宗教意義上的佛教與學術意義上的佛教（即佛學）是不同的。在佛學領域中，依據文獻研究的文本精確闡釋享有優先地位；追跡時空遞嬗下的思潮，揭示了佛學思想的流變，從而可能正確的研讀佛典，不致於受到個人信仰與先入之見的影響。同時，佛教是以修行人的體驗為基礎，佛學研究則認為，今日佛教修行人的真切修習體驗缺乏客觀性，因而憚於用在文本的解讀上，導致佛學研究也一直不願利用那些蒐集修行者體驗資料的神經科學與其他自然科學的研究發現。本文探討作為一種學術研究領域的佛學研究，如何而可與自然科學研究互相切磋，並運用自然科學的研究成果。

There is a difference between Buddhism as a religion and Buddhology as a field of scholarship regarding the way in which they think of Buddhism. Buddhology gives precedence to the accurate interpretation of texts on the basis of philological investigations, and by tracing currents of thought as they have undergone changes over time and across regions it has shown how Buddhist thought has changed, thereby making it possible to read Buddhist scriptures accurately without being influenced by beliefs and preconceptions. At the same time, although Buddhism is grounded in the experiences of practitioners, Buddhology has tended to be overly cautious about introducing into textual interpretation data about what is actually experienced by people today in the course of their Buddhist practices on the grounds that such data lack objectivity. Consequently Buddhology has also been reluctant to utilize the findings of neuroscience and other branches of the natural sciences that have been engaged in collecting data about the experiences of practitioners. This article represents an attempt to explore how Buddhology as a field of scholarship might be able to collaborate with the natural sciences and utilize its findings