Consilience
Is a possible future meeting between East and West as likely as it is necessary? Is it obtainable and to be devoutly wished for? In a hundred years will there be a sustainable, functioning civilization? If so, what might it look like? Will it function only by pulling some new cultural evolutionary rabbit out the the hat? Or will it succeed by combining elements of all prior cultures that have useful traits to offer while itself evolving? If so, what will the West contribute? Faith? True dogma? Perhaps science would be the better answer. What of the East? Would it have anything fundamental to contribute? Guru worship and imaginative beliefs? Perhaps mindfulness practice would be the better answer.
The obvious is that while science does not need religion (as mindfulness practice), and religion (as inner inquiry) does not need science, we humans need both if we are to live long as a species and prosper as members of a co-evolutionary community of living beings on the third planet from Sun that, compared to the others, is indeed a paradise—this Heaven that is our one and only Earth, of which there will be no others for a foreseeably long time.
To live in the outer world we need science to understand it and help us to live/act appropriately. To live together as humans we need to be grounded in our humanity, to be mindful of all, to connect, care, understand, and love this earth and the things of it—including ourselves and one another. We need to have the wisdom that comes with insight to act spontaneously as needed.
That within all religious belief systems there are individual humans that have been and done good does not argue for the validity of the beliefs espoused, the believing mind, nor the culture of belief. The intention to be good appears part of being human and beliefs often appear to compel humans to envision horrors like Holy Wars, then conduct them. That some people fail to mindlessly follow 'True' beliefs is not the problem. There is no law of the universe saying that we must have, be had by, possess or be possessed by any sacred beliefs whatsoever. Just say no to ideology, to organized belief, whether political or religious, and 'scientific ideology', were it to ever exist, would be a dispensable abomination as well.
The obvious is that religion as belief is incompatible with free inquiry. If we are free to make up concepts and believe in them, then we create a demon haunted world of supernatural entities and explanatory fictions. The only guide to truth will be: If it feels good, BELIEVE IT!, and if IT! Is Written, you better believe it and think it feels good. Those who have had a slight taste of free inquiry know that beliefs do not make you free, that beliefs are for doubting, and the process of questioning has no final end. What is truth?
East and West, heart and mind, can find consilience in xin or heart-mind which is in the East is One, the Not-two, and not parsed into concepts as in the West. Human beings need both. Dr. Mengele had mind, and at some point he may have had some heart leading him to become a medical doctor, but at Auschwitz he clearly became cut off from heart. To be all heart, but with no mind, as some saints manifest, is also to fall short of being fully human. The best of us have and strive to develop both as both can indeed be developed for the price of an effort. Mindfulness practice brings forth the heart; thoughtfulness practice develops the mind. East and West learn from one another. Living in a practice supportive environment is an aid. Creating, in practice, such a heart-mind environment is possible. So let us make xin with practice but no belief. Consilience results in mindful science.
I wish all to be free, unconditionally free in the field of thought. I wish all to be unconditionally free to respond appropriately to each transient moment of life with minds unclouded by ignorance—to know right and do it freely in response to one's best insight, but then to also thoughtfully and freely question everything.
We must create a civilization of inquiry, the best of East and West, one that embraces the religious and scientific quest. For both, freedom must come first, a freedom that is a freedom from conclusions, from fixed beliefs. If your conclusions determine what your reasoning is, then your reasoning is sham. To think well involves using reason and evidence to move toward tentative conclusions worthy of consideration. Error is ever possible.
The order is crucial: For the believing mind, conclusions (as beliefs) determine what one's reasoning shall be and what evidence will be acknowledged. For the inquiring mind—reason, evidence, and an overarching concern for error determine what one's tentative, provisional 'beliefs' as conjectures shall be, all of which are always willingly subject to change.
Belief-based civilizations must give way to an inquiry-based civilization as the belief-based is ever fragmenting, hence plural, while inquiry is of necessity inclusive, laying the foundations for a global concern, a Federation of Inquiry providing the common ground upon which all but the True Believers can meet. True Believers are not born, but made and can be unmade so as to not infect the generations that follow. The transformation unfolds within each mind to be transmitted from pointing mind to mind. If a finger points, don't look fixedly at the finger. Endeavor to see for oneself what is pointed at; put no head higher than your own; accept nothing by faith; believe nothing, but freely question—guessing as needed, then testing.
The essence of the Western Enlightenment may be found in Pascal's “Therefore endeavor to think well.” His own failures emphasize the 'endeavor'. To think well is an endeavor that even the Pascals of the world find difficult. How much more appropriate that the rest of us humbly acknowledge the difficulty. Yet endeavor we must, and those who endeavor well are to be respected, but never worshiped, never uncritically believed.
The essence of the Eastern Enlightenment may be stated as, “Therefore endeavor to be mindful.” Of this, the West has little insight. The endeavor to be aware in the moment, to be awake to the ineffable, to see with the One Mind, to know without knowing, is to create through 'meditation' a mindful state in which insight can come to transform, to end fear, to liberate. The default condition of the human mind is one of assumptions that pervade consciousness, assumptions unquestioned, a baseline functionality that works in the early years of life, but one that is capable of maturation and transformation by way of insight, the awakening of intelligence. Maturity does not simply come at 18, 21, 30, 55, or even at 80 years of age. It is a growth process, punctuated by insight.
Each must undertake the quest alone, to alone transcend the Many to become One. We are born as [potentially] many people, and can at best die as one. The full development of the human being requires mindfulness (don't believe this claim, consider it and test it). If most individuals never arise from their knees to stand up, are not functional, neither is the family, the community, the city, much less the civilization.
Transformation of the individual can only come from within. For society it can come from the top down or the bottom up. We've tried top down numerous times. Read history. No sane person would go there—Big Brother (authoritarianism in every guise) does not love you or this earth. That leaves the bottom up. This happened in ancient Greece as the free, the curious, and the critical mind spread, people got use to it, got to know it, and to love it. The Roman boot prevented the possibility of full flowering, but let us not assume that no flowering is possible, nor assume that a boot will stomp in the human face forever. At bottom we are the people, and as the bard said, “What is the city but the people?” Cities, communities add up to civilization. If the people choose change, then as numeric proportions change, all above changes.
This leaves the one question: How to live rightly?
Let us count the ways.