19. Non-Luminosity (i) Where the Conscious Universe Originated

19. Non-Luminosity (i) Where the Conscious Universe Originated

Having discussed the quiescent Citta of the Ultimate Reality, we discuss the second realm of reality in Buddha’s three-body cosmos. In contrast to the quiescent mentality of Ultimate Reality, this is the realm where mentality fluctuates incessantly.

Let’s start by discussing the origin of the name of this second realm of reality.

As discussed earlier, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, in Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamita, Buddha teaches that “the thought of enlightenment is no thought since in its essential original nature is transparently luminous (Chinese=光明).” It is this teaching that makes Citta Enlightened and Luminous.

Aṅguttara Nikāya (Chinese=增一阿含經) “is a Buddhist scripture, the fourth of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, …of Theravada Buddhism.”

According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, in the Aṅguttara Nikāya, Buddha stated, “The mind, O monks, is luminous, but defiled by adventitious defilements.”

In other words, the luminous nature of Citta is defiled. So, how can Citta change, and what does defilement mean?

Since Citta is quiescent, the only way Citta can change is to lose its quiescence. In other words, mentality in the second realm fluctuates.  

However, a fluctuating mentality cannot be the Ultimate Reality anymore because the “realness” of its reality changes with every fluctuation. Furthermore, when mentality becomes active, it no longer fits Buddha’s definition of “no thought.” In other words, it is no longer an enlightened realm.

So, defilement means that the fluctuating mentality is no longer the Ultimate Reality, nor is it enlightened nor luminous.

Therefore, the second realm can be called non-luminosity or unenlightened. Usually, Buddha uses non-luminosity (Romanized Sanskrit=tamasa; Chinese=無明) to represent the realm of active mentality. For example, Buddha uses non-luminosity as the realm of fluctuating mentality permeating the universe to serve as the first link in the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination (see below). On the contrary, Buddha uses unenlightenment (Chinese=不覺) in the Three Delicates Marks when discussing the unenlightened nature of sentient beings.

So, what is adventitious? According to dictionary.com, adventitious is “associated with something by chance rather than as an integral part; extrinsic.

  1. Association by chance: When things are associated by chance, there cannot be a causal relationship between them. Indeed, this is what Buddha teaches in “Such is the Way of Dharma:” The Ultimate Reality and non-luminosity are “not causal.” Each has existed since time immemorial without anything causing them to exist.
  2. Extrinsic means that Citta and non-luminosity are separate; one is not “an integral part” of the other. This is understandable. After all, the quiescent and unconditioned Citta cannot coexist in the same domain with the fluctuating and conditioned non-luminosity.  

NASA dark-matter-energy-atomic-pie chart

In contrast to the scientific cosmos, Buddha’s cosmos consists of two realms of reality. The realm of the quiescent Citta exists separately from the realm of the fluctuating mentality. One is not an integral part of the other. Additionally, as discussed previously, the realm of the quiescent Citta is equivalent to the “dark” realm in science because the expansion of the cosmos occurs in it. On the other hand, while Buddha’s non-luminosity is comparable to the “atomic” slice in the scientific universe, it is more like the quantum realm in quantum mechanics that gives rise to the universe. The difference between non-luminosity and the quantum realm is that non-luminosity is conscious.

We start discussing non-luminosity by discussing its most critical role as the first link in Buddha’s teaching known as the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination.

The Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination doctrine is Buddha’s teaching that all phenomena in the universe are dependently originated.

Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination (Romanized Sanskrit=Pratityasamutpada; Chinese=十二緣起), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 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.” Additionally, “In one of the earliest summaries of the Buddha’s teaching, Buddha is said to have taught: “When this is present, that comes to be. /From the arising of this, that arises. /When this is absent, that does not come to be. /From the cessation of this, that ceases.”

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.  

Of the twelve links, non-luminosity is the first link. An essential qualification for the first link of the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination is that it cannot be caused by something else, or it will cause a chicken/egg dilemma. For example, if one deems human ignorance the first link in the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination, the question that naturally arises is whether human ignorance comes first or the ignorant human. Such teaching is obviously non-Buddhist because Buddha would never make that mistake.

Indeed, as the only “not causal” phenomenon in its own domain, non-luminosity is the only phenomenon that can be the first link without causing a chicken/egg dilemma. 

As discussed in a previous post, in Mohe Zhiguan, Buddha teaches that “rupa originates from mentality.” The mentality Buddha refers to in Mohe Zhiguan is the fluctuating mentality of non-luminosity.

There are eight theories on how the universe came into existence in science. While the Big Bang theory is the favorite among scientists, Buddha teaches that the quantum fluctuations theory is the mechanism that best reflects the origin of our universe in nature.

In his video lecture. Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe, Dr. David Tong made it very clear that “there are no particles in the world.” Instead, he said that (fluctuating) quantum energy fields have replaced Newton’s solid, hard, impenetrable, and movable particles as the building blocks of the universe.

But what is a quantum energy field?

Dr. Tong provided the answer as he said that, in physics, a field is “something that takes a particular value at every point in space. And what’s more, that value can change in time.”

To understand where the values come from, we need to know what energy is.

Energy, by definition, “is the 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.

Furthermore, quantitative propertyis any property of a physical system that is measurable.”

So, the values that change in the quantum fields are those scientists can either directly measure or transfer to a physical system from the values obtained in equations using energy.

In other words, Buddhism and quantum mechanics both acknowledge that fluctuating fields are the mechanism of how our universe originated. However, while the mechanism of the origination of the universe is the same, the quantum mechanical universe originating from fluctuating numbers in quantum energy fields differs drastically from Buddha’s universe originating from the fluctuating mentality of non-luminosity.

In his video lecture, Dr. Tong acknowledged that reality built from quantum energy is “nebulous and abstract.” Most important, however, is the absence of the obviously present but never seen reality, consciousness.   

On the other hand, because Buddha’s universe is constructed from a fluctuating mentality, everything in it is sentient. Not only are human babies born with consciousness, but consciousness is also present in amoeba on the hunt, sensitive plants like mimosa pudica, memory in water, emotional lions reuniting with humans, etc.

Furthermore, while the eight theories on the origin of the universe offer mechanisms for how the universe originated, they do not provide any insight into what existed before their universes began. For example, while the Big Bang is a popular theory on the origin of the universe, the debates about What Existed Before the Big Bang rage on. It is the same situation in quantum mechanics. While quantum physicists consider fluctuating quantum energy fields the foundational block of the universe, they do not know whether a domain where the quantum energy fields do not fluctuate exists. Like the Big Bang scientists, quantum physicists cannot know where their construction “material” comes from without the information. In fact, even when a quantum physicist attempted to create a domain without quantum field fluctuations, he was unsuccessful. We will discuss this further when verifying the adventitious relationship between the Ultimate Reality and non-luminosity.

However, such a dilemma does not exist in Buddhism. Since the realm of non-luminosity has existed since time immemorial and is eternal, it is an always-available foundation for another universe, or even a multiverse, to originate anytime and anywhere in the cosmos from it when local conditions (Romanized Sanskrit Sanskrit=pratyaya, Chinese=緣) are suitable. According to science, the conditions for the origination of our universe were right a little more than 13 billion years ago.

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