When Einstein Met Tagore: A Remarkable Meeting of Minds on the Edge of Science and Spirituality – The Marginalian

When Einstein Met Tagore: A Remarkable Meeting of Minds on the Edge of Science and Spirituality – The Marginalian

When Einstein Met Tagore: A Remarkable Meeting of Minds on the Edge of Science and Spirituality
Collision and convergence in Truth and Beauty.
BY MARIA POPOVA


On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher, musician, and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history, exploring the age-old friction between science and religion. Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore (public library) recounts the historic encounter, amidst a broader discussion of the intellectual renaissance that swept India in the early twentieth century, germinating a curious osmosis of Indian traditions and secular Western scientific doctrine.

The following excerpt from one of Einstein and Tagore’s conversations dances between previously examined definitions of science, beauty, consciousness, and philosophy in a masterful meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence.




EINSTEIN: Do you believe in the Divine as isolated from the world?

TAGORE: Not isolated. The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality, and this proves that the Truth of the Universe is human Truth.

I have taken a scientific fact to explain this — Matter is composed of protons and electrons, with gaps between them; but matter may seem to be solid. Similarly humanity is composed of individuals, yet they have their interconnection of human relationship, which gives living unity to man’s world. The entire universe is linked up with us in a similar manner, it is a human universe. I have pursued this thought through art, literature and the religious consciousness of man.

EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe: (1) The world as a unity dependent on humanity. (2) The world as a reality independent of the human factor.

TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with Man, the eternal, we know it as Truth, we feel it as beauty.

EINSTEIN: This is the purely human conception of the universe.

TAGORE: There can be no other conception. This world is a human world — the scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. There is some standard of reason and enjoyment which gives it Truth, the standard of the Eternal Man whose experiences are through our experiences.

EINSTEIN: This is a realization of the human entity.

TAGORE: Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realize it through our emotions and activities. We realized the Supreme Man who has no individual limitations through our limitations. Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of Truths. Religion realizes these Truths and links them up with our deeper needs; our individual consciousness of Truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to Truth, and we know this Truth as good through our own harmony with it.

EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or Beauty is not independent of Man?

TAGORE: No.

EINSTEIN: If there would be no human beings any more, the Apollo of Belvedere would no longer be beautiful.

TAGORE: No.

EINSTEIN: I agree with regard to this conception of Beauty, but not with regard to Truth.

TAGORE: Why not? Truth is realized through man.

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove that my conception is right, but that is my religion.

TAGORE: Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the Universal Being; Truth the perfect comprehension of the Universal Mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experiences, through our illumined consciousness — how, otherwise, can we know Truth?

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man. Anyway, if there is a reality independent of man, there is also a Truth relative to this reality; and in the same way the negation of the first engenders a negation of the existence of the latter.

TAGORE: Truth, which is one with the Universal Being, must essentially be human, otherwise whatever we individuals realize as true can never be called truth – at least the Truth which is described as scientific and which only can be reached through the process of logic, in other words, by an organ of thoughts which is human. According to Indian Philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute Truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words but can only be realized by completely merging the individual in its infinity. But such a Truth cannot belong to Science. The nature of Truth which we are discussing is an appearance – that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind and therefore is human, and may be called maya or illusion.

EINSTEIN: So according to your conception, which may be the Indian conception, it is not the illusion of the individual, but of humanity as a whole.

TAGORE: The species also belongs to a unity, to humanity. Therefore the entire human mind realizes Truth; the Indian or the European mind meet in a common realization.

EINSTEIN: The word species is used in German for all human beings, as a matter of fact, even the apes and the frogs would belong to it.

TAGORE: In science we go through the discipline of eliminating the personal limitations of our individual minds and thus reach that comprehension of Truth which is in the mind of the Universal Man.

EINSTEIN: The problem begins whether Truth is independent of our consciousness.

TAGORE: What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of which belong to the super-personal man.

EINSTEIN: Even in our everyday life we feel compelled to ascribe a reality independent of man to the objects we use. We do this to connect the experiences of our senses in a reasonable way. For instance, if nobody is in this house, yet that table remains where it is.

TAGORE: Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not the universal mind. The table which I perceive is perceptible by the same kind of consciousness which I possess.

