1. Overview: What Exists?

If you look out the window, see the world, and deem it real, you would be very wrong.

It is because the world is just not what everyone thinks it is.

A) What Exists:” Humanity’s Struggle to Understand

The question, What Exists?, is asked on the online series 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.”

Asking “What Exists?” reflects the fact that humanity lacks a comprehensive understanding of the world in which it lives. In fact, humanity’s quest to understand the world started with pre-Socratic Greek philosophers.

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 wrongly assumed it to be water, Magee suggests that his insight was “amazing because the physics that leads 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.”

Isaac Newton was the first scientist to propose that solid particles existed. However, he never actually investigated their existence. 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.”

However, with the advent of quantum field theory in quantum mechanics, “there are no particles in the world,” said Dr. David Tong firmly in his video lecture.

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 are the ripples of the quantum fields he mentioned. By referring to particles as epiphenomena, it is clear that quantum mechanics views particles as secondary phenomena arising from the quantum field. Particles have become secondary phenomena because their existence is conditionally dependent on the primary phenomenon, which is the quantum field. Epiphenomena are secondary phenomena because they cannot exist without the quantum field, the primary phenomenon.

To understand what a quantum field is, one must first understand the concept of quantum. Quantum “is a discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents.” In other words, a quantum field is a field of energy with discrete values.

So, what is energy?

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 investigative tool that scientists defined to help them study specific physical system properties. However, as a quantitative property, energy does not exist in nature. Indeed, in the scientific universe, where everything is energy, everything exists as mathematical expressions. While mathematical expressions satisfy Pythagoras’ insight, they do not inform “What Exists?” in nature.

In this discussion on “What Exists,” four scientists were interviewed. Among the four scientists, 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. The group does not have a unanimous opinion on “What Exist?”

Unable to find an answer in the physical universe, scientists start to wonder about consciousness and ask questions such as, “Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality?” “Is Consciousness Fundamental?“, “Does Consciousness Cause the Cosmos?“, etc. Again, as with “What Exists?” in the physical universe, physicists are also unable to find answers to these questions about consciousness, either.

However, a willingness to inquire whether consciousness is fundamental is a giant step forward for humanity’s quest to understand the nature of reality.

Indeed, Buddha answered, “What Exists?” more than 2,600 years ago while meditating under the Bodhi Tree until he achieved enlightenment.

B) “What Exist:” Buddha Answers

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

The question, “What Exists?” comes with the desire that the answer must be fundamental and that it “discerns the minimum number of basic categories that explain the entirety of existence.” Indeed, Buddha’s answer satisfies both requirements. Not only is it fundamental, but it only consists of two categories.

Moreover, with mentality as the only fundamental reality in the cosmos, the Buddha realized Thales’ insight that everything in the universe could be composed of one element. However, Thales might not have anticipated that the component would be non-physical.

Furthermore, Buddha teaches that there is an adventitious relationship between these two realms. By the definition of adventitious, it means that there can be no causal relationship between them and that they must be extrinsic to each other. The result is that Buddha’s cosmology, where there is Nothing but Mentality, is substantially different from the scientific cosmology humans believe, where there is nothing but energy.

C) Buddhism and Science: Different Cosmologies.

The following image from NASA shows the scientific structure of our universe.

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

According to NASA, the universe is a two-reality structure: a 95.4% “dark” realm consisting of dark energy and matter, with the remaining 4.6% being the 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.”

At the same time, although the other slice is referred to as the atomic slice, there is no scientific consensus on whether atomic particles actually exist within it. According to quantum field theory, solid, indestructible Newtonian particles no longer exist. Not only have quantum fields replaced particles as the building block of the universe, but particles have epiphenomena, which are ripples in the quantum fields. Most importantly, the obviously present but never seen consciousness that all humans possess is nowhere to be found in NASA’s cosmos.

Additionally, the NASA universe is full of unsolved questions, problems, and mysteries, some of which have been unsolvable for centuries, such as “Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality?” the “Cosmological Constant Problem,” “Mind-Body Problem,” “Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics,” “Observer Effect,” and “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?”

The following is Buddha’s depiction of how the cosmos is structured.

