The Dalai Lama’s Science-Influenced Journey to Self-Knowledge

 



A respected medical researcher and administrator, Sam W. Lee, PhD, holds associate director responsibilities at the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, a partnership between Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. An avid reader, Dr. Sam W. Lee particularly enjoys the works of thinkers such as the Dalai Lama.

The bestselling author of The Art of Happiness (1998), the Dalai Lama also wrote The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (2005). A New York Times review underlines that the autobiographical work does not equate science with the “unprovable,” but provides an account of how the religious leader developed respect for, and came to embrace, science through life experience.

The Dalai Lama’s fascination with science goes back to the moment the he discovered it at age 2; following the death of his predecessor, a “spiritual search team” followed the deceased leader’s vision to a house faced toward where he had died and with a specific combination of gutters outside and relics and toys inside.

The young boy who assumed spiritual leadership of Tibetan Buddhism was drawn to a collapsible brass telescope among the possessions of his predecessor. This led to a fascination with working with mechanical devices, from watches to car engines. As an adult, the Dalai Lama dedicated equal time to scientific thought leaders as to philosophers and religious figures, and this book presents that science-influenced journey to self-knowledge and awareness of how the world works.