What Is Buddhism?

Buddhism is not a religion, philosophy, or science, although it is complementary with it. Buddha is not a deity but an educator. What he teaches is the nature of reality, the answer to the question “What Exists?” .

What Exists? 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.” 

What Exists? Humanity’s Struggle to Understand

Asking the question “What Exist?” even in the light of Relativity and quantum mechanics reflects a major deficiency in human knowledge: what constitutes the world in which humanity lives? It is, in fact, a question that humanity has struggled to understand since pre-Socratic philosophers to the present day. For a simplified discussion of humanity’s struggle to understand reality without success, please click here.

“What Exists?” Buddha Answers.

According to Buddha, mentality is the only perduring reality in the cosmos. Furthermore, mentality exists in two distinct states of fluctuations: quiescent and fluctuating. These two states of fluctuating mentality explain the entirety of existence in the cosmos.

The question, What Exists? demands a simple answer. Not only did Buddha offer a fundamental, simple answer, but also with the minimum number of categories: two.

What Makes Buddhism Unique?

The uniqueness of Buddhism is that Buddha teaches that two means of knowledge are necessary to understand the two realities manifested by the two states of fluctuating mentality.

While inference refers to inferentially connected, word-based knowledge that humanity normally uses to understand the perceivable universe, direct perception is another means by which humanity can comprehend the inconceivable world of mentality by becoming part of it, as Dr. Max Planck understood.

Dr. Max Planck was a 1918 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics and the originator of quantum theory. After a lifetime of studying quantum mechanics, he understood the limits of science, as he said:  

• 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.”

Two Different Structures of the Cosmos.

Since the scientific method relies on inference, and Buddhism relies on direct perception, their respective understandings of cosmology differ markedly.

The Cosmos According To NASA

By using inference exclusively, the scientific cosmos consists of a single universe in which everything is energy and human consciousness is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, 95.4% of the universe remains “dark”, and whether particles exist in the remaining 4.6% is debated. Moreover, it is a universe full of unsolved questions, problems, and mysteries, such as “What Exist?” “Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality?” the “Cosmological Constant Problem,” the “Mind-Body Problem,” the “Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics,” and “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” At the same time, humanity cannot have its consciousness.

To understand the scope and limits of science, it is essential first to comprehend the limits of  How Humans Know What They Know.

The Cosmos According to Buddha

Through Direct Perception, Buddha teaches that the cosmos is a Three-Body Structure in which there is no energy, only mentality. There, humans can have consciousness, and nothing is mysterious or problematic. Not only is “Dark Energy” identified as the Ultimate Reality, but the quantum energy field is conscious. There are no Newtonian-style atomic particles only epiphenomena where Buddhism and Science meet, “What Exist?” is answered, Consciousness Is Not The Ultimate Reality, “Cosmological Constant Problem” does not exist, “The Mind-Body Problem,” is resolved, “The Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics” is explained, and “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing” is clarified. 

For reasons mentioned earlier, Buddha is part of the three-body structure, in addition to the two realms of reality of quiescent and fluctuating mentality.

Indeed, to understand Buddhism, first understand direct perception.

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