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Buddhism at Crossroads: A Case Study of SixTibetan Buddhist Monks Navigating the Intersection
of Buddhist Theology and Western Science
Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation
Authors Sonam, Tenzin
Publisher The University of Arizona.
Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this materialis made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona.Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such aspublic display or performance) of protected items is prohibitedexcept with permission of the author.
Download date 03/08/2021 12:45:59
Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624305
1
BUDDHISM AT CROSSROADS: A CASE STUDY OF SIX TIBETAN BUDDHIST MONKS NAVIGATING THE INTERSECTION OF BUDDHIST THEOLOGY AND
WESTERN SCIENCE
by
Tenzin Sonam
__________________________ Copyright © Tenzin Sonam 2017
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF TEACHING, LEARNING, AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
WITH A MAJOR IN TEACHING & TEACHER EDUCATION
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2017
2
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE
As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Tenzin Sonam, titled Buddhism At Crossroads: A Case Study Of Six Tibetan Buddhist Monks Navigating The Intersection Of Buddhist Theology And Western Science, and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: February 17, 2017
Sara Tolbert _______________________________________________________________________ Date: February 17, 2017 Edward Prather _______________________________________________________________________ Date: February 17, 2017
Bruce Johnson _______________________________________________________________________ Date: February 17, 2017 Chris Impey Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: February 17, 2017 Dissertation Director: Sara Tolbert
3
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.
SIGNED: Tenzin Sonam
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Sara Tolbert,
Dr. Edward Prather, Dr. Chris Impey, and Dr. Bruce Johnson without whom I would not
have been able to complete this dissertation. I want to thank Dr. Sara Tolbert especially
for patiently listening to my early evolving ideas, reading my drafts, and her invaluable
support and guidance throughout the dissertation process. Both Dr. Chris Impey’s and Dr.
Edward Prather’s past experience and interest in monastic science education benefitted
me tremendously in narrowing down the topic and analyzing the findings of study.
Additionally, I could not fathom attending graduate school without their assistance in
finding graduate assistantships throughout most of my studies. I am also grateful for Dr.
Bruce Johnson’s constant stewardship from the beginning of my graduate studies that
allowed to me complete my dissertation in a timely manner.
I cannot express enough gratitude for the love and support of my family,
especially my wife, Phuntsok. She has been pivotal in ensuring my success in pursuing
my career goals by shouldering full responsibility of raising our two beautiful children
and supporting me through this process emotionally. Her dedication to our family is
unwavering and beyond words. I also want to thank my father and other members of
family for their moral support during my graduate studies.
Supporting a family with the graduate stipend is near impossible, but the
scholarship from the Dalai Lama Trust came at such an opportune moment that it relieved
my financial woes allowing me to focus on my studies. Thus, I want to profusely thank
the Dalai Lama Trust for providing a scholarship for three consecutive years of my
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graduate school, and I am committed to serving the goals of the Trust in any capacity in
the future.
Finally, I am grateful that I was fortunate enough to meet all the monks and nuns
that were part of various monastics science education program, including the monks in
this study who taught me many important life lessons. For the monks in study, I want to
thank you for your time and willingness to share your experience with me amicably, yet
with full of intellectual rigor. For the rest of monastics, I will always believe that the
karmic connection that brought us together in this life has not only enabled me to
appreciate the richness and complexities of knowledge embedded within my own culture,
but also opened doors to many new possibilities in my life including my current career
trajectory. In gratitude, I pray. May you succeed in your spiritual endeavors and continue
your work for the benefit of all sentient beings.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES................................................................................8 ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION......................................................................11
Background and Context..................................................................................12 Monastic Science Education Programs......................................................14
Problem Statement...........................................................................................17 Statement of Purpose and Research Questions................................................18 Research Approach..........................................................................................18 Assumptions.....................................................................................................20
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................22 Tibetan Buddhism’s Encounter With Western Science...................................22 Worldview Theory...........................................................................................27
Buddhist Worldview.........................................................................29 Collateral Learning Theory..............................................................................34
Types Of Collateral Learning...........................................................35 Why Evolution? ..............................................................................................38
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY...............................................................39 Introduction......................................................................................................39 Rationale For Qualitative Design.....................................................................40 Rationale For Phenomenological Methodology..............................................41 Interpretive Case Study....................................................................................42 The Role Of Researcher...................................................................................43 Data Collection Strategies................................................................................44
Interviews.........................................................................................45 Monk’s Profile.................................................................................................48 Data Analysis...................................................................................................69 Validity and Reliability....................................................................................73
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS ON EVOLUTION...............................................75 Introduction......................................................................................................75 What Is Life? Sentient Beings Vs. Living Things...........................................75 Origin Of Life..................................................................................................85 Buddhist vs. Scientific Account of Human Evolution.....................................91 Spontaneous Birth......................................................................................95 Human Being vs. Animal...........................................................................98 “Evidence for Evolution is too Distant”..................................................102 Evolution And Buddhist Theory of Karma....................................................104 “Karma is Not a Mysterious Force” ........................................................105 “Random is Problematic” .......................................................................108
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Karma is Inexplicable ..............................................................................111 Alignment of Buddhist Beliefs and Evolution...............................................117 Dependent Arising...................................................................................117 Mother Sentient Beings............................................................................120
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS............................................125 Collateral Learning........................................................................................125
Sentient Being vs. Living Things.............................................................126 Human Evolution.....................................................................................131 Karma and Evolution...............................................................................136
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION....................................141 Cross-cultural Science Education ..................................................................141 Monastic Science Education..........................................................................144 Monastic Science Curriculum........................................................................146 Conclusion.....................................................................................................149
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW I..............................................................................151 APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW II.............................................................................152 APPENDIX C: INTEVIEW IIIA INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS............................................................................................................153 APPENDIX D: INTEVIEW IIIB FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS............................................................................................................154 APPENDIX E: MATE SURVEY...........................................................................155 REFERENCES.........................................................................................................156
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Types of collateral learning...............................................................................35
Figure 2: Human evolutionary process..............................................................................99
Figure 5.1a: Buddhist vs. science schema of life............................................................126
Figure 5.1b: Sentient being vs. the evolutionary tree......................................................126
Figure 5.2 a: Gawa’s case of dependent collateral learning............................................129
Figure 5.2b: Tsering’s case of secured collateral learning..............................................130
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Timeline of Data Collection and Participants Involved...................................46
Table 3.2: Monks’ Demographic.......................................................................................49
Table 3.3: Example of Thematic Categories......................................................................70
Table 3.4: Example of Codes.............................................................................................71
Table 4.1: Results of Measurement of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution.....................92
Table 5.1: Monks’ View of Human Evolution and Types of Collateral Learning..........136
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ABSTRACT
Recent effort to teach Western science in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries has
drawn interest both within and outside the quarters of these monasteries. This novel and
historic move of bringing Western science in a traditional monastic community began
around year 2000 at the behest of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of
Tibetan Buddhism. Despite the novelty of this effort, the literature in science education
about learners from non-Western communities suggests various “cognitive conflicts”
experienced by these non-Western learners due to fundamental difference in the
worldview of the two knowledge traditions. Hence, in this research focuses on how six
Tibetan Buddhist monks were situating/reconciling the scientific concepts like the theory
of evolution into their traditional Buddhist worldview. The monks who participated in
this study were engaged in a further study science at a university in the U.S. for two
years. Using case study approach, the participants were interviewed individually and in
groups over the two-year period.
The findings revealed that although the monks scored highly on their acceptance
of evolution on the Measurement of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE) survey,
however in the follow-up individual and focus group interviews, certain conflicts as well
as agreement between the theory of evolution and their Buddhist beliefs were revealed.
The monks experienced conflicts over concepts within evolution such as common
ancestry, human evolution, and origin of life, and in reconciling the Buddhist and
scientific notion of life. The conflicts were analyzed using the theory of collateral
learning and was found that the monks engaged in different kinds of collateral learning,
which is the degree of interaction and resolution of conflicting schemas. The different
10
collateral learning of the monks was correlated to the concepts within evolution and has
no correlation to the monks’ years in secular school, science learning or their proficiency
of English language.
This study has indicted that the Tibetan Buddhist monks also experience certain
cognitive conflict when situating Western scientific concepts into their Buddhist
worldview as suggested by research of science learners from other non-Western societies.
By explicating how the monks make sense of scientific theories like the theory of
evolution as an exemplar, I hope to inform the current effort to establish science
education in the monastery to develop curricula that would result in meaningful science
teaching and learning, and also sensitive to needs and the cultural survival of the
monastics.
11
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
In 2010, around sixty Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns gathered at the foothills
of the Himalayas in India to learn Western science. This was the third time they had
gathered for this month-long, annual event, during which they would learn about various
topics in Western science such as cosmology, neuroscience, and life sciences, mostly
from Western scientists and educators. During this workshop series, I worked as an
interpreter in the science classes. That year, a white female professor was teaching a
neuroscience class, and her topic for that eventful day was cognition and behavior. She
began by explaining the different regions of the brain related to human emotion. The
monks and nuns seemed unusually perplexed that day, which at first led to a
conversational commotion and then resolved into a lively class discussion. The students
were amused by the fact that, on the monitor, the same region of the brain lit up each time
for anguish, regardless of the cause. This was deeply unsatisfying for them and seemed to
strike a chord that touched the core of their tradition.
In the pursuant discussion, one monk conjectured that the scientific explanation
seemed inadequate compared to his tradition of dealing with mental processes. Another
monk asked, "Why can’t science differentiate among the different causes of this
distressing emotions?" He added, “An actual cause of anguish for a person could be
personal, such as a mishap or an attitudinal problem, or it could be generated
intentionally.” A third monk added, “While for some, distress might result in a loss of
confidence and courage, willfully embodying other’s suffering leads to more confidence
and courage because you want to alleviate the suffering of other beings.” Finally, a fourth
monk quipped, “I think our brains are foolish!” The class then burst into laughter. (It is
12
usual for monastics to crack jokes during debates to illustrate their points.) Afterwards, I
realized that this last monk was actually mocking the materialist approach to knowledge
taken by Western science.
At the time, I did not realize that the source of dissonance stemmed from the
divergent worldviews of Buddhism and Western science. Empathy and, therefore, the
development of compassion for other beings is the essence of Buddhist practice. The
inability of Western science to differentiate between the two causes—an externally
influenced mental state and an intentionally cultivated one—surprised the monastics, who
had perceived science as accounting for all aspects of human reality.
The professor then reiterated to the class that science is a continuing process, and
the current study of operation and morphology of the human brain is still evolving.
Furthermore, she assured the class that the scientific community is optimistic to find
ways to objectively differentiate the different mental states. This calmed the monks and
prompted some monks to call on their peers to hold their comments and let the class
continue. Throughout the six years I spent with the monastics, there were many similar
interesting encounters between the monks and their Western teachers on many different
science topics. The true significance of these encounters I have been able to fathom only
recently. These encounters led me to actually question what sense do the monks and nuns
make of scientific facts and theories given the divergent worldview from which they were
coming from. My attempt to answer this question is what led me into this study.
Background and Context
The recent effort to introduce science education into the Tibetan Buddhist
monasteries in India is a resultant of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s personal
13
interest in science and his continuing engagement with Western scientists, scholars, and
philosopher over last three decades. Thupten Jinpa, a Buddhist scholar and interpreter to
the Dalai Lama, states two-fold goal of this educational initiative (Jinpa, 2010). The first
goal is to update the outdated Buddhist concept about the natural world by incorporating
scientific theories and concept that have conclusive empirical evidence such as, atomic
structure, astronomy, human origin, and evolution of complex lives. He described the
second goal as to respond to the challenges posed to key Buddhist concepts by new
scientific discoveries. However, according to Jinpa (2014), the Dalai Lama’s overarching
goal is to modernize Tibetan Buddhism to save the members of his tradition from a
cultural conservatism. However, this raised questions about how the scientific concepts
would be interpreted and understood by the monastics, and what will be the resultant
worldview they would develop in this enculturation process.
The Dalai Lama himself recognizes many methodological similarities between
Buddhism and science; the strong emphasis on empirical evidence as the primary source
of knowledge, and common commitment to understanding the nature of reality based on
reason and experience (Lama, 2005a). Based on this, he had rejected aspects of the
Buddhist Abhidharma cosmology due to its incompatibility with evidence gathered by
modern astronomy. However, a respected Buddhist scholar and also the former head of
the Tibetan Government in exile, Prof. Ven. Samdhong Rinpoche, defend the validity of
the same Buddhist cosmology (Rinpoche, 2008).
Despite the similarities, the Dalai Lama (2005a) also noted the fundamental
differences between Buddhism and science. Throughout his book, he questions the
materialistic philosophy of Western science and its inability to give full account of the
14
reality as we experience it. For example, he argues that “the current biological model
does not allow for the possibility of real altruism” ( Lama, 2005a, p. 113). Although there
are some studies on the role of altruism in evolution, the general perception of evolution
is that of a competition driven process. Therefore, it is probable that individual monks
and nuns might negotiate meaning in science differently based on individual’s intellectual
capacity and rigidness to hold onto their tradition.
The monastic comes with a positive attitude and full confidence in their
worldview, when they approach Western science. This is a result of both a historical
depiction of Buddhism as a religion compatible with science (Lopez Jr, 2009), and
constant engagement with the scientific community by their leader, His Holiness the
Dalai Lama. The resilient and openness of his tradition is underscored by his public
statement in his book, Universe in a Single Atom, “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” ( Lama, 2005a, p. 3). Also in his
regular public meetings, he acknowledges the development of Buddhist philosophy and
epistemology as largely due to the challenges posed by other knowledge systems in early
India. Today, he considers Western science as the counterpart knowledge system, and
thus recommends the member of his tradition to integrate the findings modern science
and discuss its implication on Buddhist worldview.
Monastic Science Education Programs
In order to understand the context of current study, I will briefly give an overview
of ongoing science education programs in the monasteries. The science education in the
Tibetan monasteries has been supported mainly through three major programs: Science
15
for Monks, Science Meets Dharma, and Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, all initiated at
the behest of their spiritual leader, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The two earliest
programs, Science for Monks and Science Meets Dharma were both started in 2000 and
the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative was established in 2007.
The Science for Monks program, for example, holds annual month-long intensive
science immersion program with a cohort of about 50-60 monastics from different
monasteries, mostly taught by educators from the U.S. Since it’s beginning, more than 30
different instructors have taught physics, cosmology, neuroscience, and life sciences for
over 200 monks and nuns. The Science meets Dharma program held one or two regular
science classes in the monasteries itself, with instructors mainly from Europe spending 2-
3 months at a time. This program served over 400 monks and nuns since it’s beginning in
2000, and gave easy access to test and experience science education within the
monastery. From 2001-2013, about 15 scholars, scientists and instructors have taught
through this program.
The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI) is the most recent initiative established
in 2007 with the stated goal “to build a bridge between two complementary systems of
knowledge by educating future scientific collaborators who can contribute to new
discoveries in the science of mind and body” (Emory-Tibet Partnership, n.d.). In this
direction, ETSI is in the process of developing and piloting a science curriculum
specifically designed for the monastics. Starting 2014, ETSI began formal science
teaching in all the major Geluk monasteries in India and also sends its faculty members to
teach regularly at the month long summer-intensive class at three different sites in
southern India. Recently, it organized the first symposium on science and Buddhism at
16
Drepung monastery, where the Buddhist community was represented by the monks and
nuns from the ETSI and other programs, dialoguing with Western scientists in presence
of the Dalai Lama (“Dalai Lama’s guide to the next four years - CNN.com,” n.d.).
The end goal of all these programs is to gradually establish a formal science
curriculum in the Tibetan monasteries in India. At the gathering of abbots of all the Geluk
monasteries—the largest Tibetan Buddhist sect, in 2012, a decree was issued that science
education will be mandated in all Geluk monasteries from 2014 (“Science studies to be
introduced in Geluk Gyuktoe Chenmo,” 2012). This entails inclusion of science subjects
in the Geluk Gyuktoe Chenmo, a six years comprehensive scholastic testing in the Geluk
tradition. The social and cultural impact of these reforms in the monastic community is
immense. Hence, it is imperative, at least from an educational standpoint, to explore the
science learning experiences of the monastics to inform the effectiveness of these
programs and also to describe what entails a meaningful learning of Western science for
the monastics whose primary commitment is preservation of their tradition.
Science education research on learners arriving from non-Western views of the
world has shown that even in the presence of empirical evidence, some scientific
concepts, which had no resonance in their worldview, were either rejected outright or
failed to become part of the learner’s cognitive ecology (Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999;
Baker & Taylor, 1995; Cobern, 1991). Therefore, the learner’s sociocultural background
plays a critical role in the construction of new understanding when an encounter with new
information occurs. Cobern (1996) described the importance of taking into consideration
the learner’s worldview for successful retention of science knowledge. Many rationalistic
approaches to science learning, such as, conceptual change theory, inhibit learners from
17
making scientific concepts as part of their cognitive ecology or worldview. Cobern
introduced a unique “worldviews” theoretical framework to describe the thought process
of individuals and communities whose worldviews are incongruent with Western
scientific worldview.
The incongruities between worldviews therefore, results in cognitive dissonance
in the learners that lead different accommodation mechanisms depending on the degree of
interaction and resolution of these conflicts in what is known as collateral learning
(Jegede, 1995). Using the lens of collateral learning theory (CLT), my work illustrates
how the monks in this study resolve conflicting schema between Western science and
Buddhism. The study therefore provides empirical evidence for the collateral learning of
monks and identifies how Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns are situating and/or
reconciling specific scientific knowledge within their Buddhist Worldview. This
research investigates how they alter/adjust their worldview as they learn Western science
and discuss about the limitation of CLT in examining the learning experiences of the
monks.
Problem Statement
Research indicates that due to difference in the learner’s worldview and the
worldview inherent in science education, learners, especially from non-Western cultural
backgrounds experience difficulty in integrating scientific information as part of their
cognitive ecology. To date there has been no research on the experiences of Tibetan
Buddhist monastics that were engaged in studying Western science in their monasteries
in India. This study explicitly looks into the learning experiences of these Buddhist
monastics.
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Statement of Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to examine how six Tibetan Buddhist monks make
sense of concepts in Western science from a Buddhist worldview and how they negotiate
the differences between the two worldviews. By studying the varied ways in which these
monks integrate the two knowledge traditions, this work will shed light on how scientific
concepts are interpreted and incorporated by these learners for the first time. The Western
science theory of evolution is used as the context and framing used to situate this
exploration into the experiences of Tibetan Buddhist monk engaged in learning Western
science. The study will address the following research questions:
1. How do Tibetan Buddhist monks make sense of Western scientific theories
through the lens of their Buddhist worldview?
a. How do Tibetan Buddhist monks’ understandings and beliefs about
Buddhism and Western science influence their perceptions of the theory of
evolution?
b. What, if any, conflicts do Tibetan Buddhist monks experience when learning
the theory of evolution?
c. If conflicts occur, how do these Tibetan Buddhists approach reconciling
these conflicts?
Research Approach
I used a qualitative case studies methodology to investigate the experiences of six
Tibetan Buddhist monks while they study Western science in an undergraduate science
program at a private university in the southeast United States for two years. The monks
came from different monasteries in India and were selected for the program based on
19
their excellent academic performance in Buddhist studies, scientific knowledge, and
English proficiency.
I conducted an initial baseline interview and survey a month after the arrival of
six monks in the fall of 2013. Through this initial work, I was able to capture their
demographic information, their views about science, and their goal and plan for the next
two years. Follow up individual interviews were conducted after the first year. These
interviews elicited their evolving views about science, and topics of interest in science
and investigated the degree to which these science ideas were compatible or incompatible
with Buddhist concepts and beliefs. Since the monks were mostly taking life science
courses at the school, the biological theory of evolution appeared to be topic that the
monks accept but held divergent views about it. Therefore, for the final interview, the
theory of evolution was decided as the context for this study.
Individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were the primary
method of data collection, for the actual study. Individual interviews were conducted with
each participant about their perception of the theory of evolution. This was followed by
focus group discussions with all six monks, which were video recorded. The initial
questions for focus group discussion were prepared ahead of time, with additional
questions based on the responses in the individual interview. The survey instrument,
Measurement of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE) (Rutledge & Warden,
1999) was used to determine their acceptance of evolution before the interviews. All the
data collection was done in the monks’ native language (Tibetan), first transcribed
verbatim in Tibetan and then translated into English. The original transcripts were shared
with the participants for veracity. The information obtained from these data sources were
20
consolidated using qualitative software ATLAS.TI and then analyzed using open coding.
I developed coding categories and refined them continuously, guided by the study’s
conceptual framework. Examples of code and common emergent themes were reported in
detail in Chapter 4.
Assumptions
Based on the researcher’s experience and background as interpreter and translator
in the monastic science program, three primary assumptions were made regarding this
study. First, monks generally share a positive attitude towards learning science for
reasons described earlier. Such positive attitude might result in tentative acceptance of
scientific facts and concepts at face value without in-depth analysis of their implication to
the Buddhist worldview. Second, the years of secular school attendance before entering
monastery could have an impact on both the understanding and acceptance of scientific
ideas. More years of secular school entails higher English language proficiency, and
training in basic math and science. Third, since the monks were unaware of fundamental
differences between science and Buddhist worldviews, they might unconsciously
misconstrue aspects of either worldview to integrate knowledge from the two traditions.
Most of the monks have been exclusively trained in Buddhist studies and therefore are
aware of other knowledge systems.
I begin chapter two with the review of the literature to situate the current research
in the larger science education research and present a brief overview of Buddhist
worldview. Then I describe the framework used for this study, which is collateral
learning theory. In chapter three, I describe the methods, participants, data sources, and
how I analyzed the data. Chapter four will report the findings of this study divided in five
21
categories. In chapter five, I use the collateral learning theory framework to interpret the
findings in chapter four. Finally, in chapter six, I discuss the relevance of current study in
the larger cross-culturally science education and then conclude with how this study
informs the current efforts to introduce Western science in the monasteries and future
studies that could be done.
22
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, I argue that since there is no research thus far on how learners
from Buddhist sociocultural background situate scientific knowledge within their
traditional worldview that science education research needs to look into the experiences
of non-Western science learners from Buddhist backgrounds. The present continuing
efforts to expand Western science education in the Tibetan monasteries provides an
excellent context in which to examine the learning experiences of Tibetan Buddhist
monastics. Hence, I will first give historical account of the efforts to introduce science
teaching in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Then employing Cobern’s (1996)
worldview theory, which is adapted from anthropologist Kearney’s (1984) logico-
structural model of worldview, I will briefly describe the Buddhist worldview based on
this logico-structural model Jegede’s (1996) theory of collateral learning will be used to
understand the cognitive accommodative mechanism adopted by the monastics to resolve
conflicts arising from divergent worldviews. Also, a review of literature related to
collateral learning will be presented. Finally, I end with the explanation of why the
biological theory of evolution is a relevant concept in science to explore for this study.
Tibetan Buddhism’s Encounter with Western Science
Historically speaking, Buddhism’s engagement with Western science is a very
recent phenomenon compared to Abrahamic religions, and the first interactions between
Western science and Buddhism began mainly as a result of Western colonization in Asia
(Lopez Jr, 2009). In the case of Tibetans, it wasn’t until the Chinese occupation of Tibet
in 1959 that Tibetan Buddhism comes into contact with the outside world and had its first
contact with Western science. Jinpa (2010), a Buddhist scholar, attested to this fact when
23
he stated that “on the stage of science-and-religion dialogue, Buddhism is a latecomer,
and within Buddhism, the Tibetan tradition is definitely a late arrival” (p. 872) .
However, in the last two decades of engagement between Buddhism and Western
science, Tibetan Buddhism has taken a leading role, and its spiritual leader, His Holiness
the Dalai Lama, has become the most visible person leading dialogues between Western
scientists, philosophers, Buddhist scholars and contemplatives.
Upon coming into exile in India, The Dalai Lama’s personal interest in science
gradually formalized into regular dialogues and meetings with scientists from various
disciplines—especially in the field of neuroscience. Some scholars claim that this
engagement led by the Dalai Lama has resulted in the development of a new discipline in
sciences dubbed as “contemplative studies” (Jinpa, 2014). For this development, the
Dalai Lama was invited as a keynote speaker for the Society for Neuroscience annual
conference in 2005 attended by over 35,000 neuroscientists around the world. The Dalai
Lama’s prolonged interaction with the scientific community him led to introduce Western
science curricula in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Further the Dalai Lama’s recognition
in the scientific community has also generated tremendous interest amongst Tibetan
monks and nuns to learn Western science.
