Sunday, June 28, 2009

BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE

Buddhism and science have increasingly been discussed as compatible, and Buddhism has increasingly entered into the science and religion dialogue. The case is made that the philosophic and psychological teachings within Buddhism share commonalities with modern scientific and philosophic thought. For example, Buddhism encourages the impartial investigation of Nature (an activity referred to as Dhamma-Vicaya in the Pali Canon) - the principal object of study being oneself. Some popular conceptions of Buddhism connect it to discourse regarding evolution, quantum theory, and cosmology, though most scientists see a separation between the religious and metaphysical statements of Buddhism and the methodology of science.

Buddhism has been described by some as rational and non-dogmatic, and there is evidence that this has been the case from the earliest period of its history, though some have suggested this aspect is given greater emphasis in modern times and is in part a reinterpretation. Not all forms of Buddhism eschew dogmatism, remain neutral on the subject of the supernatural, or are open to scientific discoveries. Buddhism is a varied tradition and aspects include fundamentalism, devotional traditions, supplication to local spirits, and various superstitions. Nevertheless, certain commonalities have been cited between scientific investigation and Buddhist thought. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in a speech at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, listed a "suspicion of absolutes" and a reliance on causality and empiricism as common philosophical principles shared between Buddhism and science.

More consistent with the scientific method than traditional, faith-based religion, the Kalama Sutta insists on a proper assessment of evidence, rather than a reliance on faith, hearsay or speculation:
"Yes, Kalamas, it is proper that you have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kalamas, do not be led by reports, or tradition, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by mere logic or inference, nor by considering appearances, nor by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But, O Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome (akusala), and wrong, and bad, then give them up...And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome (kusala) and good, then accept them and follow them."

The general tenor of the sutta is also similar to "Nullius in verba" - often translated as "Take no-one's word for it", the motto of the Royal Society.

Buddhism and psychology

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

Such studies are enthusiastically encouraged by the present Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who has long expressed an interest in exploring the connection between Buddhism and science and regularly attends the Mind and Life Institute Conferences.

In 1974 the Kagyu Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa predicted that "Buddhism will come to the West as psychology". This view was apparently regarded with considerable scepticism at the time, but Buddhist concepts have indeed made most in-roads in the psychological sciences. Some modern scientific theories, such as Rogerian psychology, show strong parallels with Buddhist thought. Some of the most interesting work on the relationship between Buddhism and science is being done in the area of comparison between Yogacara theories regarding the store consciousness and modern evolutionary biology, especially DNA. This is because the Yogacara theory of karmic seeds works well in explaining the nature/nurture problem. See the works by William Walron on this topic, e.g. Waldron (1995), (2002) and (2003).

William James often drew on Buddhist cosmology when framing perceptual concepts, such as his term "stream of consciousness," which is the literal English translation of the Pali vinnana-sota. The "stream of consciousness" is given various names throughout the many languages of Buddhadharma discourse but in English is generally known as "Mindstream".[14] In Varieties of Religious Experience James also promoted the functional value of meditation for modern psychology. He wrote: "This is the psychology everybody will be studying twenty-five years from now."

Buddhism and philosophy

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote of Buddhism in terms of western philosophy:[citation needed]

We find the doctrine of metempsychosis, springing from the earliest and noblest ages of the human race, always spread abroad in the earth as the belief of the great majority of mankind, nay, really as the teachings of all religions with the exception of that of the Jews and the two which have preceded from it: in the most subtle form, however, and coming nearest to the truth, as has already been mentioned, in Buddhism.

It almost seems that, as the oldest languages are the most perfect so also are the oldest religions. If I were to take the results of my philosophy as a yardstick of the truth, I would concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence of all religions of the world.

Buddhism as "science"

Buddhist teacher S.N. Goenka describes Buddhadharma as a 'pure science of mind and matter'. He claims Buddhism uses precise, analytical philosophical and psychological terminology and reasoning. Goenka's presentation describes Buddhism not so much as belief in a body of unverifiable dogmas, but an active, impartial, objective investigation of things as they are. in Buddhism is that effects arise from causation. From his very first discourse onwards, the Buddha explains the reality of things in terms of cause and effect. The existence of misery and suffering in any given individual is due to the presence of causes. One way to describe the Buddhist eightfold path is a turning towards the reality of things as they are right now and understanding reality directly, although it is debated the degree to which these investigations are metaphysical or epistemological.

