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Monday, November 27, 2006 12:00 AM

Buddha on the brain

Ex-monk B. Alan Wallace explains what Buddhism can teach Western scientists, why reincarnation should be taken seriously and what it's like to study meditation with the Dalai Lama.

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  • Monday, November 27, 2006 09:57 AM

    Re: Buddha had a brain like most of us.

    "We are, profoundly, a seamless part of the natural world, and Buddhism's contributions to human happiness and ability need not invoke magical pixies or floating ghosts to explain any of it."

    Well said. This letter expressed everything I would want to say about the article. If this did not deserve to be an "editor's choice", I wonder about the criteria your editor is using. Another letter writer wrote:

    "When Wallace says

    "[t]he human psyche is in fact emerging from an individual continuum of consciousness that is conjoined with the brain during the development of the fetus."

    I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and I doubt he does, either".

    The phrase "continuum of consciousness" is meaningless mumbo jumbo designed to reassure us that there is something of us that will survive death. Science may not have all the answers, but at least it knows how to look for them without falling into delusional traps.

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