Clinging to reason and science
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
Another thing I sometimes struggle with is clinging to reason and science. In my university days I studied mechanical engineering, quite a hardcore subject about efficiency, and before that I was schooled in mathematics and physics. It made me quite a sciencey guy for many years, and lately I have noticed that it is something I often base my views on.
And so in the interest of not clinging to views, I have been taking on board more of a “perhaps” kind of attitude for things which are outside the realms of scientific endeavour. For example, the other day my mother sent me an article about Osho’s dentist Devageet, who has been talking about how our teeth are linked to the collective subconscious and carry memories from the Akashic records. Usually the scientist in me would immediately say “Never!” But nowadays the mystic in me prompts me to say more “well, maybe.”
The thing is, I was always very forthright in expressing pro-science opinions, my scientific opinions were very strongly formed. I feel it is a deficiency to carry these kinds of views and not to take in a wider view of Existence.
Comments
I think that makes sense @jeroen. Familiarity with views appears to become more a deficiency the more one is attached to the particular view over others.
If there is a workbench full of views and the favorite is chosen over and over, even if the job may not call for it, the job may still get done but being able to see beyond the favorite allows the other tools to to be learned and to work more efficiently and in harmony with each other. If wielding the view of reason and science does not provide a satisfactory solution, have you attempted wielding different views with the same level of conviction just to experiment?
Good idea @FleaMarket.
Also dangerous without a solid base of reason, logic or religious conviction, hedonism or youthful ignorance.
In other words, change is the certainty.
Taking myself as an example. I had never doubted the existence of Deity. Partly upbringing, partly my experience and way to Presence.
So I surrounded myself with atheists, notably joining the forum of Richard Dawkins
https://superscholar.org/features/influential-atheists/
For two years I became an atheist. Mentally AND emotionally. In other words I know God Does not exist. Was convinced.
Did not like it. Something was missing, something felt a loss of hope, purpose and understanding. I needed that 'something' back.
Could I practice meditation, which I never stopped with certainty or better still the certainty of uncertainty.
Yes!
Now I can as is the way in Vajrayana, raise or visualise or imagine all manner of deity including those from Monotheistic or Pagan sources. Absorb, manipulate, project their 'karmic potential'.
Then snap my fingers and they are gone. Yeah I am Buddhist, Beginner, Baby Yoda, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and Lucifer/Venus …
This is One Way.
Praise be to Richard Dawkins PBUH 🧞♀️🕴🏽👼🏿🦞🪬
Yeah… change is the certainty… but science is the closest we have gotten to finding and communicating truth. Thats why I find it hard to let go of.
What would be the close 2nd then, spirituality?
Is there a difference between the surgical slicing open of an experience for scientific examination and the watching it undisturbed and ourselves undistracted?
Maybe the sense of self's involvement.
Scientist and study remain object and subject observed.
Watching undisturbed and undistracted can be nurtured into an absorption of sorts into subject observed which appears to reveal more than when the inquisitive scientific mind explores it as something observed by something else(self).
Perhaps not!
Perhaps you find it hard to give up that which has provided you with the illusion of control against the scarier background of life's continuous chaos. This is just what the ego, selfish self or our adversarial natures do to try to ameliorate us from being little more than a bubble in a stream, a phantasm, or a dream in a momentary existence.
You don't actually need to give up your scientific approach, just your opinions about it.
The deductive reasoning and scientific process is not in itself a cause for suffering so long as you don't utilize it for the purposes of identity construction.
The same applies to god, sex, religion, politics, careers, relationships, truth, diet, or anything else.
Such a practice is just the means for moving along whatever sense gate is co-opting life's stage play and allowing all the other sense gates a more equal & collegial representation in that show. Here, equanimity is a possibility.
To me its about how you hold it. I'd say that the scientific process (which is more than any individual study or science news) is the best way we've come up with to accurately understand the world. There's a lot of stuff we don't know, and many things we think we know are wrong, or more likely, incomplete.
So the dogmatic attitude along the line that some hardcore Athiests might take that if science says something then that IS the truth, and anything that science hasn't come to a consensus on is false doesn't seem an appropriate attitude. Likewise, seeing how science makes errors or changes its stance therefore throwing your hands in the air and saying its all just make believe anyway so any source is as good as any other isn't the way either.
