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Buddhism is an Asian religion that is based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, an upper-class male born in northeastern India in the fifth or sixth century BCE. Gautama became the “Buddha” (“awakened one”), according to tradition, upon achieving “enlightenment” as a result of engaging in a series of spiritual practices, most notably meditation. After achieving enlightenment, the Buddha is said to have gained a perfect understanding of the nature of the world and of human existence, and he spent the remainder of his life traveling and teaching as an itinerant mendicant. The religion of Buddhism is based largely on the teachings attributed to Gautama-Buddha.
Many authors and practitioners of Buddhism claim that not only are Buddhism and science compatible, but that Buddhism is inherently scientific. Buddhism is said to be scientific in at least four ways. First, unlike most other major world religions, Buddhism dismisses either the existence or the efficacy of...
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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Slone, J. (2013). Science in Buddhism. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_886
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_886
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