Yes, of course. Buddha taught 2500 years ago and there have been many changes since then. When he taught India didn't yet have writing. So that was a pretty major change soon after he died, introduction of writing. Also introduction of the modern system of Brahmi numerals and later positional notation with zero. And full use of fractions and negative numbers.
So - you don't go to the Buddha's teachings to learn about mathematics or about science for that matter. They simply didn't have the idea of experimental science. But they had a very well developed "science of the mind". Use of logic and reasoning and thought to look at how we think and relate to the world around us. Motivated by direct experience.
Indeed, in Buddhist teachings, there's something rather unusual that we don't really have in the west. There's the idea of a kind of truth that you have to see for yourself.
The four noble truths are
Truth of Dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness)
Truth of origin of Dukkha
Truth of cessation of Dukkha
Truth of path leading to cessation of Dukkha.
Now, I don't want to go into explaining those. Try this page here for an intro
The Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path
But the main points I want to highlight here are first, that the truth of Dukkha covers even unmixed joy, or a peaceful calm clear mind without even a slightest trace of any anxiety or restlessness, a mind so peaceful most people would assume they are enlightened already. Buddha learnt how to enter those states a long time before he became enlightened - at will. His teacher for the most refined of the states he learnt to enter asked him to take over as the leader of the community. But he decided that this was not a final solution at all, not what he was looking for, because it depended on conditions. This too was dukkha, unsatisfactory in the sense that it doesn't provide a final solution to all our problems.
So then - the interesting thing is that he taught that by coming to see a certain truth - the truth he saw when he became enlightened, you can become Buddha yourself. That's the truth of cessation of Dukkha. He taught a path that he said can lead us to see this truth.
So what kind of a truth could it be that works like that? It's obviously not a truth like a truth of maths or science, which you can learn by studying in books. That's why you get all these analogies in Buddhism about not mistaking the finger for the Moon. If it was a truth like that, then you could learn it, yes, but then what happens when you forget it? You'd be back in conditioned existence and suffering.
So - that's then the idea of a truth that you have to see for yourself. That it's not enough to just learn about it in books. In some way, it can only be experienced, realized directly. What you read in books, and all the reasoning you do, is only pointing you in the direction of eventually seeing this truth for yourself. And if you are not Buddha yet, then you haven't yet really seen this truth. You just have seen hints of it, maybe reasoning that points in its direction.
So in that sense - the four noble truths - on the face of it they are quite simple and straightforward. You can get some idea of what they are like right away. But in the end, you only really understand them if you are Buddha.
So - that's quite an interesting take on truth I think. Which we don't have in Western religions or systems of thought. At least - we do have it in hints and poetic language, poets like Keats, or passages from the bible that I think hint at something similar. But in Buddhism it is set out clearly and logically. You can reason about it. You can use reasoning to help you discover this truth. But in the end you have to see it for yourself.
So in that way Buddhism remains still relevant even 2500 years later. Though science has arisen since then, and even maths in its present form barely existed back then - this path remains as living and relevant and in many ways continually new as it ever has.
As for the other ideas such as karma and rebirth and so on - they are of somewhat less importance. The main thing one needs there is just an open mind that when you die, you don't know what comes next, and that what you do now in some way is connected to a far future after you die. Buddha actually warned against trying to work out how things work in great detail from one life to another, saying that this just gets you perplexed and distressed basically, trying to figure out something that can't really be worked out in the way we want to work it out.
You can relate I think to this idea of a truth that in some way can only be seen directly without that open mind about what happens when you die. But it's easier to connect to it if you have the idea that this life is not all that there is.
That I think is one of the things that can make Buddhism a bit hard for modern people to relate to. Many have the idea that this life is all that there is. If so you might think - well all I need is to remain reasonably happy throughout this lifetime - and that's - if not a final solution to all my problems, at least it's a way of managing, more or less, until my life is over which is then the end of everything.
But scientists haven't proven this. They have found that the brain when damaged affects your mind and mental abilities true. But they haven't shown anything about what happens to your mind when you die. They don't know where to begin to explore that.
They have this idea that the mind is just a computer program, by analogy with ordinary computers. But that again - it's just an analogy. Again nothing proved, just a vivid image.
And in quantum mechanics they have the idea that you can only make sense of how atoms work if you have an observer who is able to observe them. But - they don't have a clear picture at all of how that observer process works. In that way an element of mind is built right into the heart of modern physics, and I think it is fair to say that, so far at least, nobody understand what its place is and how and why that all works.
All this science also is done by people with minds. But we don't really understand how it is possible for humans to be able to understand truth. How can we, as just beings who evolved on a planet from basic chemicals - how can we manage to look around and understand science and mathematics, and have these ideas of things being true and not being true? I don't think scientists really have a clue about how that is possible. Some may think they are making progress towards understanding that but I think they are a long way away from truly understanding it.
