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Science and Buddhism |
Khoa Học và Phật GiáoLiễu Pháp trích dịch |
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Following are quotations from a number of scientists and famous authors on Science and Buddhism: |
Sau đây là những lời trích dẫn của một số khoa học gia và tác giả nỗi tiếng viết về Khoa học và Phật giáo: |
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ALBERT EINSTEIN (Twentieth Centuty most famous scientist): |
(Khoa học gia nỗi tiếng nhất thế kỹ thứ 20) |
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" If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism." |
" Nếu có một tôn giáo nào đương đầu được với những nhu cầu khoa học tân tiến th́ đó là Phật giáo." |
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SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (Author
of" The Light of |
(Tác giả cuốn thơ" Ánh Sáng Á Châu) |
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" I have often said, and shall say again and again, that between Buddhism and modern Science there exists a close intellectual bond." |
" Tôi thường nói, và tôi sẽ c̣n nói măi, là giữa Phật giáo và Khoa học tân tiến có một mối liên hệ trí thức mật thiết." |
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BERTRAND RUSSELL (Famous philosopher and mathematician): |
(Nhà toán học và triết gia nỗi tiếng) |
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" Buddhism is a combination of both speculative and scientific philosophy. It advocates the Scientific Method and pursues that to a finality that may be called rationalistic... It takes up where Science cannot lead because of the limitations of the physical instruments." |
" Phật giáo là tổng hợp của cả hai triết lư suy quán và khoa học. Phật giáo biện hộ cho phương pháp khoa học và đeo đuổi phương pháp này đến một cứu cánh có thể được gọi là thuần lư...Phật giáo c̣n đi xa hơn khoa học đến những phạm vi mà khoa học không thể đến được v́ bị giới hạn bởi những dụng cụ vật chất." |
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RADHAKRISHNAN, Ph. D. |
(Tiến sĩ RADHAKRISKNAN) |
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" If Buddhism appealed to the modern mind, it was because it was scientific, empirical and not based on any dogma." |
" Nếu Đạo Phật hấp dẫn đối với trí óc tân tiến, đó là v́ Đạo Phật có tinh thần khoa học, thực nghiệm và không dựa vào bất cứ giáo điều nào." |
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GRAHAM HOWE, Ph. D. (Famous British psychiatrist) |
(Tiến sĩ phân tâm học nỗi tiếng nước Anh) |
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" To read a little Buddhism is a realize that the Buddhists knew, 2500 years ago, far more about modern problems of psychology than they have been given credit for. They studied these problems long ago and found the answers also. We are now rediscovering the ancient wisdom of the East." |
"Đọc một ít về Phật giáo là nhận thức được rằng, 2500 năm trước, Phật giáo đă biết về những vấn đề tâm lư hiện đại sâu xa nhiều hơn là chúng ta tưởng. Họ nghiên cứu những vấn đề này đă từ lâu lắm và đă t́m ra giải đáp cho các vấn đề đó nữa. Ngày nay chúng ta đang khám phá lại trí tuệ thông thái cổ xưa của Đông Phương." |
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H.G.WELLS (Famous scientist and historian): |
(Nhà khoa học và sử gia nỗi tiếng) |
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" Over great areas of the world, Buddhism still survives. It is possible that in contact with western science, and inspired by the spirit of history, the original teaching of Gotama, revived and purified, may yet play a large part in the direction of human destiny." |
" Trên những vùng rộng lớn của thế giới, Đạo Phật vẫn tồn tại. Khi tiếp xúc với khoa học tây phương và được hứng khởi bởi tinh thần sử học, giáo pháp nguyên thủy của Ngài GOTAMA được sống động và trong sáng trở lại, có thể sẽ đóng vai tṛ lớn trong vận mệnh của nhân loại." |
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KARL GUSTAV JUNG (The world's
leading psychologist from |
(Nhà tâm lư học hàng
đầu thế giới, từ |
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" As a student of comparative religions, I believe that Buddhism is the most perfect one that the world has ever seen. The philosophy of the Buddha, the theory of Evolution and the law of Karma were far superior to any other creed." |
" Là một người nghiên cứu những tôn giáo đáng kể, tôi tin rằng Phật giáo là tôn giáo hoàn hăo nhất mà thế giới từng thấy. Triết lư của Đức Phật với lư Duyên sinh và luật Hành nghiệp thật là cao siêu hơn hết thảy mọi tôn giáo khác." |
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Bhikkhu ANOMA MAHINDA |
(Tỳ Kheo ANOMA MAHINDA) |
