The Noetic Revolution Toward an Integral Science of Matter, Mind and Spirit
David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu)
Draft, 2011
©2011 by David Paul Boaz, Copper Mountain Institute. All rights reserved. www.coppermount.org www.davidpaulboaz.org (505) 898-9592
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CONTENTS Introduction: The Emerging Noetic Revolution...................................................................... 3 The Unified Quantum Vacuum and the Buddhist View of the Great Perfection..............6 Modernity and its Discontents............................................................................................6 Scientific Knowledge and Ontological Relativity: Kuhn, Bohr, Quine and Alan Wallace.....................................................................9 Quine’s Revolution: Epistemological Holism in Science and Philosophy.................12 Bridge Building: Toward a New Paradigm for Science and Spirituality....................15 The Unified Quantum Vacuum: The Union of Science and Spirit?.............................17 Ontological Interdependence: The Problem of Knowledge Revisited........................20 Principia Dharmata: The Buddhist View of the Nature of Mind..................................22 A Glimpse of the Great Perfection...................................................................................27 The End of the Great Search..............................................................................................31 Space and Time From Pythagoras to Einstein..........................................................................34 Light Before Einstein..........................................................................................................34 Special Relativity: Light Energy is the Wisdom of Emptiness.....................................36 The Quantum Revolution............................................................................................................41 The Ultraviolet Catastrophe..............................................................................................41 Being and Time...................................................................................................................43 Post-Quantum Logic: West Meets East..........................................................................45 The Great Quantum Debate: Einstein, Bohr, and a New Ontology...........................47 Toward A Post-Quantum Noetic Ontology..............................................................................53 Being Here: The Perennial Mind-Body Problem and the Middle Way.....................53 Cartesian Meditations: The “Hard Problem of Consciousness” and the Nature of Mind....................................................................................................56 One Truth: The Prior Unity of Quantum Physics and Buddhist Metaphysics.........59 The Secret of Human Happiness?....................................................................................64 Postscript: Notes on Quantum Emptiness, Ontological Interdependence, and Free Will.....65 Causality..............................................................................................................................65 Ontological Interdependence............................................................................................66 A Rose is a Rose: The Paradox of Perception................................................................67 Choosing Reality: Quantum Emptiness and Free Will................................................68 Human Happiness and Free Will.....................................................................................71 Strange Interlude: Reduction, Paradox and Realization...............................................72 Toward a Secular Ethic of Compassion...........................................................................73 Appendix A: Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.............................................................................75 Appendix B: The Idols of the Tribe: The Metaphysics of Science..........................................76 Appendix C: The Structures of Consciousness.........................................................................77 Appendix D: The Non-Meditation That is Happiness Itself...................................................79 Appendix E: Toward an Integral Ecology of Mind..................................................................80 Appendix F: Being Here: Reflections on the Nature of mInd.................................................81 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................. 82 2
Introduction The Emerging Noetic Revolution For no light matter is at stake. The question concerns the very way that human life is to be lived. - Plato (The Republic, Book I) In the second century CE two great scholar-masters, Nagarjuna in the East and Plotinus in the West, began the nondual knowledge revolution in our great Primordial Wisdom Tradition that is just now emerging as the Noetic Revolution of the Twenty-first Century. (Nondual here means no essential subject-object, matter-spirit separation). As the developmental dialectic of our species’ emotional, spiritual and ethical evolution proceeds, and the ontological estrangement of the present modern/postmodern worldview of scientific materialism/functionalism recedes, this incipient global noetic (mind/spirit) reformation in religion, science and culture has gently reintroduced to humankind an interior, integral and transpersonal knowledge paradigm, discoverable through the contemplative injunctions of the spiritual paths of our Great Wisdom Tradition. This Wisdom Tradition teaches of the profound dialectic of the Two Fundamental Truths—our two ways of being here—the Relative Truth (samvriti satya) of conventional spacetime reality, and the ultimate truth (paramartha satya), the infinite perfectly subjective nondual ultimate reality that transcends, yet embraces it. I will argue herein that this rigorous cognitive coupling of our objective understanding with the deep subjective realization of this momentous principle of the indivisible unity and dimensional interdependence of these two seemingly incommensurable paradigms—the conceptual Two Truths as the trans-conceptual one truth—is the inherent treasure of mind, our heart’s desire, and both origin and aim of all our seeking. A robust, integral science of matter, mind and spirit must utilize this phenomenological “doublet” of both third person objective (science) and first person subjective (spirit) methodologies if it is to guide our conscious evolution—individually and therefore collectively—through the ascending life stages of human psychospiritual development. These primordial wisdom teachings have, at last, been introduced into Western cognitive science, neuroscience, consciousness studies and philosophy of mind to help resolve the “Problem of Consciousness,” the “hard problem” of the “explanatory gap” between the data of exterior objective physical brain states (second and third person data) and the arising of private interior subjective awareness states (introspective first person reports). Do neurobiological brain processes cause subjective awareness states? If so, how? This conundrum is fundamental to understanding the perennial “mind-body problem.” What is the actual relationship of our physical body to our mind? Of matter to spirit? Of science to spirituality? Of science to religion? Are these two paradigms—these two ways of being here—as utterly incommensurable as they seem? Consciousness (first person reports) supervenes or depends upon brain processes, but how? Clearly, the “irreducibility of consciousness” precludes a naive reduction of consciousness to purely physical (third person) brain states or epiphenomena of such states. First person introspective reports of subjective experience cannot be eliminated or reduced to third person objective data or phenomena, for to do so precludes the very possibility of 3
subjective direct first person conscious experience at all. Consciousness then, is necessarily first personal subjective. Merely materialist/functionalist approaches cannot account for subjective experience. Consciousness gets left outside. With what shall we fill this explanatory gap between our outer objective and inner subjective experience? Objective matter? Subjective spirit? Causal neurochemical correlates? The mind of God? We shall see that this explanatory gap that is the paradox of mind is bridged by the full Bodhi of samadhi/moksha that is liberation/enlightenment. Let us remember that the conscious formulation of the “hard problem of consciousness” necessarily requires the very consciousness that is in question. Perhaps then, there is no problem of consciousness at all. The emerging “new science of consciousness” that unifies and includes Western neuroscience and Eastern contemplative science (adhyatmavidya) is an urgent juncture in this perennial “Problem of Knowledge.” Such an incipient unified science is a precursor to a truly integral noetic science of matter, mind, and spirit, and an augury to any fruitful and provident integration of the two paradigms that are science and spirit/spirituality toward a higher, subtler, post-materialist and post-metaphysical unifying synthesis that furthers human happiness and well-being. But more importantly, the “hard problem of consciousness” points to that prior, really hard mind-body problem, namely the primordial dualism, that split between being and nonbeing, form and emptiness, the objective finite existence of our bodymind, and our ultimately subjective infinite sourceground in which, or in whom everything arises. We shall see that it is this primary, separative dualism, this amnesis or forgetting of our actual, ultimate “supreme source”—Tao, our Christ/Buddha Nature—that is the root cause of human evil, the egocentric, then ethnocentric and gendercentric ignorance that is fear, anger and aggression—and their horrible result—despotism, war, genocide and despair. And it is the recognition, then realization of the prior unity of this primal separation of matter and spirit that is our liberation and ultimate happiness. So it is told in the continuity of nondual wisdom traditions that is the primordial Great Wisdom Tradition of our kind. The emerging epistemic and ontic Noetic Revolution in religion, science and culture is nothing less than a global consciousness shift toward the light. This unfolding developmental or evolutionary phase transition is the direct result of the decision, during the past century, by recent and living masters of the primary Eastern wisdom traditions—Buddhism, Veda/Vedanta, Taoism, Sufism—to transmit their hitherto secret nondual view and profound contemplative yogic technologies (first person plus third person data) to prepared teachers and students in both the West and the East. The resulting view and robust, holistic, yet radically pluralistic methodology of this nascent Noetic Revolution now begins the integration of the paradigmatic “Two Truths”— relative/finite and ultimate/infinite—that arise historically as the mythic pre-modern, the objective modern and the subjective postmodern wisdom of our Great Wisdom Tradition. Thus it is told by the masters of this tradition: realization of the perfectly subjective ultimate nature of reality, the very Nature of Mind abides in our relationship to the infinite, that essential ontological interdependence of our painful finite existence, and this always present, aware numinous matrix of all being. This realization is being Tao, “The Bright” Kham Brahm of the old Vedas, Christos/logos, our indwelling Christ nature, and the “innermost secret” presence 4
(vidya/rigpa) of primordial Dzogchen, the Buddhist Madhyamaka Great Perfection that is our supreme sourceground. As this, our Great Wisdom Tradition arises in the Axial Age (800 to 200 BCE) the great axial sages—Buddha, Lao Tzu, Pathagoras, Plato—teach that it is this infinite primordial womb, utterly ineffable nondual Spirit that is Reality Itself that embraces, enfolds and in whom arises all unfolding finite appearing spacetime reality, including we beings who experience and try to understand it. And wonder of wonders, That (Tat/Sat) is who we actually are—our supreme identity—undreamt of in the thoughtful slumber of human reason and belief. Yes, this is the nondual “innermost secret” primordial wisdom—by whatever name—that pervades the highest or subtlest teaching of the primary traditions that comprise our nondual Great Wisdom Tradition. The urgent task now of our inchoate Noetic Revolution is the integration of the subjective nondual wisdom and compassion of this primordial tradition with the objective and pragmatic knowledge of the physical, biological and cognitive sciences. Astonishingly, this profound epistemic/ontic syntheisis is, in the subtlest nondual view, spontaneously, “already accomplished,” deep within us, at the spiritual Heart (hridyam) of each human being. Yet, from the exoteric relative view we must do something, we must recognize, then realize, then perfect it through compassionate activity in our everyday lifeworld conduct. Why? For the benefit and ultimate happiness of all beings, everywhere. The result, according to our great Tradition, is “Happiness Itself” (paramananda, mahasukka), the happiness that cannot be lost. Indeed, a most amazing paradox. What then, is the contribution of relativistic quantum field theory and quantum cosmology, and the nondual Buddhist view of the Great Perfection to the resolution of this, the fruitful ambiguity that is the ultimate “hard problem” of knowledge and happiness for our species as we participate together in the emerging new integral Noetic Revolution?
