By Cameron Bird

For every individual engaged in the age-old struggle to reconcile naturalism and supernaturalism, struggle no more. Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace has a third way out of the circularity of philosophical quandaries, as he shares in a recent sit-down with Salon. The former Buddhist monk, who gave up a meditative life at the monastery for a Ph.D. from Stanford and a leadership position at the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, tells interviewer Steve Paulson of his dissatisfaction with the absolutism of both traditional religious followers and materialistic scientists.

According to Wallace, Christianity (in which his Protestant theologian father reared him) doesn’t harmonize with empirical advancement, and scientism, via Darwin, is all body and no soul. Wallace, drawing from his newest book, pitches a new option for studying the brain called “contemplative science.” Based on the premise that 21st century physics proves that matter cannot be reducible to matter, Wallace’s proposed paradigm suggests that consciousness can exist outside the body. Thus, according to him, both near-death experiences and reincarnation are testable hypotheses. At the end of the interview, a gaping question remains: Will science be able to accept Buddhist principles as scientific enough for inclusion?

Compelling as Wallace’s points are, Paulson falls into an awestruck childlikeness that weakens the depth of the conversation. He poses very few challenges and those he does are quickly dissolved by Wallace’s quickstep charm. Still, for all his shortcomings, Paulson at least steers clear of what Salon’s Gordy Slack did when he sat down with Richard Dawkins earlier this month, which was lob softballs at the evolutionary biologist and provide free advertising space for Dawkins’ new book.

Cameron Bird is a student at the University of Southern California.