EINSTEIN: If nobody would be in the house the table would exist all the same — but this is already illegitimate from your point of view — because we cannot explain what it means that the table is there, independently of us.

Our natural point of view in regard to the existence of truth apart from humanity cannot be explained or proved, but it is a belief which nobody can lack — no primitive beings even. We attribute to Truth a super-human objectivity; it is indispensable for us, this reality which is independent of our existence and our experience and our mind — though we cannot say what it means.

TAGORE: Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not exist if that mind were naught. At the same time it must be admitted that the fact, that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but a multitude of separate revolving centres of electric force, also belongs to the human mind.

In the apprehension of Truth there is an eternal conflict between the universal human mind and the same mind confined in the individual. The perpetual process of reconciliation is being carried on in our science, philosophy, in our ethics. In any case, if there be any Truth absolutely unrelated to humanity then for us it is absolutely non-existing.

It is not difficult to imagine a mind to which the sequence of things happens not in space but only in time like the sequence of notes in music. For such a mind such conception of reality is akin to the musical reality in which Pythagorean geometry can have no meaning. There is the reality of paper, infinitely different from the reality of literature. For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that paper literature is absolutely non-existent, yet for Man’s mind literature has a greater value of Truth than the paper itself. In a similar manner if there be some Truth which has no sensuous or rational relation to the human mind, it will ever remain as nothing so long as we remain human beings.

EINSTEIN: Then I am more religious than you are!

TAGORE: My religion is in the reconciliation of the Super-personal Man, the universal human spirit, in my own individual being.



Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore is a sublime read in its entirety. Complement it with physicist Lisa Randall on the crucial differences between how art, science, and religion explain the universe, then revisit Einstein’s correspondence with Freud about violence, peace, and human nature, his little-known exchange with W.E.B. DuBois on race and racial justice, and his letter to a little girl in South Africa on whether scientists pray.

Thanks, Natascha

Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi on Love, Violence, and the Truth of the Human Spirit – The Marginalian

Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi on Love, Violence, and the Truth of the Human Spirit – The Marginalian

Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi on Love, Violence, and the Truth of the Human Spirit
“Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills.”
BY MARIA POPOVA


In 1908, Indian revolutionary Taraknath Das wrote to Leo Tolstoy, by then one of the most famous public figures in the world, asking for the author’s support in India’s independence from British colonial rule. On December 14, Tolstoy, who had spent the last twenty years seeking the answers to life’s greatest moral questions, was moved to reply in a long letter, which Das published in the Indian newspaper Free Hindustan. Passed from hand to hand, the missive finally made its way to the young Mahatma Gandhi, whose career as a peace leader was just beginning in South Africa. He wrote to Tolstoy asking for permission to republish it in his own South African newspaper, Indian Opinion. Tolstoy’s letter was later published in English under the title A Letter to a Hindu (free download | public library).

The exchange sparked an ongoing correspondence between the two that lasted until Tolstoy’s death — a meeting of two great minds and spirits, eventually collected in Letters from One: Correspondence (and more) of Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi and rivaled only by Einstein’s correspondence with Freud on violence and human nature.



Tolstoy’s letters issue a clarion call for nonviolent resistance — he admonishes against false ideologies, both religious and pseudo-scientific, that promote violence, an act he sees as unnatural for the human spirit, and advocates for a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love. Evil, Tolstoy argues with passionate conviction, is restrained not with violence but with love — something Maya Angelou would come to echo beautifully decades later.

Gandhi’s introduction to the original edition, in which he calls Tolstoy “one of the clearest thinkers in the western world, one of the greatest writers,” offers a pithy caveat to the text, as perfect today as it was a century ago:


One need not accept all that Tolstoy says … to realize the central truth of his indictment.

[…]

There is no doubt that there is nothing new in what Tolstoy preaches. But his presentation of the old truth is refreshingly forceful. His logic is unassailable. And above all he endeavors to practice what he preaches. He preaches to convince. He is sincere and in earnest. He commands attention.

Tolstoy opens each “chapter” of his missive — for the letter’s length, indeed, puts in glaring perspective the nuanceless and hasty op-eds of our time, contrasting the truly reflective with the merely reactive — by quoting a passage from Krishna as a backdrop for his political, moral, and humanistic arguments. His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. He writes:


The reason for the astonishing fact that a majority of working people submit to a handful of idlers who control their labour and their very lives is always and everywhere the same — whether the oppressors and oppressed are of one race or whether … the oppressors are of a different nation.