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The Unified Quantum Vacuum and the Buddhist View of the Great Perfection Modernity and Its Discontents Prelude: seeing is believing. The Western intellectual tradition has largely failed to understand that there are realms of knowledge and meaning that lie prior to the natural limit of human reason, the conceptual semantic topology of language with its cultural assumptions, embedded as they are in our concept and belief systems. Can we step outside this intersubjective cultural “web of belief?” Yes, through “vertical spiritually empirical” (yogic) contemplative technologies, as we shall see. Things appear in the world not so much as they actually are, but as we are at the moment of their arising. Einstein to Heisenberg: “What we see depends on the theories we use to interpret our observations.” Theory (concept and belief) defines and determines what we observe. Our semiotic conceptual structures do not directly correspond to any external, independent reality. The cognitive sciences, consciousness studies and philosophy of mind agree: “Perception is . . .an instrument of the world as we have structured it by our expectancies” (J. Brunier 1986). “. . . The appropriate description for a given input is highly dependent on the way the perceiver chooses to process it. . .” (J.M. Wilding 1982). Our conscious experience is dictated in large part by our “cognitive unconscious,” that is, our preconscious, intersubjective deep cultural background concepts, beliefs and expectations. We think and believe what we are culturally conditioned to think and believe. Our knowledge is perspectival. Empirical observation statements are theory-dependent. “All raw data are theory laden” (Quine). Theories are underdetermined by their evidence. Our observation, perception, conception and belief are infected with the unconscious deep subjective cognitive baggage of the cultural tradition in which we arise and participate. It has now become very difficult to argue that we can know the world objectively. The perceiving, knowing subject is always part of the equation. The very notion of unmediated observation now seems highly questionable. In light of such discoveries, the phrase ‘seeing is believing’ takes on new meaning: the very act of observation already entails a belief system that is not based simply on some hypothetical bare data. All of our observations are theory laden, and none correspond in any straight-forward way to objective objects existing in their own right independent of our experience. - B. Alan Wallace (1996)
This advent of a new awareness of the inherent subjectivity of our cognitive life is the good news of the Postmodern reformation. Alas, it’s a mixed bag, as we shall see. Modernity: the tyranny of objectivity. The Modernist scientific pretension to rationality that is the dogma of the contemporary cult of Scientific Materialism arose as the 17th Century Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution with Bacon, Descartes and Galileo. This monistic objectivist, materialist ideology became the common belief system, the “langue” or “background theory” of the prevailing Western physicalist materialist paradigm (epistemological Realism, scientific imperialism/Scientism). It is descended from the unproven and unprovable metaphysical assumption of Monistic Physicalism, the ontology that the 6
whole of reality is merely and only physical. Why must our ontology of nature be physicalist? It’s merely a belief. This monolithic Western epistemic paradigm—our culture imaginaire— whose roots we find in the dualistic physicalist/ realist ontology of the pre-Socratic atomists, Aristotle, and the Modernist mechanics of Descartes, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, assumes the existence of an objective, separate, independently existing reality (Scientific Realism) of exclusively physical objects (materialism) given to sense perception—Wilfrid Sellers “myth of the given”—through the medium of “sense data” (hyle), distinct and separate from the consciousness of perceiving, knowing subjects. This myth presumes that sense experience may serve as a realist epistemological foundation for objectively certain knowledge. Most philosophers of science, mind and religion have rejected the myth of the given, but it is the widely held, usually unconscious belief of the naive realism of most scientists and the non-philosophical public. Such exclusively representational cognition can be destructively dualistic for it essentially splits the knowing, perceiving subject from the object known thereby undermining realization of the higher truth of the symbiosis, and yes, the prior unity of knowing subject and the object known, of objective matter and subjective mind/spirit. This inherent nondual primordial unity is reduced by Physicalist Materialism (Scientism) to mere separate physical matter (scientific reductionism). “And thus has philosophy been ruined” (Whitehead). As to the religious consciousness, Scientism has reduced the seed of truth in religion—subjective indwelling spirit/spirituality—with its inherent unity of nonseparate, non-transcendent Godhead, to an objective attempt to possess God; to objectify, anthropomorphize and thereby idolize the perfect subjectivity of nondual non-theistic God, the very sourceground (cittadhatu) in which or in whom we and everything else arises. This is one important difference between exoteric theistic religion—whether revealed/transcendental/ supernatural, or natural/ rational—and spirituality, non-conceptual direct experiences of our primordial source condition, nondual Spirit Itself, beyond belief. The great exceptions to this Modernist materialist metaphysics that became the Western Tradition are Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, the Christian Gnostics Theodus (disciple of Paul) and his great disciple, poet master Valentinus. These masters realized and transmitted our naked nondual Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe), and rejected Greek material foundationalist Realism while acknowledging a relative conventional ontologically pluralistic Kosmos or souceground of interdependently arising (bathos/pratitya samutpada), nonreducible dimensional orders: physical/chemical, biological, mental/emotional, and tacitly, sociocultural and historical. The Postmodern Reformation. The Modernity of the 17th and 18th Century Enlightenment was an ideological flight to reason and rationality from the tradition and authority, and the excesses of the Classical Tradition, and the Christian Age of Faith. Postmodernity was a reaction to this Modernist tyranny of reason and objectivity. In the Twentieth Century the Postmodern Western mind rejected the crude Modernist Materialist ontology with its requisite radical objectivist epistemology, replacing it with a reactionary subjectivist, antinomian, radically perspectivist Nietzschian skepticism; a pathologically pluralistic, individualistic and relativistic “hermeneutics of suspicion” (Paul Ricoeur’s term) toward holistic metanarratives, toward holarchy, toward Platonic transcendence and unity, hierarchy, exoteric and esoteric religion, and nondual spirituality. The “masters of suspicion” 7
were Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Marx and Freud, and in theology, Karl Barth. Paul Ricoeur (1978) suggests that such a hermeneutics of suspicion may liberate us (liberation theology) from the logocentric false idols that are the transcendental absolutes of Western monotheism, thereby opening a way to the divine that abides within each human being, and spontaneously expresses as compassionate conduct in individuals, and through that, institutions. Regarding this Postmodern project, we must here remember that the dogmatic, programmatic rejection of all metanarratives is itself a metanarrative that may not survive its own logical deconstruction. For the postmodern mind perceptual and conceptual experience is relativistic and perspectival—merely my relative perspective embodied in the intersubjective sociocultural spacetime of history. Modernist unity and the philosophy of the subject/self is replaced by relativistic otherness/difference/ differance/ diversity. John Dewey on the Postmodern mind: “The despair of any integrated outlook and attitude is the chief intellectual characteristic of the present age.” The Postmodern mind will not transcend its signs, its meta-language to any subtler or deeper meaning or reality. The nihilistic antirealist ideologues of this post-structural, Postmodern outlook, besides Nietzsche, include the new skeptics, namely the Deconstructionists Derrida and Foucault, the mature pragmatic Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Pragmatists C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and the antirealist Neopragmatists W.V. Quine, Jergen Habermas and Richard Rorty. These Postmodern philosophers correctly rejected the 400 year hegemony of the Western “final vocabulary” (Rorty) that is “Foundationalist” Material Realism, demonstrating that science, the very paradigm of reason and rationality has a theory laden dogmatic, non-rational cultural core that it cannot escape (See Appendix B: The Idols of the Tribe: The Metaphysics of Science). The pragmatists in particular, offered a practical “radically empirical” (James), naturalistic countervoice to centuries of invidious metaphysical paradigmatic bickering among the foundational realist/idealist and rationalist/empiricist ideologies of the Western Canon. Dewey’s historicosociological approach in his Reconstruction in Philosophy offers methods useful to the emerging rapprochement between the ostensibly incommensurate paradigms of science and spirituality. Yet, even these Postmodern ideologues, the discontents of the Modernist, materialist rationality of the Enlightenment Project, seem unable to move beyond the limits of habitual reason toward the emerging noetic (mind/spirit) paradigm that synthesizes, then utilizes both of the defining qualities of human being in form, namely, dualistic reason and nondual spirit—objective rationality and compassionate subjective spirituality. The emerging integral, Noetic Revolution reconstructs the nihilistic pathological pluralism of the Postmodern outlook and restores the subjectivity of our Great Wisdom Tradition. Indeed, the fruition of an integral noetic science of mind (adhyatmavidya) is the reconstruction and transformation of the despair of the relational trauma and conflict inherent in the narcissistic personal and social politics of dualistic “normal neurotic” perception, toward our Great Wisdom Tradition’s compassionate “pure vision” (p.32). Let us now turn to the epistemological and ontological holism that emerged at midcentury, and serves as a bridge from the separative absolutism of the Modernist scientific paradigm and the counter-ethical relativistic nihilism of the Postmodern response, to the emerging pragmatic view that integrates the “Two Truths”—the two paradigms—that are dualistic relative-conventional science, and nondual ultimate spirit. 8
Scientific Knowledge and Ontological Relativity: Kuhn, Bohr, Quine and Alan Wallace When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -John Muir Discourse on Method Science’s view of science, as exemplified by philosopher of science Karl Popper, is that scientific method is the apotheosis of rational, logically defensible knowledge. The Western scientific materialist tradition is seen as the triumphal result of cumulative scientific progress. This tradition outpictures the profound intellectual tension between traditional and historical hermeneutics. Against Method: Kuhn’s holistic paradigm paradigm. In 1962, physicist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn shattered this idealized view of objective scientific rationality, knowledge, and progress, along with science’s primary explanatory ideology, Logical Positivism (with the help of Wittgenstein and Quine), with his immensely influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Building upon the work of Alexandre Koyré, Kuhn utilized a close reading—not of the philosophy of science, and not of the heroic breakthroughs of science—but of the natural history of everyday “normal science.” Kuhn’s deflationary, antirealist sociological account of science demonstrated that scientific knowledge is not rational and objective, but dogmatic and close-minded as to its fundamental metaphysical assumptions, and is not cumulative or progressive, other than in an instrumental intraparadigm sense. “Mature science”—the “hard” physical and biological sciences—are not divergent but convergent with its own unconscious material realist worldview, opinions and expectations. Here, scientific research is not, on Kuhn’s accord, so much evidentiary as dogmatic. Such normal science is always governed by a “paradigm,” a temporary general consensus among a community of practitioners about current methodology and foundational and fundamental principles. These paradigms then become ideologically entrenched and dogmatically defended. Eventually “anomalies” arise—problems or “puzzles” that cannot be resolved within the established paradigm. Such unsolved puzzles cause a “breakdown of the paradigm.” This precipitates a “scientific crisis” of confidence and an openness to a competing alternative paradigm. The Standard Model of contemporary physics is a case in point. As this new paradigm ascends, the old paradigm recedes and finally a “scientific revolution” occurs. This represents a “paradigm shift” or “gestalt shift.” Competing paradigms are “incommensurable,” that is, they cannot be evaluated by neutral or common methods, making inter-paradigm comparisons exceedingly difficult. There can be no paradigm-neutral observation. Unbiased communication across paradigms cannot occur. With incommensurability follows the untenability of scientific reduction. For example, Newton’s conception of mass is incommensurate with Einstein’s. Here then is the dialectic: a crisis in a scientific paradigm causes a scientific revolution. The dogmatism in the revolutionary new paradigm eventually generates the next crisis and its revolution, and so forth. Cases in point: the transcend and include dialectic of Newtonian mechanics to relativistic mechanics to quantum mechanics. 9
Thus, Scientific knowledge occurs within paradigms, but not across paradigms. There is no extra-paradigmatic reality. Moreover, there is no necessary “real world out there” (RWOT) independent of the nomic theoretical contents of the paradigm. Further, scientific observation within a paradigm is “theory laden.” What scientists (and the rest of us) observe is a function of what we believe and expect to see. There is no ideal of objective scientific evidence independent of theory. All observation and belief is theory dependent and theory is always “underdetermined by its evidence.” Because of inevitable dogmatic attachment to the current constituting theories, ideology and idiom of the paradigm, cognitive “gestalt shifts” across competing paradigms are akin to a religious conversion. Believers on each side participate in “different worlds.” A scientific paradigm finally succumbs when the old school believers die off and a new vanguard achieves academic tenure. Kuhn’s profound deflation and reconstruction of realist, objectivist scientific knowledge continues the cynical, antinomian and subjectivist postmodern critique of Modernity’s dogmatic, romantic idealization of scientific objectivity, and truth as correspondence with appearances. Modernity’s rational, realist, materialist project resulted in the unspeakable horror of the first half of the Twentieth Century, leaving a Faustian legacy of geopolitical viciousness, insecurity and terror. The Postmodern reformation then, has been a radical anti-realist reassessment of this modernist “Enlightenment Project” with its idealization of Realism, reason and epistemological, political and scientific “progress.” Here both Derrida and Rorty have sacked the entire modern Enlightenment ideal, arguing instead for a nihilistic and skeptical utopian ideal, free of the invidious rationalist Modernist meaning constructions of Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Is there a middle Way? (p.53ff) The Western mind is now in recovery from the nihilism of the Postmodern metaphysical pretension to skepticism, and from the empiricist metaphysics of its Modernist precursor, the obsessive proto-religion of objectivist functionalist Scientific Materialism (Scientism) with its infernal “taboo of subjectivity.” Indeed, I will argue here that this recovery is nothing less than a new reformation in religion, science and culture—a pragmatic, antifoundationalist, anti-realist new Noetic Revolution—with quantum field theory and quantum cosmology, neurobiology, consciousness studies, philosophy of mind and Madhyamaka Buddhist epistemology as vanguards of the way. Ontological relativity. Niels Bohr, author of the holistic quantum Principle of Complementarity concluded that the purpose of scientific theory is not the discovery of intrinsic truths about a representational pre-given pre-existing independent reality “mirror of nature,” but rather to clarify and explore the relationship of our cognitive perceptual frameworks—our consciousness—to the quantum information bits (qubits) arising from this presumed atomic reality (Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature, 1934). This vital antirealist alternative philosophy of physics, that the theoretical constructs of physics—waves, particles, fields, forces etc.—are merely pragmatic descriptive instruments, not independently existing “real” things, is called instrumentalism, (or operationalism, or nominalism). It opposes the Neorealism of Einstein and the “hidden variables” realists (p.48). Both Werner Heisenberg—the author of the other essential principle of the Quantum Theory, the “Uncertainty Principle”—and Bohr understood that the Quantum Theory makes 10
no assumptions about an inherently existing “real” objective physical reality, or the objective existence of its elementary particles, but is rather, about the cognitive relationship of the consciousness of the experimenter/observer to the measurement of quantum event information. Indeed, Schödinger’s “collapse of the wave function” (the state-vector reduction) at the instant of a measurement (or of a perception) by a consciousness, is the persistent quantum “measurement problem” that abides at the margin between subjective “virtual” reality and ostensibly objective physical reality, be it microscopic particles or macroscopic cats, persons, trees and stars. Kuhn, Bohr, Quine and other philosophers of science (physics, biology and psychology) have pointed out that the laws of physics are highly idealized nomological cognitive constructs that describe the behavior of appearing objects within the context of a theoretical model, and do not descriptively, and should not prescriptively pretend to describe the ontological nature or essence of appearing objects, nor the subjective depth of the unbroken, interdependent whole in which they arise. This whole is necessarily closed by the Planck limit and the quantum uncertainty relations to such theoretical conceptual penetration. Such idealized models are limited by their mathematical formalism and cannot causally enrich speculative ontology. Scientific laws give us left brain, exoteric, nomic conventional explanations of the behavior of phenomena arising through the ultimately subjective noumenon, the matrix base that is the Platonic/Kantian diaphanous “thing-in-itself,” Plato’s “first principle,” beyond the exoteric “ambiguity barrier” created by the phenomenological limit of discursive theory, concept and belief. To penetrate this ostensible barrier we utilize “spiritual empirical” estoerically objective, first person contemplative yogic technologies. In his excellent Hidden Dimensions (2007), Alan Wallace agrees. He concludes that there is a “broad consensus among psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicists. . . [that] perceived objects, or observable entities, exist relative to the sensory faculties or systems of measurement by which they are detected—not independently in the objective world.” This is of course, the Buddhist Madhyamaka Prasangika and Dzogchen view, as we shall see. Introducing his seminal “Theory of Ontological Relativity” Wallace states: There is one truth that is invariant (absolute) across all cognitive frames of reference; everything that we apprehend, whether perceptually or conceptually, is devoid of its own inherent nature, or identity, independent of the means by which it is known. . . Nothing exists by its own nature... In other words, there is no way to separate the universe we know from the information we have about it... Natural science is a science of information, not a science of a world that exists prior to and independent of information.