According to Jinpa (2010), the goal of the Dalai Lama’s engagement with the
scientific community is threefold. First, as a citizen of the global community, he wanted
to further human knowledge through mutual dialogue and engagement on topics of
mutual interest and concern. Second, he wanted to encourage traditional Buddhist
societies to incorporate scientific concepts into Buddhist worldview in order to become
part of the global community. Finally, to respond to the perceived challenges posed by
24
scientific discoveries to key Buddhist concepts. The Dalai Lama’s confidence in his
tradition to be able to meaningfully engage with other knowledge systems can be easily
captured from the following excerpts from his book, “The Universe in a Single Atom”:
My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science
so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of
critical investigation: 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, 2005a, p. 3)
The Dalai Lama notes the methodological similarities in both intellectual traditions for
rigorous critical investigation. To this extent, he declares his willingness to discard
aspects of his tradition that is proven conclusively false by science and accept the
scientific findings. This then leads to the Dalai Lama’s second goal for engaging with
Western science, which is to incorporate scientific concepts and topics into Buddhist
worldviews. Here, Jinpa (2010) notes two further sub goals: first, to incorporate aspects
of scientific findings that are ‘essential’ and have valid and confirmed empirical basis;
and second, to respond to the challenges posed to key Buddhist principles in light of new
scientific discoveries.
Jinpa considered the first goal as “primarily educational” for the Buddhist
community to become part of the global citizenry. He includes a range of topics from
atomic structure, cosmology, human origin, to evolution of complex lives, which all
traditional Buddhists societies should study in order to become part of modern society.
Jinpa (2010) argues that the underlying principle for inclusion of these topics is simple,
“where there are empirical accounts, whether they have to do with cosmology, the
25
understanding of matter at the subatomic level, or the evolution of complex life forms,
whatever empirical evidence supports takes precedence.” (p. 878). Although Jinpa argues
for inclusion from the general perspective of which scientific topics should become part
of formal science curricula in the traditional Buddhists learning centers, implied in this
assertion is that there will be no conflict for Buddhists in accepting these scientific
concepts as long as there is conclusive empirical evidence.
From a global perspective, this reliance on empirical evidence is the very
foundation on which Western science has established and maintains its domination over
other knowledge systems (Hatcher, Bartlett, Marshall, & Marshall, 2009). At the
individual level, science education research in the past two decades has shown that non-
Western learners might learn or understand orthodox Western scientific concepts, but
they do so without these concepts becoming part of their cognitive ecology or worldview
(Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999; Cobern, 1994; Jegede, 1995; Jegede & Aikenhead, 1999;
Ogawa, 1986, 1995; Meshach Bolaji Ogunniyi, 1988).
Surprisingly, Jinpa gives the example of the Dalai Lama as someone who had
successfully abandoned the traditional cosmology on the basis of more convincing
empirical evidence from modern cosmology. The Dalai Lama’s rejection aspects of
Buddhist Abhidharma cosmology in favor of evidence provided by modern cosmology
publicly is not without opposition from other Tibetan Buddhists leaders. A Buddhist
scholar and the former prime minister of the Tibetan exile government, Prof. Ven.
Samdhong Rinpoche has openly defended the Abhidharma cosmology during a launch of
a science program in the presence of the Dalai Lama himself and other Buddhist scholars
(Rinpoche, 2008). Rinpoche supports the traditional Buddhist cosmology because it has
26
relevance and meaning for Buddhists in their doctrine of salvation and metaphysics,
which are essential components of the Buddhist worldview. This conflict over Buddhist
cosmology epitomizes the fundamental difference in the two worldviews, and therefore,
the Tibetan monks and nuns might have to eventually deal with such conflict during their
studies on other topics in science.
For traditional Buddhist societies to engage and become a part of the modern
world, the Dalai Lama says, “that the essence of modernization lies in the introduction of
modern education, and in the heart of modern education there must be a command of
science and technology” (2005a, p. 3). The Dalai Lama considers science education as an
imperative for members of his Buddhist community to stay relevant and become part of
the modern community. Therefore, he initiated the teaching of Western science in
Tibetan monasteries in India, and since 2000, numerous science programs were started
which provided opportunities for hundreds of monastics to learn and experiment with
Western science in their monasteries. In 2014, all the Geluk monasteries, the largest
Tibetan Buddhist sect, made science education mandatory for six years before the end of
their monastic graduation. These new developments in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries
in India raise a number of interesting questions about the experiences of these novice
science learners, such as:
• What aspects of their traditional religious knowledge will the Tibetan
Buddhist monastics bring into the science classes and how will this
traditional knowledge be used to construct meaning of the new
information?
27
• Do they experience any conflict between their religious beliefs and the
scientific explanation? In the event of any conflict, how do they respond?
• In their effort to reconcile conflict between the two knowledge systems,
will they alter their traditional worldview or misconstrue scientific
theories?
• Finally, What is the resultant worldview the Tibetan Buddhist monks and
nuns will develop in this process?
With this I have laid out the historical developments and goals for introduction of
science education in the Tibetan monasteries. In order to answer some of the questions
raised here about the worldview negotiation of Tibetan Buddhist monastics, a proper
understanding of Tibetan Buddhist worldview is necessary. For this, I will first introduce
worldview theory, one of the frameworks used in this study, and then briefly explain the
Buddhist worldview in relation to the worldview theory. Understanding the Buddhist
worldview will shed light on the prior knowledge or cultural background of the
monastics.
Worldview Theory
Michael Kearney was the first to expound the worldview theory in cultural
anthropology in order to establish the ecosystem of assumption and beliefs held by an
individual or a cultural group and to examine how these beliefs differ across cultures.
Kearney (1984) defines worldview as “the collection of basic assumptions that an
individual or a society has about reality” (p. 42). Since these assumptions are interrelated,
he refers to his worldview theory as logico-structural model of worldview. This logico-
structural model of worldview is a composite of seven interrelated universal categories:
28
Self, Non-Self or Other, Classification, Relationship, Causality, Time, and Space. Based
on the content variation of these universal categories, individuals or groups might differ
in their worldview.
Worldview theory was applied to science education by Cobern (1991) to
overcome the rationalistic approach to science learning propounded by many conceptual
change theorists at that time. Cobern wanted to encompass the “entirety of a learner’s
cognitive ecology or worldview” (p 584), which enables more meaningful learning in
science. In this context, ‘meaningful’ signifies making sense of new information in a
particular worldview. He also argues that people of non-Western societies, whose views
are often incompatible with a mechanistic scientific worldview, are not irrational. Instead,
their rationality is based on their traditional worldview, which goes beyond the Western
mechanistic worldview. This results in a nonscientific way of thinking (Cobern, 1991).
Therefore, worldview theory provides a reasonable framework for understanding the
source of conflicts in science learning for those coming from a religious and/or non-
Western background and how conflict can be resolved with or without radically
restructuring their worldview. .
Cobern arrives at worldview theory from a contextual constructivist perspective,
acknowledging that knowledge is a construction to make sense of our experiences, and
this construction is an interpretation based on an individual’s prior knowledge or prior
constructions and beliefs (Baker & Taylor, 1995; Cobern, 1989), which are culturally and
contextually embedded. In the case of Buddhist monks and nuns, their prior knowledge
and beliefs are based on their religious worldview, which determines how they make
sense of new information. In order to make learning meaningful, the new information
29
needs to find a niche in the individual’s cognitive and sociocultural milieu. In the case of
Tibetan Buddhist monastics, it is very much likely that the new information will be
interpreted in terms of presuppositions and assumption about reality from a Buddhist
perspective. I will now explain some of the salient presuppositions of Buddhist
worldview, emphasizing the first four of the seven universals i.e. Self, NonSelf or Other,
Relationship, and Causality. However, it is prudent to note that worldview variations are
possible within the same community.
Buddhist Worldview
Buddhism has been shaped by different social, cultural, and political forces over
the past 2,500 years, beginning in India and then spreading to other parts of Southeast
Asia such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, Tibet, Korea, and Japan (Lopez Jr, 2009).
Therefore, it is challenging to present a singular Buddhist worldview that encompasses
all the Buddhist traditions. However, there are certain fundamental concepts in Buddhism
that are shared by all Buddhist traditions. For example, the four seals are considered the
hallmark of Buddhist worldview and are the criterion used to distinguish Buddhism from
other religions from a philosophical standpoint:
All composite phenomena are impermanent.
All contaminated things and events are unsatisfactory.
All phenomena are empty and selfless.
Nirvana is true peace.
(Gyatso & Jinpa, 1995, p31)
According to Gyatso & Jinpa (1995), the first seal “All composite phenomena are
impermanent” means that all phenomena that are conditioned or arise due to causes and
30
conditions are impermanent in nature. No phenomenon arises without a concordant or
discordant cause. Concordant causes lead to a variety of results that require no creator. In
the second seal, “All contaminated things and events are unsatisfactory,” the word
contaminated refers to everything that is tainted by afflictive emotions, such as anger,
attachment and hatred. The source of afflictive emotion is regarded as ignorance, which
is misapprehension of the nature of reality or falsehood opposing truth, and not just an
absence of knowledge. Therefore, all the things and events that are misapprehended will
ultimately lead to suffering. This raises the questions about the ultimate nature of all
things and events. The third seal answers this by saying that “All phenomena are empty
and selfless”. What this means is that since all the phenomena are impermanent in nature,
they lack any independent existence of their own. Therefore, they are empty and devoid
of a self-identity. This proposes that at the ultimate analysis, emptiness is the nature of all
phenomena. By contemplating on the impermanence and emptiness of all phenomena,
one can achieve enlightenment and end the cycle of rebirth, which leads to the fourth
seal. It states, “Nirvana is true peace”, where Nirvana means enlightenment. Although the
four seals succinctly summarize the Buddhist worldview, I will now explicate the
Buddhist perspective on each universal category mentioned by Kearney.
Self and non-Self: In Kearney’s worldview theory, Self is defined as something
that is discernibly different from its environment or the non-Self. In Buddhism, especially
in Tibetan Buddhism, there is no distinction made between the nature of self and non-self.
In the ultimate analysis, the nature of everything -Self and non-Self - is believed to be
empty or selflessness. Buddhists believe that everything in the cosmos, including all life,
is an aggregate of five things: form, feeling, perception, mental/karmic formation, and
31
consciousness, which are known as the Skandha or Aggregate theory. Because of
continuous reconfiguration of these five aggregates in everything, there is nothing that is
permanent except change. The Buddhist concept of selflessness, therefore, refers to both
the self of individual as well as the identifiable self of all phenomena and events (such as
trees, mountains or the Sun). The Buddhist concept of selflessness is often misunderstood
as a denial of any identifiable self or the notion/concept of self as people understand it
colloquially, as an identity of a person or nature of an object. In actuality, that is not the
case because the self in selflessness is divided into two categories, a propositional self
and a self to be negated. Propositional self is described as the notion of self that people
used to identify themselves and others, and it also applies to the essence of all the
phenomena in the environment. Buddhists do not deny the propositional self, but it only
exists contingent upon multiple external factors. Thus, the concept of selflessness or
emptiness applies only to the self to be negated, which is an independently existing self,
non-contingent on any external factors.
Classification: Classification is one of the key universals in worldview theory
because the way in which people or groups classify reality in categories and how classes
form an important part of the framework of their worldview (Kearney, 1984). In
Buddhism, the highest level of classification contains two modes of existence—samsara
(conditioned existence) and nirvana (state of peace or enlightenment). Samsara consists
of three realms of existence: the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm.
Humans and animals are believed to exist in the desire realm, which is characterized by
sensual desire and pain. The form realm is supposed to be devoid of any experience of
suffering and is permeated by experience of bliss. Beings in the form realm are supposed
32
to possess bodies of light. Finally, the formless beings are the subtler forms of existence
filled with equanimity and free from material embodiment. Depending on an individual’s
karmic propensity, accumulation of his past actions, a being wanders among these three
different realms. Only when one is able to escape the cyclic existence in the Samsara or
rebirth, can one reach nirvana or enlightenment and the cycle of rebirth will cease.
Yet another way of classifying the world of conditioned things is into realms of
matter, mental, and abstract composites. Matter is the physically manifested material
object that includes subtle particles to forces in nature. Mind is the realm of subjective
experiences that can include all cognitive processes, sensations, and affective dimensions.
For Buddhists, this mental realm is not reducible to the physical or the material world of
matter or its constituents, although it is believed that they are interrelated and depend on
each other to function. The third category is neither physical nor mental, this includes
phenomena such as time, concepts, and logical principles that are features of reality but
distinct from the realms of the mental and the matter. Again the phenomena belonging to
this category are contingent on the first two realms, but have its own qualities.
Relationship: Relationship universal is the manner in which the Self perceives its
relationship vis-à-vis to the Other. According to worldview theory, such relationships
could be one of harmony, subordinancy, or dominance. In Buddhism, there is a notion of
contained and the container, where the sentient beings are the contained and the physical
environment acts as the container. The Dalai Lama (2005a) says that in Buddhist
Abhidharma texts there isn’t much to say about this notion apart from the assertion that
“the environment where a sentient being exists is an ‘environmental effect’ of the being's
collective karma shared with myriad other” (p. 92). However, the Kalachakra text has
33
suggested certain correlation between the celestial bodies in cosmos and the bodies of
sentient beings.
Causality: According to Kearney (1984), every human society has certain notion
of orderly relationship between cause and effect. The concept of dependent-origination is
the equivalent of Buddhist theory of causality, which describes chain of causes that result
in rebirth and is also considered as the most fundamental theory for understanding the
nature of reality. This principle can be stated in three ways: 1) all events and phenomena
are results of causes and conditions and don’t arise without cause; 2) mutual dependence
of parts and whole, where there can be no whole without the parts and parts are
meaningless without the whole; and finally, 3) anything that has identity does so only
within the context of its possibilities. In terms of causes, there are two categories a
“substantial cause” and a “contributing or complementary cause”. The Dalai Lama (2005)
gives the example of a clay pot. The substantial cause is the stuff that makes the pot, and
hence clay is the substantial cause. Other factors such as the skill of the potter, the potter
himself, and the kiln it came from are all complementary in the sense they help in
actualizing the clay to become a pot.
This is a simplistic and succinct presentation of Buddhist worldview. In actuality,
it is much more complex and it would not be possible to present every aspect of Buddhist
worldview here. However, the assumption that this account of Buddhist worldview will
be useful for understanding what kinds of cultural background or prior knowledge monks
and nuns might bring to make sense of scientific theories. To explore the ways in which
the monastics might approach to situate and/or reconcile the knowledge of western
science with their traditional worldview, I will now explain the development of collateral
34
learning theory and its categories.
Collateral Learning Theory
Jegede Olugbemiro (1995), renowned science education researcher from Africa,
asserts that science education is brought into the developing countries on two pretexts: to
defend Western rationalism and expansionism, and to use science as a civilizing subject
to bring development and modernity; thus, giving no credence to the local culture and
their traditional ways of knowing. Instead, the traditional culture is to be replaced with
the Western mechanistic worldview, delivered via school science and mathematics
modeled on western curricula. However, researchers like Jegede (1995) found that the
socio-cultural factors have greater effect on the local students’ education than the content
of the subject. The indigenous worldview, with all its cultural factors, can impede the
adoption of a worldview compatible with Western science (Cobern, 1996). Thus, the
experience of learners in such an environment, where the local indigenous knowledge is
often considered toxic to the school science curriculum, creates a “duality of thought and
actions created in the memory”, resulting in a coping strategy known as collateral
learning (Jegede, 1995, p. 129).
Jegede (1995) was the first to propose the collateral learning theory (CLT) and
described it as a “ process whereby a learner in a non-Western classroom constructs, side
by side and with minimal interference and interaction, western and traditional meanings
of a simple concept” (Jegede, 1995, p12). According to the variation in the degree of
interaction and the degree to which the conflicts are resolved, he propounds four different
kinds of collateral learning. These four are not to be thought of as distinct categories, but
35
as a spectrum. The degree of interaction and resolution of conflicting schemas vary along
the spectrum.
Types of collateral learning
Along the spectrum of collateral learning, at one the end are learners who hold
two or more conflicting schemas without any interaction between them. The conflicting
schemas are, therefore, stored separately or compartmentalized in their long-term
memory with no interaction between the two, and the learner will access one or the other
depending upon the context. This is known as parallel collateral learning. A commonly
cited example is the concept of rainbow formation among African students, where Jegede
(1995) witnessed students providing a scientific explanation of rainbow formation in a
science class, and reverting to traditional explanation upon return to their community.
At the other end of the spectrum lies secured collateral learning. Aikenhead &
Jegede said, “the conflicting schemata consciously interact and the conflict is resolved in
some manner” (p. 278). Learners in this case always evaluate the conflicting schemas and
move towards the integration of the two schemas, one reinforcing the other, resulting in a
new conception in their long-term memory. There is a convergence of worldview by
drawing from two or more schemas. Jegede (1995) considers this the most desirable of all
the four collateral learning types, and he recommends that educators direct all learners
towards this type of secured collateral learning whenever possible.
ParallelCollaterallearning
• Nointeraction• noincompatiblity• compartmentalization
SimultaneousCollaterallearning
• Concurrentinteraction• Schemaslearnedatthesametime
• Simultaneouslyassessed
DependentCollaterallearning
• Moreinteraction• oneschemamodi<iesexistingone
• existingworldviewnotradicallyaltered
• unconciousofcon<lict
SecuredCollaterallearning
• Mostinteraction• Schemareinforcesoneanother
• Convergenceofworldview
• Consciousofcon<lict
36
Figure 1. Types of collateral learning
Between the two ends of the spectrum lie dependent and simultaneous collateral
learning. According to Aikenhead and Jegede (1999) dependent collateral learning occurs
when “schema from one worldview or domain of knowledge challenges another schema
from a different worldview or knowledge, to an extent that permits students to modify an
existing schema without radically restructuring the existing worldview or domain of
knowledge” (p. 278). In this type of collateral learning, unlike the learners in secured
collateral learning, the learner is not conscious about the incompatibility of the two
domains of knowledge systems, yet they move from one domain to another unknowingly.
Hence, the knowledge construction in one domain in this case depends upon the schema
of the other domain by modifying or rejecting it. This is likened to the Piagetian
accommodation-assimilation model of information organization used by Posner, Strike,
Hewson, and Gertzoy (1982) in the conceptual change model. This means currently held
conceptions (scientific or otherwise) are tentative, to be altered by the construction of
new conceptions or a rejection of a current one.
Finally, simultaneous collateral learning occurs “when ideas from two world
views about a particular concept are to be learned at the same time” (Jegede, 1995, p.
120). This form of learning is situated between parallel and dependent collateral learning
and usually happens to a learner from a non-Western environment who is novice to both
science and traditional knowledge systems. The learner here requires time to comprehend
what is to be learned, thus giving rise to a situation where concepts from two different
worldviews are learned at the same time. Opportunity may arise here, where learning in
37
one domain will facilitate learning of a similar or related concept in another domain of
knowledge.
According to Jegede (1995), all people live in multiple domains and learn
collaterally. Though collateral learning occurs in every society, the effect of collateral
learning is more pronounced in the case of non-Western students in comparison to
Western students. This is because “the pervasive nature of scientific culture and its use as
the basis for politics, economy, technology, etc. make it a second nature” (p. 117) in the
case of Western students. However, in the case of non-Western learners, students’
traditional ways of viewing nature serve as the dominant culture and is often at odds with
the school science they encounter on a daily basis. Therefore, they are required to resolve
their understanding in two domains more frequently than their Western counterparts.
There is very little research on science learners from non-Western countries, and
there are even fewer studies that use CLT as a lens to interpret sociocultural factors and
their relation to science learning. From the available research that uses CLT, it seems that
it is very difficult to identify collateral learners solely from interviews (Sutherland, 2005),
brief participant observations, or evaluations using normative questioning practices
(Herbert, 2005). These studies thus recommend using contextual and personal cues in the
questions to detect collateral learning and delineate between types of collateral learning.
Case studies and longitudinal studies are a preferred methodology for finding collateral
learning among students. Furthermore, of the studies found that allow students do engage
in collateral learning, less than 50 percent are usually identified as collateral learners and
even fewer as secured collateral learners, which is desired (Sutherland 2005). Tsai
(2001), who studied science students in Taiwan, found that collateral learning might not
38
be a permanent phenomenon, and students might move in any direction along the
continuum of collateral learning. As a result, she recommends conducting longitudinal
studies in order to understand student learning. Finally, researchers in this field noted that
due to institutional preference of scientific discourse over others, researchers might not
be able to observe secured collateral learning at all.
Why Evolution?
I have chosen to explore conflicts in worldviews using the theory of evolution for
four major reasons. First, the monks interviewed in this dissertation have extensively
studied the theory of evolution while in the U.S. and India. During the first two-year of
undergraduate study in the United States, the monks mostly took life science courses,
including evolution. Second, the theory of evolution is universally regarded as the most
fundamental principle in biology. Dobshansky, an evolutionary geneticist, has noted,
“nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (p.125, 1973). Third,
research has shown that in teaching and learning the theory of evolution, Abrahamic
religious worldviews have proved to be a major obstacle for some learners (Glaze &
Goldston, 2015; Hokayem & BouJaoude, 2008a; Smith, 2010). Finally, the Dalai Lama
has not only indicated that there exists fundamental problems in reconciling this theory
with Buddhist beliefs such as the principle of altruism and the theory of Karma, but he
has also rejected the materialistic philosophical implications of this theory (Davidson,
2006; Flanagan, 2014; Weerasinghe, 2002; Yong, 2008).
39
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which a group of Tibetan
Buddhist monks made sense of concepts and theories in Western science. Examining this
phenomenon would help fill the gap in science education research, where there is a
limited understanding of how traditional Buddhists communities would situate Western
science learning into their Buddhist view of the world. Previous researchers have stressed
the importance of the role of prior knowledge and experience in the construction of new
understanding, especially when knowledge is culturally situated, in acquiring desired
scientific understanding (Cobern, 1994; Novak, 1977; Driver and Easley, 1978; Gilbert &
Swift, 1985; Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003). In seeking to understand this phenomenon, this
study focuses on the theory of evolution as a context to investigate the following research
questions.
1. How do Tibetan Buddhist monks make sense of scientific theories through the
lens of their Buddhist worldview?
a. How do Tibetan Buddhist monks’ understandings and beliefs about
Buddhism and Western science influence their perceptions of the theory of
evolution?
b. What, if any, conflicts do Tibetan Buddhist monks experience when learning
the theory of evolution?
c. If conflicts occur, do they Tibetan Buddhists reconcile these conflicts?
In this chapter, I will describe the research methodology used in this study
including: (1) rationale for research approach, (2) description of the role of the
40
researcher, (3) context of the study, (4) overview of research design, (5) methods of data
collection, (6) analysis and synthesis of data, (7) reporting of the findings, (8)
trustworthiness, and (9) limitations of the study. The chapter will culminate with a brief
concluding summary.
Rationale for Qualitative Design
Qualitative research methods were used for this study because I am interested in
the meaning Tibetan Buddhist monks have constructed of the new scientific knowledge
or how they make sense of their understanding of the world in the light of new
understanding they have gained from Western science. This research involved
investigating the experience of individual monks and eliciting these descriptive and
subjective elements of the participant’s experiences. Qualitative methods were used as
they allow one to situate as an “observer in the world” (Merriam, 2009) and gain a
holistic understanding of their experiences. Using qualitative methodologies allows the
researchers to identify patterns, themes and categories that emerge on their own driving
the process of organizing the data from multiple sources. The goal of assigning categories
is to closely reflect the original meaning, e.g., from the perspective of the participant
(Merriam, 2009, Creswell, 2009).
I approached this study from a social constructivist worldview (Creswell, 2009),
which is often combined with interpretive research (Merrriam, 2009). The assumption of
this tradition is that “individuals seek an understanding of the world in which they live
and work” (Creswell, 2009, p. 8) and that “reality is socially constructed, that is, there is
no single, observable reality” (Merriam, 2009, p. 8). Therefore, constructivism is built
upon the premise of a social construction of reality. The affordance of this approach is a
41
close collaboration between the researcher and the participants, enabling the participant
to reveal their view of reality, which allows the researcher to understand the
interpretation of their experience better. Thus, the varied and multiple subjective
meanings that individuals (monks) attribute to the phenomenon is the focus of this study.
As a researcher I look for a complexity of view rather than reducing it to categories or
ideas. I therefore, rely as much as possible on the individual’s perspective of the research
situation he is in and look for any distinct themes in their experiences to emerge.
However, interpretation of these experiences are mediated through the researcher’s “own
professional, personal and collective knowledge and experiences” (Dyson & Celia, 2005,
p. 82). Therefore, I describe my role as researcher in detail later in this chapter.
Rationale for Phenomenological Methodology
Within the framework of a qualitative approach, this study will use
phenomenological design. As a form of research methodology, phenomenology is “to
investigate the lived experience of people to identify the core essence of human
experience or phenomena” (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012) and the phenomenon in this
study is the sense that Tibetan Buddhist monks make of the theory of evolution.
