusion of Indian Medicine in pre-modern Asia." Closely related with this ancient medicine was the practice of Indian
alchemy Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...
or rasaśāstra. Practitioners of rasaśāstra experimented with various substances and metals. Rasāyana is also an important part of some of the Buddhist tantras. The Buddhist tradition of worldly sciences continued to develop in outside of India and today survives as part of Tibetan Medicine and
Tibetan astrology Tibetan astrology () is a traditional discipline of the Tibetan peoples that has influence from both Chinese astrology and Hindu astrology. Tibetan astrology is one of the 'Ten Sciences' (Wylie: rig-pa'i gnas bcu; Sanskrit: daśavidyā) in the en ...
(which includes
astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...
and astrological elements). Traditional Buddhist cosmology taught that there were multiple world systems and that the universe goes through cycles of formation, endurance and destruction. It also holds that the universe has no absolute beginning (and thus rejects
creationism Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...
and
theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...
, but also the idea that the universe arose without a cause).


Buddhism as scientific or as compatible with science


History of the Buddhist modernist discourse


19th century modernism

A commonly held modern view is that Buddhism is exceptionally compatible with science and reason, or even that it is a kind of science (perhaps a "science of the mind" or a "scientific religion"). This view arose in the modern era, as part of what has been called "
Buddhist modernism Buddhist modernism (also referred to as modern Buddhism, modernist Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism, and Protestant Buddhism) are new movements based on modern era reinterpretations of Buddhism. David McMahan states that modernism in Buddhism is similar t ...
," and was defended by figures such as Migettuwatte Gunananda, Anagarika Dharmapala,
Paul Carus Paul Carus (; 18 July 1852 – 11 February 1919) was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion
, Shaku Sōen, D.T. Suzuki,
Henry Olcott Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason (member of Huguenot Lodge #448, now #46) and the co-founder and first president of the Theosophical Society. Olcott ...
, and Edwin Arnold.Verhoeven, Martin J. (2013).
Science through Buddhist Eyes, On the imperfect harmonizing of Buddhism with science.
' The New Atlantis, 39.
These modernists accepted and promoted modern scientific theories such as
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
and held that they were consistent with the Buddhist understanding of
Dharma Dharma (; , ) is a key concept in various Indian religions. The term ''dharma'' does not have a single, clear Untranslatability, translation and conveys a multifaceted idea. Etymologically, it comes from the Sanskrit ''dhr-'', meaning ''to hold ...
(sometimes interpreted as a "
natural law Natural law (, ) is a Philosophy, philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of a set of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles, which are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural law theory asserts ...
"). They also held that Buddhism was a rationalist religion that did not require
faith Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, inc ...
in
revelation Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...
, a God,
superstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...
and religious
ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
but was based on an understanding of causality and
empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
. According to Geoffrey Samuel, some of these modernists even "suggested that Buddhism was barely a religion at all in the Western sense, but a scientifically-based philosophy in its own right." Some of these figures also dismissed the "irrational" elements of Buddhism as folk
superstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...
. According to Martin J. Verhoeven, Buddhist modernists downplay mythic and religious elements such as traditional Indic cosmology, belief in
Miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...
s and rituals in favor of the rational and psychological aspects of Buddhism. Paul Carus for example, wrote that Buddha was "the first positivist, the first humanitarian, the first radical freethinker," while D.T. Suzuki held that the Buddhist view of karma can be seen as "an application in our ethical realm of the theory of the
conservation of energy The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be Conservation law, ''conserved'' over time. In the case of a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, the principle s ...
". Similarly, both Anagarika Dharmapala's and Shaku Sōen's presentations at the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893 presented Buddhism as being founded on the law of cause and effect (associating scientific ideas of causality with the Buddhist doctrine of
dependent origination A dependant (US spelling: dependent) is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income and usually assistance with activities of daily living. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included ...
). Carus and other Buddhist modernists saw Buddhism as having certain advantages over Christianity. They held that Buddhism accepted the scientific ideal of a universe ordered by natural laws and did not require belief in a God or any being that could alter natural laws. For many Asian Buddhists, the narrative of Buddhism as rational and scientific was a useful strategy used to counter Christian and colonial attacks on Buddhism as backward. Others like Shaku Sōen, sought to create a more rational westernized Buddhism, or as he put it, to "wed the Great Vehicle nowiki/>Mahayana Buddhism">Mahayana.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Mahayana">nowiki/>Mahayana Buddhismto Western thought." The idea that the Buddhist worldview was rational and scientific is also seen in the popular ''Buddhist Catechism'', written by
Henry Olcott Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason (member of Huguenot Lodge #448, now #46) and the co-founder and first president of the Theosophical Society. Olcott ...
. This book contained a chapter on Buddhism and science that rejected miracles as an explanation for the Buddha's supposedly supernatural feats and instead offered natural explanations for them (such as hypnotism and Theosophy">theosophical occult science). This modernist view was also promoted by early Buddhist societies in the West, such as Karl Seidenstücker and George Grimm's Society for the Buddhist Mission in Leipzig and the British Buddhist Society.Prebish, Charles S.; Baumann, Martin (2002). ''Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia'', p. 88. University of California Press. . George Grimm's (1868–1945) ''The teaching of the Buddha, the Religion of Reason'' (''Die Lehre des Buddho, die Religion der Vernunft'') is an important exposition of this rationalistic Buddhism. According to McMahan, western commentators on this topic were responding to "the Victorian crisis of faith and the emergence of the immense symbolic capital of scientific discourse." José Ignacio Cabezón notes that there were different opinions among American Buddhist modernists during the late 19th century. Some were happy to note the similarities between science and Buddhism and believed Buddhism was more compatible with science than Christianity (which was more likely to die out due to scientific findings). Other Buddhist modernists like Carus saw Buddhism as the "Religion of Science," which would make scientific truth "the last guide of a religious conception of mankind."


20th and 21st centuries

As noted by David McMahan, the modernist idea of Buddhism as being compatible with science continued into the 20th century and remains strong today, having become "not only more voluminous but far more sophisticated throughout the late twentieth century and is now at its productive and creative zenith." The Buddhist modernist view has also been expounded by a variety of western intellectuals, including Nobel Prize–winning philosopher
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
, who described Buddhism as "a speculative and scientific philosophy." In the late 20th century and the early 21st, numerous publications discussing Buddhist ideas and science were released (such as James H. Austin's '' Zen and the Brain'' and works by
Francisco Varela Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoie ...
and Daniel Goleman). Furthermore, according to McMahan "the compatibility of Buddhism and modern science has not only become a staple of popular Buddhist literature, it has also become a hypothesis in a large number of quite sophisticated experimental studies." The
Mind and Life Institute The Mind & Life Institute is a US-registered, 501(c)(3) organization, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1991 to establish the field of contemplative neuroscience, contemplative sciences. Based in Charlottesville, Va., the institute ...
is at the forefront of such studies. The Institute hosts conferences on Buddhism and science and sponsors research on Buddhist meditation. McMahan also argues that "perhaps no major tradition has attempted to adopt scientific discourse more vigorously than Buddhism." Geoffrey Samuel remarks that these dialogues point to the fact that westerners (including scientists) have come to take Buddhist ideas much more seriously as a valuable system of knowledge. The Mind and Life Institute has also influenced how
Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
is presented to western audiences, and it is also closely connected to the 14th Dalai Lama's promotion of scientific education among Tibetan Buddhist monks. José Ignacio Cabezón argues that modern Buddhists have at times discussed the relationship between Buddhism and science in three main ways: conflict/ambivalence, identity/similarity, and complementarity. Cabezón outlines various kinds of views regarding complementarity. One of these ideas is that there is a "similarity in method, and difference in the object of study". This sees Buddhism as mainly a science of the subjective world, while science is mainly concerned with the external and material world. In this view, both disciplines can learn from each other regarding these fields. Another view "stresses difference in method and similarity in content." This view sees Buddhism as using "nonconceptual modes of intuitive understanding that emerge as the result of the practice of meditation" which is different from the objective and conceptual scientific method and leads to self transformation. The discourse of complementarity often seeks to unify these different disciplines, which focus on different aspects (the exterior and interior worlds, the quantitative and the qualitative, reason and intuition, etc.). This discourse generally argues that there should be a balance and harmony between these elements. Cabezon singles out
Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American author, physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He was on the faculty of ...
's '' The Tao of Physics'' as one of the most influential examples of the discourse of complementarity. According to Capra, none other than the great physicist
Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...
said that he was in "complete agreement" with the main idea of the book, mainly that the "two basic themes" found in modern physics ("the fundamental interrelatedness and interdependence of all phenomena and the intrinsically dynamic nature of reality") are also found in eastern thought. The discourse of complementary can also be found in the work of Daniel Goleman, who writes regarding Buddhism and
psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
that "when you put the two psychologies together, you get a more complete spectrum of human development."Wallace (2003), p. 53. Another publication which argues for the complementarity of science and Buddhist thought is ''The Embodied Mind'' (1991, Varela, Thompson & Rosch). This book argues that Buddhism can provide a sophisticated phenomenology of embodied experience.


