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emerges not from objective stimuli but from the very nature of a balanced mind. Yet it is
not immutable or unconditioned, for it depends on the continued maintenance of
attentional stability and vividness. While these conditions are sustained, the mind remains
in a state of unstable equilibrium and inner happiness. Finally, according to some
contemplative traditions, it is possible to experience an enduring state of transcendent joy
by penetrating to the experience of unstructured awareness, beyond all conceptual
frameworks, and beyond all sense of subject/object duality. Such supreme happiness may
be likened to maturation into spiritual adulthood, and it is found beyond the very
dichotomy of stimulus-driven joy and sorrow. Thus, from a contemplative perspective,
scientific materialism arrests human development in a state of spiritual infancy; and when
a society of such spiritual infants is put in control of the awesome powers of science and
technology, global catastrophe seems virtually inevitable.
The Institutionalization of Scientific Materialism
Scientific Materialism and Political Institutions
According to textbook histories of science, the Scientific Revolution separated
science from religion to insure genuine freedom of scientific inquiry, and scientists are
therefore loathe to associate their research with anything that smacks of religion. Echoing
this sentiment, Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas, a Nobel laureate in physics,
recently commented,  I don t want a constructive dialogue with religion. I think they
should remain at odds with each other. 8 However, as the preceding chapters
demonstrate, this separation has never been as complete as is commonly assumed.
Scientific materialists commonly contrast the freedom of scientific institutions with the
ideological tyranny so often enforced by religious institutions. But this impression is
simplistic.
Institutions of scientific materialism suppress all forms of intuition, reasoning,
and personal experience that are incompatible with its principles, much as did the Roman
Catholic Church during the medieval era. Moreover, when it has been backed by military
or police authority, proponents of this ideology have created their own inquisition to
silence, subdue, or destroy all those who disagree with their dogma. Although this new
religion originated in Europe, it has now spread throughout much of the world, often
carried along with the propagation of the socioeconomic doctrine of Karl Marx, himself
an ardent proponent of scientific materialism. Marxist regimes have characteristically
suppressed all other religions, in many cases destroying churches, temples, and
monasteries, torturing and executing monks, nuns, and other members of the clergy, and
burning religious books and sacred images. The only way for many victims of such
persecution to escape torture and death has been to publicly recant those of their religious
beliefs that were incompatible with the creed of scientific materialism. In Marxist
countries, indoctrination into scientific materialism has frequently been state policy. Even
laypeople who resist have customarily been executed or imprisoned, and those who more
quietly adhere to their faith are commonly denied educational and professional
opportunities.
While Christian contemplative practice has declined with the rise of scientific
materialism in Europe and North America, Buddhist contemplative practice has declined
under a veritable holocaust during the Century of Scientific Materialism as a result of the
ideological wars waged against it by Marxist regimes in Siberia, Mongolia, China, Tibet,
Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Marxists have done their utmost to
annihilate all other theories and practices they deemed religious, and Buddhism has been
one of the many casualties of their militant crusades.
Communist party members in today s China, for instance, are prohibited from
pursuing religious activities, whether Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or otherwise. Within
the Chinese communist empire, Tibet has especially suffered under cultural and religious
genocide. If the Chinese were promoting socialism alone in Tibet, there would be no need
for them to suppress the spiritual heritage of this culture. After all, the Dalai Lama, the
spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people, is a self-professed socialist; and when
Tibetan Buddhist monks settled in India after fleeing from the Chinese communist
invasion of their homeland, many of them established their monasteries on the model of
socialist communes. The Chinese attack on Buddhism in Tibet was motivated not so
much by the socioeconomic principles of Marxism as by the principles of scientific
materialism, which Chairman Mao adopted as part of his own ideology.
Tibetans have maintained a relatively continuous tradition of Buddhist
contemplative practice, since the eighth century. But during the Chinese Communist
occupation of their land beginning in 1949 and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, all
centers for contemplative training in Tibet were destroyed, and many contemplatives
were executed. A recent article by Seth Faison in the New York Times, quoted an official
report carried in Chinese government-controlled media that described a  patriotic
education program, begun in April 1997, which the Chinese government is inflicting on
the Tibetan people. This program is aimed at promoting atheism and ridding Tibetans of
 passive religious influence ; it declares that  all the advantages of modern media, with
its immediacy and breadth are to be used to  popularize scientific know-how and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]