Buddhist Biology

Biologist David P. Barash, writing after forty years in his field, largely sides with the New Atheists who see science and religion as incompatible, with one exception: Buddhism. He sets out the parallels between biology and Buddhist thought. The ecological idea that all natural things are interconnected and interdependent closely resembles a core Buddhist insight, and Barash points to the Avatamsaka Sutra, with its ten insights into the interpenetration of beings and their environment. Both traditions distrust simple cause-and-effect explanations and recognize the suffering that follows when natural processes are disturbed. He argues that the Buddhist ideas of non-self and impermanence are consistent with modern biology.

Ridj-it co-founder Ari Iaccarino named it among the metacognition books that hold his interest, titles that challenge how we think about thinking.