Bookraft

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by the Dalai Lama , Random House $29
I have promised to return to the flood of books on the nature of God, the origins of morality and religion plus what effects it has had on contemporary life. Heaven knows there are are enough of these books and I have started to wade through them - carefully. However, his holiness the Dalai Lama has skipped to the head of the line by dint of the fact that the Trent Hills Library to which I belong has a copy of his audio book read by Richard Gere .

And since I commute 50 minutes each way on my current project, I have been looking for something to fill the time more effectively than 680 or CBC News. So the Dalai Lama got my attention - and let me tell you I was distinctly skeptical. If this book had any .... Ommmmm... irrationalities it was back to CBC News.

Well to my delight, this book has turned out to be a jewel. What the Dalai Lama has done has been to show how Science, ordinarily considered the bane of religion (and now under constant attack by mistaken religious stalwarts) is now one of the better supporters of a pantheistic if not a deeply spiritual point of view. In the book the Dalai Lama shows how his thorough philosophical and religious upbringing have served him well in his essentially new encounters with not all, but wide swaths of modern technology from cars to atomic power. Instead of fighting and rejecting science as challenging deep rooted Buddhist scripts and traditions, the Dalai Lama has worked instead to first update the precepts and beliefs of Buddhism to the modern era in its sometime unique Tibetan Buddhist traditions - although the Dalai Lama acknowledges openly the strong base of Buddhist faith derived from dozens of Indian philosophers and religious teachers.

But his second goal, to reconcile Science and Spirituality, where there are strong common threads of deep philosophical agreement but also sharp contrasts if not open disagreement- this is a worthy task that I have yet to find the God writers from Science (think Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger, and others) nor the God scripters from Religion (Rick Warren, A.J.Russel, Neale Walsch and others) have fully taken on. Literally it is case of two idea camps talking past each other. Yet the Dalai Lama shows in this book how for example, Physics, which was instrumental in breaking the lockjaw hold Religion had on learning and philosophy from Medieval to early Renaissance times, now offers many ideas that have deep roots in religious teachings and philosophy.

And the Dalai Lama is not content to look just at physics but also such potential rift/fault lines as cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science and neurology - all are examined in welcome breadth and depth. And the Dalai Lama does not just concede to Science - but rather raises strong philosophical arguments for Science being to short on such topics as Consciousness and Cosmology. The one fault is that the Dalai Lama has restricted himself to only Buddhist Religious thought. This appears to be natural though - as he is the spokesperson for Tibetan Budhism and he clearly has had comprehensive training in its traditions and philosophical thought. He clearly avoids the temptation to speak for other religious traditions and thoughts.

But if you are looking for a mind that has absorbed an astonishingly and deep plus wide appreciation for the latest and most profound currents in Science and then related, compared and carefully culled those ideas back with his own faith's basic tenets in admirable frankness - then this might be the book/reading for you.