Richard Dawkins is undoubtedly the best writer on evolution. To understand the Darwinist aspects of Buddho-Darwinism he encapsulates most of what anybody could wish to know.

However, he is an aetheist, which does not quite fit with Buddho-Darwinism. He advocated posters on buses in London stating to the effect that “There probably is no God so get on with your life and enjoy it”

Some problems and questions arise with this for the student of Buddho-Darwinism:

• While it is important to keep politics largely secular, if people just head off to enjoy themselves, without considering compassion, they can very soon be responsible for great suffering. The compassion of Buddha needs to be added to the thinking of Dawkins. To illustrate this consider the wealthy. If they need so much money to enjoy life surely everybody else probably does. Then there begins a competition for resources which becomes destructive and reflects Buddha’s teaching that our suffering is caused by our desires. Life-styles a little more like the people of Pandora in the film Avatar is recommended.
• Dawkins accepts science as the best tool for enlightenment, but science speculates that the vast majority of mass in the universe is what physicists call ‘dark matter’. Theory says this should be there, but we do not as yet have instruments which can detect it. If Dawkins can accept that, why would he have a problem understanding that in the spiritual context, there may be things his own mind is not tuned to. Judging by my own reception in the spiritual world, it is quite likely that he has been able to achieve great academic goals, especially in explaining science to less educated people, by not being in touch with this equivalent of ‘dark matter’, but nevertheless I feel he should acknowledge it could be there, while maintaining a healthy skeptical approach to any claims made by the religious people he may encounter.