Buddha’s three-body cosmos comprises two realms of reality: one is where mentality is quiescent, and the other where mentality fluctuates, as mentioned earlier.

1) The Quiescent Realm.

The quiescent realm is a uniquely Buddhist teaching because it not only represents the Ultimate Reality in Buddha’s cosmos, but also where there is Nothing but Mentality. Yet, faith in Buddhism is not blind because the quiescent realm is verifiable by any enlightened individual, such as Adyashanti.
The quiescent realm is the Ultimate Reality because its quiescence means that its “realness” can never change. This is the definition of the Ultimate Reality: to be the Ultimate Reality, its “realness” must be permanent.
The quiescent realm is also unconditioned, meaning that it is “uncompounded and therefore perduring phenomena that are not subject to impermanence.
The quiescent realm is analogous to philosopher Immanuel Kant’s concept of the Noumenon, and the “thing-in-itself.”
Like Noumenon, the Ultimate Reality “exists independently of human sense.” Like the “thing-in-itself,” Nothing but Mentality “is the status object as it is, independent of representation and observation.”
Additionally, Buddha defines enlightenment as a “no thought” mentality and deems its original nature to be luminous. Since the mentality of the Ultimate Reality is quiescent, it is a “no thought” mentality. Therefore, the Ultimate Reality is also an enlightened and luminous realm.
That the Ultimate Reality is an enlightened realm is a crucial aspect of experiencing enlightenment because it plays the role of the “experienced object,” which makes enlightenment possible when it forms a nondualistic mental state with the quiescent mentality of the enlightened individual, which serves as the “experiencing subject.” When the two quiescent minds become one, enlightenment occurs.
The Ultimate Reality corresponds to the realm of dark energy in the NASA universe because the Buddha teaches that the expansion of the universe occurs within it, which, according to science, is attributed to dark energy. There is no counterpart for dark matter in Buddha’s cosmos.

2) The Fluctuating Realm

In contrast to the quiescent realm, the fluctuating realm exists conditionally, meaning that it is impermanent because all its phenomena “are produced through the concomitance of causes and conditions.
In contrast to the Ultimate Reality, Buddha deems the realm of fluctuating mentality to be defiled. Defilement refers to a fluctuating mentality that is unenlightened or non-luminous. While unenlightenment primarily applies to the mental state of conscious beings, non-luminosity typically signifies the realm of fluctuating mentality that pervades the universe.
Non-luminosity is equivalent to the quantum field in the atomic slice of the NASA universe for many reasons.i) While what is quantized in quantum mechanics is energy, a quantitative property, what is quantized in Buddhism is mentality. As all humans can testify, conscious thoughts come and go in discrete amounts.
ii) Quantum fields and non-luminosity are the building blocks of the universe in their respective fields. However, while energy fluctuates in the quantum field, what fluctuates in Buddhism is mentality, thus giving us consciousness not only in humans, but also consciousness to plants such as mimosas folding, unicellular organisms such as amoeba engulfing paramecia, and paramecia’s attempt to escape, minerals like memory in water, animals like lion’s emotional reunion with a human who raised him, etc, all of which are missing from a universe constructed from quantum fields.

iii) Quantum field and non-luminosity first meet at their tiniest epiphenomena respectively: quark and “neighbor-to-emptiness dust (Chinese=鄰虛塵).” They are equivalent because the speeds of their annihilations are similar. To put it simply, quantization begins in these epiphenomena within their respective fields.

Furthermore, in addition to allowing humans to have consciousness, the Buddha’s conscious cosmos addresses many questions, problems, and mysteries that have bothered humanity for centuries, as mentioned above. Not only is “What Exists?” solved, but Consciousness Is Not The Ultimate Reality, there is no “Cosmological Constant Problem,” “The Mind-Body Problem” does not exist, “The Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics” and its realated Observed Effect is explained away, and “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing” is answered.

D) Epistemology – The reason why Buddhism is unique

As mentioned earlier, while scientists cannot discuss “What Exists?” in the physical world, they do try hard to find out if consciousness can be the answer. However, even with extensive dialogue with over 200 experts, the best a prominent scientist can do to map the Landscape of Consciousness is a taxonomy of consciousness, without even being able to establish a consensus definition of what consciousness is.

