num_pages: 264
description: Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day both Buddhists and admirers of Buddhism have proclaimed the compatibility of Buddhism and science. Their assertions have ranged from modest claims about the efficacy of meditation for mental health to grander declarations that the Buddha himself anticipated the theories of relativity quantum physics and the big bang more than two millennia ago.In Buddhism and Science Donald S. Lopez Jr. is less interested in evaluating the accuracy of such claims than in exploring how and why these two seemingly disparate modes of understanding the inner and outer universe have been so persistently linked. Lopez opens with an account of the rise and fall of Mount Meru the great peak that stands at the center of the flat earth of Buddhist cosmographyand which was interpreted anew once it proved incompatible with modern geography. From there he analyzes the way in which Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were enlisted to support the notorious science of race in the nineteenth century. Bringing the story to the present Lopez explores the Dalai Lamas interest in scientific discoveries as well as the implications of research on meditation for neuroscience. Lopez argues that by presenting an ancient Asian tradition as compatible withand even anticipatingscientific discoveries European enthusiasts and Asian elites have sidestepped the debates on the relevance of religion in the modern world that began in the nineteenth century and still flare today. As new discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of mind and matter Buddhism and Science will be indispensable reading for those fascinated by religion science and their often vexed relation.
language: English
title: Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed
publisher: University of Chicago Press