mind in the balance: meditation in science, buddhism, and christianity

Book Reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 324–377346

liberative expression and abundance that will reveal the well-worn paradigms of struggle, hierarchy and entrenched authority to be therelics of a time that is passing away.

E.H. JarowVassar College (U.S.A.)

E-mail address: jarow@vasssar.edu

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2010.06.004

Allan Wallace, Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity. New York, Columbia University Press 2009,xii D 244 pp., $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978 0 231 14730 9.

Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity was written at the request of Alan Wallace’s stepdaughter, a Chris-tian who hopes to find answers to fundamental questions about the nature of mind and human existence: Who am I? Are we simply theroles we are currently playing in our lives, as parents, spouses, andmembers of society?Who arewewhenwe sit quietly in our rooms, doingnothing but being present? (p. x). Do we exist as anything other than our bodies? (p. x). Wallace’s answer is audacious, but neverthelessfamiliar: through meditation, ‘one can unlock the deepest secrets of the self and its relation to the universe’ (p. 37). Mind in Balance: Medi-tation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity aims to offer a ‘multicultural view of meditation – as a means of improving one’s lifestyle, a wayof achieving deep insights into the nature of the mind and consciousness, resulting in unprecedented well-being; and a basis for genuineand compassion’ (p. 1).

But how does this book differ from Wallace’s previous titles, such as Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (New York, ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2003), The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind (Somerville, Wisdom Publications, 2006), Contem-plative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007) or Embracing Mind: The CommonGround of Science and Spirituality (Boston, Shambhala Publications, 2008)? The attraction ofMind in Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism,and Christianity lies in its fresh approach to the subject, rather than new insights and developments. This time, Wallace has brought a newvoice to the dialogue table, Christianity. The book is, in essence, a refined series of 10 gradual contemplative practices, each one individuallyseen through the lens of science, Buddhism and Christianity. Whilst the book market is perhaps almost oversaturated with religion/sciencetitles, the triangulation of Christianity, Buddhism and science is not the typical offering in contemporary science–religion dialogue.

Irrespective of the book’s intended readership, Wallace promises two things. First, he aims towrite an introduction to ‘one of humanity’sbest-kept secrets’, namely ‘meditation’s role as precision tool for exploring consciousness and the universe scientifically – that is, using empir-icalmethods similar to those intrinsic to the scientificmethod’ (p.1, italics added). Second, as the blurb proclaims,Wallace aims to offer a dia-logue between Buddhist and Christian practices of meditation and the theories of modern philosophy and science in order to reveal ‘thetheoretical similaritiesunderlying thesedisparatedisciplines and theirunified approach todiscerning theobjectiveworld’ (italics added). Theseare certainly fascinating areas of investigation, but nevertheless problematic. So, how well does Wallace accomplish what he attempts?

First, regarding the organization of the book, Mind in Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity contains 25 chapters,a preface, extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index. Part I, entitled ‘Meditation: Where It Started and How It Got There’ (Chapters 1–4) offers a brief overview of the history and development of meditation, demonstrating its principal goals and methods and how it differsfrom purely faith-based religion. It anticipates controversies, issues (i.e. scientific studies of meditation, introspection as scientific method ofinquiry) that will be discussed in a greater detail in the second part of the book. Part II (Chapters 5–25) presents a sequence of ten twinchapters on mediation practices and their related theory, plus a concluding chapter entitled ‘What shall we become?’ The chapters on prac-tice provide an overview of a gradual path of meditations that are equally relevant to and compatible with Buddhism and Christianity andare intended to provide a platform for inquiring into epistemological issues that cut across various world-views, including the scientific one.The steps beginwith basic training in mindfulness of breathing and culminate in the most advanced practices designed to fathom the inner-most nature of our consciousness and its relation to the world at large. The meditations explained here may be practised by anyone, regard-less of their beliefs and faith, as a means to gain greater experiential insight into the nature of the mind and its relation to the rest of theworld. FollowingWallace along these successive stages of awareness, awareness of awareness and observing the awareness of awareness iscertainly a fascinating, albeit intense journey: it requires concentration, patience and active collaboration. Wallace warns us that the fullbenefits can normally be achieved only after years of painstaking practice under the guidance of a trained teacher.

