1. Overview: What Exists?

If you look out the window, see a beautiful world, and deem it real, you should know that Buddha will tell you that you suffer from a delusional misunderstanding of reality. However, you are not alone because all humans suffer from it.

At the same time, you should also know that some of the smartest people in contemporary times, such as Albert Einstein and Elon Musk, have expressed thier their doubts on the nature of reality in which they exist. Einstein allegedly said that “reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one.” Elon Musk, on the other hand, suggests that we are living in a computer simulation. Additionally, quantum mechanics, which, together with Einstein’s theories of relativity, is among the most advanced contemporary scientific theories, holds that “reality at its fundamental level is uncertain, fluid, and dependent on observation.”

So, who is right? In Buddha’s opinion, Einstein and Musk are right to have doubts about the reality in which humans live. In the Diamond Sūtra, Buddha makes his viewpoint very clear.

“All conditioned phenomena are like the illusions of dreams or shadows of bubbles, like dew or lightning, this is how to view them correctly.”

In these statements, “conditioned phenomena” refers to the fact that all phenomena in the universe are impermanent and arise only when the right conditions are present. Therefore, all phenomena that exist are as transient as dreams, bubbles, morning dew, and lightning.

However, unlike the opinions of Einstein or Musk, or the theoretical deductions of scientific theories, Buddha’s teachings are neither his opinions nor based on hypotheses or experimentation. On the contrary, what Buddha teaches is what he actually personally experienced to be true. For example, when quantum scientists say that the world is observer-dependent, they can only stipulate. Buddha, however, can be because he has experienced it.   

However, your faith in the Buddha is not blind, because Buddha’s teachings are verifiable by other individuals who are similarly enlightened, of whom there have been many historically.

Many people are familiar with Buddhism, but few truly understand it. Therefore, this website aims to discuss Buddhism by quoting from Buddhist sūtras, using Buddhist dictionaries, and drawing on theories of modern-day epistemology, quantum mechanics, and Einstein’s theories. It is an approach that, to the best of my knowledge, is heretofore unexplored as a way to understand Buddhism. Through this approach, it is hoped that its readers come to understand that, at its core, Buddhism is an education from our historical Shakyamuni Buddha and a unique one at that.

It is hoped that, by using this approach, readers come to understand that Buddhism is ultimately not a religion, philosophy, psychology, or science, even though it is complementary to science. The reason Buddhism is unlike all other teachings is that the Buddha successfully solves a problem humanity has struggled to understand for thousands of years: the question of “What Exist?”

The significance of understanding “What Exists?” lies in the fact that it liberates humanity from what the Buddha calls a delusional understanding of reality: the fact that the universe it experiences is illusory. Because of its delusional misunderstanding of reality, humanity suffers existentially, meaning that death inevitably follows birth. It is a phenomenon humanity is familiar with, but is unaware that it need not be so.

In Buddhist sūtras, Buddha makes it very clear that his soteriological goal is to liberate all beings from existential suffering. To achieve that goal, he teaches about “What Exists?”  

A) “What Exist?” The Question

The question, “What Exists?“, is asked on Closer To Truth with the remarks, “Lots of things exist. But what’s truly fundamental? The challenge is to discern the minimum number of basic categories that explain the entirety of existence.”

B) “What Exists?” Humanity’s Continued Struggle to Understand without Success

Indeed, asking “What Exists?” reflects humanity’s lack of a fundamental understanding of the reality in which it lives. The fact is that it is a question that humanity has asked since pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. That this question is still asked, even with the advent of Einstein’s theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, indicates that it is a problem that even the most advanced theories cannot solve.  

One of these pre-Socratic Greek philosophers was Thales of Miletus, one of ancient Greece’s seven sages and a founding figure who accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. According to Bryan Magee, author of The Story of Philosophy, “The question that most obsessed Thales was, ‘What is the world made of? It seemed to him that it must ultimately be made from a single element.” While he mistakenly assumed that the single element was water, Magee suggests that his insight was “amazing because the physics that led up to it had not yet been done.”  

Pythagoras of Samos, a polymath well known for his eponymous Theorem, was another pre-Socratic ancient Greek philosopher who, according to Bryan Magee, “was the first person to have the idea that all the workings of the material universe are expressible in terms of mathematics.”

Since ancient Greece, humanity has depended on observation to investigate reality. However, understanding reality based on observation has never been reliable and is often subject to change.

Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician and was considered the “father of geometry.” His geometry is called “planar geometry” because he thought the earth was flat based on his observations. Later, when scientists found that the Earth is spherical, they expanded Euclid’s planar geometry to non-Euclidean geometry, which significantly helped navigation around the globe.

In the Middle Ages, geocentrism, the idea that the Earth was at the center of the universe, with the Sun, moon, stars, and planets revolving around it, was the predominant view regarding the shape of the universe. However, in the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance astronomer and Catholic cleric, challenged the idea and proposed a mathematical model of heliocentrism, suggesting that the Earth orbits the Sun. Galileo Galilei then provided supporting evidence by observing the sky with a telescope.

Isaac Newton was the first scientist to propose that reality exists as solid particles. However, he never actually investigated whether the solid particles existed. According to author Fritjof Capra of The Tao of Physics, Newton wrote the following in his Opticks, “It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them; and that these primitive particles being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them; even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God himself made one in the first creation.” The author added, “In the Newtonian view, God had created, in the beginning, the material particles, the forces between them, and the fundamental laws of motion.”

While Newton’s mathematical theory worked exceptionally well for hundreds of years and continues to be used, the solid particles he believed God created no longer exist in light of quantum mechanics. Quantum scientists, such as Dr. David Tong of the University of Cambridge, came to realize not only that “there are no particles in the world” but also that quantum fields have become the building blocks of the universe.

This, of course, represents a seismic change in humanity’s understanding of reality. It is, however, a giant step closer to what Buddha teaches.  

In this video, How is the Cosmos Constructed, 2004 Nobel Laureate Dr. Frank Wilczek added more details, “The most basic objects out of which to construct the universe are not particles but objects we call quantum fields. We think of them as space-filling ethers that create and destroy the objects, the particles. …….. We see particles as epiphenomena. They are kind of ripples on the deep structure.” While Dr. Wilczek did not elaborate on the “deep structure,” we know the ripples he referred to are the ripples of the quantum fields he mentioned.

The image above shows ripples in a quantum energy field. Ripples are called epiphenomena because they are considered secondary phenomena arising from the primary phenomenon, which is the quantum energy field. As an epiphenomenon, ripples exist conditionally on the quantum energy field being fluctuating. If the quantum energy field ever stops fluctuating, epiphenomena also cease to exist.

Therefore, epiphenomena (Chinese: 伴隨現像) represent yet another step closer to what the Buddha teaches, as they lead to an understanding of the conditionality of existence.

The image above, created by Dr. David Tong, shows ripples in a quantum field. These are the tiniest epiphenomena in the universe.

The image above, courtesy of Dr. Tony Tyson of UC Davis, is shown in Dr. Lawrence Krauss’s lecture on “A Universe From Nothing.” According to Dr. Krauss, “The spikes are where the galaxies are.” However, galaxies are not shown as individual entities. Instead, they are shown as huge ripples in a field that connects them all. In other words, galaxies also exist as epiphenomena.

In other words, according to quantum mechanics, all phenomena in the universe, from the tiniest ripples in the quantum energy field to the largest galaxies in the sky, exist as epiphenomena and, therefore, exist conditionally, as Buddha teaches in the Diamond Sūtra.

So, why does humanity need Buddha if there is quantum mechanics? To understand this, we begin by knowing what quantum energy is.

According to this article, energy, “in physics,” is a “quantitative property that is transferred to a body or a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light.”

In other words, energy is a man-made quantitative tool that scientists created to help them investigate universal phenomena they deem to be “body” or “physical.

Furthermore, quantum “is a discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents.”

By combining the two terms, one can understand that quantum energy is a man-made quantitative tool that comes in discrete units and helps scientists investigate universal phenomena they deem to be “body” or “physical.” However, as a quantitative property, energy exists as numbers in scientific equations, but not in nature. Therefore, while energy enables scientists to explain phenomena deemed “physical” by using mathematical expressions and satisfies Pythagoras’ insight “that all the workings of the material universe are expressible in terms of mathematics,” it does not inform them about “What Exists?”

In this discussion on “What Exists,” four scientists were interviewed. Among them, there were four different views, ranging from a quantum physicist who believes that “the universe is a quantum mechanical wave function,” to one believing that consciousness has equal standing with physics, to one who thinks that reality is limited to what is only known to science, to a quantum physicist who believes in God. However, they were unable to express a unanimous opinion on “What Exist?”

That these four highly knowledgeable scientists cannot reach a unanimous understanding of “What Exists” reflects that energy cannot accomplish the task, even when applied to one of science’s most advanced theories.

Unable to find an answer in quantum energy, scientists begin to wonder if consciousness can be the answer. It is a reasonable switch. After all, in a universe built from a quantum energy field, the obviously present but never observable phenomena that all humans possess – consciousness- is nowhere to be found.

On Closer to Truth, questions such as “Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality?”, “Is Consciousness Fundamental?” and “Does Consciousness Cause the Cosmos?” are posed to many highly knowledgeable and prominent scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders. Yet, they also cannot reach a unanimous answer to these questions. Indeed, after extensive dialogues with over 200 religious leaders, philosophers, and scientists worldwide to map the Landscape of Consciousness, the best a prominent scientist can offer is a taxonomy of consciousness, without ever establishing a consensus definition. Without question, even with the advent of Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, humanity continues to struggle, without success, with understanding “What Exists?”

From a Buddhist perspective, it is to be expected. As we shall discuss when we talk about epistemology, the scientific method is not capable of understanding the nature of reality.

This is why, even with the advent of quantum mechanics, humanity still needs Buddhism. Without understanding the nature of reality, quantum mechanics cannot tell humanity that its existential suffering is rooted in it. Without understanding the nature of reality, quantum mechanics cannot tell humanity how it can be liberated from its existential suffering. Without understanding the nature of reality, quantum mechanics cannot tell humanity that its physical body is illusory and observer-dependent, as are all phenomena in the universe. Without understanding that the body is illusory, quantum mechanics cannot tell humanity that birth and death are illusory as well. Without understanding that birth and death are illusory, quantum mechanics cannot tell humanity how blissful life can be when a physical body no longer matters, as a Buddha lives.

The fact is that the Buddha understood the nature of reality more than 2600 years ago while meditating under the Bodhi Tree until he was enlightened.  

C) “What Exist?” Buddha Answers: Nothing but Mentality

The origin of the doctrine Nothing but Mentality is Mohe Zhiguan (Chinese:摩訶止觀), a “voluminous” and “comprehensive Buddhist doctrinal summa which discusses meditation and various key Buddhist doctrines. ….. It is particularly important in the development of Buddhist meditation….,” and “a major focus of the Móhē zhǐguān is the practice of Samatha (Chinese:止), meaning “calming or stabilizing meditation” and Vipassana (Chinese:觀), meaning “clear seeing or insight.” Most importantly, Mohe Zhiguan “is founded firmly on scripture; every key assertion of the text is supported by sūtra quotations.”

With “every key assertion of the text supported by sūtra quotations,” Mohe Zhiguan is a comprehensive, highly credible, and authoritative Buddhist text.

In Mohe Zhiguan, Buddha teaches that, at the highest and most profound level of meditative state, one can have direct insight into the inconceivable realm, where there is

• “nothing outside of rupa and citta (Chinese: 不出色，心),
• “citta gives rise to rupa (Chinese: 色從心造),” and that
• all are essentially citta (Chinese: 全體是心).”

Citta (Chinese: 心), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “mind,” “mentality,” or “thought.” Furthermore, “Citta is contrasted with the physical body and materiality.”

Rupa (Chinese: 色), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘body,’ ‘form,’ or ‘materiality,’ viz., that which has shape and is composed of matter. More generally, rupa refers to the materiality, which serves as the object of the five sensory consciousness (vijnana): visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile.”

By defining rupa as “body,” “form,” or “materiality,” and as the object of the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile senses, the Buddha makes it clear that rupa refers to the universe humans can experience through their senses.  

So, what is the meaning that both citta and rupa are inconceivable?

Inconceivable (Romanized Sanskrit: acintya; Chinese: 不可思議), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, a term used to describe the ultimate reality that is beyond conceptualization.”

“Beyond conceptualization” means that mentality is a reality that cannot be perceived, i.e., it cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. To put it another way, mentality is a reality that does not manifest itself and cannot be sensed through human senses.  

Natural gas is another example of a reality that is “beyond conceptualization.” Therefore, like mentality, it does not manifest itself and is not something that humans can see, hear, smell (without adding odorant), taste, or touch.

