The Religion

When I received the invitation to this Conference I was deeply impressed by the thoughtful approach shown by its sponsors in framing the questions that are to be the subject of our discussion. They are searching questions; questions of tremendous import to all of us at this crucial point in the history of mankind. They are indicative of a growing awareness of the lack of spiritual values in our materialistic civilisation, and of an honest and realistic attempt to get to crisps with the problems of the human situation in a world that is fast losing faith in the old religious beliefs.

In view of their importance I propose to deal directly with each of the points raised, from the standpoint of a practising Buddhist. But I must first give you, as briefly as possible, an outline of the Buddhist world view, the background of Buddhist thought and the Buddhist concept of life and of the nature of man. This is necessary because, as you will see, Buddhism differs fundamentally from every other religious systems on many points. As the pattern unfolds you will find that Buddhism gives answers to these problems that are quite different from the answers given by Western religion, while in many cases from the Buddhist point of view there is no problem at all.

Gotama Buddha, as you all know, was an Indian Prince who renounced the life of a ruler to become an ascetic, seeking spiritual realisation in a life of self discipline and contemplation. As Prince Siddhattha he was a man like ourselves; he never claimed any divine nature, inspiration or even guidance. It was not until He achieved ultimate realisation and became the Buddha of this world cycle, a perfectly Enlightened Being, that He spoke with any authority on spiritual matters. This status He achieved, also, by His own unaided efforts. The proof that He then gave in support of his claim to Enlightenment and spiritual emancipation is a proof that can be found by us today in the nature of the Doctrine He taught. He said in effect “Come: examine, criticise and analyse my Teachings for yourself; practise the method of gaining emancipation on blind faith; but when you have fully accomplished the method you will see the Truth face to face, as I see it now.”

That Teaching, the Dhamma, and that method, the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path, have been preserved and handed down to us by word of mouth and written texts in unbroken continuity since the time of the Buddha Himself. Throughout the centuries a long line of Arahats – that is, Disciples who have gained the highest fruits of liberation through self purification – attests the truths of the Doctrine and the effectiveness of the method. The Dhamma itself includes ethics, psychology, religion and a complete cosmic philosophy that embraces all forms of life in a harmonious moral order. Whether it can also be called scientific, in the sens of being in accordance with principles that later science has revealed to us, I shall leave for you to judge when you have heard me. You will in any case agree that the Buddha in His Teaching appealed both to the reasoning and emotional sides of man"s nature, and that the loftiest spiritual aspirations of mankind are to be found in the ideal He set before us.

To begin with, it must be understood that in the Buddhist system there is no place for a Creator God. There is a moral law and moral order, and these principles are supreme. They are the spiritual aspects of the law of cause and effect that prevails in the physical universe. But Buddhist cosmology is based upon relativity; the related and composite nature of all phenomena. World systems, or universes, arise and pass away in obedience to natural law, but there has never been any first act of creation or any First Cause. Time and relativity are a closed circle in which no point of beginning can be found. This concept has its parallel in the physical world: in former days people imagined that the horizon must indicate a rim to the earth, but as we move in the direction of the horizon it constantly recedes from us, so that at whatever point on the earth"s surface we stand the horizon still spreads all around us. In the same way we mistakenly imagine that time and phenomena must be in some way be bounded by a beginning. But with time and eternity it is just as it is with ourselves in relation to the physical horizon. Time, the present, is the spot on which we stand; infinity is the endless recession of such spots. Just as there is no spot at which the earth beings, so there is no point in time at which the world"s casual antecedents began. It is very probable, according to the latest scientific notions, that the entire universe, or cosmos, is constructed on the same physical principle, and the fact that its nature is outside our present range of comprehension does not at all affect the mathematical indications. The relativity of space and time, a new concept to science, is and always has been implicit in Buddhist philosophy.

The moral order works through the continuum of events on the psycho physical level which we call life, the life continuum of conscious being. That also is beginning less, an incessant flux of cause and effect. It is true it had a beginning on this earth, but that begging was only the continuation of a series; its casual antecedents existed before, in former universes. When a universe comes to an end I the course of natural processes, the forces which constituted it are resolved into their atomic elements, but after aeons of disintegration they again re assemble and another universe gradually forms.

The cause of this cyclic process is Kamma, the totality of thought force that is being generated from moment to moment. Man"s free will operates within a space time complex that has been created by his own previous activities, having their origin in mental processes. These previous activities are called Kamma; their results are called Vipaka in Buddhism. The Kamma of the past has created the conditions of the present, while Kamma of the present is creating the conditions that will exist in the future. In the Buddhist texts it states definitely that the arising of a fresh world cycle is brought about by the Kamma of all the beings that lived in the previous one.

The idea of reincarnation, or, as we prefer to call it, rebirth, is not nowadays so unfamiliar a one to the West as it used to be. It may perhaps be said that the moral necessity for rebirth is transcendent. It is the only way in which we who believe in moral justice in the universe can account for the seeming injustices we see all about us – the thousands of cases of apparently unmerited suffering, of people stricken by incurable diseases, of children born blind, deaf and dumb, deformed or mentally deficient, or doomed to an early death beyond human or divine aid. All these evils are due to past bad Kamma. Would the words of Jesus to the man he had healed – “Go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee” – apply to a child born with an affliction that could not have been brought about by any sin it had committed in this life? But if these words of Jesus did not point to a universal truth they were meaningless.

Such evils as these can be avoided in the future by generating good Kamma here now. The individual"s present situation may be (but not necessarily is) beyond present remedy, but the nature of his response to it is subject to his will. He can make his future a happy one by the performance of good deeds. No man"s destiny is fixed, except by his own intention. It is subject to continual alteration and change of direction. As remedy for present evils, the Buddha laid down the principles of noble conduct; the cultivation of harmlessness towards all beings, accompanied by positive thoughts and deeds of loving kindness; the practice of charity, sexual restraint, self discipline and mental cultivation. To avoid evil in the future we must shin evil in the present; there is no other way.

This is the reason why, we believe, science alone will never be able completely to eradicate disease and mental and bodily suffering from human life. It is also the reason why a completely equalitarian society can never be achieved; the innate differences in character, intellect and capability between one individual and another, due to past Kamma, are to great. Nature will always defeat any attempts to put false values into human life.