For Method. Let our next stop then, be a bit of unbridled ontological speculation— not for the metaphysically squeamish—upon this one “truth” that is, most verily the ultimate nature of Reality Itself, the very essence or Nature of Mind, “The Bright” that is the outshining (abhasa) clearlight awareness of mind. Such is the emerging view and method of the epistemic Noetic Revolution that is now upon us. This revolutionary nondual view—introduced in the first Noetic Revolution in the Second Century by Nagarjuna and Plotinus—simultaneously cognizes the prior unity of the objective scientific study of nature/matter with the direct 11
knowing (vidya/rigpa/epinoia) of our perfectly subjective sourceground (cittadhatu), allembracing nondual Spirit that transcends yet embraces nature, and in whom everything arises. Organized religion seeks this ground through exoteric ritual, concept and belief. Esoteric spirituality experiences it directly. We will then return to a less metaphysically ambitious, somewhat critical inquiry into this radically empiricist methodology, its contemplative injunctions, theory and practice, and its fruition, that is nothing less than psychospiritual liberation, our ultimate individual and, in due course, collective happiness. In this regard I will attempt not to reify, entify or posit metaphysical/ontological entities—”transcendental signified” logocentric absolutes arising to consciousness—whether propositionally or mythologically/metaphorically, through the modalities of matter/mind/ spirit. Rather, I will follow a post-Kantian, post-metaphysical noetic methodology, namely that these apparent dimensional strata and states are nondual and non-separate from the dualistic consciousness that apprehends them, and may be fruitfully, if dualistically explored and confirmed by the “vertical/spiritual empiricism” (Ken Wilber) of the masters, “those who know” and teach the various meditative contemplative injunctions, poiesis and praxis. Quine’s Revolution: Epistemological Holism in Science and Philosophy Ontological Relativity. Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) is considered by many in the philosophy trade to be the most important Western philosopher of the Twentieth Century. His Ontological Relativity (indeterminacy of reference) is the thesis that ontology— ”what there is”—is relative to language, that is, to the subjective deep background assumptions in our individual and collective “web of belief.” (Epistemology is how we know what there is.) In his seminal “Ontological Relativity” (1969) Quine develops his thesis that when a theory postulates its existent entities in a given language—its “object language”—it does so by translating its theory’s propositions (statements) about those entities into a “metalanguage” or background matrix or web of prior assumptions and beliefs. The entities or objects of the object language are relative to and supervene or are dependent upon the prior subjective “coordinate grid” that are the assumptions and beliefs of the meta-language. What makes ontological questions meaningless when taken absolutely is not universality but circularity. A question of the form ‘What is an F’ can be answered only by recourse to a further term: “An F is a G.’ The answer makes only relative sense: sense relative to the uncritical acceptance of ‘G’ “ (Ontological Relativity 1969)
Thus the ontological status of phenomenal reality is relative to something prior. Ontology is relative to our conventional cultural and scientific concept and belief systems. It makes no sense to inquire about the absolute meaning of a statement or object. Therefore a proposition cannot be empirically tested and shown to be true or false without referring to prior deep background assumptions and beliefs in the meta-language matrix. This raises the problem of “auxiliary hypotheses.” For example, the hypothesis “All copper conducts electricity” is neither verifiable nor falsifiable in isolation. We need auxiliary hypotheses from our basis of prior assumptions and beliefs regarding electrical conductance, 12
conductance meters, copper wire, the atomic number of copper, etc. Therefore, no hypothesis is testable in isolation from the whole, namely related hypotheses and theories, i.e. prior causes and conditions. Holistic assault on objectivity. In Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”—the most celebrated philosophical essay of the Twentieth Century—he develops his radical epistemological holism (“confirmation holism” that is also a semantic holism). The two basic precepts of Quine’s holism are 1) interpretation of an empirical observation is “theory laden” or theory dependent, that is, it is dependent upon prior assumptions, theories or beliefs, and 2) all theory is “underdetermined” by its evidential data, that is, empirical evidence in isolation is not an adequate criterion of decidability as to theory vindication, verification, or truth. Since the primary metaphysical assumption—the ontology—of science is foundational Scientific Realism which holds that scientific knowledge consists of an ontic commitment to real theory-independent phenomena, and also that empirical evidence is suitable to adjudicate theory validity, Quine’s radical naturalistic epistemological holism undermines both common sense/naive Realism and Scientific Realism. Thus, the arising, appearing entities of our conceptually reified reality are non-objective. Objectivity necessarily refers us to a prior subjective base or source. Therefore our perception and cognition face the vast crucible of Reality Itself nakedly, without the epistemological staff of a foundational “first philosophy,” namely epistemological Realism. This radical holism regarding theory testability and verification, on Qunie’s account, is also a holism of meaning. In place of the reductionism (meaningful statements are reducible to observation statements) of the Logical Positivists, Quine asserts that ultimately it is the whole of science, not mere propositions, that verify our theories and our paradigms. Scientific propositions or statements are a web of interconnected, interdependent, statements that ultimately constitute the whole of science, if not the whole of Reality Itself. Says Quine, “the unit of measure of empirical meaning is all science in its globality.” The Logical Positivists, fearing metaphysical statements, reduced meaning to immediately observable experience. What was needed was a theory that accounts for unobserved phenomena—quarks, the Big Bang, acupuncture meridians—without falling into spooky metaphysics. Quine here builds upon the broad contextual shoulders of the great logician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), whose holistic “Context Principle” states that a word or phrase derives its meaning only from the entire context of a sentence. Meaning then, is context dependent and arises only interdependently, not independently, in isolation from the whole of the base or metalanguage. As Wittgenstein pointed out, “Comprehending a proposition means comprehending a language” (Philosophical Investigations). “A sentence has meaning only in the context of a whole language.” (Donald Davidson, 1967). The Quine-Duhem Thesis. This radical epistemological holism or “confirmational holism” leads to refreshing consequences fantasque. If the propositions our theories generate about what exists in appearing reality are underdetermined by the empirical evidential data of our senses, then empirical observation cannot logically require any changes to a theory. Thus the Quine-Duhem Thesis states that any proposition can be asserted to be true regardless of the data, provided we modify other pertinent internal components—auxiliary hypotheses— within the theoretical system. Conversely, no belief is protected from revisions. There will always be multiple theories supported by the data. In Quine’s web of belief the data of 13
empirical experience interfaces only with the surface boundary of the whole system. So we can distribute the cognitive force of inconsistent empirical insults through the conceptual tweaking of other propositional constituents deeper within the system. All sectors of our web of belief— even the laws of logic (p.45)—are subject to revision. For example, the Quantum Principle of Uncertainty seems to violate the ”Law of Excluded Middle” of the Western logical canon. Quine is a bridge. It is this Quine-Duhem Thesis that is the basis of Quine’s world changing contention that Kant’s foundational analytic/synthetic and apriori/aposteriori distinctions, along with modern empiricist Reductionism are “ill founded,” and serve no valuable scientific or philosophical purpose. In his revolutionary ”Two Dogmas of Empiricism” Quine reveals that Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is the belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meaning independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both are ill founded (Quine 1951).