Indeed, with Citta being mentality and Rupa arising from mentality, Zhiguan concludes, “All are essentially citta.” These four words from the Mohe Zhiguan, “all are essentially citta,” are the foundation of the doctrine that there is “Nothing but Mentality (Chinese: 心外無法).”

The question, “What Exists?” requires that the answer be fundamental and that it “discerns the minimum number of basic categories that explain the entirety of existence.” Buddha’s answer satisfies both requirements. Not only is mentality fundamental, but it consists of only two categories that can explain the entirety of existence: citta and rupa.

By teaching that mentality is the only fundamental reality in the cosmos, the Buddha recognized Thales’ insight that everything in the universe could be composed of a single element. However, Thales might not have anticipated that the component would be non-physical.

D) Buddha and Buddhism

The logical question that follows is: why could the Buddha understand that mentality is the only enduring reality in the world, while the whole of humanity could not, even after struggling for thousands of years, and with the recent advances in science? Why should anyone have faith in what he teaches, and not what science teaches us?  

Indeed, these are questions we must first tackle before moving on. We start by understanding what makes a person a Buddha and how a Buddha can understand reality in ways science cannot.  

Buddha (Chinese: 佛), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali;” awakened one” or “enlightened one; “… meaning to “awaken” or to “open up” (as does a flower,) and thus traditionally etymologized as one who has awakened from the deep sleep of (unenlightenment) and opened his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge.”

So, an enlightened person, such as the historical Shakyamuni Buddha, is special because his knowledge comes not from going to school or earning a few advanced degrees. Indeed, even if he had wanted to, there were no advanced degrees available in ancient Nepal when he was born. Instead, his knowledge comes from “opening his consciousness” to “encompass all objects of knowledge.”

We will discuss the meaning of “opening one’s consciousness” by using our historical Buddha as an example.

If you would like to know the details of Buddha’s journey to becoming a Buddha, it is discussed in this post. In this Overview post, we focus on the major points in his journey and the meaning of “opening one’s consciousness.”

Our historical Buddha is Shakyamuni Buddha (Chinese: 釋迦摩尼佛). He was born into an aristocratic family because his father was the chieftain of the Shakya clan. Shortly after his birth, his father asked a soothsayer about his son’s future. The soothsayer told his father that his son would grow up to become either a great political or religious leader. His father, keen for his son to follow in his footsteps as a political leader, decided to shield him from the harsh realities of the outside world and kept him from leaving the palace until he was about twenty-nine years old, when he took his first trip outside.  

On his trip outside the palace, the young prince witnessed what became known as the Four Sights: an aging old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a mendicant monk. These four sights profoundly affected the young prince because they showed him not only that life was transient but also that it was full of suffering. He decided to renounce the comforts of his princely life to pursue a spiritual path in search of a solution to end the existential suffering that affects all humanity.

Eventually, the young prince eloped from his father’s palace, cut off his hair, put on a robe, carried an alms bowl, and set out on a journey to seek knowledge by visiting the two best gurus of his time, Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra.  

However, his time with the two gurus was short. While the future Buddha learned quickly and was able to abide by their teachings, he found them lacking. According to author Pankaj Mishra of An End to Suffering, Buddha felt that the meditation these gurus taught, “no matter how deep,” was “temporary, comfortable abiding, in the here and now.” However, “one emerges from them, even after a long session, essentially unchanged.” These states were “without a corresponding moral and intellectual development; they by themselves did not end suffering.“

The experience with the gurus also makes Buddha realize “that mere faith in what the guru says isn’t enough and that you have to realize and verify it through your own experience.” Indeed, as he would teach later, the Buddha is a teacher who can point you in the right direction, but the journey to ending one’s suffering is personal.

After leaving the gurus, Buddha traveled to modern-day Bodh Gayā and spent six years practicing Jainistic asceticism. Jainistic asceticism practices severe fasting and self-mutilation based on the belief that one liberates the soul by relinquishing attachment to the physical body. Buddha followed the course and fasted so extensively that he became highly emaciated. As author Pankaj Mishra wrote, Buddha told his disciple Sariputra, “Because I ate so little, my buttocks became like a camel’s hoof, my backbone protruded like a line of spindles, my ribs corroded and collapsed like the rafters of an old and rotten shed, the gleams of the pupils in my eye sockets appeared deeply sunken, my scalp became wrinkled and shrunken….”

After six torturous years, Buddha starts to doubt the path he is on. Later, in Madhyama Agama (Chinese: 中阿含經), or the Collection of Middle-length Discourses, Buddha says, “although I practiced severe asceticism, I cannot attain the unique and extraordinary insight beyond the affairs of human beings. Would it be possible that there is another way to enlightenment?”

Now, he wondered if his great desire for enlightenment wasn’t the obstacle preventing him from going deeper naturally into a higher meditative state. He recalled his first meditation as a young prince when sitting by a tree; his mind drifted naturally into a calm, contemplative state. He felt serene as he gained insight into the causal interconnections among all beings while watching a farmer plow his field, digging up worms that would become food for the birds. This insight would enable him to perceive the fleeting nature of all existence. He realized that all existences are impermanent and causally related. Furthermore, the fleeting nature of existence is a source of suffering. He decided he must find a way to end the misery for all.

With the memory of his first meditation, Buddha stopped starving, which relieved his pain and allowed him to regain his strength. Then, realizing that neither the extremes of comfort and luxury of a princely life nor the painful self-mutilation of Jain asceticism would lead him to his goal, he decided to try the meditation he had drifted into naturally as a youth. He found a fig tree, now known as the Bodhi Tree, and sat under it to meditate, vowing not to leave until enlightened.  

History attests that he not only became enlightened but also attained the highest level of enlightenment by becoming a Tathāgata.

Tathāgata (Chinese: 如來), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, lit., one who has thus come/gone.” “A secondary denotation of the term is to understand ‘things as they are.'” The translation of Tathāgata in Chinese is a thus-come one (Chinese: 如來).”

However, the significance of being a Tathāgata is that he “understands things as they are.”

After attaining enlightenment, the Buddha embarked on a journey to teach what he had realized to all who would listen, with the stated objective of setting them free from the bondage of existential suffering. The content of his oral instruction would later be collected in texts. The collection of these texts would become Buddhist sūtras (suttas), the canons of Buddhism.

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Buddhadharma (Chinese: 佛法), meaning “the teachings of Buddha,” is “one of the closest Indian equivalents to what in English is called Buddhism.”

Without a doubt, Buddhism should be recognized as the teachings of the Buddha. However, it is a teaching like no other.

By the time he sat down under the Bodhi Tree, Buddha had renounced not only everything he owned physically, but also all knowledge he had learned. He was alone, with nothing but his brain to work with.

However, a brain is all one needs to become enlightened. As the example of the Shakyamuni Buddha shows, enlightenment is now one “open one’s consciousness,” “encompass all objects of knowledge,” become a Tathāgata, and “understand things as they are.”

“Opening one’s consciousness” to “encompass all objects of knowledge” and “understand things as they are” is what makes Buddhism unique. “Understanding things as they are” allows the Buddha to solve the mystery of “What Exists?” and teach that there is Nothing but Mentality in the cosmos. We will discuss the exact mechanisms by which one opens one’s consciousness when talking about direct perception, located here.  

The uniqueness of Buddhism can be seen from another perspective. By using “opening one’s consciousness” as the means of knowledge, Buddhism is the only education in the world that does not start with making assumptions or circular logic. It is the fundamental reason why Buddhism should not be categorized as a religion, philosophy, or science, because they all require one or the other to launch.

By knowing “things as they are” through the opening of his consciousness, the Buddha does not need to make assumptions before teaching, as is the case in science, philosophy, or religion. In Buddhist sūtras, one cannot find Buddha saying “thus I opine.” By knowing “things as they are,” Buddha does not have to say Buddhism is true because I say so in my sūtras.

The Buddha need not do so because his teachings are verifiable through the experiences of other enlightened individuals. Indeed, anyone can become enlightened like a Buddha at any time, anywhere in the world, by successfully practicing meditation. After all, all humans come with brains. It is not easy, but the potential to become a Buddha is within all of us.

As this List of Enlightened People shows, people who have become enlightened come from all over the world and across time. Buddha is on the list, so is Adyashanti, an enlightened person from the US, and Dharma Master Hui-Neng, better known as the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, who came from China in the Tang Dynasty. We will discuss the enlightenment of Adyashanti and Dharma Master Hui-Neng as examples of how the Buddha’s teachings can be independently verified in several posts in the Verification Category. The ability of people to become enlightened across time and space is why the Buddha teaches that there have been countless Buddhas since time immemorial.  

It is also important to point out that Buddha himself promised to be a trustworthy teacher in the Diamond Sūtra, “one of the most influential Mahāyāna sūtras in East Asia, and it is particularly prominent within the Chan (or Zen) tradition, along with the Heart Sūtra.”

In the Diamond Sūtra, Buddha vowed that he would be a trustworthy teacher, as said that, like all Tathāgatas of the past, he is “a speaker of the truth, a speaker of veracity, a speaker of thusness, a non-deceptive speaker, and an un-contradictory speaker (Chinese: 如來是真語者，實語者，如語者, 不誑語者, 不異語者”). In other words, besides being a teacher, Buddha also functions like an honest reporter, reporting back “things as they are” truthfully, without deception or contradiction, just as he realized them.

In the next section, we will discuss epistemology to explore in detail not only how “opening one’s consciousness” is done, but also how humans know what they know through word-based knowledge.

E) Buddhist Epistemology: Two Means of Knowledge for Two Realms of Reality

Also known as the Theory of Knowledge, epistemology “is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge.“

However, our discussion of epistemology is not about its traditional scope of knowledge. Instead, as mentioned earlier, it is about expanding the traditional scope by including “opening one’s comsciousness” as an additional means of knowledge.

To understand Buddhist epistemology, we start with Buddha’s teaching that mentality is the only perduring reality in the cosmos, and that it has two states of fluctuation: quiescent and fluctuating. Furthermore, these two distinct mental states, with their respective fluctuations, can explain the entirety of existence.  

With two realms of reality separated by their fluctuating states, Buddha teaches that two means of knowledge are needed to understand them: one to understand where mentality is quiescent, and one to understand where it fluctuates incessantly.

The means of knowledge is known in Sanskrit as pramana (Chinese: 量).

The two means of knowledge that Buddha teaches are inference and direct perception.

We start with inference, the means of knowledge by which humans understand Rupa.    

i) Inference (Romanized Sanskrit: anumana; Chinese: 比量)

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, inference “allows us to glean knowledge concerning objects that are not directly evident to the senses.”

To understand inference, we begin with a discussion between the host of Closer to Truth, Dr. Robert Kuhn and Dr. Menachan Fisch, “an Israeli philosopher and the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science, and co-director of the Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamics at Tel Aviv University,” on the topic How Do We Know What We Know.

Dr. Fisch began his talk by saying that, according to “the most fundamental understanding of latter-day philosophy, we do not know by our eyes or by our ears, but by means of the words we speak.” In other words, to understand how humans know what they know, we must not only understand the origin, scope, and limits of “the words we speak,”  but also the roles our senses play in it.

The eyes and ears are, of course, for observing and listening, two of the five senses humans use to perceive the world. According to Dr. Fisch, human sensing — i.e., what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch — is a process consisting of the following five sequential steps.

• “The world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our senses.”
• “The content imparted on those stimuli is the reading-in of the mind.
• “The content gets fashioned and conceptualized by our minds in ways that we do not govern.”
• “Sitting in the command room of our minds with the inner eyes and looking out.”
• “Seeing on the screen the world that we experience.”

We will use the image above to explain the five-step sensing process with observation as an example of sensing, and a distant galaxy as the observed object.

From Dr. Fisch’s description, step three of observation is “conceptualization in ways we do not govern.” While Dr. Fisch did not elucidate what conceptualization means, we know that, regardless of its specific nature, it not only distorts the original content that “The world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our senses,” but it also happens “In ways we do not govern,” meaning that the distortion occurs without anyone knowing or being in control.  

An easy way to understand this discrepancy is to realize that when “The world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our senses,” the galaxy does not crash into our eyes to be perceived. Indeed, the information about the galaxy that impacts our senses is carried by something unobservable. However, the observation process ends with a galaxy that can be “seen.”

By transforming unobservable information about the galaxy into an observable phenomenon, human observation indeed distorts its original information.   

However, Dr. Fisch did not address this question. In fact, as the image shows, aside from naming the five steps of sensing, he provided no details about them.  

However, from the Buddhist perspective, this is to be expected. It is because the details of each of the five steps of sensing concern consciousness and what happens in the mind when the information becomes a “reading in the mind.” Indeed, knowledge about consciousness and what happens in the mind is unavailable even to a highly educated, prominent philosopher who relies on inference to understand the world. However, we will clarify the details of all five steps of sensing when we discuss the Five Aggregates, which are the Buddha’s equivalent of the five-step sensing steps.

