You will understand then, that it was exceptionally refreshing to hear a religious leader say, “If Science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” Buddhism is unique. It asks the devotee to examine its central ideas critically, and arrival at accepting these ideas is not attained through textual interpretation but rather experiential confirmation. And once these experiences start to work in tandem with our scientific understanding, we have pretty good reason to suggest these ideas are based in reality. A philosophy of the mind seems like a more accurate label.
I’m not saying Buddhism is right, and everyone should drop everything they are doing and start meditating. I’m saying that the polarising framework of how debates surrounding the biggest questions we ask ourselves is exhausting. Who are we? What is the external world? While the neuroscientist and the physicist can tell us the mechanistic basis for these questions, they also address a weakness in the scientific method. The more and more we break down the underlying physical processes of the universe, the less likely we seem to be able to describe the most complex phenomena like consciousness. Science starts from a reductionist position and then tries to extrapolate. While something like Buddhism starts from the subjective experience of the human condition (exactly what science is trying to reduce). Each respective epistemology should be informed by the other. A spiritualistic explanation can tell us what it is like to be human, while science can tell us how this may arise.
Photo Credit: Jon Reis Photography
The Science of Siddhartha: Practicing Buddhist Philosophy 