Views of Theravada Buddhists

Since the Buddhist modernist revival in Southeast Asia,
Theravada ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...
Buddhist intellectuals (such as Anagarika Dharmapala) have generally embraced science and have seen Buddhism as compatible with its findings. For example, K.N. Jayatilleke (1920–1970), a Sinhalese Buddhist philosopher, writes that the
Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...
, "emphasizes the importance of the scientific outlook in dealing with the problems of morality and religion. Its specific 'dogmas' are said to be capable of verification. And its general account of the nature of man and the universe is one that accords with the findings of science rather than being at variance with them." Jayatilleke points to the early Buddhist idea that there are many worlds, suns and "world systems" (''lokadhatu'') as an example. He also argues that the Buddhist idea that humans and nature are constantly changing according to causal laws is easily compatible with biological evolution and therefore, modern findings do not threaten the Buddhist worldview. Furthermore, Jayatilleke points out that Buddhism holds that the law of cause and effect applies even when it comes to moral and religious phenomena. Because of this, Jayatilleke writes that "Buddhism is not likely to be at variance with science so long as scientists confine themselves to their methodology and their respective fields without making a dogma of
materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
." In a similar fashion, Buddhadasa P. Kirthisinghe, a Theravada Buddhist and a
microbiologist A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...
, argues that Buddhism and science are compatible because Buddhism is based on a similar method of empirical inquiry, observation and careful analysis which is "in conformity with and in the spirit of science." Bhikkhu Ñanajivako, citing
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
's ''An Outline of Philosophy,'' writes that modern science's rejection of
substance theory Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a ''substance'' and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as ...
in favor of processes or events is commensurate with the Buddhist impermanence (''anicca'') doctrine, which sees the world made up of transient dhammas.


Views of East Asians

Erik J. Hammerstrom has written a study of the reception of modern science in 19th and 20th century
Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, first=t, poj=Hàn-thoân Hu̍t-kàu, j=Hon3 Cyun4 Fat6 Gaau3, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism. The Chinese Buddhist canonJiang Wu, "The Chin ...
. According to Hammerstrom, during the 1920s and 30s, "dozens of articles and monographs devoted to the topic of science and Buddhism appeared in the rapidly growing Buddhist press of China."Hammerstrom (2015), Introduction Chinese Buddhists like Taixu, Yang Wenhui, Wang Hui and Wang Xiaoxu (an electrical engineer and lay Buddhist) were some of the leading figures in this discourse. According to Hammerstrom, 20th century Chinese Buddhists championed the scientific method and its findings such as
heliocentrism Heliocentrism (also known as the heliocentric model) is a superseded astronomical model in which the Earth and planets orbit around the Sun at the center of the universe. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed t ...
and evolution and generally did not question the findings of science. However, Chinese Buddhists also rejected certain ideas associated with science at the time, such as
scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
,
materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
and
Social Darwinism Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...
(and they participated in public debates about such ideas). They also sought to carve out a space for Buddhism as a "philosophy of life" (人生觀, ''renshengguan'') which they saw as a separate field of inquiry. Not all Buddhist modernists thought that Buddhism could stand on a rationalist scientific framework alone. D.T. Suzuki initially accepted the idea that Buddhism could be founded on scientific principles, writing that karma "may be regarded as an application in our ethical realm of the theory of the
conservation of energy The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be Conservation law, ''conserved'' over time. In the case of a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, the principle s ...
(''Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism'', 1907). However, Suzuki later changed his mind about this, writing in 1959 that "a religion based solely on science is not enough." Similarly, the Chinese Buddhist modernist Taixu (1890–1947) held that while scientific study might help prove Buddhist doctrines, "it cannot ascertain the realities" of Buddhism and therefore it "does not go far enough into the mysteries of nature, and that if she went further the Buddhist doctrine would be even more evident." Thus, while for Taixu, "the Buddhist scholar is aided in his research" by the use of scientific methods, they must ultimately go beyond such methods to understand the true nature of reality. Taixu wrote that "the reality of the Buddhist doctrine is only to be grasped by those who are in the sphere of supreme and universal perception, in which they can behold the true nature of the Universe, but for this they must have attained the wisdom of Buddha himself, and it is not by the use of science or logic that we can expect to acquire such wisdom. Science therefore is only a stepping stone in such matters" Trịnh Xuân Thuận, a Vietnamese-American astrophysicist, has also written about Buddhism and science, which he sees as "two complementary modes of knowledge."Numrich (2008), pp. 22, 31 Thuận disagrees with
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
, who held the view that science and religion examine two " non-overlapping magisteria." Instead, Thuận thinks they do overlap (since Buddhism is a kind of contemplative science) and as such, there can be "a fruitful and illuminating dialogue" between them.