Similarly to his previous books, Mind in Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity simply revolves around the same oldpoints. First, Wallace laments about the scientists’ inability –whether biologists, neuroscientists or behaviourists – to account for ‘what it islike to be a human being’ and signals an explanatory gap in science’s understanding of mind, consciousness and brain. Theseweaknesses arethe cumulative effect of: mechanistic materialism (the view that defines the physical as anything that can influence or be influenced byknown physical entities and processes), metaphysical realism (the view that the world consists of mind-independent objects) and scientism(the view that the natural world consists only of physical phenomena that can be explained according to the laws of physics and biology)that have dominated all branches of sciences over the past century. As a result, we have seen virtually no progress in terms of discovering thenature and the origins of consciousness in human beings. On the other hand, Buddhist contemplatives have been neither committed to norconstrained by the above-mentioned philosophical ideologies. By subjecting consciousness to the most rigorous, experiential scrutiny(p. 97), they have illuminated dimensions of reality that remain largely inaccessible to modern sciences. From a contemplative perspective,the entire school of behaviorism, ‘appears to have been created and developed by individuals who were mentally impaired in terms of theirabilities to observe their own subjective experience’ (p. 129). For Wallace, like for John R. Searle, the subjective experience is ‘ontologicallyirreducible’ (p. 130). The claims that the reality of first-person experience can be reduced to objective behavior or to neural correlates is‘nothing short of intellectual dishonesty or else profound confusion’ (p. 23). Whilst cognitive psychologists have taken on the challenge ofunderstanding mental process, they have still failed to devise any rigorous means of directly observing mental realities or sophisticated

Book Reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 324–377 347

methods of first-person inquiry. This has undermined the value of introspection, and led to a similar conclusion that it cannot be used asa scientific method of inquiry.

When it comes to making use of scientific findings, Wallace’s attitude is rather one of ‘pick and choose’ in order to add weight to his ownclaims. In this respect, the chapter entitled ‘Scientific Studies of Meditation’ skilfully guides the reader through some of the key concepts andresearch findings in the field of neuroscience that overthrow the reductionist hypothesis that ‘human are mere puppets jerked around bybiochemical processes in our bodies’ (p. 27): neuroplasticity (ability of neurons to change in response to experience), neurogenesis (ability tomake new connections to recognize novelty), and epigenesis (the study of functional changes in genome that do not involve alterations ofDNA sequencing of the genes themselves). Stress impairs neurogenesis, a fact which leadsWallace to speculate thatmediationmay be one ofthe most effective ways of rejuvenating our brains and minds (p. 28). Wallace’s frequently uncritical optimism in the power of meditation israther uncomfortable, if not alarming. WhatWallace does not do is to warn against potential negative meditation outcomes, as described byboth traditional resources and scientific experiments. For example, Wallace cites the results from experiments undertaken at HarvardMedical School and the University of California, in the late 1960s, which showed that a group practising Transcendental Meditation (TM)displayed a decrease in stress and anxiety, related to lower oxygen consumption and a slower breathing rate. There are, however, studieswhich caution against the effects of TM: anxiety, confusion, procrastination, depression, tension, and anger, to name just a few. A studycarried out by Otis at Stanford Research Institute in 1971 to determine the effects of TM concluded that the longer a person stays in TM,the greater the likelihood that he or she will experience adverse effects.