If you think like that - well - one question you can ask is - if this life is everything that there is - what happens to it when you die? When you die, all of your memories would be gone. But you also. So - in what sense did you ever exist in the first place? I think maybe we have the idea somehow of amnesia almost, like when you die, that you get forgotten. But it's not like that is it, from your point of view, not if you no longer exist when you die?It's like you were never there in the first place. No difference if you were or were not, from your point of view, as there is no you to remember anything.
And same applies to everyone. No anyone to remember anything in any of their memories of the world, if they cease to exist when they die. So in what sense could the world exist at all for anyone right now, if that was true?
So - when you look at it this way - and I'm not presenting this as a philosophical or scientific argument. It's reasoning to appeal to your own direct understanding of things. Does it actually make sense to think that when you die, that's it? Just something to think over, if you are of that view. If this doesn't convince or make sense to you then it probably won't help to try to turn it into a philosophical or scientific discussion.
Anyway, it's certainly possible to be a modern Buddhist, are many of them, hundreds of millions. And well possible to be a Buddhist and also keen on science and maths, I am like that. I don't go to the Buddha's teachings from 2500 years ago to find out about science, after all it didn't exist back then. But he taught a way of relating directly to truth, and a grounded, honest approach to life, that has many parallels I think with the scientific approach and works well with it.
Science and philosophy however in the Western sense is all what Buddhists call "relative truth" - truths you can learn from books, truths that explain how the world works in ways that can be explained in systems of conceptual ideas that hang together - and when you get how those ideas work you then know the truth. And they are all truths that you can forget. Even maths is like that - though some mathematicians sometimes refer to it as platonic truth, and it seems timeless - but - whatever you think about all that - still it's a system of ideas that you learn and you can forget, so in the Buddhist sense, they are really relative truth, at least the way that we as humans approach maths, as truths you can learn and forget in this way.
But Buddha taught the truths also of absolute truth. These are the truths at the heart of Buddhism, which I like to think of as the magic at the heart of the teachings of the Buddha. And I think this is something that is always alive and relevant, as much today as it was 2500 years ago. For those who find the path of the Buddha meaningful and relevant.
I'm not saying at all that this is the path for everyone. But you can certainly be a modern Buddhist.
See also: Magic at the Heart of the Buddha's Teachings - Two Kinds of Truth by Robert Walker on Some ideas about Buddhist teachings
So - you don't go to the Buddha's teachings to learn about mathematics or about science for that matter. They simply didn't have the idea of experimental science. But they had a very well developed "science of the mind". Use of logic and reasoning and thought to look at how we think and relate to the world around us. Motivated by direct experience.
Indeed, in Buddhist teachings, there's something rather unusual that we don't really have in the west. There's the idea of a kind of truth that you have to see for yourself.
The four noble truths are
Truth of Dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness)
Truth of origin of Dukkha
Truth of cessation of Dukkha
Truth of path leading to cessation of Dukkha.
Now, I don't want to go into explaining those. Try this page here for an intro
The Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path
But the main points I want to highlight here are first, that the truth of Dukkha covers even unmixed joy, or a peaceful calm clear mind without even a slightest trace of any anxiety or restlessness, a mind so peaceful most people would assume they are enlightened already. Buddha learnt how to enter those states a long time before he became enlightened - at will. His teacher for the most refined of the states he learnt to enter asked him to take over as the leader of the community. But he decided that this was not a final solution at all, not what he was looking for, because it depended on conditions. This too was dukkha, unsatisfactory in the sense that it doesn't provide a final solution to all our problems.
So then - the interesting thing is that he taught that by coming to see a certain truth - the truth he saw when he became enlightened, you can become Buddha yourself. That's the truth of cessation of Dukkha. He taught a path that he said can lead us to see this truth.
So what kind of a truth could it be that works like that? It's obviously not a truth like a truth of maths or science, which you can learn by studying in books. That's why you get all these analogies in Buddhism about not mistaking the finger for the Moon. If it was a truth like that, then you could learn it, yes, but then what happens when you forget it? You'd be back in conditioned existence and suffering.
So - that's then the idea of a truth that you have to see for yourself. That it's not enough to just learn about it in books. In some way, it can only be experienced, realized directly. What you read in books, and all the reasoning you do, is only pointing you in the direction of eventually seeing this truth for yourself. And if you are not Buddha yet, then you haven't yet really seen this truth. You just have seen hints of it, maybe reasoning that points in its direction.
So in that sense - the four noble truths - on the face of it they are quite simple and straightforward. You can get some idea of what they are like right away. But in the end, you only really understand them if you are Buddha.
