Suzuki reflected, "If it were possible for me to talk with them now, I would tell them that my ideas have changed from theirs somewhat. I now think that a religion based solely on science is not enough. There are certain 'mythological' elements in every one of us, which cannot be altogether lost in favor of science. This is a conviction I have come to."

Suzuki was not alone. The negative effects of two World Wars, both frightening examples of the ill-fated marriage of scientific technology and human ignorance, did much to damper enthusiasm and optimism for science as a panacea for human problems. Chemical and biological warfare, nuclear bombs, environmental pollution, along with experiments on human embryos and the burgeoning spectre of genetically engineered life—all shatter illusions that science per se spells progress or generates wisdom and ethical imperatives. Public concern over the dubious relationship of science to social benefits and human values if anything seems to be growing. In sum, doubts that would never have troubled Paul Cams' infatuation with science have now become commonplace: Is science sufficient for describing reality? Is it capable of meeting human needs?

This idea: that the very fabric of modern science is lacking this grounding in the moral sphere, and as a result its discoveries and uses are incomplete and often deleterious, should not surprise a Buddhist. For it is here that the marriage between Buddhism and science begins to unravel, and where the comparison breaks down. You will notice that throughout the East Asian traditions there exists what I call a rather distinctive epistemological model or way of knowing; a theme that repeats itself again and again. In Sanskrit it's called sila, samadhi, and prajna (morality, concentration, wisdom). The ethical component cannot be overemphasized. For, in order to see things as they are, there has to be this purification of the mind—a rectification on the part of the beholder. Another text, The Visuddhi Magga, ("The Path of Purification"), an early Buddhist manual from the fourth century, describes the Buddha's science of inquiry as a three-step path: virtue, meditation, and then insight into the nature of all things as they really are.

This approach presents something quite different from the premises and procedures of modern science. Any of you students or faculty here from Stanford or U.C. Berkeley, I doubt you will have encountered this ancient methodology as part of your scientific training-even in the History of Science. When you go into your science classes nobody says, "You will need a protractor, an advance-function calculator, a computer, and of course be expected to sign up for the lab section on virtue and meditation, prior to writing up your insights." These are not the standard laboratory equipment of a modern-day scientist. And yet, without these, in the Eastern spiritual and philosophical sense, you cannot have science. This is "science" without a firm foundation. This formula is not unique to Buddhism; it appears throughout the Eastern traditions: Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism. Taoism, for example, speaks about cultivating the mind (xin), and regards the mind as a repository of all perceptions and knowledge. It rules the body. It is spiritual. And like a divinity, it will abide only where all is clean. This knowledge, this truth can only abide where the mind is made clean—meaning, one must be morally sound and grounded. It is interesting that these ancient wisdom traditions considered moral purity as the absolute prerequisite of true knowledge, and that we today regard it as immaterial, if not downright irrelevant.

The Kuan Tzu—a text from around the fourth to third century B.C.—stated: "What all people desire to know is that (meaning the external world), but our means of knowing that is by this (our self, our mind)." How can we know that (the external world)? Only by perfecting this.

Already in the fourth to third century B.C., there was an awareness of some of the sticky epistemological problems confronting modern science. You could say that the goal of science is to know the natural world, i. e., "What all people desire to know is that.'" But, as the "new science" so keenly points out, our means of knowing that is through this. That is to say, the possibility of achieving a description of the world that is independent of the means by which it was investigated can no longer be taken for granted. Gone is the neat subject/object distinction. It now seems entirely possible as Heisenberg pointed out, that the very act of measurement interferes with what one is attempting to measure. If the scientist in search of truth alters the very truth he or she seeks, then the very existence of a world external to the observer can be doubted. Heisenberg introduced the "uncertainty principle," and observed, "even in science the object of research is no longer nature itself, but man's investigation of nature."

So, the third line of the Kuan Tzu could in fact pose the very dilemma modern scientists now grapple with: "How can we know that?"

Even Einstein felt the challenge—maintaining and defending with increasing difficulty his belief in the reality of an external world governed by mechanisms that science could disclose. You could say, that quantum physics has brought us no further along in our understanding than to the conundrum posed in the third line of a Chinese verse from fourth century B.C.

The Kuan Tzu ponders, "All men desire to know, but they do not enquire into that whereby one know." How indeed can one know anything external when all that is known is known through the mode of the perceiver? Are we studying ourselves when we think we are studying nature? Will the "new science" eventually come to the conclusion of Kuan Tzu, that only "by perfecting this," can we truly know that? It is an interesting question: how accurate and objective can the observation be if the observer is flawed and imperfect? And again, this perfection refers to the cultivation of moral qualities and the elimination of what we call klesa, which in Buddhism refers to afflictions such as greed, hatred, ignorance, pride, selfishness, and a variety of attachments and emotional extremes.

Mencius, in the Confucian tradition, talks about what he calls, "the unmoving mind" that he acquired at the age of 40. This refers to knowledge derived from the cultivation of equanimity resulting from the exercise of a moral sense. This "good knowledge" is gained by intuitive insight, and is to be distinguished from knowledge acquired through mental activity.

To be continued