Phenomenology also involves the search for the essence or the core meaning of the
phenomenon. This phenomenon will be studied by placing the participants unique
experience at the center of investigation and description of the phenomenon will be
provided rather than an explanation. Bloomberg & Volpe (2012) described how this
could be achieved:
The researcher then analyzes the data by reducing information to significant
statements or quotes, and combines these into thematic categories. Following
42
analysis, the researcher develops a textual description of the experiences of
participants, as well as a structural description of their experiences, to produce a
combination of descriptions in order to convey an overall essence of the
phenomenon. (p. 33)
Although this study has a small sample, prolonged engagement with the
participants would allow to develop patterns and relationships of meaning (Moustakas,
1994). One key characteristic of phenomenology is to bracket out any assumption or
presupposition about the phenomenon, which is not perfectly achievable, therefore I
reflect this in my role as a researcher to become cognizant of my biases that might
contaminate the experience.
Interpretive Case Study
Qualitative methods best allow me to describe and understand the current
phenomenon experienced by the study participants, and many previous studies using
sociocultural and worldview theories have applied qualitative research methodologies
(Cobern, 1993, 1999, 2000; Aikenhead, 1996; Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999). Of the
various qualitative methods, I chose the case study because my goal was to provide “an
in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system” (Merriam, 2009). The bounded
system in this case was the process by which Tibetan Buddhist monks make sense of
Western scientific theories. Yin (2009) asserts that the key criterion for using a case study
design is the need to answer “how” and “why” questions. Accordingly, I want to
understand how the participants make sense of Western scientific theories and why they
choose to do this in a particular way, given their similar religious and cultural
backgrounds. Stake (2005) focuses on ascertaining the unit of analysis, which in this case
43
is an adult Tibetan Buddhist monk. Since the six participants share common
characteristics and conditions, each individual will be a subunit of the larger case.
The Role of Researcher
In qualitative research, the researcher’s role or positionality—“the process of
reflecting critically on the self as researcher” (p. 183, Lincoln & Guba, 2000) is important
for the integrity of the research. Researcher as the primary instrument for data collection,
I have two responsibilities: 1) to reflect on how my values, assumptions, and beliefs
might shape my interpretations; and 2) to clarify this reflection process to my readers so
they better understand how I have used my data (Merriam, 2009). My own perception of
Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns has evolved over time based on my personal, social,
and professional experiences during my prolonged engagement with them.
I am a self-described Tibetan Buddhist and currently, a doctoral student in science
education at the University of Arizona. Although I identify myself as Buddhist, I hold
strong secular views that all religions and cultural traditions have to be valued and
respected equally. My experience as a stateless person residing in the United States and
reading of research literature during graduate school have immensely contributed to my
secular beliefs. Hence, I believe that all religious and cultural traditions have something
valuable to contribute towards human knowledge.
My formal encounter with the Tibetan monastics occurred when I decided to work
for ‘Science meets Dharma’; the first program initiated to teach Western science in the
Tibetan monasteries. During this time, I worked as an interpreter assisting the Western
teachers, translating classroom materials, teaching along side the Western teachers, and
developing science curriculum. This opportunity paved the way to many new experiences
44
with the monastics, resulting in a more nuanced understanding of the monastic
communities. My work with the monastics also exposed me to host of other opportunities
including working with and learning from the scores of Western scientists and educators
who came to teach at the programs. I joined the monastic science program after
completing my degree in mechanical engineering from an Indian university. It was my
desire to work for the Tibetan community in India after finishing my education. The
extended engagement with the monastics spanning over six years taught me the essence
of my own culture, which is inextricably grounded on Buddhist philosophy and beliefs
and also allowed me to gain an emic perspective of monastics’ life and ways.
During this period of working with the monastics, my perception of monks
evolved from a belief that monks were sacred and revered members of the community to
actually seeing them as individuals who have similar likes and dislikes as I do. However,
this did not undermine my respect for their simple lives, their deep spiritual knowledge,
and their aspiration for a higher form of living grounded in strong ethical and moral
principles. This close encounter with the monastic community over the years allowed me
to gain rapport with the monastics and allowed me to view and understand their daily
activities and practices, and their individual and social proclivities, which are all essential
from a ethnographic research perspective.
Data Collection Strategies
Data for my study was collected over a two-year period, beginning September
2013 to May 2015, spanning a total of four semesters including a summer in India. Data
sources included a series of three personal interviews with each monk, and one focus-
group interview involving six monks together. The individual and focus group were used
45
in conjunction to clarify, corroborate and develop themes and patterns in the findings. All
the individual interviews were conducted in the first language of the participants, which
is Tibetan and were audio-recorded. The focus-group interview was also conducted in
Tibetan and included all the participants and was video recorded.
Interviews
Interviews were the primary source of data for my study. Although Tibetan was
not the native language of two of the participants, it was their heritage language. I
‘member checked’ with the participants throughout the analysis process by sharing the
transcriptions of their interviews. The goal of doing in-depth interviews was to
understanding the “experiences” and “meaning” monks make of their new experience
(Seidman, 2013, p 9). I adapted the “three-interview series” approach (Seidman, 2013)
with slight modifications. Seidman describe this ‘three-interview series’ as,
“The first interview establishing the context of the participants’ experience, the
second interview allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience
within the context in which it occurs. And the third interview establishes the
participants to reflect on the meaning their experiences holds for them.” (p. 21)
Similarly in this study, the Interview I focused on each monk’s life history, in
order to establish the context of participant’s experiences. I asked about their lives up
until the time they came to study in the U.S. In addition to their life history, I asked about
their perception of the Western science, their first encounter with science, their goal for
participating in the program, and topics in science and Buddhism that they think were
compatible or incompatible. I conducted the first individual interview one month after
their arrival when they were in their first semester of school in the U.S. (Appendix A).
46
Interview II was conducted during the summer in India at the end of their first
year. I focused on the most interesting experiences of their first year and repeated some
of the questions from the first interview about their views of science. Three participants
were not able to take part in this interview due to logistical reason (see Appendix B for
the interview questions). The timeline for these interviews are shown in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1
Timeline of Data Collection and Participants Involved
Timeline Interview Type/Number of Participants
Documents
Fall 2013 Interview I: Life history/Background survey
Individual/6 monks Syllabus
Summer 2014
Interview II: The details of first year
experience
Individual/3 monks
Spring 2015 Interview III IIIA: Perception of Theory of
Evolution III B: Focus group
MATE Survey
Individual/ 6 monks
Group/6 monks
Syllabus/writings
Interview III A & III B was the most crucial and the primary data source for this
study and it was conducted at end of two years study period in the U.S. According to
Siedman, the third interview usually allows participants to reflect on the meaning of their
experiences. Therefore, the goal of Interview III A was to understand how they made
sense of the theory of evolution especially with regard to the questions of the origin of
life, human evolution, speciation, diversity of life, and general implications of the theory
of evolution to the Buddhist worldview. Some of the questions for this interview were
selected from earlier evolution research on individuals coming from strong religious
background (Hokayem & BouJaoude, 2008b), and more questions were added taking into
47
consideration the Buddhist accounts of origin of life (see Appendix C for the interview
questions). The interview III A lasted for 60-90 minutes. The Interview III B is a focus
group interview that lasted for about 130 minutes. Both these interviews were audio
recorded and conducted in the monk’s native language, Tibetan. The questions for the
focus-group interview were prepared ahead of time with additional questions based on
the responses from the individual interviews.
Interview III B Focus Group Interview At the end of all the Interview III A, the
group was asked to participate in a focus group interview. The focus-group interview was
held at a conference room in the university campus, which was video recorded and lasted
around two hours. The focus-group interview questions were prepared ahead of time to
generate discussion and allow the participants to reflect on the implication of some of the
concepts in the theory of evolution on Buddhist worldview. Based on the individual
interviews response, additional questions were added to counter or probe their statements
on evolution during the focus group discussion. The questions for the focus group also
included some controversial topics in evolution such as, human evolution and the
beginning of life on Earth (see Appendix D). This interview was semi-structured so that
participants could share their views freely and challenge each other’s viewpoints. The
monks were also given equal opportunities to participate. The purpose of the focus group
was to capture the widest range of meanings and interpretations that the participants
shared on the topic of evolution (Fontana & Prokos, 2007). The focus group interview in
conjunction with the individual interviews was used to gather an in-depth understanding
of the monks’ views on theory of evolution.
48
Survey instruments This 20-item Measure of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution
(MATE) was developed initially to measure the acceptance of theory of evolution among
biology teachers by Rutledge & Warden (1999). Five sub-concepts that MATE measures
are: the scientific validity of evolutionary theory, biblical creationism, the evolution of
man, the acceptance of evolution theory among the science community, and the age of
the Earth. The instrument (see Appendix E) has been used extensively in evolution
research, and has consistently shown high internal reliability and test-retest reliability
(Rutledge & Sadler, 2007). It has also been used with research subject involving college
students and people from different social and cultural background. Therefore, it seems
appropriate to use with the participants of this study. The survey was slightly modified to
replace questions regarding creationism with Buddhists account of origin of life.
Additionally, we asked the participants to state their reason for choosing a particular
response. The survey questions were made available in both English and Tibetan, and
were administered between the individual and focus group interviews.
Monk’s Profile
The following profile of each monk was based on the first interview when they were in
the first semester of class at Emory. It presents a little background of each monk, their
views about science, their goals for studying science, and compatible and incompatible
topics in science and Buddhism from their earlier science learning experiences. Except
for one, who is from Kagyu tradition, the remaining five monks were from same sect
within Tibetan Buddhism, that is, Geluk, the one with the largest congregation of
monastics (see Appendix for diaspora Tibetan monastic population).
Table 3.2
49
Monks Background
Current age
Age at joining monastery
Secular school education
Science programs attended
Chophel 31 12 3 Science for Monks, Science Leadership Institute, Science Meets Dharma, ETSI
Jampa 37 16 7 Science for Monks, Science Leadership Institute, Science Meets Dharma, ETSI
Samdup 34 8 10 ETSI, Science meets Dharma, Science leadership Institute
Tsering 33 13 8 Science Meets Dharma, ETSI Gawa 32 16 0 Science for Monks, Science
Leadership Institute, Science Meets Dharma, ETSI
Tashi 39 14 4 Science Leadership Institute, ETSI
Chophel
Chophel became monk at the age of twelve by enrolling at a local monastery in
his hometown. This was both he and his family’s wish for him to be a monk. His family
was follower of Tibetan Buddhism traditionally and he was the first person in his family
to become a monk. At the local monastery, Chophel studied recitation and began to
memorization of rudimentary Buddhist texts so that he can eventually transfer to a larger
Tibetan monastery in India where he can complete his Buddhist studies culminating in a
Geshe degree.
Chophel has completed his first two years of Geshe examination when he was
selected to be part of the cohort to further study science in the US. His goal was to study
in-depth neuroscience and quantum physics, and possibly do some research in these two
fields in the future. He is especially interested in neuropsychology, which he thinks is
50
“the forefront of modern science”. So he started by taking foundational courses in life
sciences that would gradually allow him to study neuroscience and neuropsychology.
These advanced fields of study he thinks is not possible for him to learn in India.
Similar to other monks, completing schoolwork on time and time management
was the most challenging part of being in school in the US. He is not used to doing
homework on regular basis in the monastery and feel that the courses at schools so rushed
that before he could sink in the current topic the class has already on to the next topic.
Chophel’s interest in science was lighted by his reading of books published by the Mind
and Life institute such as, Consciousness at the Crossroad, and Sleeping, Dreaming and
Dying, which are dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists on various
topics that both the traditions could learn and benefit from each other. Chophel was
particularly interested in math unlike the other monks and this started after listening to a
lecture explaining the mathematical basis of Buddhist concept of emptiness using the
concept of infinity by an Indian professor as his monastery. Thus, Chophel likes both
science and math.
The primary goal of science according to Chophel is to find the truth, and it is
only later that it finds ways to leverage the truth to benefit humankind. This differs
significantly from his tradition where the key focus is on inner well-being rather than on
external things to bring happiness. In recent years, he has seen neuropsychologist
working on understanding the mind in order to improve mental health of humans. So
again, he thinks the ultimately the goal of both the tradition seems to be alleviating
human suffering through understanding the truth. Chophel describes scientific method as
51
the primary procedure to generate knowledge in science and stresses the importance of
repeating the experiments following the same procedure to establish a truth.
He finds that studying science allows him to gain new understanding and also
lend fresh perspective for similar conclusions that the Buddhists have reached. This does
not mean in anyway that science brings evidence to Buddhist claims. For example, the
theory of impermanence is primarily explained in Buddhism on the basis of one’s mind,
which is changing on a momentary basis. Based on this premise Buddhists explain how
different afflictions lead “to particular cognitive acts or mental factors”. However,
Chophel was also able to gain insight into impermanent nature of things through the
scientific explanation of how subatomic particles remains in state of constant change.
Thus, Chophel states, “Like the principle of impermanence which could be understood
from a Buddhist view can now be understood from a different view that of science”.
In Buddhism, three different levels of reality are described including very hidden,
hidden, and evident phenomenon. Chophel believes that the very hidden phenomenon
could be understood only through scripture, while we could understand the hidden and
the evident phenomenon. For example, we can experience and understand the Buddha’s
statement like “all conditioned things are impermanent, all conditioned things lead to
suffering”. He thinks even some level of action of karma could be understood and
explained by ordinary being like us. However, the very subtle working of karma can only
be understood and therefore, explained by enlightened beings like the Buddha. The fact
that the Buddha’s teaching about the hidden and evident phenomenon has shown to be
valid is why he believes in the scriptural claims about the very hidden phenomenon are
valid too.
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Regarding science teaching in the monasteries, Chophel believes that there
should be sufficient interest for science among the monastics or it won’t be fruitful. His
first interest in science was developed through witnessing technological inventions such
as satellites and telescopes that were used to watch the moon. In order to understand the
scientific concepts behind these technological inventions it requires studying science. He
thinks similar approach could be used monks to generate enthusiasm for science among
monastics. Otherwise he thinks teaching science akin to public schools would only result
in rote learning with no deep impact on the monastics’ thought process.
Jampa
Jampa is 37 years old at the time of first interview and he was born in a place that
has similar linguistic, religious and cultural heritage to Tibetans. His village is a farming
community, which also falls en route to many important trekking destinations. Hence
many of the residents also own hotels or work as guides for the trekkers during summer.
Jampa attended local public school till seventh grade and then, made his own decision to
become a monk when he was sixteen. In his village people proficient in Tibetan language
and who were monks were specially respected. He thinks might have influenced his
decision to become a monk.
Jampa has completed his monastic course work and also participated in all the
science programs that were started at his monastery. He is now working towards his Geshe
degree. Before coming to the US, he had successfully finished first two years of Geluk
examination and has four more years to go. Knowing that opportunity to study in US
would be rare and that he can take a break from his Geluk examination, Jampa decided to
further study science at Emory. He wanted to complete his Geshe examination upon
53
returning to India, which he knows would require lot of effort to revise the canonical texts.
At the university, besides honing his language and mathematical skills, Jampa’s
primary objective is to specialize in certain topic in science so that he can teach it when he
returns to his monastery. Given a choice, he prefers to learn more about neuroscience
because of its relation with Buddhist meditational practices. Since concepts in
neuroscience would be more challenging to teach, he thinks he should focus on foundation
courses in life sciences and chemistry. He feels that these two subjects are closely related
and “without an in-depth knowledge about chemistry one cannot delve deeply into life
science and will be stuck in between” and would be more beneficial for the monks he
wants to teach.
Jampa studied the theory of evolution during Emory-Tibet Science Initiative’s
summer science workshops. He finds the theory of evolution interesting because it
provides another perspective to look at phenomenon like colors on a peacock’s feather. To
his mind, “Science without attributing to everything to Karma attempts to explains the
phenomenon based on causal relation with the environment through the process of natural
selection. And Buddhism uses the concept of Karma to explain this. So when there are two
different cultural interpretations, it is advantage for you to gain this new insight”. Thus
Jampa finds it refreshing to have a naturalistic explanation of a simple phenomenon like
the cause of color on peacock’s feather without retorting to Karma.
In the new academic landscape, Jampa faced many uncertain challenges. One of
the most pressing challenge at the time was the language, which he thinks, “he can
understand only 50-60% of the spoken English”. This is unlike in India, where he gets to
listen to the same lecture twice because a translator repeats the same lecture again and the
54
lessons were taught at a much slower pace. At Emory not only are the lectures fast paced,
there are lot of assignments especially writing assignment that has to be completed almost
everyday. The monastic curriculum puts a strong emphasis on understanding the meaning
of texts through debates and commentary, hence writing never became an integral part of
monastic curriculum.
When Jampa first attended the science class by Science meets Dharma program,
they were not many monks enthusiastic of learning science and at the time “His Holiness
has also not stepped up his call to study science in the monasteries”. He learned science
mostly through his friends who introduced him to a Tibetan journal called Lhaksam
Tsekpa, which publishes comparative articles on science and Buddhism. He remembers
reading many of articles that highlight the “key areas of confluence and conflicts” between
science and Buddhism.
Jampa views science as “one method of finding truth” but it follows the process of
hypothesizing, prediction, experimentation, and confirmation of a theory. He clarifies that
science is not the technology or the instruments but it is a practice, with the goal “to
explain the physical state and its processes”. Science progresses primarily due to
specialization and the number of people working for it according to Jampa. Individuals
specialize in any area and spent tremendous amount of time doing research in that area
which he thinks results in many theories and rapid progress of science. However, he
believes that “scientific theories are tentative or provisional. When the current truth is
falsified, another truth is developed. For example, the science textbook of today is
different from what it was ten years ago”. Hence, Jampa has a quite an accurate
understanding of science and how it progresses.
55
Regarding compatibility the two traditions, he sees similarities between Western
science and Buddhism understanding of matter or atomic model. Like science, he thinks
Buddhists have acknowledged that “matters are perpetually moving and never stay in the
same location” centuries ago. While Buddhist claim, “wind is able to hold the matter
together”, science explains, “how kinetic energy of particle is able to hold together the
structure of matter and thus we can experience the solidity of material”. So he thinks the
fundamental understanding of two traditions are similar but using different vocabulary.
Jampa explains that the most common conflict between the two traditions is the Mount
Meru cosmology, which contradicts with empirical evidence that science has gathered
thus far. However, he doesn’t think this is a conflict and could be reasoned that it is due
to “individual’s karmic consequences”, which allows the possibility of perceiving the
world differently. Regarding His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s rejection of certain aspect of
Mount Meru cosmology, he said the Dalai Lama is “speaking to the general perception
and I personally don’t think he saying it doesn’t exist at all”. Yet another conflict he sees
is the Abhidharma account of human evolution, which runs counter to evolutionary
theory. Even if there is a some contradiction between the two, he is fine with rejecting
parts of his traditional account as long as the theory of evolution has no bearing on the
fundamentals tenets of Buddhism like, “the four noble truth, twelve links dependent
origination, and theory of path and stages to enlightenment”. Jampa was indifferent to
whether certain scientific facts conform to Buddhist beliefs or not, as long as the fact
don’t undermine the fundamental tenets of Buddhism.
By learning science Jampa thinks he got closer to his own tradition. Earlier he
does not have a counterpart knowledge system to compare his Buddhist view of the
56
world. So science has not only served as this counterpart knowledge system but also
reinforced his belief in his tradition. However, Jampa has other motivation for learning
science. He thinks monks need to learn science especially today because even layman
Tibetans do not consider the monastic education as relevant for living a life and therefore
obsolete. Jampa tells the story of his monk friend who left the monasticism to get married
to a family in the nearby Tibetan settlement, “he married to an affluent family and the
mother-in-law said that it is pity that he has grown up now, he has no education since he
has been a monk from childhood”. Thus Jampa views learning science as a matter of
prestige and status in his community. He also finds science useful in communicating his
Buddhist ideas making it easier to relate to people’s experiences.
Jampa acknowledges science’s ability to explain some of both sensual and mental
phenomenon. However, he thinks that, “mental factors that rely on five sensual organs,
which are very much related to our body, nervous system, and nerve energy could be
understood” by science to certain extent but higher mental states such as, “calm-abiding
and higher states (of consciousness)”, he does not think science could easily explain.
Thus, Jampa is apprehensive about science’s ability to explain all aspects of reality.
Samdup
Samdup became monk at the age of eight in 1987. He attended the secular school
within the monastery, which is like all public schools includes subjects such as math,
English language, science and social studies in addition to some foundational texts on
Buddhist epistemology. After finishing his tenth grade he then transferred to his
monastery to study the five canons of Buddhism.
57
When Samdup joined the science program in 2006, there was growing enthusiasm
for science in the monasteries due to the Dalai Lama’s endorsement of teaching science
in the monasteries. The elder monks from his fraternity recommended that he join the
science program given his past knowledge of science from the monastery’s secular
school. Even though he is familiar with the scientific terminologies from his earlier
education, the bilingual instruction he received at the science programs benefitted
tremendously in generating more interest and deeper conceptual understanding of the
scientific theories.
Samdup initially thought of science as a discipline with the primarily goal to
explain the mechanism of how things function or use of technology to solve problems.
After going to the science program he learned that science examines all aspect of nature
and through repeated observation it gets to the bottom of a phenomenon, for example,
repeated observation of subatomic particles. Thus he thinks it is similar to Buddhism in
way there needs to be repeated analysis the object. However, he finds that science unlike
Buddhism does not talk about morality or ethical behaviour. Buddhism on the other hand
is concerned about getting rid of mental afflictions to reduce human suffering, which is
not the case in science. Science he feels is mostly concerned with working on new
discoveries and innovations that could benefit human society, however, it never
acknowledges the negative impact of its past discoveries and innovations.
Samdup thinks science was invented when humans were unsatisfied in solving
their problems, such as, overcoming diseases by relying or praying to gods. Thus, science
for him is a human endeavor to solve human problem by using human intelligence like
finding means to stop various epidemics. In some cases, he thinks a prevailing
58
philosophy might have influenced the scientific discovery, like for example, when
investigating atomic structures. That’s the way he think science progressed. In the case of
Buddhism, Samdup said that it was the Buddha who initially investigated the nature of
things and our being. He then went to contemplate on ways to get rid of his mental
afflictions that would lead to a lasting happiness. When he finally got rid of his mental
affliction and found the path to lasting happiness, he taught this path and nature of reality
to us. Thus, Samdup contrast the ways in which the two knowledge traditions were
developed.
Going to Emory was his best opportunity to learn science according to Samdup.
He plans to improve his English speaking and writing skills during this two-year sojourn.
He truthfully declares that he himself is not a studious student of Buddhist canonical
texts. But by learning sciences he hopes to work for improving the science education in
his monastery after returning. He feels the opportunity to study at Emory was also a great
responsibility. He goal was to study life science, some physics, and then possibly some
neuroscience. However, he is concerned that learning advanced physics would be cut
short by his lack of knowledge in math. The evolutionary biology he finds more
interesting compared to cellular biology, which delves too much into the intricacies of
cellular structures, functions and processes even though they are important.
Neuroscience, however is of more interest to him because it shows connection between
human body and brain, and hence, is directly related to our happiness and suffering.
Hence Samdup is really interested to learn more about how the brain influences our well-
being.
59
Samdup is familiar with both the Buddhist and scientific account of human
evolution. He prefers the scientific description to the Buddhist because it is more logical
and is based on evidence, hence more elegant too. However, when asked about which
description of human evolution he would prefer to tell another person, he prefers to use
both the accounts depending on the individual. He went on to say that if it is someone
who believes in the law of karma, he might tell him the Buddhist version of human
evolution story, and for someone who does not believe in the law of karma, he thinks the
scientific account of human evolution would be more appropriate. This clearly indicates
Samdup holds the conflicting schemas about life at the same time and does not see any
conflict.
Samdup feels that it is not sufficient to describe life based on something being
composed of cell or collection of cells, or obeys the seven characteristics of living things
that science describes. From a Buddhist perspective, it is important that a consciousness
must be present in it to call something living. Otherwise there is no difference between an
animal and a tree. Science therefore he concludes fails to explain why certain entity
evolved into cells that can move in an environment and some that could not. In order to
call something as sentient, “from a Buddhist perspective, a consciousness must enter in it.
Even for a single cell to be sentient it must have consciousness”. Science to the contrary
gives a very naturalistic explanation that does not take into account the role of
consciousness which he thinks is important for him as a Buddhist.
Science had tremendous impact on his thought process, Samdup acknowledged.
