Education
in the Context of the New Indian Buddhism
Namo
tassa
Bhagavato
Arahato
Samm āsamb uddhass a
I come do wn t o eart h, h u mbl e and grounde d,
to think of that person , to think there can be a pers on like that,
who has so much to s har e,
who is truly eq ual to t he challenge of living,
who is wide-awake and u nderstands perfectly.
Dr Ambedkar’s Legacy
EDU CATION
BUD DHISM
A PROJECT
Buddhist education in a scientific age
TEXTUAL STUDY
Some assumptions
A meaning that emerges
Treading a path
SOCIA L STUDY
Social facts
Training
Science in a Buddhist Perspective
PERSP ECTIVES ON ‘SCIENCE’
PE R ILS O N T H E SC IE N T IFIC P A T H
V IEWS
TRA DIT IONAL INS IG HTS
Conclusion
D R A M BEDKA R’ S L EGACY
E D U C A T IO N
Dr Ambedkar put great stress on education. For him, the cultivation of reason and
knowledge was an end in itself. It was also the way to work towards social justice.
For, a country that is modernising needs capable people. If it is to succeed, it must
allow them to progress. So he saw that Indian society, however reluctantly, would
have to encourage and reward educated and energetic people. Men and women
from historically oppressed groups would find opportunities. They would still face
barriers. But modernisation would give them a chance (which the Constitution, a
key driver of modernisation, would improve).
So he encouraged his followers to get educated. They have done so. Many have
reached positions of influence that their forebears could scarcely have dreamt of.
Some have used that influence wisely. Not all, obviously.
BUD DH IS M
For, it is not enough to become professionally educated, an expert. It is not
enough simply to advance in your career. When advancement brings
opportunities, it is necessary to use them wisely. For instance, to collaborate with
good partners (‘organise’) and then to exercise influence constructively (‘agitate’).
That takes understanding, motivation and skill. Which is where Buddhism comes
in. Why, after all, did Dr Ambedkar commit to this tradition? What attracted him?
 To start with, Buddhism counteracted certain negative tendencies.

He saw such tendencies in contemporary Indian culture. Surveying
his contemporaries who defined themselves as ‘Hindu’, he found that
many seemed at times to have difficulty in considering evidence
impartially and in applying reason consistently. Something in their
mind-set seemed inimical to the rational-empirical approach essential
in an industrial society.

Such problems seemed less likely to arise if people could rediscover
the hidden side of India’s great, historic culture — its Buddhist
tradition.
 This tradition, moreover, had strong positive attractions.

Anyone who takes it seriously will understand that we are all in a like
condition.

We all kid ourselves endlessly (avijjā) and so trap ourselves in
suffering. Understanding this brings humility1.

Going on from there, we can all work on ourselves. We can try,
step by step, to de-stress our experience processes and apply
insight (samatha-vipassanaa) — and so to let go of suffering.

As we let go of our own suffering, we help others too. As we
tread the difficult road that leads towards enduring psychological equilibrium (nibbāna), a sense and a habit of solidarity
will come naturally. As we cultivate inner freedom (brahma-
1
Humble people are sometimes understood as recognising themselves to be inferior. Let us
instead say that:

I may relate to other people in terms of how I evaluate their and my worth — or, I may
not.

If I do not, then I am humble.
In Buddhist terms, I avoid māna, which is the habit of self-reference whereby I frame
relationships in terms of comparative evaluation (‘I am better’, ‘I am worse’ or ‘I am equal’).
1
vihāra2), each of us is bound to develop a reflex of spontaneous
altruism.