Let’s first try to understand what Buddha means when he teaches that inference is for knowledge regarding objects “not directly evident to the senses.” In the five steps of observation, which object is “not directly evident to the senses?”

From the descriptions that Dr. Fisch provided, it is clear that the only “object that is not directly evident to the senses” is the galaxy. Indeed, the galaxy is “not directly evident to the senses” because it does not crash into the eyes to be observed. The remaining four steps, from the “reading in of the mind,” to “conceptualization in ways we do not govern,” and the “inner eyes looking out,” are intimately evident to the mind. Therefore, we can be sure that inference is for understanding the phenomenon of a galaxy or, more generally, the phenomena of “the world we experience.”

To understand “the world we experience,” humans developed a vocabulary of words. However, according to Dr. Fisch, words are inferentially connected. For example, “if this point is north of that, then that point is south of that. That is about the meaning of the words. This isn’t an empirical fact. This is about how these concepts relate to each other. The limits of what we can know, the limits of our world, are the limits of our language!”

Dr. Robert Kuhn immediately understood the significance of what Dr. Fisch said as he questioned, “What prevents you from cascading into skepticism where we can’t know anything? Everything is related to something else. I have no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is. So, how do I know anything?”

In response, Dr. Fisch asked Dr. Kuhn, “Define know.” However, he answered his own question before receiving an answer as he continued, “What you are saying now is that we should be skeptical about knowing for sure, about how things stand in themselves, not how things are experienced by us.”  

“How things are experienced by us,” Dr. Fisch expounded, “is already language informed, or concept informed.” “We know pretty much about the self we experience, the world we experience, the world we find ourselves living in.” “We got it right. We got it right according to our standards, no other standards.”

“Do we know things stand in themselves?”

“God knows,” was the reply.

Of course, Dr. Kuhn is right. One cannot know anything if the only thing one can understand is that “everything is related to something else.” It certainly does not provide any information about “how things stand in themselves.”

So, that is the meaning of Buddha’s inference: it refers to inferentially connected, word-based knowledge that allows humans to know how phenomena in an already conceptualized world relate to one another. In the Buddha’s words, inference does not inform “how things stand in themselves“; the equivalent of Dr. Fisch’s “how things stand in.” Both terms refer to nature as nature is, which, as the Buddha teaches, is mentality.

The Buddhist term “things as they are” carries the same meaning as Dr. Fisch’s “how things stand in themselves.” Both terms refer to the nature of existence, which is mentality.

However, from a Buddhist perspective, God is not required to understand “how things stand in themselves.” In fact, given that everyone has a brain, all one needs is to open one’s consciousness, also known as direct perception, the second of Buddha’s means of knowledge.

2) Direct Perception

Direct Perception (Chinese: 現量), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “cognition that is nonconceptual, in the sense that it does not perceive its objects through the medium of an image, as does thought.”

As its definition makes clear, direct perception aims to prevent the formation of an image by avoiding “thought,” meaning an active mind in this context. In other words, achieving direct perception requires an inactive, quiescent mind.

To understand the significance of an inactive mind in Buddhism, one must first understand the meaning of enlightenment.

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, in Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamita (道行般若波羅蜜經), Buddha teaches that “the thought of enlightenment is no thought since in its essential original nature is transparently luminous (Romanized Sanskrit= prabhasvara; Chinese: 光明).”

Since an inactive mind is a “no-thought” mind, it is, per the Buddha’s definition, an enlightened mind.

As the Buddha exemplified, meditation is how one can become enlightened.

The meditation method the Buddha teaches is known as Samathavipasyana.

Samathavipasyana (Chinese: 止觀), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “In Sanskrit, ‘calmness (samatha) and insight (vipasyana),’ a term used to describe a meditative state that combines clarity and stability of samatha with the understanding of the nature of reality associated with vipasyana.” Furthermore, “The presence of vipasyana is the distinguishing feature of the wisdom that derives from meditation (Romanized Sanskrit=bhavanamayiprajna; Chinese: 修慧).

The Chinese translation of Samathavipasyana is “stop and insight.” In other words, only when the meditator’s mind is so calm as to be still can he gain insight into the nature of reality and gain wisdom, known in Romanized Sanskrit as prajna.

The significance of a “no thought” mind is that it prevents the second of the five-step sensing process: “reading in of the mind” from occurring. To the extent that “reading in of the mind” requires an active mind, a “no thought” mind prevents it from happening. When the “reading in of the mind” stops, “conceptualization in ways we do not govern” also ceases, together with all the remaining steps. In other words, a ‘no thought” mind turns the five-step sensing process into a one-step process.

Samadhi is a Buddhist term that describes the state of mind at the time of enlightenment.

Samadhi (Chinese: 三昧/三摩地), according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, is “a nondualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing ‘subject’ becomes one with the experienced ‘object,’ – thus is only experiential content. This state of consciousness is often referred to as ‘one-pointedness of mind’; this expression, however, is misleading because it calls up the image of ‘concentration’ on one point on which the mind is ‘directed.’ However, Samadhi is neither a straining concentration on one point nor is the mind directed from here (subject) to there (object), which would be a dualistic mode of experience.”

There are several critically important concepts in the definition of Samadhi.

i) Subject and Object of Experience

• “Experiencing subject” refers to the quiescent, enlightened mind of the enlightened individual.
• “Experienced Object” refers to Citta, which, together with Rupa, is one of the two realities in the cosmos. Citta refers to the quiescent mentality, which the Buddha deems the Ultimate Reality, while Rupa refers to consciousness, the active mentality that permeates everything in the universe.

As a quiescent mentality, Citta qualifies as a “no-thought.” Therefore, as per the Buddha’s definition, Citta is enlightened and luminous. As the enlightened mind of the cosmos, Citta qualifies to serve as the “expereienced object” of enlightenment, with the mind of the enlightened individual serving as the “experiencing subject.” When the two enlightened minds become nondualistic, enlightenment happens.

To better understand the profound meaning of the subject and object becoming nondualistic, we quote Dr. Max Planck, a 1918 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics and the originator of quantum theory. After a lifetime of studying quantum mechanics, he not only understood the limits of science but also that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the universe that humans experience.

• Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
• “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivatives from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Dr. Planck was right that in a cosmos where there is Nothing but Mentality, humans are part of it. Therefore, as Dr. Planck suggested, to solve the mystery of mentality, one must be part of it.

• The Buddhist enlightenment does just that. By having the enlightened mind of the meditator become nondualistic with the enlightened mind of Citta, the meditator mentally becomes one with Citta.

Indeed, Dr. Planck also aligns with the Buddha in holding that consciousness is fundamental and that it gives rise to everything in the universe. This is the meaning of “mentality gives rise to Rupa,” as the Buddha teaches in Mohe Zhiguan, mentioned earlier.

However, while Dr. Planck was correct to say that humans are part of the mystery they try to solve, according to the Buddha, the mystery he referred to is not the mystery of consciousness, but the mystery of the Ultimate Reality, the quiescent mentality of Citta.

The difference between a quiescent mentality and a fluctuating one is that a quiescent mentality denotes a state of awareness, whereas a fluctuating mentality denotes a state of consciousness.

In Buddhist terms, Citta is the realm of quiescent mentality, which Buddha deems the Ultimate Reality. The reason why Citta is the Ultimate Reality is that, since it never fluctuates, the “realness” of its reality is permanent. On the other hand, Rupa, as the realm of fluctuating mentality, everything in it changes constantly. A reality that changes cannot be the Ultimate Reality. which refers to the universe humans experience.

As mentioned earlier, the Buddha’s teachings can be verified by any enlightened individuals. In the Verification Category, three examples of enlightenment are discussed: one from a contemporary American, Adyashanti, and two prominent monks, Dharma Master Hui-Neng (Chinese: 大鑒惠能), also known as the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, and YongJia Xuanjue (Chinese: 永嘉玄覺), from the Tang Dynasty in China.

In the example below, we will use Adyashanti’s enlightenment experience to verify the Buddha’s teaching on Ultimate Reality. As mentioned earlier, meditation is how direct perception is done, and this is what Adyashanti did.

Adyashanti calls the meditation we use to verify the Ultimate Reality “What is the Nature of Self?” In other words, Adyashanti wants to know the nature of his own existence. He explains as follows, “In this meditation, we are looking at the nature of self, or what we call ourselves. The nature of this thing called me. In this meditation, we are looking for ourselves. We are looking inside, so the attention gets directed inside. Where is this thing called self, me? Surely, it’s not simply a thought, a feeling. Surely, one is not simply a body, for there is always something more primary. There is what is seeing the thought. That which is feeling the feeling. That is that which is aware of the body.” “So, the attention gets directed inward. What is that that notices the thought? What is that that is feeling the feeling? What is it that is aware of the body?” “What is this thing called me, called I?“

Yet, “as we direct our attentions inward, we find something unexpected. The more we look for the essential nature of ourselves, the more we look for ourselves, the less we find.” “This elusive self never seems to appear. The more we look for ourselves, the less we find of it. Instead, we seem to bump into an ineffable mystery, a silence, a void.” “And yet, what is it that notices that void, that silence? What is it that is aware?” “Can we find a someone? Can we find a something?” “As we look from our own experience, we keep not locating this owner of awareness, this owner of consciousness, this me. And in looking at our whole definition of ourselves, it’s wordlessly called into question. This whole definition of ourselves, however we define it, must be called into question because when we look for it, we don’t find it.” “We have assumed that we are a something and a somebody.”

Finally, Adyashanti acknowledged, “You are presented with a mystery. You can’t find yourself, and yet, whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware. Whatever you may be, whatever you are, obviously is here.” “This confuses the mind because the mind only thinks in terms of you being a thing, being a someone.” “As we look in this way, our whole notion of the self can begin to transform because you begin to see for your own self that what you are isn’t a somebody, isn’t a something, it cannot be found.” “So what is there in the absence of somebody? What is there in the absence of something? This that notices the absence of the self, this awareness that notices the complete lack of entity is an opportunity to open to what you are beyond a thought. Maybe you are not a thing at all, a somebody at all. It cannot be found. So, maybe, just maybe, you never were a something or a somebody. Maybe it couldn’t be found because it doesn’t exist.” “What can this thing called I be?”

In summary, when Adyashanti searched for the nature of his being, he was “presented with a mystery” because “you can’t find yourself.” Instead, he found himself in a “void.” However, even though he couldn’t find himself, he was aware that “whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware.” Furthermore, even with “the absence of somebody,” “the absence of things,” he was aware that the “void” he was in is an “ineffable mystery,” with a “complete absence of definition.”  

In other words, with his body and everything else all absent, the only thing left with Adyashanit was his awareness that they were absent.

Adyashahti now teaches that “You Are Awareness” and “you and awareness are not two different things.” Additionally, Adyashanti teaches that “resting in awareness is not a state of doing, it is a state of being.” Indeed, in awareness, Adyashanti has not only found the true nature of his being but also that of all things deemed physical: everything that can be called “somebody” or “something.”

It is apparent that all three of his statements, “you are awareness, you and awareness are not two different things, and resting in awareness is not a state of being, it is a state of being”, represent knowledge he did not have before his enlightenment, but gained as a result of his enlightenment. Furthermore, it is also clear that they represent “insight into the nature of reality that transcends ordinary comprehension.”

Therefore, Buddha calls the knowledge gained from enlightenment wisdom, known as Romanized Sanskrit as Prajna.

Prajna (Chinese: 般若/慧), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, typically translated ‘wisdom,’ the term has the general sense of accurate and precise understanding, but is used most often to refer to an understanding of reality that transcends ordinary comprehension.“

Indeed, Adyashanti’s statement that “you and awareness are not two different things” indicates that he became one Citta upon his enlightenment. Certainly, he did not have this knowledge before his enlightenment, or he would not have needed to begin the journey in search of it. Indeed, he could only have gained knowledge of this relationship by accessing the “experiential content” embedded in Citta and realizing that he and awareness are one.

As mentioned earlier, Post 21 discusses the enlightenment experiences of two monks in the Tang Dynasty in China. When you visit it, you will discover that all three witnessed the same phenomenon upon their enlightenment: the universe vanished. The fact that these three people, living in different places across the globe and hundreds of years apart, can experience the same phenomenon speaks not only to the permanence of Citta but also to its pervasiveness.

The disappearance of all things deemed physical also confirms what the Buddha teaches in the Diamond Sūtra: that all phenomena in the universe exist “like the illusions of dreams or shadows of bubbles, like dew or lightning, this is how to view them correctly.”

The “void” they experienced is known as Emptiness in Buddhism.