He learnt a lot about things that are familiar but he never understood their function thus
far. For example, like digestion of food, functioning of different organs, cause of
60
contagious diseases, and process of immune system in our body. He thinks he gained lot
of knowledge about these things that eases his communication with people when asked
about these things. He also learned from a science class that thousand of cells in our body
die everyday and are replaced without our knowledge. So when he used this example
with other monks to conceptualize the theory of impermanence in Buddhism, they all
readily agree. Everyday object, which appears solid to us he says, are actually found to be
made of particles that are in constant motion, which he thinks reflects the Buddhist notion
of instantaneous change that underlies all phenomenon. On the other hand, the Buddhist
concept of shortest time is crude compared to science where time is measured to the
millionth of a second.
At Emory, the most challenging experience at the time was managing time. In the
monastery even though there is some schedule, things were quite different for him in the
States. Finishing certain lesson in a certain amount of time with lot of assignments,
writings and reflections to do every day was overwhelming for him. Hence, other
students in his school seemed to be making a lot of effort for their education compared to
the monks in his monastery. The fast pace of the class and the difficulty in understanding
the professors limited his learning at the beginning of the school.
Tsering
Tsering escaped Tibet in 1994 and went straight away to join the monastery in
South India. He was born in Tibet but he never went to school there. He would herd the
sheep and during winter when there is no work since all farming work stops, he would
past time playing and roaming around with other kids. His parent’s decided to make him
into a monk and at the time there was no good school in his village. So when his parents
61
decided to send him to India to become a monk he was very excited to leave his village.
Upon reaching the monastery in India, it was mandatory for those below seventeen years
of age to join the monastery’s secular school. Thus he started at the secular school where
he spent nine years.
Tsering used to be a studious student initially, until his fourth year when he began
to lose interest in studies. Today, he felt that he has squandered those critical period of his
life. Upon completing his education at the secular school he started actual study of the
monastic curriculum. Some preparation for this transfer has been done during his time at
the secular school, which include memorization and learning of some foundational texts
on Buddhist epistemology. The monastic study usually culminates in taking part in the
Geshe examination, which he felt is too onerous that he discontinued his monastic
education. He then left the monastery for a more ritual oriented branch of the monastery
in Dharamsala, a northern town in India. Before his departure, he was actually
completing his study of the Abhidharma canon. The elder monks in his fraternity
requested him to return after a year to complete his study.
It was during this period that Tsering got the offer to study at Emory. His first
encounter with science was in 2006, when there was growing interest for science in the
monasteries. The way in which science explains how things like the airplane and
electricity works, and described the process of rain fascinated and interested him in
taking science classes. When asked about the goal of science, he responded, “primary
goal of science is to investigate various external phenomenon to find the underlying
secret, which is then used in innovating technologies and inventions”. Like most of the
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monks, he sees science as a discipline that is directed towards investigating the external
things.
In Buddhism, he says Buddha has taught everything and our responsibility is to
learn and practice what he has taught. However, science Tsering thinks is different, it is
done by ordinary people who use their intellect to investigate things that leads to new
findings. To summarize, he think of science as tradition that continues to invent and
discover new things all the time and does not rely on a statement of an individual.
Science is developed developed through a communal effort unlike Buddhism. Tsering
knows that scientific theories are tentative because these theories, although are developed
by individuals to their best capabilities, however, they can always be mistaken. For
example, the big bang theory, which is the currently accepted model of how our universe
came to being, might change in next 10-15 years, he says. Thus, he thinks science is
constantly changing. However, since science caters to many of our necessities and it is
important that we learn about it and is not going to have negative impact by learning
science.
Studying science brought more interest for Buddhism in case of Tsering. Other
than that he concludes there is no benefit in terms of furthering his understanding of
Buddhism. Science of course provides more insight into the composition of matter.
Although, in Buddhism also there is certain description of subtle particle, its description
of subatomic particles is different from science. Hence knowing more detail about atomic
composition might be a benefit but its does not bring the same satisfaction that brings to
him by studying Buddhism. As of now Tsering plans to put more effort in studying
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Buddhist texts upon his return to India and clear at least first two years of the six-year
Geluk Examination.
Tsering believes that Buddhist should accept scientific claims about the external
world. For example, the conflict regarding Buddhist cosmology is something that
contradicts empirical evidence that science has gathered. Therefore, Buddhist should be
ready to accept anything that contradicts reality. He goes on to say, “Between external
matter and internal consciousness, the primary focus of analysis for Buddhists is the
consciousness, and therefore, there was not a tradition for systematic study of external
matter. Hence the lack of explanation about the physical world.” Since Buddhists focus is
different, he does not see any issue with accepting scientific conclusions about the
physical world and should not impinge on the Buddhist claims about other aspect of
reality like consciousness. Both the traditions are deemed to have strong emphasis on
investigating any phenomenon critically before arriving at any conclusion.
Studying science subjects in depth is impossible for Tsering and therefore, his
goal of coming to Emory is to improve his English skills, and hopefully contribute to the
current effort to institute science education in the monastery by working as a science
translator possibly. He realized the shortage of science translators when science teaching
and learning was beginning at his monastery. He also felt this opportunity as a huge
responsibility and declined the offer to study at Emory at first.
Upon coming to Emory, Tsering was overwhelmed with managing time and
schoolwork because at his monastery time is not so stringently managed. Although there
is some regulation of time in his monastery there is much more freedom with your time
and is not so much micro managed. He thinks this might be surprise for some Westerners
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that monks have difficulty in managing time. Understanding the lectures by professors
who would only give a summary or a gist of the lesson, and does not go into detail
explanation of the concepts was another hurdle. This required him to read the textbooks
ahead of class everyday, which is again limited by his inexperience in reading scientific
text and overall difficulty with comprehension.
Gawa
Gawa was 32 years old at the time of interview and he had never been to school.
At the age of sixteen, he became a monk at the behest of his family in Tibet. Before
coming to Emory, he was on his track to acquire Geshe degree—equivalent of doctor of
philosophy, which requires six years of rigorous examination after completion of studying
the five Buddhist canons. Gawa has only two years left to complete his Geshe examination
when he took part in this study. In the monastery, Gawa have taken part in all the different
science programs, Science for Monks, Science meets Dharma, and Emory-Tibet Science
Initiative (ETSI).
Three years ago, Gawa was offered the opportunity further study science in the
US. “At that time I was in the early stage of Geluk examination and therefore, I couldn’t
go”, Gawa explains. Last year, he got another offer and this time he could not turn it
down. He thought he might not be lucky enough to get another offer. It was a difficult
decision for him to make to leave in the midst of his Geluk examination. After consulting
with his teachers and comrades, and the fact that he had already spent considerable
amount of time learning science at the monastery, Gawa decided to take this offer.
However, he was determined to continue his Geshe examination upon returning to India.
He indeed completed his Geshe examination in 2017.
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In his first semester in fall of 2013, he took Biology 141 (Foundations of Modern
Biology 1), Sociology 330 (Mental Health and Well-being) and basic math and English
language classes like everyone else. He thinks these basic science courses will enable him
to be successful in neuroscience and life science courses that he wants to take in the
future. He was particularly interested in neuroscience because he thinks, “neuroscience,
and the meditational practice and different interaction of mind and mental events taught in
Buddhism seems to have lot of correlations.” He even thinks, “neuroscience should be part
of the main focus in science teaching” at the monasteries. Although he likes physics and
“particularly topics like particle and quantum physics”, he knows he cannot go very far
without honing his mathematical skills. Hence, he is more inclined to learn neuroscience.
Coming to US for him was a new world experience. Like all the monks, Gawa also
have difficulty in managing school related work and schedule. He said the most difficult
adjustment to the new environment was “to complete work on time.” By ‘time’, he was
referring to completion of assignments on time and meeting people at a given time. In
order to manage his time, Gawa had kept a planner and he was working on it. Difficulty to
understand the instructor’s accent, the fast pace of the course, outpouring of new scientific
terminologies, and daily assignments were the primary concern for Gawa during his first
two months in the US.
He knew scientific method and believed it to be the way scientific knowledge is
generated. Although he does not use the exact phrase ‘scientific method’, he describes all
aspect of scientific method. Scientific knowledge is accumulative and therefore, he thinks
that the most recent findings are “more accurate than the past”. In order to confirm any
scientific finding, it is necessary to repeat the experiment by different people or groups.
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Science is primarily to fulfill the “curiosity” of scientists and then to find the “truth” and
beyond this he thinks scientists have no ulterior motive. From his class on sociology,
Gawa learned that science is a “production of human mind and therefore human welfare
should be its basis.” But he is skeptical about this view. Regarding finding truth about a
phenomenon, he was also skeptical that science’s overreliance on experimentation will
never lead to a “definitive truth”, it can only lead to a “tentative” knowledge, which is not
generalizable.
There are certain topics in science that are completely in contrary to Buddhist
beliefs. Gawa gives the example of evolutionary biology account of human origin, which
“is completely discordant with our (Buddhist) conception of formation of human life in
the universe.” From a Buddhist view, human or any organism’s existence goes beyond
Earth and hence, has no beginning. He believes that human on this Earth are born from
dying people in some other part of universe or a may be in a different universe. For him
human have existed throughout the cosmological time and therefore he thinks that “lives
on this planet have migrated from other universe through rebirth and as such there is no
beginning.”
Gawa had found ways to resolve this incongruence by looking at the scientific
theory of evolution from another perspective. In Buddhism, life forms move between six
different realms of existence—god, demigod, human, animal, hungry ghost and hell being,
driven by individuals actions or Karma (Buddhist principle of causality for sentient being).
He thinks science does well in explaining the origin of life on this planet but does not
explain how we became what we are. Hence, he concludes that the “fundamental cause of
human or life in general” is explained better by invoking theory of Karma, and the gradual
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process physical change is better explained by evolution.
Gawa also experiences certain incompatibility between science and Buddhism. For
example, biological traits such as anger and desire, which are essential for a species’
survival according to evolution, are to be shunned from a Buddhism perspective. He says,
he “is still trying to find a solution or observe what lays in between these two.” However,
there are some concepts in science such as, quantum theory, particle physics, and theory of
relativity that resonates with Buddhist principles like the theory of impermanence and
theory of interdependence. However, his is not certain about to what extent these concepts
are compatible if studied in detail. Science helped Gawa “broaden” his vision with lot of
new knowledge about the world. For example, he was unaware of the effect of burning
trash for the environment and the health of people living in monastery. With his new
awareness, now it makes him feel uncomfortable when someone burns trash in the
monastery and he wants to find a way to stop people from doing that. He said that Buddha
had taught the importance of protecting one’s environment, but had not explained “how to
do so”.
Gawa was beginning to question the validity of some of the fundamental
assumptions and beliefs in his tradition like the theory of rebirth. He said it was only after
learning science, did he begin to question the Buddhist reasoning that existence of
previous life can be proven by the requirement that there should be a preceding
consciousness for our present consciousness. According to Buddhist logic, a
consciousness is always preceded by an earlier consciousness; therefore, it is claimed that
the consciousness of a newborn child has to come from a preceding consciousness, hence
the existence of previous life. From a scientific perspective, he thinks there is no necessity
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“to have a preceding consciousness to be the source of our present consciousness.” Hence,
science was like a new tool for critical thinking, questioning established beliefs in his
tradition like concept of re-birth.
Tashi
Tashi was born in India and went to public school until the age of 12. He
completed his fifth grade. He joined the local monastery in the settlement. When Tashi
was commuting to his school for miles on foot passing by the local monastery, he began
to think that the monks were having a better life, thus, he eventually he wanted to become
a monk. His parent heeded to his desire and was admitted to the local monastery. At this
monastery, its primary focus is on the Buddhist rituals and practices and was not oriented
to studying Buddhist philosophical texts. Hence, he did not get the opportunity to study
the five major texts. Learning rituals and practice includes making sand mandalas, butter
sculptures, dough offerings, and playing and practice of musical instruments and chants
for Buddhist ceremonies and prayers. Thus, Tashi acknowledges that his monastic
education was focused on rituals instead of studying the Buddhist texts.
Tashi first started taking science classes in 2008 and at the time, there was some
hype about studying science in the monastery. In general, Tashi considers himself to be a
curious person. Before taking part in the science classes, he viewed science as similar to
making bombs and other technological devices. For his two-year sojourn at Emory, he
has set three goals for himself. Firstly, he wants to learn the scientific concepts in more
depth, then to improve his English communication skills, and finally, to gain a new
cultural experience by living it.
From his experience, science strengthens his belief in Buddha’s teaching especially about
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the very hidden phenomenon because Buddha’s statement about the slightly hidden
phenomenon such as, existence of subtle life forms, are mostly proved to be true through
science. The similarity that he sees between science and Buddhism is the commitment of
both the traditions to investigate all claims for yourself before you begin to believe in
them. He cited Buddha’s statement, “Just as gold is burnt, cut and rubbed, examine my
words carefully and do not accept them simply out of respect” to support his claim.
Regarding Buddhist cosmology described in Abhidharma, he does not take a
stand as to whether it is correct or not. He said, “When I think for myself deeply on the
concept of Mount Meru cosmology. It is very difficult to find a standard by which to
decide whether it is valid or not”. He thinks depending on the perspective of the
individual the Abhidharma version of universe proposed by Vasubhandu is as valid as
what Galileo found out about the world through his telescope later. Tashi holds a
relativistic view about truth.
Data Analysis
The data was analyzed to create rich descriptions of how the monks in general
navigate the intersection of science and Buddhism and the theory of evolution used as a
vehicle in study to understand this phenomenon. Except for the Measurement of
Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE), the primary source of data for this study
was approximately 20 hours of individual and focus group interviews collected over the
two-year period. The interview data were first transcribed verbatim in Tibetan. The initial
plan was to translate all transcribed data into English and then do the analysis. However,
literature on translation studies recommends analyzing data sources in the original
language whenever possible. This has the advantage of not only remaining close to the
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source language but also avoids adding another layer of interpretation through the
translation process in qualitative studies (Small, 2008). Yet another challenge is the lack
of equivalence of concepts and terms used in the source and the target language maintain
an accurate translation, thus impeding the meaning-making process. Therefore, in order
to maintain the integrity of what the monks have said in the various data sources, it was
decided that translation into English language would not be done until the analysis was
completed. Once the overarching thematic categories and codes were identified in the
original transcripts, only then the relevant transcripts were translated into English for
further analysis and reporting.
The final individual interview (Interview IIIA) and focus group interview
(Interview IIIB) were the primary data sources to answer the research questions for this
study. Interview transcripts of each participants and the focus group discussion were read
fully in Tibetan several times to “obtain a general sense of the information and to reflect
on its overall meaning” (Merriam, 2003). Based on the general reading of the transcripts
from the individual and focus group interview, five major thematic categories were
identified (see Table 3.3 for examples of the five thematic categories). The transcripts
were then coded to find how each of the individual monks responded in these thematic
categories (see Table 3.4 for different example of codes). The five thematic categories
identified were: 1) What is Life: Sentient beings vs. Living things; 2) Buddhist vs.
Scientific Account of Human Evolution; 3) Origin of Life; 4) Evolution And Buddhist
Theory of Karma; and 5) Alignment of Buddhist Beliefs and Evolution.
Table 3.3
Examples of Thematic Categories
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Thematic Categories Codes Included Sentient Being Vs. Living Things Life
Living Things Sentient Beings Microorganisms Subtle Life Forms Modes of Conception Consciousness Plants and Animals
Buddhist vs. Scientific Account of Human Evolution
Buddhist Explanation Of Human Evolution First Human Being Common Ancestry Life Expectancy
Karma and Evolution Types of Karma Karma Random Mutation Macroevolution Diversity Six Realms
Table 3.4
Examples of Codes
Code Examples Life “In Buddhism, when you say sentient beings, it most likely means
whether something can have experience or not.” “From a Buddhist perspective, singled cell organisms do contain consciousness. But some of them might not be sentient.”
Buddhist Explanation Of Human Evolution
“Generally, in Buddhism there seem to be a clear demarcation between human and animal. It is done as if we can clearly draw a line. According to science there seem to be many in between. Some that resembles both human and animal. If you ask about Homo erectus and Neanderthal, it is difficult to ascertain whether these are human or animal.” “The Buddhist explanation of the first-eon human beings is just one explanation. It doesn’t need to be the only explanation. The first-eon human who already are human gradually being transformed over time into current form is one story. When I think about it, I doubt if such thing has actually happened.”
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Karma “Conditions lets to the ripening of cause. Hence there must be some innate qualities that allow the conditions to bring fruition of the cause. For example, our genetic materials have certain potential to cause change that some humans would change their physical appearance in future. So this potential that is innate is something that should be related to Karma.” “The vegetation surrounding us depends on karma of human. The diversity in vegetation is due to the collective karma of human living in that environment. Due to collective karma of human we have different kinds of vegetation. But it is difficult when it come to explaining the process.”
Buddhist Description Of Origin Of Life
“First the gods were meritorious, but as their accumulated merits were diminished, they degenerated and descended on Earth, beginning to rely coarse food and became dependent on eating to survive. So some went on searching for food on four limbs.” “Generally speaking according to Buddhism, we say sentient being has no beginning because there is no beginning to life. No new sentient beings will be created on this Earth that has not existed earlier. This is universally accepted among Buddhist. When we say no new sentient being will be created, it means that one sentient being cannot be divided to form two without any role of consciousness.”
When analyzing the Buddhist views shared by the monks on the five thematic
categories, the monks would generally agree or have different things to add-on to each of
these categories. The monks mostly differed in their perception of the theory of evolution
and their ways of reconciling any conflicts between the theory of evolution and their
Buddhist worldview. The first three thematic categories: 1) What is Life: Sentient beings
vs. Living things; 2) Buddhist vs. Scientific Account of Human Evolution; and 3) Origin
of Life, were where most of the conflicts between evolutionary concepts and Buddhist
beliefs were found and the monks attempt to reconcile these conflicts were seen. In the
last two thematic categories: 4) Evolution And Buddhist Theory of Karma and 5)
Alignment of Buddhist Beliefs and Evolution, instead of conflict, monks talked about
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how the concepts within the theory of evolution complement or align with Buddhist
principles like the theory of karma. These five thematic categories are reported in detail
in Chapter 4. In three of the five thematic categories where conflicts were noted, Jegede’s
theory of collateral learning was used to further analyze how monks engaged in different
forms of collateral learning. The different collateral learning found among the monastics
are reported in Chapter 5. Qualitative data analysis software program ATLAS.ti was used
for organization and analysis of the data. Given the bulk of data, effective organizing of
data is of central importance and therefore, the software allowed for ease in coding and
grouping codes in the five thematic categories described earlier.
Validity and Reliability
To ensure internal validity, a number of strategies were employed to maintain the
trustworthiness of this study. The multiple sources and methods of data collection used in
this study including individual interviews, focus-group interview, and the MATE
survey allowed for triangulation of the data for fuller and richer explanation of how the
monastics were accommodating the theory of evolution into their Buddhist worldview.
The initial plan to do member checks or respondent validation by all the monks were not
performed except for two monks since the monastics were difficult to reach upon their
returning to India, despite multiple attempts by the researcher. However, outsider
examination was done using an expert, who is both an experienced science translator and
Tibetan Buddhist scholar to check the veracity of the translation. He was also consulted
on regular basis for assistance in assessing the interpretations of what monks had said in
their individual and focus group interviews. This consultation of an outside expert helped
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in establishing the reliability of the study, that the findings of the study are consistent
with the data, thus maintaining the interpretive validity of this study.
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CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS ON EVOLUTION
Introduction
In this chapter, I present the key themes that emerged from my interviews with
the six monks regarding the theory of evolution. The first theme addresses the conflict in
classification and definition of life in the two traditions and how this exacerbates the
monk’s ability to form a coherent theory of life, which reconciles various concepts in
evolution with Buddhist beliefs. The second theme involves how the monks think the
about origin of life. While monks perceive life as perennial, in a sense existing eternally,
life in science emanated only after the Earth was formed or after the formation of
universe following the big bang. The third theme delves into the topic of human
evolution and the idea that apes share common ancestor with human beings, which is the
cause of much controversy over evolution. In the traditional Buddhist classification
system of sentient beings, human and animal belongs to different categories, and
therefore the theory of evolution’s claim of animals evolving into human beings was
unacceptable for some monks. Finally, the last theme deals with the role of Buddhist
theory of karma in evolution. The theory of karma is the most fundamental concept in
Buddhism related to sentient beings, and therefore, the monks’ invocation of this theory
when learning about the theory of evolution seems inevitable.
What is life? Sentient Beings vs. Living Things
The differences in the definition and classification of life at the outset between
science and Buddhism challenged the monks into forming a coherent understanding of
life and reconciling various concepts in evolutionary theory. The monks therefore employ
various accommodation strategies when attempting to make the two traditions
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compatible. The Tibetan equivalent of life is srok and is generally applied only to sentient
beings or sem chen (literally meaning mind possessing) and not to plants. In Buddhism
srok is defined as one that supports “heat” and “consciousness” (Lama, 2005a) and is
referred only to sentient beings. However, in science, life is synonymous with living
things and includes plants, animals, and microorganisms. In science, life or living things
are characterized by the seven biological properties that an organism must possess,
namely: growth, change, the ability to reproduce, metabolism, homeostasis, being
composed of cells, and passing on genetic material. Plants having these characteristics are
therefore considered living, according to science but Buddhist won’t consider it as having
life for lack of consciousness. So the semantic and taxonomic incommensurability
between science and Buddhism with regard to the categorization and definition of life
presents recurring challenges to the monks when reconciling the two knowledge
traditions.
When monks were asked about any differences they observed between Buddhism
and scientific understanding of life, all of them shared similar explanations. Regarding
defining life in Buddhism, Tsering said, “in Buddhism, when you say something has
srok...or is a sentient beings, if you probe further it is based on whether it can experience
or not. For example, whether it can experience feeling like joy and suffering.” Samdup
and Tashi also stated that “anything that could feel joy and suffering” should be
considered as sentient being. Tsering further said, “For us consciousness has to enter.”
The ability to experience according to Buddhist comes from the presence of a
consciousness. Another monk, Gawa stated, “a sentient being is decided on the basis of
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whether it has a mind or not”. Consciousness and mind are used synonymously in
Buddhism. Finally, Chophel comes up with a slightly different definition of life;
In Buddhism, it (sentient being) is defined on the basis of how consciousness
controls the nervous system. Consciousness controls the nervous system. We
believe that consciousness controls the motion of our body. By this we
differentiate between life and non-life. (1:17)
The nervous system that Chophel mentioned here is not the same nervous system as
understood in science. Buddhism describes numerous networks of nerves that serve as
energy channels and have no correlation with the scientific depiction of the human
nervous system. All the monks agreed that the ability to experience and feel, as well as
the presence of consciousness or mind in an organism is what defines a life. Their
consensus about the definition and characterization of life might have stemmed from the
Buddhist theory of Five Aggregates. According to Five Aggregate theory, sentient beings
are constituted with five mental and physical elements, namely: matter or form, feeling or
sensation, perception, mental formation or volition, and consciousness.
By comparing to the Five Aggregate theory, Buddhist think that the biological
evolution only describes the first element or material evolution of life, and is not
concerned about the organisms actually becoming a sentient. Tsering said:
If we trace back the material composition of our body, most likely we can trace it
back to the atomic level. Even though we might be able to trace it to such a level,
it doesn’t mean that it is a sentient being. From one atom (he might have meant
cell) to two, two to three, five to fifty and two hundred, that is how the body is
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developed. Within such bodies there are those which have the potential to host
consciousness and those that aren’t able to host consciousness. (15:5)
The material origin of life is less significant than understanding the origin of first sentient
beings on Earth for the monks. According to Tsering, along with the material evolution of
our physical body, it is important that consciousness must enter the physical body at
certain period during the evolutionary process. He also believes that there is definitely a
material substrate for consciousness but conceded, “I really don’t know what kind of
material basis is required to host consciousness. I really don’t know. But there are
definitely two types of things, those that can host consciousness, and those that cannot.”
Although material basis of consciousness is suggested in the Five Aggregate theory,
biological evolution does not describe any role of consciousness to give a full account of
life formation.
In the case of larger plants, all the monks agree that they are devoid of
consciousness and therefore, are not sentient being. Tsering said, “When science talks
about sentient being (life) they talk about living or non-living things. Plants are
categorized as living things.” However, when it comes to microorganisms, it still remains
contentious as to whether they are sentient or not. Gawa gave an example of small plant-
like life forms that were debated in the Buddhist texts about it being sentient or not:
Truly speaking, it is very difficult to decide whether something is sentient or not
especially when you go to subtle life forms. In Buddhism, there had been
continuing debate about whether plants have mind or not. For example, in the
Abhidharma text, there were some discussions about whether chu ped, a tiny
plant-like life that grows in water, is sentient or not. It is said that this plant’s srok
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is dependent on water and therefore should be considered sentient. However, as
we move towards more subtle life forms, it is still an open discussion about
whether they are sentient or not. (7:2)
The above statement suggests that the controversy over the application of the concept of
sentient beings in the real world is not new for Buddhists. In fact, Gawa mentions that in
his tradition there had been a debate about whether chu ped, a plant in water that behave
like animal, should be accorded with the status of sentient being or not. It was eventually
decided to be sentient because its srok, which by definition means an entity possessing
heat and consciousness, in this case is reliant on the water. It is unclear as what he means
by the water organism to possess heat and consciousness. However, from his science
learning experience, Gawa realizes that given the huge diversity of subtle life forms that
science has discovered, he thinks it is still an open discussion to decide on the nature of
such life forms.
