IV. A Whiteheadian Postscript

My conviction that the continuing influence of substantialist, materialist, mechanistic, reductionist thinking blocks a movement toward understanding comes from the influence of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. He struggled against that kind of thinking and developed a process-relational vision that has much in common with Buddhist thought. He did not completely free himself from the thinking against which he struggled, and his followers have tended in part to fall back into it. I have long thought that if Buddhists would engage in this effort with us, we could achieve still more consistent and accurate formulations.

Whitehead did not himself develop a quantum theory. However, David Bohm and Basil Hiley have recently formulated a quantum theory congenial to his thought. It provides a very different way of thinking of the quantum world than the traditional models have offered. Bohm was deeply influenced by Indian thought of a sort that was more Buddhist than Hindu. This indicates the kinds of contributions that Buddhism has already made to science and how much remains to be done.

My study of Whitehead also suggests to me that Buddhists could learn from this engagement. Although profound, and I believe basically true, most Buddhist teaching is formulated in images that remain imprecise. They leave many important questions unanswered. When one struggles with the task of explaining experimental data in terms of these images, greater precision necessarily develops. It is my belief that this greater precision will enrich Buddhist understanding.

One might respond that this kind of understanding is unimportant to Buddhism, that precision is needed is only where enlightenment is at stake. If that is the Buddhist view, I must respectfully disagree. However desirable and important enlightenment may be, the survival of a livable earth for our descendants is also desirable and important. Perhaps if all individuals attained enlightenment the social and economic problems would take care of themselves. But we cannot afford to wait until that happens before engaging the destructive forces in the world. I believe these include the worldview that is so closely connected with most scientific thinking.

In the past few decades there has emerged a movement of socially-engaged Buddhists. In part this was a response to Christian criticism. Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand has been the primary leader of this group, and it may be better rooted in Thai Buddhism than in some other forms. Nevertheless, it has gained a following in the United States among Buddhists of a variety of backgrounds, especially among Euro-American converts. My experience with socially-engaged Buddhists has made me very enthusiastic. There is no group of Christians in whose judgment and commitment I have greater, or perhaps even equal, confidence. For one thing, they have integrated ecological thinking into their social thought much better than have most Christians. In addition, I think that in many cases their meditational practice has led to fuller personal integration around basic commitments.

The primary focus of this movement is, of course, social analysis and action. Nevertheless, some of these Buddhists are also engaged in thinking in the physical sciences, especially ecology. There is here a promising beginning of the engagement for which I hope and from which the world can expect much.

The world today is in bondage to the quest of wealth, and it accepts mainstream economic thought as its theology. This economic thought models itself on physics, unfortunately the physics of the nineteenth century. It treats human beings as isolated substances. Both the goal of wealth and this atomistic understanding of human beings are in radical contradiction with Buddhist teaching. Unfortunately, Buddhist habits of relative passivity toward authority are such that I do not hear the strong voice of protest that should come from this community. I hope that new habits of engagement with the sciences will characterize the next generation.