Dr Ambedkar understood that. He wanted Indians, above all the
oppressed groups, to develop a stronger sense of responsibility for
one another — and he saw that when people follow a Buddhist path,
their universal human sympathies find expression in their social
behaviour, so their civic sense strengthens.
That was doubtless why, though drawn to the early Buddhism accessible
through the Pāli, he also emphasised aspects of Mahāyāna, such as the
Bodhisattva ideal. His Buddhist path involved a deep and wide-ranging
social commitment.
In short, it is not enough to acquire professional expertise. Fully educated persons
are also motivated to use their expertise wisely. So education has to go beyond
professional knowledge and skills. It has to incorporate psychological and ethical
training, to develop wisdom and compassion.
So when we say that education is the way to surmount India’s great challenges of
obscurantism and caste supremacism, we mean education in two senses
simultaneously — education for work and education for living. Education for
living will involve learning in and from Buddhist tradition.
A P ROJ ECT
That suggests an educational project for the new Indian Buddhism. There would
be two sides to it — professional and personal, practical and psycho-ethical. It
would encompass on the one hand a broadly scientific, work-oriented education
and on the other education in a Buddhist tradition.
How do these two sides fit together? Are they separate, bolt-on components?
Or are they more intimately connected? Is scientific education different when it is
combined with Buddhist education? Is Buddhist education different when
combined with scientific education?
We may think not. Science, after all, is science. It is the same for Buddhists and
non-Buddhists alike. And Buddhism is likewise Buddhism — the same for both
scientifically and non-scientifically minded people.
Still, different people come to their Buddhist path from different starting points,
and focus on different facets of the tradition, and in different ways. The same
applies to different cultural groupings. Thus, Chinese Buddhism is distinctive —
while faithful to the spirit, it does not precisely reproduce Indian Buddhism.
Similarly, different groups of scientists may work with the same body of facts,
theories and methods, may share their results with one another — and yet may
frame their material and their conclusions differently. Consider evolution.
Here is a key scientific issue of our times: how to understand evolution. Different
groups of scientists, from different cultures, have approached it differently.
A certain orthodoxy was dominant for 50 years, often called ‘neo-Darwinism’ or
‘the modern synthesis’. Most English-speaking scientists favoured it. Now, people
can see how that idea of evolution was deeply flawed. Indeed, some scientists had
always sharply criticised it — and they were often French.
As Chinese Buddhism has differed from Indian Buddhism, therefore, so also has
French evolutionism differed from English evolutionism. Similarly, then, a
2
Why are metta, karuṇā, muditā and upekkhā referred to collectively in this way? There is no
connection with the god Brahma, so this usage must relate to the earlier sense of brahman as
an impersonal force. That force is creative, yes, but not in an instrumental sense. Rather, the
experience of creative inspiration is central. This takes us back to the etymology, which has to
do with expansiveness.
2
scientifically educated professional who comes from a Buddhist perspective will
work differently from a colleague who knows nothing of Buddhist thinking and
practice — and a Buddhist with a scientific education will live the tradition
differently from a subsistence farmer born and bred in a Buddhist village.
B U D D H I S T E D U C AT I O N I N A S C I E N T I F I C A G E
TEXTUA L ST U D Y
Some assumption s
Buddhism is an ancient cultural tradition. How to understand it today? If you
grow up in a country that defines itself as Buddhist and has a big Sangha, the
answer may be that you talk to people. In India, as in the West, that option is less
open. Textual study, always important, is even more central here.