In the continuing discussion, Gawa talks about how the subtle life forms debate in
Buddhist tradition also raises ethical question about dealing with these invisible creatures
and he is more inclined to consider them as sentient:
In the Vinaya, in the section where it talks about what is considered to be an act of
taking life or killing, there is a mention of large number of sentient beings that are
not visible to our eyes. Since there is no way for us to see or investigate such
subtle life forms in a drinking water, Buddha has said something to the effect that
monastics were relaxed of breaking monastic vow of taking life if they drank such
water. However, when you consider even subtler beings like bacteria and virus, it
is very difficult to say with certainty whether they are sentient beings or not. I
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think they are sentient beings. I don’t have any other reason than what I have seen
through microscope that these life forms behave similar to normal sentient beings.
They move around to find food sources, run away from threats like usual animals.
Considering these facts, I think the first unicellular organism that started on this
Earth should be most likely classified as sentient being. (7:4)
Vinaya is a Buddhist canonical text that deals with monastic discipline. In it, Gawa noted
that there was a discussion about the ethics of dealing with subtle life forms that human
beings were unable to detect. On that account, Buddha decided that the monks should not
be considered breaking their vows of not killing if they accidently drank water containing
these subtle life forms. Even though it is unclear whether such life forms are sentient or
not, Gawa was more inclined to consider bacteria and viruses to be sentient. This, he
says, only comes from his experience in biology classes, where he witnessed these subtle
life forms behaving like normal animals, searching for food sources and evading danger.
So the decision about whether these subtle life forms are sentient or not, poses both
intellectual and ethical challenge for all Buddhists.
When I inquired about whether the monks believe that the first unicellular
organisms were sentient or not, most of the monks were inclined to say they were
sentient. Tsering responded, “Yeah, you can consider it as the first sentient being.” As
Tsering mentioned earlier that consciousness is necessary for an organism to be
considered sentient and he has no qualms in regarding the first single celled organisms to
be sentient, even though in evolutionary biology, consciousness is accorded mostly to
organisms that have evolved to certain level of complexity. Interestingly, all the monks
consider single celled organism to be sentient based on their observation of microbial life
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forms in science classrooms. Following are what some of monks said about single celled
organisms.
They (unicellular organisms) have the ability to move to find food sources, which
seem like they are making their own decision. This means they should possess
some kind of consciousness. (1:49)
Even if they might not have feeling they have experience. Because for example,
when you put a food near the bacteria in a tube, they know where the food is. That
means it can experience pleasure and pain. It goes to the place where there is food
and doesn’t go to a place where there is no food. Also if the environment is not
suitable, it tries to go to a better environment. This shows that it seeks enjoyment
and avoids suffering, which is the normative definition (of sentient being).
(Thupten, Interview 3)
As the two examples showed, the monks considered the decision-making capability of
unicellular organisms and their ability to search for food and better environment, as
primary criterion in deciding whether the single celled organisms are sentient or not.
From their view this decision-making capability proves the existence of some kind of
consciousness. While Jampa thinks that all single-celled organisms are sentient, Chophel
thinks they can be sentient as well as non sentient. This tendency to consider unicellular
organisms to be mostly sentient was the result of learning about germ theory and
witnessing living microbial organisms in their science laboratory classes.
Monks have not witnessed microbial life directly before learning science,
however, the discussion about existence of these subtle life forms has been existent in the
Buddhist tradition and therefore, was not a surprise. “More than 84,000 different subtle
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life forms are described in the text”, said Chophel. When questioned about the details of
these life forms, he said:
No, there isn't much description. It is also mentioned that a baby in womb doesn't
contain any of these subtle life forms. As soon as the baby is born, they begin to
enter the baby. This seems to agree with what science has found. Science says that
an infant in the womb is sterile and only after a child is born, bacteria begin to
enter the child's body. This is very similar. Once you are out of mother's womb,
the 84,000 subtle life forms begin to enter your body. (1:18)
Chophel claims that in Buddhist scriptures it is mentioned that there were over 84,000
different subtle life forms but he acknowledges that it fails to give the details about it.
However, Chophel assumes that these 84000 different subtle life forms are equivalent to
the microbial life forms detected by science when he gives the example of sterile baby.
The equivalence between subtle life forms in Buddhism to microbial life forms in science
seems to be forced by the coincidental agreement between Buddhism and science over
the fact that infants in the womb were sterile until they were born.
The primary reason for considering of microbial life as sentient by the monks was
the result of witnessing these life forms personally during the science laboratory classes.
However, another reason for attributing sentience to the level of simple organisms was to
accommodate the claims of common ancestry in evolution. “Our initial thesis (science)
was that all the sentient beings originated from a first primordial single cell”, said
Tsering. If that is the case, he says only sentient beings should come from other sentient
beings. The fact that a parental organism that is sentient, has gradually evolved into a
plant, a non-sentient being, was conflicting for a Buddhist like him. Thus Tsering said,
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“In between due to certain change in the chemical composition, it is possible that cell’s
potential to host consciousness might have declined”. Tsering thinks that maybe single
celled organisms that were sentient earlier gradually lost their capacity to host
consciousness along the evolutionary process to become plants. This is also the very
reason that he thinks the first single celled common ancestors should be sentient.
Gawa also believed that there must be two categories of unicellular organisms,
one that is able to host consciousness and ones that cannot. “Those which don’t host
consciousness gave rise to plants and trees. It is not possible that an initial sentient being
was later transformed into a non-sentient”, Gawa said. Here the criterion for being a
sentient being is whether it possesses consciousness or not. Unlike Tsering, Gawa thinks
that it is unlikely that organisms that are sentient earlier could have lost its sentience in
the process of evolution. Hence, according to Gawa unicellular organisms that do not
possess consciousness or non-sentient ones gave rise to the plants, suggesting that
animals originated from the sentient or those possessing consciousness. Jampa also
believed that plant and animal should have their own origin:
If I combine both science and Buddhism I would say plants came from plants, but
first plants are simple and diversity in them occurred due to evolution. Similarly
animals’ physical body also first came from simple bodies and due to Earth’s
environment there was more diversity later. This is acceptable to me. (5:14)
Acknowledging the conflict between the two traditions, Jampa unequivocally says that if
he were to integrate both the scientific and Buddhist notion regarding development of
life, he would rather draw a parallel evolutionary path for plants and animals than a
combined one. For him tracing plants and animals to a common ancestor is unacceptable
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from a Buddhist perspective. Plants are not sentient and hence cannot be grouped with
the animals. Therefore, the difference in definition and classification between the two
domains—Buddhism and science, generates conflict that leads to various accommodation
strategies among the monks as they attempt to construct a coherent explanation of origin
and formation of life.
Summary The monastics interpret their understanding of evolution concepts
through the framework of their Buddhist knowledge and beliefs. For example, they do
not relinquish their traditional classification of sentient and non-sentient easily when they
encounter the scientific classification of living and non-living things. However, the new
knowledge of life gained from science forced some monks to expand their traditional
concept of life to include unicellular organisms, a classification that has remained
contested in the Buddhist tradition. The reason for considering unicellular organisms as
sentient was due to the monks’ experience in science laboratory classes in which they
witnessed first hand that microbial life forms engage in normative behaviour all animals
exhibit such as, finding food sources, running from danger, etc. However, such
transgression on part of the monks to categorize unicellular organisms into sentient being
causes further ethical dilemma as a Buddhist since killing sentient beings, in this case
microbial life, would be equivalent to taking life.
In an effort to accommodate the Buddhist concept of sentient being, the monks
introduced consciousness into the evolutionary process. Although they acknowledge that
they do not know the exact mechanism of how and when organisms became sentient,
they believe that there are entities that can host consciousness and those that cannot. The
common ancestry claim in evolution that describes how all living organisms including
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plants and animals can be traced to a common ancestor was unacceptable to the monks
because of their prior belief that plants were non-sentient or lack consciousness, and that
only a sentient being should give rise to another sentient being. Buddhism does not have
a concept of emergence as described in science where life can emerge from inanimate or
non-sentience objects. This difference between Western science theory of evolution and
Buddhism led the monks to assume that maybe there are two lineages, one for sentient
and another for non-sentient, the former giving rise to animal kingdom and later to plant
kingdom.
Science attributes qualities such as sentience, consciousness, emotion, and
intelligence only to more complex organisms and not to simple life forms like bacteria.
Monks, however inferring sentience in microbial life and suggesting that they might
possess subjective experience like feeling of joy or suffering is inconsistent to the
scientific explanation which affords these behaviors to simple biochemical interactions.
The characteristics of life that science expounds are not only observable but can also be
quantitatively measured, which is not possible in case of sentience. Therefore, monks
either distort or simplify certain concepts from Buddhism or science to develop a more
coherent understanding of life in their minds. In the following section, I will discuss how
the Buddhist notion of life affects their understanding of the origin of life in science.
Origin of Life
There is no overarching narrative about origin of life on this planet in Buddhism.
Buddhist canonical texts describe a range of views about how life originated on this
planet; however, it is a commonly accepted belief among Buddhists that there is no
beginning to life at a cosmological level because of the assumption that life has been
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existent eternally. The most common narrative about the origin of life in Buddhism is
described in Abhidharma, where beings on this planet were believed to be descendent of
higher beings or gods. Chophel briefly explains the Abhidharma account of origin of life:
It is believed that the degenerates of God gradually inhabited the Earth.
According to the sutras while some Gods degenerated into humans, others
degenerated into animals. What became human or animal is dependent on
individual’s past action. I think maybe this action is similar to how they are
adapting to the environment. So by adapting to the environment some began to
move around on four feet becoming animals. Some moved on two foot to become
human. This is described in the text. But there is no mention of a creator god who
created all animals like in Christianity. First the gods were meritorious, but as
their accumulated merits were diminished, they degenerated and descended on
Earth, became dependent on eating to survive and relying on coarse food. So
some went on searching for food on four limbs. (1:32)
Although this is the most commonly cited Buddhist account of the ‘origin’ of Earth-based
life, it does not describe the physical process of how life started on this planet. The Dalai
Lama has categorically said that he was not persuaded by the Abhidharma account of
evolution of life. Chophel stated that he thinks the individual actions that let to the
degeneration of gods could be compared to the process of adaptation in evolution. Even
though he doesn’t describe the process, it is likely his attempt to convey a naturalistic
explanation in his tradition in contrast to other traditions like Christianity that believes in
a creator god. Chophel also describes another account of origin of life in Buddhism in the
text called Mahayoga Mind Tantra. According to this text, “at first the sentient beings
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were formed in water. Then the sentient beings from dry land come about.” He thinks
“this is quite similar to science where the first life occurred in water like the fish and fish
species. Life then moved on to land and evolution occurred”. So there are varying
accounts of how life originated in Buddhism but the monks tend to be either not
conversant or interested in talking about the question of evolution.
When I asked the monks about their views on the scientific account of how life
originated on our Earth, many monks chose to instead talk about the Buddhist ideas
rather than discuss scientific ideas. For example, Jampa said:
Generally speaking according to Buddhism, we say sentient being has no
beginning because there is no beginning to life. No new sentient beings will be
created on this Earth that has not existed before. This is universally accepted
among Buddhist. When we say no new sentient being will be created, it means
that one sentient being cannot be divided into two without any role of
consciousness. We never say that. They can never be sentient being that hasn’t
existed before. Wherever it might be, it has existed somewhere. We claim that
there is no beginning to the process of rebirth. (5:32)
Jampa chose to answer the question he wanted to answer, which he is more comfortable
with. So he chose to answer the origin of life in general and not specific to Earth. Jampa
was not able to accept that there is an ultimate origin to life and therefore, scientific
explanation of emergence of sentient life through division of a single parent organism
withe no role for consciousness was disconcerting for him. Other monks also initially
responded that from a Buddhist perspective there is no beginning to life and that the
scientific description of origin of life cannot be the beginning of life in the cosmos.
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Tsering stated, “I mean the statement that life first started from a certain fixed time.
Buddhist would claim that there is no beginning for life. If they are only talking about
first life on Earth then it is okay. One cannot assume a beginning to life in general
because this is unacceptable in Buddhism”. According to Tsering, it is not possible to
have new sentient beings created that has not existed before and this stems from the
Buddhists believe that number of sentient beings in the cosmos is remains unchanged but
it can transform by taking rebirth in many forms. Those who attain enlightenment are still
considered sentient although they are not referred to as sentient being. Even though the
theory of evolution provides the basis for the origin of life, monastics reject that the life
that began on Earth is also the beginning of life in the cosmos in general.
Since life has no beginning from a Buddhist perspective, I asked the monks
whether life similar to that of Earth would have existed elsewhere or not. Jampa said:
Just now you asked this question about whether peacock, human and all the
different sentient being we observe on the planet can exist on another planet or
not. It is never mentioned in our text whether there is such being exist out there or
not. There is a concept of god. These gods... For example, human can exist in
other continents (beyond Earth). In scriptures it is clearly mentioned that human
beings can be born in the land of Ganden (Tushita heaven of Maitreya). Which is
a different continent, not on this Earth. Not only humans, long time ago some
meditators whom we haven’t witnessed, but when they engage in certain Yogic
practices like Dorjee Phakmo (Goddess), they are born in the field of Dorje
Phakmo without discarding their physical body. When they propitiate her, she
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comes and takes you with her. Some people are lost forever and some have
returned. So there is a history of migrating to other fields beyond Earth. (5:37)
According to Jampa, there is no explicit statement in Buddhism about presence of life
forms similar to Earth beyond it. However, he thinks that there are places beyond Earth
where higher beings like gods resides, and also believes in the possibility that human
being could be teleported to these places by engaging in certain esoteric Buddhist
practices. So intermigration of life is plausible from a Buddhist perspective.
Buddhist rejects a permanent and immutable self, however, it maintains a
category of person or individual. This person is “an individual stream, a combination of
mind and matter, accumulating karma and experiencing its fruits over the course of
billions of lifetime, until each of those streams of mind and matter becomes a Buddha”
(Lopez, 2009, p 150). This a priori assumption in a perennial life inhibits the monks to
readily accept that scientific origin of life to be the story of first life. Therefore, the life
that began on the Earth via evolution cannot be the only narrative the about origin of life
since such things could have possibly happened anywhere in the universe. To this Jampa
said,
It (beginning of life) might not be like the single Big Bang that everything came
from a single cell. There might be lot of cells... Evolution doesn’t say that too. I
don’t think it is just one cell. It is not like Big Bang, a single event from which
everything came about because there might be lot of different environment. Each
different environment might have a single cell and they diversified due to the
changes in environment. (5:61)
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Jampa thinks that the origin of life on Earth is not similar to single event like the big
bang. He believes that there must be a variety of environment when the Earth was formed
and therefore, life could have originated within any of these different environments.
Mind, matter, and abstract composite are the three fundamental composition of
the world in Buddhism. However, thus far science considers matter to be the fundamental
constituent and therefore, it regards mind or consciousness to be an emergent property of
matter. Sentient being in Buddhism is described as an aggregate of both the mind and
matter including its past karmic actions and experiences. Tsering said, “Sentient being
arising from inanimate matter is according to their (science) explanation. If you
completely follow their explanation it is unacceptable because for us consciousness must
enter an organism.” Hence, the scientific notion of emergence of sentient being from
inanimate matter through a purely naturalistic means is unacceptable to Tsering. He
believes that consciousness must somehow be part of the process to become sentient.
Summary
The origins of life or the universe are topics that Buddha refused to answer in
what is known as the ‘Eight unanswerable” by the Buddha. Core Buddhist belief is that
such questions are unhelpful in remedying the suffering of sentient being. So the common
belief among Buddhist is that there is no beginning or end to life and universe. Hence,
when asked question about origin of life, monks responded that there is no beginning to
life in universe. However, number of different narratives about origin of life in Buddhism
is described in Abhidharma, Mahayoga Mind Tantra, and other texts. The fact that they
are differing accounts of origin and these does not form the core of their monastic
education, the monks seems to have little interest in the origin history.
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Buddhists belief that life had existed forever and hence, monks are open to the
possibility extraterrestrial life anywhere in the universe. One of the monks even told a
common story about teleporting human beings to other worlds through certain secretive
deity practices. However, he doubts that organism similar to Earth could have existed
elsewhere but believes that in these diverse worlds, life could be evolved through any
other means. Whatever the case of life would have evolved in these diverse worlds, it is
important that consciousness must be present in an organism to become sentient and
unacceptable to claims that sentient beings randomly originated from inanimate matter.
Buddhist vs. Scientific Account of Human Evolution
Human evolution has been one the most contentious topics within evolution due
its incompatibility with people’s cultural and religious beliefs. In the Measurement of
Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE) I administered with the monks (see Table
4.1 for results), Monks acceptance of the theory of evolution range from moderate to very
high acceptance. In the MATE survey, there are two statements regarding human
evolution to which all the monks strongly agree: (1) that humans were the product of
evolutionary process over millions of years (mean 4.5); and (2) that humans have not
always existed the same as they do today (mean 4). Their reasons for accepting these
statements were the converging scientific evidence like fossil records, and they think it is
“common sense” that things change over time. When they were further questioned about
human evolution in individual and focus group interviews, it was revealed that the monks
incorporate their religious ideas of human origin with varying levels of commitment.
While some monks were impartial to either account, some would vehemently defend the
status of human beings and its origin as in Buddhism, and some questions the validity of
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scientific account. Monks cite lack of confidence in the veracity of evidence found by
science as a reason for not accepting the scientific account. Some find the scientific
account of human evolution to be the most comprehensive so far. Multiple questions of
incompatibility with Buddhism were raised by the monks despite their belief that
evolution in general does not impinge upon the fundamental tenets of Buddhism.
Table 4.1
Results of Measurement of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution
Name Score Acceptance Scale
Chophel 89 High Acceptance
Very High Acceptance (89-100) High Acceptance (77-88)
Moderate Acceptance (65-76) Low Acceptance (53-64)
Very Low Acceptance (20-52)
Jampa 86 High Acceptance
Samdup 70 Moderate Acceptance
Tsering 83 High Acceptance
Gawa 96 High Acceptance
Tashi 72 Moderate Acceptance
All of the monks, except Tsering, are either impartial or in support of the Buddhist
account of human evolution drawn from Abhidharma text. Tsering had issues about this
account in the group discussion:
The Buddhist explanation of the first-eon human beings is just one explanation.
It doesn’t need to be the only explanation. The first-eon human who already are
human gradually being transformed over time into current form is one story.
When I think about it, I doubt if such thing has actually happened. I believe in
the scientific account of human evolution although not in every aspect. If we
trace back our ancestors, they might be slightly different, in terms of their
expression, characters, or thinking. Whatever it is, they are slightly different. It is
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definitely through such process (evolution) that we arrived at our current form. I
don’t think we are exactly similar to the early human beings in terms of external
features or internal cognitive abilities. I don’t think such is the case. (24.1)
Tsering is referring to the Abhidharma account of human evolution where it is described
that celestial beings with luminous bodies gradually transformed into the current human
beings after losing their luminous body and other qualities like their ability to survive
without relying on coarse food. These celestial beings were also referred to as first-eon
humans. Although Tsering doubts this account and aligns his belief with the scientific
account of human evolution, rather than rejecting it, he qualifies by saying that the
traditional account could be just one possible explanation. Whatever the scientific claims
might be, he believes that humans have not always existed the same as today. Gawa also
shared a similar view regarding the inevitable change that had occurred in humans over
time when he said, “There is a definite time when the Earth was first formed; human
beings cannot be preexisting when the Earth was formed.” Whether the monks
completely believe in the scientific account of human evolution or not, they do not reject
the traditional notion of human evolution. Instead, they all concur with this view that
humans have not remained the same throughout time.
Jampa, who is most persistent in defending the Buddhist account, during the focus
group discussion interjected that, “Currently we live in the era when the lifespan of
human is 100 years. In terms of lifespan, the early beings live during an era when the
lifespan of human is over 10000 years”. Chophel added, “First there were light bearing
gods. These first-eon human are supposed to have huge physical body and are not like
todays”. The light bearing gods or the celestial beings as mentioned earlier were believed
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to have a life span of thousands of years, which gradually diminished to a life span of 100
years, the current lifespan human beings. Tsering strongly objected holding on to such
belief in the pursuing discussion:
The light bearing gods who have life expectancy of millions of years gradually
depreciated to thousand, five hundred, and sixties? Do you think all these are
factual accounts? We don’t need to think into distant far, just look back in the last
50 years. If we compare today’s life expectancy and fifty years ago, most likely it
has gone up. It has definitely not lowered. This we can tell from our experience.
For example, when we were young listening to people who died when they were
50. There is no one who has lived to 60. Now we need to think. Earlier people die
when they were in 50s, 60s or 70s. Nowadays people live up to 80 to 90 years,
internationally there are many people living up to 100 years. I don’t have specific
research data in my hand now to claim these facts. If you just do an estimate on
your own, human life expectancy has definitely gone up. This is 100% true. So
this contradicts. (24.2)
Tsering statement highlights a clear contradiction to the Buddhist belief that the lifespan
of humans has reduced overtime. He said that by simply observing the life expectancy of
humans in the past 50 years, one would expect sufficient evidence that the life span of
humans has increased instead decreased. It is a common belief in Buddhist communities
that so many of its masters who came after Buddha, have lived for hundreds of years. In
order to defend his claim that human beings have lived longer in the past, Jampa said,
“Many years ago some people lived over 500, 600, 800 years. For example, Nagarjuna,
we believe that he lived for 600 years. Also, it is said that Shantarakshita also lived for
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over 900 years”. However, unconvinced, Tsering retorted, “These are the things we need
to think. These are questionable claims”. Suggesting Jampa that he should reconsider
holding on to such beliefs. While Jampa defends these Buddhist beliefs vehemently,
Tsering does not attest to these beliefs. Hence, it is clear from these conversations that
tension exists between the two traditions when it comes to their explanation of human
evolution, and some of the monks were reluctant to relinquish their traditional views and
replace them with the scientific knowledge they had learned. This shows that Buddhist
also experience conflict regarding evolution that might or might not get resolved.
Spontaneous Birth
The discussion about human evolution was further complicated by Jampa
bringing in yet another Buddhist concept of life in the focus group discussion:
Jampa: Also their (scientific) way of investigation is based on only conception
through womb and egg. They never investigate other ways of conception
like heat and moisture or spontaneous birth. If we want to question them,
we can raise these issues. If they say it is necessary for human being to
be born only through evolution, then we can say how about
“spontaneous birth”. If you are logician and want to dispute such claim,
you cannot disprove “spontaneous birth”. There are many great scholars
who were born spontaneously. They can explain birth through womb
and egg, but not those who are spontaneously born. Evolution cannot
explain this. The common ancestry to apes was explained genetically.
Tsering: Do we have to establish that all these spontaneous birth are born
spontaneously?
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Jampa: Yes, it has to be in the case of spontaneous birth.
Chophel: The first-eon people are all born spontaneously.
Undeterred by the rejection of his earlier claims that Buddhist masters have lived for
hundreds of years, Jampa makes yet another claim that these many Buddhist masters
were also born spontaneously. In Buddhism there are four means of conception for
sentient beings when they take rebirth through womb, egg, heat and moisture, and
spontaneous. Jampa observes that science take into account only birth through womb and
egg, and does not explain heat and moisture, and spontaneous birth. Spontaneous birth is
usually attributed to celestial beings in the realm of form and formless (Lama, 2005a).
However, during the individual interview Jampa claims that “Human can be born through
all the four means of conception including spontaneous, and heat and moisture”, and he
gave examples of Buddhist masters who were believed to be born through all these four
different means of conception. He said, “Also, there are lots of examples of birth through
egg. There were many masters who were born from egg. When we study Vinaya
(canonical text on monastic code), I think it was Master Nethen Drakye, who is believed
to born from an egg.” Jampa was convinced with his view of spontaneous birth and
incredible lifespan of Buddhist masters. Inability to account for spontaneous birth and
birth through heat and moisture is seen as a limitation of the theory of evolution from
Jampa’s perspective. Perhaps it is due to his belief that Buddhist concept of life goes
beyond life witnessed on our Earth that he firmly holds to his traditional beliefs even
when they contradicts the scientific explanation. He said,
You know gods. In the realm of gods, all them are born spontaneously. If we
accept it, this doesn’t raise any problem for us. You know why, because for us the
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most important thing is how an individual transmigrate through the Samsara
according to twelve links of dependent origination. If there is any refutation of
this theory, then there is real problem. (5:10)
Jampa does not want to relinquish his belief about spontaneous birth because there is no
conflict for him in accepting it. For him, as long as fundamental tenets in Buddhism like
the twelve dependent origination (rten ‘brel yen lak bchu gnyis) link are not challenged
by evolution or any other scientific theories then holding onto the Buddhist beliefs in
spontaneous birth and human lifespan are not in conflict. The twelve dependent
origination links describe the process of how individuals continue to take rebirth in “a
karmically conditioned existence or in other words, in samsara” (Gyatso, 1995). Even if
his traditional beliefs are in contradiction with science Jampa is willing to hold on to
them as long as they don’t impinge the fundamental tenets of Buddhism.
