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A review by jackgoss
The Universe in a Single Atom by Dalai Lama XIV
3.0
I expected this book to be amazing and change my life and finally allow me to fully understand how Buddhism and atheism can play well together. Unfortunately, I was expecting too much. It's not the book I was expecting to read. I'd describe it as HHT Dalai Lama's memoir of science and how he resolves it with traditional Buddhist beliefs.
I remember when I first heard of The Universe in a Single Atom. In fact, I'm fairly certain that reading the book jacket in Powells was the spark for my interest in Buddhism over the past year or so. For no good reason, I didn't get around to reading it until last month. And it took me a full two months to finish it. I'm glad I didn't read it right away, I think it would have been too over my head had I not had the basic understanding of Buddhism that I have now. Yet, even so, some of the concepts were over my head!
It's tough text to sit down with.
The chapters on Buddhist psychology were the only that really interested me.
The rest was hard to get through. Example: the concept of Emptiness and quantum mechanics complementing each other: I don't get it. Maybe because I don't truly understand either topic. Or maybe because it's a stretch to compare them. Same goes for karma/evolution. I don't see the parallel and completely and totally fail to understand how reincarnation can jibe with science.
Additionally, I think he was grasping with the descriptions of ancient Tibetan explanations of the world. All cultures have stories and explanations on topics like the origin of the universe/Earth/life and the makeup of stuff (elements). They can't all be true, even if they are the basis of The Dalai Lama's home culture. He seemed to be trying to claim that science is proving the Tibetans to be correct- another stretch. Can we admit confirmation bias here?
In all, I hate to give a bad review, because I admire the Dalai Lama so much. So I'm lets call this a moderate review. Glad to have read it, maybe even will try again if I ever get to a point where I understand the Buddhist philosophy well enough. But definitely wouldn't recommend this as casual or scientific reading.
I remember when I first heard of The Universe in a Single Atom. In fact, I'm fairly certain that reading the book jacket in Powells was the spark for my interest in Buddhism over the past year or so. For no good reason, I didn't get around to reading it until last month. And it took me a full two months to finish it. I'm glad I didn't read it right away, I think it would have been too over my head had I not had the basic understanding of Buddhism that I have now. Yet, even so, some of the concepts were over my head!
It's tough text to sit down with.
The chapters on Buddhist psychology were the only that really interested me.
The rest was hard to get through. Example: the concept of Emptiness and quantum mechanics complementing each other: I don't get it. Maybe because I don't truly understand either topic. Or maybe because it's a stretch to compare them. Same goes for karma/evolution. I don't see the parallel and completely and totally fail to understand how reincarnation can jibe with science.
Additionally, I think he was grasping with the descriptions of ancient Tibetan explanations of the world. All cultures have stories and explanations on topics like the origin of the universe/Earth/life and the makeup of stuff (elements). They can't all be true, even if they are the basis of The Dalai Lama's home culture. He seemed to be trying to claim that science is proving the Tibetans to be correct- another stretch. Can we admit confirmation bias here?
In all, I hate to give a bad review, because I admire the Dalai Lama so much. So I'm lets call this a moderate review. Glad to have read it, maybe even will try again if I ever get to a point where I understand the Buddhist philosophy well enough. But definitely wouldn't recommend this as casual or scientific reading.