So: how to approach old texts like those in which this tradition comes to us? Some
favour an uncritical approach. Like many proponents of contemporary Hinduism,
for instance, they claim that ‘their’ ancient texts are all uniformly perfect and
perfectly consistent. It is wrong, they say, to see such texts as human constructs. It
is inappropriate to investigate their history — to try to work out which bits are
earlier and which are later, which schools of thought may have fed in to a text, or
what political compromises may have led to an agreed version. They wish instead
to see everything in the ancient literature as equally, totally, supremely, pristinely
true, in a way that is not open to dispassionate analysis.
We can call that the bhakti approach. It is deeply embedded in contemporary
Indian culture. We can respect it. Still, the Buddha suggested that we think for
ourselves, that we be self-reliant (attadīpā attasaraṇā hotha), and that does not go
with bhakti. Moreover, if our educational process is to cover science at the same
time as Buddhism, then bhakti will certainly be out of place.
Certainly, we will approach the texts positively, affirmatively — and in that spirit,
we can allow ourselves to recognise that any text is necessarily something that
people have made, slowly, over centuries. It is a product of humans and human
institutions — which, however noble, are always mutable and fallible.
Yes, we will give respect to what we find in the suttas — and we can express that
respect by analysing the material carefully. Academic rigour is important. It does
not preclude the assumption that whatever we find in the texts is likely to be there
for a good reason. Far from it: it is natural and rational to assume that, if we work
hard to understand it in its context, we should be able to make good sense of what
we read. In most cases, we should be able plausibly to reconstruct something at
least of the original intention. Then those of us who seek to go forward on a
Buddhist path should in addition be able to draw from that some life-lessons for
today. Yes, the textual heritage is full of meaning.
That meaning is something we have to dig out. Indeed, we can almost say that the
meaning consists in the process of digging it out. It is a living thing, a dynamic
construct, not some abstract diktat, engraved as it were upon tablets of stone.
A meaning that emerg es
Two stories from the conference may throw some light on this:
 On the first evening, when we all arrived here, someone said they expected the
conference to define the correct understanding of Buddhism. I was reminded
of a story I had recently read3. For his doctoral thesis, to resolve issues of old
Tamil grammar, a respected Indologist went to an area where there were
manuscripts of this material and scholars who knew it. Having allocated many
months to his fieldwork, he arrived and began to settle in. Then he was taken
3
Scharfe, H (2002) Education in Ancient India Brill: Leiden) p2
3
to see someone, a senior and respected person, a modern man active in
business, to whom he explained his project. The big man gave him advice. “Is
that your problem? Well, that’s easy. Just go and see this person — he will tell
you all about it.”
So: the big man’s assumption was that, if there is a question then there is a
right answer — and someone knows it. Whereas the scholar was starting from
a different assumption. He was assuming that it is possible to diminish
uncertainty, no doubt, but it takes a lot of work, and success is at best relative.
By working at a problem, you can make progress. Indeed, you can often
achieve certainty on points of detail. Yet, the bigger the question you address
the harder it becomes to offer definitive, absolute, permanent answers.
Scholarship promises progressively greater understanding. But one never gets
to the point where there is nothing more to learn. And the understanding gained
is not always readily expressible in unambiguous, universally accessible terms.
So, yes, all of us who study Buddhist texts and social forms do so in order to
improve our understanding. That does not imply that someone will at some
point give ‘the correct understanding’ of the tradition.

