..續本文上一頁 cloning. You want to clone me, go for it! But don”t think that if you clone Ajahn Brahm that you”ll be able to have one Ajahn Brahm who goes to Singapore this evening, another one who stays in Perth for next Friday night”s talk, plus one who can stay in Bodhinyana monastery, one who can go to Sydney, and one who can go to Melbourne. If you clone me, the person who looks like me will be completely different in personality, knowledge, inclination, and everything else. People clone Toyota cars in the same way. They look exactly the same but the performance really depends on the driver inside the car. That”s all cloning is, it”s just a replicating a body. Sure it looks the same, but is the body all that a person is
Haven”t you seen identical twins
Are identical twins the same personality
Have they got the same intelligence
Have they got the identical inclinations
Do they even like the same food
The answer is usually no.
Why do people have this problem about cloning
Clone as much as you want. You are just creating more bodies for streams of consciousness to come into. Those streams of consciousness come from past lives. What”s the problem
You would never be able to predict the result. Suppose you took Einstein”s brain, extracted some of his DNA, and cloned a new Einstein. He might look the same, but I guarantee he won”t be half as clever.
If people want to proceed with stem cell research, which is going to help humanity, then why not
In stem cell research there is no ”being” involved. The ”being” hasn”t come in yet. In Buddhism, it is understood that the ”being” descends into the mother”s womb at any time from conception until birth. Sometimes it doesn”t even go into the womb at all and the foetus is stillborn. The objections to stem cell research are dogmatic, unscientific, and uncompassionate. They”re foolish as far as I”m concerned. I think sometimes that I would tear my hair out if I weren”t a monk.
If you want to look at the scientific evidence for rebirth, check out Professor Ian Stevenson. He spent his whole life researching rebirth on a solid scientific basis at the University of Virginia.[4] Chester Carlson, the inventor of xerography, (encouraged by his wife) offered funds for an endowed chair at the University to enabled Professor Stevenson to devote himself full-time to such research. If it weren”t for the fact that people do not want to believe in rebirth, Dr. Ian Stevenson would be a world famous scientist now. He even spent a couple of years as a visiting fellow of Magdalene College in Oxford, so you can see that this is not just some weird professor; he has all of the credentials of a respected Western academic.
Dr. Stevenson has over 3000 cases on his files. One interesting example was the very clear case of a man who remembered many details from his past life, with no way of gaining that information from any other source. That person died only a few weeks before he was reborn! Which raises the question, for all those months that the foetus was in the womb, who was it
As far as Buddhism is concerned, the mother kept that foetus going with her own stream of consciousness. But when another stream of consciousness entered, then the foetus became the new person. That is one case where the stream of consciousness entered the mother”s womb when the foetus was almost fully developed. That can happen. That was understood by Buddhism twenty five centuries ago. If the stream of consciousness doesn”t enter the mother”s womb, the child is a stillborn. There is a heap of evidence supporting that.
Science and Buddhism
When a Buddhist looks through a telescope, they are not scared by what they might find. They are not scared of science. Science is an essential part of Buddhism. If science can disprove rebirth, then Buddhists should give up the idea of rebirth. If science disproves non-self, and shows there is a self, then all Buddhists should abandon non-self. If science proves there is no such thing as kamma, but instead there is a big God up in the sky, then all Buddhists should believe in God. That is, if it”s provable science. Buddhism has no sacred cows. However, I encourage you to do those experiments for yourselves. I”ll bet you will find out that there is no one ”in there”. You will find out about kamma. You will find out you”ve been here before, that this is not your first life. If you don”t behave yourselves in this life, you”ll have another life to come yet. Do you think you are finished with nappies, with school
Do you really want to go through all that again
If not be careful.
So, here is my thinking about science and Buddhism. I think that Buddhism is pure science, a science that doesn”t stop ”out there”, but also investigates the mind, the ”being”, the ”ghost in the machine”. And it doesn”t disregard any anomalies. Buddhism takes everything as its data, especially experience, and looks at it scientifically. It is incredibly successful.
One of the reasons why people celebrate science is because of all of its achievements in technology. One of the reasons why Buddhism is growing these days is because of all of its achievements in the ”technology of the mind”. It solves problems. It explains mental difficulties. Buddhism succeeds in solving those inner problems because it has all these strategies, these ancient ”gizmos”, which actually work. If you try some of these Buddhist gizmos, you will find out for yourself that they produce the goods, they solve your inner suffering and pain. That is why Buddhism is growing. I think that Buddhism will supplant science!
Thank you very much.
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