2023/06/27
Ho Jin Chung - 제4기 생명농업 워크숍 안내 1. 때 : 2023.7.16-19(3박4일) 오후 3시-오후... | Facebook
Science and Spirituality by Bettina Sharada Bäumer, Shivam Srivastava - Ebook | Scribd
Ebook451 pages8 hours
Science and Spirituality: Bridges of Understanding
By Bettina Sharada Bäumer and Shivam Srivastava
About this ebook
A dialogue between science and spirituality is a necessity in our times where both, differences and mutual enrichment of the two great fields of human approach to reality, are taking place. This volume addresses this need from the perspective of different areas of science and spiritual traditions.
From the side of science, the contributors come from the fields of physics, plant biology, neuroscience, psychology, ecology and philosophy of science;
Read now
The Monk and the philosopher 2016 by Jean Francois Revel, Matthieu Ricard
Follow the Authors
Jean-François Revel
Follow
Matthieu Ricard
The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life
by Jean Francois Revel (Author), Matthieu Ricard (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 247 ratings
Jean Francois-Revel, a pillar of French intellectual life in our time, became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity.
Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history.
- Does life have meaning?
- What is consciousness?
- Is man free?
- What is the value of scientific and material progress?
- Why is there suffering, war, and hatred?
Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.
Review
"The wonderful thing about this book is that it shows how fruitful open-hearted dialogue can be. Although these two men have pursued their humane concerns and their quest for knowledge by different means, I believe they both reveal that it's not so important whether life has meaning, but whether we give meaning to the life we live." -- His Holiness The Dalai Lama
"The Monk and the Philosopher is an intellectual banquet -- an enlightening and lively encounter that explores man-kind's most profound questions." -- Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence
From the Back Cover
Jean Francois-Revel, a pillar of French intellectual life in our time, became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity. Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.
Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history.
Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.
About the Author
Jean-Francois Revel, a member of the Academie Francaise, was born in 1924. He studied and taught philosophy but abandoned university teaching to concentrate on writing. He was editor for many years of the influential political weekly L'Express. His books, including the best-seller Without Marx or Jesus and How Democracies Perish, have gained worldwide recognition.
Matthieu Ricard lives in the Shechen Monastery in Nepal. Born in France in 1946, he received his doctorate in molecular biology from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. In 1972 he decided to forsake his scientific career to better concentrate on his Buddhist studies, which he had begun years earlier. He has published Journey to Enlightenment, a book of photographs about his teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (one of the most eminent Tibetan masters of our times and a teacher to The Dalai Lama), as well as translations of many Buddhist texts. He often accompanies The
Publisher : Schocken Books Inc (1 January 1900)
Customer Reviews:
4.5 out of 5 stars 247 ratings
Jean-François Revel
See more on the author's page
Follow
Matthieu Ricard
Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk who had a promising career in cellular genetics before leaving France to study Buddhism in the Himalayas 35 years ago. He is a bestselling author, translator and photographer, and an active participant in current scientific research on the effects of meditation on the brain. He lives and works on humanitarian projects in Tibet and Nepal.
Top review from Australia
Sally
5.0 out of 5 stars “Amazing”Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 23 August 2018
Verified Purchase
Amazing read loved it
Top reviews from other countries
Marcos Luz
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable for lifeReviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on 7 January 2022
Verified Purchase
This book is one one of a kind, totally indispensable for life. There’s no way to live the same life (go back) after read the entire book. The dialogue between the Philosopher and the monk (dad and son) has so much excellent information that - for quite a while, I’ve got myself without air for some days...(time to breathe, rethink something in your life) before coming back to this book. Five stars for sure.
Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars It is deep in both western and oriental philosophyReviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on 7 March 2017
Verified Purchase
I am interested in budhism and this book answer many important questions that I had about that type of phylosophy. It also offers a critical point of view with very interesting arguments on each topic they speak about in the book. Awesome. I love this book.