So - that's quite an interesting take on truth I think. Which we don't have in Western religions or systems of thought. At least - we do have it in hints and poetic language, poets like Keats, or passages from the bible that I think hint at something similar. But in Buddhism it is set out clearly and logically. You can reason about it. You can use reasoning to help you discover this truth. But in the end you have to see it for yourself.
So in that way Buddhism remains still relevant even 2500 years later. Though science has arisen since then, and even maths in its present form barely existed back then - this path remains as living and relevant and in many ways continually new as it ever has.
As for the other ideas such as karma and rebirth and so on - they are of somewhat less importance. The main thing one needs there is just an open mind that when you die, you don't know what comes next, and that what you do now in some way is connected to a far future after you die. Buddha actually warned against trying to work out how things work in great detail from one life to another, saying that this just gets you perplexed and distressed basically, trying to figure out something that can't really be worked out in the way we want to work it out.
You can relate I think to this idea of a truth that in some way can only be seen directly without that open mind about what happens when you die. But it's easier to connect to it if you have the idea that this life is not all that there is.
That I think is one of the things that can make Buddhism a bit hard for modern people to relate to. Many have the idea that this life is all that there is. If so you might think - well all I need is to remain reasonably happy throughout this lifetime - and that's - if not a final solution to all my problems, at least it's a way of managing, more or less, until my life is over which is then the end of everything.
But scientists haven't proven this. They have found that the brain when damaged affects your mind and mental abilities true. But they haven't shown anything about what happens to your mind when you die. They don't know where to begin to explore that.
They have this idea that the mind is just a computer program, by analogy with ordinary computers. But that again - it's just an analogy. Again nothing proved, just a vivid image.
And in quantum mechanics they have the idea that you can only make sense of how atoms work if you have an observer who is able to observe them. But - they don't have a clear picture at all of how that observer process works. In that way an element of mind is built right into the heart of modern physics, and I think it is fair to say that, so far at least, nobody understand what its place is and how and why that all works.
All this science also is done by people with minds. But we don't really understand how it is possible for humans to be able to understand truth. How can we, as just beings who evolved on a planet from basic chemicals - how can we manage to look around and understand science and mathematics, and have these ideas of things being true and not being true? I don't think scientists really have a clue about how that is possible. Some may think they are making progress towards understanding that but I think they are a long way away from truly understanding it.
If you think like that - well - one question you can ask is - if this life is everything that there is - what happens to it when you die? When you die, all of your memories would be gone. But you also. So - in what sense did you ever exist in the first place? I think maybe we have the idea somehow of amnesia almost, like when you die, that you get forgotten. But it's not like that is it, from your point of view, not if you no longer exist when you die?It's like you were never there in the first place. No difference if you were or were not, from your point of view, as there is no you to remember anything.
And same applies to everyone. No anyone to remember anything in any of their memories of the world, if they cease to exist when they die. So in what sense could the world exist at all for anyone right now, if that was true?
So - when you look at it this way - and I'm not presenting this as a philosophical or scientific argument. It's reasoning to appeal to your own direct understanding of things. Does it actually make sense to think that when you die, that's it? Just something to think over, if you are of that view. If this doesn't convince or make sense to you then it probably won't help to try to turn it into a philosophical or scientific discussion.
Anyway, it's certainly possible to be a modern Buddhist, are many of them, hundreds of millions. And well possible to be a Buddhist and also keen on science and maths, I am like that. I don't go to the Buddha's teachings from 2500 years ago to find out about science, after all it didn't exist back then. But he taught a way of relating directly to truth, and a grounded, honest approach to life, that has many parallels I think with the scientific approach and works well with it.
Science and philosophy however in the Western sense is all what Buddhists call "relative truth" - truths you can learn from books, truths that explain how the world works in ways that can be explained in systems of conceptual ideas that hang together - and when you get how those ideas work you then know the truth. And they are all truths that you can forget. Even maths is like that - though some mathematicians sometimes refer to it as platonic truth, and it seems timeless - but - whatever you think about all that - still it's a system of ideas that you learn and you can forget, so in the Buddhist sense, they are really relative truth, at least the way that we as humans approach maths, as truths you can learn and forget in this way.
But Buddha taught the truths also of absolute truth. These are the truths at the heart of Buddhism, which I like to think of as the magic at the heart of the teachings of the Buddha. And I think this is something that is always alive and relevant, as much today as it was 2500 years ago. For those who find the path of the Buddha meaningful and relevant.
I'm not saying at all that this is the path for everyone. But you can certainly be a modern Buddhist.
See also: Magic at the Heart of the Buddha's Teachings - Two Kinds of Truth by Robert Walker on Some ideas about Buddhist teachings
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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