Buddhism & Science

by Wallace, B. Alan

• ISBN13: 9780231123358
• ISBN10: 0231123353
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Buddhism and Sciencebrings together distinguished philosophers, Buddhist scholars, physicists, and cognitive scientists to examine the contrasts and connections between the worlds of Western science and Eastern spirituality. This compilation was inspired by a suggestion made by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, himself one of the contributors, after one of a series of cross-cultural scientific dialogues in Dharamsala, India, sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute. Other contributors such as William L. Ames, Matthieu Ricard, and Stephen LaBerge assess not only the fruits of inquiry from East and West but also shed light on the underlying assumptions of these disparate worldviews. Their essays creatively address a broad range of topics: from quantum theory's surprising affinities with the Buddhist concept of emptiness, to the increasing need in the West for a more contemplative science attuned to the first-person investigation of the mind, to the important ways in which the psychological study of "lucid dreaming" maps similar terrain to the cultivation of the Tibetan Buddhist discipline of dream yoga. Reflecting its wide variety of topics, Buddhism and Scienceis comprised of three sections. The first presents two historical overviews of the engagements between Buddhism and modern science or, rather, how Buddhism and modern science have defined, rivaled, or complemented one another. The second describes the ways Buddhism and the cognitive sciences inform each other; the third addresses points of intersection between Buddhism and the physical sciences. On the broadest level this work illuminates how different ways of exploring the nature of human identity, the mind, and the universe at large can enrich and enlighten one another.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	ix
Preface	xv
Introduction: Buddhism and Science---Breaking Down the Barriers	1	(30)
B. Alan Wallace
Part 1 Historical Context	31	(56)
Buddhism and Science: On the Nature of the Dialogue	35	(36)
Jose Ignacio Cabezon
Science As an Ally or a Rival Philosophy? Tibetan Buddhist Thinkers' Engagement with Modern Science	71	(16)
Thupten Jinpa
Part 2 Buddhism and the Cognitive Sciences	87	(194)
Understanding and Transforming the Mind	91	(16)
XIV Dalai Lama
The Concepts ``Self,'' ``Person,'' and ``I'' in Western Psychology and in Buddhism	107	(38)
David Galin
Common Ground, Common Cause: Buddhism and Science on the Afflictions of Identity	145	(50)
William S. Waldron
Imagining: Embodiment, Phenomenology, and Transformation	195	(38)
Francisco J. Varela
Natalie Depraz
Lucid Dreaming and the Yoga of the Dream State: A Psychophysiological Perspective	233	(28)
Stephen Laberge
On the Relevance of a Contemplative Science	261	(20)
Matthieu Ricard
Part 3 Buddhism and the Physical Sciences	281	(136)
Emptiness and Quantum Theory	285	(20)
William L. Ames
Time and Impermanence in Middle Way Buddhism and Modern Physics	305	(20)
Victor Mansfield
A Cure for Metaphysical Illusions: Kant, Quantum Mechanics, and Madhyamaka	325	(40)
Michel Bitbol
Emptiness and Relativity	365	(22)
David Ritz Finkelstein
Encounters Between Buddhist and Quantum Epistemologies	387	(12)
Anton Zeilinger
Conclusion: Life As a Laboratory	399	(18)
Piet Hut
Appendix: A History of the Mind and Life Institute	417	(6)
Index	423