The doctrine of Kamma is the direct opposite of fatalism or predestination. While our present condition is the result of past actions, the future is being moulded by our present ones, and every man can raise himself in the scale of spiritual evolution, as well as improve his worldly position, by well directed effort. Buddhism, in its teaching nothing is permanent, shows that there is no constant, immutable element in the process of rebirth. The phenomenal personality is a succession of moments of consciousness, each conditioned by the ones that have preceded it, yet subject to the intervention of free will, which can change the nature of the current personality. The aphorism “character is destiny” is shown by Buddhism to be a deep psychological truth, for when we change our character we change our destiny with it. In truth, man has the divine power to shape his own nature and his own mode of being. He can not only improve his condition in this world but can attain higher realms. His highest destiny of all, however, is to gain his release from all forms of conditioned existence, even from the highest heavenly states, because all these are impermanent. There are altogether thirty one major spheres of being, some them lower than the human while others are realms of greatly refine spiritual existence; but in none of them is life eternal. After death beings are reborn in whatever sphere, human, subhuman or divine, their mental development has fitted them for, but they remain there only so long as the Kamma they have generated continues to bear results in that specific order of being. When that particular Kamma result is exhausted they pass away from that state and are again reborn, in whatever sphere their residual Kamma conducts them to. If you will conceive these states of being as different mental planes on which our consciousness can operate while we are still here on earth, you will have formed a more or less correct picture of the spiritual cosmos. In his moods of greed, lust, hatred or violence man places himself on a low mental plane, and if it is that particular mood which manifests in his last conscious moment before death he will be reborn on the sub human life plane that corresponds to it. If on the other hand, he has cultivated the higher attributes of universal love, compassion, unselfishness and detachment from material concerns, it is these qualities that will preside over his last moment, and will conduct him to the higher states of being to which they correspond. Moral law operates with mechanical precision; man cannot cheat it, but he can make use of it to advance his spiritual growth. In all this incessant round of rebirth there is no permanent “Soul” or ego entity that is reborn; there is merely the life continuum of cause and effect producing a succession of beings, each pursuing the line of individual causality.

In the Four Noble Truths the Buddha summarised His Doctrine thus:

The life process involving rebirth and consequent old age and death in all spheres of conditioned existence I associated with suffering. This is so because all sentient existence bears the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and the absence of any real, enduring ego entity.

The cause of this painful round of rebirths is Craving. That is, thirst for the enjoyment of pleasure of the senses, from the lowest animal indulgences up to the most refined mental pleasure. All desires are cravings for experience and renewed experience, and it is these which promote the psychic will to live. Craving is thus the generator of mental energy, the strongest force in the cosmos. This Craving force is associated with Ignorance of the nature of reality.

There is a point at which Craving, and the rebirth process arising from it, can be brought to an end. At that point, Craving and Ignorance are eliminated altogether, and with them the pscychic elements of grasping and attaching. This cessation of the unreal life process is called Nibbana, the extinction of the fires of passion. It is the end of suffering and the sole unchanging reality.

The way to that final perfection is the Noble Eightfold Path of mental or spiritual development; that is Right View, Right resolution, Right Speech, Right Actin, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Each of these terms has a very exact ethical and psychological significance; they are not simply vague, unformulated ideals but are minutely and systematically delineated modes of thought and behaviour. Taken all together they constitute the three essentials of spiritual development – Sila (Morality), Samadhi (Mental Concentration) and Panna (Insight wisdom). This is the Way to the cessation of suffering.

To the question, “What is human personality?” Buddhism gives the answer that it is a combined psycho physical process in which nothing is stable or unchanging. It is a flux of dependent relationships brought into being a sustained by past Kamma and natural laws. A human being consists of five aggregates or Khandhas, one of which is physical and the other four psychic. They are : Rupa, or physical body; Vedana, or sensation; Sanna, or perception; Sankhara, or mental formations; and Vinnana, or consciousness. Of these five, Sankhara is the most difficult to define because there is nothing even remotely corresponding to it in Western thought, and there is no single English word that covers all its meanings. Broadly, speaking, is signifies the tendencies or characteristics that have been set in motion by past Kamma; but it also includes the faculty of willing and other functions of the mind. I cannot dwell upon the subtleties of Buddhist psychological analysis now; it is a vast subject and one that, if it were to be studied systematically by competent Western specialists is psychology, would completely transform modern ideas concerning the nature of the mind. It is sufficient to say that Buddhism views living beings not as entities but as processes – or, if you like, a series of events – taking place within a casual nexus that gives us our concepts of time, space and phenomena. The intangible force of Kamma generated in the past works through the processes of the physical universe to produce living beings; but each of these is a composite product. Just as an automobile is composed of the engine, with its various parts, the chassis, the wheels, the upholstery and so on, no single item of which by itself constitutes the automobile, but which when all put together on the assembly line make the finished product, so a living being is formed of the various elements of mind and physical substance, not one of which alone constitutes the being. The “self”, therefore, is a phenomenal product of various causes; it is not an enduring of self existing entity. This is the meaning of the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta – “non soul”. The personal ego is an illusion of ignorance, and so to attain liberation it is necessary to free the mind of self delusion. The whole of Buddhist morality and discipline is directed towards this ultimate end.

To the question, “How did it all begin?” I can only say that there is no answer, because the question itself is merely a product of man"s limited comprehension. If we understand the nature of time and relativity we must see that there could not have been any beginning. It can only be pointed out that all the usual answers to the question are fundamentally defective. If it is assumed that in order to exist a thing must have had a creator who existed before it, it follows logically that the creator himself must have had a creator, and so on back to infinity, On the other hand, if the creator could exit without a prior cause in the form of another creator, the whole argument falls to the ground. The theory of a Creator god does not solve any problems; it only complicates the existing ones.