Jampa is the only one who strongly defends all the traditional account of human
evolution and spontaneous birth in Abhidharma without completely rejecting evolution.
Except for Tsering, the other monks are not willing to share their views about the
traditional account of human evolution. Tashi was not familiar with the Buddhist account
of human evolution. Samdup did not share his view about the Buddhist account, and
although he is skeptical of the scientific account he does not rejects them either.
Regarding Buddhist accounts of human evolution, Chophel said, “This (Buddhist
account) doesn't contradict evolution. There was no human before and then it came into
existence. Gradually human developed. It is not that there is human from the beginning.
Humans gradually developed overtime.” Since both the traditions acknowledge that
humans being have changed over time, Chophel does not see any conflict between the
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two. Likewise, Tsering thinks it is a common knowledge that humans have not remained
the same forever.
Human Being vs. Animal
In the Buddhist taxonomy of sentient beings, there is a clear distinction between
human and animal. In the continuing focus group discussion, the following questions
were asked:
1. How would Buddhists define a human being?
2. Can we draw a distinction between humans and animals?
3. Throughout the evolutionary process, when did the first human beings appear?
Tsering described human as, “...someone capable of speaking and able to make
sense.” This is the normative philosophical definition of a human being employed in
Buddhist dialectics, and all the monks concurred with this definition of human being. To
this Jampa added, “To be a human, one needs to accumulate karma to be born in the
human realm and then find a human body (aggregate).” When it was suggested that some
animals might have the ability to communicate and understand language, Samdup
interjected, saying, “No, no they don’t have such discrimination ability. They don’t have
the faculty.” By stating that animals do not have discriminative ability, Samdup is
suggesting that animals do not have the ability to distinguish between good and bad
unlike humans. Tsering said, “Nevertheless it (human) has the potential to think
differently from others.” Tsering also thinks that human have different capability than
animals in terms of intellect. This led to Chophel’s statement on distinction between
human and animal:
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Generally, in Buddhism there seem to be a clear demarcation between human and
animal. It is done as if we can clearly draw a line. According to science there
seem to be many in between. Some that resembles both human and animal. If you
ask about Homo erectus and Neanderthal, it is difficult to ascertain whether these
are human or animal. (24.3)
Buddhists believe that sentient beings can take rebirth in six different realms depending
on their past karmic actions. Human and animal are two distinct realms in the six realms.
However, Chophel finds that evolution blurs this traditional distinction drawn between
human and animal. Hence, due to many intermediary creatures that existed between
ancestral ape and modern human, such as, Homo erectus and Neanderthal according to
the theory of evolution, Chophel finds it difficult to confidently draw a clear distinction
between modern human and animal as believed in his tradition. This blurring of the line
between human and animal by evolution challenges the Buddhist account of human
origin and also calls into question the fundamental belief in the existence of life in six
realms in Buddhism.
To resolve this dilemma of distinction between humans and animals, Chophel
suggested, “Generally in Buddhism, dud ’gro (animal) means those who walk bent
forward. Anything that don’t stand and walks on four foot is called dud ’gro.” This is the
literal definition of human in Tibetan. The following discussion was pursued after that.
Tashi: So, small children are animals?
Chophel: Ha...ha. What a great example? Those that walk upright are humans or
gods. I think this is a good way to classify.
Tenzin: So should the birds be considered walking downwards?
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Samdup: Some disabled people also walk that way.
Tsering: Since the birds put both the legs on ground, it can be considered as
putting all the four legs down because it has only two limbs.
Chophel: Whether they put all the four limbs on the ground or not, it is something
that walks bending.
Samdup: I still doubt about whether they (Neanderthals, Homo erectus...) have
really existed or not.
Chophel thinks that the literal definition of animal in Tibetan—dud ‘gro—is a good way
to draw distinction between human and animal. The monks were also not dismissive of
this definition and using it to distinguish animal from human. However, this still led
Samdup to doubt whether human ancestors like Neanderthals and Homo erectus have
actually existed or not since they do not neatly fit into either category.
Figure 2. Human evolutionary process (Source. Museum of Natural History and Science)
Next, I asked the monks to point out from which point onwards in Figure 2 would
they consider the first human being to exist from their perspective.
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Tenzin: In my thoughts, so this pose challenge to our Buddhist classification of
six realms of existence. Where can be draw a line between human and animal?
Chophel: I think it may be around here (points at Homo erectus in Figure 2). I
think from here it walks standing up. Animals walk by bending.
Tashi: From here it looks like human. May be from here (points at Homo
Neanderthal in Figure 2).
Gawa: This is most likely similar to the generation of modern human being.
Homo Neanderthal are most likely the same.
Jampa: Are they able to talk?
Gawa: I don’t think they can talk. They are very similar to wild animals.
Jampa: Then it doesn’t qualify the definition of human being.
Tenzin: Is necessary to talk?
Jampa: Should be able to talk and understand.
The monks were uncertain over where to demarcate the beginning of human. Chophel
believes that it should be Homo erectus based on its ability to walk up right. Due to
similarity in physical outlook Gawa and Tashi thinks that Homo Neanderthals could be a
possible beginning of modern human being. However, for Jampa language is detrimental
in determining whether it is human or not. When Gawa suggested Homo Neanderthals
most likely similar to wild animals and might not possess language, he readily decides
that they are not human. The ability to talk and understand is the criteria used in Buddhist
dialectics to delineate human from animal. So the monks were using both the literal
meaning of Tibetan term for animal (dud ‘gro) and the dialectical definition of human
being to find the beginning of human being or a point from which human being diverged
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from animal in the evolutionary history. However, not being able to find a consensus on
where to draw the distinction between human and animal, monks began to question the
Buddhist concept of six realms of existence. Tsering said, “Really, these are things we
need to think more deeply. So far we have believed in what ever is said. There is lot of
thinking we need to do. Anything could be possible.” Tsering realized that there is many
assumptions in his tradition that cannot be taken literally and need to be open for possible
new explanations.
“Evidence For Evolution Is Too Distant Both In Time And Place”
Not all the monks accepted human evolution. For example, Tashi said he does not
believe in human evolution because the evidence provided by science was “too distant
both in terms of time and place”. He thinks that there is no way of knowing exactly what
happened in evolution when so much time has elapsed and events have taken place in
between. He continued, “I cannot accept it, and I cannot fathom such a thing. You are
saying that there is evidence up to this stage. If you look at this (Figure 2) it looks
impressive. But if you trace farther than this then we don’t know.” Tashi was suggesting
that even if he gave the benefit of doubt that there were sufficient evidence for human
ancestors as shown in Figure 2, he thinks if we go further than that it would be impossible
to prove beyond reasonable the exact crossing point of humans and the ancestors of
modern apes. Tashi strongly believes that there is no way of determining gathering for
events that has occurred so distant in time and place.
Samdup knows the evidence for macroevolution, but he had difficulty in believing
them. He asked me during the group discussion, “Tenzin, do you really think these
happened, such as separation of species from a common ancestor?” When I retorted,
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“Otherwise where would you have come from?” He said, “What I mean is that looking at
the environment in which I live, I cannot definitely say where I came from. I don’t know
from where my consciousness has come from.” Samdup understands the scientific
evidence for speciation and also explains to others during the group discussion; however,
he still doubts the veracity of such claims like Tashi. Buddhists generally believe that
only Buddha and those who have achieved omniscience can tell the exact cause and path
of rebirth for an individual. By saying that he does not know where his consciousness
came from, he is implicitly asserting that since he is not an omniscient there is no way he
can explain where he came from and neither can science do the same.
Summary
In this section on Buddhist vs. scientific account of human evolution, conflict
between science and Buddhism regarding human evolution was evident despite the
indication that monks’ have moderate to high acceptance of evolution based on their
response to the MATE survey. The monks have different responses in reconciling the
conflict between the two traditions. Except for one monk, others were not willing to
relinquish their Buddhist beliefs about human evolution. Jampa persisted with his defense
of Buddhist accounts of human evolution even when they are in contradiction with
scientific findings. However, he does not reject the scientific account either thus holding
to conflicting views at the same time. He continues to believe that humans have lived for
hundreds of years in the past and can be born through all four means of conception. In
contrary, Tsering was vehement in rejecting the traditional accounts of human evolution
whenever they contradict with the scientific evidence. Tashi was not fully familiar with
the Buddhist account of human evolution and shared no views about it. However, he was
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unconvinced by the scientific account because of reliability of the evidence provided for
human evolution, which he thinks are events too distant in time and space to be trusted.
Evolution’s claim that human being descended from common ancestor of modern apes
blurs the belief in Buddhism that there is clear distinction between the two realms of
human and animal. This blurring of line between human and animal forces the monks to
rethink their previous understanding of human beings and some came to the conclusion
that the difference between the two might be just a matter of degree than kind.
The defense of traditional Buddhist accounts of human evolution, beliefs in
spontaneous birth, and the debate over delineation between human and animal, indicate
certain tension in reconciling Buddhist and scientific conception of life. Although the
monks understands and do not reject the scientific account readily, they are also hesitant
to rescind their traditional beliefs in light of the scientific evidence because their
traditional concepts have larger meaning in their Buddhist worldview despite its
contradictions. Also in the Buddhist conception of life is the presence of consciousness is
a fundamental criteria, therefore, the lack of any role of consciousness in evolution
generates doubts about whether the theory of evolution is an all-encompassing theory of
life or not. Hence, the monks might hold on to both the conception as a survival
technique or will only be able to reconcile the two if they are given the enough
opportunity to dialogue the difference and how the two world view contribute towards
our understanding of the world.
Evolution and Buddhist Theory of Karma
When monks were asked in their individual interview about Buddhist explanation
for the diversity of life we see on out planets, all the monks claim that the diversity of life
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in nature is primarily due to the karma of individual organism. Monks also acknowledge
the fact that there is an accompanying physical process through which the results of
karma are embodied. They think that science in general and evolution in this case only
delves into the physical processes of how life originated and evolved, and does not
explain why individuals were born as a particular organism have the experiences they
have. Hence, the role of karma is inevitable for a complete explanation of life according
to them, and a purely materialistic and mechanical explanation of life by science is
considered incomplete them, even though they were unable to describe the exact
mechanism of how karma is involved in the origin and creation of the diversity of life in
the world.
“Karma Is Not A Mysterious Force.” Chophel
Chophel finds there to be compatibility between the Buddhism’s and science
because in both the traditions “there is no requirement for a creator god. Instead sentient
on its own undergo changes.” According to Chophel, the driving force behind the origin
and evolution of sentient beings in Buddhism is karma and he thinks this replaces the
need for the creator god found in the theistic religions. Clarifying he said, “When you say
Karma, it is not some mysterious force. Karma pervades everywhere. We are having this
conversation right now because of our karma. Karma is action. Something that impels
you to do something is the Karma.” In Buddhism, karma is described, as a naturalistic
law of how intentional actions whether it is mental, physical, or verbal, would have its
consequence relevant to the actions, in the current or future life. Literally, karma means
‘action’, and it is philosophically defined as something that propels the “mind to hover
over objects and incite action”, said Chophel. Hence, karma refers to both the action and
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the force that drives the mind into action, or in terms of causality it is both the cause and
the condition that brings about change.
With karma as the primary driving force for change, Chophel said, “Whatever it
is, it is necessary that causes and condition should be complete. It is not possible without
a complete cause and condition.” Here, Chophel is clarifying that an event might have
been caused by karma but it is important that a parallel material or physical causation
should be completed to result in some change or phenomena. However, regarding the
domain of karma, Samdup stated, “You know the law of karma, when you say law of
karma has begun, there should be an entity that can experience joy and suffering. That’s
how the law of karma is supposed to begin.” Samdup is defining the application of the
law of karma, where in karma is only applied when there is an entity that can have
experience or a sentient being; otherwise, the law of karma does not apply.
There are various organizing principles of karma in Buddhism, and Chophel
describes the one of them. “Karma is not necessarily something virtuous or non-virtuous.
There is neutral karma too, which includes all the neutral action that we engage daily.”
said Chophel. Chophel talks about two kinds of karma, virtuous and non-virtuous. He
explains there is also neutral karma or actions that we engage daily. Thus, karma pertains
to all intentional acts that are accompanied by a resultant consequence as well as
unintentional acts that cannot have moral consequences.
Samdup described yet another category of karma:
From a Buddhist perspective, we would say it is due to collective karma. There is
collective and non-collective karma. When I say collective karma for example, it is
the collective karma that gives raises to the beautiful environment. However, the
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diversity we see within this environment is due to non-collective or individual
karma. (16:13)
Here Samdup categorized karma into individual and collective karma. The individual
karma results in being born in one of the six different realms and the collective karma
causes the common environment that give rise to shared experiences of sentient beings in
that environment. Besides the statement that collective karma leads to the common
environment, Samdup gives no further explanation about how the collective karma
influences the natural laws to generate the kinds of environments in which sentient beings
dwell. However, he thinks karma plays a role in both the development of the individual
and the environment that determines the success of an individual living in that
environment through natural selection.
Buddhists believe that the diversity of life on Earth is the result of karma, and when
the monks were asked about the causes of this diversity, they responded as follows:
Chophel: From a Buddhist perspective, it is the karmic action and science would say
it is evolution and environment. So it is very similar. There is also a concept of
collective karma.
Samdup: From a Buddhist perspective, we would say it is due to collective karma.
There is collective and non-collective karma. When I say collective karma for
example, it is collective karma that gives raises to the beautiful environment.
However, the diversity we see within this environment is due to non-collective or
individual karma.
Tsering: From a Buddhist perspective we should say it is due to karma. That is it.
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Gawa: I don’t know about the commonalities but the difference is Buddhism claims
that all the diversity in world is due to karma. All the contents that reside in the
world like the human, horse, animal, and bird of different kinds, all comes into
existence due to karma.
The monks agree with the Buddhist belief that the various life forms we witness on Earth
were the result of individual and shared or collective karma. Chophel and Samdup made
the connection that the scientific explanation for diversity of life through evolution is
similar to the Buddhist concept of collective karma, which is defined as the cumulative
action of individuals in the past that are combined to produce a mutually shared
environment in the present. When Chophel said, “It is very similar”, he seem to be
suggesting that the scientific principle of evolution and the environment as the primary
cause for diversity is similar to the Buddhist principle of karma that is used to describe
the formation of life. According to Samdup the diversity of life we observe in natural
world is due to karma of individual sentient being. What he meant is that the way in
which individuals evolved into their current forms is due to their individual action or
karma in past lives. Thus, individual and collective karma is one way in which the monks
were trying to explain the diversity of life. Yet another way in which karma is used is to
explain the process of random mutation in evolution.
“Random Is Problematic.” Jampa
In order for evolution to take place, some genetic variation within the population
must exist, and this is produced by random mutation that is caused by a variety of factors.
These include error in copying of genes or external influences factors that leads to genetic
variation within a population. Then the law of natural selection acts on these variation,
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selecting a desired trait with an adaptive advantage and passing on to the next generation,
thus driving evolution. ‘Random’ in random mutation has been a source of
misunderstanding even within the scientific community. Due to which people often
interpret it as a process that cannot be causally explained. Similarly, in the Tibetan
translation of the terminology ‘random mutation’ has a connotation of a process that
cannot be explained causally or occurring by sheer chance. In actuality, the variation
produced in an individual due to random mutation does not guarantee that it will provide
any adaptive advantage to the individual; that is why it was term random was used. Since
mutation provides the impetus for evolution to occur, monks think this could possibly be
a place where karma could have intervened.
When I asked Jampa about random mutation, the following discussion pursued in the
group.
Tenzin: So what causes the change in allele frequency?
Jampa: That is mutation. It could be random. Again it is primarily due to the
environment. Sometimes it is random. Random is problematic.
Tenzin: Why random?
Jampa: May be it is okay say to say it is Karma.
Tenzin: That’s why I was asking this question earlier about where do you see
Karma come into play in evolution.
Jampa: The random could be due to karma. As you say random, when we were first
learning science we asked this question whether plants…When you say random, it is
something that is inexplicable, that doesn’t have any causes and condition.
Happening all of a sudden. This is what science does when they are unable to
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explain things they say it is random. When we first heard about random, it makes us
very anxious. Once we asked during our science workshop, why there is this
crossing point between plants and animals where they separated? They say it is
random. So, in short, they are unable to explain more than that. Why is it random?
Tenzin: So what karma is responsible for plants?
Jampa: We won’t say karma for this.
Tenzin: You earlier say random mutation might be due to karma.
Jampa: But they are not even able to explain random mutation.
Tenzin: They are unable to explain. But you said it might be due to karma.
Jampa: When you talk about karma, you can’t talk about karma in plants. In case of
human it is due to crossing over.
In Jampa’s experience, the term random is employed whenever science is unable to
provide an explanation. He said, “When you say random, it is something that is
inexplicable, that doesn’t have any causes and condition.” Such an idea is particularly
disconcerting for him as a Buddhist because according to the law of causality in
Buddhism, without causes and conditions there is no phenomenon. Although the random
in evolution does not mean lack of causation, the term generates a similar misconception
here for the monks too. This misconception for Jampa was further exacerbated when he
learned that the current plant and animal diverged from a common ancestor through
random mutation. He also thinks that randomness in evolution, except for plants, could be
explained by karma. Samdup on the other hand thinks that random mutation is caused by
epigenetic phenomenon, and then he goes on to state that epigenetics could be caused by
karma. Thus, the monks were trying to attribute karma to any processes that are not fully
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explained in evolution except in plants.
Karma Is Inexplicable
The Dalai Lama has made it amply clear that in Buddhism, apart from claims that
the environment in which sentient beings live is the resultant effect of collective karma of
all the beings dwelling in that environment, there is no further elaboration on the
mechanism. However, the monks do not just shared his view that karma of sentient being
are inextricably tied to their environment, but they go further to impute the role of karma
in various evolutionary processes such as random mutation. Often, due to their exposure
to science, monks believe that there is a purely physical process unrelated to karma that
has effect on sentient beings. However, they fall back to their traditional belief in role of
karma in the biological processes that led to human evolution. Samdup tells this story in
his village that challenges him to ponder over the role of karma in events that happened
there.
Samdup: The collective karma of individuals in that environment is said produce
the plants and other vegetation in the environment. But from another perspective I
don’t think it is the only cause. For example, there are only certain plants that grow
at higher altitudes. Mango tree won’t grow at higher elevation. This is I think, one
aspect is related to karma but other is due to environment or it is the nature of
things. When we say nature of phenomena, I think this is it. Just due to the way
matter is organized, it has certain inherent property. I have this experience in my
native place. Apples do not grow usually in my village. Nowadays due to change in
the climate, apples grow very well because of the change in climate. However,
apple growth in the village next to us where it used to grow very well has declined.
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Now some people attribute this to karma and say it is due to the increasing immoral
acts of people in the neighboring village. If you think from a scientific or
evolutionary perspective, it can be explained from purely material process like how
the change in the environment affects the chemical exchange process. But people
there would reason that the residents of the other village have grown fond of money
and therefore their collective karma has declined.
Tenzin: What do you think Venerable?
Samdup: What I think is that it is not due to the collective karma. I think we need to
make a distinction here. It is most likely due to change in climate and because
climate has become warmer there is change in how the nutrients are exchanged and
nutrient in soil that caused this change. But again from a Buddhist perspective, I
think it is related to human beings. (16:8)
When people in his native village began to blame the decline in the apple harvest in a
neighboring village due to the villager’s increasing indulgence in immoral action and
greed, Samdup grew uncomfortable. He thinks that the disruption in apple growth in the
neighboring village could be scientifically explained by change in climate and should not
be attributed to the collective karma of people living in the next village. When he said a
distinction has to be made here, he means that there could be purely physical processes
that bring change that does not involve karma but affects sentient beings. However, this
goes against a central principle of law of karma that as long as sentient beings are
affected, karma is involved. So this prompted him to concede at the end that may be it is
due to some action of human beings that have influenced the change in environmental
conditions that ultimately led to the decline in apple production. Hence the relation
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between karma and environmental factors becomes inextricable even if the monks want it
to be.
Samdup raised more doubts about the role of karma with the development of new
scientific technology, like genetic engineering that can device various changes in
organism. He explained;
Science does experiment on mouse and grow ear here (pointing to forehead).
They also explain why I have my ears at this location on a purely material
process. They modify the genetic information and produce multiple ears. So there
is a material way to bring change like they make changes to plants to have
different appearances. This way of bringing change through modifying the genetic
code is really amazing way of explaining things. For example they make mix two
different kinds of apple or plant to make a hybrid. In Buddhism we always say
these are due to material potential but no further explanation is given. In some
instance we just say it is karma. (16:16)
Samdup is amazed by the advancement in science and technology that allows the use of
genetic information to modify an existing organism like mice or making hybrid fruits and
plants. So he thinks there is a purely material way to bring changes in an organism. Such
development in his tradition would be considered as either a something purely material
process or it attributed to karma. Continuing he said,
I think everything is not contingent on karma. Like I said by modifying something
inside or changing the environment outside we can bring forth certain change. But
here again if you go deeper it is karma. The individual must have accumulated
certain karma to be in that situation. (16.17)
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Samdup for the moment thought that might be karma is not needed for explaining every
phenomenon because science does so well in explaining many of the changes we observe
in the environment. Upon further analysis, he reckoned that the role of karma could not
be denied because the fact that a mouse grew an extra ear and the actions of the scientists
who were involved in the genetic manipulation all might be due to the karmic results of
the individuals involved. Consequently, it became a dilemma for Samdup that while he
finds science able to explain many biological phenomena without resorting to karma, his
religious belief hinders from adopting a fully naturalistic explanation.
The monks were neither unable to relinquish the role of karma nor able to fully
explicate the exact mechanism of karma in evolution. When asked about the working of
karma, Samdup said,
Our karma has been accumulating over many lives. If you ask when will the
karma accumulated in previous lives come to fruition, we believe no one will be
able to tell this except by Buddha himself. In the texts, the discussion regarding
when and where the results of karma will be produced are considered to be in the
domain of omniscient minds and no one else. (16:14)
As much as karma plays a fundamental role in Buddhism in explaining the experiences of
sentient beings, the way in which karma is manifested in physical processes, according to
Samdup, is explicable only to the Buddha and omniscient minds. Gawa has similar
difficulty in rejecting any role of karma even when science explained the phenomena like
the colors on a peacock’s feather, which an example often cited in Buddhist text to
explain the complexity of karma. As Gawa recollects,
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For example, take the case of peacock’s feather. If it is asked how can you explain
the beautiful yet complex peacock’s feather with its different shades and pattern.
When we get to such details we say it is due to karma. But if it is asked what
particular karma is essential to create such a shade and pattern of peacock’s
feather. We say this is in explicable because the law of karma is unfathomable.
(7:9)
Like Samdup, Gawa agrees that the working of karma in cases like how and why peacock
has different shades and patterns of feather is beyond ordinary conception and hence,
inexplicable. Even though science might explain some of its mechanism, Gawa thinks,
“Unless you understand the subtlest working of karma, we cannot explain how this is
formed”. Therefore, the law of karma remains paramount to the monks; however, its
exact mechanism in evolution remains inexplicable to ordinary beings like us according
to them.
Summary
Although the the monks’ agree that by learning the theory of evolution it has
expanded their previous understanding of origin and development of life, the law of
karma was indispensable for them in order to explain how and why life evolved in the
way it has. Besides speculations, monks are unable to come up with any evidence to
advance their argument for role of karma in evolution of life; however, they strongly
believe that without karma, the world of sentient beings cannot be fully explained. The
monks agree that science, to certain extent, explains the mechanism of how sentient
beings have evolved, but is insufficient to explain the complete story of origin and
evolution of life. Therefore, they won’t rule out the role of karma. The challenge,
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however, is that the exact working of karma is only explicable to omniscient minds like
Buddha.