[…]

The reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly called “civilization.”

It’s worth pausing here to note that Tolstoy’s notion of “religious teaching” is perhaps best regarded as “spiritual direction,” for he dedicated a great portion of his life trying to discern precisely such spiritual direction for himself by selectively culling wisdom from all the major religious and philosophical traditions. Indeed, he speaks to that aspect directly further along in the letter:


In every individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love… The mere fact that this thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth. But this truth was made known to people who considered that a community could only be kept together if some of them restrained others, and so it appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society.Illustration by Maurice Sendak for Tolstoy’s ‘Nikolenka’s Childhood.’ Click image for more.

He considers how political ideologies hijacked this basic law of love at various times in human history and tried to replace it with a law of violent submission:


This truth was made known to people who considered that a community could only be kept together if some of them restrained others, and so it appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society… The dissemination of the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth — that his life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis, which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man — this truth, in order to force a way to man’s consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth.

[…]

The recognition that love represents the highest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was so interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted it, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that this highest morality was only applicable to private life — for home use, as it were — but that in public life all forms of violence — such as imprisonment, executions, and wars — might be used for the protection of the majority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were diametrically opposed to any vestige of love. And though common sense indicated that if some men claim to decide who is to be subjected to violence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these men to whom violence is applied may, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion with regard to those who have employed violence to them, and though the great religious teachers … foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have constantly drawn attention to the one invariable condition of love (namely, the enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds without resisting evil by evil) people continued — regardless of all that leads man forward — to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.Illustration by Maurice Sendak for Tolstoy’s ‘Nikolenka’s Childhood.’ Click image for more.

He distills this idea to one “old and simple truth”:


It is natural for men to help and to love one another, but not to torture and to kill one another.

In addition to the false interpretations of religion, Tolstoy takes equal issue with scientific reductionism — something that undoubtedly felt like a great threat at the dawn of the twentieth century, when science was just beginning to break down the material universe into its basic atomic units, a discovery that many feared might be reduced to the hollowing belief that a human being is nothing more than physical “stuff.” Both science and religion, Tolstoy argues, could result in dangerous dogma that blinds us to the basic law of love, if taken at face value and stripped of nuance — the danger of, as he puts it, “scientific superstition replacing the religious one”:


But by the term “scientific” is understood just what was formerly understood by the term “religious”: just as formerly everything called “religious” was held to be unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that is called “scientific” is held to be unquestionable… The unfortunate majority of men bound to toil is so dazzled by the pomp with which these “scientific truths” are presented, that under this new influence it accepts these scientific stupidities for holy truth, just as it formerly accepted the pseudo-religious justifications.

(How easy it is even today for laypeople to be “dazzled by the pomp” of questionable science journalism that prioritizes clickbait sensationalism — something else about which Tolstoy held passionate, prescient opinions — over clarity and rigor.)

He returns to the central point, affirming Gandhi’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance:


Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you too have the only method of saving your people from enslavement… Love, and forcible resistance to evil-doers, involve such a mutual contradiction as to destroy utterly the whole sense and meaning of the conception of love.

Considering the British colonization of India, Tolstoy marvels at how “a commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions” and argues that this was only made possible by people, both the oppressors and the oppressed, failing to contact “the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.” He writes:


As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence — as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.

Reflecting on the process of reawakening to that “eternal law,” Tolstoy offers a developmental metaphor:


What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is like what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to adolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses what had hitherto guided his life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard suitable to his age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares, distractions, and stupefactions to divert his attention from the misery and senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time.

When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has outgrown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity. I believe that such a time has now arrived — not in the sense that it has come in the year 1908, but that the inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and the solution will evidently not be favorable to the outlived law of violence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from remote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the nature of man.

But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.

To save a sinking ship it is necessary to throw overboard the ballast, which though it may once have been needed would now cause the ship to sink.

Sensing that global tensions were brewing, Tolstoy added the prescient admonition that “in our time all these things must be cleared away in order that mankind may escape from self-inflicted calamities that have reached an extreme intensity.” World War I broke out less than five years later. One of humanity’s grimmest self-inflicted calamities offered evidence, as modern wars do, that we still have a long way to go before reaching that return to the basic nature of love Tolstoy envisioned — which is why Tolstoy’s closing words to Gandhi ring with amplified urgency today:


What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities with innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and books, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed art — but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions — the truth that for our life one law is valid — the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is one and the same in all the great religions of the world.

