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such experience immediately upon reading contemplative literature or listening to
instructions. In the Tibetan Buddhist contemplative tradition, such people are called
simultaneous individuals, for they gain realization immediately upon hearing
contemplative instructions.15 Their immediate access to the ineffable is said to be due to
their extraordinary degree of spiritual maturity. The same set of written or oral
instructions may evoke an experience of conceptually unmediated awareness in one
person and not in others, depending on their contextual knowledge and receptivity. Thus,
in some sense the ineffability of contemplative experience seems to be relative to the
listeners. By the same token, the redness of Macintosh apples is ineffable to those who
are born blind.
Although scientific and contemplative discourses are certainly distinct in many
important ways, the differences may easily be exaggerated. Even among scientists,
learning is acquired not only by way of a set of formal instructions but also by the
transmission of contextual, at times unconscious, knowledge that has come to be called
tacit knowledge.16 For instance, when the first lasers were built, written instructions on
their construction proved insufficient to enable others to manufacture their own
replicas.17 The transference of tacit knowledge was found to be necessary; that is, skill in
creating lasers had to be passed on from one accomplished practitioner to another. One
may argue, of course, that those particular instructions were inadequate and that better
written instructions would have sufficed. However, at the stage of technology in the mid-
twentieth century, there may not have been enough contextual knowledge among
engineers for any written instructions to give them sufficient information to build lasers
on their own.
Like all skills, scientific and contemplative skills seem most easily acquired and
developed with practice under the guidance of more experienced practitioners. When
constructing a scientific apparatus or cultivating a contemplative ability, the only
criterion for success is that the apparatus be it physical or mental finally functions as
intended. Scientific and contemplative writings may give the impression that success in
their respective fields comes simply by following algorithmlike instructions; and thus,
carrying out their experiments may appear to be simply a formality. But as soon as
difficulties arise in their work, all such pat notions are thrown to the wind, and the aid of
more experienced practitioners is sought.
Both scientists and contemplatives seek to ascertain experientially whether certain
hypotheses hold true. For example, physicists cannot know whether gravity waves exist
until a good detector is built and it provides the correct outcome. As H. M. Collins
remarks in his provocative discussion of this topic, if there are gravity waves a good
apparatus is one which detects them. If there are no gravity waves the good experiments
are those which have not detected them. 18 To break this circle, one must find criteria that
are independent of the output of the experiment itself. Likewise, contemplatives cannot
know whether conceptually unstructured awareness exists until they engage in an
effective discipline that provides the correct outcome. But if such awareness is
impossible, effective forms of training should demonstrate that. To escape from this
circle, other criteria, such as the lasting trait-effects of contemplative practice, are
invoked. Once again, it is insufficient to judge the validity and value of contemplation
simply in terms of its transient state-effects. Rather, one must look as well to its overall
transformation in the life of individuals and their influence on society as a whole.
One primary difference between scientific and contemplative inquiry may still
seem to separate them in a most fundamental way: scientific discoveries are objective and
public, whereas contemplative discoveries (if any exist) are subjective and private. While
there is certainly a basis for drawing this distinction, it too may be exaggerated. When
encountering a scientist s findings even if we are scientists most of us don t fynow
that her empirical data are sound, rather we tend to take them on faith. Otherwise, the
only way to know they are sound is to create a comparable laboratory of our own (we
can t use hers, for if the data can be replicated only in hers and in no other laboratory,
they are suspect), replicate the experiment, and see whether our findings corroborate hers.
Likewise, we don t know that her mathematical analysis of her data is sound unless we
apply our own analysis and thereby confirm her results. Likewise, we don t know that her
theoretical interpretation of the quantitative results is sound unless we apply our own
knowledge of the theory to corroborate hers. In other words, her findings which on the
surface seem to be public and third-person are known by us to be valid if and only if we
pursue the same research ourselves. That is, all third-person or collaborative research
really consists of multiple first persons doing their own research and trusting the work of
their collaborators.
If scientists were so skeptical of each others work that they felt they needed to
replicate any findings on which they were going to rely, scientific progress would slow to
a snail s pace. But all the points in the preceding paragraph are equally true of
contemplative research. Within a society in which contemplative inquiry is deemed valid
and useful, most people simply trust in the authenticity of their society s greatest
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