Report
MattyS
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, answers so many questionsReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 25 August 2013
Verified Purchase
The book is a great and thought provoking read. I have become lost in the translation of the Western Literature on sale. That said, I have found a link and topical debate between father and son on a massive topic in my world.
I have to confess that I was also apprehensive ordering from the US. I liked the service from the Marketplace seller. Great packaging and speedy delivery albeit over the Atlantic. Will be ordering from them again, thanks.
One person found this helpfulReport
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars ExcellentReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 2 August 2020
Verified Purchase
Very informative
Report
PeterDz
4.0 out of 5 stars Nonetheless a recommended read.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 January 2016
Verified Purchase
A fascinating book a little divergent and factually inaccurate and confused and confusing at times. Nonetheless a recommended read.
Report
===
===
The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life
Jean-Francois Revel, M. Richard, J. F. Revel. Schocken Books Inc,
French philosopher Revel (Without Marx or Jesus) and his son, Tibetan Buddhist monk Ricard, engage in a dazzling intellectual tete-a-tete on metaphysics, morality and meaning. In 1972, Ricard abandoned a promising career in molecular biology and announced his intention to study with Tibetan Buddhist lamas in Asia. Initially, Revel was disappointed with his son's decision to study Buddhism, for, as an atheist, Revel had never taken Buddhism or any other religion very seriously. He and Matthieu remained close, and father and son began a series of conversations about the different and common ways that philosophy and Buddhism describe humanity's search for meaning. The dialogues recorded in this book took place in 1996 in Hatiban, Nepal, ""a peaceful spot high up on a mountainside above Kathmandu."" The give-and-take between these two lively thinkers ranges from the differences between religious and secular spirituality, ""faith, ritual and superstition,"" and Buddhist metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and on the violence in the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Each conversation covers an astonishing range of history and philosophy from the pre-Socratics in the West to the current Dalai Lama in the East. Revel concludes from these conversations that the East can provide a system of wisdom or ethics for a West where the triumph of science has largely eradicated these systems. Ricard concludes that Buddhism does provide a ""science of the mind"" that deals with the ""basic mechanisms of happiness and suffering."" Although these talks reveal little new about either Western philosophy or Buddhism, they do offer a rare glimpse into the workings of two sparkling intellects. (Feb.)
===
한국조직신학논총 제41집 content
The idea of degrowth communism was Marx’s last breakthrough—and perhaps most important | MR Online
The idea of degrowth communism was Marx’s last breakthrough—and perhaps most important
By Peter Boyle (Posted Jun 23, 2023)
Kohei Saito will be speaking at Ecosocialism 2023 over July 1–2 in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. For more information about the conference, visit ecosocialism.org.au. —LINKS editors
Even if Japanese Marxist Kohei Saito had not written Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, the left today would still need to take the idea of degrowth seriously. This is because, economist and anthropologist Jason Hickel explains, “while it’s possible to transition to 100 percent renewable energy, we cannot do it fast enough to stay under 1.5°C or 2°C if we continue to grow the global economy at existing rates.”
It’s not just reliance on fossil fuels that imperils the planet, but capitalism’s chronic pursuit of economic growth. Unlimited growth means more demand for energy. And more energy demand makes it more difficult to develop sufficient capacity for generating renewable energy in the short time left to avert catastrophic warming.
This is why Saito’s re-reading of Karl Marx’s life work is crucial for socialists today. As he argues, ecology wasn’t a secondary consideration for Marx but at the core of his analysis of capitalism. And as he neared the end of his life, Marx turned increasingly to the natural sciences and became deeply convinced that the endless growth associated with capitalism could not be harnessed for human or environmental purposes. Rather, as Saito details, Marx understood that communism would deliver both abundance and degrowth.
More than global warming
Today, environmental activists typically focus on global warming. But the problem is deeper than that. Scientists such as James Hansen and Paul Crutzen have identified a number of “planetary boundaries” beyond which disaster is all but certain. Climate change is one of these. However, tipping points also exist when it comes to the loss of biodiversity or forested land, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, ozone depletion, nitrogen and phosphorus loading in water and the depletion of fresh water.