To explain the role of karma in evolution, monks theorize different ways in which
karma could have acted in evolution. The monks believe that the physical environment,
which according to the theory of evolution drives evolution through the process of natural
selection, might be produced by the collective karma of individuals dwelling in that
environment. However, this notion of collective karma further complicates the role of
karma since some monks claim that karma is not applicable to plants, and therefore, it is
difficult to explain how collective karma would be entangled with the physical
environment that includes plants. Monks also think that random mutation; a process by
which new adaptive traits in an individual organism were developed could be a result of
individual’s karma. Hence, the monks have varied explanations over the role of karma in
the evolutionary process. While some think that the karma has generated the environment
that acted as the crucible of life through natural selection, others think that the karma
produced the actual change in genetic material through mutation.
The central dilemma in reconciling the theory of evolution and law of karma is
not that the monks think the two frameworks are contradictory but rather they are
complementary. This is partially motivated to balance the purely materialistic and
mechanistic approach of science to explain life in which Buddhist believes karma has an
inherent role to play. The challenge was then to explain how the law of karma
complements the scientific explanation of life without resorting to metaphysical claims.
Monks think that theory of evolution explains only the mechanism for how organisms
developed over time into current forms and the law of karma explains the causes for the
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varied individual experiences in addition to the physical cause. Monks mostly speculate
than to explain how the karma of individual and physical environment got entangled or
how non-physical forces like karma could possibly have acted on the biological processes
like evolution. Any description of life without any role for karma is incomplete from
monks’ point of view, however persuading the scientific evidence and explanation might
be. With fundamental differences in the ontologies of the two traditions, it is likely that
any attempt to find complementary between the two tradition would be farce and
unproductive.
Alignment of Buddhist Beliefs and Evolution
Monks claim that theory of evolution resonates and reaffirms some of the key
theoretical and practical knowledge and beliefs in Buddhism. For example, evolution
describes phenomena we observe in nature as a result of changes in environmental factors
resonates with the theory of dependent arising (also translated as dependent origination
and interdependence)—the Buddhist theory of causality, which postulates that all
phenomena arise through the coming together of many causes and conditions. Similarly,
evolution describes how all living things has descended from a common ancestor, which
confirms the Buddhist belief that all sentient beings are related and have become mother
of each other in the previous lives. Hence, despite the various incompatibilities found
between evolution and Buddhist beliefs described in earlier findings, monks see general
concordance between the two.
Dependent-arising
Chophel invokes the Buddhist concept of dependent arising when we talked about
the causal connection between sentient beings and their environment in evolution.
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Concept of dependent arising is the notion that anything that “exist and has an identity
does so only within the total network of everything that has a possible or potential
relation to it. No phenomenon exists with an independent or intrinsic identity” (Lama,
2005a). During the discussion about how random mutation would have occurred in
nature, he said:
I usually think about it this way. These are the nature of dependent arising. When
there is effect on something, naturally there is some effect on the others. Right? I
think it is something like this. But there is no power or authority for the
individual. (1:2)
Chophel thinks that genetic mutation in evolution could be explained naturally from a
Buddhist perspective. The Buddhist theory of dependent arising which postulate that
phenomenon are contingent on various factors, and by discerning these factors he thinks
one can explain the cause of a phenomenon. He also states that there is no power or
authority for the individual in the nexus of dependent origination where everything is
connected and dependent on each other. Chophel use the analogy of throwing dice to the
process of random mutation:
I think we can explain this (dice throw). But when my muscle will be loose or
tight will depend on me. It depends on my neural movement and state of my
mind. Isn't it so? It depends on lot of factors. A lot of different causes and
conditions. So with dependent arising we need to think holistically. Everywhere
something is connected to something else. (1:44)
Here Chophel likened random mutation in evolution to a throw of dice, where the dice’s
outcome can be known if we can measure all the factors influencing the dice including
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the throwers state of mind. Since all the events are connected according to theory of
dependent arising, he suggested that random mutation in evolution should be thought
holistically. This thought of causal determinism seemed similar to scientific determinism
where law of causality governs all the events. However, Chophel’s interpretation of
theory of dependent arising as everything being connected to everything else does allow
for a causal determinism unless we know all the cause and condition of a phenomenon.
Tsering does not use the term dependent origination but he shared similar view
with Chophel that every phenomenon has multiple causes and conditions. When he was
asked about compatibility between Buddhism and theory of evolution, he responded:
Generally we say changes occur due to many conditions. These changes occur
due to multiple causes and conditions, which is quite similar to what they are
saying. They say that various changes occur due to changing environment and
multitude of other factors. In Buddhism, we generally say things happen due to
multiple causes and conditions. This is something that can be considered as
similarity between the two. Then for example, if we consider the function of our
human body, there is the physical body, then the organ, the tissue, the cell and it
goes on. If we trace the changes further, they all depend on chemistry of subtle
particles. By the multiple changes occurring in lot of smaller particles, we are able
to observe the big changes. Hence the big changes are the result of changing
condition of the smaller particles. Whatever it may be, the idea that things occur
due to various causes and conditions, and their explanation that the changes we
observe occur due to the environment and multitude of other causes is very
similar from my perception. (15.12)
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According to Tsering, the theory of evolution shows that the processes in nature
are dependent on multitude of changes in the environment that results in the diversity of
life we observe today. This for him resonates with the Buddhist notion of causality that
phenomenon have innumerable accompanying causes and conditions. Tsering was
fascinated by the science’s capability to explain the macro changes in an organism by
changes occurring at the micro level of cellular and chemical reactions. Besides the
claims in Buddhism that phenomenon have multiple causes and condition, the changes
undergoing in nature at a micro level is not directly perceptible. Hence, from his
perception, science not only share similar views about causality with Buddhism but also
brings evidence for causality.
Mother Sentient Beings
Evolution’s claim that all living organisms originated from a common ancestor is
construed by Samdup to be similar to Buddhist belief that all sentient being are
interrelated and have become one another’s mother at some point. Samdup said,
Compatibility between Buddhism and evolution...for example, I think the belief in
Buddhism that we all originated from the same source. That we share a
maternalistic relation with all other beings, or in Buddhism we believe that all the
sentient beings share a blood relation through becoming each other’s mother.
Therefore there is no point in having resentment towards each other. So this claim
that we all share a blood relation and the science’s claim of common ancestry is
very similar. (16:6)
Buddhists believe that all sentient beings share a kinship because everyone has become
each other’s mother over the infinite number of rebirths. Due to this belief sentient beings
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are often also referred to as ‘mother sentient beings’. So for Samdup, the suggestion of
common ancestry in evolution somehow resonates with the Buddhist notion of maternal
relation to all sentient beings and hence some kind of kinship. Additionally, Samdup
suggested that this concept of maternal relationship directs the kind of relation one should
have towards other sentient beings such as, avoiding resentment towards other. Similarly,
Gawa also acknowledges the moral implication of evolution when asked about the benefit
of evolution to him personally but on a second thought:
I cannot think any benefit to my personal life by studying this theory. Really, I
don’t see anything. But if you think in another way, there could be ways in which
it can look into as beneficial to our lives. For example, the kind of relationship
between people or the relationship between human and animal, basically we are
all related. We all trace back to a common ancestor and our difference is just a
matter of time. Hence through these connections we can improve relationship
between human and animals. (7:21)
Gawa might not have the chance to think about this question earlier, hence he was unable
to think of any personal benefit from studying evolution at first. However, he quickly
realizes and suggested that evolution could have the benefit of creating better relationship
among human, and between human and animal; since evolution indicate a common origin
and therefore a relationship between all living things. Except for a matter of time he
thinks all the living things were interconnected and hence this such connection could be a
vehicle in promoting a congenial relationship between all living things, especially
humans and animals.
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When I further questioned Samdup about how he can establish that human and
donkey are related. He responded:
This cannot be said. It is due to distinct individual karma. But we say whether it is
a donkey or human, we are all related and there is no one who has not become
another’s mother. So there is a blood relation between almost every being or some
kinship. Tibetan’s used to believe in the mythology that they are descendants of a
female ogre and a compassionate monkey. This is beautiful historical account.
However, if we go further than that we say that all sentient beings share a
maternalistic relation and are similar. (16:12)
Samdup thinks we cannot establish a direct relationship between a human and a donkey,
each of them came to being due to their individual karma. However, he continues to
assert that they were blood related and his reason was that there is no sentient being who
has not become another’s mother, repeating what he said earlier. He thinks the concept of
all sentient beings as a mother predates the Tibetans creation story, which states that a
marriage between a cave dwelling female ogre and a compassionate monkey gave birth to
six offspring, which became the source of the six clans of the Tibetan people (Khar,
Guard, & Tandar, 1991). Hence, Samdup thinks of evolution as providing empirical
evidence for the concept of maternalistic relation between all sentient beings in
Buddhism.
When I asked about the influence of evolution on their religious practice, Gawa
said:
Maybe there is an effect. Like for practice of compassion. We say in prelude to
any meditation on compassion, first one must ‘know the mother and appreciate
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her kindness’. That is we need to consider all the sentient being as our mother and
acknowledge their kindness. So fundamentally, we train on thinking everyone as a
mother or related to you. Evolution describes that all the animals are related and
that if we trace our origin, we all share common parent or ancestor. Hence, this
could make a difference to our practice that is founded on acknowledging the
kindness of mother. This could be another method to generate compassion. (7:17)
According to Gawa, recognizing the fact that everyone served as your mother and
acknowledging his or her kindness is the first step into Buddhist practice of mediation on
compassion. So when evolution establishes a relation between all animals through
common ancestry, it allows Gawa to view the claim of maternalistic relation shared by all
sentient beings in his tradition from new perspective and hence a new method to generate
compassion to other beings. As mentioned earlier, this concept of maternal relationship
between all sentient beings is frequently invoked in meditational discourse for the
development of altruism and compassion towards others, which is the essence of
Buddhist practice.
Summary
Monks are astounded by science’s capability to explain changes at the macro level
through the changes occurring at the micro level. Although Buddhist’s theory of causality
theorize that phenomenon in nature have multiple causal conditions, through evolution
the monks are able to observe direct evidence of those causal conditions. The monks
believe that all events in nature have causal conditions and therefore, they think the
random mutation in the case of evolution can also be explained through its causal
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conditions. However, the claim that all events are connected to an infinite number of
other events makes it challenging to find the exact cause of an event.
Although evolution does not give any moral or ethical prescription, the monks
perceive evolution as supporting Buddhism notion of relatedness of all sentient beings
and therefore the necessity of compassion towards all sentient beings. Buddhists
generally believe that constant rebirths over the history of cosmos, sentient beings have
mothered each other at least once, which is used to establish a kinship relation among all
sentient beings. Even though evolution is least concerned about rebirth, the claims of
common ancestry of all life on the planet in evolution is construed by the monks to draw
similarity with the Buddhists’ notion of kinship of all sentient beings.
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CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
In this chapter, I reflect on how a group of Tibetan monks interpret the biological
theory of evolution using the framework of collateral learning theory (CLT). My goal is
to contribute to our understanding of how people from a different of cultural and religious
communities negotiate meaning of scientific concepts through their religious and cultural
worldview. I will discuss how the findings reported earlier revealed the conflicts that
monks experienced reconciling their cultural and religious beliefs with the theory of
evolution. The ways in which monks negotiated these conflicts will be highlighted using
the four types collateral learning, and end with the discussion on the limitations and
opportunities of CLT as it pertains to this study.
Collateral Learning
Aikenhead & Jegede (1999) described collateral learning as a cognitive
phenomenon of students who experience conflict between their everyday life-world and
school science. In order to resolve the cognitive dissonance, students engage in different
types of collateral learning depending on the degree of interaction and resolution of the
conflicting schemas. Four types of collateral learning are described, which form a
spectrum along a continuum rather than separate categories. At one end is the parallel
collateral learning, where there is no interaction between the two conflicting schema and
therefore, the schemas remain compartmentalized with no interaction in the learners’
long-term memory. At the other end is the secured collateral learning, where there is the
most interaction between conflicting schema, and the individual either modifies one
schema in light of the other for convergence towards commonality, resulting a new
conception, or holds on two both schema for some logical reasons. Between these two
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extremes lies dependent collateral learning, where conflicting schema from two different
worldviews or domains of knowledge challenge each other to the extent that one schema
is modified without radically restructuring that worldview or domain of knowledge. This
type of learning occurs when a learner, unaware of the conflicting domains of knowledge,
moves between the domains. This is in contrast with secured collateral learners, who
were conscious of each domain of knowledge or worldview. Finally, simultaneous
collateral learning lies between dependent and parallel collateral learning. Here, learning
in one domain of knowledge enables learning of a similar concept in another domain.
With this, I will now apply the theory of collateral learning to each of my finding’s
themes, describe the mechanism through which the monks undertake different types of
collateral learning, and discuss the usefulness of CLT.
Sentient Beings vs. Living Things
In order for collateral learning to occur, there must be interaction - and resolution,
to some extent - between two conflicting schemata in the long-term memory of the
learners (Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999). The monks show predilection towards reaching a
common understanding of life by juxtaposing the Buddhist notion of sentient being with
scientific schema. Since their traditional schema of life (sentient vs. non-sentient)
conflicts with the new schema of a life (living vs. non-living) from evolution (see Figure
5.1a), their effort to integrate the two results in various collateral learning phenomenon.
The interaction of these two conflicting schemas (See Figure 5.1a) results in different
conjectures about how the Buddhist concept of ‘sentient’ would apply to evolution, more
specifically, when life on Earth actually became ‘sentient’ (See Figure 5.1b).
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Figure 5.1a Buddhist vs. science schema of life.
Figure 5.1b Sentient being vs. the evolutionary tree
While some monks conjecture the first common ancestors as sentient, others assume that
they are both sentient and non-sentient. The reason for considering the first single-celled
organisms as sentient was a direct result of science labs that allowed the monks to
observe single-celled organisms displaying all characteristics of sentient, such as,
reacting to the environment, locating food sources, and evading threat. However,
attributing sentience to the single-celled organisms challenges the monks to explain how
these single-celled organisms would later give rise to plants, which are considered as
non-sentient in Buddhism. Buddhists assume that only a sentient being can give rise to
another sentient being, which differs from the scientific view that life can emerge from
inanimate matter. Hence, in order to overcome this explanation gap in the origin of plants
and the sentient nature of the first common ancestors, monks use different explanations.
Jampa went on to assert that plants and animals could not possibly come from a
common ancestor and claimed that they should have their own genealogy. He said,
If I combine both science and Buddhism I would say plants came from plants, but
first plants are simple and diversity in them occurred due to evolution. Similarly,
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animals’ physical body also first came from simple bodies and due to Earth’s
environment there was more diversity later. This is acceptable to me. (5:14)
When Jampa said, “If I combine both science and Buddhism”, this suggests that he had
compartmentalized science and Buddhism’s concept of life, a characteristic of parallel
collateral learning, where a learner stores conflicting schemata in their long term memory
without much interaction between the two. However, he goes on to say that if he were
given an opportunity, he would consider that plants were initially simpler, and then,
evolution gave rise to the diversity in plants. Similarly, animals were first simple
organisms that later gave rise to different animals through evolution. This suggests that
plants and animals should have separate lineage, which overthrows the central principle
of common descent in evolution. In order to resolve the conflict between his religious
assumption that sentient and non-sentient entities cannot share a common ancestry and
the evolutionary principle of common descent, he modifies the principle of common
descent by suggesting that there should be a parallel phylogenetic plant and an animal
tree. Since his modification of evolution’s schema depended on the challenge posed by
schema from his religious worldview, this resembles a case of dependent collateral
learning. Jampa was either unaware of his modified schema’s influence on evolutionary
theory, or he is willfully defying the central tenet of evolutionary theory in order to keep
his original worldview intact. Based on his comments, if Jampa somehow realizes
through discussion that he is defying a central tenet of evolution, he might revert to
compartmentalizing the two schemas.
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Gawa also shared similar views with Jampa. He thinks that there should be two
categories of single-celled organisms in the early evolutionary history, one that is able to
host consciousness, and one that cannot. He stated, “Those which do not host
consciousness would give rise to plants and trees. It is not possible that an initial sentient
being was later transformed into a non-sentient.” Gawa does not think it is possible that a
sentient single-celled organism would gradually lose its sentient nature to give rise to
plants. Hence, both Jampa and Gawa modify a fundamental evolutionary schema to find
resolution with their religious concept of sentient indicative of dependent collateral
learning (See Figure 5.2a).
Figure 5.2a Gawa’s case of dependent collateral
learning
Tsering adopts a different accommodative mechanism to resolve the conflict. He
thinks that our ancestral single-celled creatures were all initially sentient, but sometime
along the evolutionary path, a few of them lost their capacity to host consciousness and
thus, became non-sentient giving rise to the plant kingdom. Those that remained sentient
would give rise to the animal kingdom. This creative explanation by Tsering allows him
to render both the scientific and Buddhist schemas of life valid. It neither distorts the
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principle of common ancestry in evolution, nor does it obviate the Buddhist notion that
only sentient beings can give rise to another. Therefore, in collateral learning terms, the
amalgamation of two conflicting schemas towards commonality is potential a case of
secured collateral learning (See Figure 5.2b). However, the validity of such a novel
explanation by Tsering seems contentious and raises question about whether secured
collateral learning should be the preferred goal in such cases.
Figure 5.2b Tsering’s case of secured collateral learning
Jampa’s reason for adhering strongly to his traditional view is multifaceted. For
one, he thinks his religious conception of life or sentient being goes beyond physical life
forms considered by science. In Buddhism, life exists on three different realms: form,
formless, and desire, which includes human and animal. Hence, he sees evolution’s
account of life as limited, and therefore, is unwilling to relinquish his traditional views
readily. Secondly, he clearly stated during his interview that as long as evolution does not
impinge on the fundamental Buddhist tenets like twelve dependent-origin links, he wants
continue holding onto other beliefs about the concept of evolution in Buddhism. This
shows that learners such as Jampa would not easily swap or alter their original beliefs
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unless a new idea does not impinge on the fundamental tenets of their worldview, which
are grounded in complex philosophical and religious beliefs that go beyond the limits of
science. Hence, for Jampa, his new understanding of living things from evolution are
modified and subsumed into his traditional beliefs about life and do not generate any new
understanding of life.
However, Gawa and Tsering were willing to modify their existing views under
the influence of new information from evolution. This might stem from their holistic
view of knowledge. However, the forced reconciliation of the two explanatory
frameworks led them to either (1) modify an existing schema by undermining a key
principle without knowing its effect on the domain of knowledge, or (2) invent creative
explanations that render both explanations valid. An example of the former case is when
Gawa alters the principle of common descent in evolution by suggesting parallel
phylogenetic trees for plant and animal in order to accommodate the Buddhist notion of
sentient being, which is also a case of dependent collateral learning. Individuals engaging
in dependent collateral learning are usually unaware of movement between conflicting
domains of knowledge; however, in this case, it is difficult to ascertain Gawa’s awareness
of the fact that the law of common descent is fundamental to evolution. Tsering,
however, came up with the creative hypothesis that some of our single-celled sentient
ancestors possibly lost their capacity to host consciousness during the evolutionary
process that gave rise to the plants, which lack consciousness and are non-sentient.
Human Evolution
The Buddhist account of human evolution is antithetical to the evolutionary
account. In biological evolution, there seems to be a progressive development of higher
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and more complex organisms from simpler ones although it does not necessarily apply to
all lineages in the phylogenetic tree. However, human evolution described in Buddhist
texts could be considered “as progressive degeneration” (Lama, 2005a, p. 111), where
human beings are believed to be the degenerate of celestial beings from the form and
formless realms after they have exhausted their positive karma. This Buddhist account of
human evolution is taught in the Abhidharma scripture and often referred to as
Abhidharma account of human evolution. While some monks take this account literally,
others either reject it or find the two descriptions of human evolution complimentary.
For example, Jampa does not reject the scientific account of human evolution, but
he is a staunch supporter of Abhidharma account. In accordance with the Abhidharma
account, it is believed that early human beings have lived for hundreds of years and could
be born via all the four means of conception: womb, egg, heat and moisture, and
spontaneously. The other monks questioned Jampa’s claims. Tsering, for instance, raised
doubts about its compatibility with the actual life expectancy data of our ancestors. To
this, Jampa gave example of Buddhist masters who were born through any of the four
modes of conception and lived for hundreds of years, stating:
Many years ago some people lived over 500, 600, 800 years. For example,
Nagarjuna, we believe that he lived for 600 years. Also, it is said that
Shantarakshita also lived for over 900 years. Also, there are lots of examples of
birth through egg. There are many masters who are born from egg. When we
study Vinaya (canonical text on monastic code), I think it was Master Nethen
Drakye, who is believed to born from an egg. (24.4)
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Based on the MATE survey, Jampa has a high acceptance of evolution, but at the same
time, he strongly defends the conflicting Buddhist schema of human evolution. Since
there seem to be no interaction between the two schemas, this compartmentalization of
knowledge domains represents a case of parallel collateral learning. Depending on the
context, Jampa might identify with one schema over the other to talk about human
evolution. He even goes on to say that the greatest limitation of theory of evolution is that
it does not account for heat and moisture birth and spontaneous birth; spontaneous birth
being responsible for birth in the form and formless realm. Since evolution accounts only
for living beings in the desire realm, for a complete theory of life, Jampa wants all the
four means of conception and beings in all three realms has to be accounted for.
Tsering was critical of the Abhidharma accounts of human evolution like the
Dalai Lama. In his book Universe in A Single Atom, the Dalai Lama wrote, “Just as I
never found the Abhidharma cosmology convincing, I have never really been persuaded
by the Abhidharma account of human evolution as progressive degeneration” (p. 111).
Tsering was critical of Jampa’s suggestion based on Abhidharma text that humans lived
for hundreds of years in ancient times. Tsering retorted that just by examining the
evidence of human life expectancy of our ancestors in the last hundreds years, it can be
clearly shown that it has increased rather than decreased. Tsering’s willingness to modify
his existing views in light of available data is palpable when he said to the group, “These
(life expectancy of early Buddhist scholars being hundreds of years) are the things we
need to think. These are questionable claims.” In the pursuing discussion of human
evolution, he constantly defended the current scientific explanation of human evolution
as robust and supported by evidence. Tsering has seemingly overcome the conflicting
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views regarding human evolution, and his strong support for evolution indicates secured
collateral learning.
Yet another difficulty the monks faced is the Buddhist belief in the six realms of
existence: God, Demigod, Human, Animal, Hungry Ghost, and Hell Being. In this system
of categorization, human beings are distinct from animals. However, evolution
demonstrates that human beings are just products of gradual change of animals, such as
apes, over millions of years. Therefore, this puzzled the monks about when the first
human beings began to appear in the human evolutionary history. While some monks
were able to come up with legitimate explanations for the appearance of the first human
being over the course of human evolution, others remain conflicted and had difficulty
accepting the fact that humans have indeed evolved from ancestral apes. Chophel, for
example, thinks that Homo Erectus might be the first human being because of its ability
to walk upright, which resonates with the literal definition of an animal in Tibetan ‘as
creatures that walks with a forward bend’ to differentiate them from humans. Jampa
invoked the Buddhist philosophical definition of human being as ‘that having the ability
to talk and understand’ to discern when the first human being appeared in the human
evolutionary process. This prompted other monks to question whether Neanderthals had
the ability to talk and understand, to which Gawa responded that they did not and are
more likely similar to wild animals. Thus, using their cultural and religious notion of
what counts as human, monks tend to negotiate and restructure their prior conception of
human being when encountered with the scientific account of human evolution.
Both Chophel and Tsering showed signs of secured collateral learning, seeking
convergence between the two conflicting views. In fact, Tsering wants the traditional
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Buddhist concept of human being to be reexamined in the light of scientific evidence
about human evolution. He thought that maybe the distinction between “human” and
“animal” is a continuum rather than completely separate categories as believed in the
Buddhist tradition. It is difficult to assert that the other monks beside Chophel and
Tsering were engaging in collateral learning since they were either unaware or just
beginning to fathom the full impact or meaning evolution have on traditional Buddhist
concepts. In this case, whether Buddhist concepts of the six realms of existence should be
taken literally or metaphorically.
Tashi is the one who is clearly not engaging in any collateral learning—at least,
not in this context, because he could not accept the scientific evidence behind human
evolution and doubts the claim that humans evolved from apes. He thinks the large
amount of time that has elapsed since such events (related to the earliest humans) have
taken place makes it impossible to reach such conclusions. The drawing of human
evolution (Figure 2) shown during the group discussion, according to him, was a creative
manipulation of some ingenious mind to fit the normative scientific description of human
evolution. Of all the monks, he is also least aware of the Abhidharma account of human
evolution. Thus, he does not hold either belief strongly and hence, there is no collateral
learning in his case. When the other monks asked why he does not believe in the
biological evolution of human and whether he has a better proposition for human
evolution, he simply retorted, “Why should I believe in the scientific account of human
evolution even though I do not have a better theory of myself about human evolution?”
Tashi is content, at least for now, to hold no definitive views about human evolution.
