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<p><i>Consciousness at the Crossroads</i> is a record of the Dalai Lama's meeting with Western psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and philosophers in October of 1989. This was the second formal conference between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists organized by the Mind and Life Institute--the purpose of which was to investigate Buddhist and scientific perspectives on consciousness and the brain.</p> <p>A particularly pronounced theme is a discussion of the methodological and metaphysical presuppositions of science. Scientists present to the Dalai Lama experimental evidence for how the brain is related mental processes of memory, sleeping, dreaming, language, perception, as well as mental disorders such as amnesia, autism, depression, schizophrenia, and manic-depression (bipolar disorder).</p><p>In turn, the Dalai Lama discusses Buddhist perspectives on the relation between the mind and body, including the Buddhist theory of reincarnation and the body's subtle energies as they are found in Buddhist tantric literature.<p>
<p>Buddhists will have to accept, the Dalai Lama says, any scientific discoveries which incontrovertibly show Buddhist views to be wrong. In turn, the Dalai Lama asked that scientists share in this spirit of intellectual honesty regarding their own unquestioned biases.</p>
<p>Editor B. Alan Wallace augments the book's dialogue with additional chapters further elaborating upon basic Buddhist concepts touched upon only briefly during the conference (Zach Rowinski 2006-02-13)