Buddhist and Science

Subject: Buddhist and Science Homework(1) Q: 1/ Searching for the truth in Buddhism. How? An: When the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree. He meditated and saw the suffering that all people will met that no ones escape from when they were born in the world. It is called Four noble truths like as; 1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha) 2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya) 3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) 4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realisation that there is a cure. 1.The truth of suffering (Dukkha) Suffering comes in many forms. Three obvious kinds of suffering correspond to the first three sights the Buddha saw on his first journey outside his palace: old age, sickness and death. Even when we are not suffering from outward causes like illness or bereavement, we are unfulfilled, unsatisfied. This is the truth of suffering. 2.Origin of suffering (Samudāya) Our day-to-day troubles may seem to have easily identifiable causes: thirst, pain from an injury, sadness from the loss of a loved one. In the second of his Noble Truths, though, the Buddha claimed to have found the cause of all suffering - and it is much more deeply rooted than our immediate worries. The Buddha taught that the root of all suffering is desire, tanhā. This comes in three forms, which he described as the Three Roots of Evil, or the Three Fires, or the Three Poisons. The Three Fires of hate, greed and ignorance, shown in a circle, each reinforcing the others. The three roots of evil These are the three ultimate causes of suffering:  Greed and desire, represented in art by a rooster  Ignorance or delusion, represented by a pig  Hatred and destructive urges, represented by a snake. The Fire Sermon The Buddha taught more about suffering in the Fire Sermon, delivered to a thousand bhikkus (Buddhist monks). 3. Cessation of suffering (Nirodha) The Buddha taught that the way to extinguish desire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment. This is the third Noble Truth - the possibility of liberation. The Buddha was a living example that this is possible in a human lifetime. 4.Path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) The final Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescription for the end of suffering. This is a set of principles called the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is also called the Middle Way: it avoids both indulgence and severe asceticism, neither of which the Buddha had found helpful in his search for enlightenment. Q: 2/ How do Buddhism and science search for natural truth? An: Although not all philosophy is the same, the dominant thrust of philosophy in the last two hundred years has been a search for logically certain knowledge: for truths that we can be sure of in the same way we are sure of the proven truths of mathematics. Science also depends on logical and mathematical reasoning, but it balances pure thought with experiment. The truths of science are tested to see if they are also "true" in the natural world, as well as in the realm of reason. Buddhism has elements of philosophy and of science, but it does not aim to discover either logical or empirical ("real world") "truths." The aim of Buddhism is liberation: to change the way we experience ourselves and the world. Buddhism respects logical and empirical "facts," but Buddha was not interested in knowledge for its own sake. To rely on objective truth is to be like a man who has been shot by a poisoned arrow but who refuses to have it removed (and save his life) unless he first knows who shot the arrow, where his family came from, what kind of poison he used, etc. The endless real world facts surrounding his circumstances are interesting, perhaps even fascinating from an historical and scientific point of view, but only removing the arrow will save his life. So, when we discuss the human mind, and the nature of our experience, philosophy, science, and analysis based on meditation and religious experience (Buddhism) often cover the same ground, using similar words, but the "truth" they are aiming at is slightly different in each case. Homework (2) Q: 1/ Compare the dependent Origination with the scientific discoveries. An: Dependent Origination is the Buddhist teaching on how things come to be, are, and cease to be. According to this teaching, no beings or phenomena exist independently of other beings and phenomena. Everything is interconnected. Everything affects everything else. Everything that is, is because other things are. This is the teaching of Dependent Origination. Dependent Origination relates to the doctrine of Anatman. According to this doctrine, there is no "self" in the sense of a permanent, integral, autonomous being within an individual existence. What we think of as our self, our personality and ego, are temporary creations of the skandhas -- form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness. So there you are, an assembly of phenomena generating the idea that there's a permanent "you" separate and distinct from everything else. These phenomena (form, sensation, etc.) were caused to arise and assemble in a certain way because of other phenomena. These same phenomena are perpetually causing other phenomena to arise. Eventually, they will be caused to cease. Everything in the phenomenal world is dukkha(suffering or unsatisfying), anicca (impermanent) and anatta (without individual essence; egoless). Put another way, "you" are a phenomenon of the Causal Nexis in much the same way a wave is a phenomenon of ocean. A wave is not a piece of the ocean in the same way a brick is a piece of a wall. A wave is ocean. Although a wave is a distinct phenomenon it cannot be separated from ocean in the way a brick can be taken out of a wall. When conditions cause a wave, nothing is added to ocean. When the activity of wave ceases, nothing is taken away from ocean. The science deals with the outside world, which is measured by the five senses. Religion differs yet again. It is not only looks world, but also the human being, the one who is observing. While science concerns itself solely with the objects of observation, religion concerns itself with the observers, the one who is using these five sense bases. Thus, religion is not confined to data observable through the five senses, but is directly related to the level of development of each individual. The way religion is perceived is directly related to the level of mental development of the perceiver, which gives it an added level of complexity. Homework (3) Q: 1, What can you deduce from Aristotle’s Metaphysics which relate to Buddhism’s “ Dependent origination” ? An: Aristotle and the Buddha reached very similar There are many similarities to be found between the two sets of ethics. The first of these is in terms of moral choice or judgement. The Buddhist term for moral choice, cetana, covers such a wide psychological continuum from intention and volition to stimulus, motive, and drive, that it is not likely that any single term in English will convey its full range of meanings. Buddhism describes it as follows: Cetana or the will which is conditioned by affective and cognitive elements may either function as the closely directed effort on the part of the individual or it may function, as it often does, without conscious deliberation.When cetana is understood in an expanded goal-seeking sense, that is, when it is considered in terms of motivation, it will be directed towards some end or other. It would then not be just the specific faculty of choice which comes at the end of deliberation, but also be present from the start as the faculty which originally intuits the good ends in connection with which practical choices will subsequently need to be made. Aristotle’s moral judgement, likewise involves the cooperation even the interplay of reason and desire. Aristotle says that prohairesis is ‘either desireful reason or reasonable desire. In speaking of prohairesis Keown uses the term ‘faculties;’ in speaking of cetana he refers to ‘elements.’ He explains his use of different terms as reflecting the greater ontological commitment of the Aristotelian notion of a permanent self, as distinct from the Buddhist notion of a process-self.154 The most significant aspect of his comparison for Keown is the common ground they share. He notes that moral responsibility and moral choice are both determined by the total personality with its cognitive and affective faculties: Cetana and prohairesis are defined with reference to that core of the personality which is the final resort of explanation for moral action and which is ultimately definitive of moral status The similarity between the Buddha and Aristotle is that, for both of them, the correct avenue to moderation negotiates between the extremes of greed on the one hand, and harsh asceticism on the other. The results from successful negotiation of the middle way of the Buddha and of the doctrine of the mean for Aristotle are similar in formal terms Homework (4) Q: 2, Write down what is your opinion about these two kinds of truth. Is there any of these truth coincident with Buddhist truth? An: two truths to the Buddha as follows: “the Dharma taught by the buddhas is precisely based on the two truths: a truth of mundane conventions and a truth of the ultimate. Conventional truth Conventional truth involves our everyday experience and understanding of the way the phenomenal world appears and functions. If our senses and cognition are in working order we recognize that fire burns, that dark clouds foreshadow rain and that birds and not elephants fly. Conventional truth is our agreed upon identification of things and how they work, and this understanding directs our worldly activities. ~Conventional truth includes what is called valid cognition because it is able to distinguish conventional truth from conventional falsehood, an important difference. For example, there are consequences in distinguishing a snake from a rope and that sense of being right matter. If there was no reliability to our everyday assessments our activity would be senseless. Ultimate truth Conventional truth is truth about phenomena that is inferred through cognition. When conventional truth asserts the emptiness of phenomena it does so conceptually and linguistically, through the abstract construction and analysis of conceptual objects. Ultimate truth is different in this regard. It is the direct, non-conceptual perception of the emptiness of phenomena. It is like realizing that something you were looking for is not there, and right then, directly perceiving the absence of the object. The ultimate truth of emptiness is not mediated by thought at the time of the apprehension. It is not a conceptual realization. There is no reification involved, no subject-object duality present. An absence is objectless, nondeceptive, free from conceptual construction. Homework (5) Q: How would you explain the interconcection between body and mind and the scientific point of views about matter energy? An: Buddhist view of Mind and Body All living beings according to the Buddha have a mind and body. The exceptions are those beings in the formless sphere - Arupa Loka. They have no body but only a mind. Those beings in the Asannasatta Brahma loka, have no mind but only a body. Theistic religions refer to an Atma or soul, which is permanent and has been gifted by an Almighty God who created this world and control the destiny of the human beings. Buddhism does not accept the existence of a soul. The mind controls human behaviour. The body without the mind is a dead body. It cannot move even an inch or act without the mind. This shows the importance of the mind. Mind has been defined by the Buddha as a series of elements of thoughts, occurring only one at a time. Buddha has clearly shown that the mind is not something permanent but changes every moment. One element of thought has two major components, the Citta or consciousness and Cetasika, the associated mental factors. This is explained fully and clearly in the Abhidhamma, the most important and special teaching of The Buddha. Plato : The soul and body are two different substances and are separate with no substantial and natural connection characterising a unity. Their relation, however, can be described only accidental and nominal. Henceforth, essential connection and interaction between the two are merely superficial. Aristotle: comes to the rescue to fill in this blank by forwarding his own opinion that human being actually has two countenances which are body as matter and soul as form. He believes that one can understand that relation between body and soul is more than just interrelation and interdependence of two different separate substances. So every natural body which partakes life would be a substance of the composite kind. And since there exists such kind of body, the soul would not be a body; for a body is not something which belongs to a subject but exist rather as a subject or as matter. Accordingly, the soul must be a substance as the form of natural body potential with life, and [such] substance is an actuality. So the soul is the actuality of such a body. So based on his opinion, the soul is a function of an organised body and therefore is not a subject of independency and separate existence. Aristotle has to some extent provided a more sophisticated understanding of the soul-body relation. However, as a result of his opinion, the soul is not eternal but generated and therefore a subject of time and corruption. It may be right to say that Aristotle may have been the first functionalist. Most human beings spend much of their time in looking after the body. They spend time and energy in doing exercise, such as running, walking, swimming etc., to keep the body healthy. When sickness strikes, all go to the doctor and get advice and medicine to recover from that illness. Some illnesses like diabetes and heart conditions can be mind caused. Sick people often have to restrict their diet and take medication till they die. Most people are not aware that the mind is more important than the body and that the body is much influenced by the mind. The psychosomatic diseases are caused by an impure mind.