Buddhism then, views of life and the cosmos as a process – a complex of interrelated causes and dependent relationships. To find his way out of this maze, man has to develop Insight Wisdom. This is done by cultivating the virtues, all of which are aimed at diminishing the sense of “self” and the grasping instincts associated with it. Side by side with this cultivation of moral purity there are the exercises in concentration which go by the general name of meditation. Meditation in Buddhism is not the giving up of one"s mind to fantasies born of the myth content of the unconscious; it stands for scientifically arranged and systematic mental exercises. In the course of this training, psychic powers are developed, such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy and the recollection of previous lives, but these are not the real object of meditation. They represent, in fact, another form of attachment to be overcome. Its real object is liberation. By the development of Right Concentration it is possible to break through the wall of ignorance that encompass us with illusions – to crash through the sound barrier. Once beyond this, the disciple of the Buddha finds himself fact to face with Nibana, the Ultimate Truth in which all artificially created problems of ignorance and delusion have ceased to exist.

The Buddha was not only Lord of Wisdom. He was also the supreme Lord of Compassion. It was out of pity for suffering humanity that He sought and found the Truth. He taught his followers to develop a heart of loving kindness that embraces without distinction all beings. This He called the godlike state of consciousness. There are four of these Brahmaviharas: They are Metta, universal benevolence; Karuna, compassion, Mudita, sympathetic joy, and Upekkha equanimity and non discrimination. They form, for Buddhists, the ideal of what should be our attitude towards our fellow mean, and, indeed, to all living beings. One who attains them in this life is already living mentally in the highest heaven, the realm of the Formless Beings whose nature is entirely of the spirit. In this way alone is it possible to realise the kingdom of heaven on earth. That kingdom is of the mind, and is entirely independent of external circumstances. Who soever reaches it in this life will, if he does not go on to the final goal of all, Nibbana, be reborn after death in the spiritual sphere corresponding to his attainment.

It is in the light of this view of the world that I now ask to consider the answers I am going to give, as a Buddhist, to the problems confronting religion in this age of science.

Does man in a civilisation pervaded by the ideas of science still require beliefs that inform him concerning his own highest goals?

The purpose of science has always been to examine the physical universe and discover the laws by which it operates. Its function in civilisation has been to transform the life of man by the development of technical means of better living, the conquest of disease and in general the mastery of man"s physical environment. It is not primarily concerned with man"s purpose or goal; but in discharging its first function it has automatically laid bare certain principles that throw light on man"s own nature and his origin. In so doing it has caused a great disturbance in the accepted ideas of theistic religion. From the time when Galileo discovered that the earth is not the centre of the solar system up to Darwin"s first treatise on biological evolution, western religious ideas have been subjected to a series of shocks.

Nevertheless, religion despite its conflict with reason and knowledge, has survived, precisely because man does need a working hypothesis to account for his existence, his sense of moral values and his instinctive belief that there is a higher goal beyond mere comfortable living on this earth. In any case, most thinking people are now agreed that science, with all its wonders will never be able to create a heaven in this world. We have seen how, when one disease is brought under control, another source of disease arises. Bacteria which have been mastered by science proceed to transform themselves, and in the course of a few generations produce a variant of their type which is immune to the old attack; and so science has to start all over again seeking a fresh technique. I am not decrying the triumphs of science; but science has source of knowledge seems to me superior to science as a palliative, since the benefits it has brought us have in many cases been outweighed by the dangers it has placed in our path. Disease, old age and death will always be with us; and this being so, human life will continue to be imperfect, darkened always by the shadows of grief and uncertainty.

Religion as it is understood in the West may have failed man, yet the need for religion still continues.

To what extent is it the function of traditional religions to interpret to man his own ultimate concerns in relation to the totality of powers, known and unknown with which has must come to terms?

The only possible reply to this is that traditional religions can perform this function only to the extent permitted by man"s present and future knowledge. It is a function that can no longer be performed through dogmas. Where traditional religion is able to assimilate new facts and hitherto unknown aspects of reality without sacrificing anything of its fundamental teachings it can continue to serve humanity as an interpreter of the “totality of powers, known and unknown” with which man must come to terms. But where dogma has been laid down once for all as an infallible divine revelation, this adjustment is not possible. When one teaching once held to be a divinely revealed truth is found to be false the whole edifice is shaken. This has already happened, not once but a thousand times, and there are limits to the elasticity of faith. Where most educated people are concerned those limits have already been exceeded and faith in “divine revelation” is as dead as the brontosaurus.

Buddhism, as I have already pointed out, is not a religion of “divine revelation” or of unsupported dogmas. It is the ultimate truth concerning life as discovered by one who approached the subject without any preconceived ideas, and who reached it in the only way possible, by delving into His own consciousness. Just as a scientist investigates the external world, so the Buddha investigated the internal world of the mind, or, if you like, the spirit. Everything that He taught thereafter was knowledge that is accessible to each and every one of us, if we will but follow His method of self purification. On the intellectual side we find that there is no point at which science comes into conflict with Buddhism, not is it ever likely to do so. The Teaching of the Buddha, therefore, can continue to perform the function indicated in this question and in the one that follows it, namely.

To what extent can the traditional religions perform this function in a community which accepts the scientific interpretation of reality?

What science interprets are natural phenomena, and science has reached the point of realising that, since all the information we have concerning these phenomena are received through our physical senses, and the picture of the external world they present is quite different from the picture presented by physics, it is extremely doubtful whether science by investigating the external world of appearances will ever be able to bring us nearer to ultimate reality. But so far as knowledge concerning the nature of these phenomena will take us we have accept the overall picture, including such established scientific facts as that of biological evolution. Buddhism is, I believe, the only religion which has no difficulty in accepting the theory of evolution as taught by modern biology and genetics. In one of His great Sermons, the Brahmajala Sutta, the Buddha describes how evolution and devolution take place in the course of a world cycle, and all that He said is fully in conformity with present day knowledge. I will go even further, and tell you something that may surprise those who believe that religion is inseparable from the idea of a creator god. Even if science succeeds in generating living organisms in a test tube, or even creating a sentient being equal to man, the truth of Buddhism is not in the least affected by it. The reason for this is that no matter how life may come into being, whether by any of the natural birth processes or by artificial means, it is past Kamma which supples the life continuum, and it can operate in this manner wherever the constituents necessary for a living organism come together. There cannot be any achievement of science, no matter how revolutionary, that will ever contradict the Teaching of Buddhism.