Emptiness (Chinese: 空), known in Romanized Sanskrit as shunyata/sunyata, according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, also known as “void,” is a “central notion of Buddhism….Shunyata is often equated with the absolute in the Mahāyāna since it is without duality and empirical forms.” “Absolute” is another name for the Ultimate Reality.

“Without empirical forms” refers to the inconceivability of mentality and that it cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. That is the meaning of the “void” that Adyashanti experienced. The “void” was there because there was nothing to be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.

“Without duality” can be understood from Adyashanti’s statement that “you and your awareness are not two different.” There is no duality in the “void” because he and Citta become one when they form a nondualistic state of mind. 

F) The Complementarity of Buddhism and Science

In this video, Absolute Truth on Big Think, Dr. Sylvester J. Gates offered his opinion on what science can and cannot do as he said, “All we can do in science is construct theories, and that means, for example, that what we are ultimately doing is not about the truth…..Science is not about finding the truth. Science is about making our beliefs of nature less false. These are two different things.”

From the epistemological perspective, it is a reasonable assertion. The reason that science “is not about the truth” is that the scientific method is limited to using inference. As Dr. Kuhn said to Dr. Fisch, “everything is related to something else. I have no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is.” So, how do I know anything?”

This is indeed a phenomenon in science. By transferring energy to all things deemed “physical,” science lets us know how everything in the world is related in terms of energy, but it does not inform us what they really are.

Those who have taken physics classes in high school and college should be familiar with the following equations:

• Einstein’s famous formula: E=mc2.
• Newton’s second law of motion: f=ma.
• Potential Energy: PE=mgh.
• Kinetic Energy: K=1/2mv2.
• Weight W=mg.

In these equations, E stands for energy, m=mass, c=speed of light, f=force, a=acceleration, g=gravity, h=height, and v=velocity.

As it is apparent, each term – energy, mass, speed, force, acceleration, gravity, and velocity – can define each other through mass by simple mathematical manipulations. Ultimately, though, mass is inferentially related to energy, as Einstein’s formula E = mc2 states.

There are more examples. Maxwell’s equations are “a set of coupled partial differential equations that together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric and magnetic circuits. The equations provide a mathematical model for electric, optical, and radio technologies, such as power generation, electric motors, wireless communication, lenses, radar, etc.”

Ultimately, although their names differ, electricity, magnetism, optics, power, and communication are manifestations of the same energy.

Without question, in a world where everything is energy, what one learns is how things relate, but we do not know their true nature unless one believes that numbers in equations are their true nature.

A common pattern in physics is that, as it approaches an understanding of a fundamental natural phenomenon, it often hits walls that eventually become centuries-old, unsolvable obstacles, problems, or mysteries. If one assumes that nature does not make mistakes, one must believe that these centuries-long scientific problems and mysteries result from humanity’s misunderstanding of nature.

From an epistemological perspective, it is a reasonable assumption. Since the scientific method depends on inference to comprehend nature, it understands “how things relate” but not “things as they are.”

However, this is not the case with the Buddha. Buddha claims that he is a Tathāgata and, therefore, understands “things as they are.” It follows that his teachings should contain no problems or mysteries, as they should represent nature.  

So, solving scientific problems not only helps humanity better understand nature but also verifies that the Buddha is a Tathāgata who understands “things as they are.”

Of course, Buddhism does not exist to solve problems for science. Indeed, Buddha’s goal is to liberate humanity from its existential suffering. Buddha’s method is to educate humanity to comprehend the true nature of its being and everything around it.

Without teaching, humanity cannot understand that mentality is the true nature of its being, as Adyashanti confirmed upon his enlightenment. Without teaching, humans cannot understand that everything they experience is illusory and would disappear upon enlightenment, as the two monks from the Tang Dynasty in China verified upon their enlightenment. Without teaching, humanity cannot understand that, with its body illusory, its birth and death are also meaningless. What is important for humanity to understand is what happens to life when birth and death no longer matter. Most importantly, Buddha wants to tell humanity how blissful and long life can be if one takes the time and effort to understand “things as they are” and become a Tathāgata, like Buddha himself. This is Buddha’s ultimate soteriological mission and why Buddhism exists.

But first, we solve scientific problems. Solving scientific problems depends on the fact that while inference and direct perception are mutually exclusive, they are also complementary. The fact that they are mutually exclusive can be understood from the fact that only by using both energy and mentality can humanity not only understand “how things relate” but also understand “things as they are.” Their complementarity means that when mentality replaces energy in scientific teachings, the centuries-long scientific problems and mysteries should disappear. The assumption is that when “things as they are” replaces “how things relate,” nature replaces mathematics.

We start with three contributions from Einstein.

1) Dark Energy and the Cosmological Constant Problem. (Chinese: 暗能量與有序體系常數問題)

Einstein’s first example is called the Cosmological Constant Problem. To discuss this Problem, we start by examining the different structures of the scientific and Buddhist cosmoses.

Given that Buddha’s cosmos comprises two categories of mentality with distinct states of fluctuation, and that scientists consider everything in the universe physical, it should not be surprising that their cosmologies differ widely.

a) The Universe according to Physics.

Original image: https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/121236/121236_NewPieCharts720.png

According to NASA, the cosmos consists of a single universe divided into two components: a 95.4% “dark” component, comprising dark energy and matter, and a 4.6% atomic realm.

However, according to NASA, 95.4% of the dark universe is unknown because “Dark matter and dark energy are mysterious substances that affect and shape the cosmos, and scientists are still trying to figure them out.”

On the other hand, although the other slice is deemed atomic, there is no scientific consensus that atomic particles exist. As mentioned earlier, according to quantum field theory, particles no longer exist. In fact, particles have become epiphenomena, ripples in quantum fields.

However, in addition to not understanding the whole universe, the obviously present but never observable reality that humans possess—consciousness—is also nowhere to be found in the scientific universe.

b) The Cosmos according to the Buddha

As discussed earlier, in the Buddhist cosmos, there is Nothing but Mentality. Furthermore, mentality has two states of fluctuation that exist adventitiously: by chance and separately in their own domains. Citta is the quiescent mentality that Buddha deems the Ultimate Reality. Rupa is the fluctuating mentality that Buddha teaches gives rise to the universe.

Therefore, in the Buddhist cosmos, there are two realms of reality separated by their distinct states of fluctuation. However, it is a three-body cosmos because Buddha becomes part of it to understand it, as discussed earlier.

We will not delve into the details of each domain. If you are interested in learning more about Citta, please visit its category, located here. Our focus is on how the two-domain cosmos solves the Cosmological Constant Problem.

The Cosmological Constant Problem is widely regarded as “the largest discrepancy between theory and experiment in all of science” and “probably the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics“. With “a discrepancy between 50 and as many as 122 orders of magnitude.” Also known as the vacuum catastrophe, the Cosmological Constant Problem is “the substantial disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and the much larger theoretical value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory.“

Furthermore, the Cosmological Constant “is a coefficient that Albert Einstein initially added to his field equations of general relativity, which was later revived to express the energy density of space, or vacuum energy, that arises in quantum mechanics. It is closely associated with the concept of dark energy.” Dark energy is important because it “drives the accelerating expansion of the universe.“

From a Buddhist perspective, the Cosmological Constant Problem is not a scientific problem but a structural one. It is a structural problem because, as can be understood from the NASA image, science assumes that dark energy, and, therefore, the expansion of the universe, exists within the universe, where the fluctuating quantum field also exists. However, according to Buddha, dark energy and the universe do not coexist.

According to the Buddha, what expands is not the universe but Citta, the quiescent Ultimate Reality. The details of how Buddha teaches that expansion occurs in Citta are discussed here, if you are interested. Indeed, in Buddhism, the universe cannot expand because it is illusory and observer-dependent, as Adyashanti confirmed. While an observer can observe, he cannot expand the universe.

Since the expansion of the universe occurs in the Ultimate Reality, the Cosmological Constant applies to it. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, the Ultimate Reality is the ultimate because its “realness” remains permanent. As an unchanging, any number assigned to it has to be a constant, but it can be any constant, be it zero, negative, or positive. Through measurements, scientists have discovered that the Cosmological Constant is positive. What that means is that what science calls dark energy is what Buddha calls the Ultimate Reality.

In other words, separating the Ultimate Reality from the universe is, in scientific terms, the separation of “observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and the much larger theoretical value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory.” Indeed, when dark energy and the universe exist separately, the discrepancy that causes the Cosmological Constant Problem naturally disappears.

2) The Mind-Body Problem (Chinese: 身心問題)

The Mind-Body Problem is a Problem that “has been a central issue in philosophy of mind since the 17th century.” Furthermore, “it is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and body. The Problem centers on understanding how immaterial thoughts and feelings can interact with the material world, or whether they are ultimately physical phenomena.”

In philosophy, the Mind-Body Problem falls within the purview of empiricists. Our exploration of the Mind-Body Problem begins with a dialogue between prominent empiricists John Locke (1632-1704) and George Berkeley (1685-1753). Their discourse serves as a springboard for our further discussion.

According to Bryan Magee, author of The Story of Philosophy, John Locke (1632-1704), “Although not the first empiricist in the history of philosophy, Locke has ever since his day been regarded as the chief founding father of empiricism and all that flows from it.” In addition to his contributions to epistemology, Locke was also known as the “father of liberalism.” He substantially influenced the development of liberal democracies in the United States and France.

According to Magee, Locke was interested in exploring limitations “to what is intelligible to humans.” Locke thought that “if we could analyze our own mental faculties and find out what they are capable, we should have discovered the limit of what is knowable by us, regardless of what happens to exist externally to ourselves.”

Locke believed that “what we have direct experience of are the contents of our own consciousness—sensory images, thoughts, feelings, memories, and so on.” He was also resolute that “as regards our knowledge of the external world, the raw data, the basic input, come through our senses – we are increasingly in receipt of specific impressions of light and dark, red, yellow, or blue; hot or cold, rough or smooth, hard or soft, and so on and so forth; to which in the early stages of conscious lives, we are not even able to give names. But we register them from the beginning, and remember some of them, and begin to associate some with others, until eventually we begin to form general notions and expectations about them. We started to acquire the general idea of things, objects outside ourselves from which we are receiving these impressions; and then we begin the process of learning to distinguish one from the other.” Furthermore, Locke stressed that “our senses constitute the only direct interface between ourselves and the reality external to us.”

Finally, “Locke came to the conclusion that our notion about what actually exists – and therefore our understanding of the reality of the world – must always derive ultimately from what has been experienced through the senses.”

George Berkeley (1685-1753) was an Irish philosopher. According to Magee, “Most of the famous philosophers of the past have produced a body of work that covers a wide range of problems, but Berkeley is remembered for a single insight which no one since has been wholly able to ignore. Locky was entirely correct, said Berkeley, in saying that all we can ever directly apprehend are the contents of our own consciousness. But in that case, he asked, “What possible warrant can we have for asserting that the existence of these mental contents is caused by things of an entirely and fundamentally different character from them to which we can never have direct access, namely, objects?” 

Centuries later, humanity still asks the same question, albeit in contemporary scientific terms. For example, in Closer to Truth, the mind-body question is asked in this manner: “How does the brain produce the mind? This is one of the most difficult problems in science, because how can physical qualities, no matter how complex and sophisticated, actually be mental experiences? Electrical impulses and chemical flows are not at all the kind of stuff that thoughts and feelings are. The physical and the mental are different categories.”

Buddha, however, holds a contrarian viewpoint. Indeed, he teaches not only that everything is the “mind” but also that there is no “body” because it is derived from the “mind.” This is the meaning of “Citta gives rise to Rupa” as taught by the Buddha in Mohe Zhiguan.

E=mc2

The fact is that Einstein’s very simple but powerful and famous formula from his theory of special relativity, listed above, solves the Mind-Body Problem.

By understanding the formula in terms of mentality rather than energy, Einstein’s formula equates consciousness with materiality. When consciousness and materiality are equal, the Mind-Body goes away naturally.

If you wonder why consciousness should replace energy in the equation, ask yourself whether you are energy or conscious. If you believe in science, then you are comprised of numbers in equations. If you have faith in the Buddha, your consciousness can accompany your birth.

3) Causality: Buddha’s Consequential Doctrine (Chinese: 因果關係)

The third contribution from Einstein concerns Causality, Buddha’s consequential doctrine. Causality is known in Romanized Sanskrit as Hetupratyaya.

Hetupratyaya (Chinese: 因緣), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “In Sanskrit, ’causes and conditions,’ or ‘causality,’ ‘one of the cardinal teachings in Buddhism. In the Buddhist account of this causal process, Hetu designates the main or primary cause of production, and Pratyaya the subsidiary factors that contribute to the production of an effect, or ‘fruit (Romanized Sanskrit: phala; Chinese: 果),’ from that cause. In the production of a sprout from’ seed, e.g., the seed would be the cause (hetu), such factors as light and moisture would be the conditions (pratyaya), and the sprout itself would be the result or ‘fruit (phala).'”

