Questions about Buddhism and science
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the relationship between Buddhism and science?
The relationship between Buddhism and science is a subject of ongoing debate among Buddhists, scientists, and scholars. Since the 19th century, numerous figures have argued that Buddhism is uniquely compatible with science, pointing to shared emphases on causality, empiricism, and rational inquiry. Scholars like Donald Lopez Jr. have criticized this narrative as a product of Buddhist modernism that developed through the encounter between Buddhism and western thought.
What did the 14th Dalai Lama say about Buddhism and science?
The 14th Dalai Lama, in a speech to the Society for Neuroscience, listed a "suspicion of absolutes" and a reliance on causality and empiricism as philosophical principles shared by Buddhism and science. He has written about the topic in The Universe in a Single Atom (2005), arguing that science and Buddhism share a commitment to searching for reality by empirical means. He has also explicitly rejected scientism while arguing that spirituality must be informed by the insights of science.
What is the Kalama Sutta and why is it important to discussions of Buddhism and science?
The Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) is a discourse in which the Buddha advises a group of villagers not to accept teachings based on tradition, scripture, or authority, but to evaluate them based on direct personal experience of whether they lead to harm or wellbeing. Buddhist modernists frequently cite it as evidence that Buddhism promotes empirical, skeptical inquiry compatible with the scientific method. Bhikkhu Bodhi has cautioned, however, that the sutra does not rule out faith as an important element of the path.
How have physicists compared quantum mechanics to Buddhist philosophy?
Several physicists have drawn comparisons between quantum mechanics and Buddhist ideas, particularly the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness. Carlo Rovelli cites Nagarjuna in his book Helgoland as a conceptual resource for the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral states in Decoding Reality that "Quantum physics is indeed very much in agreement with Buddhistic emptiness." The 14th Dalai Lama has cited conversations with David Bohm and Anton Zeilinger as support for seeing resonance between Buddhist emptiness and modern physics.
How has Buddhist modernism shaped how Buddhism is understood today?
Buddhist modernism, which arose in the 19th century through figures such as Anagarika Dharmapala, Shaku Soen, Paul Carus, D.T. Suzuki, and Henry Olcott, promoted the view that Buddhism is a rational, scientific tradition compatible with modern thought. This narrative was partly a political strategy to counter Christian missionary attacks on Buddhism in colonial Asia. David McMahan has written that the modernist compatibility discourse has become "not only more voluminous but far more sophisticated throughout the late twentieth century and is now at its productive and creative zenith."
What have scholars said about the study of Buddhist meditation in scientific settings?
By 2015, there were 674 scientific studies on Buddhist and Buddhist-derived meditation techniques. Evan Thompson has argued that neuroscientific studies tend to confuse the biological markers for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which he describes as a set of cognitive, affective, and bodily skills embedded in an ethical way of life. David McMahan similarly argues that studying meditation in clinical isolation is likely mistaken because meditation functions as part of the ecology of a broader sociocultural system.