Views of Tibetan Buddhists

Similar views of the complementarity of science and Buddhism remain popular in modern
Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
. Gendun Chopel was the first Tibetan Buddhist to write about science and he urged his countrymen to accept the methods of science, which were based on empirical observation and was therefore seen by him as compatible with the epistemic methods of Buddhism (i.e. the pramana of direct perception or ''pratyakṣa''). Chopel writes that science even confirms central Buddhist doctrines such as impermanence and
dependent origination A dependant (US spelling: dependent) is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income and usually assistance with activities of daily living. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included ...
, though it can also disprove certain Buddhist views, such as the insentience of plants (and therefore, Buddhists should not stubbornly cling to their doctrine). Chopel argued that Buddhism can only survive as an ally of science and prayed that science and the teachings of the Buddha "may abide together for tens of thousands of years." More recently, contemporary Tibetan Buddhists like the
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
, B. Alan Wallace, and Robert Thurman have also argued for the compatibility of Buddhism and science. According to Lopez, "the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet has been the most visible and influential Buddhist teacher to embrace the discourse of Buddhism and Science." The Dalai Lama is known for his interest in science and has written a book on the relationship between science and Buddhism, '' The Universe in a Single Atom'' (2005), where he discusses various topics, including physics and evolution. The Dalai Lama argues that science and Buddhism share the same commitment "to keep searching for reality by empirical means and to be willing to discard accepted or long-held positions if our search finds that the truth is different." B. Alan Wallace (who has studied physics and Buddhism formally in Western institutions) sees Buddhism as an "organized, systematic enterprise aimed at understanding reality, and it presents a wide range of testable laws and principles," as well as a "time-tested discipline of rational and empirical inquiry."Wallace, B. Alan. ''Buddhism and Science'', in Clayton (2006), pp. 24–40. Wallace argues that Buddhism is a mainly pragmatic enterprise aimed at "the pursuit of eudaimonic
well-being Well-being is what is Intrinsic value (ethics), ultimately good for a person. Also called "welfare" and "quality of life", it is a measure of how well life is going for someone. It is a central goal of many individual and societal endeavors. ...
", and as such, it focuses on the subjective and on qualitative states of consciousness (unlike science, which focuses on the quantifiable and the objective), discussing issues such as mental training and ethics. Wallace also argues that Buddhist insights are roughly empirical, since they are based on direct experiences (of a subjective, first-person character) which are also replicable. However, the Dalai Lama, Thurman and Wallace all note that Buddhism rejects a materialistic (or physicalist) interpretation of science which sees consciousness as something that arises from physical causes alone.Numrich (2008), pp. 51–52. For Wallace, scientific materialism is a
metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
assumption, a
dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...
which goes beyond the domain of empirical science and "presents formidable obstacles to any meaningful collaboration between Buddhism and science." Similarly, Robert Thurman criticizes the physicalist interpretation of neuroscience and sees Buddhist meditation as a kind of "inner science" with "a vast array of mental technologies". Thurman also thinks that the materialist worldview has led to an imbalance in the world where "our powers to effect the outer reality have outstripped our powers over ourselves," and sees Buddhist practice as a corrective to this. The 14th Dalai Lama has explicitly rejected any kind of
scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
which would argue that only science can discover truths about the world (and that those truths ultimately reduce to the physical world alone) and thus that anything which is not proven by science is false or insignificant. However, he also argues that "
spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
must be tempered by the insights and discoveries of science. If as spiritual practitioners we ignore the discoveries of science, our practice is also impoverished, as this mind-set can lead to fundamentalism." For the 14th Dalai Lama, science is concerned with conventional truth and understanding the nature of the mundane world, while Buddhism offers "a real under-standing of the true nature of the mind," and the ultimate truth of liberation. Lopez compares this view with the view of Gould's "non-overlapping magisteria."


Views of scholars of Buddhism

According to one scholar of Buddhism, John Dunne, "Buddhism endorses the notion that if we want to prove something, we need to use empirical evidence." Dunne argues that this principle trumps what the Buddhist scriptures say, since the Buddhist tradition considers direct experience (Sanskrit: ''pratyakṣa'') as a higher source of knowledge than scripture (which is secondary). However, Dunne also notes that Buddhist theories do not undergo constant revision throughout the centuries (as a result of new observations) as they have done in science, though he notes that more recently the 14th Dalai Lama has been interested in learning from science in this regard. David McMahan has written about the modernist scientific Buddhism discourse. According to McMahan, this discourse should not be dismissed entirely, since modern Buddhist traditions have gone through "a concrete and highly significant transformation", which includes adapting to the scientific worldview and creating new forms of Buddhism.Numrich (2008), p. 56. McMahan writes that this:
is not just a western orientalist representation of the eastern Other, nor is it just a native strategy of legitimation for Asian Buddhists, though it does involve both. It is rather a part of the ongoing hybridization of certain forms of Buddhism with distinctively modern cultural formations and intellectual practices. The historical question regarding contemporary Buddhism, then, is not "Is Buddhism scientific?" but "How is Buddhism transforming itself through its engagement with science?" Rather than telling us "what Buddhism is," this discourse is itself constitutive of novel forms of Buddhism with shifting epistemic structures and criteria for authority and legitimacy.
However, McMahan also thinks that there is also the danger of Buddhism losing "a great deal of its diversity" if the adaptation process is taken too far and that "too much adaptation and accommodation may in fact blur the distinctions between the epistemic claims of Buddhism and those of current Western traditions." This could lead to the loss of Buddhist distinctiveness and to the making of Buddhism into an impotent tradition that has nothing to offer to modernity. According to Geoffrey Samuel, while the dialogue between Buddhism and science has generally focused on ways in which Buddhism can adapt to science or how science can study the efficacy of Buddhist practices, "the more significant developments are arguably elsewhere, in the potential of Buddhist thought to provoke genuine rethinking and transformation within science itself." Similarly, Martin J. Verhoeven thinks that "we might better advance the discussion not by highlighting where Buddhism and science see eye-to-eye, but precisely where they do not, perhaps forcing each to confront its own contradictions and shortcomings." Verhoeven argues that Buddhism and science see reality in different ways. The central focus of Buddhism is on one's conscious experience and its conditioned nature. This includes the external world, which seems separate, but is actually "inescapably conditioned by and of a piece with oneself" and "depends on our position, our interpretations, our intentions, and our desires." José Ignacio Cabezón writes that there has been an increasing sophistication in the dialogue between science and Buddhism, which he sees as due to the advances in both science and
Buddhist studies Buddhist studies, also known as Buddhology, is the academic study of Buddhism. The term ''Buddhology'' was coined in the early 20th century by the Unitarian minister Joseph Estlin Carpenter to mean the "study of Buddhahood, the nature of the Bud ...
as well as due to the "increased accessibility of information about these two traditions." Regarding the discourse on complementarity, Cabezón thinks that it may be useful if understood "as a fluid metaphor". However, if understood as a literal and strict binary opposition, it could lead to a stunted dialogue, since both traditions discuss numerous elements that are of interest to the other (for example, Buddhism often discusses physical events and science has much to say about the mind).Wallace (2003), p. 58 As such, the "segregationist metaphors" which are often used in the complementarity discourse are ultimately artificial "because scientific claims impinge, and sometimes impinge negatively, upon Buddhist ones, and vice versa." Because of this, Cabezón argues that Buddhism and science are "complete systems that resist dichotomizing: systems that can both support and challenge each other at a variety of different levels." Professor P. L. Dhar claims that the practice of Buddhism, Dharma, is compatible with the practice of scientific discoveries, as both reflects human tendency to inquire into things. On one hand, in scientific practices we ask questions about the external physical world, and gain knowledge about the facts of the world. On the other hand, in practicing Dharma we inquire about the essence of our own beings, and gain wisdom about our existence. Gary Zukav points out a new perspective of understanding the significance of science. He writes:
he laws of Scienceare the reflection in physical reality...of a larger non-physical dynamic at work in non-physical domains. When Science and its discoveries are understood with the higher order of logic and understanding of the multisensory human, they reveal the same richness that Life itself displays everywhere and endlessly.
According to Zukav, the significance of science lies in its reflection of the relationship between our own being and the external world. This point can be illustrated with specific branches of science. For example,
Newtonian physics Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of objects such as projectiles, parts of machinery, spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. The development of classical mechanics involved substantial change in the methods ...
- a classical notion of physical world characterised by axiomatic equations and general laws of motion, reflects our desire and assertiveness not only to discover physical facts about the world by scientific induction, but also to make use of our discoveries in a constructive way. There are many ways to further clarify this example, and here is one such way. As a founding figure of
modern science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Protoscience, early sciences, and natural philosophies such as al ...
,
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
contributed towards the enlightenment movement by popularizing the term ''
knowledge is power The phrase "" (or "" or also "") is a Latin aphorism meaning "knowledge is power", commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. The expression "" ('knowledge itself is power') occurs in Bacon's ''Meditationes Sacrae'' (1597). The exact phrase "" ( ...
'', which implicitly sanctions not only the manipulation, but also potentially the exploitation, of the natural world. This shows the potential that conventional modern science can be overpowering and lack balance; meanwhile, the practice of Buddhism can act as a counter-balance to science: ''Science without Dharma is blind and Dharma without Science is lame. ''