Notable scientists on Buddhism

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

For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory...[we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence.[18]

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

Buddhism is a combination of both speculative and scientific philosophy. It advocates the scientific method and pursues that to a finality that may be called Rationalistic. In it are to be found answers to such questions of interest as: 'What is mind and matter? Of them, which is of greater importance? Is the universe moving towards a goal? What is man's position? Is there living that is noble?' It takes up where science cannot lead because of the limitations of the latter's instruments. Its conquests are those of the mind.

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

If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no.' The Buddha has given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of man's self after his death; but they are not familiar answers for the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth-century science.
Buddhism is a journey into the depths of one’s heart and mind, the inner reality of one’s
essence, an exploration of who we are and what we are. This spiritual journey is nothing
more and nothing less than discovering this inner reality.
Buddhist spiritual teachings present a genuine science of mind that allows one to
uncover this inner reality, the nature of the mind and the phenomena that our mind
experience. When we say that Buddhism is a “science,” we do not mean the dry science
of analyzing material things. We are talking about something much deeper. We are
talking about going into the depths of the reality of our inner world, which is the most
powerful world.
The teachings of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni, which we often refer to by the Sanskrit term
buddhadharma, set forth a path that frees one from disturbing emotions and
fundamental ignorance. This dharma frees us from existence in samsara, defined by
samsaric fear, and leads us towards the fruition of independence, the fruition of the
state of complete freedom, the state of fearlessness, going beyond fear.
By closely looking at buddhadharma, or Buddhism, we thus find that it is a pure path,
pure teachings, a pure science, a science of mind. In this sense, Buddhist spirituality is
not what is ordinarily meant by the term "religion." It is rather closer to a humanistic
science, a pure and genuine philosophy of humanity and science which works with the
two sides of our samsaric mind, the negative aspect and the positive aspect of our mind.
Fundamentally it is the science of working with the very basic nature of our mind.
"Nangpa" - Insider
The Tibetan term for Buddhism illustrates the nature of this inner science. What we call
Buddhism in Tibetan is nang pa, which means insiders. It's an interesting term,
insiders; it can have two meanings. Literally, it means someone who is within a certain
boundary, within a certain fence, but another meaning of this word insider is the sense
that we are working with our inside, our mind, our fundamental confusion, ignorance.
Therefore we can see what Buddhism is fundamentally, from this term, insider: it is a
science, working with our mind, a philosophy of humanity, a human science.
Buddhism as a Science of Mind by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.
Copyright 1992, 2007 by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. All Rights Reserved.
Distributed for personal use only. For more information, visit http://www.dpr.info
Is Buddhism A Religion?
Buddhadharma is not a religion in the everyday connotation of the word. We are not
talking here about the sophisticated ways of explaining religion used by university
Departments of Religion. Rather, the ordinary use of the word religion, our regular
mundane understanding of religion, is somewhat simple: it's a belief, a dogma that we
have about some superhuman beings outside our self, some supernatural energy outside
one's being which has power, control, over our universe and over sentient beings. This
mundane understanding of religion is a theistic view.
In this usual meaning of religion, it is as if a particular external being or external energy
is holding our computer keyboard and is doing the programming for us; we don't have
any power, we don't have any energy, we don't have any choice. We ourselves have to
work with it; we have to wait and see what comes up on the screen.
Holding The Keyboard To Enlightenment
In Buddhism, however, we are holding the keyboard; we ourselves are the programmer.
We program our software and we press the command keys on our keyboard. So
depending on our own skill, our own energy and our own knowledge, we get what we
want on the screen.
The reason why Buddha taught the dharma is to teach us the command keys. The
Tripitaka is the manual, teaching us how to program, how to use the right command
keys, and depending on this knowledge, we can have a successful progression of
programs. Therefore there is no external energy or external being holding our keyboards
in Buddhism; even Buddha himself does not hold our keyboard.
Buddha is a teacher, a human being with great knowledge, great wisdom, who can teach
us the right keyboard, who can teach us how to work with it, who has the great
compassion to share his knowledge, the great compassion to hand over the keyboard to
us. Even though he has all this knowledge, he does not guard the copyright, saying:
"Nobody can use it except me." So we can see his great compassion, his great knowledge,
which he shares with us, giving us the keyboard, giving us the knowledge, giving us
everything.
This path of buddhadharma is totally free from any theistic view and is totally free from
any shape or color. It's like pure water; it has no shape, it has no color. Depending on
the container that we pour the water into, the water adopts that particular shape. If you
want to freeze this pure water, you can do it by putting the water into the freezer, but as
soon as you take the ice out of the freezer, it will return to its natural state of pure water
having no shape and no color.

The experience of consciousness is entirely subjective. The joy of meeting someone you love, the sadness of losing a close friend, the richness of a vivid dream, the serenity of a walk through a garden on a spring day, the total absorption of a deep meditative state—these things and others like them constitute the reality of human experience. And all of these experiences—from the most mundane to the most elevated—have a certain coherence and, at the same time, a high degree of privacy, which means that they always exist from a particular point of view.

But despite this reality and thousands of years of philosophical examination, there is little consensus today on what consciousness is. Neuroscience, which employs an objective perspective—looking at the brain as an object of study—has made strikingly little headway in this understanding, despite having tremendous success in observing close correlations between parts of the brain and mental states. A comprehensive scientific study of consciousness must therefore embrace both objective and subjective methods: It cannot ignore the reality of first-person experience but must observe all the rules of scientific rigor.

I am suggesting the need for the method of our investigation to be appropriate to the object of inquiry. Given that one of the primary characteristics of consciousness is its subjective and experiential nature, any systematic study of it must adopt a method that will give access to the dimensions of subjectivity and experience. So the critical question is this: Can we envision a scientific methodology for the study of consciousness whereby a robust first-person method, which does full justice to the phenomenology of experience, can be combined with the objectivist perspective of the study of the brain?

Here I feel that a close collaboration between modern science and the contemplative traditions, such as Buddhism, could prove beneficial. Buddhism has a long history of investigation into the nature of the mind and its various aspects—this is effectively what Buddhist meditation and its critical analysis constitute. Unlike that of modern science, Buddhism’s approach has been primarily from first-person experience. The contemplative method, as developed by Buddhism, is an empirical use of introspection, sustained by rigorous training in technique and robust testing of the reliability of experience. All meditatively valid subjective experiences must be verifiable both through repetition by the same practitioner and through other individuals being able to attain the same state by the same practice. If they are thus verified, such states may be taken to be universal, at any rate for human beings.

The Buddhist understanding of the mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation. Working models of the mind and its various aspects and functions are generated on this basis; they are then subjected to sustained critical and philosophical analysis and empirical testing through both meditation and mindful observation. This process offers a first-person empirical method with relation to the mind.

I am aware that there is a deep suspicion of first-person methods in modern science. I have been told that, given the problem inherent in developing objective criteria to adjudicate between competing first-person claims of different individuals, introspection as a method for the study of the mind in psychology has been abandoned in the West. Given the dominance of third-person scientific method as a paradigm for acquiring knowledge, this disquiet is entirely understandable.

I agree with the Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn that it is critical to recognize the natural boundaries of introspection. No matter how highly trained a person may be, we have no evidence that his or her introspection can reveal the intricacies of the neural networks and the biochemical composition of the human brain, or the physical correlates of specific mental activities—tasks that can be most accurately performed by empirical observation through application of powerful instruments. However, a disciplined use of introspection would be most suited to probe the psychological and phenomenological aspects of our cognitive and emotional states.

What occurs during meditative contemplation in a tradition such as Buddhism and what occurs during introspection in the ordinary sense are two quite different things. In the context of Buddhism, introspection is employed with careful attention to the dangers of extreme subjectivism—such as fantasies and delusions—and with the cultivation of a disciplined state of mind. Refinement of attention, in terms of stability and vividness, is a crucial preparation for the utilization of rigorous introspection, much as a telescope is crucial for the detailed examination of celestial phenomena. Just as in science, there is a series of protocols and procedures which contemplative introspection must employ. Upon entering a laboratory, someone untrained in science would not know what to look at, would have no capacity to recognize when something is found; in the same way, an untrained mind will have no ability to apply the introspective focus on a chosen object and will fail to recognize when processes of the mind show themselves. Just like a trained scientist, a disciplined mind will have the knowledge of what to look for and the ability to recognize when discoveries are made.

It may well be that the question of whether consciousness can ultimately be reduced to physical processes, or whether our subjective experiences are non-material features of the world, will remain a matter of philosophical choice. The key issue here is to bracket out the metaphysical questions about mind and matter, and to explore together how to understand scientifically the various modalities of the mind. I believe that it is possible for Buddhism and modern science to engage in collaborative research in the understanding of consciousness while leaving aside the philosophical question of whether consciousness is ultimately physical. By bringing together these two modes of inquiry, both disciplines may be enriched. Such collaborative study will contribute not only to greater human understanding of consciousness but also to a better understanding of the dynamics of the human mind and its relation to suffering. This is a precious gateway into the alleviation of suffering, which I believe to be our principal task on this earth.