And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
No but seriously, this is why the Dalai Lama in specific, and Buddhism in general, is mostly cool, and when The Mighty Lord Emperor Redshirt rises up and takes over this World, swiftly banning most religions, I think Buddhism will make the Do Not Cut List (DNCL), at least for a while. So you got that goin' for you, Buddhism.
No, wait, seriously. I kid, but that's all in good fun. But the Dalai Lama is really cool, and the Chinese are foolish not to deal with him. Here's a snippet from Carl Sagan's book "The Demon Haunted World":
In theological discussion with religious leaders, I often ask what their response would be if a central tenet of their faith were disproved by science. When I put this question to the Dalai Lama, he unhesitatingly replied as no conservative or fundamentalist religious leaders do: in such a case, he said, Tibetan Buddhism would have to change. Even, I asked, if it's a really central tenet, like (I searched for an example) reincarnation?
Even then, he answered.
However, he added with a twinkle, it's going to be hard to disprove reincarnation.
Plainly, the Dalai Lama is right. Religious doctrine that is insulated from disproof has little reason to worry about the advance of science. The grand idea, common to many faiths, of a Creator of the Universe is one such doctrine - difficult alike to demonstrate or dismiss.
So while Buddhism definitely operates as a Religion in many ways, with some of the negatives that comes with - I suppose (don't know really, as I have about zero experience with formalized Buddhist Religion and am assuming that any formal institution of men will have corruption within it), this attitude - dare I say it's scientific - is refreshing and healthy. Couple that with a consistent and good moral system lacking hypocrisy, and a lack of actual Gods (Big G) (gods [small g] in Hinduism and Buddhism are openly acknowledged for their symbolic values and abstractness, or so I have read), and I think this is close to as good as a "religious" system can get.
Personally, I would fuse a Sagan inspired Cosmology with the more practical aspects of Buddhism for a synthesis of science and meditation based "spiritual" practice. Also, martial arts.
2 comments:
i visited my nephew over the weekend. part of his chemistry test had an acid and some sample gold-leafed and gold-colored cards which he tested to see if they were real. then he tested the chain i wear around my neck (real gold), and a friend's silver necklace (not real gold). he accepted the result but qualified that he did not know what the acid was and that it didn't necessarily prove what we thought it proved. i thought of you and asked what would be the implications if we discovered that the gold at fort knox was not real. with a twinkle in his eye he said, "it's going to be hard to disprove fort knox' stash."
I've been to Fort Knox. It's real, in as much as any Fort is real. I think it's hilarious though - through whatever accidents of fate, we have assigned Gold incredible value. But, today, it actually has little practical value at all. Silica is far more useful, for example. Yet, we give Gold the highest value, spend enormous amounts of money on it, and money = time; put it in heavily guarded forts and vaults with guns and they are lots of people who would try and steal it;
why? You can do nothing with gold. It cannot feed you nor make you anything of real worth. And yet - we all go mad for it.
Not real, you see?
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