Later, we saw a list of GBU PhD Research Topics. It gave a clear idea of the
area in which each researcher was working. What sort of conclusion the
researcher might be aiming to draw was not so clear.
Now, in defining a research topic, it is common to focus in gradually.
Roughly, you first explain the broad topic: what you want to talk about. Then
you explain what you want to say about it: the hypothesis you are advancing.
The work you produce, similarly, will probably start with a review of the
literature on the topic, primary and secondary, but then it will attempt to take
things forward. Suppose you are studying your topic in relation to an ancient
text, like one of those collected in the Pāli Canon. In that case, you will often:
1. identify some uncertainty — a question (about your topic/text) that needs to
be resolved, for instance an apparent discrepancy:

within your text, and/or between your text and other texts (possibly
within the Canon, possibly not); and/or

between the implications of your text and what else is known, or
commonly supposed, about the historical context;
then
2. suggest some ways of resolving the uncertainty, for instance some
assumptions we can make about:

how the text(s) under consideration came into the form in which we
have it/them; and/or

how the social context worked at the time,

within the cātuddisa bhikkhusaṅgha and/or

more widely;
then
3. consider ways in which these hypotheses might be tested, i.e. what other
evidence might be brought to bear, and offer some criteria for choosing a
method of testing;
then, using those criteria,
4. select a method and apply it;
and finally, on that basis,
5. propose a likely hypothesis — a plausible assumption that seems to explain
the apparent discrepancy more satisfactorily than any other.
So a thesis is not so much a recital of facts; it is more an attempt to explore
what is not clear and a suggestion for how to diminish uncertainty.
4
Treading a path
What do people mean when they look for ‘the correct understanding of
Buddhism’? One idea is that, if a sufficiently intelligent person can correctly
translate the texts, then other sufficiently intelligent people will be able to
understand them correctly.
Now, it is indeed important that classic Buddhist texts should be available in as
good a translation as possible. So is a perfect, precisely correct translation the
goal? Is it even possible?
Consider an analogy. Suppose that, here in Maharashtra, we have in a family a
bright 10-year-old, a ‘digital native’, and a 90-year-old great-grandparent. And
suppose we observe these two family members talking. They communicate, but
there are areas of incomplete understanding. Some things that the 10-year-old says
make little sense to the grandparent. And the 10-year-old understands some of
what the grand-parent says rather differently from the way it was intended. For,
these two people have experienced different worlds.
That is with a gap of only 80 years. So what about a gap of 800 years? Or 2,500?
Is it plausible, then, that we shall find direct translations in any modern language
for the key concepts presented in early Pali literature? Hardly!
That is why, in studying these or any ancient texts, we need to locate the material
with the economic, social and cultural environment in which it was composed. By
repeatedly comparing text and context we can form an idea of how the language
may originally have worked. That idea will be a complex one, and necessarily
incomplete, but it will help us get into the spirit of what we are reading. Then, by
an exercise of creative imagination, we may be able to crystallise our
understanding in contemporary terms — not precise equivalents of the old words,
but helpful analogues. That is as good as it gets.
Anyhow, if, as well as seeking to understand the texts as texts, we are also looking
for a path to follow in life, which study of the texts can illumine for us, then we do
not need definitive translations. We do not need a set of technical instructions, in
unmistakable, denotative language, like a cook-book or an algorithm. What we
need cannot be encompassed in a single, universally applicable, definitive set of
words. It is not about words, it is about behaviour, first of all our cognitive
behaviour. It is about how we can process our experience — and how, as a result,
we can live from moment to moment.
If we are looking for a meaning that grows from and goes beyond a rigorous,
scholarly appreciation of the tradition, we will live in dialogue with the texts. We
will first interrogate them in the light of their social context, and vice versa; then,
as we gradually explore this universe of discourse, we will reflect anew on where
we are here and now; and that will lead us to look at the texts again, and so on.
What we gain from the ancient sources will not be abstract definitions but
experiential stimuli. We will generate thoughts and feelings and motivations that
may be helpful for us, stage by stage, on our path.
Anyhow, it is no good telling educated people with a sceptical, scientific cast of
mind: “This is what Buddhism says you must think and do — the correct
solution.” Better say: “These are some resources that the tradition offers, some
tools you can use, some ways of thinking and behaving, ways of training yourself,
helpful habits to build. Now, it is up to you. Appamādena sampādetha — ‘keep
your mind on it and you’ll make good things happen’.”
SOC IA L STU D Y
So much for textual work. The other side of Buddhist Studies involves the social
sciences.
5
Social facts
Birendranath Prasad’s paper at the conference offered a straightforward
ethnographic model. Interestingly, it disturbed some people.
Scholars must of course decide what phenomena are worth studying. How is that
decision to be made? Prasad’s critics assumed one criterion, he another.
 They assumed he was claiming that the popular literature he presented
should be seen as normative, i.e. as offering a correct or authoritative
understanding of Buddhism, or at least of contemporary Bihari Buddhism.
 He, on the other hand, found this material worthy of study merely because
it was there: it was printed and circulated in quantity (at least sufficient
quantity for anyone easily to be able to pick up a representative corpus).
The critics felt that, before devoting a study to these cheap bazaar booklets, he
should have evaluated their content by some absolute standard of correctness. But
the whole point of a sociological study is to take the facts on the ground as you
find them — ‘social facts’4, i.e. behaviours and the patterns they fall into. That
means avoiding any absolute, a priori evaluation.
Here again it is unhelpful to think in terms of what is ‘correct’. That should be
fairly self-evident from a Buddhist perspective.
5
 An idealist philosophy, like that which dominates in the complex of
attitudes and beliefs conventionally labelled ‘Hinduism’, assumes, roughly,
that when we use a word we are properly referring to something fixed, an
entity of some sort. This is a world of absolute, correct, normative
meanings.
6
 Buddhist tradition, by contrast, prefers to derive meaning from usage . So,
to make sense of what people say (and do), we must pay close attention to
particular circumstances.
Thus Buddhist thinking accords well with sociology. From both perspectives, it is
necessary to distinguish ‘is’ from ‘ought’ and to work with phenomena as they
present themselves.