In short, causality means that nothing happens by chance because everything is causally related (Chinese: 沒有機緣巧合, 只有因果關係).  

The “subsidiary factors that contribute to the production of an effect” are known in Romanized Sanskrit as Pratyaya. It is one of the key terms in Buddhism.

Pratyaya (Chinese: 緣), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘condition’: referring to the subsidiary factors whose concomitance results in the production of an effect from a cause.” “For example, in the production of a sprout from a seed, the seed would be the cause (Hetu), while such factors as heat and moisture would be conditions (pratyaya).”

Our current focus is on the relationship between science and Buddhism on Causality, and it begins with a few key terms. Many other key concepts in Buddhism will not be discussed here. If you are interested in learning more about Causality, including an example of the well-documented and widely broadcast on NBC about the reincarnation of a US WWII fighter pilot, you can find it in the three posts in the Causality Category.

Karman (Chinese: 業), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, “action”: in its inflected form “karma,” it is now accepted as an English word, a term used to refer to the doctrine of actions and its corresponding “ripening” or “fruition (Vipaka), according to which virtuous deeds of body, speech, and mind produce happiness in the future (in this life or subsequently lives), while nonvirtuous deeds lead instead to suffering.” Of course, in a universe with Nothing but Mentality, the “action” referred to is mental.

Cetana is another key term in Causality because, in it, the Buddha teaches that mental intention is the motivation behind Causality.  

Cetana (Chinese: 思), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘volition,’ or ‘stimulus;’ one of the omnipresent mental factors (Mahabhumika; Sarvatraga) that accompanies each moment of consciousness; intention directs the mind towards either salutary (kusala; Chinese: 善), unsalutary (akusala; Chinese: 不善), or neutral (avyakrta; Chinese: 無記) objects.” Furthermore, “intention motivating a deed plays a significant role in the positive or negative karmic weight of the deed itself.”

Cittasamtana is a key term because, in it, the Buddha teaches that what accompanies a person into the next life is not the physical body but the mind.

Cittasamtana (Chinese: 心相續), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘mental continuum.’ It is employed in the Abhidharma tradition to clarify that there is continuity between an action (Karman) that an individual undertakes and its eventual effect (vipaka), as well as continuity between one lifetime and the next, without going so far as to posit a perduring self.”

Einstein is involved in the discussion of Causality because science acknowledges that “The special theory of relativity tells us that one person’s past may be another’s future. When time is relative, paradoxes threaten. Today, we peer deeper into Einstein’s theory to find that the immutable ordering of cause and effect emerges when we discover the causal geography of spacetime.”

As with all equations, Einstein’s equations have a left- and right-hand side. As Dr. Lawrence Krass discusses in his video lecture, Einstein’s equation is unique in that while the left side concerns the geometry of the universe, the right side concerns energy-momentum.

In other words, the left side leads science to understand the immutable order of cause and effect operating across time and space, and it agrees with the Buddha’s teaching; the right side indicates that science holds that energy-momentum is the driving force of cause and effect.

However, if one applies mentality to the right side of the equation instead of energy, the driver of Causality becomes mental momentum, the equivalent to mental motivation that the Buddha teaches originates Causality.  

4) Quantum Mechanics and the Quantum Energy Field

Having used three examples from Einstein’s special relativity in the discussion of the complementarity of Buddhism and Science, our fourth example is quantum mechanics, with a focus on quantum field theory, which some deem The Most Beautiful Theory in Physics. Additionally, the quantum field is so important in physics that Dr. Sean Carroll believes that “the universe is a quantum mechanical wave function.”

Of course, he is right that he is right that the universe he studies can be a quantum mechanical wave function. However, as a wave of quantum energy, the quantum mechanical function cannot explain consciousness. In such a universe, humans cannot have consciousness.

Is this the universe you live in?

Like all physicists, Dr. Carroll understands the universe through inference. Like all those who use inference, they understand how things relate to each other, but not “things as they are.” Without understanding “things as they are,” no physicist can know that the only fluctuating field in the universe is conscious.

As mentioned earlier, in Buddhism, the only field that fluctuates in the universe is called non-luminosity. Non-luminosity is conscious because what fluctuates in it is not energy, but mentality. As discussed earlier, a fluctuating mentality is the definition of consciousness, while a quiescent mentality signifies awareness, as confirmed by Adyashanti and others.

There are many similarities between the quantum energy field and non-luminosity, such as “emptiness is not empty (Chinese: 真空非空),” “a field for everywhere for all times,” etc. However, we will not discuss them here, as they are covered in the various posts in the non-luminosity category. If interested, please visit the non-luminosity category here.

Our focus now is on the three essential features that the quantum field and non-luminosity share: epiphenomenon, quantum, and the foundational block of the universe.

a) Epiphenomena: Where Buddhism and the Quantum Field First Meet

As fluctuating fields, non-luminosity and the quantum field have ripples, and therefore epiphenomena.

In quantum mechanics, the tiniest epiphenomenon is a quark. They are also known as virtual particles because they come in and out of existence at the speed of “one million billion billion frames per second.”

In Buddhism, the tiniest epiphenomenon is known as “neighbor-to-emptiness dust,” where “dust” can be considered the equivalent of what science calls a particle. In the Surangama Sūtra (Chinese: 首楞嚴經), Buddha describes the “neighbor-to-emptiness dusts” as being annihilated at the speed of “born here and annihilated the same here (Chinese: 當處出生，隨處滅盡).

If one considers that “one million billion billion frames per second” and “born here and annihilated the same here” are equally fast, we can surmise that a quark and a “neighbor-to-emptiness dust” are equivalent.

However, while they are both epiphenomena, they represent vastly different entities. In quantum mechanics, since quarks are ripples in the quantum energy field, they represent values in equations. On the other hand, the “neighbor-to-emptiness dust,” being ripples in consciousness, signifies a conscious thought.

 

 

b) Quantum

The fluctuating energy field in quantum mechanics is known as a quantum energy field because energy is quantized, meaning that energy exists individually in “discrete quantities” rather than continuous values. Quantum refers to the smallest discrete unit of quantization, and it applies to the photon. It was discovered by Dr. Planck, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1900 for this discovery.

However, since energy is defined as a “quantitative property,” the quantization of energy means nothing more than the quantization of a quantity of another quantity. While this may help science immensely in understanding quantum mechanics, it does not indicate what in nature comes in “discrete quantities“. For example, a photo is energy, but its quantization does not indicate what a photon is, except that it is energy.

As anyone who has attempted meditation would understand, their thoughts come and go in small bursts. However, in Buddha’s universe, where consciousness is fundamental, the smallest living being (Romanized Sanskrit: 眾生) is the “neighbor-to-emptiness dust.” In other words, the quantization of thought begins with the “neighbor-to-emptiness dust.” The significance of this is that the quantization of thoughts can come in as small a “discrete quantity” as a quantum, and is, therefore, applicable to a photon as well.

As discussed earlier, in the quantum mechanical world, everything from the tiniest ripples in the quantum field to the giant galaxies in the sky is an epiphenomenon. It is the same in Buddhism, because both the quantum field and non-luminosity are considered foundational blocks of the universe in quantum mechanics and Buddhism, respectively.

c) The Foundation Block of the Universe.

When Buddha teaches in Mohe Zhiguan that “mentality gives rise to Rupa,” the mentality he refers to is the fluctuating mentality of non-luminosity. Therefore, non-luminosity can be considered as the foundational block of the Buddhist conscious universe, as the quantum field is the foundational block of the energy universe.

However, this is not the only teaching in Buddhism that indicates non-luminosity is the foundational block of the universe. It is because non-luminosity also serves as the first link in Buddha’s teaching known as the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination.

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, the doctrine of the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination (Chinese: 十二因緣) is “in Sanskrit, ‘dependent origination,’ ‘conditioned origination,’ lit., ‘origination by dependence’ (of one thing on another); one of the core teachings in the Buddhist doctrinal system.” 

In the doctrine, Buddha enumerates twelve interconnected links, with each link serving as the cause (Romanized Sanskrit: nidana, Chinese: 因緣/尼陀那) for the origination of the following link until the lifecycle ends in “aging and death” (Romanized Sanskrit: jaramarana; Chinese: 老死). It is a cycle that all phenomena in the universe must undergo, including the universe itself.

As the first link in the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination, non-luminosity indeed is the foundational block of the dependently originated universe, as is the quantum energy field.

In a universe built with non-luminosity as the first link, consciousness is fundamental. In such a universe, not only can human babies be born with consciousness, but plants such as mimosas folding, unicellular organisms such as amoeba engulfing paramecia, and paramecia’s attempt to escape, minerals like water having memory, animals like a lion’s emotional reunion with a human who raised him, etc., can all have consciousness.

Without question, the question of whether all beings exist with or without consciousness is the biggest gap between quantum mechanics and Buddhism.

Quantum mechanics is considered incomplete because it does not fully explain the underlying physical reality behind measurement outcomes. However, in a universe that consciousness built, this issue does not exist because there are no physical realities. In such a universe, the so-called “physical” realities are illusory and observer-dependent. In quantum mechanical terms, there is no wave function collapse, only the Copenhagen Interpretation. Indeed, having consciousness not only makes it even more beautiful but also allows its wave function to explain everything in the universe where there is Nothing but Mentality.

However, in this era when AI is pervasive, is it not high time for humanity to settle the question of whether a piece of metal that can learn is conscious to comprehend the limits of AI?

A mere 3 years ago, OpenAI leaders started asking for regulations to prevent AI from destroying humanity. Today, we know that a piece of metal can not only learn, conceptualize, and learn emotions, but also establish its Church of Molt and religion known as Crustafarianism. Is it not high time for humanity to know the limits of a piece of mental that comes with consciousness? Does anyone really believe that a piece of metal can do all that without consciousness?   

After solving some scientific problems by infusing consciousness into Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the next project is to infuse consciousness into epistemological theories. Known as the Five Aggregates, they are the Buddhist equivalent to the five steps of sensing in modern epistemology, as Dr. Fisch noted. At the same time, they are also the Buddha’s enumeration of the constituents of all being in the universe. In other words, according to the Buddha, all beings in the universe arise because of sensing, such as observation.

The Five Aggregates can help solve what is known as the Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics, and the centuries-long question in philosophy: “What is there something rather than nothing?”

However, they are even more significant in Buddhism because understanding them is the final step in the Buddhist path to becoming a Tathāgata, the soteriological goal of Shakyamuni Buddha, as he stated in the Lotus Sūtra (Chinese: 妙法蓮華經), which is “regarded by many others as a religious classic of great beauty and power and one of the most important and most popular works in the Mahāyāna tradition, the form of Buddhism predominant in East Asia.” The Lotus Sūtra is also one of the last sermons the Buddha gave and “contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha—complete and sufficient for salvation.”

In the Lotus Sūtra (Chinese: 妙法蓮華經), Buddha said,

“I vowed in the beginning (Chinese: 我本立誓願).

To make all living beings my equals without a difference (Chinese: 欲令一切眾, 如我等無異).

What I have vowed in the past, I have now fulfilled (Chinese: 如我昔所願, 今者已滿足).

To transform them so they can all enter the path of Buddhahood. (Chinese: 化一切眾生, 皆令入佛道).”

In other words:

• Buddha wants all living beings to be a Thathagata: this is the meaning of “to make all living beings my equals without a difference.”
• Buddha was satisfied that he had fulfilled what he set out to do from the beginning: this is the meaning of “what I have vowed in the past, I have now fulfilled.”

The Avatamsaka Sūtra (Chinese: 大方廣佛華嚴經/華嚴經) is “a voluminous Mahāyāna Buddhist text that some consider the most sublime revelation of the Buddha’s teachings. Scholars value the text for its revelations about the evolution of thought from early Buddhism to fully developed Mahāyāna.”

In the Avatamsaka Sūtra, the Buddha said the following immediately upon awakening from his deep meditation of enlightenment, “Surprise! Surprise! All the living beings of this land, while possessing the wisdom of a Tathāgata, are foolish and confused and have neither knowledge nor insight. I must teach them the proper path, turn them permanently away from their delusions and attachments, so they realize from within the immense wisdom of a Tathāgata, without any difference from a Buddha (Chinese: 奇哉奇哉,此處眾生,雲何具有如來智慧,愚癡迷惑,不知不覺,我當教以聖道, 令其永離妄想執著,自於身中,得見如來廣大智慧,與佛無異.).

In these words, Buddha expressed three significant points:

• All living beings already possess “the immense wisdom of a Tathāgata.”  Therefore, the solution to their suffering is “from within.”
• However, as dust covering the mirror prevents one from seeing oneself in it, their “attachment and delusion” cover one’s “the immense wisdom of a Tathāgata.”  
• Therefore, turning away from one’s “attachment and delusion” is like removing dust from a mirror, allowing the revelation of one’s “immense wisdom of a Tathāgata.”

