[Buddha-l] RE: Article of possible interest--correction

[Leigh Goldstein (deneb)]

> curt wrote:
> I've heard some Tibetan lamas state that we should accept the 
> teaching on karma, - the idea of which is fairly easy to 
> grasp but impossible to fathom - because the Buddha taught 
> other things such as emptiness of self and phenomena, which 
....
> I've never met a single teacher who has seriously claimed 
> that karma or rebirth can be in some way be physically or 
> logically proven  - but the majority seem to think that if 
.....

This agrees with my experience of Tibetan lamas.

However, there are types of evidence, although not even in the same ballpark
as scientific proof, for rebirth which Tibetan lamas find compelling, so
that they are not operating 100% on dogmatic faith and superstition.

For example, some of them report vivid recall of past lives, and there is
also a large body of practices around identifying rebirths which are based
things like picking familiar objects, verifying information from oracles
like dreams, etc. (In the west there are reported cases and case studies,
such as the works of Ian Stevenson, "Twenty cases..."). These are types of
evidence.

Testimony of persons (like Buddha or others) with a record of verity is not
scientific proof but is evidence of a kind. In courtrooms it is a type of
evidence that is critical to the whole process of determining what is the
truth, and we also rely on it in our daily lives.

Finally, there is the claim that certain types of meditative insight support
reincarnation. If true, Tibetan lamas may have very good personal reasons to
believe in reincarnation and/or karma that would not be useful in debate.

All of this evidence in itself is not IMHO objectively strong enough that it
ought to convince a sceptic. Convinced myself, nevertheless I empathisize
much more with skeptics who are apply critical thinking than with credulous
believers.

The current paradigms of (hard) science have no room for rebirth and karma.
However a very strong argument can be made that hard science does not yet
disprove rebirth, and in my opinion it is very far away from being able to
do so. 

-Leigh

P.S.

It may be that too much faith in hard science could harden the mind to other
possibilities. Critical analyses of science like those Kuhn, Feyerabend, and
the many critics of Popper shows that science has its own epistemological
difficulties.