| by Shelton Gunaratne
( March 2, 2013, Moorhead-MN, Sri Lanka Guardian) Responding to my review essay on paticca samuppada (Sri Lanka Guardian, 26 Feb. 2013) reader Ben Silva shouts, “BUT IN SCIENCE WE NEED VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE AND A SOLID BODY OF THEORY, obeying known laws of nature. Is journalist Shelton G an expert on molecular biology, genetics, epigenome field etc. to talk about the mechanics of birth?”
The likes of Ben Silva (BS) will not find “truth” in anything outside verifiable phenomena backed by so-called “science,” an invention of the imperial West to maintain global intellectual dominance when it realized that its ploy of Orientalism (downgrading the cultures of the colonized peoples) failed to work. Immanuel Wallerstein, the originator of world-systems analysis and a merciless critic of social science, asserts that the seemingly objective “scientific method” is a mere “Trojan horse” the West put in place to perpetuate the domination of the West over the rest.
BS and his ilk are materialists who delight in denigrating Buddha Dhamma for its alleged naiveté in supporting non-violence and inducing people to slash their ignorance by curtailing their lobha (greed), dosa (hatred) and moha (delusion). These materialists are brainwashed by their Western education to believe in a self/soul, individualism, survival of the fittest (as in the Hobbesian state of nature), capitalist values, scientism, etc.
BS is right when he asserts that I am not a specialist in biosciences, but only a journalist. What BS may not know is that as a doctoral candidate I spent three years learning communication theory and methodology. Therefore, I know what scientific methodology is. I learned that science has vastly improved the human condition, but it has vast limitations too. For example, an estimated 84 percent of our universe constitutes dark matter. But science cannot measure it. Science also cannot find the First Cause, viz., the origin of the singularity that gave rise to the universe.
Science can only be applied to phenomena that researchers can test again and again. Science cannot measure or test any transcendental or metaphysical theories. There are only scientific facts, not truths. As the Buddha said in Kalama Sutta, truth is based on each namarupa’s perception. Because scientific facts can keep on changing (anicca) every moment, no two tests can yield the identical results. The ceteris paribus ploy vitiates science because nothing can remain constant.
Wallerstein criticizes the classical Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, reified by both natural and social scientists, for researching parts and inferring the results to the whole thereby ignoring the fact that the whole is more than the sum of its parts; for incorrectly presuming the existence of independent variables without proving the First Cause; and for adopting linear statistics to explain what is essentially a non-linear world.
As we can now see, science alone cannot explain everything in our universe. To do so, we need epistemology (science), ontocosmology (metaphysics), and axiology (moral and ethical conduct)—the three broad components of Western philosophy. Science separated from philosophy less than four centuries ago when the term “natural science” replaced “natural philosophy.”
In contrast, Eastern philosophy does not make an artificial distinction between science and philosophy. Buddhism, for example, emphasizes systems thinking by recognizing the interconnection, interdependence, and interaction of everything in the universe. It penetrates the universe through the extraordinary vision of a Buddha who attained Enlightenment through the power of his mind (concentration of mental energy or meditation). Science cannot measure the degree of mental energy all of us have accumulated over time.
The advent of quantum physics in the early 20th century helped to rejuvenate Eastern philosophy—the yin-yang duality of Daoism, the mutual co-arising (paticca-samuppada) concept of Buddhism, etc.—denigrated as metaphysics by Western pundits like philosopher G.W.F. Hegel and sociologist Max Weber.
BS and his ilk are most likely suffering from avijja (ignorance) tanha (greed), and upadana (attachment) in the sense used in paticca samuppada deluging themselves to be Buddhists because in the Kalama Sutta Buddha permitted independent thinking.
The English rendition of paticca samuppada is “dependent origination,” which Buddha explained in the following four lines:
This being, that becomes;
From the arising of this, that arises;
This not being, that becomes not;
From the ceasing of this, that ceases.
In these four lines, “this” and “that” stand for each of the 12 (reduced to 11) nidanas (causal links). These are natural laws that no scientist can disprove. Buddha Dhamma is neither a philosophy nor a science; it contains elements of both, and also includes axiology. It shows the path to cease mental defilements engendered by elements in the panca skandha (“five aggregates”) constituting a “person,” who in reality is bereft of a soul or self because of the ever-changing (anicca) nature of everything.
B S complains that I had left the domain of religion/philosophy and intruded into the domain of biosciences and genetics in which I am not qualified. As I have already shown, Eastern philosophy rejects the compartmentalization of knowledge into specializations. Moreover, I am not the brain behind the metatheory of dependent co-origination. I did not invent the nidanas or speculate on how their interactions produced the karmic energy to repeat the cycle of jati (birth), jaramarana (decay and death), and punarbhava (re-becoming). As a mere journalist, I summarized the crux of Buddha Dhamma culled from the Sutta Pitaka as presented by L. Jayasooriya.
Paticca samuppada illustrates the advanced systems thinking of an enlightened human being to prove the thesis that cyclic existence (samsara) is a struggle to overcome inevitable dukkha engendered by the five aggregates constituting a namarupa (a human being). The Four Noble Truths summarize the entire philosophy of Buddha Dhamma:
- Cyclic existence (samsara) is dukkha
- Dukkha arises (samudaya) because of the volitional actions of certain nidanas in an organism’s bhavacakra.
- The cessation (nirodha) of dukkha is possible by removing the nidanas.
- The Noble Eightfold Path is the way (magga) to remove dukkha and its nidanas.
BS in his parting shot says, “I am not clever enough to understand your jargon.”
My response: I used Pali terms for the sake of accuracy, not for confusing you.
 Responding to my review essay on paticca samuppada ...){kind=link}