Criticism of the Buddhist modernist discourse

Several contemporary scholars of Buddhism have argued against the idea that Buddhism is a science or "scientific". According to Donald S. Lopez Jr., the traditional Buddhist worldview understands the Buddha's ancient understanding of reality as complete, and thus "nothing beyond that reality has been discovered since." Lopez argues that attempts to make Buddhism compatible with science severely restrict Buddhism, "eliminating much of what has been deemed essential, whatever that might be, to the exalted monks and ordinary lay-people who have gone for refuge to the Buddha over the course of more than two thousand years." Lopez argues that in traditional Buddhism, the truth is something that the Buddha has already discovered, making Buddhism a deeply conservative tradition which is wary of innovation and deviation. This is different from the scientific worldview, in which the complete truth of the universe has not been fully discovered yet. Lopez has also described the historical development which led to the idea that Buddhism was compatible with science, which began in the Victorian era, with the European study of Buddhist literature in Indian languages (
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
and
Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
). Western scholars often saw the historical Buddha as a rational humanist, critical of
Brahmanical The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedism or Brahmanism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontin ...
superstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...
. This idea was then taken up by Asians and theosophists and widely promoted as a counter to missionary Christianity. Lopez thinks that the "scientific" Buddhism discourse is outdated, especially since the colonial and missionary threats to Buddhism in Asia have subsided. Lopez argues it is best to see Buddhism as radically incompatible with science, as seeking to transcend all biological life, to go totally beyond the world and thus as being at odds with the world and with science. However, Lopez also notes that disputes between Buddhists and scientists over the bare facts of science "have occurred only rarely in the history of Buddhism and science."
Evan Thompson Evan Thompson (born 1962) is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, specializing in cognitive science, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and cross-cultural philosophy, particularly Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with We ...
has also criticized the narrative of Buddhism as being uniquely scientific in his ''Why I am Not a Buddhist'' (2020).


Buddhism and specific scientific fields


Biology

Modern Buddhists have generally accepted and embraced modern theories of
biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
, such as
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
, as being compatible with Buddhist thought. According to a 2009 survey by the
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
, eighty one percent of Buddhists accept the theory of evolution as the "best explanation for the origins of human life on earth" (the highest among all religions surveyed). Robin Cooper's ''The Evolving Mind'' (1996) is one publication which discusses Buddhism and the field of biology. Cooper argues that Buddhism is compatible with evolutionary thought, but he also argues that the Buddhist view also sees a role for the mind in the evolution of living beings. Cooper writes that mind-led adaptations also play a role in evolution, along with random genetic mutation. He attempts to harmonize biological theories of evolution with Buddhist views of the transformation of the mind. William S. Waldron cites the '' Agañña sutta'' as a text which affirms that sentient beings, including humans, change over time. However this discourse describes a process in which heavenly beings (devas) devolve into a lower form of life on earth as a result of mental afflictions or kleshas (such as greed and desire) and the actions fueled by these afflictions. As such, Buddhism sees our physical existence as being caused by past actions (done in our previous lives). Waldron thinks that this view is roughly compatible (but clearly not the same as) the theory of evolution, which holds that our current physical form is based on the past actions of our ancestors. According to Waldron, "the Buddhists and biologists thus largely concur that the very forms and structures of human life result from the accumulative actions of innumerable beings over countless generations." David P. Barash (who describes himself as a Buddhist atheist) has written a book about Buddhism and
biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
, which according to him, "complement each other like a pair of powerful searchlights illuminating the same thing from different angles". Barash argues that modern biology is commensurate with the Buddhist view of impermanence and not-self, since both see sentient beings (individuals or groups) as a product of constantly changing and interrelated processes, and thus sees them as being without a fixed and separate identity.


Key differences

Donald Lopez argues that the naturalistic theory of evolution is at odds with the traditional Buddhist view of
karma Karma (, from , ; ) is an ancient Indian concept that refers to an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptively called ...
. This is because the basic Buddhist understanding of how sentient beings undergo change is based on the rebirth of their consciousness, which could be into any form of existence (animal, human, god realms etc.), while the
Darwinian ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...
view is strictly based on
genetic mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosis ...
and
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...
which are physical phenomena. According to Lopez, the main reason these views are at odds is that Buddhism reserves a central place for consciousness and volition in the production of all sentient life, while this is not the case with modern biology. In ''The Universe in a Single Atom'' (2005), the 14th Dalai Lama similarly points outs that while biological theories generally attempts to explain things solely from the perspective of physical causes (and are often reductive), Buddhist thought focuses on the role of
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
. As such, the Dalai Lama finds theories which focus only on physical causes "deeply unsatisfying", since it seems difficult to explain how conscious beings can arise from an unconscious basis (i.e.
emergentism Emergentism is the philosophical theory that higher-level properties or phenomena emerge from more basic components, and that these emergent properties are not fully reducible to or predictable from those lower-level parts. A property of a sys ...
). He also points out that this difference might be due to the different methods and goals of Buddhism and science. Therefore, while the Dalai Lama thinks that evolution "gives us a fairly coherent account of the evolution of human life on earth," he also holds that karma and consciousness have central roles in nature and therefore biology cannot explain all aspects of life (such as
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
,
religious experience A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjectivity, subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, a ...
or
morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...
).


Physics

According to Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist thought asks some of the same questions that physicists ask about reality, time, matter and space, and uses rational analysis and thought experiments (which are also used by physicists). However, unlike physics which focuses on measuring the physical world to better understand it, the Buddhist tradition focuses on inner contemplation and its goal is mainly therapeutic. Some of the metaphysical doctrines of Buddhism have sometimes been compared favorably with the insights of
modern physics Modern physics is a branch of physics that developed in the early 20th century and onward or branches greatly influenced by early 20th century physics. Notable branches of modern physics include quantum mechanics, special relativity, and genera ...
. The 14th Dalai Lama writes in ''The Universe in a Single Atom'' (2005) that "there is an unmistakable resonance between the notion of emptiness and the new physics. If on the
quantum In physics, a quantum (: quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This me ...
level, matter is revealed as less solid and definable than it appears, then it seems to me that science is coming closer to the Buddhist contemplative insights of
emptiness Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation, nihilism, and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression (mood), depression, loneliness, anhedonia, wiktionary:despair, despair, or o ...
and interdependence pratītyasamputpāda''">Pratītyasamutpāda.html" ;"title="'Pratītyasamutpāda">pratītyasamputpāda''" The Dalai Lama cites his conversations with
David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American scientist who has been described as one of the most significant Theoretical physics, theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryDavid Peat Who's Afraid of Schrödinger' ...
and Anton Zeilinger, both physicists who supported the idea that the Buddhist view of emptiness (the lack of any independent and fixed essence) was consistent with the insights of modern
quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
. The Dalai Lama has also been part of various dialogues with physicists such as Arthur Zajonc (who was also president of the Mind and Life Institute) and Anton Zeilinger. Some of these discussions on the nature of physics have been published.