(Twelve years earlier, Tolstoy found far more than “childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities” in art in his sublime essay on the “emotional infectiousness” of art.)Illustration by Maurice Sendak for ‘Open House for Butterflies’ by Ruth Krauss. Click image for more.

Writing to Gandhi again on September 7, 1910 — eight weeks before he took his final breath — Tolstoy revisited the subject with even more heartfelt conviction:


The longer I live — especially now when I clearly feel the approach of death — the more I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else, and what in my opinion is of immense importance, namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force, which really simply means the doctrine of the law of love unperverted by sophistries. Love, or in other words the striving of men’s souls towards unity and the submissive behavior to one another that results therefrom, represents the highest and indeed the only law of life, as every man knows and feels in the depths of his heart (and as we see most clearly in children), and knows until he becomes involved in the lying net of worldly thoughts… Any employment of force is incompatible with love.

A Letter to a Hindu is well worth a read in its entirety, and it’s available as a free download. Complement it with Tolstoy on finding meaning in a meaningless world, his timeless Calendar of Wisdom, and a rare recording of the author reading from it shortly before his death, then revisit another extraordinary exchange of Eastern and Western ideas in Einstein and Tagore’s 1930 conversation about Truth and Beauty.

Lopez, Donald S. The Scientific Buddha | Gautama Buddha | Karma

Lopez, Donald S. The Scientific Buddha | Gautama Buddha | Karma

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The Scientific Buddha: His Short and Happy Life

by 

Donald S. Lopez Jr.

 3.84  ·   Rating details ·  49 ratings  ·  12 reviews

This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure.

In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a potent challenge, even to our modern world. (less)

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Hardcover, 168 pages

Published September 25th 2012 by Yale University Press

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0300159129 (ISBN13: 9780300159127)

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Apr 15, 2015Nick rated it really liked it

Shelves: buddhism-meditation

This is a follow up Lopez's earlier book "Buddhism and Science". Recommend reading that first for a fuller picture of the Scientific Buddha premise. This book is a push back against a modern conception of the Buddha's teaching as the only religion compatible with science. Statements about the compatibility of Buddhism and science go back to at least to the 1860s. But, "it is clear that the Buddhism that is compatible with science must jettison much of what Buddhism has been, and is, in order to claim that compatibility."

After the introduction, part two describes some of the history of how Buddhism was received by the West. For example, some thought the Buddha a Black African due to the the hair style on statues. Later, William Erskine (1773-1852) compared Buddha to Epicurus. This is around the time the Buddha begin to be seen as a man rather than a god. This demythologizing and humanizing phase was an important step toward scientific acceptance. Also important, scholars began to be able to read the source texts rather than simply judge based on what they saw. Lopez also points out several influential modern texts and reformers.

Part three presents an overview of Buddhist philosophy and how the central tenet of karma is at odds with natural selection. Next, an interlude considers the place of mediation. Lastly, part four "The Death of the Scientific Buddha" wraps up the story of the Scientific Buddha as an idea born in the nineteenth century that is a "pale reflection of the Buddha born in Asia". While science was once used by Christian missionaries against Buddhism, over time Buddhism has gained more scientific support. It is the translation of meditation states into scientific data that is key, but also so far rather inconclusive.

Lopez's gloss of Buddhist philosophy can certainly be picked at, and ideally better cited. I would rather Lopez focused on the more historically relevant Nikaya Buddhism. I largely agree that often how Buddhism is presented as science compatible is dubious. Still there are a range of reasons Buddhism is seen as compatible with science and Lopez hardly touches on many of them. Of course there will be some clash since Buddhism is basically pre-scientific. But, myths still have power and meaning. And what is considered science has changed over time. "If an ancient religion like Buddhism has anything to offer science, it is not in the facile confirmation of its findings." You can skip this one unless you have interest in the development of Buddhist modernism. Just read a summary article here:
http://www.tricycle.com/special-secti... (less)

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Dec 13, 2018Khang Diep rated it really liked it

