Includes index.

Reflection -- Encounter with science -- Emptiness, relativity, and quantum physics -- The big bang and the Buddhist beginningless universe -- Evolution, karma, and the world of sentience -- The question of consciousness -- Toward a science of consciousness -- The spectrum of consciousness -- Ethics and the new genetics -- Science, spirituality, and humanity.

Science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical enquiry--which is the true path to understanding reality? After forty years of study with some of the greatest scientific minds as well as a lifetime of meditative, spiritual and philosophical study, the Dalai Lama presents an analysis of why both disciplines must be pursued in order to arrive at a complete picture of the truth. Science shows us ways of interpreting the physical world, while spirituality helps us cope with reality. But the extreme of either is impoverishing. The belief that all is reducible to matter and energy leaves out a huge range of human experience: emotions, yearnings, compassion, culture. At the same time, holding unexamined spiritual beliefs--beliefs that are contradicted by evidence, logic, and experience--can lock us into fundamentalist cages. The legacy of this book is a vision of the world in which our different approaches to understanding ourselves, our universe and one another can be brought together in the service of humanity.--From publisher description.