Comparisons by physicists

Astrophysicist Trịnh Xuân Thuận argues that the Buddhist idea of "subtle impermanence", which refers to the idea that everything is constantly changing extremely rapidly is consistent with "our modern scientific conception of the universe" which holds that everything is in constant motion. He also compares the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness (the idea that nothing has an intrinsic nature) with the findings of
quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
, which understands that sub-atomic particles cannot be understood as being real solid entities with fixed properties such as momentum and position (this is one understanding of the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position a ...
). Thuận cites
Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger ( ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was an Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum field theory, quantum theory. In particul ...
who said that "it is better not to view a particle as a permanent entity, but rather as an instantaneous event. Sometimes these events link together to create the illusion of permanent entities." Thuận sees this understanding of sub-atomic particles as similar to the understanding of reality in Buddhist metaphysics. Thuận and Matthieu Ricard also discuss the similarities between Buddhist views of interdependence and phenomena such as quantum nonlocality and
Mach's principle In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle (or Mach's conjecture) is the name given by Albert Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. The ...
in ''The quantum and the lotus.'' According to Thuận, the views of Bohr and Heisenberg seem to support the Buddhist view that physical particles do not exist as independent phenomena, but can only be said to exist in dependence on our conceptual designations and the process of observation. This view of the quantum world is sometimes called the
Copenhagen interpretation The Copenhagen interpretation is a collection of views about the meaning of quantum mechanics, stemming from the work of Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and others. While "Copenhagen" refers to the Danish city, the use as an "interpretat ...
. The Italian theoretical physicist
Carlo Rovelli Carlo Rovelli (born 3 May 1956) is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy, the United States, France, and Canada. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Marseille in France, a Disti ...
cites
Nagarjuna Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy, philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most importa ...
in his book ''Helgoland'', a defense of the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, which understands quantum properties as arising from the relations between quantum phenomena. According to Rovelli, "properties of an object are the way in which it acts upon other objects; reality is this web of interactions." Rovelli thinks that the
Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
philosophy of
Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosoph ...
resonates with the relational view of Quantum Mechanics and provides a conceptual understanding of reality that does not need a metaphysical foundation. Rovelli writes that "Nāgārjuna has given us a formidable conceptual tool for thinking about the relationality of quanta: we can think of interdependence without autonomous essence entering the equation." Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral, in his '' Decoding Reality'', mentions the Buddhist theory of emptiness as an ancient example of the philosophy of " relationalism." Vedral, who argues for an interpretation of quantum physics based on information theory, states that "Quantum physics is indeed very much in agreement with Buddhistic emptiness." He states that "we will never arrive at ' the thing in itself' by any kind of means. Everything that exists, exists by convention and labelling and is therefore dependent on other things."Vedral, Vlatko (2010). ''Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information,'' pp. 199–200. OUP Oxford. This is similar to some forms of Buddhist philosophy (such as Madhyamaka) which hold that everything is merely conceptual. Physics professor Vic Mansfield has also written on the similarities between the modern understanding of time and
special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, Annus Mirabilis papers#Special relativity, "On the Ele ...
and Madhyamaka thought. According to Mansfield, an appreciation of how these two traditions understand time as a relative phenomenon can aid a deeper understanding of both and that "a nontrivial synergy between these two very different disciplines is possible."Mansfield, Vic. ''Time and Impermanence in Middle Way Buddhism and Modern Physics.'' Holos: Forum for a New Worldview. Vol. 6, No. 1 (2010) Mansfield also argues that this kind of dialogue is important for Buddhism because "if Buddhism is to come to the West, in the best and fullest sense of the term, then interaction with science is both inevitable and necessary for a real transplant to take place."


Cosmology

In his discussion of
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
, the 14th Dalai Lama notes that "Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things." Furthermore, Buddhists like the Dalai Lama have no problem accepting the
Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...
theory (since ancient Buddhist views about the cosmos accept that there are periods of expansion). However, Trịnh Xuân Thuận and the Dalai Lama both argue that from the Buddhist point of view, there is no ''absolute'' beginning to the universe. This would be more compatible with certain cosmogonic theories of the universe, such as those that posit a
Cyclic model A cyclic model (or oscillating model) is any of several cosmological models in which the universe follows infinite, or indefinite, self-sustaining cycles. For example, the oscillating universe theory briefly considered by Albert Einstein in 1930 ...
of the universe or those that argue for a
multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...
. There are different Buddhist cosmologies. The cosmology of the
Kalachakra ''Kālacakra'' () is a Polysemy, polysemic term in Vajrayana, Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism that means "wheel of time" or "time cycles". "''Kālacakra''" is also the name of a series of Buddhist texts and a major practice lineage in History of ...
system popular in Tibetan Buddhism holds that the material world arises out of the supportive element of space, which is made up of "space particles", the other four elements arise from this medium. The Dalai Lama believes this is compatible with the idea that the universe arose from a
quantum vacuum state In quantum field theory, the quantum vacuum state (also called the quantum vacuum or vacuum state) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. However, the quantum vacuum is not a simple ...
. The Dalai Lama also notes that in Buddhist cosmology, there is a role for consciousness and karma, since Buddhist systems hold that the nature of a world system is connected with the karmic propensities of sentient beings. However, the Dalai Lama points out that this does not mean everything is due to karma, since many things merely arise due to the works of natural laws. As such, the Dalai Lama argues that "the entire process of the unfolding of a universe system is a matter of the natural law of causality" but that karma also influences its very beginning and that when a universe is able to support life "its fate becomes entangled with the karma of the beings who will inhabit it." Because Buddhist thought sees consciousness as being interconnected with the physical world, Buddhists like the Dalai Lama hold that "even the laws of physics are entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that will arise in that universe."


Traditional cosmography

Certain traditional Buddhist ideas about the world are also incompatible with modern science, and have been abandoned by numerous modern Buddhists. Perhaps one of the most well known of these ideas is the view of the world found in various classic Buddhist texts which holds there is a giant mountain at the center of the world called Mount Meru (or ''Sumeru''). According to Lopez, "the human realm that Buddhist texts describe is a flat earth, or perhaps more accurately a flat ocean, its waters contained by a ring of iron mountains. In that ocean is a great central mountain, surrounded in the four cardinal directions by island continents." As Lopez notes, as early as the 18th century, Buddhist scholars like Tominaga Nakamoto (1715–1746) began to question this classical Buddhist cosmography, holding that they were adopted by the Buddha from Indian theories, but that they were incidental and thus not at the heart of Buddha's teaching. While some traditional Buddhists did defend the traditional cosmology, others like Shimaji Mokurai (1838–1911) argued that it was not foundational to Buddhism and was merely an element of Indian mythology. Others like Kimura Taiken (1881–1930), went further and argued that this traditional cosmography was not part of original Buddhism. The issue of Mount Meru was also discussed by modern Buddhist intellectuals like Gendun Chopel and the 14th Dalai Lama. According to Choepel, the Meru cosmology is a provisional teaching taught in accord with the ideas of ancient India, but not appropriate for the modern era. Similarly, the 14th Dalai Lama writes that "my own view is that Buddhism must abandon many aspects of the Abhidharma cosmology". The Dalai Lama sees the falsehood of this traditional cosmology as not affecting the core of Buddhism (the teaching of the
Four Noble Truths In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (; ; "The Four Arya (Buddhism), arya satya") are "the truths of the noble one (the Buddha)," a statement of how things really are (Three marks of existence, the three marks of existence) when they are seen co ...
and liberation) since it is "secondary to the account of the nature and origins of sentient beings".


