..续本文上一页 modern science and philosophy. We find the analytical approach very substantially used in science. In philosophy, we see the analytical tradition perhaps best in Bertrand Russell. There have been studies that compare quite successfully the philosophy of Bertrand Russell with the philosophy of the Buddhist Abhidharma. So in western science and philosophy, we find a very close parallel with the Buddhist analytical method and this again is one of the familiar features that has attracted western thinkers and academics to Buddhism. In the area of psychology, psychologists are now deeply interested in the Buddhist analysis of the various factors of experience - feeling, idea, habit and so forth. They are now turning to Buddhist teachings to gain a greater insight into their own disciplines.

　　This growing interest in Buddhism and these many areas of affinity between the teachings of the Buddha and the tendencies of modern science, philosophy and psychology have reached their apex at this very time in the suggestions now proposed by quantum physics, the latest developments in experimental theoretical physics. Here too we find that not only is the method of science observation, experiment and analysis anticipated by the Buddha, but that some of the very specific conclusions about the nature of man and the universe that are indicated by the latest developments in quantum physics were also indicated by the Buddha. For instance, the importance of the mind. A noted physicist not long ago remarked that the Universe is really something like a great thought. And it is said in the Dhammapada that the mind precedes all things, that the mind is the maker of all mental states. Similarly, the relativity of matter and energy is mentioned. There is no radical pision between mind and matter. All these indications are now gradually being revealed by the latest developments in science.

　　So what has happened is that in the western contexts, academics, psychologists, and scientists have found in Buddhism a tradition which is in harmony with some of the basic tenets of western scientific thought. In addition to this, they find that Buddhism is particularly interesting because although the methods and the discoveries often resemble closely those of Buddhism, they find that in science so far, there is no path or method of achieving an inner transformation. They have methods of building better cities and expressways but they have not had any system which will enable them to build better people. So people in the west are turning to Buddhism. As an ancient tradition, it has many aspects that closely resemble practices in the western scientific traditions and yet goes beyond the materialism of the western tradition, beyond the limits of the scientific tradition.

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