To what extent can science itself contribute to this religion function?

In the light of what I have already said it will be clear that where science is able to confirm the teachings of religion, as it does in the case of Buddhism, it changes its role from that of a destroyer of faith to that of an ally and most valuable friend. But it is useless to expect science, which confines itself to facts, to adapt those facts to the requirement of myth and dogma. It will never do so. In the struggle between religion and science in the West it is always religion that has had to give way. Buddhism welcomes science as the promoter of knowledge. More than this, it looks confidently to modern science to bring about that change of outlook which is essential if man is to realise the higher spiritual truths. We claim for the Buddha that he was the only religious teacher to bring scientific methods of approach to bear on the questions of ultimate truth.

What among the traditional religious beliefs remains effective?

This can only be answered from the viewpoint and experience of each of the representatives, speaking for his own creed. As regards Buddhism, all its doctrines remain valid, and therefore all remain effective.

Is there some way in which the incompatible and competing claim among different systems of religious belief can be reconciled or reduced to a commonly acceptable denominator so that a rational mind can accept them?

Various attempts have been made throughout history to reconcile different systems of religious belief, but none of them has been successful. To quote only one instance: Sikhism began as an effort to reconcile Hinduism and Islam. Circumstances decreed, however, that in a matter of a few generations the Sikhs were to become the greatest opponents of Islam in India. Syncretism in religion sometimes enriches human thought, but more often than not it ends in confusion and failure. The modern attempts in this direction, such as Theosophy, have never attracted any large following because their efforts at reconciling the irreconcilable lead to a result that is even less acceptable to a rational min than the original doctrines.

The reasons for this are perfectly clear: each theistic religion claims that its doctrines have been revealed by a “Supreme Being” – God. These “revelations” contain different accounts of “creation”, different interpretations of the “Supreme Being"s” nature and intentions, and different versions of man"s position in relation to “God” and his destiny after death. Arising from these conflicting doctrines there are widely differing systems of morality. Since none of the “divine revelations” can be altered in any fundamental way (except, presumably by a fresh “divine revelation”) the dogmas will always remain an insuperable obstacle to religious unity. Even between the various Christain sects there are deeply rooted antagonisms although they all claim to take their inspiration from the same scriptures. Each theistic religion will always maintain that its own God is the only true deity, and will condemn the beliefs of all others. In the Semitic religions this is particularly marked; it began in Biblical times with disputes between the followers of various tribal gods, and it has carried on to the present day. There is absolutely no hope of these religions ever combining. Where such religions are concerned, tolerance of the views of others only comes when religious indifference sets in.

In Buddhism there are many reasons why tolerance of the religious views of others is enjoined as a necessary virtue. In the first place, Buddhism does not teach that any individual is eternally damned because he happens not to be a Buddhist. Followers of other religions may be reborn after death in heavenly states, if they have been virtuous during their lifetime. Suffering or happiness comes about as the result of actions (Kamma), not as the result of having blind faith in any particular creed. There is no “salvation by faith” in Buddhism. Furthermore, Buddhist Metta, or Universal Benevolence, extends to all beings, whatsoever their creed, race or colour. Buddhism is not a “divine revelation” which claims absolute faith and unquestioning obedience; it is system for discovering truth and reality for oneself, and therefore invites reasoned criticism and objective analysis. History bears witness that Buddhists have always been able to live peacefully side by side with those of other faiths, so long as those faiths do not produce fanatics with whom it is impossible to live. Buddhist tolerance has been carried so far that for many centuries past it has ceased even to a proselytizing religion.

Or, is only one of them valid? If so, how can it be established in the minds of all men?

If each of us did not personally believe that his own religion is the only valid one, he would not go under the banner of that religion. He would call himself an agnostic, a rationalist or materialist.

The only way in which the validity of any religious belief can be established is to put it to the test of realisation. First the question must be asked: are its doctrines compatible with reason and experience, and with the knowledge we have gained concerning the nature of the universe and of life? Secondly, does it offer us a way in which we, individually, can verify its claims in a manner which places it beyond all dispute?

Here I must ask you to take note of the fact that not once throughout history, has any one of the supposed “Creator Gods” given man a revelation of so final and conclusive a character that all men would be forced to accept it. On the contrary, all that the “revelations” have done has been to cause further dispute, and too often religious persecution.

What I have already said provides the answer to the first of my questions, so far as Buddhism is concerned. Buddhist philosophy is fully in accordance with reason and experience; it agrees with the general picture of the universe given by science and it does not ask us to believe in anything outside the normal order of nature. To my second point the answer is that Buddhism does provide each of us with a means of verifying it for himself, through the practice of a scientific system of mental training and meditation which culminates in Vipassana, or direct Insight.

Jesus of Nazareth said, “By their fruits shall ye know them”. We recognize the Arahats, or Purified Ones, of Buddhism by their spiritual and moral nature. If the whole of humanity were sufficiently developed intellectually and spiritually all men would acknowledge a truth so completely demonstrated. But as I have said before, human beings are on different levels, due to their past Kamma, and it is not likely that all men at the same time will ever be able to recognise truth with the same clarity. When the Buddha first gained full Enlightenment he felt doubtful whether any human beings would be able to understand the truth He had discovered, so utterly different was it from any of the accepted ideas of His time. But almost immediately He realised that there were some few “whose eyes were but lightly covered” with the dust of Ignorance, and He determined to teach the Dhamma for their sake.

For our own age, however, there is one ray of hope. It comes from the fact that the majority tend in the long run, to follow the leadership of the intellectuals. If a sufficient body of intelligent men can be convinced of the reality of the spiritual truths, apart from all irrational dogmas and all sectarian associations, we might yet see a great religious revival and restoration of moral values in the world. It would be sufficient if each man would follow the religion of truth so far as he is able to comprehend it.

Or, is it impossible for man to be rational about religion?