Psychology

In the 20th century, Buddhism has been in close contact with the field of
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
and has often been interpreted as a kind of psychology in its own right. In America,
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...
often drew on Buddhist ideas (which he saw as the psychology of the future). Influenced by Buddhism, James promoted meditation and coined the term "
stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...
". Another 20th century defender of Buddhism was Gerald Du Pre, who saw Buddhism as a "scientific psychology". Various modern therapists have written on the relationship between Buddhism and
psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
. These include Mark Epstein (''Thoughts Without a Thinker'' 1995, ''Psychotherapy Without the Self'', 2008), Jeffrey B. Rubin, Andrew Olendzki and Nina Coltart (1927–1997). Various authors such as William S. Waldron and David Galin have also written about the Buddhist theory of not-self (''anatman'') and how it can provide insights to the development of a more dynamic, conditional and constructivist views of personality,
personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time ...
and the self. Daniel Goleman has argued that the Buddhist view of the emptiness of the self "may turn out to fit the data far better than the notions that have dominated Psychological thinking for the last century." Robert Wright has argued (in his 2017 '' Why Buddhism Is True'') that the Buddhist analysis of human suffering and delusion is fundamentally correct and that this is backed up by
evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...
, which helps explain how natural selection hardwired humans with powerful but distorted cognitions and emotions which are effective at getting us to survive and pass on our genes in a pre-historic environment. These cognitive modules do not depict reality as it is, and do not often lead to well being. Wright also thinks that the Buddhist view of not-self (''anatta'') is compatible with modern psychological understandings of the mind. He cites various modern studies and psychological theories (such as the modular view of the mind defended by
Michael Gazzaniga Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is an American Cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuroscientist who is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the founder and retired director of the ...
) to back up the idea that there is no "CEO" in control of the mind. Wright argues that Buddhist mindfulness meditation can provide a way to gain personal insights into these delusions and may help weaken their hold on us. The field of
Transpersonal psychology Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is an area of psychology that seeks to integrate the spiritual and transcendent human experiences within the framework of modern psychology. Evolving from the humanistic psychology movement, ...
has also been influenced by Buddhist ideas and various figures in this field see Buddhism and western psychology as complementary, since each provides a structure of human development that is not found in other ( contemplative development and
developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
respectively). According to José Ignacio Cabezón, this idea "has been put forward most clearly and forcefully" in ''Transformations of Consciousness'' (Wilber, Engler, and Brown 1986), a collection of essays from t''he Journal of Transpersonal Psychology''. However, Cabezón is unconvinced by the attempts of these figures to present a single and unified structure of meditative development (which they source from various traditions, including Buddhism).


Mindfulness and meditation research

Buddhist spiritual practices like
meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
have also been compared to
cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and chang ...
techniques. During the late 20th century, numerous studies were conducted on the psychological effects of certain
Buddhist meditation Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are ''bhavana, bhāvanā'' ("mental development") and ''Dhyāna in Buddhism, jhāna/dhyāna'' (a state of me ...
practices (such as vipassana and
zazen ''Zazen'' is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. The generalized Japanese term for meditation is 瞑想 (''meisō''); however, ''zazen'' has been used informally to include all forms ...
). Furthermore, Buddhist
mindfulness Mindfulness is the cognitive skill, usually developed through exercises, of sustaining metacognitive awareness towards the contents of one's own mind and bodily sensations in the present moment. The term ''mindfulness'' derives from the Pali ...
practices influenced the development of new forms of cognitive therapies, which are known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapies. One of the most influential of these therapies is
Jon Kabat-Zinn Jon Kabat-Zinn (born Jon Kabat, June 5, 1944) is an American professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Med ...
's
Mindfulness-based stress reduction Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an educational program designed for learning mindfulness and discovering skillful ways to manage stress. MBSR was developed in the late 1970s by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medi ...
(MBSR). The growing popularity of
Buddhist meditation Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are ''bhavana, bhāvanā'' ("mental development") and ''Dhyāna in Buddhism, jhāna/dhyāna'' (a state of me ...
and Buddhist influenced
mindfulness meditation Mindfulness is the cognitive skill, usually developed through exercises, of sustaining metacognitive awareness towards the contents of one's own mind and bodily sensations in the present moment. The term ''mindfulness'' derives from the Pali ...
has also led to research on the physiological and
neurological Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the s ...
effects of meditation practices (carried out by figures such as Richard Davidson) as well as to dialogues on the nature of the human
mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
, which have been enthusiastically encouraged by the present
Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...
, Tenzin Gyatso. One of the first westerners to study the neurology of meditation was James H. Austin, the author of '' Zen and the Brain'' (1998). A more recent overview of related research findings can be found in Davidson and Goleman's '' Altered Traits,'' which discusses studies done with the aid of Buddhist monks like Matthieu Ricard and
Mingyur Rinpoche Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (Tibet: ཡོངས་དགེ་མི་འགྱུར་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།  Wylie: yongs dge mi 'gyur rin po che) is a Tibetan Nepali teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan ...
. The number of studies on Buddhist and Buddhist-derived meditation techniques skyrocketed in the 21st century (in 2015, there were 674 such studies) and their results were widely reported in the popular press. This also led to a cottage industry of popular books on Buddhist and mindfulness meditation and the adoption of secularized meditation in major corporations. William Edelglass has argued that the modern study of meditation and happiness is implicitly founded on a Western notion of happiness as positive affect or
pleasure Pleasure is experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find ...
(which are most often measured through experience sampling and self-reporting). Edelglass contrasts this notion of happiness with the Buddhist view found in the work of Śāntideva and other ancient Buddhist sources that sees meditation (and other virtues, such as the six perfections) as ways to develop wisdom and transform oneself in a radical, highly ethical fashion by letting go of all attachments. The Buddhist perspective also rejects sensual pleasures as worthless and is opposed to the maximization of
positive affect Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects (sensations, emotions, sentiments); and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings. People with high po ...
for its own sake (indeed, it sees this as counterproductive).


Cognitive science

Various studies have shown that Buddhist and mindfulness meditators experience long term transformations in cognitive function and neural activity. However, as Jay L. Garfield notes, this should not be surprising (to scientists or to Buddhists), since meditation is one kind of cognitive expertise and it is therefore normal that it should have neural correlates. Similarly, for Buddhists, the interdependence of mind and body is an ancient view.Jay Garfield, "Ask not what Buddhism can do for cognitive science; ask what cognitive science can do for Buddhism," ''Bulletin of Tibetology'', 47 (2011), p.17 Garfield also argues that cognitive science might have much to contribute to the development of Buddhist philosophy, since ancient Buddhist thinkers do not discuss important issues related to
attention Attention or focus, is the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli. It is the selective concentration on discrete information, either subjectively or objectively. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
,
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...
and
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
(such as
inattentional blindness Inattentional blindness or perceptual blindness (rarely called ''inattentive blindness'') occurs when an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention rather than any vision defects o ...
). Furthermore, the Buddhist epistemic focus on an empirical understanding of causal processes "commits Buddhists theorists of mind to attend to contemporary scientific results concerning the mind." Garfield thinks that the greatest contribution that Buddhism can make lies in the field of
moral psychology Moral psychology is the study of human thought and behavior in ethical contexts. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. This field of study is interdisciplinary between th ...
and
positive psychology Positive psychology is the scientific study of conditions and processes that contribute to positive psychological states (e.g., contentment, joy), well-being, Positive psychology of relationships, positive relationships, and positive institutio ...
, which is highly sophisticated in Buddhist thought.
Evan Thompson Evan Thompson (born 1962) is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, specializing in cognitive science, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and cross-cultural philosophy, particularly Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with We ...
writes that the neuroscientific study of mindfulness tends to view mindfulness a private inner observation (or meta-awareness) which is then conceptualized as neural networks that are studied in brain imaging tools. Thompson thinks this confuses the biological markers for mindfulness (such as decreased
amygdala The amygdala (; : amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek language, Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is a paired nucleus (neuroanatomy), nuclear complex present in the Cerebral hemisphere, cerebral hemispheres of vertebrates. It is c ...
reactivity, relative deactivation of the default-mode network, and slower baseline respiration rate) for mindfulness itself, which is actually "a host of cognitive, affective, and bodily skills" which are situated in an ethical way of life and in a particular socio-cultural setting.McMahan and Braun (2017), pp. 16, 47–61. Thompson thinks that applying insights from
embodied cognition Embodied cognition represents a diverse group of theories which investigate how cognition is shaped by the bodily state and capacities of the organism. These embodied factors include the motor system, the perceptual system, bodily interactions wi ...
, such as the "enactive approach to cognition", can help Buddhist scholars understand better how mindfulness functions as an aspect of the entire embodied person and how it relates to the study of mediation, which would more effectively be done through the perspective of cognitive ecology. Similarly, David McMahan thinks that Buddhist meditation practices are situated in specific religious, conceptual and socio-cultural contexts, that is, ways of being-in-the-world (referring to "
Lifeworld Lifeworld (or life-world; ) may be conceived as a universe of what is self-evident or given, a world that subjects may experience together. The concept was popularized by Edmund Husserl, who emphasized its role as the ground of all knowledge in l ...
s" and " social imaginaries"). These ways of being are altered, secularized, modernized and abstracted out when Buddhist meditation is studied in a clinical setting and viewed in terms of an individual's internal states that are caused by the meditation technique. According to McMahan, the general assumption of those who study meditation is that meditation techniques can be studied in isolation, but this is likely to be mistaken since "meditation "works" as a systemic part of the ecology of a sociocultural system." A similar contextual critique has been put forth by Robert H. Sharf.