Second, if science is to comprehend the nature and origin of consciousness, it must expand and/or revise its paradigms andmethodologyto accommodate a Buddhist style of introspection.Wallace believes that consciousness does not emerge from the brain but rather fromwhatBuddhists call ‘substrate consciousness’ (alaya-vijñana), which is characterized by three essential traits: bliss, luminosity, and nonconcep-tuality. Since consciousness is invisible to all objective, physical means of observation, scientists are unable to define it in the language of thenatural sciences (p. 132). To explore the internal natural of the mind, one must build and refine the inner telescope of samadhi (p. 82), whichis a highly focused attention directed toward the consciousness itself. Developing the idea further, Wallace claims that by exploring contem-plative practices, scientistsmay broaden the horizon of their own discipline and thereby bring about the first revolution in themind sciences(p. 198). The implications of such a revolution are bound to be far reaching, challenging many of the current assumptions of physics andbiology and even catalyzing a paradigmatic shift in the way sciences are approached.

Third, Wallace parades quantum physics in order to give his claims the shine of scientific legitimacy. For example, Wallace criticizes theadvocates of scientism for failing to recognize that the human construct of ‘the physical’ has changed dramatically over the past fourhundred years of scientific inquiry (p. 129). With advances in physics, many physical entities and processes have dissolved into the realmof mathematical abstractions and unmeasured quantum systems can only be understood in terms of abstract, immaterial ‘probability func-tions’. As the boundary between ‘physical’ and ‘nonphysical’ has become increasingly blurred, ‘it is simply unscientific and naive to classifyas “supernatural” or “magical” anything nonphysical or anything that can’t be explained according to the current laws of physics and biology– which are far from complete!’ (p. 129).

Lastly, what seemed to be the bonus of this new book – the dialogue between Buddhist and Christian contemplative practices – whilstfascinating, is greatly biased towards Tibetan Buddhism and reaches the same old conclusion: without the ‘inner science’ of Buddhism, ourunderstanding not only of ourselves – but also of the universe as a whole – will be thwarted.

To conclude, Mind in Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity proves that meditation is a highly promising focus forcontinued dialogue between science, Christianity and Buddhism, but perhaps there is a need for a new book, one free of bias and unfoundedassumptions. The promised dialogue of Buddhism, Christianity and science becomesmore of question of the good, the bad and the ugly.Wal-lace is certainlynot anti-science, as others have claimed: borrowinghis ownwords,Wallaceundoubtedlyhas the ‘boldness of imagination andintrepid courage’ to challenge the orthodoxmethods and views of contemporary science. I only hoped for a far more ‘balanced’ evaluation ofboth its errors and achievements, rather than a constant deprecation of those using bona fide science to explore the mysteries of the mind.Describing the recentneuroscientificdiscoveriesbasedonbrain scans showing the correlationbetweenbrain andmindstates,Wallacewrites:‘[they] simply reaffirm in sophisticateddetailwhat Buddhistshave longassumed tobe true inprinciple’ (pp.131–132, italics added). Sincewhendo long-standing beliefs, assumptions and faith trump sophisticated, rigorous scientific inquiry, whether materialistic or not?

Parenthetically, at the risk of being petty, mistaken, or perhaps both, the illustrations on the dust cover are at odds with the book’s owntitle: scientific imagery is curiously absent. Lastly, it should be stressed thatMind in Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianitywas clearly pitched at awider audience, rather than aimed chiefly at students and academics. In this regard, the book achieves its purpose. Itaspires to be accessible, illuminating and enjoyable, and to benefit anyone seeking knowledge in order to bring their life to a new level.Conversely, specialists in comparative religion and theology, neuroscience and psychology will be probably up to scratch on most of thetopics and issues raised by Wallace. Those familiar with his writings, whether academic or popular, might experience feelings of déjà-vu.

Teodora VelletriCentre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (United Kingdom)

E-mail address: tvelletri@sandpit.com

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2010.06.005

Maria-Zoe Petropoulou, Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 2008, xii D 336 pp., £66 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 19 921854 7.

This book, based upon a doctoral dissertation written at Oxford University under the supervision of Fergus Millar, deals with a funda-mental problem of the history of Mediterranean and Near Eastern religions in Antiquity: how to explain the end of sacrificial practicesin the Roman Empire. More precisely, the author wishes to understand the conditions under which the early Christians gave up animal