For example, atmospheric carbon concentration should not breach 350 parts per million (ppm) if the climate is to remain stable — and we already crossed that boundary in 1990. Now, it is 420ppm. Similarly, disaster threatens if the proportion of the Earth’s land surface that is forested drops below 25 percent or if the extinction rate exceeds ten species per million per year.
From the deforestation of the Amazon to extinctions caused by climate-change driven bushfires in Australia, the root cause remains the same — unchecked economic expansion.
However much the evidence demands degrowth, the proposal nonetheless raises difficult political questions. For example, socialists in the developed and developing worlds are united in demanding improved living standards. And it’s hard to imagine a mass movement against capitalism gaining traction unless it can offer a better life.
These, however, are not insurmountable problems. As both Saito and Hickel argue, because of imperialism’s role in systematically passing ecological costs to the global South, economic growth needs to fall sharply in the wealthiest countries while continuing to grow in the global South.
But this does not mean that ordinary people in rich countries have to suffer a sharp drop in their quality of life. By radically restructuring the economy to prioritize social needs and ecological sustainability, it’s possible to improve life for the majority even while reducing production.
As Saito argued in Marx in the Anthropocene, later in life, as Marx deepened his research into political economy and natural science, this idea became more crucial to his vision of a post-capitalist society. However, it’s a perspective that was in part lost given that Marx did not live long enough to incorporate the analysis into planned but uncompleted later volumes of Capital. And this is not just conjecture. Saito builds his case on the basis of his deep knowledge of previously unpublished notebooks and writings that have now been published as part of the new complete works of Marx and Frederick Engels, the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).
Marx, Saito writes, came to realize that the “capitalist development of technologies does not necessarily prepare a material foundation for post-capitalism.” This meant, as he continues, that
Marx not only regarded the “metabolic rifts” under capitalism as the inevitable consequence of the fatal distortion in the relationship between humans and nature but also highlighted the need for a qualitative transformation in social production in order to repair the deep chasm in the universal metabolism of nature.
The productive forces of capitalism
Saito identifies in Marx’s work four reasons why the productive forces developed under capitalism cannot be adopted in a post-capitalist ecosocialist society.
Firstly, because much technology is designed partly to subjugate and control workers, much of it is unfit for a non-exploitative society. Secondly, as Saito explains, “capitalist technologies are not suitable to the socialist requirement of reunifying ‘conception’ and ‘execution’ in the labour process.” This is to say, a socialist society must ensure that the utilization of technology is in accordance with the purpose for which it is designed, and that these work together for human and ecological ends.
Thirdly, according to Saito, Marx noted that “the capitalist development of productive forces undermines and even destroys the universal metabolism of nature.” This is to say, by disrupting and destroying whole ecosystems, capitalist development inhibits nature’s ability to renew itself. And fourthly, Saito argues that Marx predicted the development of technology that separates means and ends, as described above, would necessitate the rise of a “bureaucratic class.” This new class “would rule general social production instead of the capitalist class,” and “the alienated condition of the working class would basically remain the same.”
For these reasons, Saito argues, Marx started to question his earlier view that capitalism plays a progressive role by increasing society’s productive forces. As a result, as Saito contends, Marx was “inevitably compelled to challenge his own earlier progressive view of history.”
This perspective shift guided Marx’s work on planned but unfinished later volumes of Capital — he stepped up his study of both natural science and of pre-capitalist societies. And after 1868, this led Marx to another paradigm shift as he embraced what Saito and others now term degrowth communism.
According to this new perspective, Marx abandoned the idea that a communist society would simply appropriate the ecologically unsustainable abundance that capitalism now offers for a tiny minority. Instead, it would offer a “radical abundance of ‘communal/common wealth’.” According to Saito, Marx clarifies this in the Critique of the Gotha Program, defining it as “a non-consumerist way of life in a post-scarcity economy which realizes a safe and just society in the face of global ecological crisis in the Anthropocene.”
Indeed, if we read Marx’s late work in this light, it helps us understand his famous 1881 letter to Vera Zasulich, a Russian revolutionary. In it, Marx suggests that pre-modern communal land ownership models found in villages across the Russian empire might be transformed into collective, socialist ownership models. According to Saito, this letter ought to be “reinterpreted as the crystallization of his non-productivist and non-Eurocentric view of the future society,” and “should be characterized as degrowth communism.”
Essential work has lower ecological footprint
Saito argues that a socialist society would shift towards essential work that produces basic use-values, and as a consequence, economic growth will slow. An economy refashioned to serve social needs would have a dramatically lower ecological footprint, he adds, and the artificial scarcity that capitalism has manufactured ever since it destroyed the old commons can be overcome.
But is this true? There is research that suggests it is. Hickel’s study of UN data — cited in Less Is More — found that
The relationship between GDP and human welfare plays out on a saturation curve, with sharply diminishing returns: after a certain point, which high-income nations have long surpassed, more GDP does little to improve core social outcomes.
For example, Spain spends only $2,300 per person to deliver high-quality healthcare to everyone as a fundamental right and also boasts a life expectancy of 83.5 years, one of the highest in the world. Indeed Spain’s life expectancy is a full five years longer than that of the United States, where the private, for-profit system “sucks up an eye-watering $9,500 per person, while delivering lower life expectancy and worse health outcomes.” And much poorer Cuba has long enjoyed a higher life expectancy than the US because of its free and universal health care. During the COVID-19 pandemic this gap grew to three years.
Beyond this, Saito argues there are other good reasons why a post-capitalist society needs to radically refashion the economy. For example, under capitalism, more people are forced to do precarious “bullshit jobs,” a term he borrowed from the late anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber. Examples include telemarketers, parking and public transport ticket inspectors and most middle management. In addition to being meaningless, because they’re wasteful, the jobs contribute to environmental destruction, deepen inequality and worsen our mental health and quality of life.
On a broader level, degrowth communism would radically shorten the work week and liberate human creativity, sociality and social solidarity in the process. To explain, Saito notes that during the 20th and 21st centuries, rapid technological change led to increased productivity. And yet, work hours did not decline, again because capitalism necessitates constant growth.
Ultimately, however, Saito’s point is that we will only gain the freedom to make choices about what we produce collectively and how we do it by liberating the majority from the “despotism of capital.”
Against deterministic Marxism
These arguments mean that Saito makes common cause with a long line of Marxists — including Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Georg Lukács, Antonio Gramsci and others — who have opposed deterministic versions of Marxism. Although such theories of history run contrary to much of Marx’s work, both early and late, there are doubtless passages that lend support to historical determinism by claiming that capitalism will inevitably destroy itself.
For example, as Marx famously wrote in 1869 in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,
At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production … From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
As Saito argues, it’s mistaken to read this as narrowly predicting that economic growth will flag, resulting in a big crisis and the necessary end of capitalism. To the contrary, “there is simply no empirical evidence that the pressure on profit rates due to the increasing costs of circulating capital will bring about an ‘epochal crisis’ any time soon.”
Indeed, capitalism may prove resilient to ecological catastrophe. As Saito explains,
it is necessary to realize net zero carbon emissions by 2050 to keep global warming within 1.5°C by 2100. When this line is crossed, various effects might combine, thereby reinforcing their destructive impact on a global scale, especially upon those who live in the Global South. However, capitalist societies in the Global North will not necessarily collapse.
Compared to more optimistic readings of Marx, Saito’s is sober. Arguably, however, the actual course of history since Marx’s time — which includes growing metabolic rifts — supports his outlook. And it’s why Marx’s late vision of degrowth communism may be a source of hope for our era of multiple, accelerating and overlapping crises.
Peter Boyle is a socialist activist and writer for Green Left. He is also an organizer of the Ecosocialism 2023 conference that will feature Kohei Saito as a keynote speaker. Peter Boyle would like to thank Daniel Lopez for valuable editing suggestions.