These “Two Dogmas” are the two epistemological pillars of Modern and Postmodern Scientific Empiricism with its Twentieth Century incarnation, Logical Positivism (Logical Empiricism, Logical Atomism). Quine’s essay constituted a devastating refutation of Logical Positivism, the preeminent anti-metaphysical scientific physicalist realist theory of the first half of the century. Quine informs us that in abandoning these “Two Dogmas” we will observe “a blurring of the supposed gap between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism” (Quine 1951). However, Quine’s holistic Naturalism is not an epistemological Relativism for he believed that our theories could and should be guided by “simplicity” (parsimony, Ockham’s Razor), and “conservatism” (retain the best of the original theory). The traditional destructive separation in our collective web of belief between scientific objectivity and subjective metaphysical speculation, and between speculative philosophy and objective science has, at long last, been logically subdued. The demon of the scientific pretension to perfect rationality and objectivity is slain. And thus has philosophy been saved. Thus Quine is a bridge from the absolutism of the objectivist Scientific Realism and Scientific Materialism (Scientism) of Classical and Modernist ontology (and the fuzzy Romantic and skeptical nihilist Postmodern reactions thereto), to the emerging pragmatic reformation in religion, science and culture that is our radically holistic new Noetic Revolution. The notion of cognitive paradigms introduced by Kuhn, Quine and Wittgenstein demonstrates that the “paradigm,” or “web of belief,” or “form of life” in which one is cognitively embedded determines truth, meaning, intelligibility and worldview for the participants in the paradigm. And, as with the science and spirituality paradigms, these resist translation, evaluation and communication across paradigms. Are these paradigms then truly incommensurable? Is there a Middle Way (p.53ff)? 14
Bridge Building: Toward a New Paradigm for Science and Spirituality The inseparability of the two truths, absolute and relative, is called ‘primordial Buddha.’ - Kunjed Gyalpo (trans. Chögyal Namkahi Norbu) The Two Truths are one taste. On the account of our primordial Great Wisdom Tradition, this all-embracing “one truth” arises and presents as two levels or dimensions of reality, the perennial “Two Truths” (satyadvaya, denpa-nyis) of the unbounded whole that is Reality Itself. We live in two dimensions at once! These Two Truths define the way in which phenomena appear, and their actual ultimate nature, which is not the way that they appear. Every one of the Yoga Systems of the Hindu Sanatana Dharma, and each of the four Buddhist Schools—the Hinayana (Vaibhashika and Sautrantika) and Mahayana (Chittamtra and Madhyamaka)—subscribe to some variation of the Two Truths. According to Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism, appearing objects are nominally, relative-conventionally real, but not intrinsically or ultimately real (p.22). This Perennial Wisdom conceptual duality of relative and ultimate dimensions is resolved in the nonconceptual “one truth, devoid of its own inherent nature,” yet that includes both. This one truth is the nondual, discursively unelaborated ontologically prior unity of our Great Wisdom Tradition’s Relative Truth (samvriti satya), with Ultimate Truth” (paramartha satya), Buddhist emptiness (shunyata), the “perfect sphere” of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, Tao, Ein Soph, Cantor’s Aleph, the set that includes all sets. This one unifying truth is simply the transconceptual unbroken whole, that golden thread of radical, nondual truth, the warp that runs throughout the entire fabric of the “innermost secret” teaching of the major traditions of our Great Wisdom Tradition. This ultimate reality transcends yet embraces the dimension of “Relative Truth,” the “truth that conceals,” endless “concealer truths” (avidya/vikshepa) that are the mass-energy phenomena interdependently arising (pratitya samutpada) in and as the “Interbeing” of empirical spacetime reality. This relative truth reveals conceptual relative conventional, empirical causal truths while concealing their nondual ultimate nature. The relative truth of perceptual and conceptual mind, whether as logically valid or invalid concepts, cloaks (vikshepa/avidya maya) the great primordial nondual one truth. Yet, the one truth also transcends and embraces Ultimate or Absolute Truth, which is merely our concepts and beliefs about the non-conceptual Absolute that enfolds everything that arises and appears. With the failure of the traditional representational correspondence and coherence theories of truth to pass epistemological muster, this “one truth” may be viewed less objectively and more pragmatically, as the meaning of truth for the ancients—aletheia—the uncovering or uncloaking (vikshepa) activity that reveals the Real that abides just prior. An integral ecology of mind. Thus the Two Truths are Buddhist “emptiness and form,” and dualistic and nondual Vedanta (“nondual”—advaya/gnyis med—means no essential separation). The never-ending dialectic of these fundamental “Two Truths” of the nondual, non-conceptual one truth that is Ultimate Reality Itself —Dharmakaya, Tao, Nirguna Brahman— is nothing less than the infinite dance of geometry: involution and evolution, infinite Consciousness-Being-Itself (cittata/sems nyid) continuously becoming (karma) finite particulars. 15
This process is viewed dualistically as the descent (Plato’s Eros, Telos, ontogeny, Kosmos) of our formless primordial awareness matrix sourceground—Absolute Spirit—into the broken symmetries of the relative forms of empirical spacetime (cosmos), including we sentient beings, then the ascent or “eternal return”(agape, evolution, phylogeny)—through the unconscious horizontal and conscious vertical spiritual paths—again to nondual Spirit, our supreme source (Appendix E: Toward an Integral Ecology of Mind). However, in the nondual view, spirit and matter have never separated, but abide as a timeless nondual unity. Nondual Spirit is both pinnacle and base, the pinnacle of psychospiritual development, and the all inclusive base or sourceground of all that arises therein. “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form” said the Buddha in his Heart Sutra. In terms of the source, the root of all phenomena, there is no such thing as an observer and an object to observe. All the phenomena of existence, without exception, abide in the supreme source in a condition of birthlessness... As the supreme source (Samantabhadra), pure and total consciousness, I am the mirror in which all phenomena are reflected. Although lacking self-nature everything exists clearly; without need for a view, the nature shines clear. Understanding the essential unborn condition is not an object to observe dualistically. This is the great understanding! -Kunjed Gyalpo, The Supreme Source (trans. Namkhai Norbu 1999)
This non-physical or metaphysical sourceground of Reality—Kosmos— subsumes the Quantum Vacuum that is cosmology’s material and physical “Zero-Point Field”/”Akashic Field” that is physical/material cosmos. This non-material, non-entity that is ultimate subjectivity (the prior unity of all subjects and objects), is the vast primordial emptiness (shunyata) potential in whom arises the cyclic non-local interdependent connectedness (pratitya samutpada) of this bright primordial aboriginal stuff becoming matter, beings, minds, stars, galaxies, and universes of the infinite oscillating Metaverse, the very unbounded whole of Kosmos, Ultimate Reality Itself. (Kosmos is the Pathagorean, Apeiron, the divine “One” of Plotinus that enfolds, transcends and embraces the unfolding “Many” that is the luminous plurality and multiplicity of the merely physical spacetime cosmos.) So, this one truth—unnameable ultimate reality by whatever name—is the conceptually but not contemplatively ineffable monadic source or matrix, the ”Zero Womb” of the primordial Goddess that generates all of the force fields that give rise to material bodies and their forces. (This rose, by any name would smell as sweet.) These forces are of course, the relative particles and waves that we have come to know and love—photons (light) and bosons (force)—of arising relative spacetime reality. “What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of infinite space” (Schrödinger). According to our Great Wisdom Tradition, phenomena arising from this vast primordial sourceground (gzhi, kadag, dharmata, chos nyid, Tao) that is perfectly subjective ultimate Consciousness Being Itself, in due course evolves a witnessing intelligence/ consciousness that recognizes the fundamental nonlocal, interdependently inter-connected prior unity, while abiding in a relationship of identity with all of the parts. This is the process of “the eternal return” to nondual Spirit. All arising spacetime phenomena participate in the 16
“primordial purity” (kadag) of this vast consciousness base (gzhi), this primordial awareness (jnana/yeshe) whose spontaneous presence (lhundrub) abides within all things. Thus, although “spacelike separation” of the participating parts of the unbroken whole obtains, there can be no essential separation. There is a vast oneness (longchen, svabhava), an ontologically prior unity. Thus the relationship is, at once, nonlocal, interdependent and nondual. I have called the unifying principle of this non-conceptual “one truth” the Principle of Ontological Interdependence. Again, this one truth is the nondual monadic, prior ontological unity of the conceptual perennial Two Truths, relative and ultimate. This unity, this “one taste” is a most profound subtle ecology of mind. This ontologically necessary yet epistemologically contingent prior unity must be the fundamental principle of any theory of ontological relativity—Alan Wallace’s Theory of Ontological Relativity or David Finkelstein’s Universal Relativity Principle, (Wallace, 2003) or W.V. Quine’s Ontological Relativity (p.12)—and of any “Theory of Everything” (TOE). Let us then briefly consider the Unified Quantum Vacuum that is the zero point energy field, in its relation to this “primordially present” one truth that for the nondual Buddhist View is the “self-perfected state” of the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. We will then explore Buddhist epistemology and ontology through the view of the Great Perfection and its potential impact upon the emerging, holistic paradigm in physics and cosmology, whose precursor is the antirealist Quantum Field theory. The Unified Quantum Vacuum: The Union of Science and Spirit? The trouble with most poetry is that it is either objective or subjective. -Basho Philosopher and physicist Ervin Laszlo views Relativistic Quantum Field Theory’s Quantum Vacuum—the vacuum state or the “zero-point energy”—as the basis of all relative spacetime reality, the “plenum void” that is the “Akashic Field” (manakasha/namkhah), a field that “connects organisms and minds in the biosphere, and particles, stars, and galaxies throughout the universe.” This view is apparently shared by Alan Wallace (“Vacuum States of Consciousness”). There is a deeper reality in the cosmos, a field that conserves and conveys information and thus connects and correlates. . . The Akashic Field is a universal field, joining the four universal fields of physics: the G-Field (the gravitational field), the EM-field (the electromagnetic field) and the strong and the weak short-range fields that create attraction and repulsion among the particles of the atomic nucleus. -Ervin Laszlo (2006) Physicist Paul Dirac attempts a noble description of this luminous quantum emptiness that is the “zero womb” that enfolds everything and in whom everything arises: 17
All matter is created out of some perceptible substance not accurately described as material since it uniformly fills all space and is undetectable by any observation... It appears as nothingness— immaterial, undetectable, and omnipotent. . .out of which all matter is created. - Paul Dirac (in Huston Smith, 1976) In 1927 Dirac objectively supports this poetic metaphysical conjecture by unifying the Quantum Theory with Relativity Theory—and predicting the existence of antimatter in the bargain—with the sublime mathematical formalism of his Dirac Equation. This wave equation became Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) or Relativistic Electrodynamics and fully integrated classical Special and General Relativity with the post-classical Quantum Theory. So, Quantum Field Theory predicts that all of space is filled with the Zero Point Energy of the three basic forces of nature, the electromagnetic, the strong and the weak interactions (the fourth force is gravity). This Zero Point Energy Field—the “energy of empty space”— Bohm’s “Zero Point Order” or “Implicate Order,” is the leading candidate for cosmology’s mysterious dark energy. This dark energy is the reincarnation of Einstein’s Cosmological Constant (“The worst blunder I ever made”), and represents a major explanatory challenge for the Standard Model, as we shall see. Heisenberg’s uncertainty. The root explanation for Zero Point Energy is Heisenberg’s quantum uncertainty relations—the Uncertainty Principle—which states that the more precise the measurement of a particle’s position, the less precise is the measurement of its momentum (its mass times its velocity), and vice versa. If we precisely locate the particle in a quantum system, we cannot determine its momentum. If we determine the particle’s momentum we cannot know its position. It’s not that everything is uncertain. We can measure precisely a particle’s position or momentum, but not both. That uncertainty, or more accurately, indeterminacy is not a function of measurement or of instruments, but is rather, inherent in the wave-like nature of the light of the Zero Point Energy Field itself; it is intrinsic to the very nature of apparently physical reality. Zero Point Energy is the paradoxical, “spooky” residue of a quantum system when it is “compactified.” “Empty space is not empty” (John Wheeler). The vacuum state is then, a zero point energy state with a non-zero potential. It is not an empty void, but permits momentary electromagnetic waves, particles and antiparticles to enter and exit spacetime reality, and this has quantifiable effects, namely the Casimir Effect, and cosmology’s Cosmological Constant, which any viable T.O.E. must explain. This description of the momentary particles of the Quantum Vacuum is reminiscent of Buddhist Kalachakra tantra’s empty “space particles,” the root and primary cause of all phenomenal reality. Unification? This Unified Quantum Vacuum, possibly the long sought unification of the four forces in a non-objective “fifth force,” was anticipated by the ancients, and by both Planck and Einstein, as the “Luminiferous Ether.” The ether theory was rejected by Einstein in his Special Relativity theory, then it emerged again as his “cosmological constant.” This unifying fifth force would be the ground state or substrate (alayavijnana) of the entire physical cosmos, the “Zero Womb” (Bohm) matrix of the birth of all universes in the cyclic oscillating “metaverse.” This Zero Point Energy, Laszlo’s “plenum void” is suspected by many physicists 18
to be that fifth force that finally unifies the other four forces—electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force and the gravity force—into a hubristic “Grand Unified Field,” an overdrawn “Theory of Everything,” the godlike supreme human intellect’s desideratum devoutly to be wished.1 Alas, all that has actually occurred is that the “Akashic Field” has set a zero point limit— the Planck Scale—beyond which the human conceptual mind and its reductionist physics cannot penetrate. This conceptual limit is the utterly ineffable estate of the noumenon, the nondual emptiness matrix or base of all arising phenomena, Ultimate Reality Itself. Thus we are led, necessarily, to metaphysics (unobservables that may exist before or beyond the observable data of physics), or even—yikes!—mysticism (direct non-conceptual meditative experience of the simultaneous unity of the Two Truths that are relative and ultimate truth). Thus do we transcend material, physical reality with its objectively vexing, often less than compelling ontological speculations, and experience directly, subjectively what lies therin. The alternative is skepticism. We must not however be downcast, for the private abode of information—clever, even brilliant conceptually fabricated apparently objective knowledge—is not the last word. The end of consciousness for gross concept-mind is not the end of the primordial wisdom consciousness abiding as the very heart (hridyam) of human consciousness. Here, Suzuki Roshi’s relative “Small Mind” is subsumed in ultimate “Big Mind.” This assent to the indwelling higher, subtler strata of knowledge becoming wisdom does not cease at the empirical limit of conceptual philosophical surrender. Indeed, it is here, in the mandatory hermeneutic fluidity of intellectual chaos that our awareness of our original wisdom begins, for those with a fearless ear to hear. However, from the limited view of perceptual and conceptual relative conventional truth, the Quantum Field Theory’s quantum vacuum/zero-point Akashic Field is the analogical key to understanding the relationship between instantaneous, nonlocal quantum connectedness (quantum entanglement), and the Middle Way ontological interdependence (pratitya samutpada) and emptiness (shunyata) of Buddhism’s Madhyamaka Prasangika, the prerequisite for the final view and practice of Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. This quantum “energy of empty space” offers a potential for a new, demystified “Two Truths” paradigm— analogous to the Buddhist Madhyamaka Two Truths (relative and ultimate)—to resolve science’s dogmatic objectivist presumption of absolute matter—its problem of subjectivity—in its quest for ultimate coherence in a “theory of everything.” As we shall see, both the “scientific method” and Buddhist (Madhyamaka) epistemology are rational, pragmatic, empirical, objective, skeptical and process oriented (events, not things). Both must be utilized in the emerging integral approach of the Noetic Revolution (p.59) p in the sky? Is this quantum vacuum then, the union of science and spirit? Is the Unified Quantum Vacuum of quantum cosmology the Ultimate Truth that is nondual Absolute Spirit, the grail of the union of science and spirit that is the precursor of a “complete physics”? Although Professor Laszlo identifies the Quantum Vacuum with the Hindu “Akashic Record” and Mahayana Buddhist Alaya, this totality of all information of the “three 1
This Unified Quantum Vacuum of physics and cosmology is analogous to the clearlight Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) of our contemplative tradition, and to the vast expanse of Dharmadhatu, the Absolute Basic Space of the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection in whom all phenomenal reality arises (p27ff).
