http://www.tricycle.com/blog/six-questions-b-alan-wallace
"Fundamentally, I find Buddhist and scientific methods of
investigating reality to be complementary, as are many of their
discoveries. Both traditions focus on the empirical and rational
exploration of reality, not on accepting beliefs out of blind faith. The
Dalai Lama comments: “A general basic stance of Buddhism is that it is
inappropriate to hold a view that is logically inconsistent. This is
taboo. But even more taboo than holding a view that is logically
inconsistent, is holding a view that goes against direct experience.”
This is consonant with an assertion attributed to the Buddha and
widely quoted in Tibetan Buddhism: “Monks, just as the wise accept gold
after testing it by heating, cutting, and rubbing it, so are my words to
be accepted after examining them, but not out of respect for me.” A
3rd-century Indian Buddhist contemplative named Aryadeva claimed in a
classic treatise that there are just three qualities one must have to
venture onto the Buddhist path of inquiry: one must be perceptive and
unbiased, and simultaneously enthusiastic about putting the teachings to
the test of experience."
"To my mind, the principal obstacle to a deep integration of Buddhist
insight and scientific discovery is the uncritical acceptance among many
scientists—and increasingly the general public—of the metaphysical
principles of scientific materialism. The fundamental belief of this
scientific materialism is that the whole of reality consists only of
space-time and matter-energy, and their emergent properties. This
implies that the only true causation is physical causation, that there
are no nonphysical influences in the universe. When applied to human
existence, this worldview implies that subjective experience is either
physical—despite all evidence to the contrary—or doesn’t exist at all,
which is simply insulting to our intelligence. As the philosopher John
R. Searle states in his book The Rediscovery of the Mind, 'Earlier materialists
argued that there aren’t any such things as separate mental phenomena, because
mental phenomena are identical with brain states. More recent materialists
argue that there aren’t any such things as separate mental phenomena because
they are not identical
with brain states. I find this pattern very revealing, and what it
reveals is an urge to get rid of mental phenomena at any cost'."
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