The Mind, Science and Buddhism

I like this op-ed piece by David Brooks from the NYT so pulled a few ideas and you can visit the web site to read it all! This general concept is central to the Tibetan Buddhist thinking of the Dalai Lama as he begins his science teachings with monks in the monastery located in India. The image is from designedonyou.com.

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.
Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other.

We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.