my Buddhist blog

Hi Everybody,

Hope you are having a good Xmas, wherever you are. I just thought I'd use this little gap of time that boxing day provides to motor along with blog number 8. I'm really enjoying retracing this discussion in this way. With number 7 we left the story in the middle of chapter 2, and in the middle of the debate about science. I accept that it's not an easy debate, it takes a fair bit of concentration, but it seems to me to be a crucial one, because, as I say in the book, we don't practice Buddhism in a bubble. We practice in the midst of a world that is turbulent with new research in sociology and psychology that walks across very much the same ground as Buddhist teachings, namely helping us to understand what it is about our values and behaviour that enable us to live the most fulfilling and the most value-creating lives. So I would suggest, we gain in our understanding and appreciation of the ' modernity ' of Buddhist teachings, by spending a bit of time looking  sideways you might say, at some of these research findings. That basically is the argument of this particular blog.

In the last one I introduced a celebrated writer on science called Stephen Jay Gould and his closely argued view that Science and Religion essentially occupy quite different dimensions in our life. That's where I pick up the story now. ( page 29 )

' Stephen Jay Gould's analysis has long been accepted as the most authoritative statement, on what obviously remains a complex and controversial issue. But that having been said, I think we could certainly put up a case, at this time, that there is...not so much a flaw in Gould's analysis, that would be goingn too far...but a gap perhaps, a lacuna. And it has arisen mainly I think as a result of the sheer volume of research that has been carried out in this area over the past ten to fifteen years. Put at it's simplest, science still cannot tackle issues of fundamental faith and belief and spirituality, and frankly isn't particularly interrested in doing so when there is so much else to explore. However over the past couple of decades science has been immensely interested in observing and analysing what might be called the ' consequences ' of belief, namely our behaviour. What we do. How we live. What values we hold. How we handle relationships. How much compassion or altruism we show towards others. How we respond to problems and challenges. what makes us angry or sad or happy or despairing? The potential lines of inquiry are endless.

And it goes without saying that if we happen to have a strong religious or spiritual belief, then that will have a powerful effect on our behaviour. What we deeply hold to be true reveals itself in every aspect of our lives, from how we think and what we say, to the actions that we take in almost every circumstance. People as we know are quite commonly prepared to die for their beliefs, that is how far our beliefs can affect our behaviour.

So in this case there is undoubtedly a big overlap between science and religion, in the sense that behaviour, influenced by profound belief is of course infinitely accessible to observation and analysis by scientists, in all its infinitely varied and manifold forms.

So why is this important?

A quiet revolution
Well in a sense you could say that we have been living through a kind of revolution over the past 20 years or so, a quiet revolution you might say, since this kind of research may take some time to yield up its findings, and is rarely if ever the stuff of headlines. But over this time the social scientists have sought to explore and to understand in ever increasing detail, the motivations and the compulsions that drive human behaviour, and their effects on our sense of self, and on how we feel about our lives. The results have been sometimes astounding, sometimes predictable, but always interesting. With immense patience and care, and on a truly objective basis, sometimes with research projects that have run, and continue to run, for many years, these social scientists have begun to put together an understanding of the nature of human life and motivation that goes way beyond anything that might have been imagined even a few decades ago.

So here it seems to me, there is a wonderfully rich and meaningful overlap to be explored. Because with religion of course...and in this case it's Buddhism that we wish to put under the microscope...it is only meaningful when its values and principles and teachings become manifest in human behaviour, otherwise it's just a matter of words, just airy philosophy. One of the most profound things ever written about Shakyamuni for example, the first historically recorded Buddha, the seed from which this great tree of Buddhism has grown, who lived around 500BCE, is that the real significance, the real purpose of his mission in this world lay precisely in his ' behaviour ' as a human being; in what he did, at least as much as in what he said.

But the question I askled was why is this important?

And the answer I think is that it gives us this great opportunity which has never been around before. It goes without saying that Buddhism does not exist in a bubble. Buddhism is daily life, and its great strength is its claim to continuing relevance despite the vast changes that have gone on in our social circumstances, because fundamentally human nature hasn't changed. So we are immensely privileged. We can, essentially for the very first time, look at the complex understanding that Buddhism has evolved of human motivation and behaviour...in the context of the learning that is emerging from the formal studies carried out across the world by the social scientists. That in essence is the something more that this book is about, that journey of exploration and comparison. Looking in detail not simply at what Buddhism has to tell us about living a full and meaningful and creative life, but looking sideways at what sociology and psychology and neuroscience have to tell us as well, so that we can see where and how they relate to one another.

A dual track
So, for the past couple of years I have been exploring as much as I could handle of the social research that has gone on in this area in recent years, and the result has been surprising. There is no question in my mind but that fundamental ideas about the nature of human motivation and behaviour that Buddhism has been teaching for centuries, find the most interesting and stimulating echoes and parallels and amplifications, in the studies carried out by today's social scientists. So this book pursues whiat might be called a dual track.

It is indeed a serious, committed, admittedly personal account of Buddhism in today's world, as it is manifest and expressed in the daily lives of very ordinary people holding down a day job you might say, caring for their kids, watching the ball game on a Saturday afternoon, worrying about the mortgage or the tax bill or caring for an aged relative, or whatever. Activities that we are all involved in. Buddhism that is, very much in daily life. And about the qualities that we all seek in our lives such as a stronger and more consistent sense of well-being at the core of our life, that is not so easily dismantled by challenges and problems.

What I would like to do therefore is to take a number of issues that are central to the practice of Buddhism; issues such as compassion and altruism and gratitude for example, or creating meaningful relationships, the dilemma of suffering, how we deal with destructive emotions such as anger and greed, the complex matter of ethics and morality, and so on, and look at these issues both from the Nichiren Buddhist and from the scientific point of view.

These issues aren't by any means concerned with the margins of our life are they?Most of them indeed are profoundly life-changing. The kinds of things you might say that are of the greatest significance to all of us. Buddhism as you would expect has a great deal to say about how we might approach them in a way that creates the most value for our lives and for those around us.

And now modern science offers us this immensely supportive perspective.'

Ok that's enough I think for today. As I've mentioned I think I find it quite difficult to judge what is an appropriate slug of material each time. It depends on the nature of the argument at that particular point in the journey. But no doubt you will let me know if I'm way too long. Or too short.

With my sincere gratitude for your staying with it thus far.

Best wishes,

William Woollard
The book, The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.