B. Alan Wallace - Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality

This book shows clearly and compellingly how Buddhism and other spiritual traditions may help enrich our understanding of the mind and its role in nature, without reducing it merely to a material function or property of the brain.

H. H. the Dalai Lama

Any scientist serious about his or her avocation will find this book a thought-provoking and rewarding read. Wallace and Hodel make a very reasonable point: since the mind is a primary instrument that allows scientific theory and understanding to occur, should not a thorough and rigorous study of all aspects of that instrument itself be undertaken in order to better assess scientific theory and understanding? This provocative and beautifully written book is absorbing and well worth reading for anyone interested in delving into the nature of things.

Elizabeth Blackburn, Recipient of the Albert Lasker Award for Medical Research

In these few pages Wallace and Hodel cover the whole spectrum of Buddhism and sciencefrom the moving narrative of Alans life through the fallacies of scientific materialism, and on to the heart of the ancient Buddhist science of consciousness and how it speaks to the modern sciences of the mind. An invaluable introduction to the story of science and Buddhist contemplative inquiry.

Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology, and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science

A tour de force.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Professor of Medicine emeritus, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and author of Coming to Our Senses

ABOUT THE BOOK

What is Mind? For this ancient question we are still seeking answers. B. Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel propose a science of the mind based on the contemplative wisdom of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam.

The authors begin by exploring the history of science, showing how science tends to ignore the mind, even while it is understood to be the very instrument through which we comprehend the world of nature. They then propose a contemplative science of mind based on the sophisticated techniques of meditation that have been practiced for thousands of years in the great spiritual traditions. The final section presents meditations that are of universal relevanceto scientists and people of all faithsfor revealing new dimensions of consciousness and human flourishing.

Embracing Mind moves us beyond the dogmatic debates between theists and atheists over Intelligent Design and Neo-Darwinism, and it returns us to the vital core of science and spirituality: deepening our experience of reality as a whole.

B. ALAN WALLACE has authored, translated, edited, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism, science, and culture. With fourteen years as a Buddhist monk, he earned a BA in physics and the philosophy of science and then a PhD in religious studies. After teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies to explore the integration of scientific approaches and contemplative methods.

BRIAN HODEL is a freelance journalist and book editor .

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Embracing

Mind

THE COMMON GROUND OF SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY

B. Alan Wallace

and Brian Hodel

S HAMBHALA

BOSTON AND LONDON

2011

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2008 by B. Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel

Cover design: Jonathan Sainsbury

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The Library of Congress catalogues the hardcover edition of this book as follows:

Wallace, B. Alan.

Embracing mind: the common ground of science and spirituality/B. Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2211-5

ISBN 978-1-59030-482-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-59030-683-3 (paperback)

1. SciencePhilosophy. 2. Religion and science. I. Hodel, Brian. II. Title.

Q175.W2618 2008

261.55dc22

2007033698

Contents

I AM ONE of the many fortunate people who was inspired at an early age by a teacher who gave direction to the rest of their life. In my case, it was Sally Vogel, my science and mathematics teacher when I was thirteen years old, growing up in southern California. Sallys influence on my goals and aspirations did not come through the traditional classroom, but through her love for nature and dedication to caring for the environment. On weekends she invited her students on nature hikes and during these outings she shared her infectious enthusiasm for understanding and appreciating our natural environment. She was a passionate advocate of preserving it and inspired me as a young adolescent to dedicate my life to those same ideals.

Sally is a humanist and a naturalist, with no religious affiliation, but my uncle, Dave Needham, is a devout Christian, who expressed a similar love for the wilderness. Each summer, he would lead a group of teenage boys from the church where he served as pastor on weeklong back packing trips into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Each day we would hike for about ten miles among the towering peaks and aquamarine lakes of the majestic High Sierras. In the evenings around the campfire, Dave would read passages from the New Testament and lead us in discussions of their implications for our lives. His life was devoted to the pursuit of emulating the love of Jesus and of cherishing Gods creation.

Throughout high school, I studied with the thought of pursuing a career in ecology, and drew great inspiration from the writings of Henry David Thoreau. One passage from Walden made a particularly deep impression: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. My other literary hero then was John Muir, with his vision of nature as one interconnected system that originated in the same divine source. When this was properly understood, it could offer salvation to a society that had lost touch with its divine origins.

My youth was characterized by two major influences: growing up in a religious family with a Christian theologian for a father and this wish from an early age to dedicate my life to science. Yet, the more I learned about the Christian worldview and that of modern materialist science, the more dissonance there seemed between them. The first provides culture with a lofty set of ethical ideals and a vision of Creation imbued with Gods will and guidance, while the latter presents a massive body of knowledge of a universe governed by chance and necessity. During two years as an undergraduate at the University of California at San Diego, I sought to integrate the deeply spiritual and the rigorously scientific. However, I found no one in the church or on campus who could help me realize this goal.

These final years of the 1960s were for me a time of rapidly growing discontent and alienation. The United States was waging an unnecessary, tragic war in Vietnam, and as an active member of the environmental movement, I found myself growing more and more outraged at the abuses of the ecosphere. My own mind was becoming similarly polarized into viewing fellow environmentalists on the side of goodness and sanity and everyone else on the side of greed and delusion. Gradually, I recognized that my own attitude of self-righteousness and hostility were part of the problem, not part of the solution.