The problem of scientific materialism

Buddhism rejects all materialistic theories which attempt to reduce consciousness to the functions of physical properties. The 14th Dalai Lama states that "from the Buddhist perspective, the mental realm cannot be reduced to the world of matter, though it may depend upon that world to function." Because of this, while Buddhists like the Dalai Lama embrace the findings and methods of neuroscience, they do not accept the assumptions of some neuroscientists that consciousness can be fully explained as a function of the brain (which is a metaphysical assumption). He further argues that "there is as yet no scientific basis for such a categorical claim," since neuroscience mainly studies correlations between brain states and first person pare "grounded in the phenomenology of experience" and "include the contemplative techniques of meditation" could assist in the development of a more holistic cognitive science that makes use of introspection. The Dalai Lama sees these methods as first person empirical processes. This idea is also supported by B. Alan Wallace, who argues that modern cognitive science is held back by materialist assumptions and its desire to study consciousness (which is subjective and qualitative) through quantitative measuring of its physical correlates. However, since Wallace argues that the correlates of consciousness are not equivalent to ''consciousness itself'', this method creates a blind spot in cognitive science (which also ignores the
hard problem of consciousness In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how ...
). Wallace argues that the contemplative skills found in traditions like Buddhism can aid in the development of a rigorous form of
introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's s ...
which could be used in cognitive science to deliver a better understanding of the mind. Geoffrey Samuel notes how the Buddhist point of view has often clashed with the reductionist and materialistic assumptions of many modern neuroscientists. He suggests that the question of personal identity and the self "might provide an important starting point" for a critical revision of the assumptions of modern science which focuses on the study of individual brains. He points to the 'enactive' and 'ecological' approach to consciousness by figures like
Francisco Varela Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoie ...
and
Gregory Bateson Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropology, anthropologist, social sciences, social scientist, linguistics, linguist, visual anthropology, visual anthropologist, semiotics, semiotician, and cybernetics, cybernetici ...
as a more fruitful ground for the dialogue between Buddhism and science, since these theories "see cognition, and consciousness in general, as part of an ongoing process in which both 'world' and 'mind' are constituted through mutual interaction". According to Samuel, Varela "argued that the upwards causation of conventional neuroscience, in which consciousness is seen as derivative of the body, needs to be complemented by a downwards causation from the emergent structures of the self, which develop within the neural system as part of the process of maturation of each human being".


Buddhism and other related fields


History of science

José Ignacio Cabezón has discussed how
historians of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Protoscience, early sciences, and natural philosophies such as al ...
seek to understand the origins of science and why its rise was much more successful in Europe. Some of these figures such as Stanley Jaki have argued that it is because Europe was dominated by the Christian worldview (with its linear view of time and de- animized view of nature) that it gave rise to modern science, while this could not have happened in Buddhist Asia (which generally held a cyclic view of time and accepted polytheism/animism). However, Cabezón notes that India and China "did give rise to forms of empirically derived sciences that can be recognized as such even in Western terms." He points to the work of
Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, initia ...
(author of the long running series of books called '' Science and Civilisation in China'') as an example. Furthermore, Cabezón also notes that neither
animism Animism (from meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in ...
nor a cyclic theory of time "acted as deterrents to the acceptance of science in these various cultures since its movement east, something that would be expected were Jaki's thesis true." On the contrary, these religious cultures embraced science rapidly.


Philosophy of science

B. Alan Wallace's ''Choosing Reality'' (1996) is one work which discusses Buddhism in regards to the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...
. Wallace argues that science is not metaphysically neutral, and that the two main metaphysical views in the philosophy of science have been
scientific realism Scientific realism is the philosophical view that the universe described by science (including both observable and unobservable aspects) exists independently of our perceptions, and that verified scientific theories are at least approximately true ...
and
instrumentalism In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to in ...
. Wallace thinks these two theories fail to provide a proper philosophical foundation for science and instead argues in favor of the Buddhism
Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
philosophy.Wallace (2003), p. 55. Wallace also argues that Buddhism can complement science by providing a spirit of responsibility and service for others, a spirit that has been lost as science became separated from religion and philosophy. In ''Hidden Dimensions'' (2007), Wallace also cites the ideas of some modern physicists which have argued for alternative
ontologies In information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definitions of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, or entities that pertain to one, many, or all domains of discourse. More ...
to materialism or physicalism. These figures include Bohm (and his " implicate order"),
Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli ( ; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and a pioneer of quantum mechanics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the ...
's idea (developed along with Jung) of the
unus mundus ''Unus mundus'' (Latin for "One world") is an underlying concept of Western philosophy, theology, and alchemy, of a primordial unified reality from which everything derives. The term can be traced back to medieval Scholasticism though the notion i ...
, George Ellis' fourfold model of reality (matter and forces, consciousness, physical and biological possibilities, and mathematical reality) as well as the views of
Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul Wigner (, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of th ...
and
Bernard d'Espagnat Bernard d'Espagnat (22 August 1921 – 1 August 2015) was a French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality. The Wigner–d'Espagnat inequality is partially named after him. ''Qu ...
. Wallace has also compared
John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr to e ...
's participatory anthropic principle (which sees scientific concepts like matter, mass and so on as "creations of the human mind, not discovered in the pre-existing, objective world of nature") to the Madhyamaka view which sees a deep interdependence between subjects and objects. Wallace thinks that "such parallels suggest that meaningful theoretical collaboration could take place between physicists and Buddhist philosophers and contemplatives." Mark T. Unno sees the ontology of David Bohm as being similar to the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of the twofold truth (of form and emptiness). According to Unno,
David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American scientist who has been described as one of the most significant Theoretical physics, theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryDavid Peat Who's Afraid of Schrödinger' ...
"suggests that mind and matter, thought and thing, are mutually implicit, as are all other phenomena, such that there is a wholeness to the universe in which all distinctions ultimately dissolve."Unno, Mark T. ''Buddhism, Christianity, and Physics: An Epistemological Turn'', in Numrich (2008) pp. 80–104. Since, for Bohm, "there is no definable divide between mind and matter," there is a kind of wholeness to the universe which cannot be understood conceptually or discursively, but "can only be ultimately realized in the present moment, inseparable from the subject." According to Unno, the same is true for the Buddhist view of emptiness. This is not surprising, since according to Unno, Bohm was "influenced by Indian philosopher
Jiddu Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurti ( ; 11 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) was an Indian Philosophy, philosopher, speaker, writer, and Spirituality, spiritual figure. Adopted by members of the Theosophy, Theosophical tradition as a child, he was raised to fill ...
and Buddhist thinkers such as the
Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...
."


