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Introduction
How do we know things? How do we decide that something is true? Since its appearance four hundred years ago, science has tried to answer this question by focusing on the physical elements of the universe. Many scientists now believe that physical phenomena alone are real and that we know this is true through objective scientific investigation. We are told that (1) the universe is exclusively physical, (2) this is a proven fact, and (3) we learn all of the important things about reality by virtue of science—period.
Actually, what was just described is a myth. It was never arrived at scientifically. Rather, it resulted from a process that automatically filtered out contradictory evidence. In certain areas of science, physics in particular, this exclusively physical view of reality was brought into question a century ago. Even so, the consequences of considering nonmaterial phenomena as real are upsetting to many scientists. Science, after all, distinguished itself from religion by denying nonphysical explanations of phenomena, such as miracles and demons. Therefore, even as scientific theories based on nonmaterial hypotheses find application in technology we use daily, their implications for our understanding of reality are generally ignored. For example, photocells and computer chips were developed from scientific theories that don’t jibe with a purely physical view of reality. We use and accept them, but we don’t often explore their scientific basis and its implications.
Part 1 of this volume—“What’s Wrong with This Picture?”—is a detailed deconstruction of this materialistic myth. Science was born in the largely Christian world of Renaissance Europe; therefore, it is not surprising that even as science negated many Christian beliefs, it was unavoidably wedded to basic tenets of Christian theology. Over time, as it gained strength and credibility, science itself took on aspects of a religious dogma. Burdened with such entrenched beliefs yet beholden to its experimental method—which sometimes produced evidence that contradicted its materialistic outlook—science developed a split personality. Since the turn of the twentieth century, when the new physics upset the apple cart, this schizophrenia has hobbled science in its quest for a thorough understanding of the nature and origins of the universe.
The source of this problem from the very beginning was the scientific attitude toward the mind. Since mental phenomena, such as consciousness, thoughts, images, and emotions, were not physical, the mind had to be either ignored or regarded as a property of matter. Because nonmaterial phenomena were unacceptable, they couldn’t be studied scientifically. By the same token, the mind could not “exist” unless it was reduced to something purely physical, the “gray matter” of the brain. That was the obvious solution. Nevertheless, by the early twentieth century it was becoming clear to physicists that certain properties of matter itself depend on the role of the observer—mind and matter are not independent from each other. Furthermore, present-day attempts by neuroscience to pin down the mind as purely physical are riddled with problems. Could it be that both mind and matter are real, part of nature, and intimately interconnected?
In part 2, “Consciousness: Completing the Picture,” we discover that contemplative spiritual traditions have long been studying this problem and have come up with some refreshing hypotheses. By accepting the validity of nonmaterial phenomena—the mind especially—they suggest we may arrive at a complete and harmonious view of reality. Science has made a deep exploration into the material nature of phenomena. Contemplatives have studied the mind that observes phenomena and that does the investigating. Conclusions drawn from both of these traditions point to a middle ground, a universe of interdependence between mind and matter. That suggests science and spirituality might work together in a complementary fashion to arrive at a more embracing view.
Yet do scientists, with their rigorous methodologies, have enough in common with contemplatives for the two to collaborate successfully? We shall see that in fact a number of spiritual traditions, particularly those from Asia, do have rigorous standards of objectivity for exploring the mind. Although this is not widely known in the West, meditation has been developed over millennia into a precision instrument of observation. The aims of this contemplative science may be spiritual—release from psychological suffering, attaining enlightenment, inner peace, and so forth—but the means of accomplishing those ends require a clear understanding of all phenomena. Here a human being is not seen as a stranger in an alien universe but as a full participant, intimately interconnected with everything. His or her achievement of inner freedom therefore requires a deep understanding of the whole. This picture is further elaborated in part 3 with a description of one such science of consciousness, from Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Here is a view that may illuminate even some of the most exciting current theories from physics about the origins of the universe. Where the informed scientific imagination can merely describe such possibilities, meditators claim they directly experience the creative forces at play in an ultimate reality accessible to highly refined states of consciousness.
There is, and always has been, a single underlying basis common to both science and spirituality. This common ground—that which makes us human—is the mind. It is to human minds that myriad phenomena appear, and it is the human mind that has explored nature, beheld scientific discoveries, and formulated theories to account for them. But just as spirituality often goes too far, imbuing the mind, spirit, or soul with a mystery that clouds our understanding, so has science also gone too far in stripping the mind down to the bare chassis of the brain. This volume was written to help balance our understanding of the mind, showing that it is indeed wondrous, but that its extraordinary qualities can be understood without sacrificing our intelligence.
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