reducing mental affliction
December 9, 2010
The big innovation of Buddhism is not in recognizing the suffering of a normal life, but in pointing out that mental afflictions are not intrinsic to the human psyche. Recent scientific research has shown that these afflictive tendencies of mind can be measurably lessened through Buddhist practice. But Buddhism is making a much stronger claim: that the mind at its deepest level has the nature of luminosity, of innate bliss, and is altogether free of mental affliction. That’s a big hypothesis. We can’t test it now, but we can head in that direction.
– B. Alan Wallace
You Are IT 
December 13, 2010 at 4:56 am
I love the fact that the gap between spirituality and science is being bridged. An article I read not long ago about the people who work and research at Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics said that you find a lot of mystics in that building.
December 13, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I know! I just finished Allan Watts’ Behold The Spirit this weekend and the entire book is about the lack of mysticism in modern Christianity. I’ve changed quite a few assumptions now that I’ve read that book. Anyway, it pointed to some of the various bridges between the seen and unseen, things you can measure and things you can’t. The physical and the metaphysical. That gap as you put it is very, very interesting as well as critical to our attempts to sort all this stuff out. Have a great day! 🙂