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" Buddha taught facts of nature, twenty five centuries ago, which Western scientists have only discovered in the last decade. The Dhamma is the greatest living force in the world today which can bring among men and nations." |
" Đức Phật đă giảng dạy những dữ kiện thực tế của thiên nhiên hai mươi lăm thế kỷ trước, những điều mà các nhà khoa học chỉ mới trong thập niên vừa qua. Phật pháp là sinh lực mạnh mẽ nhất có thể mang lại cho con người và các quốc gia trong thế giới ngày nay." |
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THOMAS HUXLEY (Famous British scientist): |
(Khoa học gia nỗi tiếng người Anh) |
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" Buddhism is a system which knows no God in the Western sense, which denies a soul to man and counts the belief in immortality a blunder, which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice, which bids men to look to nothing but their own effort for salvation, which in its original purity knew nothing of the vows of obedience and never sought the aid of secular arm, yet spread over a considerable portion of the world with marvelous rapidity and is still the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind." |
" Đạo Phật là một hệ thống tư tưởng không chấp nhận Thượng đế theo nghĩa của Tây phương, phủ nhận con người có linh hồn và sự tin tưởng sai lầm vào trường sinh bất tử, cho rằng cầu nguyện cúng tế chẳng có hiệu quả ǵ, và trong sự trong sạch nguyên thủy chẳng thệ nguyện trung thành và t́m đến với sự giúp đở nào của tha lực trên đời. Tuy vậy Đạo Phật đă được phổ biến một cách mau lẹ trên một phần rộng lớn đáng kể của thế giới và đang là tôn giáo chế ngự phần lớn nhân loại." |
II . Reflections:
With the above quotations from the famous contemporary scientists and authors, we see clearly the limitation of Science and the respect for the Buddha’s Teaching. We all know that Science has made important discoveries, has been and will be helpful for humankind in many ways . Science and Technology is one of the main motivations which change rapidly the world we live in, specially in recent decades. The progress of Science has changed the way human beings live, from medical treatment, education, communication, entertainment to transportation. Human beings in many thousands of years ago walked 5km/hour, rode horses 15km/hour, traveled by train about 150km/hour, then by jet airplane at 5000km/hour and in the last decade, spaceships had exceeded 30000km/hour. In communication, the progress of the computer science has gone beyond everyone ‘s imagination and still promised many more progresses in a very near future. A global communication system has been planned and will communicate 50 million words per second and about 150,000 conversations at the same time in a very fine optical cable !
Science is so useful, no one would deny the value of science. However, only the materialist does not know how to evaluate science correctly without understanding its limitations. Materialism (on which the Marxist theory is formed) is based on some scientific principles, argued that physical matter is the only reality and that mind is the product of physical matter. In contradiction, the other extremists, people of the school of idealism said that the mind is the only reality, that what we see, hear, taste .. may be nothing but the properties which the mind projects onto reality. Nowadays, no one thinks that the mind and object are two distinct realities which exist independently from one another. Moreover, Buddha taught selflessness, the absence of an essential self, the interdependence of all things (Avatamsaka sutta), the Evolution Theory, the realization that "one is all and all is one "Ẩ Needless to say, both extremists do not amount to anything and we have seen the end of the Marxism in recent years (In Cuba, China, Vietnam there are communist regimes, but Marxism is no longer praised as before). As science has gone in depth to more discoveries in the areas of quantum physics, quantum electrodynamics, scientists realize that there are more difficult questions to be answered . Science has three phases of its intellectual process: classification, analysis and explanation. Classification is to recognize the similar and different characteristics , analysis is to dissect the formations and explanation is to understand the formation process and the applied principle. Classification , analysis and explanation in this way are no longer accurate when applying to psychology. Since the psychological factors are not tangible, the scientific knowledge is really limited when discussing on how the Mind works and the relationship between the Body and the Mind . We have seen the physicians using traditional methods such as "quantum healing ", " Mind/Body medicine", using ancient philosophies from the East, such as the Vedanta (Dr. Deepak Chopra ‘s practice).