Here, honesty compels me to be very blunt. Man can be rational about religion only when his religion is itself rational. If religion has up to now been associated with irrationality it is because the faith it demands is of a kind that can only be fed by unreason. To what else can “the willing suspension of disbelief” lead? The disgust felt by rationalists at the excesses of religious fanaticism is perfectly natural. So also is the reaction against irrational religion which has taken the form of scientific materialism. The sad fact, however, is that if the irrational elements are removed from most of the traditional religions there is very little left. This is the reason for the failure of religion in the western hemisphere.

WHAT MAY SCIENCE OFFER FOR RELIGIOUS BELIEF?

What do the psychological sciences offer for the cure of sick souls, and the social sciences for the cure of a sick society?

To what extent are the psychoanalyst and the social worker the heirs of the priest and preacher?

What are the psycho social sciences so ineffective in performing these religious tasks?

These three questions must be taken together, since they form three aspects of a single problem.

The psychological sciences have had a limited success in the treatment of sick minds, but they are still in the experimental stage. In many cases they fail to relieve the tensions and inner conflicts that come through the lack of a spiritual anchorage in our turbulent and distracted society. There is now a tendency for medical science to fall back to drugs – “tranquillising tablets” and sedatives – for the relief of neuroses. Psychological science has not yet got down to the cause of man"s psychic unrest, and until the cause is found and removed there can be no permanent cure. The methods of psychological treatment are lengthy and laborious, and results can never be guaranteed. Further, they are beyond the reach of most income groups. It is more than doubtful whether psychological science as it is practised in the West today will ever succeed in restoring man"s confidence and inner harmony as does a firmly held religious conviction. It can never be a substitute for that deep inner awareness of spiritual values, and that sense of security in a dangerous world, which religion gives.

The social sciences are concerned only with man"s environment and external conditions. They bring happiness only to the extent to which they are capable of improving these conditions and within the limitations of the individual"s response to them. They do not touch the inner, subjective life of man. It is there that he needs comfort and assurance, a refuge from the ever present threat in the sturm und drang of life. Accidents, disease, the failure of the faculties, and finally old age and death are not to be prevented by the social sciences, so that they, too, can never be a substitute for religion. Man, who is something more than an animal requiring only creature comforts, needs to be informed concerning his purpose and destiny, and the need is so strong in him that for centuries he has been ready to accept even the most improbable theories in the name of religion, rather than nothing at all. Science has made it more difficult for him to do so, but has not been able to provide a satisfactory replacement for the beliefs it has destroyed.

What do the medical and biological sciences have to offer? Can the new medicine men bring peace of mind and loving spirit more effectively via the drugstore than the old rites did? Can we have personal salvation through surgery and pills?

These questions are all statements of the same problem in different terms. The “old rites” being no longer effective for modern man, he has had to have recourse to the drugstore, and possibly what it gives him is psychologically on a par with what his ancestors got from their religious rituals. Temporarily, one may be as effective as the other, but neither gets down to the basic cause of psychological unrest, which is desire. But wheras most of the traditional religions do at least urge man to curb his desire, our modern commercial civilisation increases it while giving the illusion of satisfying it. The individual from his earliest years is taught to be competitive and acquisitive, and these qualities are exalted to the status of virtues. But it is not everybody who can be successful in competition, or who can acquire more wealth than his neighbour, and when there is no other objective in set before a man he suffers from a feeling of frustration and personal inadequacy if he is one of the failures. At the same time, the failures of necessity outnumber the successful. In a materialistic society, the man who has failed materially is the equivalent to the man who was damned under the old religious dispensation. What has science to offer him? Nothing but empty palliatives. It is from this that we get mental disorders, psycho somatic sicknesses, neuroses, alcoholism and crime.

There is only one remedy – knowledge and understanding. By this I mean that man must understand the laws that govern his being. If circumstances seem to be against him, he should understand why they are against him, and why it is that his neighbour appears to be more favoured than himself. He can then endure the circumstances without being cast into despair, and he can work confidently to improve his prospects for the future. It is this rational understanding that Buddhism gives us through the knowledge of Kamma and rebirth. It is a source of strength and an incentive to moral endeavour. In every way it is far superior both to the priest and his rites, and the new medicine man with his drugstore remedies. By showing man that he is truly master of his fate, and can transcend the errors of the past, it makes every day a day of spiritual regeneration and hope. The real lasting psychological treatment is that which a man gives to himself, by self understanding and self mastery. This is the basis of Buddhist psychology, which is aimed at removing the causes of misery through the attainment if wisdom and insight.

For better crops is it more effective to take our gifts to the geneticist and chemist than to the altar?

Most educated people today would place their reliance on the scientists. And in this particular field they would be right. Religion, as Buddhists understand it, has nothing whatever to do with good crops. If the fields have not been tended diligently and fertilized as they should be, no amount of supplication at the altar will produce better crops. And if the cultivator"s past Kamma is bad, no amount of science will prevent blight, unseasonable weather or sickness from ruining his work. In this, as in all else, cause and effect are the deciding factors, but it always takes more than one cause to produce a given result. To trust entirely in the altar, the scientist or one"s own labour, or in a combination of all three might equally prove a mistake. I make this point expressly to impress upon you the fact that Buddhism gives answers that are different from those of the scientific materialist, the theistic religionist and the common sense “man in the street” in equal degree. But any farmer, knowing from his own experience how often what appears to be sheer “chance” has ruined his crops, despite all his precautions, will be bound to agree that the Buddhist explanation fits the facts better than any other.

Can biological science do anything to prevent social disorder and injustice?

Short of interfering with the natural biological processes to such an extent as to amount to a remarking of man, - that is, artificially creating a new type of humanity – there is surely not much that science can do about social disorder and injustice. Operations on the brain might make law abiding citizens out of criminals and potentials criminals, but even if these doubtful techniques were to be brought to perfection there would still remain the problem of administering them. They would involve a heavy moral responsibility in interfering with an individual"s personality and freewill. Such operations could only be carried out on a large scale in a totalitarian society where individual rights had ceased to exist.

