ABSTRACT
As Chinese Buddhists bring Tibetan Buddhism into the popular realm of China, many Tibetan lamas are becoming familiar to the Chinese Buddhist public. Chinese Buddhists embrace Tibetan Buddhism because of the ongoing “Dharma crisis” found in Chinese monasteries and the “spiritual crisis” resulting from rampant materialism; they facilitate an emergent dialogue which reflects the concerns of their own cultural background, and bring notable lamas into the public consciousness in this way. Meanwhile, an emerging number of Tibetan lamas are gaining visibility for their active engagement in a public discourse on Buddhism and science. In the West, the dialogue between Buddhism and science has been ongoing for at least thirty years. The Dalai Lama’s recurrent dialogues with neuroscientists are celebrated examples. The Buddha’s teaching of causality is just as scientific as theories of modern physics, except that Buddhism emphasizes how the intangible activities of the mind generate the tangible activities of the body and speech. In many ways Buddhism is a science of the mind, as Allan Wallace (Wallace 2003), Anne Harrington and Arthur Zajonc (Harrington and Zajonc 2006), and other Buddhist scholars affirm. In my private conversations with some of my Tibetan friends in Northern California, it is often alleged that the Dalai Lama’s Buddhist purpose is to increase the public visibility of Buddhism in the West by conversing with prominent scientists. Science is a dominant component of modern Western culture and, oftentimes, is collectively upheld as a socio-cultural norm. When Buddhism is accepted as scientific, it has also gained cultural acceptance; thus, this leads to the indigenization of Buddhism in the West.