I think the zen attitude of don't know mind, or an attitude of epistemic humility is healthy. An open yet skeptical attitude, one that allows possibilities in but requires some kind of scrutiny so the mind doesn't become a pool of flat earth nonsense.
Science is always wrong. No data set is ever complete, conclusions can change with every new data point. There is nothing there to cling to except the tool itself, which, in itself, is of great value.
Which reminds me a bit of the parable of the Chinese farmer
A farmer and his son had a beloved horse who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbours exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild horses back to the farm as well. The neighbours shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the horses and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The neighbours cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, because he had a broken leg. The neighbours shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Shoshin, this is a delightfully insightful illustration.
Sometimes science doesn't apply. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just sometimes not relevant. Thanks for shining a light at exactly the right time, on exactly the right scene.
The first thing I thought was to cling to reason and science could be considered to be unreasonable and unscientific. Only because of the clinging though. It's the clinging to the science that could blind us to an element unaccountable through our current scientific method. Reason also needs to be able to account for new information and roll with the punches.
The "maybe" approach works best for me these days as well. As to not cling to my views I like to have what I think is the truth of the matter (whatever that matter may be) and then a bunch of competing theories.
In other words, I have my beliefs, I just don't have faith in them.
I do not cling to science, although I appreciate and trust science in the realms of scientific purview. Engineering is the application of a part of science. Engineers applied the concepts arising from science. Science led to all our modern appliances, our medical advances and our understanding of the physical universe as we know it today.
But, i the end, science is a tool or a set of tools, not an ideology.
The purpose of religion is to enhance the quality of life from the non-physical, the spiritual side of life. Religion is supposed to provide a moral guideline, a compass to traverse the vicissitudes of life and enable us to enjoy and gain meaning within our lives.
so, when there is a contradiction between science, it is not science challenging or contradicting religion. It is rather certain religious dogma not accepting the findings science.
It was once, and in some instances, still is, the religious belief that diseases and illnesses were caused by demons and evil spirits. As the understanding of medical science improved, we now know that those demons and evil spirits are bacteria and viruses. We now have vaccines and medicines to counter these "demons and evil spirits".
It is odd that today, so many deny science while using the products of science and the engineering derived from that science to make those denials.
No, I do not cling to science. I do accept the benefits and shortcomings of science. I do accept that the truths of science and that while some truths, in our mundane world, are fact (gravity as applied to daily life, for instance), a great many will and should be constantly challenged for the sake of expanding our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in to better our physical and physiological well being just as we must continue to question and seek our spiritual growth as we are, by nature, seeker after knowledge and truths both in the scientific and the religious realms.
enough stirring of the mud for now.
Peace to all
Well said @Lionduck
Exactly so. We are using technology, from science not telepathic induction when using NewBuddhist ...
BUT science is not for everyone or everything. For example too much of our wrong thunking and problems, come from secularists, statitcians, immoral coders and loose cannon script kiddies with the ethics of a wild beast.
They need a good kick in the Wrathful Right Action direction or similar.
Too Harsh? 
Telepathic induction is unavoidable so long as there is a being that feels and senses.
We speak to each other here on topics now but we speak from the entire accumulation of our past. We are each other's brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends, and enemies.
A statement can be taken in a hundred ways. How is the way in which it was intended deduced?
Whether or not it's so, we are not in a closed ecosystem from each other. In fact we are tightly packed in here and every volition from every source reverberates against others, causes others, and proliferates. We each have the opportunity to enhance or diminish those reverberations and bring rise to or cease our own. Wisdom is in knowing what to do with which.
We are all interconnected although we perceive separateness.
Science and religion should be compatible. However, too many persons, especially derived from the Abrahamic traditions, treat science as conflicting with or hostile to their interpretation on religion.
Buddhism and science are, in general, compatible. Even the Buddhist schools that have beliefs at variance with science accept the variances as merely the realm of religion vs the realm of science and continue to embrace both.
(Of course, there are the rare exceptions, but they do not carry the weight of the anti-science movements we see in our Western cultures, especially in the USA.)
Peace to all