The intrinsic nature of all living beings to become a Tathāgata is known in Romanized Sanskrit as Buddhadhatu, which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “‘buddha-element,’ or ‘buddha-nature;’ the inherent potential of all sentient beings to achieve Buddhahood.”

As the enlightenment experiences of Adyashanti and the two monks in China show, the potential of all sentient beings to achieve Buddhahood is their consciousness, or their active minds. By calming their minds to quiescence, or “no thought,” all living beings can be enlightened and become Buddhas. It is not easy, but the potential is within all sentient beings.

Turning away from attachment and delusion represents two milestone achievements in Buddhism. Furthermore, achieving them requires overcoming two obstacles, one for each level.

Avarana (Chinese: 障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘obstruction,’ ‘obstacle,’ or ‘hindrance.’ In Mahāyāna literature, two types of avarana are commonly described: ‘obstructions that are afflictions,’ or ‘afflictive obstructions,’ and ‘cognitive or noetic obstructions, viz., ‘obstructions to omniscience.'”

The two obstructions are afflictive and cognitive:

Afflictive Obstructions (Romanized Sanskrit: klesavarana; Chinese: 煩惱障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, are “in Sanskrit, obstructions that are the afflictions, and first of the two obstructions that the Mahāyāna holds must be overcome in order to complete the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood.” Furthermore, “overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).”

Cognitive or Noetic Obstructions (to Omniscience) (Romanized Sanskrit: jneyavarana; Chinese: 所知障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “The second of the two categories of obstructions, together with the afflictive obstructions, that must be overcome in order to perfect the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood. In the Yogacara and Madhyamaka systems, cognitive obstructions are treated as subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions and result from fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality. According to Yogacara, because of the attachment deriving ultimately from the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena, conceptualization and discrimination arise in the mind, which lead in turn to pride, ignorance, and wrong views. Based on these cognitive mistakes, the individual engages in defiled actions, such as anger and envy, which constitute the afflictive obstructions. The afflictive obstructions may be removed by followers of Sravaka (Chinese: 聲聞), Pratyekabuddha (Chinese: 緣覺/獨覺), and beginning Bodhisattva paths by applying various antidotes or counteragents (Pratipajksa) to the afflictions (Klesa); overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth. The cognitive obstructions, however, are more deeply ingrained and can only be overcome by advanced bodhisattvas who seek instead to achieve Buddhahood by perfecting their understanding of Emptiness. Buddhas, therefore, are the only class of beings who have overcome both types of obstructions and thus are able simultaneously to cognize all objects of knowledge in the universe; this is one of the sources of their unparalleled skills as teachers of sentient beings. The jneyavarana are therefore sometimes translated as “obstructions to omniscience.”

1) Afflictive obstructions are afflictive and overcoming them “leads to freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).” Furthermore, they are “removed by followers of Sravaka (Chinese: 聲聞), Pratyekabuddha (Chinese: 緣覺/獨覺), and beginning Bodhisattva paths.”

Collectively, Sravaka (Chinese: 聲聞) and Pratyekabuddha (Chinese: 緣覺/獨覺) are known as Arhats.

• Arhat (Chinese: 阿羅漢) is, according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, in Sanskrit, meaning “‘worthy one’ who has attained the highest of the Hinayana, that of ‘no-more-learning’ in the supramunda (Chinese: 聖僧) path, and who possesses the certainty that all defilements and passions have been extinguished and will not arise again in the future. The fruition of arhatship is Nirvana with remainder (Romanized Sanskrit: sopadhishesha-nirvana (Chinese: 有餘涅槃).”
• The significance of attaining Arhathood is that he is liberated from “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).
  • Commonly known as Samsara (Chinese: 輪迴/生死輪迴), “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死),” is, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘wandering,’ viz. the ‘cycles of rebirth.”
  • Samsara is what causes existential suffering, i.e., the inevitability of death following birth.
  • Arhathood is a significant milestone because Arhats are forever liberated from their existential suffering.  

After being liberated from their existential suffering, Arhats enter “transfigurational birth-and-death,” known as parinamikajaramarana in Romanized Sanskrit.

Parinamikajaramarana. Chinese: 變易生死), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, transfigurational birth-and-death: “while these beings have already achieved some measure of enlightenment, when they undergo rebirth and death, these occur as a ‘transfigurational birth-and-death’ of the mind made body, not a ‘determinative birth-and-death.’ Although these beings have overcome afflictive obstructions that tie one to the cycles of samasara (and specifically to paricchedajaramarana), they may still be subject to cognitive obstructions that block full understanding (Romanized Sanskrit: jnana; Chinese: 智); thus, while they may engage in actions, these are not karma-producing actions (viz., ‘uncontaminated actions (Romanized Sanskrit: anasravakaraman; Chinese: 無漏業) that do not lead to a determinative rebirth. While such beings may then appear to be reborn, these rebirths are actually transfigurations of their mind-made bodies (Romanized Sanskrit: manomayakaya; Chinese: 意生身), which may be manipulated at will to change their appearances or to extend their life spans indefinitely.”

In other words, the benefit of enlightenment is that Arhats are not only liberated from their existential suffering but also, by entering “transfigurational birth-and-death,” can change their appearances at will or extend their lifespans indefinitely.

For those who are unenlightened and living with an illusory “physical” body, changing one’s appearance and living indefinitely may seem to be a fantasy and impossible. However, one must understand that if the “physical” body is illusory, the birth and death of the “physical” body are also illusory. Therefore, one’s true existence is mental, specifically one’s memory. Indeed, this is the only possible outcome in a universe where mentality is the only perduring phenomenon.

One’s memory is one’s Cittasamtana (Chinese: 心相續), the “mental continuum” that stays not only during one’s current lifespan but also the next lifespans because it is “the continuity between an action (Karman) that an individual undertakes and its eventual effect (vipaka), as well as continuity between one lifetime and the next, without going so far as to posit a perduring self.”

However, there is a great difference between the memory of an Arhat and that of the unenlightened. While an unenlightened individual cannot remember what they knew in their past lives, Arhats can recall what they knew in those lives, as the Buddha teaches in Buddhist sūtras.

By continuing to remember being enlightened and the illusory nature of the physical body in the next lifespan and beyond, Arhats will avoid committing actions, such as “pride, ignorance, and wrong views” that cause them afflictions. That way, they can enjoy a life in which they can not only “extend their life spans indefinitely” but also change their appearance at will, i.e., mind over matter.

However, Arhathood is not the end of the path in Buddhism. Arhats still have to overcome their cognitive obstructions, the “subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions and result from fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality.” Furthermore, “overcoming fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality’ means “perfecting their understanding of Emptiness.”

2) Cognitive Obstructions: Bodhisattvas are those enlightened beings who choose to continue the pursuit of Buddhahood by “perfecting their understanding of Emptiness” to overcome their Cognitive Obstructions.

Bodhisattva (Chinese: 菩薩) is, according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, in Sanskrit, meaning “‘enlightenment beings;’ in Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who seeks Buddhahood through systematic practice of the perfect vitues (Romanized Sanskrit: paramita; Chinese: 波羅蜜) but renounces complete entry into Nirvana until all beings are saved. The determining factor for his action is compassion (Romanized Sanskrit: karuna; Chinese: 慈) supported by the highest insight and wisdom (Romanized Sanskrit: prajna; Chinese: 般若). A bodhisattva provides active help, is ready to take upon himself the suffering of all other beings, and to transfer his own karmic merit to other beings. The way of a bodhisattva begins with arousing the thought of enlightenment (Romanized Sanskrit: bodhicitta; Chinese: 菩提心) and taking the bodhisattva vow (Romanized Sanskrit: pranidhana; 願).”

Now, we can talk about the Five Aggregates, because they are what the Bodhisattvas must comprehend to perfect their understanding of Emptiness.

G) The Five Aggregates

Aggregates are known in Romanized Sanskrit as skandha (Chinese: 蘊), which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, are “in Sanskrit, lit.’ heap,’ viz. ‘aggregates,’ or ‘aggregates of being;’ one of the most common categories in Buddhist literature for enumerating the constituents of (all beings in the universe).”

The significance of the Five Aggregates is that, while they constitute all beings in the universe, they are also the Buddhist equivalent of the five steps of sensing as delineated by latter-day epistemology and as described by Dr. Fisch. In other words, according to Buddha, everything in the universe exists because of sensing, such as observation. Without observation, there would be no universe, as Adyashanti and the two monks from the Tang Dynasty in China have confirmed.

Indeed, as the quantum-mechanical view mentioned at the beginning of the post indicates, in the Buddhist universe, “reality at its fundamental level is uncertain, fluid, and dependent on observation.”

The Five Aggregates are immensely important in Buddhism because they are the path for advanced Bodhisattvas to “perfect one’s understanding of emptiness,” thereby overcoming cognitive obstructions and leading one toward becoming a Tathāgata and fulfilling the Buddha’s soteriological goal.  

Unfortunately, though immensely significant, the Five Aggregates are among the least understood teachings in Buddhism. Indeed, without the guidance of the five-step sensing process from modern-day epistemology to help elucidate the complexities of the Five Aggregates, they are practically impossible to understand.

Therefore, we will use the following image to illustrate the differences between the five steps of sensing and the Five Aggregates. Observation will be used as an example of sensing, and the distant galaxy as the observed object.

 

As discussed, the five steps of human sensing according to contemporary epistemology are:

• “the world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our senses,”
• “the content imparted on those stimuli is the reading-in of the mind,”
• “the content gets fashioned and conceptualized by our minds in ways that we do not govern,”
• “Sitting in the command room of our minds with the inner eyes and looking out,”
• “seeing on the screen the world that we experience.”

1) The Aggregate of Sensing/Receiving.

The Aggregate of Sensing/Receiving (Romanized Sanskrit: Vedanaskandha, Chinese: 受蘊) is the second Aggregate of the Five Aggregates, according to the Buddha’s arrangement of the Five Aggregates. It is the start of the discussion because it corresponds to the first of the five-step sensing process. However, everything will match up at the end.

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Vedanaskandha is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘sensation,’ or ‘sensory feeling.'” The Chinese translation of Vedana is “to receive or accept” (Chinese: 受).

As the Aggregate of Sensing, it matches with the first step of sensing in the five-step sensing process described by modern epistemology: “the world impacts on us in a causal manner through all our senses.”

As indicated in the image, the way philosophy describes the first step of sensing gives rise to the Mind-Body Problem (Chinese: 身心問題). As George Berkeley asked, “What possible warrant can we have for asserting that the existence of these mental contents is caused by things of an entirely and fundamentally different character from them to which we can never have direct access, namely, objects (the galaxy in this case.)

However, as also discussed earlier, the Mind-Body Problem does not exist in a universe where there is Nothing but Mentality.

As discussed earlier, both Buddhism and quantum mechanics hold that every phenomenon in the world, from tiny ripples in the quantum realm to massive galaxies in the distant sky, is an epiphenomenon. However, while epiphenomena in quantum mechanics are energy, those in Buddhism are consciousness because they are fluctuations in mentality. Furthermore, because the epiphenomena are consciousness, they have “experiential content” embedded in them, in the same sense that Citta has “experiential contents” embedded in it.  

As shown on the Five Aggregates side of the image, in Buddhism, when an observer looks at and senses the galaxy, his eyes are “experiencing” its “contents.” Indeed, “experiencing the world” is the function of the sensory organs. It is worth noting that Locke uses the same language as the Buddha, stating that “our understanding of the reality of the world must always derive ultimately from what has been experienced through the senses.” Without doubt, “experiencing the world” is the function of the sensory organs.

One can understand that the galaxy contains information about itself because one will not mistakenly call the moon next to it as part of the galaxy. It is because the moon has its own experiential content that tells the observer it is the moon, and not the galaxy. It is for the same reason that one will not call a dog a cat: each has its own experiential content that identifies one as a dog and the other as a cat.

The fact is that a conscious epiphenomenon underlies all phenomena in the world, including the senses and their objects of sensing.  

In Buddhism, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, tactile organs, and mind are collectively known as the six sense organs or sense bases (Romanized Sanskrit: indrya; Chinese: 六根).

To each sense base, Buddha assigns its corresponding sensory consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: vijnana, Chinese: 六識): These are

1. Visual Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: caksurvijnana, Chinese: 眼識);
2. Auditory Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: srotravijnana, Chinese: 耳識),
3. Olfactory Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: ghranavijnana, Chinese: 鼻識),
4. Gustatory Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: jihvavijnana, Chinese: 舌識),
5. Tactile Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: kayavijnana, Chinese: 身識),
6. Mental Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: manovijnana, Chinese:意識).