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times” (past, present, future) is not considered by these traditions to be the non-conceptual, unelaborated, nondual one truth that is the primordial union of the Two Truths. Again, we must not conflate the ultimate explanatory principle of merely physical cosmos with the original wakefulness that is the Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) that pervades our consciousness—all-embracing, perfectly subjective Kosmos, the Ultimate truth of Reality Itself that is Absolute Spirit. After all, are not “physical” and “spiritual” different in kind? Are not samsara and nirvana different modal realities? Or is there a sameness (samata) here? Let’s see. Ontological Interdependence: The Problem of Knowledge Revisited There is not the slightest difference between samsara and nirvana. - Nagarjuna We have seen that our Principle of Ontological Interdependence informs us that the conceptual Two Truths of our Great Wisdom Tradition—the unbroken whole that is nondual, all-embracing reality of Ultimate Truth, and the realm of Relative Truth, the surreal mindscape that is the reality of spacetime phenomenal particulars arising therein—are always an ontologically “prior unity” that is the non-conceptual one truth. Does this mean that the empirical, relative-conventional world of physical matter is merely an aspect or dimension of an organizing physical or material Unified Quantum Vacuum? Yes. Is this quantum “Zero Point Field” the ontologically prior unity of Absolute Truth and Relative Truth that is the one truth that is the emptiness matrix of non-conceptual, nondual primordial Spirit? We concluded above that it is not. Why not? The answer depends on the view, exoteric relative or esoteric ultimate. I have written elsewhere that “Nondual Ultimate Reality that is Absolute Spirit cannot be reduced to, located in, or identified with finite physical spacetime particulars, not even gurus, deities, gods, or the nonlocal quantum vacuum potential.” Rather, physical, mental, and spiritual relative spacetime phenomena, the furniture of the dimension of conventional, empirical Relative Truth—our perceptual and conceptual reality interpretations and designations—are all “located” in Absolute Spirit (a nontheistic panentheism), and abide in a relation of identity with it (pantheism). “From the beginning all beings are Buddha” (Hui Neng). It’s not that “everything has Buddha Nature,” rather,”everything is Buddha Nature.” “All is Brahman.” The greater esoteric or “innermost secret” view is that appearing spacetime reality with its perceiving beings already is Absolute Spirit Itself that is the nondual one truth, beyond discursive concept-mind. Perhaps we are not yet realized Buddhas, but we are always Buddha. Who am I? We are all inherently the ultimate Buddha Reality (Dharmakaya). We are Atman, “The Bright” Kham Brahm, Nirguna Brahman, utterly empty of attributes. That is our original face, our intrinsic nature. That (Tat) is who we actually are. The radical nondual teaching of our Great Wisdom Tradition (Dzogchen, Essence Mahamudra, Saijojo Zen, Tao, Advaita Vedanta) is quite clear on this urgent point. The primordial awareness (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) that is nondual Spirit is “always already” the actual inherent nature of everything (panpsychism). The Unified Quantum Vacuum, all physical/mental reality is nondual Spirit. The quantum vacuum with its quasiobjective spacetime reality arises in or through nondual perfectly subjective Spirit. There is no essential separation. So it is told by the masters of our Great Tradition’s nondual Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe). Is this weird? Yes! Is this the crux of the matter? Yes! 20
Thus, according to this great universal teaching, the nondual wisdom Base or Source that transcends yet embraces the material world is the “spiritual” presence (vidya, rigpa, christos, epinoia, shekina) that is inherently present within all beings, the divine seed (tatagatagharba, hiranyagarbha, christos/logos) abiding now at the spiritual heart (hridyam hsin/kokoro, nyingpo) of each being, whether or not it is recognized. And from this primordial wisdom of emptiness, this radical, non-conceptual, nondual ultimate knowledge, spontaneously arises the moral imperative—compassionate feeling, intention and conduct (karuna, tonglen, nyingje, ahimsa, hesed/charis, altruism) for the benefit of all sentient beings. And from this wisdom of kindness arises—not so spontaneously—a non-oligarchic democratic political economy and with it the empirical possibility of the free pursuit of both hedonic material happiness (felicitas) and ultimate happiness (mahasukka, paramananda, eudaemonia, beatitude). Here then, in this Primordial Awareness Wisdom of our contemplative Great Tradition tentatively rests the ontological foundation for the resolution of the three problems of human knowledge and conduct: The Problem of Knowledge, the Problem of Morals, and the Problem of Governance. If, that is, we relinquish the metaphysical dogma of Physicalism (Materialism), the requisite metaphysics of our prevailing Western ontology of Scientific Materialism (Scientism) that currently precludes any provident rapprochement of science and spirituality. Materialism is, after all, merely part of the total Reality equation. “Science” must come to know this. Thus it is, Absolute Spirit, the nondual one truth that is the prior unity of the conceptual Two Truths—ultimate and relative—subsumes, transcends, and includes all objective physical matter, and all subjective mental phenomena, including spacetime’s very organizing principle, namely, the Unified Quantum Vacuum.2 So the physical Quantum Vacuum—David Bohm’s “implicate order” that enfolds the “explicate order” of all arising phenomena participates in, indeed already is the one truth that is Kosmos, all inclusive, primordial nondual Ultimate Spirit. This Primordial Wisdom “presence always present” is the gnosis (jnana, yeshe) driving the intersubjective methodology of our emerging Noetic Revolution. Could it be, wonder of wonders, that this desideratum is “already accomplished?” Let us then consider the Middle Way Buddhist view that is the foundation of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.
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Our perennial Great Wisdom Tradition teaches of the dialectic of the “Two Truths”: Relative Truth (samvriti), the finite objective relative-conventional empirical reality with its physical and mental phenomena, and Ultimate or Absolute Truth (paramartha) the infinite, nondual perfectly subjective unbounded whole, the Ultimate Reality that transcends yet embraces the phenomenal world of Relative Truth. This world of Relative Truth includes the dyad of outer exoteric and inner esoteric reality dimensions. This esoteric dimension then includes yet deeper or subtler strata of hidden dimensions, the “innermost secret,” and finally the ineffable nondual which is ultimate Reality Itself. The realization of these ascending levels of knowledge is a function of the psycho-spiritual lifestage development of the spiritual aspirant or knower. As to the experience of these hidden dimensions, whether conceptual dianoia, or direct contemplative epinoia/gnosis, it is most important to maintain the understanding awareness that these dimensional reality realms—these “many mansions of the Father’s house”—arise in a relationship of interdependence with one another and with the whole, and therefore possess no inherent, independent existence in themselves; not even the nondual Ultimate Reality itself. I have elsewhere referred to the great prior unity of these none too tidy epistemological dualities as the “Principle of Ontological Interdependence.” Indeed, our nondual Great Tradition views all objective and subjective entities as ultimately empty of inherent existence (shunyata, pratitya samutpada). This does not however, deny them their reality status as objectively real objects in the realm of Relative Truth that is empirical, relative-conventional spacetime reality. This principle of the Two Truths is the key to understanding the emerging paradigm shift that is the resolution of the “explanatory gap” between mind and matter (the “mind-body problem”), and between science and spirituality that is the “hard problem” of consciousness with its urgent need of an integrative principle between the third person methodologies of Western science and the first person modes of inquiry of Vedic/Buddhist contemplative science.
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Principia Dharmata: The Buddhist View of the Nature of Mind Without past, present, future; empty awake mind. -Mipham Rinpoche The crux of the matter. In the Buddhist view of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, and its foundation in Madhyamaka Prasangika, even the Ultimate Truth that is fundamental great emptiness (mahashunyata) is not a frozen absolute, that is, it is not a metaphysical logocentric idol or “false absolute” existing unconditioned and independently as an unknowable “other” transcendent creator God, or some vast substrate, entity, being or thing. Rather, emptiness is a relativized absolute, abiding interdependently, as “dependent arising” or “Interbeing,” a timeless infinitely vast causal nexus of arising interconnected causes and conditions (vasana/quantum qubits). H.H. The Dalai Lama terms this ultimate paradox the “emptiness of emptiness.” It is important for us to avoid the misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality from which the illusory world emerges... it’s not some kind of [entity] out there somewhere. . .emptiness must be understood as ‘empty of intrinsic or independent existence’. . .form’s ultimate nature . . .(It) does not imply non-existence of phenomena but the emptiness of phenomena . . .its ultimate mode of being . . .the basis that allows form [to] arise as emptiness. H.H. The Dalai Lama, Buddhadharma Quarterly, Fall, 2002 How then does emptiness exist? Emptiness is established by relative conventional minds. Therefore emptiness does not exist ultimately. It exists merely conventionally, as the dependent arising of form. His Holiness explains the seminal relationship of the Buddha’s Dependent Arising (pratitya samutpada) and Emptiness: First, all conditional things and events in the world come into being only as a result of the interaction of causes and conditions. They don’t just arise from nowhere, fully formed. Second, there is mutual dependence between parts and the whole: without parts there can be no whole, without a whole it makes no sense to speak of parts... Third, anything that exists and has an identity does so only within the total network of everything that has a possible or potential relation to it. No phenomenon exists with an independent or intrinsic identity... Thus, there are no subjects without the objects by which they are defined, there are no objects without subjects to apprehend them. . . (H.H. The Dalai Lama, 2005) The forms of emptiness. Thus, all phenomena arise in dependence upon prior causes and conditions; phenomena arise in mutual interdependence of parts and the unbroken whole; phenomena are absent any separate, intrinsic existence because they exist only in dependence 22
on related factors: this absence is emptiness. Thus all phenomena are dependently and conceptually designated, that is, they exist only by way of reified perceptual and conceptual attribution, imputation and designation. Cause and effect—the Principle of Causality—and its subset, karma, is possible only in a Kosmos whose phenomena is interdependently arisen and therefore empty of intrinsic existence. Thus, as the Buddha’s Heart Sutra expresses, “Emptiness is form, form is emptiness.” Emptiness and the dependent arising of form are a prior unity. No emptiness, no form. No form, no emptiness. Relative phenomena arise interdependently only from the vast expanse of their prior causal nexus, their emptiness base (gzhi) or primordial sourceground (cittata, cittadhatu). This supreme source is Ultimate Truth (paramartha satya) that is Reality Itself (dharmata/chos nyid). This is the ultimate mode of being for all the interdependent things and beings of the dimension of Relative Truth (samvriti satya). Independently existing phenomena, arising ex nihilo, from nothing, independent of prior causes and conditions is not logically or empirically possible. If the objective and subjective phenomena of reality do not ultimately exist and are ultimately ”unfindable” after twenty-five hundred years of philosophical, scientific and noetic (mind/spirit) analysis, we must ask how it is that phenomena appear to exist. The question is not whether they exist but how they exist. They exist, but not in the manner in which we perceive them. They lack any discrete, intrinsic reality. This absence, or emptiness, of inherent existence is their ultimate nature. . . It is critical to understand that Madhyamaka does not say that things are absent of inherent existence mainly because they cannot be found when sought through critical analysis. This is not the full argument. Things and events are said to be absent of inherent or intrinsic existence because they exist only in dependence on other factors. . . In other words, anything that depends on other factors is devoid of its own independent nature, and this absence of an independent nature is emptiness. . . Nagarjuna says that things and events, which are dependently originated, are empty, and thus are also dependently designated. . . [He] concludes there is nothing that is not empty, for there is nothing that is not dependently originated. Here we see the equation between dependent origination and emptiness. . . the path of the Middle Way, which transcends the extremes of absolutism and nihilism. - H.H. the Dalai Lama, Buddhadharma, Winter 2004, p.20 How then do phenomena exist? The world is real, not from its own side, but merely by relative intersubjective conventional designation. According to Buddhist practitioner and philosopher of science Alan Wallace, this “intersubjectivity lies at the very heart of the Buddhist worldview and its path to spiritual awakening.” The Buddhist view sees the individual not as an independent ego, but as a self—our bodymind—arising as an interdependent process, a causal nexus of prior causes and conditions. In this holistic Middle Way view the 23
