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. is sure.
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, 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 tinest 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 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 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.
“Without duality” refers to the lack of duality in the Ultimate Reality when the two enlightened minds form a nondualistic state of mind.
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