We can access ‘social facts’ in the present. They are also are available to us from
the past. A common approach is to put past and present together. A scholar will
for instance first examines how a form of contemporary Buddhism emerged, then
on the basis of that history analyse the situation on the ground today.
Louella Matsunaga’s talk at our conference illustrates this. Having presented the
history, it started to pick out some puzzles, such as: how a person cultivates an
‘entrusting heart’ (shinjin); and how Jodo-Shinsu Buddhism sustains its contemporary success; a longer treatment might have focused more closely on such
problems and offered some hypotheses.
4
5
6
This expression, popularised by Durkheim, suggests that all measurable social phenomena are
of interest, and particularly cases where the measurements of otherwise unrelated phenomena
(e.g. religious affiliation and incidence of suicide) can be correlated.
Different terminologies are used here. Philosophers make a distinction, rooted in mediaeval
Western scholasticism, between nominalism and realism — nominalists hold that general/
abstract words are just names that it is convenient to use in a range of similar cases, whereas
realists hold that each such word (e.g. ‘beast’, ‘beauty’, ‘big’, ‘billion’) corresponds to
something definite that actually exists in some abstract, ideal reality. In those terms, then,
Buddhists are generally nominalist, Hindus realist. But that is not how the word ‘realist’ is
generally understood these days. So we may as well use the term ‘idealist’, which suggests that
reality as a whole is abstract and ideal (rather than concrete and material). [Buddhists, by
contrast, are generally less concerned with ‘reality’ as such, more with the truth of how to live.]
What the wise of this world declare as non-existent, that I too say is non-existent. And what
they recognise as existent that I too say is existent. (Saṃyutta-Nikāya III, 138)
6
Richard Gombrich’s colleague Yu-Shang Yao has recently published a more
elaborate example.7 Having established the historical context of Tzu Chi8, it
examines the movement’s doctrines, its social composition and organisational
structure, and what it offers in terms of ideas and lifestyles.
A more action-oriented approach is also possible. One could for instance study the
applicability of clinical mindfulness to the problem of alcoholism by selecting a
locality where this problem presents itself, offering some mindfulness programmes there and then evaluating their effectiveness.
Training
Buddhist Studies involves consideration of:
 explicit and implicit social teachings found in the texts of the tradition. i.e.:

material on the sīlakkhanda: sammā-vācā, sammā-kammanta,
sammā-ājīva; and

relevant sutta stories and instances given in the vinaya; and of
 the social behaviour of people associated with the tradition, both:

historical:

starting with the original saṅgha and

continuing through Asoka and then down the ages,

across an enormous range of groups identifying themselves as
Buddhist, in many territories; and