ego-I exists, as with all phenomena, not permanently nor absolutely, but only nominally and relatively, through its own conceptual imputation and designation. Ultimately however, all the phenomena of reality are “empty of self-nature,” utterly devoid of any essential or intrinsic existence. Therefore, there is inherent existence neither in being, nor in non-being. Nagarjuna’s “tetralemma refutation” refutes 1) reified existence, 2) nihilistic non-existence, 3) both existence and non-existence, and 4) neither existence nor non-existence. How then do the Prasangika Madhyamikas—Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, Tsongkhapa—refute the Svatantrika Madhyamika and Cittamatra charges of nihilism and skepticism? Once again, nihilism is avoided by accomplishing the delicate balance between negating too much (nihilism) and negating too little (absolutism). Dependently arising phenomena really do exist conventionally, yet are devoid of any intrinsic absolute existence. And this is the “emptiness of emptiness.” Emptiness objective and subjective. His Holiness further distinguishes between objective emptiness and subjective emptiness.3 Objective emptiness or the “objective luminosity” is a “non-affirming negative phenomenon,” the absence or negation of any independent or intrinsic existence, or self. But the Buddha’s Great Emptiness (mahashunyata) is not ultimately a non-affirming negative. In the highest view of the nondual tantras—the view of Dzogchen and Highest Yoga Tantra—negated phenomena appearing to a self as relativeconventional reality are replaced by subjective emptiness (nay lug), the affirming luminosity of the clear light (‘od gsal/prabhasvara), the nondual cognitive-emotive direct experience presence (vidya/rigpa) of the pure bright clarity of the emptiness of form. This “wisdom realizing emptiness,” whose complementary is the Madhyamaka Great Compassion (mahakaruna), is liberation from suffering—Ultimate Happiness Itself (mahasuka/paramananda). So there remains, after the negation of objective and subjective gross and subtle forms encountered through the form and formless mindfulness, quiescence, introspection and insight practices, a subtler outshining luminosity as the vast expanse of the Madhyamaka Great Emptiness manifests itself from the “primordial purity” (kadag) of the primordial ground or base (gzhi). For Tibetan Buddhists, this fundament of clearlight ground luminosity is the ultimate nature of Reality Itself (cho-nyid/dharmata), the nature of primordial consciousness, the very essence or Nature of Mind (sems nyid). Regarding the Dzogchen view of this ultimate base, the three Buddha Bodies or the “Trikaya of the Base” that is our supreme source (cittata, kunjed gyalpo): its Essence is emptiness (shunyata), its Nature is luminosity (luminous clarity gsal ba), its Energy emanates continuously as light/motion/form (tsal/rolba), and in human conduct as wisdom/compassion (thugs re). (See Appendix A, Dzogchen, The Great Perfection). “Within the essence original wakefulness which is primordially pure (kadag) manifests the nature, a radiance which is spontaneously present” (lhundrub). (Mipham Rinpoche). So, we must negate objective and subjective arising phenomena. But, as Tsongkhapa reminds us, if we negate too much we depart the Middle Way and fall into dark nihilism where our compassionate ethical precepts and conduct are compromised. If we negate too little we fall into the opposite extreme of absolutism, reifying then clinging to phenomena and failing to accomplish the nondual wisdom of emptiness. Our awareness of the separate self3
For the finer points of this teaching see The Natute of Mind, The Buddhist View: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, ©David Paul Boaz, 2006, www.davidpaulboaz.org.
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sense, the independently existing ego-I, is at first necessary to develop our view and ethical sense, Kant’s “moral law within us.” This sense of a permanent self serves as a vehicle for managing our relative conventional existence, our ostensible development on the Path. But this self cannot be an independent, permanently existing entity. It is rather, a dependently arising, impermanent and relative existence. Thus do the Madhyamaka schools of the Mahayana seek a Middle Way between the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism. But let us remember, “madhya” or middle also connotes a negation, so the Madhyamaka is the Middle Way path that is no-path. Thus we cannot even cling to the Middle Way. Why is the ontological negation, the ontological relativity of the self-sense of the ego-I— the “no-self of the individual”—so important? Because it is the defence of the attachments and aversions of this non-essential self that causes the negative afflictive emotions— anger/aggression, pride/envy, desire/ attachment/greed that is ignorance (avidya/marigpa), the root cause of human suffering and unhappiness. “All the evil, fear and suffering of this world is the result of attachment to the self” (Shantideva). The non-conceptual realization of the state of this transcendent perfection of wisdom (prajnaparamita)—the wisdom of emptiness—is decidedly not mere conceptual speculation. The weight of our entire contemplative Wisdom Tradition grounds this view in the practice of meditative quiescence (shamatha) and penetrating insight (vipashyana) which, with compassionate conduct, bears the fruit of liberation or Buddhahood. “The fruit is no different at the pinnacle of enlightenment than it is at the primordial base” (Adzom Rinpoche). According to H. H. The Dalai Lama, all states of consciousness—negative or positive—indeed all phenomena are pervaded by this clear light luminosity that is the “wish fulfilling jewel” of Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis/jnana/ yeshe) (H.H. The Dalai Lama, 2000). From this ground it all arises, dwells, and into this it all returns, with no essential separation at all. All limbs of the Buddha’s teaching have this one purpose—to lead us to the nondual primordial wisdom. It participates in and pervades all views and paths for one who is capable of accessing it. . . All things flow from emptiness, and return again to emptiness. This is dependent arising . . . the dynamic display of the mind. This is the true nature of arising phenomena, the nature of reality itself. -Adzom Paylo Rinpoche (Upaya Retreat, Santa Fe,NM 2002, trans. Anne C. Klien) Let us then remember, moment to moment, wherever we go, whatever we do, it’s always here. Knowing and feeling: the unity of wisdom and compassion. The Buddhist Muhamudra, Madhyamaka and Dzogchen traditions agree: nondual realization and perfection of the ultimate truth of the Nature of Mind (sems nyid), Ultimate Reality Itself (chos nyid), luminous emptiness (shunyata), Absolute Bodhicitta can be accomplished neither by the ambulations of common conceptual mind, nor by the “attentional stability, brilliant clarity and joy” of contemplative quiescence practices. According to the highest or subtlest Madhyamaka and tantric teachings, even realized contemplative quiescence (realized shamatha) is not altogether free of conceptual grasping and contrivance (ignorance/advidya)—though it is often 25
mistaken to be so. Mind training in conceptual understanding, and also in quiescence must be unified with the compassionate heartmind of relative bodhicitta—the “mind of enlightenment”—and with the parallel wisdom of penetrating insight (vipashyana), attained through the noetic contemplative analysis of insight practice under the guidance of, and with great devotion to a qualified master. As these “two legs of enlightenment”—wisdom and compassion—are unified, habitual material and conceptual grasping is transcended and realization of the utterly unmediated awareness continuum that is the always already present primordial base or ground may be accomplished. The ultimate perfection of this process is Buddhahood. (For extensive documentation see B. Alan Wallace, Balancing the Mind, 2005, p.230ff., and his The Attention Revolution, 2006. For esoteric wholeness fundamentals see Anne C. Klein’s Unbounded Wholeness, 2006.) To “spiritually” recognize, then realize and perfect this vast emptiness Nature of Mind—the clear light of the mind beyond the “web of belief” that is the mind’s mere cognitive contents—is to realize the temporal impermanence (anitya) of ego-self in time, and the utter absence (shunya) of it in space. The on-going failure of realization in the former instance I have termed objective dualism, in the latter instance, subjective dualism. The result is the two aspects of ignorance (avidya), or “missing the mark” (hamartia/sin). These two are primary ignorance or clinging to the sense of self (the ego-I) in space and time, and secondary ignorance, grasping at phenomena as substantial, permanent, eternal, absolute or ultimate (Boaz, 2004). Therefore, according to the greater esoteric or nondual “innermost secret” Buddhist View—Dzogchen and Essence Mahamudra—this emptiness residue of self cannot be nihilistic nothingness or utter non-being. Rather, this reality is the prior unity of emptiness and awareness that is the very ground luminosity, the potential of everything that arises. This is “The Bright” of the Upanishads (“Upanishadic Monism”), gnosis, radiant essential clearlight basic mind nature itself. This then is the knowing aspect of liberation. As this Primordial Awareness Wisdom (jnana, yeshe, gnosis) becomes truly manifest in the lifeworld as the wisdom of kindness, and then permanent and profound loving compassion (karuna) for the welfare of living beings, it becomes, in direct proportion to that, our own ultimate happiness (beatitude/mahasukha/paramananda), Happiness Itself.4 This is the feeling or emotional aspect (ishta, bhakti, bliss, devotion) of liberation. The indwelling innate, intrinsic presence (vidya/rigpa, lhundrub) of this wisdom happiness is who we are now. It cannot be found outside, or in the future. All thought, even our negative emotions are apertures opening into the depth of its primordial purity (kadag)—if that is, we can surrender these concepts at the instant of their arising. Indeed, everything that arises from the purity of the Base is already self-liberated and utterly free of conceptual elaboration and corruption—empty in essence, luminous clarity by nature, and spontaneously compassionate in its expression.
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In the Middle Way (Madhyamaka) Mahayana there are three kinds of compassion, exoteric/outer, esoteric/inner, and greater esoteric or nondual “innermost secret.” The first is relative, directed toward sentient beings. The second, toward the ignorance (avidya/marigpa) that causes the suffering of beings. The third is absolute, the equanimity of resting in the nondual state of presence of the Supreme Source. This compassion without an object is the unity of compassion and the wisdom of emptiness. From emptiness compassion spontaneously arises. Through compassion, emptiness is realized. No essential difference.
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These two—luminous knowing and feeling—pervade the unity of outer, inner, secret and innermost secret (nondual) understanding of the emptiness (shunyata), selflessness (anatman), impermanence (anitya) and interdependence (pratitya samutpada) of our Great Tradition’s gradual yet always “already accomplished” path to liberation from the ignorance (avidya) that is suffering (dukkha). Such a post-metaphysical, post-transcendent, non-conceptual understanding was perfectly expressed 800 years ago by Soto Zen patriarch Dogen: Midnight. No waves No Wind. The empty boat Flooded with moonlight. Somewhere in Tibet, a Dzogchen master softly speaks to his heart son: “Do you see it? That is what you seek. That’s it.” A Glimpse of the Great Perfection5 The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness. . . The nature of mind is clear light. -Shakyamini Buddha Now is the time to enter into it. - Garab Dorje Buddha cognition. On the account of the subtlest view of the Buddhist teaching that is Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection (Essence Mahamundra and the Madhyamaka of the Definitive Meaning are essentially the same as to the View), this realm of Relative Truth (samvriti satya)— form (objective reality) and formless form (mental and subjective experience)—arises from its primordial energy (jnana prana) within the perfectly subjective pristine cognition of the vast expanse of Reality Itself (dharmadhatujnana/chos-bying yeshe). According to His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche (1991) this unity of the absolute space of arising phenomena (dharmadhatu/bying) with primordial consciousness itself, is the luminosity of clearlight primordial awareness wisdom (gnosis/jnana/yeshe), utterly free of conceptual elaboration. This is the perfect sphere of Dzogchen. This Ultimate Reality (dharmata/cho nyid) is the Madhyamaka luminous emptiness (shunyata) that is the inherent nature of relative spacetime phenomena (dharma/chos) whose apparitional or illusory face (dharmin/cho can) emerges from its primordial purity (kadag) of the emptiness base (gzhi) as the limited consciousness of sentient beings who perceive, then reify, then conceptually designate (maya/ignorance/ajnana/marigpa) these appearances as the seemingly substantial phenomena of a reified, imputed, permanent, and substantial everyday reality. Yet all such instantiation of phenomenal consciousness is “always already” illumined by the radiant original face of the primordial awareness wisdom (jnana/yeshe) that is their (our) intrinsic actual nature, the very nature of mind (cittata/sems nyid). And that is the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.
5 See Appendix A, Dzogchen, the Self-Perfected State, and The Buddhist View: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen ©David Paul Boaz, 2006.
