By Lydia Cash
On Thursday, October 23, 2014, Robert A. F. Thurman, a recognized worldwide authority on religion and spirituality, Asian history, philosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, gave a lecture entitled “Buddha: Scientist, Realist, Educator, Social Reformer.” As stated on his website, Robert Thurman advocates for the relevance of Eastern ideas to our daily lives. He has become a leading voice for the value of reason, peace and compassion. He was also named one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Americans and has been profiled by The New York Times and People Magazine.
In his lecture, Dr. Thurman spoke on Buddha’s movement as a 2500-year-old community, culture, and educational institution, which has been appropriated as a “world religion.” By showing Buddha’s movement as a series of scientific discoveries and realist principles, Dr. Thurman explained Buddhism’s departure from “religious trappings,” instead emphasizing its core principles as adaptable on a scientific basis to all levels of modern education and research systems, combining science and technology. For example, Buddha’s realistic worldview embraces relational causation, or the idea that everything in the universe has a cause. Buddha’s cardinal mantra was that the one who realizes and enters reality knows that there are causes to everything, and realizes how to interfere with these causes and therefore overcome them. According to Dr. Thurman, this worldview depends on the fact that wisdom and knowledge free the mind.
One of Dr. Thurman’s most interesting points was that the Buddha discovered relativistic physics, evolutionary biology, and sophisticated depth psychology 2500 years before modern scholars. In terms of relativistic physics, Buddha discovered a deep reality beyond conceptual capture, and viewed the mind as a subtle energy more powerful than subtle matter. According to Dr. Thurman, this idea was a precursor to modern quantum physics. In terms of evolutionary biology, Buddha used karma (causation) to determine causal processes that determine the variety of life forms, including the presence of the mind in nature and hypothetical descriptions of mental and physical causal processes. Buddha also discovered sophisticated depth psychology, analyzing the subconscious and defining the enlightened person as one who has become fully conscious of the subconscious, reshaping its drives and instincts.
In conclusion, Dr. Thurman introduced Buddha’s idea of the relational identity: humans do not exist in absolute, self-identities, but rather in interconnected webs in relation to other identities. According to Dr. Thurman, when people believe that they are absolute and their identities are rigid, religion, gender, color, ethnicity, and other factors become fixed and create barriers. This makes it impossible to identify with other individuals. In contrast, Buddhists see their identities as relational and transformable, and instead cultivate love, compassion, joy, and equilibrium. Dr. Thurman also referenced the idea of reincarnation as liberating, versus the “terminal lifestyle” of believing one will die at some definite point in time. In the “terminal lifestyle” individuals believe that their days will come to an end, and they will not have to suffer the problems of the future. This perpetuates a certain irresponsibility, where individuals don’t care enough or put enough effort into making the world more livable for future reincarnations. In Dr. Thurman’s eyes, this “terminal lifestyle” is a debilitating disease. Instead, humans should pursue happiness and recognize themselves as interrelational beings, which creates the responsibility to improve on one’s self and on one’s surrounding environment.