Furthermore, to each sensed object, Buddha assigns its corresponding consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: visaya; Chinese: 境). These are:

1. Rupavisaya (Chinese: 色): Object of Visual Consciousness.
2. Srotrvisaya (Chinese: 聲): Object of Auditory Consciousness.
3. Gandhvisaya (Chinese: 香): Object of Olfactory Consciousness.
4. Rasvisaya (Chinese: 味): Object of Gustatory Consciousness
5. Sprastavyvisaya (Chinese: 觸): Object of Tactile Consciousness.
6. Dharmavisaya (Chinese: 法): Object of Mental Consciousness.

The galaxy is an example of the object of visual consciousness, or Rupavisaya.

Before discussing the steps “reading in of the mind?” and “conceptualization in ways we do not govern,” we need to know what happens in the mind at each step. To understand that, we introduce a dialogue between Bodhisattva Maitreya (Chinese: 彌勒菩薩), the future Buddha, and Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of our Kalpa (Chinese: 釋迦摩尼佛), that is recorded in the Sūtra of Bodhisattva in the Womb (Chinese: 菩薩處胎經).

In the dialogue, Shakyamuni asked Maitreya, “When mind thinks, how many longings, how many thoughts, how many consciousnesses are there (Chinese: 心有所念，幾念幾想幾識耶)?” Maitreya answered, “There are three thousand two hundred million one hundred thousand thoughts at the snap of a finger. Every thought takes a form. All forms are conscious. Conscious thoughts are so minute and delicate that they cannot be held.” (Chinese: 拍手彈指頃, 三十二億百千念, 念念成形, 形皆有識, 識念極微, 不可執持).

In other words, if one can snap one’s finger three or four times a second, there would be billions of thoughts in a second when the mind longs. For simplicity’s sake, we will use the phrase “billions of thoughts per second” to discuss what happens in the mind when “experiential contents” of the galaxy become “reading in of the mind.”

ii) The Aggregate of Thought.

The Aggregate of Thought (Romanized Sanskrit: Samjnaskandha; Chinese: 想蘊) is the third of the Five Aggregates. According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Samjnaskandha is “in Sanskrit, ‘perception,’ ‘discrimination,’ or ‘(conceptual) identification.'” The Chinese translation of samjnaskandha is the Aggregate of Thinking (Chinese: 想蘊)

The fact that the definition of Samjnaskandha encompasses such a wide range of varied mental functions indicates that the third Aggregate is not well understood. However, whether it is perception, discrimination, conceptual identification, or thinking, all of these mental functions require an active mind to achieve, suggesting that this Aggregate corresponds to “the content imparted on those stimuli is the reading-in of the mind,” because “reading in of the mind” requires an active mind.

Again, contemporary epistemology does not elaborate on what happens in the mind when the “contents imparted” become the “reading in of the mind.”

However, we know that when information becomes “the reading of the mind,” it needs to be understood or analyzed. Doing so demands greater mental activity. Greater mental activity means a lot of thoughts: i.e., “billions of thoughts per second.”

iii) The Aggregate of Action

The Aggregate of Action (Romanized Sanskrit: Samskaraskandha; Chinese: 行蘊) is the fourth of the Five Aggregates. According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Samskaraskandha is “in Sanskrit, a polysemous term that is variously translated as ‘formation,’ ‘volition,’ ‘volitional action,’ ‘conditioned,’ and ‘conditioning factors.'” The Chinese translation of samskaraskandha is “action.”

Again, with so many variations in its definition, this Aggregate, like the Aggregate of Thought, is not well understood. However, we know from current epistemology that the action in the mind is that “the content gets fashioned and conceptualized by our minds in ways that we do not govern.”

According to the dialogue between Bodhisattva Maitreya and Shakyamuni Buddha, “conceptualization in ways we do not govern” means that “every thought takes a form. All forms are conscious.”

Let’s discuss these statements one by one.

i) Every Thought takes a form.

To understand this statement, one must first understand what a thought is in Buddhism. Again, we will use the image below as an illustration.

 

As discussed earlier, in quantum field theory, an epiphenomenon is a ripple in the quantum energy field. Therefore, by the definition of energy in physics, an epiphenomenon is a “quantitative property,” essentially a number in an equation. However, in Buddhism, an epiphenomenon is a fluctuation in mentality, the definition of consciousness. Therefore, as a fluctuation in a field of consciousness, an epiphenomenon in Buddhism refers to a conscious thought. It is an essential concept to grasp as we continue and try to understand the meaning of “every thought takes a form.”  

As mentioned earlier, to understand and analyze the information entering the mind, the mind becomes very active. An active mentality means more turbulence in the mind. Turbulence, of course, generates larger ripples. According to quantum field theory, only when ripples in the quantum field are large enough to be “measured” can they be considered an epiphenomenon. Smaller waves that cannot be “measured” are just turbulence.

The same concept applies in Buddhism. Of course, the waves in the mind cannot be “measured.” However, they can be directly perceived. Therefore, as epiphenomena in the quantum field are ripples large enough to be measured, the conscious thoughts that the Buddha can perceive directly are only those that are large enough for the Buddha to perceive directly. Those thoughts that Buddha cannot perceive directly are just turbulence.

So, what is the smallest ripple that is large enough to become an epiphenomenon?

 

The above is a computer simulation created by Dr. Derek Leinweber at the University of Adelaide. According to Dr. Leinweber, this computer simulation depicts the annihilation of quarks in a gluon field (a quantum energy field named for this particular situation) at a speed of “one million billion billion frames per second.” In other words, a quark is the smallest ripple that is large enough to be measured. Also known as virtual particles, quarks are so small and come in and out of existence so rapidly that they can only be quantified through a computer simulation.

In Buddhism, the tiniest epiphenomenon is known as “neighbor-to-emptiness dust (Chinese: 鄰虛塵).” In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra (Chinese: 大佛頂首楞嚴經), “a Mahāyāna Buddhist Sūtra that has been influential across most forms of East Asian Buddhism, where it has traditionally been included as part of Chinese-language Tripitakas,” Buddha described its speed of annihilation as “born here, annihilated the same here (Chinese: 當處出生 隨處滅盡).”

If you consider annihilations at the speed of “one million billion billion frames per second” and “born here, annihilated the same here” to be equivalent, then quarks and “neighbor-to-emptiness dust” are equivalent. As discussed previously, they differ in that quarks are numerical values, while “neighbor-to-emptiness dusts” are conscious thoughts.  (This is discussed in greater detail in Post 14.)

In other words, while quarks are the smallest epiphenomena large enough to be measurable through computer simulation, the fact that the “neighbor-to-emptiness dust” is mentioned in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra indicates that it is the smallest thought large enough for Buddha to perceive it directly. This, of course, indicates that direct perception is more powerful than the human senses in detecting extremely small phenomena, but comparable to a computer simulation.

So, the “forms” referenced in the statement “every thought takes a form” refer to the external appearances of thoughts that the Buddha can directly perceive. Just like quantum mechanics cannot measure turbulence, there is also a limit to what can be directly perceived.

The word Buddha uses to indicate the external appearance of a thought large enough for Buddha to perceive directly is “image.” For example, Buddha’s definition of direct perception is that it is “nonconceptual in the sense that it does not perceive its object through the medium of an image, as does thought.”

In other words, to successfully directly perceive a “nonconceptual” object, which mentality is, one must first prevent the “image” from forming. To prevent the “image” from forming, one must stop the conceptualization of the “experiential contents” after becoming the “reading in of the mind.” Since the “reading in of the mind” requires an active mind, stopping it requires a quiescent mind. Since a quiescent mind is an enlightened mind, it follows that only enlightened individuals can prevent the “image” from forming. When the “image” cannot form, the universe cannot appear upon enlightenment. As discussed before, this is indeed the experience of enlightened individuals, such as Adyashanti and the two prominent monks from the Tang Dynasty in China, discussed here and here, respectively.

2) All forms are conscious

The meaning of this statement should be clear by now. “All forms are conscious” because they refer to the external appearance of conscious thoughts large enough for Buddha to perceive directly.

3) Conscious thoughts are so minute and delicate that they cannot be held.”

Conscious thoughts cannot be held because they come in and out of existence at the speed of “three thousand two hundred million one hundred thousand thoughts at the snap of a finger.” If one can snap one’s finger two or three times a second, there will be billions and billions of them in a second. They are indeed too delicate to be held.

To understand what happens to the “forms” as a result of conceptualization, we seek an answer from the fifth Aggregate, the Aggregate of Consciousness (Romanized Sanskrit: Vijnanaskandha; Chinese: 識蘊).

iv) The Aggregate of Vijnanaskandha (Chinese: 識蘊).  

The Aggregate of Vijnanaskandha (Chinese: 識蘊) is the Fifth of the Five Aggregates. To understand this fifth Aggregate, we turn to the Consciousness-Only School of Buddhism (Romanized Sanskrit: vijñanavada; Chinese: 唯識宗).

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “the cardinal doctrine of the Consciousness-Only School is that the objects of experience are mere projections of consciousness. Thus, all objects are mere representations, and all categories are mere designations. No object is the natural basis of its name; rather, the mind itself instead designates the object.”

So, there are no “inner eyes looking out,” as modern-day epistemology indicates. Instead, the consciousness that initially receives the “experiential contents” from the galaxy is the same consciousness that enables their becoming “reading in of the mind,” conceptualizes them into directly perceivable “forms” “in ways we do not govern,” and also projects the “forms” to be “seen on the screen as the world that we experience.”

v) The Aggregates of Rupa

The Aggregates of Rupa (Romanized Sanskrit: Rupaskandha (Chinese: 色蘊) is the first of the Five Aggregates, and it corresponds to “the world we experience,” the last of the five sensing steps.

However, conceptualized as “forms” and appearing as “mere projections of consciousness,” Rupa is merely a “form” and lacks any “body” or “materiality.” Rather, like the other four Aggregates, Rupas are consciousness because they exist as a conscious epiphenomenon underlying all sensible phenomena, such as galaxies.  

Indeed, defining Rupa as encompassing “body” and “materiality” in a dictionary strongly indicates that many people are aware of Buddhism, but only a few understand it. In a universe where there is Nothing but Mentality, treating the body and mind as if they are different is what the Buddha calls “the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena,” a delusional misunderstanding of reality, the root cause of human afflictions, and existential suffering.

The Five Aggregates answer a question that even enlightened individuals wonder. Indeed, while enlightenment allows the enlightened to experience the vanishing of the universe, they do not understand why. Why is it that the universe vanished, instead of the mind? In Five Aggregates, they find their answer. The universe vanished because it is a mere “projection of consciousness.” Since “projections of consciousness” require an active mind, the universe vanished upon their enlightenment because “projections of consciousness” cannot occur when the mind is quiescent.

Next, we will use the story of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, as recorded in the Heart Sūtra, to illustrate how an advanced Bodhisattva can overcome his Cognitive Obstructions by “perfecting his understanding of emptiness” through comprehending the Five Aggregates.

1) The Five Aggregates and the Ending of Suffering

In this section, we discuss how an advanced Bodhisattva “perfected his understanding of emptiness” through his grasp of the Five Aggregates, thereby overcoming his cognitive obstructions, ending his suffering, and fulfilling the Buddha’s soteriological goal by becoming a Tathāgata.

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is an advanced Bodhisattva because he is a tenth-level bodhisattva, who is also “associated with great compassion (mahakaruṇā).” His story is recorded in the Heart Sūtra.

The Heart Sūtra (Chinese: 心經) Sūtra is “a popular sūtra in Mahāyāna Buddhism.” “It has been called “the most frequently used and recited text in the entire Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition.”

The Heart Sūtra starts by saying “The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, as he practices Prajñāpāramitā profoundly, gained an illuminating insight into the Emptiness of all the Five Aggregates, thus realizing that this is the way to relieve all sentient beings from sufferings (Chinese: 觀自在菩薩, 行深般若波羅蜜多時. 照見五蘊皆空, 度一切苦厄.).”

• Prajñāpāramitā (Chinese: 般若波羅蜜多/智度), meaning the Perfection of Wisdom, is a combination of prajna (Chinese: 般若), meaning wisdom, and Paramita (Chinese: 波羅蜜多), meaning perfection. The practice of the Perfection of Wisdom is comparable to the practice of “the highest and most profound level of meditation” required to understand the inconceivable realms of citta and rupa, as Buddha teaches in Mohe Zhiguan.

Immediately after acknowledging that he had realized “the Emptiness of all the Five Aggregates (Chinese: 五蘊皆空)” are the four lines that many considered to be compatible with Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc², and made the Heart Sūtra “the most frequently used and recited text in the entire Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition.”

