Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

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48 Rebirth and the Western Buddhist firmly entrenched within science itself. For over a century, especially since the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species in 1859, biologists have been telling us that we are no more than very complicated machines, who have come into existence by a series of chance processes. We are here only because our ancestors were more successful than others in the ruthless struggle for existence. There is no purpose to life except to compete and survive-any inclination to help other human beings is merely part of a hereditary behaviour pattern which happened to favour the survival of our species. Mechanism, the belief "that all living things are completely explicable in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry," 84 has scored success after success, while the opposite approach of vitalism, the belief "that there is something distinctive about living matter which places it in a class above the level of the mere machine, no matter how complex the machine may be" , 84 has been refuted on point after point and for most of this century has been virtually obsolete. In face of this challenge to the Dharma, what can Buddhists do? Three main approaches are possible: 1. Fundamentalism: maintain all the traditional beliefs of Tibetan Buddhists and reject Science entirely. This is Losang Gyatso's approach when he tries to laugh off the ideas that human beings evolved from lower animals and that perception of pain in the foot proceeds via transmission of a nervous impulse to the brain. It may be possible for Tibetans in India, but for us in the West it is not a live option. 2. Retreat: define separate spheres of interest for Science and religion, accepting that physical truth must be mechanistic and leaving it to the scientists, while religion must be confined to spiritual truth. This approach has been adopted by many Christians, and perhaps one could prune the Buddhadharma so as not to trespass on the scientific domain.
Buddhism, Science and Scientism 49 3· Synthesis: recognising that mechanism and the Dharma cannot both be right, but that scientific observational evidence cannot be dismissed although its interpretation is subject to error, analyse Science critically in the light of the Dharma and arrive at a synthesis. In the process, certain elements of traditional Buddhist teachings will have to be eliminated as incompatible with observation-the teaching that the earth, sun and moon are flat disks is only the most obvious example. But if Buddhism is to become really effective in the West, this critique of Science is indispensable. As the evidence for rebirth listed in Chapter Three shows, it cannot fail to establish that the Dharma is far more reasonable than many people believe. Science and the Dharma cannot fundamentally be opposed. Many in fact have been attracted to Buddhism through seeing it as in some sense scientific. Despite its imperfections and temporary aberrations, Science is in the long run an exceedingly powerful method of transcending the limitations of an individual human being and arriving at solidly-established truth. Its essence is honesty and a willingness to submit ideas to the test of observ.ation and fair criticism. Nevertheless, at any particular time, some of the ideas current among scientists are inevitably erroneous and to be rejected in the end. The materialism whi
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