contemporary, i.e. the behaviour of diverse Buddhist groups and
individuals today, which can be the object of sociological study
Such work may stimulate us to conduct our own social relations differently. If so,
we shall seek to apply what we have learned from studying others in order:
first to understand:
 how our behaviour can affect the world in which we operate; and
 which effects are more likely to be helpful and which less; and
then to adapt our behaviour so as to improve our chances of achieving helpful
effects.
In other words, we shall wish to train ourselves to operate within our social world
in a way that is at once ethical and effective. Such training is a form of education.
It not need not involve a long list of rules: “in this case, do this; in that case, do
that …”. There is a place for rules, certainly, for it is important not to behave in
certain ways. But, when it comes to positive action, the problem is not so much to
know what to do — the problem is actually to do it.
We have all been in situations where we know we should be warm and
encouraging, or detached and firm, but we cannot quite manage it; where we
should acknowledge an error without making too much of it, or should speak of
another person’s mistake without casting blame, but somehow cannot manage. In
such cases, what we need is not abstract knowledge of correct behaviour but the
practical ability to behave, spontaneously, in a more rather than a less helpful
way. We need to develop skill-in-means (upāya-kauṥalya).
What sort of training will help here?
 The first stage is to develop some ingrained behaviour patterns. These will
involve paying attention first to ourselves, then to others: if we first learn to
keep track of how we are processing our experience, we shall then be better
placed to understand what that experience tells us about others, about how
they are processing their experience and about how we can get on with
them and may even be able to help them get on with one another:
7
8
Yao, Y-S (2012) Taiwan’s Tzu Chi as Engaged Buddhism Global Oriental: Leiden/Boston
Rei-Sheng Her’s impressive presentation in the conference introduced this movement to us.
7
In Samatha-vipassanā practice, we pay attention to our internal processes, so that they are less likely to run away with us. Here:

The full, canonical programme will provide our ultimate frame
of reference: sammā-sati and sammā-samādhi.

But Samatha-vipassanā also includes less complicated and
ambitious behaviours, like the little breathing exercise Grace
Foster Pollard asked us to do in the conference. Before starting
a difficult phone call, for instance, or when stuck for how to put
a point in an email, it is helpful to do a little breathing exercise.
That would be an example of a behavioural routine: a pattern of
action, which you can click into when the situation demands — and
which, over time, will form an ingrained habit.

Other helpful routines involve paying attention to interactions. If we
want to react appropriately, according to sammā-vācā, we must first
notice what is actually going on:

When involved in a meeting, we tend unfortunately to focus on:

the situation that we are supposed to be discussing, on

descriptions of it and arguments about it, and above all on

our own understanding of those arguments, which we
want to express.
That focus makes it hard for us to take note of how people are
speaking and reacting from moment to moment.

So, it make sense for us sometimes to divert our attention from
the arguments to the momentary processes of interaction: who
says what, when and how, with what impact. In order to refocus
our attention in that way, we can for instance routinely:

prepare to report on the meeting, as if to a third party,
and, to that end can

go through a checklist of features to consider.
If we practise such routines for a while, they become habitual.
Having built such habits, we can go on to develop particular skills.
Suppose, for instance, that a misunderstanding develops. Someone thinks a
certain point has been made, and responds to it — but that was not actually
the point which the other person had been trying to make. Soon, there is
mutual incomprehension, and people start to get irritated. It is time to
practise the skill of active listening.
This starts with restraining yourself. One common impulse is to jump in
and explain the misunderstanding: “No, you got that wrong, she didn’t
say….” If you resist that tendency, then you may instead be able to help
your discussion-partners to work out for themselves where the confusion
has arisen. To do so, you can play back what you just heard: “What are we
saying here? The original point, as I understand it, was… — is that right?
And then…” That is active listening.
The Buddha was good at active listening. Often in the suttas, when
someone puts a hostile or unhelpful point, he says something like “So, what
you’re saying is...”, then paraphrases the other person’s idea, reinterpreting
it so as to add a new dimension and turn the conversation around.
We cannot all be as skilful as he. But we can avoid the “No, but…”
reaction. We can instead work to develop the skill of “Yes...And”.9