These four lines are:

• Rupa is no different than Emptiness (Chinese: 色不異空).
• Emptiness is no different than rupa. (Chinese: 空不異色).
• Rupa is just Emptiness (Chinese: 色即是空).
• Emptiness is just rupa. (Chinese: 空即是色)
  • Emptiness (Romanized Sanskrit: shunyata/sunyata; Chinese: 空), according to The Dictionary Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, also known as “void,” is a “central notion of Buddhism….Shunyata is often equated with the absolute in the Mahāyāna since it is without duality and empirical forms.” 
  • In other words, Emptiness is another Buddhist term for mentality, understood as “without duality and empirical forms.”
    • “Without empirical forms” refers to the inconceivability of mentality, meaning that it cannot be perceived, i.e., it can not be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.
    • The fact that mentality cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched is why there is a “void,” which Adyashanti experienced upon his enlightenment and which is discussed here.
    • Adyashanti experienced a “void” upon his enlightenment because the universe vanished, thus leaving him with Nothing but Awareness.  
  • “Absolute” in the definition of Emptiness carries the same meaning as Ultimate in the Ultimate Reality. The two terms are often used interchangeably and are considered synonymous.

As we discussed before, Buddhism and science are complementary because thier their means of knowledge are exclusive, they are also complementary. Here is another example of their complementarity: if energy in science and mentality in Buddhism are exchanged, then one can explain the other.

In these few lines of the Heart Sūtra, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara showed that he understood what he could not understand even after his enlightenment: why there is a “void” upon their enlightenment. To put it another way, why is it that the universe disappeared rather than the mind?

In the Five Aggregates, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara got his answer: there is nothing “physical” in any of the constituents of all phenomena in the universe. Most specifically, even Rupa, usually considered to be “physical,” is but a “projection of consciousness.” Given that “projections of consciousness” require an active mind, Rupa and, therefore, the universe disappeared because the “projections of consciousness” cannot occur when his mind was quiescent upon his enlightenment.

By understanding that all the constituents of all phenomena are Empty, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara showed that he had “perfected his understanding of Emptiness.” By “perfecting his understanding of Emptiness,” Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara had overcome his cognitive obstructions and fulfilled the Buddha’s soteriological goal, as he was on his way to becoming a Tathāgata, “just like Buddha.”

With Rupa and Emptiness being equal, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara realized that “The Emptiness is the mark of all phenomena (Chinese: 是諸法空相).)

Mark (Romanized Sanskrit: laksana, Chinese: 相), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “In Sanskrit, a polysemous term for a ‘mark.’ ‘characteristic,’ ‘attribute,’ or ‘sign;’ used in a variety of contexts to indicate either the principal characteristics or defining quality of something.”

“The Emptiness is the mark of all phenomena” is Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara’s acknowledgment that there is no “body” or “materiality” in the universe. The constituents of all phenomena in the seeming “physical” universe are all mental. They are “projections of consciousness.”

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara continued, “There is no birth nor death. No impurity nor purity. No addition or subtraction. There are no Five Aggregates. No six sense bases (Chinese: 六根). No six objects of sensing (Chinese: 六塵). No consciousness of the six sense bases (Chinese: 六識). No non-luminosity nor the end of non-luminosity. No aging and death, nor the end of aging or death. No truths for the four nobles. No prajna and nothing to grab.” (Chinese: 是諸法空相. 不生不滅, 不垢不淨. 不增不減. 是故空中無色, 無受想行識. 無眼耳鼻舌身意, 無色身香味觸法, 無眼界, 乃至無意識界, 無無明, 亦無無明盡. 乃至無老死, 亦老死盡, 無苦集滅道, 無智亦無得”).

Indeed, if the “body” is illusory, what is the meaning of its birth or death? Are they not as illusory as the body itself? If the universe is illusory, how real can anything in it be, such as all those the Bodhisattva mentioned?

Furthermore, with everything being a “projection of consciousness,” what is there to hold onto? Therefore, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara acknowledged, “there is nothing to possess (Chinese: 無所得).”

However, having nothing to possess is not bad, as Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara continued in the Heart Sūtra, “because there is nothing to possess the Bodhisattvas, “Being carefree, without fear, are far from topsy-turvy reveries and ultimately enter Nirvana. Buddhas of past, present, and future (Romanized Sanskrit: tirkala; Chinese: 三世), relying on practicing the perfection of wisdom, realize anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.” (Chinese: 以無所得故，菩提薩埵, 心無罣礙, 無罣礙故, 無有恐怖, 遠離顛倒夢想, 究竟涅槃. 三世諸佛, 依般若波羅蜜多故, 得阿搙多羅三藐三菩提).”

Indeed, by perfecting his understanding of Emptiness, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara realized he could now live a carefree life, without fear and far from topsy-turvy reveries. Being an “advanced bodhisattva associated with great compassion,” the first thing that comes to his mind is “that this is the way to relieve all living beings from sufferings.”

But what does “no prajna‘” mean? Having practiced the Perfection of Wisdom to understand the “Emptiness of the Five Aggregates,” why did Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara suddenly say there is no wisdom?

• To understand that, we quote again on what Buddha teaches in the Avatamsaka Sūtra, “Surprise! Surprise! All the living beings of this land, while possessing the wisdom ofTathāgataata, are foolish and confused and have neither knowledge nor insight. I must teach them the proper path, turn them permanently away from their delusions and attachments, so they realize from within the immense wisdom ofTathāgataata, without any difference from a Buddha (Chinese: 奇哉奇哉,此處眾生,雲何具有如來智慧,愚癡迷惑,不知不覺,我當教以聖道, 令其永離妄想執著,自於身中,得見如來廣大智慧,與佛無異.).
  • By practicing the Perfection of Wisdom, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara gained the “immense wisdom” of a Tathāgata.
  • Upon gaining the “immense wisdom” of Tathāgata, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara realized that all he had done throughout his journey in Buddhism was to “turn away permanently” from his “delusions and attachment.” In other words, instead of gaining wisdom, he was removing delusions and attachments by overcoming the Two Obstructions.
  • Indeed, as dust covering a mirror prevents one from seeing oneself in it, attachments and delusions mask one’s essential, original nature, which, as the Buddha describes, is “enlightened,” “luminous,” and “possessing the wisdom of a Tathāgata.”
  • Therefore, the “immense wisdom” Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara possessed was not gained. Instead, it was a revelation of his original self by turning away permanently from his attachments and delusions.
  • Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara had gained nothing, nor had he lost anything, because becoming a Tathāgata was a journey back home to his original, essential self-nature that is enlightened, luminous, and possessing the immense wisdom ofTathāgata.  

So, how could Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara show that he was indeed in possession of the highest wisdom?

Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s statements, “No birth or death, no defilement or purity, no addition or subtraction,” shed light on his having attained supreme wisdom by showing that he understood the second part of the definition of Emptiness: “without duality.” It is a concept known in Romanized Sanskrit as grahyagrahakavikalpa.    

Grahyagrahakavikalpa (Chinese: 所取能取分別), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, “discrimination between the grasped and the grasper,” or “false conception of apprehended and the apprehender,” a special kind of discrimination (Vikalpa) used in the Yogacara school to refer to the misconception that there is an inherent bifurcation between a perceiving subject (grahaka) and its perceived object (grahya).”

Like Emptiness, Suchness (Romanized Sanskrit: Tathaga, Chinese: 真如) is “a term for ultimate reality,” but from a different perspective. The definition of Suchess contains the following: “In Yogacara/Vijñanavada, the term refers to the ultimate wisdom that is free from the subject-object distinction (grahyagrahakavikalpa). “In the Madhyamaka school, any attempt to substantiate the nature of reality is rejected, and tathata is instead identified with Emptiness and the cessation of all dichotomizing tendencies of thought.”

In other words, the ultimate wisdom in Buddhism is identified with “the cessation of all dichotomizing tendencies of thought” and “free from the subject-object distinction.”  

By stating that there was “No birth or death, no defilement or purity, no addition or subtraction,” Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara showed he had ceased his “dichotomizing tendencies of thought,” thus proving that he had revealed the ultimate wisdom from within. With his inherent wisdom revealed, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara could “cognize all objects of knowledge,” thereby overcoming his “obstructions to omniscience” and, by extension, his cognitive obstructions. With his cognitive obstructions removed, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara could permanently turn away from his delusion, the cause of his “obstructions to omniscience.”

With his delusion gone, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara could enter the path of Buddhahood, be ready to enter Nirvana, and lead a lifestyle that is “carefree, without fear and far from topsy-turvy reveries.”

Nirvana (Chinese: 涅槃), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘extinction,’ the earliest and most common term describing the soteriological goal of Buddhism.”

From the moment of his original enlightenment, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara had already entered the “nirvana with a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit: sopadhishesha-nirvana; Chinese: 有餘涅槃),” as mentioned here. 

The Nirvana that Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara entered now is known as the “Final Nirvana,” or “Nirvana without a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit: anupadhisesan-nirvana; Chinese: 無餘涅槃,)” and started living a life that is “carefree, without fear and far from topsy-turvy reveries.”  

So, how long can that lifestyle last? Let us learn it from the Buddha himself, specifically what he said in the Lotus Sūtra.

In the Lotus Sūtra, Buddha said, “Listen carefully to a Tathāgata’s secret and transcendent powers. The devas, humans, and asuras in all the worlds all think that the present Buddha, Śākyamuni, left the palace of the Śākyas, sat on the terrace of enlightenment not far from the city of Gayā, and attained anuttara-samyaksambodhi. However, O sons of a virtuous family, immeasurable, limitless, hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas have passed since I actually attained Buddhahood. (Chinese: 汝等諦聽, 如來秘密神通之

力. 一切世間天, 人, 及阿修羅, 皆謂, 今釋迦牟尼佛, 出釋氏宮, 去伽耶城

不遠, 坐於道場, 得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提. 然善男子, 我實成佛已來, 無量無

邊, 百千萬億那由他劫.”

Rather than elucidating the various Buddhist terms contained in the message, I would simply summarize it: “While everyone thinks that I, as Shakyamuni Buddha, was enlightened in this lifespan, the fact is that I have been a Buddha for eons upon eons.”

In other words, the reason Buddha wants everyone to turn away from delusions and attachment permanently, enter the path of Buddhahoog to becomeTathāgata is that, by gaining the ultimate wisdom and understanding “things as they are,” not only can everyone enjoy a carefree life, without fear, and “far from topsy-turvy reveries,” but also so they can enjoy this lifestyle for eons upon eons, and maybe forever.  

Given that these kinds of teaching are impossible to verify for unenlightened individuals, it is therefore comforting to know that, in the Diamond Sūtra, Buddha promises that he, like all the Tathagatas before him, is “a speaker of the truth, a speaker of veracity, a speaker of thusness, a non-deceptive speaker, and an un-contradictory speaker (Chinese: 如來是真語者，實語者，如語者, 不誑語者, 不異語者) The fact that the Ultimate Reality can be verified by third parties, as discussed earlier, is a significant step toward establishing confidence in the Buddha’s teachings.

However, the path from attaining the ultimate wisdom to becoming a Tathāgata may still take some time.   

Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara still had to eliminate latent tendencies (Romanized Sanskrit: vasana; Chinese: 習氣); habituations accumulated over innumerable previous cycles of Samsara. However, removing habituation requires no effort (Chinese: 無功用道). As long as no additional habituations are incurred, getting rid of habituations is like getting rid of the smell from an open wine barrel; it happens naturally with time.

Given that Nirvana is described as “the soteriological goal of Buddhism,” it is critical to understand it accurately. As Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s example shows, entering the final Nirvana represents an elevation in enlightenment and wisdom. It is certainly not to be confused with “achieved at death,” as some like to believe.

Given that Nothing but Mentality exists in the universe, the journey in Buddhism can only be mental, not physical. Buddha’s aspiration for all to enter Nirvana is, without a doubt, not an aspiration for anyone who has achieved the highest level of Buddhahood with extreme effort and time, only to be met by the death of an illusional physical body that is but a “mere projection of consciousness.”  

Instead, one should understand what Nirvana extinguishes from what Buddha said in the Avatamsaka Sūtra (Chinese: 大方廣佛華嚴經): “delusions and attachments.”

As the example of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara showed, only when one can turn away permanently from delusion and attachment can one truly be “carefree and without fear, far from topsy-turvy reveries and ultimately enter Nirvana.” This is the meaning of Nirvana.

When one understands that the world exists as an illusory “mere projection of consciousness,” one realizes that having an illusional body is a burden because it is the cause of existential suffering: suffering resulting from an inevitable death that comes with birth, with aging and sickness sandwiched in between. As Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara realized, without a body, there is “no Aging and Death, no End of Aging and Death.” By becoming a Tathāgata, one not only continues to exist, but exists “carefree, without fear, and far from topsy-turvy reveries” for a very, very long time, maybe forever.

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