Contemplative Science:
Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge
Alan Wallace (SMN)
Reviewed
by Professor David Fontana
The Case for Contemplative Science
Science
has discovered a great deal about the composition and the behaviour of the
material world and about ways in which the material world can be manipulated in
order to meet human wishes, yet the world is now in a more perilous state than
ever before in its recorded history.
Many argue that this is not the fault of science but of what has been
done with science, but it is hard to separate the two. If we
invent weapons we cannot pretend that our inventions are not a factor in the
deaths they may cause. If we manufacture
toxic chemicals we cannot avoid responsibility for the damage they inflict upon
the environment. And if our scientific
advances eventually render the Earth uninhabitable we cannot absolve ourselves
of blame. It is time perhaps to ask
what science is for, and what has happened to its soul
My own branch of science, psychology, is a good
example of this loss of soul. Since its
transformation into a scientific discipline in the early years of the 20th
Century psychology has sought to divert attention away from any study of those
qualities of mind that might help science find its true purpose. Prior to becoming a science, psychology was
the province of philosophers intent upon exploring the
nature of mind and the principles of human action, and of poets who sought to
probe the emotional depths of the human heart.
Both philosophers and poets concerned themselves with the unseen as well
as with the seen, using observation and introspection as their research methods
and seeking not to change the natural world but to love it, and not to reduce
the human spirit but to glorify it. Once
having defined itself as a science, psychology turned away from such things and
adopted in their place the models and methodology of the physical
sciences. Humans came to be seen as
physical machines, and the laboratory as more important than the colourful
diversity of the real world.
Introspection and contemplation were banished as impossibly
unscientific, and along with them went man’s relationship with his inner
being.
Scientific psychology is not bad in itself, the problem is the belief that we must have nothing
but scientific psychology. By forfeiting
methods of self-exploration and transformation, scientific psychology deprives
itself of some of the most important tools of its trade. Mercifully, things are now beginning to
change, thanks to the rise of humanistic and of transpersonal psychology and an
increasing if belated awareness of the rich psychological insights provided by
Eastern psycho-spiritual traditions. Which brings me to Alan Wallace’s book. No writer is more successful at making the
insights of these traditions accessible to the West than Alan, a distinguished
Buddhist scholar with a deep and perceptive knowledge of Western science who
also writes from lengthy and intensive personal experience of Buddhist
meditative and contemplative practices.
Speaking of Western science and the mind, Alan tells us in Contemplative Science that ‘Scientific
methods for studying the mind that are based upon materialistic assumptions
will likely only reinforce them’. By
contrast introspection, which involves the rigorous observation of mental
phenomena through ‘the cultivation of sustained, vivid, high-resolution
attention … [is] … to the scientific investigation of mental phenomena what the
telescope is to the scientific investigation of celestial phenomena’. Furthermore, he insists that scientific materialists
commonly promote a world-view that ‘makes claims that go beyond the scope of
scientific knowledge’. It is perfectly
possible to practise excellent science without this world-view, which is
‘merely a secondary view that some scientists have about existence’. As we identify the illusions of knowledge it
presents to us as fact, ‘we may open up new vistas of discovery that transcend
the current borders between science and religion’.
Having made his case, Alan focuses upon the
discoveries about consciousness generated by Buddhist traditions, and notes the
differences and many similarities between these and the discoveries of the
Western psycho-spiritual traditions.
Alan’s commitment to Buddhism is implicit in much of what he says, but
he shows a great respect for other traditions and a readiness to acknowledge
their versions of the truth. His
exposition of Buddhist contemplative practices is exemplary as in all his
books, and his gift of presenting complex teachings in a way accessible to the
layman and advanced scholar alike means that this is a book for everyone
interested in studying the role of contemplation in exploring the intricacies
of the inner being.
If we ask what contemplative science is for, the
answer is implicit in much of what Alan says.
The purpose of contemplative science is to enable all beings to
experience greater happiness and freedom from suffering, and to do so not
through competition, acquisition, destruction or exploitation but through the
study of our own minds. Contemplative
science produces no weapons of mass destruction, no enmities and no
environmental damage, and generates instead love and compassion towards all
life and towards the planet that sustains us.
What is more there is ample evidence that contemplative science achieves
its purpose, and that it does so without any of the vast expenditure demanded
by the physical sciences. The mind is
its laboratory, and within the mind we are each our own scientist and the
answer to our own questions. Truly it is
within contemplative science that science may re-discover its soul.
However, as I imagine Alan Wallace would be the
first to admit, contemplative science still has many issues of its own to
address. The physical scientist points
out that it does not provide us with the public knowledge demanded by
science. Individuals can tell us about
their contemplative experience (not necessarily an easy task, as even the
Buddha implies in the Mahavatsu, an early Pali
text) but how do we know they are not deceiving us? They may simply be telling us what they have
read rather than what they have experienced.
Buddhists may reply that an enlightened master, helped perhaps by
extra-sensory perception, can test the genuine nature of a pupil’s experience,
but the physical scientist will ask how can we know an enlightened master is
enlightened since we are not enlightened ourselves?
Another difficulty to which the physical scientist
may draw attention is that although there is agreement among the great
traditions on some of the findings yielded by centuries of contemplation there
is also a fair measure of disagreement.
For example Theravadin Buddhism denies the
existence of a Creator God, while Christianity is built around a belief in the
Creator. From the scientific perspective
the Theravadin position is the more vulnerable since
there is no scientific sense in which one can prove that something does not
exist, but although the Christian position is potentially sounder the scientist
will point out that it is based not upon contemplation but upon revelation and
faith. Furthermore the physical
scientist will remind us that if contemplation cannot resolve even the
fundamental divergence between the Theravadin
rejection and the Christian affirmation of an immortal soul, this weakens its
case to be a tool acceptable to science.
In short, the scientist is likely to object that contemplative science
cannot be relied upon to establish universal truths.
The answer to this objection is that
if we want more data from contemplative science we need to devote more
attention to the subject. We also need
to make clear that, just as physical science cannot resolve all the mysteries
of the physical world, contemplative science cannot be expected to solve all
the mysteries surrounding man’s fundamental nature. Differences between Theravadins
and Christians may exist because the infinite nature of ultimate reality means
that much depends upon the direction in which we train the telescope of our
contemplation (and the language we use to express our results). But one thing is clear. Without contemplative science Western man is
likely increasingly to become a stranger to himself,
and Western science is likely to remain forever deprived of its soul. Alan Wallace’s book is one of the very best
statements of our need for contemplative science, and one of the very best
explanations of its methodology. A copy
should go to every scientist – both physical and contemplative – in the land.
Professor David
Fontana’s most recent book is ‘Is There an Afterlife’. He has written many books
on meditation.