Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

Description: In this chapter of the volume Encountering Buddhism : Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings, author Seth Robert Segal, a professor at Yale School of Medicine and the director of psychology and psychological training at Waterbury Hospital, has an engaging and creative conversation between his "two selves"- his Buddhist self and his self that is a skeptical, agnostic, and logical research scientist. WIth frankness and in the spirit of genuine inquiry, the author raises fundamental issues about Buddhism as a religion, who the Buddha actually was, Buddhist views on the self, karma, morality, and the mind, as well as the natural disagreements and confusions science, or anyone grounded in "Western" culture may have. The conversation does not seek to have a "winner" as much as it functions to highlight different sides of what it means to encounter and take seriously Buddhism and Buddhist teachings from the perspective of an educated Westerner. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-18)