Regrettably, the fact is that no matter how many high degrees scientists, philosophers, or religious leaders hold, they will never be able to uncover the mystery of the mental world.

The answer to that puzzle lies in epistemology.

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

In the world of Buddhism, there are two kinds of phenomena, the visible and the invisible. While the visible phenomenal refers to the world of myriad phenomena, the invisible world is the world of mentality. Therefore, Buddha teaches two means of knowledge to understand both phenomena: inference and direct perception. While inference is how humans understand the phenomenal world, the uniqueness of Buddhist epistemology lies in the Buddha’s expansion of the scope of epistemology by incorporating direct perception to comprehend the invisible world of mentality.

i) Inference

To understand the meaning of inference, we seek help from a discussion on How Do We Know What We Know 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.”

Dr. Fisch began his talk by saying that “we do not know by our eyes or by our ears, but by means of the words we speak.”

Most people would probably be surprised to learn that our eyes and ears do not provide us with direct knowledge about the world we see and hear. Instead, our senses are not used for understanding the world humans experience, but for sensing it, i.e., receiving information about the world.

Furthermore, according to Dr. Fisch, sensing is a process consisting of several steps. One of those steps is what Dr. Fisch describes as “conceptualization in ways we do not govern.” Conceptualization means that the original information received by our senses is distorted. “In ways we do not govern” refers to the fact that conceptualization occurs without anyone being aware of it.

To put it simply, instead of understanding the world through the original information our senses perceive, the world humans understand is conceptualized, or created, in our minds. In other words, the world humans experience is illusional. If you find it hard to believe that the world we live in is illusory, you can learn how it was verified by the two enlightened monks in ancient China.

It is also what Buddha teaches. In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha teaches:

“All conditioned phenomena are like the illusions of dreams and shadows of bubbles (Chinese=一切有為法; 如夢幻泡影),

like dew and lightning, this is how to have insight into all conditioned phenomena (Chinese=如露亦如電, 應作如是觀.”)

To understand the illusional world, humans created a vocabulary of words. However, words are inferentially connected. That is the meaning of inference, the first of two means of knowledge that Buddha teaches.

In the words of Dr. Fisch, words are inferentially connected because, 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?”

Indeed, while inference informs how things relate, it cannot inform “how the world really is.”

So, what can inform “how the world really is?” They are “empirical facts” that Dr. mentioned earlier. What are empirical facts? Empirical facts refer to the original information that our senses receive from the world. Therefore, they inform “how the world really is.”

In other words, understanding “how the world really is” requires preventing “conceptualization in ways we do not govern.”

So, how can one prevent “conceptualization in ways we do not govern?“

The answer is direct perception, the second of Buddha’s two means of knowledge.

ii) Direct Perception

To help understand direct perception, we quote from Dr. Max Planck, a 1918 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics and the originator of quantum theory. He came to the following conclusions after a lifetime of investigating quantum mechanics.

Dr. Planck was right on both counts. Not only is consciousness fundamental in the world, but the mystery that humans have long sought to solve since pre-Socratic Greece is the mystery of “What Exist?” which is mentality.

So, Dr. Planck was also right to say that humans must be part of the mental world to solve its mystery because it is what direct perception does.

Direct perception is achieved through Samathavipasyana (Chinese=止觀), a meditative technique that requires the meditator to calm their mind until it is quiescent.

The significance of a quiescent mind is that it prevents the “conceptualization in ways we do not govern,” because conceptualization requires an active mind. Without conceptualization, the empirical facts impacting human senses remain undistorted. When not distorted, empirical facts inform “how the world really is,” as mentioned previously.

So, how does the quiescent mind of an individual become part of the mental world?

To understand that, one must first understand Samadhi.

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.”

So, Samadhi is the union of the “no-thought” mentality of the “experienced object” and “experiencing subject” to form a nondualistic “no thought” mentality.

As mentioned earlier, the Ultimate Reality, as a realm of quiescent mentality, is a “no thought” mentality which can serve as the “experienced object” in the experience of enlightenment. Therefore, by forming a nondualistic mentality with the Ultimate Reality, the individual can become a part of the Ultimate Reality when they calm their mind to a state of “no thought.”

