The Universe in a Single Atom Quotes

“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“unless the direction of science is guided by a consciously ethical motivation, especially compassion, its effects may fail to bring benefit. They may indeed cause great harm.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“What we do and think in our own lives, then, becomes of extreme importance as it effects everything we're connected to.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“If as spiritual practitioners we ignore the discoveries of science, our practice is also impoverished, as this mind-set can lead to fundamentalism.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“The theory of emptiness…is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“For modern science, at least from a philosophical point of view, the critical divide seems to be between inanimate matter and the origin of living organisms, while for Buddhism the critical divide is between non-sentient matter and the emergence of sentient beings.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“There is more to human existence and to reality itself than current science can ever give us access to.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“The view that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles is, to my mind, as much a metaphysical position as the view that an organizing intelligence created and controls reality.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“This is a precious gateway into the alleviation of suffering, which I believe to be our principal task on this earth.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“the first moment of consciousness of the new being must be preceded by its substantial cause, which must be a moment of consciousness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“What marks the transition from non-sentient to sentient beings? A model of increasing complexity based on evolution through natural selection is simply a descriptive hypothesis, a kind of euphemism for “mystery,” and not a satisfactory explanation.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“The view that all mental processes are necessarily physical processes is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“no credible understanding of the natural world or our human existence—what I am going to call in this book a worldview—can ignore the basic insights of theories as key as evolution, relativity, and quantum mechanics.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“I wish to emphasize to the millions of my fellow Buddhists worldwide the need to take science seriously and to accept its fundamental discoveries within their worldview.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Can there be a completely different set of laws of physics in a different universe, or do the laws of physics as we understand them hold true in all possible universes? If the answer is that a different set of laws can operate in a different universe system, this would suggest (from a Buddhist perspective) that even the laws of physics are entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that will arise in that universe.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Scientists have a special responsibility, a moral responsibility, in ensuring that science serves the interests of humanity in the best possible way.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“In the case of food, if the argument is valid that we need some kind of genetic modification to help feed the world’s growing population, then I believe that we cannot simply dismiss this branch of genetic technology. However, if, as suggested by its critics, this argument is merely a front for motives that are primarily commercial—such as producing food that will simply have a longer lasting shelf life, that can be more easily exported from one side of the world to the other, that is more attractive in appearance and more convenient in consumption, or creating grains and cereals engineered not to produce their own seeds so that farmers are forced to depend entirely upon the biotech companies for seeds—then clearly such practices must be seriously questioned. Many”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Anton showed me an instrument that allows one to view an ionized single atom. Try as I might, though, I simply could not see it. Perhaps my karma wasn’t ripe enough to enjoy this spectacle.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“All truths in science must be demonstrated either through experiment or through mathematical proof. The idea that something must be so because Newton or Einstein said so is simply not scientific.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“No scientific description of the neural mechanisms of color discrimination can make one understand what it feels like to perceive, say, the color red.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“On the whole, I think the Darwinian theory of evolution, at least with the additional insights of modern genetics, gives us a fairly coherent account of the evolution of human life on earth. At the same time, I believe that karma can have a central role in understanding the origination of what Buddhism calls “sentience,” through the media of energy and consciousness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“To a Mahayana Buddhist exposed to Nagarjuna’s thought, there is an unmistakable resonance between the notion of emptiness and the new physics.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Science and technology are powerful tools, but we must decide how best to use them.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“The specific areas of science that I have explored most over the years are subatomic physics, cosmology, and biology, including neuroscience and psychology.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“La ciencia y la tecnología son instrumentos poderosos, pero debemos decidir cuál es el mejor uso que les podemos dar.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, El universo en un solo átomo: Cómo la unión entre la ciencia y espiritualidad pueden salvar el mundo

“According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is untenable. All things and events, whether material, mental, or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective independent existence. To possess such independent, intrinsic existence would imply that things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely contained.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“If twentieth-century history - with its widespread belief in social Darwinism and the many terrible effects of trying to apply eugenics that resulted from it - has anything to teach us, it is that we humans have a dangerous tendency to turn the visions we construct of ourselves into self-fulfilling prophecies. The idea of the "survival of the fittest" has been misused to condone, and in some cases to justify, excesses of human greed and individualism and ignore ethical models for relating to our fellow human beings in a more compassionate spirit. Thus, irrespective of our conceptions of science, given that science today occupies such an important seat of authority in human society, it is extremely important for those in the profession to be aware of their power and to appreciate their responsibility. Science must act as its own corrective to popular misconceptions and misappropriations of ideas that could have disastrous implications for the world and humanity at large.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

“Popper's falsifiability thesis resonates with a major methodological principle in my own Tibetan Buddhist philosophical tradition. We might call this the "principle of the scope of negation." This principle states that there is a fundamental difference between that which is "not found" and that which is "found not to exist." If I look for something and fail to find it, this does not mean that the thing I am seeking does not exist. Not seeing a thing is not the same as seeing its non-existence.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality