THE END OF SCIENCE?

Recently someone who reads my page sent me this really interesting article by a guy named John Horgan all about why he cannot accept Buddhism. The article exists in two places on the web, so go and check it out for yourself.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2078486/

http://www.johnhorgan.org/work11.htm

He makes a very convincing case. In fact, I have far more respect for Horgan (whose book The End of Science I quite enjoyed a few years ago) than for most of the people out there supposedly speaking on behalf of Buddhism. It is, in fact, due to the efforts of some of America's best loved "Buddhists" that Horgan has encountered a confused philosophy that, though it proudly labels itself as "Buddhism," is nothing of the sort. The saddest thing, though, is that a huge number of those who call themselves "Buddhists" these days really do believe exactly the kind of nonsense Horgan justifiably finds impossible to accept.

Horgan approaches Buddhism the way most people approach a religion, they want answers. They want something which will solve all their troubles and which will be phrased in an easy to understand way that they can readily accept. Something which can be explained, represented symbolically. And most of the so-called "Buddhist teachers" out there these days are all too happy to provide these kinds of answers. Horgan, being a scientist, does not shirk from examining the matter for himself. He attended a Buddhist mediation class for four years (or four years ago, he's a little vague there). He gave it a try and found Buddhism lacking. Fair enough.

Being a scientist, Horgan wants his answers quantifiable. He needs hard evidence, statistical proof, objective verification. He wants to be convinced. He wants the answer to come from some source outside himself. He wants to stand in one place and look at the answer which exists apart from the person who looks at it.

Unfortunately, Buddhism does not offer this. The insights to be found through long practice of Zazen cannot in any way be empirically and objectively measured, quantified, verified or proven. One discovers what life really is for himself or herself and expresses that in his or her own unique fashion. It is not the objective of Buddhist teachers to proselytize, to convert or even to attempt to convince others of the rightness of their insights. If you like what you hear, fine. If not, also fine. Buddhist teaching is like art in this way. Does the Mona Lisa convince you of anything? Can it be said to be successful or not?

Horgan says that Buddhism "cannot be reconciled with science or, more generally, with modern humanistic values. " He could not be more mistaken. But I'm not surprised he's come to such a conclusion since most of what's presented these days as "Buddhism" really cannot be reconciled with science or humanism. Real Buddhism is intensely humanistic.

Horgan thinks Buddhism is not scientific or humanistic because of the metaphysical and supernatural elements he sees in it. It's a shame, but a whole load of supernatural malarkey has crept into Buddhism and it really doesn't belong there. Horgan takes issue with the ideas of karma and reincarnation as well as the law of moral cause and effect as they've been presented to him saying they imply "some cosmic judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with rebirth as a cockroach or as a saintly lama" (I love that line). I've already gone on at length about reincarnation (click here to read the article), so I won't bore you with that one again. Suffice it to say that real Buddhism does not accept the idea of reincarnation. Never did. Never will.

So what about karma and the law of moral cause and effect? Karma literally means "action." Action always produces results and so the word karma is often misunderstood as referring only to the results of our actions, not the actions themselves. In fact, action and its results are one and the same. Time, the thing which makes us see them as separate matters, is the illusion. Time is no more than a clever fiction we humans have invented to help organize stuff in our brains. The law of moral cause and effect does not imply any cosmic Santa Claus. We ourselves tally up our own naughtiness and niceness, though most of us are so absolutely unaware of this process we have a hard time believing in it even as we are doing it. But observe your life clearly and you will need no more convincing of the reality of moral cause and effect than you'd need to be convinced that your hand was burned after you used it to grab a red hot poker. A warning here, though. You have to learn to see through your own carefully built up illusions before this can become apparent and that takes years of hard pratice.

Horgan then goes on to say that the effects of meditation (Zazen) often touted by Buddhists are unquantifiable, that, according to studies, Zazen is no better for your physical and mental condition than just plain sitting down. All I have to offer here is my own personal experience, make of it what you will. But I've done both and I can tell you there is an astronomical difference between doing Zazen and just lounging around in an easy chair. If you're interested in quantifying it for yourself, try both and see.

Horgan then takes issue with the Buddhist idea of non-self or "anatta" ("anatman" in Sankrit). He relates it to the scientific theory of "emergent phenomena." I don't know much about emergent phenomena. I will say, though, that "non-self" is not a theory arrived at by thinking about the problem, but a fact described by those who have experienced it for themselves. Ironic, isn't it, that I have to say "non-self" is experienced "for themselves?" But language leaves me no other choice. This is a limitation of language and not of the experience itself. What we usually label as "self" is actually the total absence of self. Science seeks only those things which can be readily represented symbolically and, unfortunately (again) "non-self" cannot be represented symbolically any more than the word "flower" can produce pollen. One can discover for oneself the reality of "non-self" after which it becomes impossible ever to accept the illusion of self again. Clear as mud, huh? Sorry about that. But sometimes that's the way things is.