9
TW Rhys Davids picked up on this long ago.
8
SCIENCE IN A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE
PE R S PE C T I V E S O N ‘ S C IE N C E ’
The term ‘science’ is used in various ways . It is helpful to differentiate between:
1. scientific method;
2. findings accumulated as people have applied scientific method;
3. interpretative frameworks in terms of which scientists and others have
sought to internalise such findings, so as to integrate this knowledge with
the rest of human understanding;
4. institutional forms through which scientists operate in society; and
5. the place of scientific and technological thinking and activity in recent and
contemporary history.
Science education is often understood as covering the first two categories. On a
broader view (‘education for living’), the third and subsequent aspects are crucial.
Teaching people to do science, and to use technology, is important. It is even
more important that people study how to make sense of the science and
technology we all depend on.
PE R I LS O N T H E S C IE N T I FI C PA T H
We are all interested in short term benefits. So, when we are studying a system,
we focus on its components, which we can measure and manipulate to advantage.
Moreover, it is relatively easy to define the detailed behaviour of small parts of
reality, whereas what happens over the large scale and the long term is harder to
model. So we are tempted to elevate the importance of what we can readily pin
down and to blank out what we cannot. We do not think about how things hang
together, and about how systems as a whole are likely to behave in the long term.
Suppose that, in certain circumstances, (i.e. when certain variables have certain
values), certain changes are introduced. We may be able to say what the outcome
will be (i.e. how the values will change). But that will be true only to the extent
that the framework conditions remain constant. That is, our entire analysis will
depend on the basic assumption: ‘all other things being equal…’. But we are often
so pleased with our findings that we forget they depend upon that assumption,
which will not necessarily always be true. Thus, truths we can pin down are
typically conditional, but we too readily accord them absolute validity.
Other errors follow. Delighted with our skill in analysing artificially isolated subsystems, for instance, we start to assume that the behaviour of any large, whole
system can be grasped by understanding how each part works and interacts with
other parts.
Underlying all this is a basic mistake. We assume that if we can measure an effect
on a relatively stable basis, then there must be a really existent, fixed entity behind
it. We ‘reify’, as they say10.
V IE WS
Thus, interpretative frameworks (3. above) are vital. What general frameworks are
available?
Most working scientists, and most of the scientifically-minded public, are
materialists of some sort. The only alternative seems to be some kind of idealism.
These two positions appear to be about what exists.
a. Reality is commonly assumed to be material, so that for instance:

the universe is overwhelmingly made up of dead matter, with only
10
Denis Noble has a great example of this ‘reification’ mistake on p 60 of The Music of Life.
9
a tiny proportion of living matter, which is

overwhelmingly unconscious, with only

a tiny proportion of conscious life, which in turn is

overwhelmingly unreflexive, with only

a tiny proportion of reflexive, self-conscious life. Hence

the human condition:

is an anomaly, radically distinct from the universe as a whole,
and moreover

does not at all correspond with people’s experience, since

subjectivity is an illusion11.
Those who are unhappy with that set of assumptions may feel impelled to
espouse an opposite position, whereby reality:

exists only inasmuch as it is experienced, and probably

is in its nature inseparable from the nature of

the experiencing subject, indeed of

subjective experience,
so that

all matter is in some way alive and

all life in some way conscious,
which will often be taken to mean that:

objectivity is an illusion, i.e.

reality is:

far removed from the way we ordinarily relate to it, indeed is
probably

accessible only to adepts, who may by their efforts come to
share

in its ultimate form, the absolutely real universal consciousness.

b.
Position a. gets us into all sorts of trouble, particularly by way of reification. But
position b. offers no good alternative. So we get stuck.
T R A D IT I O N A L I N S I G H T S
This is where Buddhist tradition comes in. It shares with other ancient Indian
traditions a contempt for materialism12, but is reluctant to be drawn towards the
other extreme. It is suspicious of polar oppositions.
The locus classicus here is the even-handed rejection of ‘eternalism/nihilism’.
This formulation applies first in a specific context and then more generally.
 It relates in the first instance to the human individual. In what sense does
the individual exist? This question is addressed in terms of what happens on
the death of the body.

