46 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Science talks, Buddhism listens, October 11, 2002
This review is from: Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brainscience and Buddhism (Paperback)
I found this book to be a bit of a disappointment. I suppose if you want an over-view of scientific thought on the brain, then this might be interesting. The Dalai Lama mostly asked questions and the scientists spoke about science. Only once did a scientist ask the Dalai Lama a point about Buddhism, and then it was only to set him up to be debunked. The scientists just can't accept any view point that is not materialist. They don't even understand other viewpoints except as superstition. So there is no real dialogue.
Actually, I didn't really expect a dialogue when I bought this. I was hoping for some clarity and insight into Buddhist thoughts on consciousness, using Western terminology. No such luck.
Gave it a few stars because everyone was intelligent and articulate.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Science talks, Buddhism is speechless, July 25, 2010
This review is from: Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brainscience and Buddhism (Paperback)
I have gone through quite a few of the 'Mind and Life' conference proceedings and this is one of the best ones, I thought. A group of neuroscientists and doctors who are really at the top of their field, and in top form here, present the state of the art (at the time the book was compiled anyway - these things change quickly) of modern neuroscience's understanding of memory, psychiatric illness, and various other aspects of consciousness and perception - the Dalai Lama responds, asks for elucidation, and at times presents the Buddhist viewpoint of these same topics. If you're in the field of Pyschology or Neuroscience there won't be much new here, but the presentations are so incredibly cogent and well-done that I greatly enjoyed reading through it all again. It's not true, as one reviewer put it, that the Dalai Lama is only asked a single question - he participates in a quite lively way throughout the book/conference; I think his contribution must be at the very least 1/4 to 1/3 of the book.
Living as I am at the moment in a Tibetan monastery in Nepal, I am very sympathetic to Buddhism, but I have to say that on reading this book I was very grateful after all for taking my undergrad in psych/neuroscience. I don't feel so much that the Buddhist side was just 'listening' and their views simply being dimissed - but when you read through this book, you can see the incredible weight of evidence on the scientific side of these issues, and the incredible paucity of evidence supporting the Buddhist view. This doesn't necessarily mean the Buddhist viewpoints are incorrect, and some of them I support myself despite their 'unscientific' nature. But it becomes apparent that the Buddhists have a long, long way to go if they wish to truly make a case for their (thus far) unsubstantiated beliefs about a 'mindstream' independent of anything physical (brain, body, whatever), reincarnation, karma, and so forth.
To take an example, throughout the book the scientists are very keen to elucidate the thousands of studies done to support their views - neuropsychological lesions studies, functional magnetic resonance imaging, histological analysis at the brain's neuronal level, all kinds of controlled studies in animals using brain excisions or introduced neurotransmitter compounds to induce behaviors, and so on. They also humbly admit that our knowledge of the brain is minimal as yet, 'neuroscience' itself being little more than a few decades old. When one scientist politely asks what the Buddhist have as evidence for their claims about reincarnation, a quaint story is told about a young girl in India who claims knowledge of her past life. Allegedly (so says the Dalai Lama), the girl, though only 4 or 5 years old, had detailed memories of her last life, and kept insisting to be taken to her old home - and we are assured by no less than the Dalai Lama that indeed there was NO WAY she could have known anything about this place otherwise, she couldn't possibly have heard about it through books or stories or hearsay. So finally her father relents and decides to take her to this 'past life' home. One expects this will entail a long journey to some far-off land which indeed the girl couldn't possibly know anything about. But no - she leads her father a few miles down the road to a neighboring village! The real question for me would be, How could she NOT know anything about a place so close, and likely so similar to her present hometown?
This kind of back and forth continues, with the scientists doing their best to make careful and well-reasoned arguments about the brain and consciousness, and the Buddhist side relying on the equivalent of the authority of 4-year-old girls and peasant folk mythology. As someone with a strong interest in Buddhism and a belief in its value in the modern world, it is all rather embarrassing that this is the best that the Dalai Lama and his star translators can come up with. Even the editors obviously felt that the Buddhist side performed so poorly, they were justified in getting in a lot of cheap shots post-production. Thus, translator Alan Wallace and/or other editors were permitted to add little bracketed interjections throughout the text defending ("clarifying") the Dalai Lama's thoughts, and the end of the book features a 25-page essay by Wallace attempting to refute the scientific viewpoint by reference to Madhyamaka philosophy (itself a highly interesting and subtle philosophy). His conclusion: since the scientists cautionsly admit that their knowledge of the brain is in its infancy, clearly that leaves the door wide open for all of Buddhism's wild claims, which they (Wallace at least) intend to cling to desperately until (if, I suppose) they are finally disproven. The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, and to his eternal credit, is quick to announce that Buddhism, at least as he leads and teaches it, will do its best to accomodate new and valid evidence, even if this evidence refutes its most cherished beliefs (e.g., reincarnation). Coming from the man who probably has the most to 'lose' by such a critical investigation of Buddhism, being probably the world's most famous Buddhist (not to mention, most famous 'reincarnation), it is an extremely magnanimous and far-sighted statement to make.
Incidentally, since this book's publication there have now been hundreds of studies of meditation (Buddhist and otherwise) which have shown decisively its beneficial effects in many spheres, from depression, to attention, to health, and so forth. I know of no study whatsoever, though, which lends the least bit of evidence to beliefs such as reincarnation or karma. From this I think it's clear that Buddhism has much to contribute to our modern understanding of the mind and what the brain is capable of, but little to add to theories of reality, cosmology, etc. This book is well worth reading to get an overview of this situation.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The Blossoming of Buddhism and Cognitive Science, February 6, 2011
This review is from: Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brainscience and Buddhism (Paperback)
Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism is from the 1989 Mind and Life Conference, the second series of talks sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute. The institute is an organization promoting dialogue between the scientific and contemplative traditions. The first series of meetings, published as Gentle Bridges (Shambhala, 1992), provided a broad overview of the different areas that the field of Buddhism and science could potentially impact. The second conference similarly provides more breadth than depth, yet with a bit more focus on cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and meditation. The contributors are from a variety of fields, including neuroscience, philosophy, and psychiatry.
The dialogue recounted in this book lays the foundations for future work in the realm of Buddhism and cognitive science. Some topics covered include the nature and phenomenology of consciousness, mental illness, and notions of the self. Tackling a young field, the discussion lacks systematic analysis and each contributor even seems to speak in isolation at times. Prior knowledge of Buddhism and/or science is recommended, but the content is so interesting almost any reader could find some merit in this book. This work is compelling, but incomplete, an understandable critique considering the book narrates one of the earlier series of many talks.
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