The Lama and the Neuroscience Community
I've been a fan of Wired magazine for many years now. The Jan 2006 issue has an interesting article about the appearance of the Dalai Lama at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference. Apparently some of the scientists were a bit unhappy about his attendence, because, like, what does he know about neuroscience? Mind you a lot of the people who are complaining about him are Chinese. Say no more.
Apparently scientists are skeptical about the findings that compassion is a skill that could be learned. Well duh! Those of us who have been paying attention to loving kindness and meditating on it for any length of time have no doubt. And this is not just a religious belief, its the result of concentrated efforts over time. For the record I have a degree in Chemistry and think I understand the scientific method pretty well.
Actually this wooing of scientists, this seeking to justify Dharma through science, is IMHO a waste of time. The Dharma is something to be experienced for oneself. Scientists, like the guy in the Wired story, who have any kind of personal involvement in their own experiments are held to be suspect. But there's no benefit to standing and watching someone else meditate. It is ehipassiko - come and see for yourself. I like science, read popular science stuff still, and think it worthwhile to pursue scientific research. But while scientists can say a lot about the appearance of gamma wave oscillations in brain-wave patterns, that doesn't tell you anything about compassion. And even if it did, so what. The easiest way to confirm it is to meditate, and hard-core scientists are unwilling to do so because they think it would compromise their integrity. Like everything else in the world, the intergrity of scientists is an appearance, an illusion, like a soap bubble...
Wired
Apparently scientists are skeptical about the findings that compassion is a skill that could be learned. Well duh! Those of us who have been paying attention to loving kindness and meditating on it for any length of time have no doubt. And this is not just a religious belief, its the result of concentrated efforts over time. For the record I have a degree in Chemistry and think I understand the scientific method pretty well.
Actually this wooing of scientists, this seeking to justify Dharma through science, is IMHO a waste of time. The Dharma is something to be experienced for oneself. Scientists, like the guy in the Wired story, who have any kind of personal involvement in their own experiments are held to be suspect. But there's no benefit to standing and watching someone else meditate. It is ehipassiko - come and see for yourself. I like science, read popular science stuff still, and think it worthwhile to pursue scientific research. But while scientists can say a lot about the appearance of gamma wave oscillations in brain-wave patterns, that doesn't tell you anything about compassion. And even if it did, so what. The easiest way to confirm it is to meditate, and hard-core scientists are unwilling to do so because they think it would compromise their integrity. Like everything else in the world, the intergrity of scientists is an appearance, an illusion, like a soap bubble...
Wired
posted by Jayarava @ 10:01 am
2 Comments:
At 9:23 pm GMT,
Anonymous said…
I really liked your commentary on this. This topic has been cropping up everywhere but yeah, do it and you'll know. Ancient humans figured out a lot of stuff this way. Much of it still holds true, even in cases where it is "provable".
At 8:38 am GMT,
Jayarava said…
I run hot and cold on the Buddhism and Science theme - some days I think yeah we're cool because science backs up what we're saying unlike those poor theists who lok more stupid every day; and other days I think bloody scients who think they know everything but fail to look at the most obvious things, why should we care whether they endorse what we do!
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