Shelves: social-science

This book is not what I expected to find but the history and the author's writing style got me hooked. For a while, I had fallen into the conviction that Buddhism is a Science, and that the Buddha was a Natural Philosopher - or what we used to call scientists. Well, this book challenged that very perspective, in which I naively picked up the book thinking it will confirm my own bias. The narrative that Buddhism is a Science was first introduced to the West by Buddhist elites in the 19th century as a counter-claim from Christianity's attacks on Buddhism. European missionaries asserted that science is what powers "Western civilization" - a reason for conversion - something which Buddhism lacks. Later on, as Western Orientalists learned more about Buddhism, they portrayed it as a scientific religion due to its assymetric nature with Christianity. Buddhism has no creator, it uses reason instead of faith, philosophy instead of dogma, meditation instead of prayer, and the Buddha is a human instead of a divine power. Despite all of that, equating Buddhism with Science is not only ignorant but also misleading. Buddhism as a Science is merely one perspective on a vast and ancient tradition. Ironically, that perspective was engrained by Christianity, therefore it's also a product of colonialism. Buddhism might win the contest of "which religion is the most compatible with Science", thanks largely to the Buddhist elites and Western Orientalists from the 19th century. However, it should not be the only religion that's compatible with science. It all depends on how we choose to view religion and science, for each has their own place. Whereas one can use the similarities between Buddhism and Science to further enhance one's attitude and understanding to both disciplines, one should refrain from equating both as a singular entity. One should aim to pursue both religion and science and do not take side. Like Einstein had said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". (less)

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Nov 22, 2020Carlos rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, religion-mythology

Lopez seeks to dispel the myth of the correspondence of Buddhism with any particular scientific theory, whether in neuroscience or quantum physics. He goes back to the beginning of this myth, to the 1800s of the Orientalists, and chronicles how it evolved out of colonialism and Christian missionary’s philosophical attacks on Buddhism. He similarly shows the respectability obtained for Buddhism in the West by claiming it to concord with the latest science and how that game has sometimes been played by Buddhist leaders themselves. Lopez analyzes how the Buddhist doctrine of karma was read into Darwin’s theory of evolution and shows how shoehorned that comparison was. He then goes on to survey the wildly varied Buddhist practices that have been lumped under “meditation” in the West, and argues for a better understanding of what neuroscience can and cannot tell us about this practices. Lastly, he makes the argument for recognizing the value of the Buddhist insights on the human mind regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the latest science. (less)

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Feb 03, 2018Bodhidasa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: buddhist

This series of expertly researched and argued essays has broadened my understanding of the Wellness Proliferation. This slow building movement to remove all that was 'unscientific' from the Buddha's biography and champion him as almost the template of a scientist began in the late 18th century. The public perception of the Buddha, at least among many ill-informed western minds, is that he jjst helped people feel better by removing stress. Donald Lopez argues that this is not, in fact, the historical Buddha but a new hybrid figure invented by those who were uncomfortable with certain truths that were not in line with the new scientific rationalism. A fascinating read. (less)

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Dec 30, 2015P. Es rated it really liked it

Shelves: hidden-history-convergences, selfrealizationrevised

Very enlightening read, and one I would share. I know the author doesn't intend that i leave the book feeling blanket skeptical of the value of Buddhism for more than a nice set of notions with no truth claim value that lead me to ethical, orthoprax behavior - and not simply (as he probably intended with the mind he may or may not 'have'...;-) ), cautious when engaging representations of "modern buddhisms" - but that's how I left it.
A quick thought (since I would say more about the book but only a bit now) the only substantial comparison he makes between Buddhism and science to other "religion and science" conversations is a quick superficial quip about how the interaction between Christianity and science, specifically, has been represented as one of conflict; science was born in the West precisely because of Biblical and Christian presuppositions, and the Church was long a handmaid of science as it grew - however much over time people came to - as Lopez says - *present* the relationship as one of conflict. There were other opportunities for comparison to be made in the social sciences and others; to the degree manuscript evidence matters for historical, empirical questions about "what X-teacher really taught" to then think about 'scientifically' - it matters that most of the Gospels (the main sources of "what Jesus really taught"), are evidenced within one lifetime of Jesus' death [and Resurrection, etc - so far as is claimed by Christ and by extension, Christianity]. The same can't be said of the teachings of Buddha, which vastly post-date the life of the Buddha. That does not mean anything for the truth claim value of Jesus' teachings or The Buddha or the antiquity of the sources relied on to account their teachings, but when comparing "X-religion and science" - especially where Christian critics of Buddhism early on were responsible for the birth of the "scientific Buddha" - actual comparison matters. (less)

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Oct 31, 2016Ben rated it liked it

Shelves: buddhism

I picked this book up because I'd noticed I was becoming slightly annoyed at the recent and increasing proliferation of 'mindfulness', and I wanted to read what a Buddhist expert might have to say about that.