The famous scientists, such as Albert Einstein, have recognized the contribution of Buddha ‘s teaching to the knowledge of human life. In addition to the Dependent Origination (law of conditionality) and Karma teachings, Buddha taught Abhidhamma (Buddhist Psychology held in the highest esteem in Theravada tradition) and Vijnanavada teachings (used more in Mahayana tradition). These teachings have explained many psychological areas that Science has not touched, such as the classification of Consciousness (or Mind, Citta in Pali), the relationship between Mind and Body, the Five Aggregates (corporeality or matter, feeling, perception, volitional activities and consciousness). The Buddhists understand that the Dhamma investigation is necessary but it alone cannot purify their mind from defilement, will not bring wisdom. Buddhism is scientific and empirical because we can prove the theory we learnt by our experience in practicing. The Buddhist faith is not the same as faith in other religions, it is based and built by the experience gained in the practice. The Four Noble Truths point out the causes of suffering and show that we must follow the Eightfold Path, practice Morality (Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood), Meditation (Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration) and Wisdom (Right Understanding , Right Thought) to deliver ourselves from Suffering.
As indicated above, Science concentrates on analysis process. One of the most important differences between East and West is that West investigates phenomena with an analytical approach while East is more with the synthesis. Analyzing more and more with a conventional and dual mind will get stuck at some point and will not find the true nature of the reality. The real distinction of the Buddha’s teaching is that it shows us how to make effort to purify the mind, to go from forgetfulness to mindfulness, to contemplate on all phenomena to " paragate "- gone all the way to the other shore, to the awakened state (Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha is the mantra in the Heart sutta). The original Prajnaparamita sutta (prajnaparamita: perfect understanding) consisted of 8000 phrases, has been shortened considerably to the popular Heart sutta which can be condensed, under the influence of Tibetan tradition, to only one word, Mind. Is this a wonderful synthesis? Is mind the origin of all understanding?
It is expected that science will still have many more discoveries , especially in the area of mind and body, while Buddhism has had a system of psychology, Abhidhamma, which existed over 2500 years . We learn about mind or consciousness from Abhidhamma. Consciousness is the bare knowledge of a phenomena and the arising of consciousness is dependent upon conditions. There are six classes of consciousness: consciousness of forms, sounds, odors, tastes, bodily impressions and mental objects. We have eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc.Ẩand mind -consciousness is one whose arising depends on the mind and mind objects. We all know eye as the sense organ of eye-consciousness, ear as the sense organ of the ear-consciousness, etcẨ but is there a sense organ of the mind -consciousness ? What and where is this " sense organ " ? Is it the brain or the heart ? Discourses of Buddha did not indicate where it is, simply indicated that it is a physical property. " Where is the mind ? " is a big question to everyone. Perhaps each practitioner has to find the answer for this question by his/her practice .
Bikkhu Anoma Mahinda, the author of " The blue print of happiness ", wrote:
"Buddha taught facts of nature, 25 centuries ago, which Western scientists have only discovered in the last decade. The Dhamma is the greatest living force in the world today which can bring among men and the nations ."
Buddha ‘s teaching is a greatest living force because it is very scientific and practical, it does not deal with metaphysics; it teaches us how to develop the mind, to look to nothing but our own effort for the deliverance of suffering in ourselves and in the world.
Lieu Phap
(Revised 11/99)