Orbit Indonesia
Mereview Pemikiran Denny JA tentang Agama Menjadi Warisan Kultural Milik Bersama
“Buddhism is a religion in which you don’t really have to believe anything in particular or follow any strict rules; you simply excecise compassion and intuition ...it is democratic, encourages freedom of thought, and is more of a “spirituality” than a religion” (“The Roudledge Comnpanion to Literatur and Religion,” 2016, edited by Mark Knight).
Membaca pemikiran agama Denny JA tentang iman berbasis riset, kitab suci di abad 21, dan bab-bab lainnya, mengingatkan saya akan ciri saintifik dalam Buddhadharma.
Denny JA telah melangkah jauh dengan langkah saintifik dalam hasil-hasil riset ilmu pengetahuan yang kiranya juga akan disetujui oleh setiap ilmuwan agama termasuk kalangan Buddhis.
K.N.Jayatilleke, Sarjana dari Sri Lanka dalam “Buddhism and the Scientific Revolution,” ( 1950) menerangkan:
“Buddhism accords with findings of science, and emphasizes the importance of a scientific outlook in that “its specific dogmas are said to be capable of verification.”
Kiranya kita setuju pemikiran Denny JA tentang perlunya iman berbasis riset. Hal ini sejalan dengan Buddhadharma yang berkarakter ilmu pengetahuan. Buddhadharma yang bersifat saintifik (Buddhism as Scientific) dan sebagai ilmu pengetahuan spiritual (inner science) yang menekankan pertumbuhan kesadaran, mengenali mind yang menjadi sumber kebahagiaan hidup manusia.
“The Buddha declared that primary factor and most powerful force of the universe is the Mind. Scientists today are seeing this Truth – realizing that the Mind of a person can create reality in what is perceived.
Mind energy is not yet fully understood by Science. The Buddha however, teaches us in great detail about dynamics of the Mind. The mastery of the Mind is of the greatest important as it is to True Happiness and Liberation”. (“Be a Lamp.” 1999. Singapore: Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery).
Sementara Sharon Begley dalam bukunya, “Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain,2007:. 11-15), mengungkapkan bahwa Buddhadharma sejalan dengan ilmu pengetahuan dan mengadung kebenaran suatu ilmu dengan ciri-cirinya:
“tentative, subject to refutation by next experiment, prover the wrong. Buddhist emphasizes value of invertigation realities finding the Truth of the outside world as well as the content’s of one mind.