Table 5.1
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Monks’ View Regarding Human Evolution and Types of Collateral Learning
Karma and Evolution
Belief in the theory of karma is fundamental in Buddhism. According to the
theory, any intentional acts - mental, verbal, or physical - will reap certain fruit in the
future. In simple terms, karma means ‘action’, and it comes into play only when sentient
beings are involved in a causal network. Since Buddhists believe in the concept of
Buddhist vs. scientific account of human evolution
Boundary between human and animal
Chophel No conflicts. Both the accounts are valid. Secured collateral learning.
Difficult to find a boundary. Given a choice would consider Homo erectus to be the first human. Secured collateral learning.
Jampa Strongly defends Abhidharma account of human evolution. Critical of evolution for not including spontaneous birth and role of consciousness in human evolution. Parallel collateral learning.
Questions the claim that humans originated from apes. Parallel collateral learning.
Samdup Neutral. Questions lack of role for consciousness in scientific evolution, however, does not reject the Buddhist account. Parallel collateral learning.
Cannot determine because we do not know the intelligence of our ancestors.
Tsering Rejects Abhidharma account of human evolution. Thinks it is illogical and contradicting evidence from science. Secured collateral learning.
Cannot determine. Definition of human being needs to be rethought. Does not think all human need be like us. Secured collateral learning.
Gawa Neutral. Believes that scientific account has the best explanation so far. Secured collateral learning.
Undecided. Did not give any thought to these issues.
Tashi Have not studied the Abhidharma account of human evolution. Lacks confidence in scientific evidence for human evolution. Parallel collateral learning.
Does not believe that humans evolved from animal. No collateral learning.
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rebirth, any accumulated actions of past lives impact future lives. Hence, an individual’s
past karma also influences the kind of birth and environment into which s/he will be born.
However, this does not mean that the law of karma is fatalistic; individuals do have the
freedom to introspect on their current thoughts and actions to change the future of their
karma and, possibly, end the cycle. Besides the theory of karma, Buddhists believe that
there is a natural law of causality that is in operation independent of sentient beings,
which is bound by the law of karma (Lama, 2005a). Thus, in evolution, the development
of sentient beings is tied to the operation of natural law of causation such as natural
selection. Therefore, the challenge is to explain how the law of karma can have influence
on the natural law of causation or whether the physical forces are independent of law of
karma that defines the experiences of sentient beings dwelling in a particular
environment.
Since evolution delves into the emergence and development of different forms of
life, it seems innate for the monks to apply the theory of karma to evolution. For
example, there are many different classifications of karma, and a common classification
brought up by the monks was individual and collective karma. Using this classification,
the monks describe individual karma as responsible for whether one will born as a
human, an animal, or an insect, and the collective karma is responsible for the physical
environment into which one is born. All the monks concur that a Buddhist explanation
for diversity of life on Earth would be that it is the result of karma of each sentient being.
Thus, the monks do not see any conflict between evolution and theory of karma in
explaining the diversity of life on Earth. Since there is no conflict between the two tenets,
there is no collateral learning. However, from the monks’ explanation, it is clear that
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evolutionary theory is somehow subsumed into the theory of karma even though the
monks acknowledge their inability to account for the exact role and mechanism of karma
in evolution. For example, the random mutation that occurs in a species which produces
the impetus for evolution from the monk’s perspective is due to karma, but they fail to
explain the exact mechanism of how karma influences the production of the mutation or
the selection that takes place on the genes. Therefore, whenever there is an explanatory
gap in evolution, monks tend to suggest that it might be where the karma might have
come into action. Monks also think that role of karma might be explicable by humans to a
certain degree, but they think it is impossible to fully understand the subtle workings of
karma. Thus, a complex metaphysical concept like the theory of karma embedded in an
established religious worldview is not akin to some naive ideas or traditional folklore in a
local culture that could be easily replaced. The immense usefulness and capability of
concept like karma to explain both physical and experiential aspects of sentient beings
suggest that a purely mechanistic theory like evolution would eventually be subsumed as
a corollary of the theory of karma.
To highlight this claim that religious-based constructs like the theory of karma
will take precedence over evidence-based theory like evolution, I will recall the example
of Samdup. Samdup initially thought that his native villagers were being irrational for
blaming the decline in the apple harvest of a neighboring village on their karma. People
from his village thought that overindulgence in immoral actions and financial greed had
resulted in bad karma of the inhabitants of the neighboring village, which resulted in a
fail of their apple harvest. Initially, he thought that this could be explained from a purely
scientific perspective; the changes in environmental condition caused the decline in the
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apple harvest, he did not need to invoke karma to explain this. However, after having
second thoughts, he said, “But again from a Buddhist perspective, I think it is related to
human beings”. What he meant was that since this event is related to human beings, it is
most likely have some relation to Buddhist theory of karma. Similarly, when discussing
experiments conducted on animals, Samdup stated that a scientist performing a genetic
experiment on mice could also be karmically related. He believed that even though the
changes that are brought on the mice could be explained genetically, stating, “but here
again, if you go deeper, it is karma. The individual must have accumulated certain karma
to be in that situation”. Yet in the case of producing hybrid fruits, he denies any role of
karma. Whenever there is a physical process that is related to sentient beings, the role of
karma is undeniable, and when it comes to evolution, a theory that is inextricably tied to
sentient beings, the role of karma becomes ever more pertinent
Summary
Aikenhead and Jegede (1999) described the theory of collateral learning to
explain the cognitive phenomenon of individuals crossing cultural borders. As monks
cross the border between science and Buddhism, different collateral learning patterns
were witnessed among the monks as described earlier. CLT proved useful in diagnosing
how individuals navigate specific schema within the theory of evolution such as human
evolution and the theory of common descent. However, when it comes to complex
metaphysical concepts such as the theory of karma, the application of CLT is limited.
When considering the declarative knowledge of the monks regarding how the theory of
karma relates to the theory of evolution, the theory of karma takes precedence over the
later. This is because whenever a physical phenomenon involves sentient beings, monks
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assume a role of karma regardless of how well the phenomenon is explained by
evolution. Also, given the fundamental nature of the theory of karma in Buddhism,
monks would incorporate all concepts relating to life to fit within the framework of the
theory of karma. Therefore, CLT’s application is limited to use in conflicts encountered
in simple concepts of phenomenon. To fully capture the monk’s experience requires a
theory that takes into account the whole of the Buddhist worldview.
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CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION
In this chapter, I will reflect on the relevance of theories and praxis in ongoing cross-
cultural science education research to the monastic science education. Then, I will share
my recommendations for science curricula and pedagogy that would be taken into
account in the current efforts to promote science education in the Buddhist monasteries
by different programs that would promote meaningful science learning in a culturally
sustainable way. I conclude this chapter with summary of the study and direction for
future research for those who might be interested to look into the experience of monastics
science learners.
Cross-cultural Science Education
I will now discuss the significance of this study to the larger cross-cultural science
education research, which is mostly focused on youth education in developing and
developed countries whose traditional ways of knowing are either marginalized or
completely exterminated due to historical colonization (Aikenhead & Ogawa, 2007;
Chinn, 2007; Jegede & Aikenhead, 1999; Meshach B. Ogunniyi, Jegede, Ogawa,
Yandila, & Oladele, 1995). Much of the work in this field is towards decolonizing
today’s academy to bring the traditional and indigenous ways of knowing into the
mainstream and reclaim language and culture of various groups. However, the challenge
ahead for achieving such a goal is tremendous. The lack of commonality between various
traditional and indigenous knowledge systems, the institution privilege of Eurocentric
science over indigenous ways of knowing, and lack of resources, including the funds and
experts available to document and develop inclusive curriculum and pedagogy, are some
of the challenges.
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Tibetan monastics share fundamental differences when compared to the youth in
cross-cultural science education both historically and culturally. Historically, monastics’
experience of colonization was more recent (1950s), and it was from China rather than
the West. This also explains the apathy of many non-Western people towards Western
science for its origin in the West, which also brought in colonialisation. The lack such
historical association has allowed Tibetan Buddhism to a share a positive repute with
Western science. Culturally, while youth in the cross-cultural science education have
mostly lost their language and connection to their cultural heritage, the Tibetan were able
to preserve the contiguity of their culture and traditional knowledge successfully despite
continuing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to destroy its language and culture in
the name of ‘peaceful liberation of Tibet’ (Shakya, 1999). Therefore, for these historical
and cultural reasons, cross-cultural science education research has focused on
overcoming the deficit view of students who come from the non-Western world. Such
deficit views are absent in the case of the monks. Instead, the current attempt lead by the
Dalai Lama to teach and learn Western science in the Tibetan monasteries could be
likened to what Aikenhead (1999) described as ‘autonomous acculturation’. This was his
call on people of First nations to engage to avail knowledge of Western science for
pragmatic reasons, such as sustaining their culture, fulfilling economic and environmental
needs. Besides this self-interest, one important motivation for the Dalai Lama to institute
science education in the monasteries is to continue dialogue and cooperation between
Buddhism and Western science to benefit humankind.
Monks, therefore, come with a positive attitude towards science and are more
mature in negotiating meanings of scientific concepts compared to youth cross-cultural
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research. On the contrary, the age of the monastics and their systematic training in
Buddhist worldviews might sometimes dampen the spirit of inquiry and creativity needed
in science unlike the youth. In Buddhism, the ultimate truths about the world are
established and not negotiable; science can only quantitatively measure them step-by-
step. One advantage of Buddhism compared to other indigenous knowledge systems is
the historical portrayal and recognition of Buddhism as a religion compatible with
science (See Lopez Jr., 2009, for a historical analysis of Buddhism versus science). Of
the many different Buddhist lineages, Tibetan Buddhism has been successful in
representing the Buddhist community on the global stage, which has resulted in
numerous dialogues, seminars, publications, and scientific research (Hayward, 2001;
Luisi & Houshmand, 2010; Yong, 2008). All of these external, global factors might affect
the overall attitude and agency of monks and nuns who take part in learning and teaching
Western science in the monasteries.
The development of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) by Ladson-Billings has
informed much of pedagogical practices in cross-cultural science education (Ladson-
Billings, 1995). She described CRP as an evolving phenomenon, changing pedagogical
needs with the changing values, beliefs, language, and arts of the community it serves.
This assumes a fluid nature of each community and hence its applicability in the case of
monastic community is doubtful. Despite the Dalai Lama’s effort to reform his
community, and the sociopolitical factors governing the diaspora Tibetan community
asserts certain protectionism of its culture preventing any large-scale innovation in the
structure and culture of its monasteries. However, there are lessons from CRP research
that could be used in developing the monastic science curricula. One key aspect of CRP
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is the sociopolitical dimension of the education that empowers student to understand the
systemic and historical inequalities of their community. Such emphasis is oblivious in
traditional monastic education system, which focuses primarily on individual knowledge
and spiritual development. Therefore, monastics are unaware of the sociopolitical
implication of contemporary scientific research on traditional Buddhist contemplative
practices. Understanding the institutional bias and who gets to validate knowledge would
empower them in their learning science.
Monastic Science Education
The institution of science education in the Tibetan monasteries has educational,
political, and cultural elements. Jinpa (2004) suggested that the goal of including science
curriculum in monasteries was primarily educational and aimed to update the monastic
curriculum by including scientific facts and theories about the natural world that have
been proven by scientific evidence. However, my study reveals that the scientific facts
and theories will not to be accepted at face value but as we should expect, will be
interpreted through the monks’ prior knowledge framework, which is derived from a
Buddhist view of the world. Hence, simplistic transfer of science curriculum used in
schools and universities in the West would not suffice the teaching and learning needs of
this community. The learners situated in a Tibetan Buddhist sociocultural milieu tend
privilege their native worldview over others whenever they encounter cognitive conflicts.
In order for meaningful learning of science to occur, an inclusive curriculum needs to be
developed, which highlights the compatibilities and incompatibilities of common topics
in science and Buddhism and allows students to engage in discussion and self-reflection
on these topics. Such a strategy would reveal the collateral learning occurring in minds of
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monastics that would inform future instruction. Also, explicit engagement on the
congruities and incongruities between the two traditions in the curricula would increase
interaction and deliberation, accelerating their movement towards secured collateral
learning.
Whenever possible, curricula should incorporate idioms, concepts, and metaphors
from both science and Buddhism to allow the monastics to critic and extend their current
understanding of a phenomenon. Classroom instructors need to be explicit with the
students about moving between the domain of science and Buddhism since definition,
classification, and epistemological system of the two domains are not always
commensurable. The challenge over reconciling the Buddhist concept of sentient beings
with evolutionary conception of life is one example. For a Buddhist, life refers to all
entities that have consciousness and can experience joy and suffering. However, from an
evolutionary perspective, life could mean anything from unicellular organisms, to plants,
to complex organisms like humans. Therefore, it is important for instructors to flag when
students unknowingly cross the boundary between science and Buddhism.
Other major implications of this study for the monastic science education program
are that monks are mostly unaware of what entails science or the nature of science.
Nature of science includes key principles and ideas that provide a description of science
as a way of knowing and characteristics of scientific knowledge (Lederman, 2007;
McComas, 1996). Monks lack understanding of limits of scientific inquiry, role of theory,
and the tentative nature of scientific theories. For example, Jampa insists that a key
limitation of the theory of evolution is that it does not account for conception by heat and
moisture, and spontaneous birth. Since such claims are not scientifically testable, it is
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therefore beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. Recent research has shown the
importance of understanding the nature of science in teaching and learning of evolution
(Akyol, Tekkaya, & Sungur, 2010; Dagher & Boujaoude, 2005; Hokayem & BouJaoude,
2008a). Therefore, teaching nature of science should be integrated as part of the monastic
curriculum.
Finally, allowing specialization in scientific disciplines and creating career
opportunities for monastics can have a direct effect on individual monastics’ interests and
motivation in learning science. Often, the goal of monastic science education seems
limited to achieving mass scientific literacy in the monastic community. With the recent
development of instituting formal science teaching in the monastery, the goal of monastic
science education should go beyond achieving literacy. Despite the many challenges
associated with the lack of infrastructure for science teaching and local science
instructors to sustain the current effort to bring science education into the monasteries,
the goal of monastic science education should be to produce monks and nuns who can
critically engage with the global scientific community and also partake in driving new
research agendas.
Monastic Science Curriculum
The ultimate goal of ongoing science programs operating in the Tibetan
monasteries is to culminate in development of a sustainable science curriculum that the
monasteries can implement themselves. However, before finalizing such a curriculum, it
necessitates a discussion on what entails a curriculum that would foster meaningful
science learning in the monasteries. Fraser and Bosanquet (2006) study found that usage
of term ‘curriculum’ by faculties and students in higher education ambiguous and could
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mean multiple things. In examining their data, they used the Habermas framework of
‘knowledge-constitutive interests’ and found that the faculty and students understanding
and goal of curriculums could be grouped into three categories the technical interest,
practical (communicative interest) interest, and emancipatory interest. Using this
construct, I will briefly explore what the monastic science curriculum should be.
Much of the current efforts in developing curriculum for the Tibetan Buddhist
monasteries applies to the first category of curriculum, the technical interest, defined by
the view of curriculum as a tangible product that conforms to the teacher or institutional
goals of learning. In this kind of curriculum the organization and structure of the content
or unit or a program take primary role, and curricula exist before the students’ arrival.
The curriculum and teaching are geared towards delivery of the product and transferred
without much consideration of the sociocultural contexts of the learner. Such product-
oriented curriculum is essential, and is how most people understand curriculum; a
broader understanding of curriculum is required to serve the needs of the monastics.
Next category of curriculum is the practical interest, where the goal is in reaching
an understanding that allows the learners to take relevant action. Action comes through
the reflection process of the learner, which entails him/her to engage in meaning making
and interpretation of the content, at the same time questioning the prejudices and
presuppositions inherent in it. Teacher’s role is to use their judgment to interpret the
curriculum to enhance the meaning making process of their student and therefore, the
student learning experience forms the foundation of such a curriculum. Some of the
monastic science programs do engage in these practices, however, scaling and embedding
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such practice, as part of the formal science curriculum is a challenge that requires urgent
discussion.
The final category is a curriculum driven by emancipatory interest. Such view of
curriculum is rarely discussed in the case of monastic science education due to
contemporary sociopolitical condition of the diaspora community mentioned earlier.
Emancipatory interest requires critical reflection on all aspect of knowledge and
“involves dialectical criticism of one’s own values in a social and historical context in
which the values of others are also crucial” (Mctaggart & Garbutcheon Sing, 1986, p.44).
In order to take the larger goal of monastic science education to dialogue with Western
scientists that the Dalai Lama has initiated three decades ago to a new level, and engage
in participatory research that contributes to the collective human knowledge, it is
important for the monastics to reflect and critical of all epistemologies, scientific and
Buddhist, so that there is a transformation of consciousness that affect way they perceive
and act in the world. Without such emancipatory interest in the curriculum, a mutually
beneficial, crosspollination of two divergent worldviews like science and Buddhism as
envisioned by the Dalai Lama would be impossible.
From my viewpoint, the programs involved in the monastic science education
should therefore, think of curriculum in terms of all the three knowledge-constitutive
interests in order to achieve the larger goals that underpin this undertaking. The current
effort to translate scientific literature into Tibetan and bringing in Western expertise in
different scientific domain is laudable, but understanding curriculum in these three
dimensions would encourage more meaningful learning and prepare the monastics to
fruitfully with scientific community to contribute to the common human knowledge.
149
Conclusion
I embarked on this study with the primary motivation to understand how the
Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns are situating scientific facts and theories within their
Buddhist worldview. Therefore, I investigated how monks were interpreting and situating
concepts within the biological theory of evolution into their Buddhist description of life
and its origin. The case study of the six monks revealed that they indeed interpret
scientific theories through their Buddhist knowledge and experiences, and when they
encounter conflicts between the two knowledge traditions, they engage in various
collateral learning to reconcile these conflicts. Hence, in order to develop a meaningful
and sustainable science education program in the monasteries, the curricula practices
should provide sufficient instructional space and time to allow negotiation of meaning
and implication that scientific facts and theories might have on Buddhist constructs
related to these theories.
The primary goal of the monasteries where science education is being
implemented is to sustain the Buddhist scholastic and cultural traditions that have been
threatened due to various sociopolitical factors. Therefore, the programs engaged in
instituting science education in the monasteries must be clear at the outset that science is
not the only way to understand the world, but that there are multiple ways of knowing the
world with overlaps and should not privilege one over the another. The science
instruction should empower the monastics in sustaining their traditional knowledge
system in the changing world, rather than relegating or replacing the traditional ways of
knowing as outdated, unreliable, and secondary. Hence, the instructors and administrator
involved in the science education project in monasteries must show restraint and
150
sensitivity towards the goals and needs of monastic community so that the project does
not produce any significant irreversible damage on its members and its tradition.
Future research areas that will be of interest to pursue with this group of
monastics are in the areas of neuroscience and cognitive science where there is growing
research and interest among general public on understanding the scientific basis of
Buddhist practices like mindfulness and compassion meditation. This is the same area
where much of the current deliberations between the scientist and Buddhist scholars are
taking place and therefore, could prove as a fertile ground to develop and implement
science curriculum around this topic. Given the rich Buddhist literature on consciousness,
and its different levels and functions, also studying the monastics shift in their traditional
understanding of mind in light of new scientific evidence would be interesting.
151
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW I QUESTIONS
1. How is it different to be in an American university compared to being in a
monastery?
2. Why were you interested in doing this program?
3. What science areas or topics are you most interested in studying at this school?
4. What do you think you would have missed if you have studied science in an Indian
university rather than coming to US?
5. How do you think the scientific knowledge is generated?
6. What do you think is the goal of science? (What you think is this thing called
science?)
7. Do you think western science and Buddhism are compatible, if yes how and in what
ways? If not, how?
8. Give example of questions that science can’t answer? Any limits of science?
152
APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW II QUESTIONS
1. What are the most interesting topics that you learned in this first year of the program?
2. How do you intend to use the contents that you have learned in this program?
3. What topics that you learned are conflicting with your personal/traditional
understanding of the world?
4. In what ways was this program useful for you?
5. What are your plans for course work for the next two semesters?
6. What was the result/impact of your participating in this program?
7. What ways has your interaction outside of classroom have impact on your learning
experience?
8. What ways did your perception of science change overtime?
9. How did learning science benefit you personally?
10. How do you view the world differently after you have studied science? (This is a big
question…)
153
APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW IIIA INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Perception of theory of evolution Personal Interview Questions (voice only) 1-2hrs
1. What difference do you see between the Buddhism and science demarcation between
living and non-living, and sentient and non-sentient?
2. What is the first sentient being on this Earth?
3. Can you tell me three major similarities and differences that you think exist between
theory of evolution and Buddhist ideas about origin of life?
4. Can modern science, on its own give a full account of the formation of individual
lives without incorporating ideas from Buddhism? If not, why?
5. Can you give me three examples of what modern science can add in order to give a
more full account of the formation of individual lives?
6. How does we have so many species of animals from a Buddhist perspective?
7. Do you think the randomness in genetic mutation is an objective feature of reality? Or
is due to some causality? (Genetic mutation occurs randomly or due to some hidden
causality?)
8. If you were the in charge monastic curriculum, would you require all the monks to
learn the theory of evolution?
9. Does learning the theory of evolution have any impact on your Buddhist practices, if
so can you explain? Give examples.
10. What is an example from you that illustrate how the theory of evolution has any
impact on your everyday lives?
11. What is the most convincing evidence for evolution in your opinion?
12. What limitations or weakness do you see about the theory of evolution?
13. Do you accept theory of evolution? Or some of it? Can you explain why?
14. Do you belief/think that life originated from inanimate matter?
15. Do you see any ultimate goal of evolution? If so, what is it?
154
APPENDIX D: INTERVIEW IIIB FOCUS GROUP QUESTION
Focus Group Interview (Video recorded) 1-2 hrs.
1. Icebreaker: Please share two most important lessons you learned in these two years?
2. According to the science of vision, a bee’s perception of flower to be violet-ish and
our perception of that very flower to be yellow could both be valid. Is that compatible
with Buddhism? Is there a first human being on this Earth? If so, who is it, and when
did it happen? Looking at these pictures, can you pick at which stage we are human
beings?
3. “Only a fully awakened Buddha can understand karma completely; Buddha
understands karma so completely as to understand the causes of every color of the
peacock’s tail.”
Do you accept the above statement that you need to be fully awakened to understand
the causes of every color of the peacock’s tail? (This was a vexing problem for
Darwin as well.)
4. Suppose you were to teach evolution in the monastery and someone says it
contradicts with his Buddhist beliefs, how would you explain it to him? (What would
be the purpose and intent of your response? How would you respond, like what actual
words you would use in your explanation?
5. Do you think the randomness in genetic mutation is an objective feature of reality? Or
is due to some causality? (Genetic mutation occurs randomly or due to some hidden
causality?)
155
APPENDIX E: MEASURE OF ACCEPTANCE OF THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Sample Questions
Evolution Survey འཕེལ་འ&ར་རིག་པའི་+ི་,ད།འཕེལ་འ&ར་རིག་པའི་+ི་,ད།Please answer own your own and do not refer to external sources. གཤམ་1ི་+ི་བ་ཁག་ལ་རང་ངོས་ལན་འདེབས་གནང་རོགས།
1. Q1. Organisms existing today are the result of evolutionary processes that have occurredover millions of years.དེང་སང་ཡོད་པའི་9ོག་ཆགས་དེ་དག་ལ;་ང<་ས་ཡ་མང་པ;འ=་རིང་གི་འཕེལ་འ&ར་བ>ད་རིམ་ལ་བ?ེན་ནས་@ང་བ་ཡིན།Mark only one oval.
strongly agree
agree
undecided
disagree
strongly disagree
2. Q2. The theory of evolution is incapable of being scientifically tested.འཕེལ་འ&ར་1ི་Aམ་གཞག་དེ་ནི་ཚན་རིག་གི་བ?ག་དDད་Eེད་ཐབས་མེད་པ་ཞིག་རེད།Mark only one oval.
strongly agree
agree
undecided
disagree
strongly disagree
3. Q3. Modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes which have occurred overmillions of years.དེང་Gས་Hི་འIོ་བ་མི་Aམས་ནི་ལ;་ང<་ས་ཡ་མང་པའི་རིང་གི་འཕེལ་འ&ར་1ི་བ>ད་རིམ་ལ་བ?ེན་ནས་@ང་བ་ཞིག་ཡིན།Mark only one oval.
strongly agree
agree
undecided
disagree
strongly disagree
Explain why? དེ་ལྟར་འདམ་དགོས་པའི་རྒྱུ་མཚན་བིས།
Explain why? དེ་ལྟར་འདམ་དགོས་པའི་རྒྱུ་མཚན་བིས།
Explain why? དེ་ལྟར་འདམ་དགོས་པའི་རྒྱུ་མཚན་བིས།
Name/མིང་།________________________________________
156
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