The problem of injustice raises this question to its highest factor. Biological science could only prevent injustice by making all men equal and producing a general uniformity in human nature. This is already theoretically possible, in that certain techniques are being developed by which mass produced thinking tends to iron out the differences in outlook between one person and another. It may become possible in the future to direct mass thinking to such an extent that human beings lose their individual identity and become like the units of an ant community, controlled from a brain centre radiating thought influences as required by the State. Injustice only exists where there is awareness of it; if it vanished as a human concept it would for all practical purposes caease to exist. But there is a wide gulf between what is theoretically possible and what is possible in practice. Man"s attempts to interfere with the law of Kamma, which is what in reality lies behind inequality and seeming injustice, have always failed. By democratic laws man may give equal opportunities, but no means has yet been discovered of making all men equal in intellect or character. The most fundamental injustices are those which are inherent nature itself. Why is one child born with a brilliant intellect while another is mentally deficient? The biologist may think he has the answer when he speaks of the characteristics inherited through the genes, but he is only describing a process; he is not explaining why that process takes place. To say that the genes have combined in a certain way to produce a given result is not the same as explaining why they have so combined and not in any other way. Buddhism does not deny the process, but it points to Kamma as the underlying cause. Science might try to impede the working of Kamma, and perhaps succeed in diverting it up to a point, but the end result for humanity would be disastrous. It is not in man"s nature to live in a state of ant like uniformity because in such a condition he could never fulfil his highest potentialities. I have said that if man"s sense of injustice were obliterated, injustice would cease. But a much better solution to the problem is for mankind to realise that there are two kinds of injustice: human injustice, which can be remedied, and natural injustice, which is only injustice in appearance. A visitor to a prison, knowing nothing of the offences for which the convicts had been sentenced, but seeing only their present wretched condition, would denounce it as a terrible injustice. So it is with persons who in this life are handicapped in some way, apparently for no fault of their own. The man who knows nothing of Kamma is like the ignorant visitor to the prison; he sees only injustice in their present condition. Bt one who understands the law of cause and effect as it operates from birth to birth sees the working of a just moral principle. He knows that there is unmerited suffering. At the same time he know how this suffering can be avoided, by adhering to the moral law. This understanding can eliminate the crushing sense of injustice under which many people labour, far more effectively than anything that can be expected from biological science.

Do the physical sciences answer our prayers for greater comfort and safety amid the hazards of the earth? But, are not all the benefits brought by scientifically based engineering more than offset by the dangers coming out of the laboratories of the nuclear and other scientists? And, what avail all the comforts if we are left depressed by the suggestion that the cosmos is indifferent to human value, and is a cosmos where our warm hopes are doomed to the ultimate cold of the death of our sun and all life? Can the physical sciences console or transform the hearts of men?

Every achievement of science, from the internal combustion engine onwards, has brought in its train as many perils as it has provided comforts. Everything science has given us is a potential cause of injury or death. People are killed by automobiles and airplanes. they are electrocuted by labour saving devices and death frequently comes to them via the surgeon"s knife or the doctor"s hypodermic syringe. These mishaps are called accidents, but there is also the misuse of scientific discoveries due to man"s greed, hatred and ignorance or disregard of moral laws. In every direction nature thwarts science either by natural hazard or else through man"s own imperfect nature. Life must always be a balance of opposites; there is nothing that has not its evil as well as its beneficial aspect. It is useless to look to science to give man increased happiness, unless science is applied in full knowledge of the spiritual laws. Even if that were to come about, it would only be the intentional misuse of science that would be eliminated; the accidental mishaps would still remain. And they would still require explanation.

We must accept the fact that the cosmos is indifferent to human values. The physical universe gives no indication whatsoever of the existence of a beneficent deity or of a purpose. The Buddhist is not disturbed by this fact. The life process is a blind, groping force of craving, which in itself has no purpose except the satisfaction of desire. This life process, involving rebirth after rebirth, is called in Buddhism “Samsara”. It has no higher purpose than the satisfaction of craving for sentient existence in one form or another. This is a very important and fundamental point on which Buddhism is in agreement with science and completely at variance with the theories of theistic religion. In Buddhism the only higher purpose in life is what man puts into it. This higher, spiritual purpose is the extinction of craving, which brings rebirth to an end. The goal of Buddhism is the supreme goal of Nibbana, which lies outside the Samsaric, or cosmic, order. There alone is absolute peace to be found. Within Samsara all is strife, an unremitting struggle for existence; that is the very essence of what we call living. The “pleasure principle” of modern psychology and the “struggle for survival” known to biological evolution are both facts which have always been recognised by Buddhism. Yet at the same time moral order is inherent in the law of cause and effect. If a man is crushed by it, as in a blind, impersonal and indifferent machine, it is because he himself is blind to the moral law and misuses his freewill. The law of cause and effect is pitiless and inexorable. All the more reason, therefore, for man himself to cultivate pity, for he must put into Samsaric life the higher qualities which it lacks. Whatsoever of divinity there is in life is of man"s creation. By self purification, eliminating the worldly instincts of lust, ill will and delusion, man can make himself into a god. The higher planes of Samsara are inhabited by such beings, Visuddhi devas, or “gods by purification”. The Arahat while alive on this earth is also a visuddhi deva, enjoying the bliss and unbroken peace that can come only when all the worldly attachments are severed. The attainment of this state is the purpose which we ourselves can put into an otherwise purposeless round of existences. The cosmos does not impose any purpose on us; we are free to choose what our purpose shall be. We have the choice of two paths; either to go on being reborn for the satisfaction of sensual craving, with all the suffering that rebirth brings in its train, or to extinguish the fires of passion and gain the supreme and unchanging state of Nibbana. Conditioned existence is impermanent, subject to suffering and devoid of self reality. Therefore it is not real in the absolute sense. The supreme reality lies outside and beyond Samsara. Nibbana cannot be described, for the simple reason that there are no words or concepts that we can derive from our experience of life in the sphere of relativity to apply to it. It can be experienced, but it cannot be described. Nevertheless, the Buddha used certain terms to convey some idea of what Nibbana means; He called it Asankhata, the Unconditioned ; Para, the Other shore (beyond Samsara); Ajara, the Ageless; Amata, the Deathless; Dhuva, the Permanent ; Thana, the Refuge, and Lena, the Shelter. But for that which has no qualities, since qualities mean relative values, there can be no exact description. It is sufficient to know that because there is this Samsara, which is impermanent, subject to suffering and void of reality, there must be that which is permanent, free from suffering and real in the ultimate sense. It is that Reality which we mean by Nibbana. It is not, as some people have imagined, a negative concept. It is beyond both negative and positive, for negative and positive are opposite poles of a relativity complex. Neither is absolute because each depends upon the other for its existence. The cosmos exists by virtue of such opposites; hence it must always have good and evil mixed, each of them being relative to the viewpoint of the illusory “Self”. Nibbana, being freedom from self delusion, is also free from the opposites created by man"s ego centric viewpoint.