Philosophy of physics

Michel Bitbol has argued that Buddhist
Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
philosophy can help provide a useful philosophical framework for quantum mechanics.Bitbol, Michel. ''Two aspects of Śūnyatā in quantum physics : relativity of properties and quantum non-separabilit''y. In : Siddheshwar Rameshwar Bhatt (ed.), ''Quantum Reality and Theory of Śūnya'', Springer, 2019. According to Bitbol, there is
a thorough and detailed structural analogy between quantum contextuality and Buddhist
Śūnyatā ''Śūnyatā'' ( ; ; ), translated most often as "emptiness", "Emptiness, vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", or "nothingness" is an Indian philosophical concept. In Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Indian philosophy, other Indian philosophi ...
(emptiness of own-being); and between
quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon where the quantum state of each Subatomic particle, particle in a group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance. The topic o ...
and Buddhist Pratîtyasamutpâda (dependent origination). But this twofold analogy does not show that there is a single essence of reality which can be disclosed by our reason irrespective of whether we rely on an experimental approach or a contemplative approach. The analogy rather shows that, at a sufficiently accurate level of analysis and careful attention, the negative conclusions of experimental physicists and contemplative Buddhists are bound to be similar: both realize the approximative status of the reified entities of everyday life, and both must cope with the high amount of instability and lack of self-sufficient existence (Śūnyatā) of phenomena. Then, if thoroughly applied, the critical concept of Śūnyatā can be seen to underpin the anti-metaphysical stances of both Buddhism and certain trends in the contemporary philosophy of science.
The American physicist David Ritz Finkelstein developed a theory of "universal relativity," influenced by Madhyamaka philosophy and his discussions at the Mind and Life dialogues. Finkelstein believes that "a philosophical argument for a universal relativity could be a useful guide for future physics," since "the major changes in physics in this century have been extensions of relativity at one level or another, and I think a further extension is due."Wallace (2003), p.Finkelstein, David Ritz. Emptiness and relativity. Georgia Institute of Technology in ''Meeting at the Roots: Essays on Tibetan'' ''Buddhism and the Natural Sciences'' B. Alan Wallace (ed.) Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (2001) 2000.08.16 rev 2003.12.15 Finkelstein's theory is based on the view that all laws of nature are ultimately relative and non-absolute. In this theory, doing (change) and knowing (attempting to fix a process in place) are relative elements.


Anthropic principle

Matthieu Ricard, commenting on the question of the
anthropic principle In cosmology, the anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the proposition that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in ...
and fine-tuning (which states that life is dependent on certain
fundamental physical constants Fundamental may refer to: * Foundation of reality * Fundamental frequency, as in music or phonetics, often referred to as simply a "fundamental" * Fundamentalism, the belief in, and usually the strict adherence to, the simple or "fundamental" idea ...
whose exact values are improbable), states that:
As far as Buddhism is concerned, the idea that there is some principle of organization that is supposed to have tuned the universe perfectly so that the conscious mind could evolve is fundamentally misguided. The apparently amazing fine-tuning is explained simply by the fact that the physical constants and consciousness have always coexisted in a universe that has no beginning and no end.... The universe has not been adjusted by a great watchmaker so that consciousness can exist. The universe and consciousness have always coexisted and so cannot exclude each other. To coexist, phenomena must be mutually suitable. The problem with the anthropic principle, or any other teleological theory, is that it puts the constants before consciousness and thus claims that the constants exist only so that they can create consciousness.


Artificial intelligence


Modern reception


Modern scientists on Buddhism

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...
, who developed the
Bohr Model In atomic physics, the Bohr model or Rutherford–Bohr model was a model of the atom that incorporated some early quantum concepts. Developed from 1911 to 1918 by Niels Bohr and building on Ernest Rutherford's nuclear Rutherford model, model, i ...
of the atom, said, The American physicist
J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...
made an analogy to Buddhism when describing the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position a ...
: Nobel Prize–winning physicist
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, who developed the
general theory of relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physi ...
and the
special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", the theory is presen ...
, also known for his
mass–energy equivalence In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame. The two differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicist Albert Einstei ...
, described Buddhism as containing a strong cosmic element:


Modern Buddhists on science

The
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
is known for his interest in science and has gone on record to say that Buddhism must conform to proven scientific findings:
My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.
The Dalai Lama argues that science and spirituality are related, though they work on different levels:
The great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome mental suffering. In other words, the enhancement of fundamental human values is indispensable to our basic quest for happiness. Therefore, from the perspective of human well-being, science and spirituality are not unrelated. We need both, since the alleviation of suffering must take place at both the physical and psychological levels.Gyatso (2005), p. 4.


See also

* Buddhism and evolution * Buddhism and Western Philosophy *
Buddhist philosophy Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-episte ...
* Index of Buddhism-related articles * ''
Issues in Science and Religion ''Issues in Science and Religion'' is a book by Ian Barbour. A biography provided by the John Templeton Foundation and published by Public Broadcasting Service, PBS online states this book "has been credited with literally creating the contempor ...
'' *
Quantum mysticism Quantum mysticism, sometimes referred to pejoratively as quantum quackery or quantum woo, is a set of Metaphysics, metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate spirituality or mystical worldviews to the ideas of quantum mech ...
* Relationship between religion and science * Religious Science * Secular Buddhism


Notes


References


Sources

* De Silva, Padmasiri (2005) ''An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology'', 4th edition, Palgrave Macmillan. * Clayton, Philip (editor) (2006). ''The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science.'' Oxford University Press. * Goleman, Daniel (in collaboration with The Dalai Lama), ''Destructive Emotions,'' Bloomsbury (London UK 2003) * Gyatso, Tenzin (The 14th Dalai Lama) (2005). ''The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.'' Morgan Road Books. * Hammerstrom, Erik J. (2015). ''The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century Engagements.'' Columbia University Press. * Kirthisinghe, Buddhadasa P. (editor) (1993) ''Buddhism and Science.'' Motilal Banarsidass. * McMahan, David, "Modernity and the Discourse of Scientific Buddhism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 4 (2004), 897–933. * McMahan, David L.; Braun, Erik (2017). ''Meditation, Buddhism, and Science.'' Oxford University Press. * Numrich, Paul David. (2008). ''The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science.'' Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. * Lopez Jr., Donald S. (2009). ''Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed''. University of Chicago Press. * Lopez Jr., Donald S. (2012). ''The Scientific Buddha: His Short and Happy Life.'' Yale University Press. * 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 * Ricard, Matthieu; Trinh Xuan Thuan (2009). ''The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet,'' Crown Publishers, New York. * Robin Cooper, ''The Evolving Mind: Buddhism, Biology and Consciousness,'' Windhorse (Birmingham UK 1996) * Sarunya Prasopchingchana & Dana Sugu, '''Distinctiveness of the Unseen Buddhist Identity''' (International Journal of Humanistic Ideology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, vol. 4, 2010) * Sharf, Robert H. "Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience." ''
Numen Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows:For a more extensive account, refer to Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (), a god "whose numen everything obeys", ...
'' 42, no. 3 (1995a): 228–83. * Wallace, B. Alan (2007). ''Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness'' (Columbia Univ Press) * Wallace, B. Alan (2003) (ed), ''Buddhism and Science: breaking new ground'' (Columbia University Press) * Wallace, B. Alan (1996), ''Choosing Reality: A Buddhist Perspective of Physics and the Mind,'' (Snow Lion 1996) * Wright, Robert (2017). ''Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment.'' Simon and Schuster. * Zajonc, Arthur (editor) (2004). ''The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama.'' Oxford University Press


External links

* https://www.lionsroar.com/monastic-scholars-journey/ How Buddhism Met Science: A Monastic Scholar’s Journey
The Mind and Life Conferences


* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtgl3__oEv4 Dalai Lama joining discussions on "Robotics, Telepresence and Artificial Intelligence" and "Sickness, Aging and Health" at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, Netherlands] {{DEFAULTSORT:Buddhism And Science Buddhism and science,