Scientific Acceptability of Rebirth - Buddhism

1 EBUDDHANET'SBOOKLIBRARYE-mail: site: Dharma Education Association Granville DharmawardenaScientific Acceptabilityof RebirthScientific Acceptabilityof RebirthScientificAcceptabilityofRebirthD r. Granville (Cambridge), , , FIAutoEAn appreciationThis is to inform that all members ofThe Foundation For Buddhist Researchconvey their heartfelt appreciation toReverend Banagala Upatissa, theChief Sanga Nayaka for Sri Lanka in Japan andthe Deputy Chief Incumbent of the Maha Bodhi Aggra Srawaka Maha Vihara in Sri LankaFor contributing by bearing all the expenses for printing this valuable book with a view to assisting the Foundation to build up its initial.

2 5 The Foundation For Buddhist Research .. 7 Scientific Acceptability of Rebirth .. 10 Science and Reality .. 10 Classical Science (17th 19th centuries) .. 12 The Birth of Modern Science .. 21 Scientific Acceptability .. 27 The Phenomenon of Rebirth .. 29 Scientific Examination of Rebirth .. 31 Spontaneous Recall of Past Lives .. 35 Past Life Therapy .. 36 Child Prodigies & Others who can usePast Life Knowledge and Experiences .. 38 Conclusion .. 405 PrefaceScientists and people who are educated in sciencerefuse to accept this phenomenon.

3 It is mainly be-cause they are familiar only with classical science,which cannot perceive a possible mechanism bywhich it can this book Dr. Granville Dharmawardena, who is aneminent scientist referred to in the nuclear sciencetext books in the United Kingdom and in the UnitedStates of America, had his education and training atthe Cambridge University in the United Kingdom,Harvard University in the United States, the Austral-ian School of Nuclear Technology, Australia, and atthe Atomic Energy Commission in France, and beingmost familiar with the views of the twentieth Centurymodern science.

4 Presents here a study he has madeof Dharmawardena points out that the reason whyclassical science cannot explain Rebirth is due to in-herent limitations in classical science. Modern sci-ence has transcended these limitations, and therefore6rebirth is within the scope of modern science. Modernscience accepts Rebirth as a scientifically acceptablephenomenon through the same tests used to provescientific Acceptability of generally accepted modernscience Granville Dharmawardena point out that as sci-ence advances it gets closer and closer to reality, andthis also brings science closer and closer to the Teach-ings of the I wish to tell you that I was blessed with the op-portunity of writing the preface to this book, as , a Sri Lankan scientist, was blessedwith the wisdom to prove Rebirth after 2.

5 540 years although it was researched by eminent scientiststhroughout the world. Let s build a world in which we live in harmo-ny, without any calamities, by practicing theTeachings of the Buddha . KiriellaUdwela201647 The Foundation For Buddhist ResearchThe search for the True Reality of Nature has been thepursuit of hundreds of thousands of philosophers andscientists for thousands of years, and they have yet along way to go. But the Buddha acquired full know-ledge of the true reality of nature over 2,500 years ago,albeit not through the circuitous path followed by thescientists.

6 Intuition and rationalism are two modes offunctioning of the human mind. Buddha used the in-tuition mode to acquire complete understanding oftrue reality when he was in a mental state of supremeenlightenment. Scientists are using the rationalistmode of thousands of unenlightened the current era of the human being, the scientificmethod is extremely popular all over the world andpeople accept anything that has scientists accept-ance. The reason for this is that science gave rise tothe technology which helped man to acquire enor-mous material wealth and increase his living stand-ards in leaps and science that has become so popular is the mat-erialistic mechanistic model built by Descartes, Fran-cis Bacon and Isaac Newton.

7 This Newtonian sciencehad two major limitations that prevented the scien-8tists from moving in the direction of true reality. Theyare, limiting science to what is only materialistic, andto what is within three spatial dimensions. Such lim-itations are not there in the intuitional Dalai Lama says, Science and technology bringsociety tremendous benefit. Yet, due to highly devel-oped technology, we also have more anxiety and morefear. I always feel that mental development and mat-erial development must be well balanced, so that to-gether they may make a more human world.

8 If we losehuman values and human beings become part of amachine, there is no freedom from pain and freedom from pain and pleasure, it is very dif-ficult to demarcate between right and wrong. The sub-jects of pain and pleasure naturally involve feeling,mind and consciousness. Understanding and practice of Buddhism going sideby side with science and technology is essential to cre-ate balanced human beings. Peace at home, in societyand in the world can arise only among a balanced hu-man Einstein and other prominent 20th century sci-entists took science beyond these limitations and de-veloped modern science, which is closer to the9teachings of the Buddha.

9 This confirms that scienceis now on the right path and that Buddhism is a guid-ing light to a result of the paradigm shift in science broughtabout by Einstein and other 20th century scientists,interest in Buddhism is rapidly expanding among thescientists who are in the forefront of science. In orderto enable this process to trickle down to others rapidly,it is necessary to research into ways and means of pre-senting the teachings of the Buddha to believers of sci-ence in a language they understand, accept and function of the Foundation For Buddhist Re-search is to undertake research to find ways andmeans of presenting the teachings of the Buddha interms that people the world over and our school chil-dren, who trust science more than Buddhism un-derstand and accept in order to assist them to makeuse of them.

10 One should note that school children inSri Lanka still learn only the 19th century science thatpresents the extremely materialistic and mechanisticmodel of the universe. They do not even get a chanceto know that there was a paradigm shift in scienceduring the 20th Madawala Up li10 Scientific Acceptability of RebirthBased on a research paper presented at the Annual Sessions of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science on the 28th November 1996 Science and RealityRebirth is a very fundamental phenomenon in Bud-dhism. Science is a quest for knowledge meant to leadthe way to understanding the true reality of nature,and every research scientist is expected to contributeat least a wee bit towards moving human knowledgein this direction.