The Dalai Lama - I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that there is a subtle consciousness

CONSCIOUSNESS AT THE CROSSROADS:
Conversations with the Dalai Lama
on Brain Science and Buddhism
edited by Zara Houshmand,
Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace
more...

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

On some occasions, people faint. Even when your breath temporarily stops, during that moment, there is a reduced level of consciousness. Consciousness is most reduced late in the course of dying. Even after all physical functions cease, we believe that the "I," or "self," still exists. Similarly, just at the beginning of life, there must be a subtle form of consciousness to account for the emergence of consciousness in the individual.

We must explore further the point at which consciousness enters into a physical location. At conception, the moment when and the site where consciousness interacts with the fertilized egg is something to be discovered, although there are some reference to this in the texts.... The Buddhist scriptures do deal with it, but I am interested to see what science has to say about this. During this period we believe that without the subtle consciousness, there would be a life beginning without consciousness. If that were the case then no one could ever recollect experiences from their past life. It is also in terms of Buddhist beliefs relating to this topic that Buddhism expounds its theory of cosmology: how the universe began and how it later degenerates.

Based on this metaphysical reasoning and other arguments, and based on the testimony of individuals who are able to recollect their experiences in past lives very vividly, Buddhists make this claim. I am a practitioner, so based on my own limited experiences, and the experiences of my friends, I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that there is a subtle consciousness.

Scientists don't posit consciousness in the same sense that Buddhists do. At the moment of conception, however, there has to be something that prevents the sperm and egg from simply rotting, and causes it to grow into a human body. When does that occur? Why does that occur?

--from Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism edited by Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace, published by Snow Lion Publications

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