The Buddhist is not dismayed by the prospect of the ultimate cold of the death of our sun. The Buddha taught that universes, or world cycles, arise and pass away in endless succession, just as do the lives of individual men. Certainly our world must at some time come to an end. It has happened before, with previous world, and it will happen again. But so long as their Kamma and Vipaka life continuum carries on, the beings on now living in this world continue to be reborn in other spheres and other universes. All these states of being are impermanent; only Nibbana is unchanging. The physical sciences can never console or transform the hearts of men. Only wisdom and understanding have this power; one who understands the nature of the universe and of life can face reality without fear. Knowing that all compounded things must pass away he views even the destruction of universes with equanimity. His kingdom is not of this world.

Is the contribution of the several sciences to religion a negative one?

Should we frantically scratch among the old beliefs for some comfort and hope, and hold fast to them no matter how illogical and irrational in the light of the scientific system of belief that we prefer to hold for resolving our other problems?

Can we be irrational and survive?

Scientific knowledge has shown itself not only negative towards dogmatic and “revealed” religion, but positively hostile to it. If it were not so, these questions would not be asked. It is man"s awareness that his old religious ideas have broken down under the impact of science that has brought about this heart searching quest for truth on some different level.

In the case of Buddhism, however, all the modern scientific concepts have been present from the beginning. There is no principle of science, from biological evolution to the General Theory of Relativity, that runs counter to any teaching of Gotama Buddha. Einstein himself wrote that if there is any religion which is acceptable to the modern scientific mind it is Buddhism. Yet it is doubtful whether even Einstein quite realised the extent to which modern science confirms the teachings of Buddhism. Only one who has both studied and meditated upon every aspect of the Buddha Dhamma can fully appreciate the light that it throws upon the problems that science itself has raised. In fact, Buddhism continues where science leaves off; it carries scientific principles to higher planes of realisation. It shows that the laws of physics are the counterpart of spiritual laws and that there is a common meeting ground for both.

If physics says that the apparently solid universe is not in reality composed of solid substance at all, but is actually a flux of electronic energy, Buddhism said it first. If the scientific philosopher says that our senses deceive us in presenting this insubstantial series of nuclear events in the guise of solid, enduring matter, Buddhism anticipated him by saying the same thing and making it basis of the Buddhism analysis of phenomena. If the psychologist, neurologist and biologist say that there is no indication of an immortal soul in man, they have made the discover two thousand five hundred years after the Buddha. If science says that there is no ground for belief in a Creator god, it is merely confirming an essential doctrine of Buddhism. But if the most advanced thinkers believe, as they now tend to do, that in some way mind, or mental activity, is the activating force behind the phenomena of life, they have hit upon of the eternal verities which Buddhism has always proclaimed. For the Buddha said: “Mano pubbangama dhamma, manosettha, manomaya” – “Mind precedes all phenomena; mind predominates them and creates them.” It is man"s mental activity which creates them; and that act of creation is going on from moment to moment. Kamma is mental volition: the will to act followed by the action. If the mental volition is of an immoral order the resulting states of consciousness are fraught with suffering because of the reaction. But if the mental volition is of a moral type and the action is a good and beneficial one, the resulting states of consciousness are happy. In other words, good actions bring as their result good conditions and the pleasurable consciousness associated with such conditions.

Thus we create the world, making it good or bad for ourselves, by the process of Kamma and Vipaka. Truly, life is exactly what we make it for ourselves. Therefore Buddhism tells us not to look to any external agency for salvation, but to rely entirely upon our own efforts. It is the science of the mind, which teaches us how to harness the tremendous power of mind for out own benefit and that of all beings. It is for this reason that Buddhism places such great importance on its profound system of psychology, the Abhidhamma. The word “Abhidhamma” means “the highest law” and this system gives a minute analysis of all the states of consciousness; it is the complete path to self understanding and self mastery. Abhidhamma goes much further than modern Western psychology because it deals with basic principles of the mind and relates the mental processes to the universal system of moral values. It is precisely here that Western psychology fails, for the psycho analyst of the West is not concerned with moral values; in fact, he doubts whether they have any existence outside man"s imagination. He is unable to give guidance in questions of right or wrong. But Buddhism explains the relationships between mental activity and ethical laws, showing that morality is an integral part of the pattern of cause and effect which is set up by our mode of thinking and the actions produced by it.

Science is concerned with discovering the causes of phenomena. So also is Buddhism; but Buddhism goes further, in revealing how these causes can be moulded to produce better results. In placing mind at the centre of all phenomena, Buddhism is the opposite pole of materialism, yet its picture of the physical world corresponds exactly with that of modern science. This in it self is a remarkable fact which should claim the attention of all intelligent persons. That the Buddha was able, by direct insight, to fathom the nature of the universe, without any of the aids of modern science, two thousand five hundred years ago, is the proof of His Enlightenment. No other religious teacher in the world"s history has achieved this.

Where the physical sciences will never be able to console or transform the hearts of men, Buddhism does both. It satisfies the intellect and the heart in equal measure, and it gives hope founded upon a rational and verifiable faith. To the Buddhist there is no question of having to decide between faith and reason. For us, followers of the Supreme Buddha, faith is reasonable, and reason confirms faith.

Or, is it possible to re examine the human situation in the fuller light of the spectrum of knowledge, to establish a picture of man and his opportunities in the cosmos that is hopeful as well as honest?