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In this profound and subtle “practice of Ati Yoga, which is also secret such that only the fortunate can understand it,” Buddhahood (Buddha-nature/buddhadhatu) is accomplished when the fundamental, primal intrinsic awareness (vidya/rigpa) of the Buddha Body of Reality Itself (dharmakaya/chos-ku) is liberated, exactly as it is, directly here and now through the recognition—”brief moments many times”—realization and perfection of the primordially pure body of Samantabhadra (Kuntazangpo), the Dharmakaya Buddha, who is none other than the pristine cognition of the supreme reality that is dharmadhatu, the vast Absolute Space of all arising phenomena, beyond belief, always already present in whatever arises in this very moment now, here in this very human body of light (rang rig/rang rigpa). This clearlight (‘od gsal) absolute space (bying) of phenomena that is Ultimate Truth must not be conflated with the material, contingent relative dimension of spacetime that arises within and through it. The prior unity of these conceptual “Two Truths” that is the nonconceptual one truth, the perfect nondual sphere of Dzogchen, is ontologically prior, subsuming, transcending yet embracing and pervading the physical spacetime dimension, including the “space particles” of the ground state of the quasi-physical Unified Quantum Vacuum. The great paradoxical conclusion then is this: ultimately there is no difference! In the pristine cognition of equality—Buddha cognition (samatajnana /nyam-nyid yeshe—the Two Truths are equal. One and the same. A unity. The primal duality of the conceptual binary that is the Two Truths resolved in this one great nondual truth. “There is not the slightest difference between samsara and nirvana” (Nagarjuna). The Quantum Vacuum and the Great Perfection. Thus, from this ultimate view, the Zero Point Energy of the Quantum Vacuum arises from the alayavijnana, the substrate consciousness that arises from the primordial wisdom consciousness (jnana/yeshe) that is not other than the emptiness base (gzhi). And from the Quantum Vacuum arises chitta/sems, the human bodymind along with the entire spacetime mansion of Relative Truth. These are the three consciousness dimensions—citta, alaya and jnana—of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist view. O wonder of wonders, all beings are Buddha, samsara and nirvana are One! And all this, always here, now outshines perfectly just as it is, the natural state, “natural mind” the very nature of your mind. Mahasuka, great joy. Nothing special (wu shin). As we begin to see this post-metaphysical, post-mystical “ordinary mind” as the very Nature of Mind, we wake up. “Now we spontaneously generate the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings.” (Vimalakirti). The great 14th Century Nyingma Dzogchen Master Longchen Rabjam (Longchenpa) transmits this primordial wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) that is the very nature of Kosmos, Reality Itself: Self arising wisdom is rigpa that is empty, clear and free from all elaboration, like an immaculate sphere of crystal . . . It does not analyze objects. . . By simply identifying that non-conceptual, pristine, naked rigpa, you realize there is nothing other than this nature. . . This is nondual self-arising wisdom. . . Like a reflection in a mirror, when objects and perceptions manifest to rigpa, that pristine and naked awareness which does not proliferate into thought is called the inner power (tsal), the responsiveness that is the ground (gzhi) for all the arising of things . . . For a yogin who realizes the naked meaning of Dzogpachenpo, rigpa is fresh, pure and naked, and objects may manifest and appear within rigpa, but it does not lose itself externally to those objects. 28
-Longchen Rabjam, The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu (Commentary), Adzom Chögar edition According to recent Tibetan Dzogchen rime master Tulku Urgen Rinpoche, the two innermost principles of Dzogchen are Basic Space (bying/dhatu) and Awareness (rigpa/vidya). This Basic Space is pregnant luminous emptiness, the unity of emptiness (shunyata) and the clearlight luminosity (‘od gsal). In Dzogchen, the innermost secret realization of Basic Space is klong, the infinite “vast expanse” of Reality Itself, transcending all conceptual elaboration, judgement and bias, beyond even the subtlest subject-object duality, beyond objective and subjective emptiness, beyond ground and path luminosity (Boaz, 2004). As space pervades, so awareness pervades. . .like space, rigpa is allencompassing. . . Just as beings are all pervaded by space, rigpa pervades the minds of beings. . . . Basic space is the absence of mental constructs, while awareness is the knowing of this absence of constructs, recognizing the complete emptiness of mind essence. . . The ultimate dharma is the realization of the indivisibility of basic space and awareness [that is] Samantabhadra. -Tulku Urgyen (As It is, Vol. I, 1999 and Rainbow Printing, 1995) The Supreme Source. The primary Dzogchen tantra, The Kunjed Gyalpo (The Supreme Source), must surely be considered one of humankind’s great spiritual treasures. According to Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, this supreme nondual teaching has been transmitted from master to disciple directly, heartmind to heartmind, for thousands of years. Historical Dzogchen wisdom dates from the teaching of Garab Dorje in the Second Century CE. The Kunjed Gyalpo tantra arises in the Eighth Century and is the fundamental tantra of the Dzogchen semde (mind)teaching series. This version of the great nondual primordial teaching is derived from Buddhist sutra and tantra understanding of the Nature of Mind, yet its truth essence runs, like a golden thread through the grand tapestry of humankind’s primordial great Wisdom Tradition. Kunjed Gyalpo, The Wise and Glorious King is Samantabhadra (clarity) and Samantabhadri (emptiness) in inseparable yabyum embrace—androgynous skylike primordial Adi Buddha—the union of clarity and emptiness that is none other than our original Buddha nature, Supreme Source, Basis, primordial womb of everything. Sambantabhadra, this Dharmakaya Buddha speaks to the Logos, Vajrasattva, Sambhogakaya Buddha: The essence of all the Buddhas exists prior to samsara and nirvana. . . it transcends the four conceptual limits and is intrinsically pure; this original condition is the uncreated nature of existence that always existed, the ultimate nature of all phenomena. . . It is utterly free of the defects of dualistic thought which is only capable of referring to an object other than itself. . .it is the base of primordial purity. . . Similar to space it pervades all beings. . . The inseparability of the two truths, absolute and relative is called the 29
‘primordial Buddha’. . . If at the moment the energy of the base manifests, one does not consider it something other than oneself. . . it self-liberates. . . Understanding the essence . . . one finds oneself always in this state . . .dwelling in the fourth time, beyond past, present and future. . .the infinite space of self-perfection. . . pure dharmakaya, the essence of the vajra of clear light. - Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, The Supreme Source (Kunjed Gyalpo), 1999 Thus do the sutras and the tantras of Buddha’s teaching and the binary dualities of the path—objective and subjective, self and other, observer and data, true and false, relative and ultimate—abide in the prior unity of the dependently arisen perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, ultimate mind nature, luminous innate clearlight mind that is always already the unity of awareness and emptiness. Who is it, that I am? All the masters of the three times have told it. This infinite vast expanse of the primordial awareness wisdom continuum is who we actually are. Tat tvam ami. That, I Am! That is our supreme identity, great perfection of our always present Buddha Nature, deep heartseed presence of ultimate happiness that is both origin and aim of all our seeking. H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche’s Comments on Garab Dorje’s Three Vajra Verses or The Three Essential Statements of the Dzogchen View, Meditation and Conduct (translated by John Reynolds): Verse I: Recognize your own true nature (The Base and View) “This fresh immediate awareness of the present moment, transcending all thoughts related to the three times (past, present, future), is itself that primordial awareness or knowledge (yeshe) that is self-originated intrinsic awareness (rig pa).” From this View arises the Semde teaching series. Verse II: Choose the state of presence, beyond doubt (The Path and Meditation) “Whatever phenomena of samsara or nirvana may manifest, all of them represent the play of the creative energy or potentiality of one’s own immediate intrinsic awareness (rig pa’i rtsal). One must decide upon this unique state for oneself and know that there exists nothing other than this.” From The Meditation arises the Longde teaching series. Verse III: Continue in the state with confidence in liberation (The Fruit and Conduct) “Whatever gross or subtle thoughts may arise, by merely recognizing their nature, they arise and self-liberate simultaneously in the vast expanse of Dharmakaya, where Emptiness and Awareness are inseparable (gsal stong gnyis med).” From the Fruit arises the Secret Upadesha (Mengagde), or heart essence (nyingthig) teaching series. And from Jigme Lingpa, author of the Longchen Nyingthig Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse, on the nondual Dzogchen view at play in the world:
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No Buddhas, no beings, beyond existence and non-existence Intrinsic Awareness Itself is absolute Guru, Ultimate Truth. By resting naturally, beyond fixaton in that inherently free perfect innate Bodhi-mind, I take refuge and actualize Bodhicitta. - Jigme Lingpa, Longchen Nyingthig “The perfect explanation of Dzogchen,“ according to contemporary Dzogchen master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu is voiced in these profound words of Gautama Shakyamuni, the historical Nirmanakaya Buddha: All that arises is essentially no more real than a reflection, transparently pure and clear, beyond all definition or logical explanation. Yet the seeds of past action, karma, continue to cause further arising. Even so, know that all that exists is ultimately void of self-nature, utterly non dual! The End of the Great Search You will not find Happiness until you stop seeking it. -Chuang Tzu What you seek is already present. -Jesus of Nazareth The nature of mind is Buddha from the beginning... Realizing the purity essence of all things, to remain there without seeking is the meditation. - Garab Dorje (The Three Vajra Verses) View, Path and Result. The wisdom teachings that have arisen within the primordial Great Wisdom Tradition of human history have a View (darshana, theory) which explains the Ground, the great Source of all appearing reality, and a Path (marga) which establishes the Meditation (bhavana) that seeks the continuity of recognition of the Ground leading to the Result or Fruition of the practice. This endpoint is “the Fruit” that is ultimate realization of our 31
inherently nondual primordial wisdom sourceground that is, paradoxically “already accomplished” and “always already” present at the spiritual heart (hridyam) of each human being. This final realization is seen as the essence, if not the cause of human happiness, and in the highest nondual teaching of each tradition as ultimate Happiness Itself (paramananda, mahasuka). In Buddhism this blissful Result of the wisdom of emptiness is Buddhahood. The Path is the confusion of the gradual seeking strategies to this “goal” of liberation enlightenment. Regarding the View, the teaching is generally presented exoterically. Thus, as knowledge deepens to wisdom in the “advanced” practitioner the teaching becomes more and more esoteric (inward, secret, nondual). Regarding the View of the Fruition (result/realization) of the path, it may be either gradual (zengo, rim-gys-pa), or non-gradual (sudden, direct tongo, cig-car-ba). In actual practice these two are interdependent, and the “gradual/non-gradual” dualism becomes a false dichotomy. We make the goal the path (Boaz, 2006, “Does Buddhahood Have a Cause?”). The Paradox of Seeking. Our Great Wisdom Tradition teaches that this paradox of the path—the paradox of seeking—is that the happiness we desire through all our seeking strategies is already here, indwelling, timeless, perfectly awake, prior to the cyclic suffering of the endless painful dualities that this flesh is heir to. “The path is emptiness. Emptiness is the path.” “What you seek is already present, but you do not know it.” “Wonder of wonders, all beings are Buddha.” This recognition is after all, the very definition of religion—religare/religio, yoga/zygon, union with the whole—our inherent primordial urge and impulse toward spirit, the unbroken whole that is our “supreme identity” and “supreme source,” the ultimate “transcendental signified,” prior to all signification and idolotry. “We cannot become happy, we can only be happy.” We cannot become enlightened, we can only be enlightened. Why? Because seeking happiness to avoid suffering is a form of suffering, the ignorance (avidya) that causes suffering. Liberation from suffering—Happiness Itself—is not a separate reality, some state or thing to be sought, caught and grasped by a knowing subject. “The seeker and that sought are one and the same” (Padmasambhava). Actor and action are not separate. Meditator and meditation are not separate. We need not cling to the existence or non-existence of anything at all. Thus our seeking motive is destroyed and we enter in the immediate, naked pristine awareness of the nondual presence (vidya/rigpa) “already present,” the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, our primordial buddhahood—by whatever name—that is fully awake, if unrecognized, from the very beginning. Thus our liberation from the endless suffering strategies of seeking happiness is right here now our ultimate happiness, the nonidealized happiness that cannot be lost. In the “pure view” (dag nang) of the Ati Yoga of Dzogchen there is nothing to be transformed or transcended; nothing to be fabricated, contrived or deconstructed by the mind because all that arises from the primordial purity (kadag) of the base (gzhi)—negative, positive, neutral—is always already spontaneously present (lhundrub) and self-perfected (rang grol), and naturally self-liberated (rang bzhin gyis mya ngan las ‘das pa) from the very beginning. Simply relax into That (Tat/Sat). That is the continuity of the great (chen) completion (dzog) or perfection of the natural state, natural ordinary mind that is “the Bright” of the light of the mind and everything appearing therein, always arising from primordial purity that is the very ground of being. Practice that, moment to moment, and be supremely happy (Appendix D). 32
