Science Buddhism Quotes & Sayings

There is no reason for a sound faith to be irrational. A useful faith should not be blind, but should be well aware of its grounds. A sound faith should be able to use scientific investigation to strengthen itself. it should be open to the spirit not to lock itself up in the letter. A nourishing, useful, healthful faith should be no obstacle to developing a science of death. — Robert A.F. Thurman

Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories of modern Western thought. It is not religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a type of science. It is an example of what is known in India and China as a "way of liberation," and is similar in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. As will soon be obvious, a way of liberation can have no positive definition. It has to be suggested by saying what it is not, somewhat as a sculptor reveals an image by the act of removing pieces of stone from a block. — Alan W. Watts

I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is. — Daniel Dennett

Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things. — Dalai Lama XIV

Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science. — Robert A.F. Thurman

Buddhism does not accept a theory of God, or a creator. According to Buddhism, one's own actions are the creator, ultimately. Some people say that, from a certain angle, Buddhism is not a religion but rather a science of mind. — Dalai Lama

Rest as the awareness that is aware without using thought. — Loch Kelly

To think that this is the only universe, that the physical creation is all there is, these are the dogmas of our times. — Frederick Lenz

Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are. — Sukhraj S. Dhillon

The big realization when we go beyond the ego is simply seeing that we've always been ok. — Loch Kelly

What if someone conducted tens of thousands of hours of rigorous investigation to discover truths about the nature of consciousness? Suppose other people replicated the research over hundreds of years. How amazing would it be not just to have an intellectual understanding of the mind's potential but also to establish the most rapid and direct way to realize it? That is the science of Buddhism. — David Michie

On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be. ~ 14th Dalai Lama in his talk to the Society for Neuroscience in 2005 in Washington. — Dalai Lama XIV

Molecules don't have patterns. You create a pattern by the perception of something. The continuity of awareness is your perceptual field. Existence only occurs through the act of perception. — Frederick Lenz

Emotional states are fairly quick bursts of neuronal gossip. Traits, on the other hand, are more like the neuronal equivalent of committed relationships. — Yongey Mingyur

So one fundamental attitude shared by Buddhism and science is the commitment to keep searching for reality by empirical means and to be willing to discard accepted or long-held positions if our search finds that the truth is different. By — Dalai Lama XIV

If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. — Dalai Lama XIV

He was the least spiritual of all the monks here, accepting nothing without proof. This skepticism was simultaneously his greatest asset and his greatest impediment. — Amy Thomson

The means and the results, the good and the bad, are within all of us who are aware and care. — Suman Jyoty Bhante

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview. — Dalai Lama

Western science has made nature intelligible in terms of its symmetries and regularities, analyzing its most wayward forms into components of a regular and measurable shape. As a result we tend to see nature and to deal with it as an "order" from which the element of spontaneity has been "screened out." But this order is maya, and the "true suchness" of things has nothing in common with the purely conceptual aridities of perfect squares, circles, or triangles - except by spontaneous accident. Yet this is why the Western mind is dismayed when ordered conceptions of of the universe break down. and when the basic behavior of the physical world is found to be a "principle of uncertainty. — Alan W. Watts

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience. — Edward Abbey

If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts. — Dalai Lama

We can learn to return home to our open hearts at any moment. — Loch Kelly

Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. [An infinitely old universe, always evolving may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end.] Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science. — Hannes Alfven

To study the self is to forget the self. Maybe if you sat enough zazen, your sense of being a solid, singular self would dissolve and you could forget about it. What a relief. You could just hang out happily as part of an open-ended quantum array. — Ruth Ozeki

If there's good, strong evidence from science that such and such is the case and this is contrary to Buddhism, then we will change. — Dalai Lama XIV

All science is a charted ignorance and belongs to Maya. — Will Durant

Like modern science, Buddhism holds the basic premise that, at the most fundamental level, there is no qualitative difference between the material basis of the body of a sentient being, such as a human, and that of, say, a piece of rock. — Dalai Lama XIV

Students of popular science ... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism. — Albert Einstein

That's what Buddhism has been trying to unravel - the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind. — Matthieu Ricard

We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That's a fact but one we fight. — Sharon Salzberg

In Zen Buddhism, "The Great Cessation" is a term that points to the abandoning of the effort to define one's self by any outer definition and to give up acts of futility. It is to let the world remain a mystery that cannot be captured by science, language, or any invention of the mind — Mike Scheidt

It is better to know oneself than know to others. So not find fault others see first in yourself. When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears. — Suman Jyoty Bhante

You are already the awakeness that you seek! — Loch Kelly

The Dalai Lama once said that 'If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change!' This is a great thought! And great thoughts belong to great men only! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

What is science but the pursuit of the truth? What is Buddhism but 2500 years of observation as to the nature of mind? — Wade Davis

Science tells us that love not only diminishes the experience of physical pain but can make us - and our beloveds - healthier. — Sharon Salzberg

For modern science, at least from a philosophical point of view, the critical divide seems to be between inanimate matter and the origin of living organisms, while for Buddhism the critical divide is between non-sentient matter and the emergence of sentient beings. — Dalai Lama XIV

W are all carrying the imprints of our most ancient ancestors. Not simply in the genetic code, but in the imprints of attention that are passed on. — Frederick Lenz