The Relationship between Buddhism and Society: Science

Question 1

AO3: Who was Inoue Enryo?

Answer 1

A Japanese Philosopher from 19th Century who founded a philosophy institute and wrote over 100 books.

Question 2

AO3: What was Enryo’s concern?

Answer 2

To defend Buddhism against Christianity which was heavily preached in Japan at the time.
Believed Christianity to be ‘unscientific and irrational’.

Question 3

AO3: What did Lopez say about Buddhism and Science in the West?

Answer 3

For Victorians - ‘Buddhism was a tradition that saw the universe as subject to natural laws, without the need for any divine intervention’.

Question 4

AO3: What is one feature absent in Buddhism which allows its congruence with Science?

Answer 4

The absence of a personal God.

Question 5

AO3: What does the Dalai Lama say ideologies with a primary God?

Answer 5

It is encumbered by false reification - regarding something abstract as a material thing.

Question 6

AO3: What do Scientists say about false reification?

Answer 6

‘Unfounded and baseless’ as they ‘do not see their teachings as complying to the true nature of phenomena’s existence’.

Question 7

AO3: What other features are absent which shows life to be from natural laws?

Answer 7

Absence of prayer answered by God, a God creator and the punishment of heaven or hell being allotted by God.

Question 8

AO3: What about the reliance on natural law links it with Science?

Answer 8

Linked to laws of the Universe which can be proven true or false.

Question 9

AO3: How did the Buddha’s approach to the Kalama clan link to science?

Answer 9

‘When you know for yourselves’ - information needs to be gained empirically. Accepts the new and rejects the old.

Question 10

AO3: What did the Dalai Lama’s approach to Cosmology show about Buddhism and Science?

Answer 10

In his book - ‘The Universe in a Single Atom’ - ‘It is hard to take the Abhidhamma cosmology literally’.

Question 11

AO3: What does the Buddha say about empirical observation?

Answer 11

We should test the truth through reasoned examination and personal experiment.

Question 12

AO3: According to the beliefs of the Dalai Lama what supernatural beliefs have been rejected?

Answer 12

Belief in Mount Meru and supernatural realms.

Question 13

AO3: How can Karma be seen as scientific?

Answer 13

Due to the unbreakable link between cause and effect.

Question 14

AO3: What did Thomas Huxley write in 1894?

Answer 14

‘The endless chain of natural causation by which past, present and future are indissolubly connected’.

Question 15

AO3: What does the Dalai Lama link within Mahayana with science.

Answer 15

‘To a Mahayana Buddhist there is an unmistakable resonance between the notion of emptiness and the new physics’.

Question 16

AO3: What does Lopez say about the authenticity of Buddhisms?

Answer 16

The idea that there is an original and authentic Buddhism is a Western construct.

Question 17

AO3: What does Lopez identify about the Western construct and science?

Answer 17

When many conjoin science and Buddhism they isolate the Western construct of Buddhism.

Question 18

AO3: What is an opposing argument to the Kalama clan?

Answer 18

Bikkhu Bodhi argue they are not Buddhists - he is instead giving them general advice and good counsel.

Question 19

AO3: Have the beliefs about the beings on Mount Meru changed with science?

Answer 19

No - the devas and realms above it are still heavily believed in.

Question 20

AO3: What does the Dalai Lama partake in which is not scientific?

Answer 20

Tantric meditation in Tibetan Buddhism, using the vajra, bell and elaborate mudras and mandalas.

Question 21

AO3: How can Buddhism be shown to not encourage scientific discovery?

Answer 21

Monk Malunkyaputta asked ‘unanswerable questions’ - the response of the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow shows the Buddha to have seen it as unimportant.

Question 22

What does Buddhism reject?

Answer 22

Buddhism rejects any form of blind faith – what is required is akaravati saddha (confidence based on reason and experience).

Question 23

What does wrong grasping of the Dhamma relate to?

Answer 23

Blindly clinging to views rather than fully grasping the dhamma is likened to the wrong grasping of the water-snake which will lead it to bite a person; wrong grasping of the dhamma can only be countered
through close questioning of the Buddha and of experienced monks.

Question 24

What does the Kalama Sutta teach in regards to blind belief?

Answer 24

In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha teaches the Kalamas that in trying to find out the truth as to what to believe they should not follow second-hand knowledge but instead through investigation, observation and experience they should know for themselves.

Question 25

What are the 5 realms that Asian Buddhists worldwide recognise?

Answer 25

Asian Buddhist worldviews recognise the five realms of existence: hell realm, ghost realm, animal realm, human realm and God realm.

Question 26

Dalai Lama views on science in Tibetan Buddhism:

Answer 26

Dalai Lama has assessed science to be of great importance in Tibetan Buddhism: viewing the moon through a telescope as young boy made him begin to doubt Buddhist cosmology as found in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.

Question 27

How did the DL impact education of science in buddhism?

Answer 27

In 2000, he introduced modern science education –psychology, physics and astronomy – into the Tibetan monastic curriculum; he endorsed the use of modern medicine, rather than reliance on Buddha Bhaishajya as the Medicine Buddha.

Question 28

What did the DL teach about science in Buddhism?

Answer 28

He taught that modern science is ‘very precise and accurate’ in its analysis of ‘the material world, evolution of universe, and nature of chemical substances’ and that this would complement Buddhist understanding of these topics.