Lopez starts from the beginning. He briefly traces the history of the West's encounters and interaction with Buddhism, from early utter misunderstanding to the invention of, as Lopez calls it, the 'Scientific Buddha', the West's idea of who the Buddha was, what he stood for and what he taught.

The Buddha of Asian tradition, Lopez shows, is not so merely human, not so scientific. There are conveniently ignored supernatural powers and associations, which place Buddhism more in-line with what we think of as religion, not science. But the Scientific Buddha, with attendant mindfulness and focus on the relief of stress (not a Buddhist preoccupation!), now nearly 200 years old, has come to supplant the Buddha of the Asian tradition in the West - and even, to some extent, in the East.

There's a good 'primer' on Buddhist meditation here, and contained in chapter 2 is one of the the clearest articulations of the Buddha's dharma I've ever read (Lopez's knows his Buddhism and can express it clearly, as previously shown in his illuminating introductions to Penguin's collection, Buddhist Scriptures, edited by Lopez). Yet the comparisons for compatibility with science aren't very enlightening and the conclusions drawn are hesitant and limited, making this a modest contribution. But it has confirmed, for me, my previous convictions that mindfulness, as it has come to be known in the West today, bears very little resemble to proper Buddhism, and I think that's an important thing for people to know. (less)

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Oct 11, 2014Peter rated it liked it

The first part detailing the history of the interaction between the Westerners and Buddhism is quite interesting, as his explanations of basic concepts of karma and meditation. His thesis though -- that the push to make Buddhism more palatable to science and to Westerners over the past 200 years (e.g. trying to show how karma resonates with evolution, or using mindfulness meditation as a self-help technique) distorts the historical Buddha and traditional teachings of Buddhism -- seems to go too far.

Though he states that it "is not the role of the scholar to protect, preserve, and defend the religion that he or she studies," (p. 78), he seems to be doing just that. Though there will always be orthodox or fundamentalist (I'm not equating the two) traditions, it is in the nature of all religions and philosophies and their adherents and practitioners to evolve. Of course, I think he can point out where new innovations might be in conflict with traditional doctrines, but at times, his writing seems more polemical than historical.

But this demonstrates that there are several Buddhisms, not one. Just as there are various forms of Christianities and other religious traditions.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting read. As always when I read non-fiction books, I would have preferred more footnotes. (less)

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Apr 29, 2014S. Kumar rated it did not like it

An exercise in illogic resulting from a forced attempt to connect superficial knowledge of the subject (both Buddhism and Science). Still useful if you are interested in developing an understanding of how misplaced intent can lead us astray. Conclusions drawn in the book are as valid as the theory of African origin of Buddhism.

Looking for a simple introduction to Buddhism - try What Makes You Not a Buddhist. Looking for a simple introduction to Quantum Mechanics - try Quantum Enigma. (less)

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Apr 26, 2013Graham rated it it was amazing

Make sure you read Lopez with a playful grin on your face, this is fun history with a point to make. It's pleasurable to see him craft such a truly original argument while telling the story of our "Scientific Buddha". This is a true cultural critique that crosses swords with both scientists and Buddhists, both historians and practitioners. Lopez gives us cause to give more serious attention to reconsidering how we approach colonials, Buddhisms (of all times and places), and the westerners who write about them; not forgetting our place in it all. (less)

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Mar 23, 2014Josh rated it it was amazing

Lopez right on point, as he tends to be. A very sharp cultural critique sure to stir up emotions in those who view Buddhism as a refuge from the choice between religion and science. Dr. Lopez' prose makes for another very captivating read, and while his arguments are sure to challenge many, his extensive knowledge on history and doctrine also provides a very thorough primer into Buddhism(s) as they exist textually and culturally. (less)

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