Since a “no thought” mentality is Buddha’s definition of enlightenment, only an enlightened person can become a part of the Ultimate Reality. Since the Ultimate Realm is a domain with Nothing but Mentality,” when the enlightened individual becomes part of the Ultimate Reality, he enters the world of mentality. Becoming a part of the world of mentality enables the enlightened individual to perceive the empirical facts of nature directly, thus understanding “how the world really is.”

E) What is Buddhism?

Buddhism, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is the “closest equivalent” to the Sanskrit word Buddhadharma, meaning “the teachings of Buddha.”

Without a doubt, Buddhism should be recognized as an education. Furthermore, Buddhism is a unique education. It should not be considered a religion, a philosophy, science, or any other form of education, because they all use inference. As discussed earlier, while inference can inform how things are inferentially connected, it does not inform “how the world really is.”

On the other hand, the Buddha’s knowledge comes from understanding the empirical facts of nature by becoming an integral part of it. Empirical facts of nature enable Buddha to know “how the world really is.” It is knowledge unavailable to all other forms of education because they all use inference. Empirical facts of nature are the content of Buddhism.

In other words, Buddhism is Buddha’s education on the realities of the cosmos.

E) The Complementarity of Buddhism and Science

Although inference and direct perception are mutually exclusive, they are also complementary. By using both inference and direct perception, humanity can gain a comprehensive understanding of the world it experiences.

The complementarity of inference and direct perception means that science and Buddhism are complementary. In an environment where everything in science is energy, while everything in Buddhism is mentality, the complementarity of science and Buddhism means that energy and mentality are complementary. The complementarity of energy and mentality implies that energy can help explain Buddha’s teaching using mentality in situations when the phenomenon corresponds. Examples of such conditions are plentiful.

It is especially significant when applied to quantum field theory. Among the eight different theories on the origin of the universe, the Buddha would likely give quantum field theory his stamp of approval because it is equivalent to non-luminosity for the many reasons mentioned above.

Einstein alone provides two crucial examples. For example, while Einstein’s most famous formula, E=mc², explains the equivalence of energy and mass in science, the same formula helps understand that the Mind and the Body are equivalent in Buddhism, and that the Mind-Body Problem does not exist in nature.

Einstein’s second contribution is related to Causality. Today, scientists acknowledge 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.”

In Einstein’s formula for Special Relativity, while one side of it is geometric, the other side suggests that the driving force of Causality is energy-momentum. However, if one replaces energy with mentality, the driver of Causality becomes mental momentum, which aligns well with the Buddha’s teachings because the Buddha teaches that the driver of Causality is mental intention (Romanized Sanskrit = cetana, Chinese = 思).

While it is undoubtedly true that science needs Buddhism to understand the full scope of the mental world, it is also true that Buddhism needs contemporary philosophical and scientific insights to help comprehend the Buddha’s teachings, which were taught over 2,600 years ago.

An example is Buddha’s teaching on the Five Aggregates or the five constituents of beings. The Five Aggregates are critically important in Buddhism because Buddha’s soteriological mission can only be accomplished with a proper understanding of the Five Aggregates. Dr. Fisch’s five sensing steps, as discussed in “How Do We Know What We Know,” provided the mechanism for a correct understanding of the topic.

With a proper understanding of the Five Aggregates, it is not only possible to fully explain how Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara accomplished the Buddha’s soteriological goal, but also to correctly explain the Observer Effect and solve the centuries-old, seemingly unsolvable philosophical question, “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?”

Whether you are interested in Buddhism, curious, or undecided, you are welcome to join this journey to a breakthrough understanding of Buddhism. With the help of epistemology, quantum field theory, and the complementarity with science, it is guaranteed that the Buddhism you encounter here is not one you have experienced before. Even if you are a seasoned Buddhist, you may find definitions of Buddha, enlightenment, or Buddhism that may be new to you.

If you are not scientific, please do not worry. The difference between a fluctuating and quiescent is about as profound as we need to go scientifically. Furthermore, Buddhist dictionaries will help clarify all Buddhist concepts.

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