Meditation Practice and Scientific Discovery
Scientists search for knowledge by using primarily Sutamayapanna and Cintamayapanna. Even then it is noteworthy that many important theories have been discovered through the use of meditation either directly or indirectly. In his work the “Art of Thought”, published in 1926, Graham Wallas presented one of the first models of the creative process. In the Wallas stage model, creative insights and illuminations may be explained by a process consisting of 5 stages:
1) Preparation: Preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual’s mind on the problem and explores the problem’s dimensions,
2) Incubation: The stage where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening,
3) Intimation: The creative person gets a “feeling” that a solution is on its way (this is the stage where meditation is involved),
4) Illumination or insight: The stage where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness; and
5) Verification: The stage where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied.
Albert Einstein’s Employment of Meditation
On one occasion, Einstein gave a speech at a large scientific meeting where he said that a physicist’s important responsibility is to search for laws or theories that correspond more with universal truth. No method of calculation or logic can lead one to a universal law or theory except for intuition, which shares a similarity with the Buddha-Insight. Sometimes, he would say that the only really valuable thing is intuition. Brian Josephson, a Nobel-winning physicist (2516 B.E.) said that he had discovered certain mysteries that could not have been gained by knowledge in physics but had been gained by meditation.
While Einstein worked, his mind would be highly concentrated on the work at hand. It is said that one day while Einstein was busily working on a solution to a physics problem, a bomb went off outside with a loud bang. His fellow physicists were startled but Einstein did not hear a thing. At the time when Einstein discovered the Theory of General Relativity, he had locked himself inside his office for two weeks. When he finally emerged from his office, he walked downstairs and handed his wife two sheets of paper and said to her, “Here is the Theory of General Relativity.”
When Einstein was working on a difficult problem, he would pace back and forth not unlike the way one does walking meditation. Banesh Hoffmann who was at one time a colleague of Einstein said that Einstein was in the habit of pacing back and forth and twirling his hair with a trance-like expression on his face. There was only tranquil internal communication. After a time, he would suddenly stop his pacing; his face would relax and a gentle smile would appear. This signified that he had found the solution to the problem at hand.
Sir Isaac Newton and Meditation
Newton said that on one occasion while he was sitting under an apple tree, he wondered what causes an apple to fall from its tree. He did not think about the Law of Gravity then but it came to him while he was sitting quietly imagining an apple falling from its tree over and over again.
Newton at times would pace back and forth when he was contemplating a problem in the same way that Einstein did. After a time, he would say out loud that he had found it before bounding up the stairs to his office in order to write something down while standing at his desk. Often times, Newton would sit quietly by himself for hours before rising suddenly to write something down for an hour or so.
Newton said that he would watch something that was happening in front of him for a prolonged period or contemplate something he was working on until the first light (Panna) slowly and gradually appeared and the solution came to him dimly at first but gradually brightening until he saw the entire solution clearly and perfectly.
Many scientists and inventors employed meditation in their work. It was written about the scientist, Dr. Elmer R. Gates by a famous American writer Napoleon Hill that one day he went to see Dr. Gates about something. When he arrived at Dr. Gates’ office, his secretary told him that she could not allow him to disturb Dr. Gates just then. He asked how long he would have to wait and the secretary told him that she did not know but it might be as long as three hours because Dr. Gates was waiting for a creative idea to come to him. He wanted to know what she meant but the secretary said that he should wait for the answer from Dr. Gates. Eventually, Dr. Gates emerged from his office and Mr. Hill told him about his conversation with the secretary. Dr. Gates asked Mr. Hill if he was interested in seeing where and how he waited for a creative idea to come to him. Dr. Gates led Mr. Hill to a small, sound-proof room. Inside the room, there was a desk and a chair. On top of the desk, there were a large pile of paper, a lamp, and several pencils. Dr. Gates told him that whenever he could not find an answer to a problem he was working on, he would come to this room to sit in the dark and meditate deeply until a solution or other new ideas appeared to him. It was then that he would switch the light on and write things down on paper.
Although a prolific inventor, Gates considered himself a psychologist. He applied scientific experiment to introspection and used invention to examine the processes by which the mind discovers new knowledge. This study led him to “psychotaxis,” the integrated hierarchy of sensory discriminations required to create a valid and complete mental representation of a given part of the physical world. Psychotaxis is a major component of “psychurgy”, Gates’ art of mind-using, which he regarded as an improved scientific method.