Two common views are identified.
1. The individual’s essence continues to exist, eternally.
2. Everything that has defined her/him is permanently expunged.

Both are rejected.

An alternative, more appropriate approach is defined negatively, by
exclusion: a person is reborn “not the same and not different.” 13
11
Cf. Francis Crick’s ‘astonishing hypothesis,’ (advanced in his 1994 book of the same name)
whereby
… y o u , y ou r j o y s a n d so rro w s, y ou r me mo ri e s a n d y o u r a mb i t i o n s, y o u r se n se o f p e rso n a l i de n t i t y
a n d f re e w i l l , a re i n f a c t n o mo re t h a n t h e b e h av i o u r o f a v a st a sse mb l y o f n e rv e c e l l s a n d t h e i r
associated neurons.
12
13
(quoted in Denis Noble’s The Music of Life, p 77)
See the Pāyāsi sutta, shared with the Jains.
Milinda-paṇhā 40
10
This analysis is then extended to entities in general14. Where we can
distinguish and label an entity, we tend to assume that
either it therefore exists as an absolutely discrete, continuing, independent
reality,
or,
if not, then we cannot sustainably credit it with existence at all.
The tradition suggests that this assumption is often quite silly.
Note that the Buddhist approach shifts the argument. It is no longer about what
exists. Instead, it is about how we talk and think — and are led astray by labels.15
The formulation “not the same and not different” suggests that, in certain
contexts, certain concepts cannot reasonably be understood in a black-or-white
way. Binary distinctions are so useful in everyday speaking and thinking that we
tend unfortunately to over-rely on them. Buddhist teaching highlights the dangers
of this tendency, which underpins what we now call reification.
The teaching then suggests an anterior cause. Our tendency to conceptualise the
world in terms of polar oppositions goes back to the (‘emotional’16) way we react
to the phenomena we encounter. It is normally all or nothing: like or dislike. That
is ultimately how we come to blank out the systems dimension.
That insight must inform any Buddhist approach to science, and particularly to
science education. Scientific truth is a complex of nested if…then statements, and
if we find it difficult to sustain that perspective that is a psychological problem.

CONCLUSION
Inspired by Dr Ambedkar’s example, the new Indian Buddhists have made great
strides in — and means way of — education. A firm foundation has been laid.
Where to go from here? How to define an educational project for today?
It will surely start by validating the rational, scientific approach, to life and to
learning, as Dr Ambedkar did. It may then wish to define this approach in a way
that meets today’s needs.
There is a need to educate the whole person, so that (s)he can succeed not just in
making a career and gaining monetary reward but also in contributing to Indian
society, above all to neutralising and diminishing obscurantism and supremacism.
That requires an engagement with Buddhist tradition that will be simultaneously
respectful and practice-oriented on the one hand, and on the other critical and
rigorous.
Then there is an associated need to recognise and address the challenges that
society faces across the world. A mistaken appreciation of applied science and
technology is everywhere leading us into a dead end.
This is what lies behind the selfishness of our global society. It emerges in our
despoliation of the planet, and also, on a more mundane level, in the attitude that
says “my responsibility is to do what it takes to secure my and my family’s
economic security, and if, after making that supreme effort, I have any time and
money left for wider causes, I can perhaps contribute — provided I do not thereby
jeopardise my career”. Such ‘careerism’ saps the motivation of good people in the
Ambedkar movement as elsewhere. So a group educated to lead the reform of
Indian society will on the one hand cultivate genuine scientific thinking and on
the other strive to counteract the abuses to which a distorted view of science
always leads.
14
15
16
This extension becomes more explicit in the Mahāyāna literature, but is implicit from the first.
Note 3 above refers.
There is no term in an ancient Indian language that corresponds to emotion. This categorisation
arises from the peculiar role accorded to reason in the Hellenistic world.
11
12