August 1987 — Gudo Wafu Nishijima

Nishijima says that the conflict between religion and science, which makes many modern people suffer, can be solved by believing in the existence of reality, and that this is the reason why we practice zazen. He traces the conflict back to the Renaissance, when people began to believe in what they perceive and so began to have science, in confrontation with a medieval religion based on its leaders' subjective ideas. He sees the same confrontation in ancient India, between Brahmanism and new materialistic thinkers, and says that Gautama Buddha solved it by believing in the existence of reality, so that he could see spiritual religion as one face of reality and scientific or materialistic idea as its other face.