Dr. Alan Wallace

Beyond Idolatry:
Where Buddhism and Science Converge

In the Western civilization, God has been for centuries considered the Creator
of everything. With advances in science, this view has been challenged and
replaced by notions of objective scientific investigation of the nature of
phenomena. As a result researchers are focusing now on investigation of human
brain with no place for God (or soul) in their theories. Dr. Wallace views this
development as replacement of one idol (God) with another one (science). He
will discuss the limitations of clinging to any such idols and will show how
Buddhism focuses on the principle of dependent origination instead of these
false absolutes.

Francis Bacon characterized an idol as the unaffected partner in an interaction
between two phenomena. In Western civilization, God has been conceived as such an idol, for example in the case of the Aristotelian notion of the Creator as
the "Unmoved Mover." Descartes similarly described the soul as an unaffected
partner in its coupling with the body and the rest of the natural environment.
These two idols have been cast down by advances in science, but they have been replaced with the idols of (1) an absolutely objective material universe in
relation to subjective experience and (2) the human brain, which is characterized by many as an unaffected partner in its relation to the mind. In this lecture, Alan Wallace will discuss the limitations of clinging to any such idols and will show how the pluralistic and naturalistic perspective of Buddhism replaces these false absolutes with the principle of dependent origination.

The lecture will be followed by a book signing with books 20% off.

B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, and he has taught Buddhist theory and meditation throughout Europe and America since 1976. Having devoted fourteen years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai Lama, he went on to earn an undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University. With this background, he brings unique experience and skills to the challenge of integrating traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with the modern world. One of the most prolific writers and translators of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, he is currently seeking ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices and Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.

                  

To read more about Dr. Alan Wallace and for a full list of his publications, please visit www.alanwallace.org