This is precisely what Buddhism enables us to do. Accepting all the facts of science, even those most disturbing to man"s complacency and egoism – seeing human life, just as science does, a mere fraction of the vast mass of phenomena cast up by the cosmos – it yet places the highest possible value on human life and human endeavour. It shows that man, despite his seeming insignificance in this tremendous cosmic process is really the master of it, if he can become the master of himself. Pascal saw that man is greater than the blind forces of nature because even though he is crushed by them he remains superior by virtue of his understanding of them. Again, Buddhism carries the truth further: it shows that by means of understanding man can also control his circumstances. He can cease to be crushed by them, and can use their laws to raise himself. The Buddha said: “Behold, O monks: within this fathom long body, equipped with sense perception and mind, I declare unto you is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the way to its cessation”.

Has there not been revealed to us, if we will but look at the newer truths or beliefs yielded by the sciences, that man finds himself, indeed, a creature created by the cosmos, and thus ordained by it, and so endowed by that creator with a mind which can in its finite way learn to appreciate the whole, and to enter creatively and consciously into the grand scheme of development in which the infinite cosmos is engaged?

Here is a wonderful mass of contradictions, such as Buddhism could never have produced. Man, created by the cosmos, which is blind, impersonal and mindless, cannot have been endowed by that mindless cosmos with a mind. The cosmos being mindless, how could it give its creation a mind? And if the mind is finite, how can it ever appreciate the whole, and “enter creatively and consciously into the grand scheme of development” of a cosmos that is infinite? What, in any case, is that “grand scheme of development”? Where is there any evidence of a purpose in the cosmos beyond the blind, groping force of craving which I have already mentioned? We have seen that science pictures a cosmos that is indifferent to man; what possibility, then, is there of hi being able to co operate with whatever scheme it may have? The reply of the scientist to this would be merely that the question is another example of man"s petty conceit. Why should man suppose that his efforts one way or another are of any interest to the cosmos? Here, it is obvious, the word “cosmos” is being used simply as a substitute for “God”. A cosmos with a purpose becomes the same as the theistic idea of “God” gives man individual hope – the hope of personal immortality – the idea of a scheme being worked out by the blind, impersonal forces of a cosmos which clearly cares nothing for units of the human race holds out no such promise. Those who can derive hope from the contemplation of a remote futurity when the cosmos will have perfected humanity, but they themselves will have totally ceased to exist, may be satisfied with this concept, but it will never be a source of inspiration to better living for the majority. The individual ants composing an ant army may be content to form a bridge across water for their fellows with their own drowned bodies, but human beings are not ants. The average human being desires that his own life should have a meaning and a goal, and not be just a stepping stone towards a doubtful goal for his remote descendants. In any case, the ultimate perfection of humanity by biological process is now more than doubtful. Science has shown that evolution simply does not work that way; it produces retrogression as well as progress. Some species have entirely disappeared from the earth. Have we any guarantee from science that man will not vanish also – perhaps with the aid of science itself?

The answer to this question can only be an emphatic No. This view of life will never fulfil human aspiration or give comfort and support to suffering mankind. But now we come to the final query.

What thrilling, and life giving and hopeful beliefs are possible from an honest contemplation of the new revelations of reality?

We can derive thrilling, life giving and hopeful convictions from contemplating the “new revelations of reality” in the light of Buddhism. No other way is possible. There are no “new” truths, and there is certainly nothing in the new revelations of science that is not already in the Teaching of Gotama Buddha. By way of summing up I will repeat:

Buddhism does not depend upon any of the commonly accepted religious dogmas which science has exploded, such as that of a Creator God, and immortal soul, a supernatural scheme of salvation or a particular “revelation” made at one specific point of history and one special geographical location to a select person or group of persons. It does not maintain that man is a special creation marked off from the rest of living beings by having an unchanging, undying element that has been denied to others. It does not require any myths, such as that of “original sin”. to explain the presence of evil and suffering in the world.

These are the negative aspects of its agreement with science. The points of agreement are many. They include the views that all phenomena, including life, are a flux of energies; the correspondence between biological evolution and spiritual evolution; the truth that craving, or the life urge”, is the motivating factor behind the processes of evolution; the fact that ours is not the only planet capable of producing and supporting life; the truth that mankind and the animals differ from one another only in a qualitative sense, as one species differs from another, not in essential kind; and the view that although the cosmos is itself mindless, the operative force behind it is an activity corresponding to mind.

The Buddhist explanation of the cosmos is, as I have indicated, that it is man"s own mental activity which creates the cosmos; every successive world cycle is brought into being and supported by a combination of natural cause – the physical causes known to science, and the Kamma of beings who have lived before. Buddhism, like science, is based on cause and effect.

Herein lies the greatest hope for mankind. Buddhism gives a positive and rational motive for moral endeavour and spiritual aspiration such as cannot be found in any other religious system. It asserts the supremacy of moral law without resorting to supernatural causes. It shows that there is no injustice in the casual law, yet at the same time gives us the knowledge that in extending compassion to those who are suffering the results of their past misdeeds we are advancing the higher spiritual laws. Even though we cannot undo the past Kamma of ourselves or others, we can yet help to mitigate the suffering it may have brought, or provide some compensation for the handicap, such as blindness or deformity, which is its present result. In so doing we are originating good Kamma which will produce beneficial results in the future. Thus Buddhism teaches the cardinal virtues of Metta, Universal Benevolence, and Karuna, Compassion. It is man himself who puts pity into a pitiless universe. And the highest effort and highest aspiration of all is that which is directed to the attainment of Nibbana. Man need not despair of all worldly improvement, since such improvement is within his reach by obedience to the moral laws; yet even though earthly conditions were to be rendered hopeless by human greed, hatred and ignorance, there is still a temporary refuge in the higher places of existence, and a final, unchanging certainty in Nibbana, the Eternal Peace – which, however, must be won by individual effort in self purification.

That is the message of hope I bring in the name of Buddhism to the delegates to this conference. The Supreme Buddha"s Teaching is for all times and all men. It is capable of bringing peace, happiness and prosperity to out troubled world. As the humble spokesman of millions of Buddhists I earnestly entreat that all men of understanding and good will here present will weigh in their hearts the things I have said and form their own judgement as to wether they are true, reasonable and good. The Buddha Himself did not ask more than that.

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY!