Lu's Diary

Buddhism sees right through the familiar problems with cosmological and design arguments for the existence of God. Cosmologists will sometimes say one can’t ask what there was before the singularity banged or how the singularity got there. What they mean is that “time,” as physics understands it, begins (or becomes a useful concept) with the Big Bang. But this hardly makes the sense behind the question go away. Thus other cosmologists will admit the legitimacy of the question and say they have no clue as to how to answer it. Buddhism is comfortable with an infinite regress of natural causes. Indeed, the idea fits well with the metaphysical idea of dependent origination, according to which everything that happens depends on other things happening. 宇宙学家有时会说，人们不能问奇点爆炸之前是什么，或者奇点是如何到达那里的。他们的意思是，物理学所理解的“时间”始于（或成为一个有用的概念）大爆炸。但这并不能消除这个问题背后的意义。因此，其他宇宙学家会承认这个问题的合理性，并表示他们不知道如何回答。佛教对自然原因的无限回归持开放态度。事实上，这种观点与形而上学的缘起论非常契合，根据这种观点，所有发生的事件都依赖于其他事件的发生。 The rejection of the Vedic (Indic) doctrine of atman...

Owen Flanagan A professor of philosophy and neurobiology emeritus at Duke University. He is the author of several books, including “The Bodhisattva’s Brain,” from which this article is excerpted        杜克大学名誉哲学和神经生物学教授。他著有多部著作，包括《菩萨的大脑》，本文即摘自该书。 1. The oldest   Vedas   date to 1500 BCE and do not include the   Upanishads   and the   Bhagavad Gita.   The   Upanishads   date from the sixth century BCE. The   Bhagavad Gita   is included in the   Mahabharata Epic , written from the fourth century BCE to the fourth century CE, but the   Bhagavad Gita   is thought by many, perhaps most scholars, to be a late text composed possibly entirely in the Common Era. In any case, the latter are the key texts of what came to be known as Hinduism. Hindus don’t typically call their religion   Hinduism   (although they may call themselves Hindus as a sort of ethnic attribution). The name originates most likely i...

The Metaphysical Foundations of Buddhism Owen Flanagan explores how Buddhism reconciles meaning and science — without a creator, a soul, or supernatural scaffolding. In “The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized,” philosopher Owen Flanagan explores whether a major spiritual tradition can be reconciled with a thoroughly scientific worldview. Rejecting supernaturalism, Flanagan presents a version of Buddhism that remains both ethically serious and existentially rich, while remaining fully compatible with contemporary science and philosophy. In the excerpt that follows, he examines how Buddhism diverges sharply from theistic traditions by denying the existence of a creator God and a permanent self. Drawing on metaphysical concepts like dependent origination and  anatman  (no-self), he argues that these doctrines not only make internal sense within Buddhist thought but also resonate with modern scientific understandings of consciousness and the cosmos. 在《菩萨之脑：自然化的佛教》一书中，哲学家欧文·...