Horgan next raises a far more important point; that the realization of non-self does not automatically guarantee a person becomes a "saintly boddhisttva brimming with love and compassion." Too true! And he's absolutely right in citing Chogyam Trungpa as a perfect example of this. I could add Trunpa's even more obnoxious successor Orzel Tensin who knowingly infected a number of people with HIV believing that his spiritual status somehow made him pure and that his victims would therefore be unaffected. There's a whole host of others that could go on that list.

The problem here is the widespread belief -- even among so-called "Buddhists" -- that, as Horgan puts it, "enlightenment makes you morally infallible -- like the pope, but more so." I don't blame Horgan for taking issue with this idea. It's yet another in a seemingly inexhaustible list of truly stupid ideas that are all too often presented as "Buddhism." Enlightenment does not make anyone morally infallible. Forget it. It only makes you very clearly aware when you do fail morally and makes it impossible to deceive yourself with the excuse that you didn't know any better as most of us do. You are still fully capable of acting like a complete and utter butthead, and like everyone else you will suffer the consequences of such behavior. Nishijima is fond of quoting a Buddhist master who, when asked what the point of Buddhism was, answered, "Just do good and avoid doing bad." When the questioner complained that even a three year old child could have told him that, the master said, "It's easy enough for a three year old child to say, but even an old man of eighty (the master's age at the time) has difficulty practicing it."

Moving on from what he sees as the implications of the idea of non-self, Horgan then takes issue with the idea that "detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation" and that "life is a problem that can be solved, a cul-de-sac that ... should be escaped." He sites Gautama Buddha's leaving behind of his wife and baby to pursue a life of meditation as an example of a man escaping life. Lots of people hate this episode in Buddha's life. I've had grave reservations about it myself. But this is just one example. Many other Buddhist masters have chosen to stay with wives and families. The fact is, we can never really know Gautama's personal situation completely, so it's foolish to make judgments. We do know from historical records that this was not a decision which Gautama took lightly at all. And I, for one, am very glad he made that decision. Had he chosen to stay at home and be a good dad, the whole philosophy of Buddhism might never have emerged. And don't forget, his family was very well off and Gautama's son and even his wife eventually entered the Buddhist order.

It's really sad, though, that far too many so-called "Buddhists" espouse the ridiculous notion that the goal of Buddhism is to become aloof and detached from ordinary life. Ken Wilber, who isn't quoted in this article but whose name comes up in some of Horgan's other articles on Buddhism, is a major proponent of this stupidity. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Buddhism is emphatically not about running away from the world into some beautiful cosmic Lala Land where nothing matters and nothing can ever bother you again. It's about seeing your real troubles, your real trials, all your real difficulties and real joys in your ordinary life as they actually are without all the overblown drama we usually ladle on top of them. All that mucky, icky, sticky emotionalism people trumpet as being "really human" just gets in the way of life. It's a way of escaping reality, not confronting it.

Finally, Horgan concludes that, "all religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit," while "science tell us that we are incidental, accidental." "This is not a comforting viewpoint," he says, "but science, unlike religion, seeks the truth regardless of how it makes us feel." He says that Buddhism is "not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective." All this would be true if Buddhism were a religion. In fact, it's perfectly true of the kind of religious "Buddhism" Horgan takes issue with in his article. But Buddhism is not a religion.

Buddhism has no arguments with science.The scientific view is perfectly true as far as it goes. But let's say you're walking down a deserted street at ten o'clock one winter's night. You come across a girl, about ten years old, sitting near the curb shivering because she has no coat and crying her eyes out. Now you could explain that scene in terms of emergent phenomena, or in terms of chemical reactions taking place within the body of a highly developed animal, or in terms of sociological theory. But is that really all there is to it? Is that the Truth of the matter? Do our words and symbols really encompass all that life really is? When you can explain something even extremely thoroughly and with pinpoint accuracy, have you really understood it? Lived it? And if this is clear in terms of the little scene I described above, how can we be so bold as to say that something as big as the whole universe is utterly without meaning? How, in fact, can we say so when we are confronted face to face with all of that meaning every single second of every single day?

Science is all well and good, no true Buddhist would ever argue with its conclusions and explanations so long as they were sound ones. But scientists are too prone to believe that not only can all things be explained empirically and represented symbolically -- which may be true, though I have doubts -- but that those explanations are an adequate basis by which human beings can live their lives. You can choose to explain your life and to try to live within your explanations, or you can choose to live your life as it is. Buddhism chooses the latter alternative.

You could argue that the meaning we perceive is just a chemical reaction within our brains, another emergent phenomenon. OK, I'd say, you're probably right. In terms of matter alone, this explanation works. And if you're satisfied with explanations like that, fine. I find them lacking.

The universe is more than just facts, more, even, than the sum of all the facts that make it up. The universe is meaningful. The universe is meaning -- as well as matter. The two are not different. Matter is meaning. To me, this is so apparent as to be absolutely undeniable.

BACK TO TOP PAGE