Thus it is. Now there is nothing to do, so that everything we do is selfless, authentic and kind. Thus do we choose our reality. Thus do we create our individual and thereby collective destiny. So, nondual, non-separate Spirit, Ultimate Reality Itself, already transcends yet includes and embraces both subject and object, self and other, right here now. Always now (turiya). This reality is who we actually are, our supreme identity. So there is no need to try to become something else, try to change anything. “Leave it as it is, and rest your weary mind, all things are perfect, exactly as they are” (Shakyamuni Buddha). This is the perennial paradoxical truth of non-action, wu-wei (aporia), Surrender to the wisdom of emptiness, non-seeking, not seeking something outside, nor inside, not seeking anything at all. Let it be as it is, and all that arises spontaneously self-liberates at the very instant of its arising. This is liberation from unhappiness. This is the primordial wisdom teaching of Ati Dzogchen, and indeed, of our nondual Great Wisdom Tradition. All the masters have told it. That happiness you seek is “always already” present. The heartseed of enlightenment, our Buddha Nature (tatagatagarbha), our Christ Nature (christos), by whatever name, is inherent right here within the continuum of our mental-emotional nature at the very heart (hridyam, kokoro, nyingpo) of the human bodymind. Can we really be that presence, this space of sky, in the chaos of our splendent earth? Yes, according to the nondual view of the wisdom traditions. We can be that because That is our actual original, primordial wisdom nature (gnosis, jnana, yeshe), the very nature of our mind—our original goodness, not our original sin. How do we do this? The masters of the three times—past, present, future—have told it: We take refuge in “The Three Jewels” that are the spiritual master, the teaching, and the spiritual community, then train the mind in equanimity and compassion through the path (marga/lam) with its meditation practice (bhavana) under the guidance of a qualified master, all the way to the end of it. Why must we do all this? To realize—wonder of wonders—that “it is already accomplished” (Garab Dorje). A most unusual paradox. You have always been one with the Buddha, so do not pretend you can attain this oneness by various practices. If, in this very instant, you could know that it can never be attained by effort. . .you would now be the Buddha Mind. . . Do not seek Buddhahood, your seeking is doomed to failure. -Huang Po (Kraft, Zen Tradition, 1988) In this very act of seeking, the truth is revealed, just for a moment... Buddha is within you, clear and bright and vast as space. This is the meditation. In this quiet, vast emptiness there is nothing to construct and nothing to do. In a carefree way, let it be as it is, and just relax into it... there is nothing other than this... Now then, rest in That. -Lama Wangdor Rinpoche (Santa Fe Retreat, 2003) Who is it? Who is it that desires to know, and to be happy? Who is it that is afraid and angry? Who is it that is born, suffers and dies? Who is it that shines through the mind and abides at the heart of all beings, forever liberated and fully awake? 33
Space and Time From Pythagoras to Einstein Space and time are not conditions in which we live, but modes in which we think. - Albert Einstein Light Before Einstein Let us now consider certain recent theoretical developments in Relativity Theory and the Quantum Theory with its Unified Vacuum Quantum which offer a bridge of understanding from the Materialist Realist paradigm or world view of Aristotle, the Stoics and Descartes, to the “spooky” nonlocal primordial emptiness of the Quantum Theory and the related Buddhist view of the Great Perfection. As we have seen, the Realist Materialist/ Physicalist worldview has been visited upon modern and postmodern religion, science and culture as the fundamentalist protoreligion that is Scientific Materialism (Scientism). It was the postmodern reaction to this tyranny of objectivity of the old Modernist paradigm that begat the emerging Noetic Revolution that is nothing less than an incipient reunion of physics and metaphysics; of the prepersonal, the personal and the transpersonal; of realism and idealism; of science and spirituality. First then, a very brief history of spacetime. From Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, to Galileo, Newton and Einstein, both exoteric and esoteric physics, philosophy and religion have been concerned with the four fundamental aspects of appearing reality: space, time, matter, and energy. Subjectivist, esoteric (right brain) attempts to unify these realities have been offered by the contemplative yogic, metaphysical and even mystical religious formulas of our primordial Great Wisdom Tradition. Objectivist, exoteric (left brain), attempts to understand and unify these apparently separate aspects of reality have focused on mathematics and physics (Boaz, 1971). Energy is light and arises from the still luminous emptiness of its primordial source or base as motion. Motion is change, the continuous change of position of an object (with its waves and particles) relative to some frame of reference with respect to the consciousness of an observer. Consciousness is the key. The classical mechanics of Galileo, Liebniz, and Newton clarified this idea of relative motion. Galileo, who first proscribed value and the subjective, “qualitative” from science, permitting only the quantifiable objective, postulated a relativity theory—the Principle of Galilean Relativity—adopted later by Newton and Einstein in which an absolute “inertial” reference frame the laws of mechanics (motion) are always valid; in which theory is perfectly and always validated by experiment, a romantic perfect-world theory hungering after the grail of absolute objective certainty. And thereby the scientific study of the mind was marginalized under the ensuing procrustean “taboo of subjectivity.” Contemporary mechanistic, determinist science and philosophy and the cultural worldview that follows therefrom continues to labor under this logocentric false idol of the attainability of a perfect objective certainty, utterly ignoring the subjectivity of the human mind—consciousness—and its perfectly subjective primordial base, all inclusive ultimate Reality Itself. So, according to the classical view of Galileo and Newton, if the laws of mechanics are valid in reference frame “A,” they are valid in all other reference frames moving in uniform 34
motion (constant velocity) relative to “A.” Newton’s laws of motion are identical for all reference frames moving in uniform, not accelerated motion. No reference frame, not even the earth is privileged. All reference frames are equally valid. The bad news for this classical Newtonian mechanics is that the laws of mechanics are not valid for non-uniform inertial reference frames (co-ordinate systems) attached to the earth. According to recent relativity theory, the earth cannot be an inertial reference system. The laws of classical mechanics were derived therefore, from a co-ordinate system which has never been observed. Classical mechanics had no foundation! What was needed theoretically was something which was absolutely still to provide an inertial co-ordinate system or frame of reference in which the laws of mechanics are valid, and through which light propagates. The ancient theory of the ether provided such and ad hoc solution. The “luminiferous ether” is a absolutely still, unmoving, invisible, undetectable “sea” that permeates everything and though which all particles, fields and objects in the universe move. Then, more bad news. Unfortunately for classical mechanics, in 1887 the “null result” of the Michelson-Morley experiment “disproved” the ether theory (although Einstein thought that it was salvageable). The ether concept has now reincarnated as cosmology’s Quantum Vacuum. The death of the idea of an absolutely non-moving privileged reference frame gave birth to Einstein’s Special Relativity. The incompleteness of Galilean-Newtonian relativity and Maxwell’s and then Einstein’s new relativistic principle of the absolute velocity of light left a gaping theoretical hole in classical modernist physics which, along with Planck’s and Einstein’s discovery of the quantum nature of light, would doom the Newtonian view,6 and give rise to the Postmodern worldview with its Special and General Relativity and later, the Principles of Quantum Uncertainty and Complementarity of the Quantum Theory. Moreover, recent advances in the cosmology of the ocillating metaverse, neurobiology, consciousness studies, Buddhist epistemology, and philosophy of mind, and the new physics of the zero-point energy field (the quantum vacuum) have set the epistemological stage for a Twenty-first Century integral noetic revolution in religion, science and culture that is an incipient rapprochement of science and spirituality. Thus, the objectivist quest of classical mechanics for absolute non-motion as a basis for coordinate reference systems has yet to emerge. Arising light-energy is continuous motion, constant change. Only the great depth of our ultimately subjective source (the emptiness of Tao) is changeless and still. And this perfectly subjective base or source (Brahman/ shunyata/emptiness) is forever veiled to limited human conceptual objective understanding by the inherent subjectivity of the quantum uncertainty relations, Complementarity, the BohmBell-Aspect nonlocality, and the inherent limits of a two valued, truth functional logic to describe a nondual ultimately subjective reality. Do the cognitive conceptual limits of the quantum theory and the bivalent logical syntax of language preclude the arising of an atavistic, semiotic (intersubjective), semantic and even contemplative understanding of emptiness? We have seen that it does not. The ultimately subjective emptiness base of reality may be penetrated by the contemplative yogic technologies of our Great Wisdom Tradition (p.14ff.). 6
Newtonian mechanics works perfectly well in the mesoworld. It got us to the moon and back. It does not however, accurately describe interactions in the realm of the very small—the microworld of particle physics—in the macro realm of the very large, intergalactic gravitational effects, and in the realm of the very dense—quasars and black holes.
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According to quantum physicist Henry Stapp, the discovery of quantum non-locality— quantum entanglement—is the ultimate unifying theory in the history of science. It is present at both the microphysical and cosmological dimensions of the unbounded whole of Reality Itself. The uncertainty relations of the Quantum Theory is the veil of maya to our merely discursive conceptual knowing of the ultimate nature of Reality. Yet, there is a luminous emptiness, stillness, a vast openness inherent in this movement of energy as it arises from its infinite “supreme source” as finite spacetime phenomena. This nondual non-conceptual, noetic cognition (noetos) is present to human contemplative understanding (Begley, 2007). And it is this nondual knowing—primordial wisdom/gnosis/jnana—that is the primary truth of our perennial Great Wisdom Tradition. The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. - Tao te Ching The stillness in the Tao is not the true stillness. It is stillness in motion that is the Tao that pervades heaven and earth. -Ts’ai-ken t’an Special Relativity: Light Energy is the Wisdom of Emptiness Something lives within you that lives longer than the suns. It abides at the place in the heart. -Chandogya Upanishad Special Relativity, the dreams that stuff is made of. Einstein, Minkowski and Lorentz developed what was published by Einstein in 1905 as “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” and became known as the Special Theory of Relativity whose postulates unified the four fundamental realities—space, time, matter, energy—in a left-brain, exoteric scientificphilosophical model. This radical Principle of Relativity—this “affront to common sense” (London Times)—established a new paradigm in science and philosophy that transcended, yet included the previous Newtonian scientific paradigm. Einstein accepted Minkowski’s four dimensional spacetime continuum, the three dimensions or co-ordinates of space, plus the temporal dimension of time. Einstein preferred the name “Theory of Invariants” for the new principle because the second of the two basic postulates of Special Relativity asserts that the spacetime separation of two “spacelike” events (events connected by a light signal) is the same, i.e. is invariant (absolute) in all inertial reference systems. The motion or speed of light (c) is constant, invariant, always the same when measured in relative motion. There is no reference frame or system in which light is at rest. Light-energy is motion. The speed of light cannot be relative; it is absolute in all sensoryperceptual frames of reference. And this postulate is derived from Einstein’s first postulate, the fundamental principle of relativity, that the laws of physics—the laws of mechanics and the laws of electromagnetism—must be the same for any observer in any reference frame anywhere in the physical cosmos. The laws of physics—the laws of nature—are the same in all inertial reference systems. 36
No observer’s reference frame is privileged or “special,” not even ours on the earth. We can do the same mathematics and physics anywhere in the physical cosmos. This postulate generalizes the Galilean/Newtonian relativity principle to include Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism (but not gravity), not just Newton’s laws of mechanics. And this resulted in the constancy of the velocity of light (c). Later, in 1915 Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity would generalize his Special Relativity to include accelerated reference systems, and thereby define a new gravity (p.38). According to our Great Wisdom Tradition, the fundamental nature of kosmos (ultimate reality) and cosmos (physical and mental reality arising therefrom) is empty, changeless and absolute. But the mental and physical phenomenal particulars arising and filling the world with light arise in and are relative to that great unbroken whole. We have absolute mind (“Big Mind”), our primordial sourceground by whatever name, and relative mind (“Small Mind”) arising therein. These two aspects of ultimately subjective Reality Itself are the “Two Truths” of our perennial Great Wisdom Tradition. Thus, Special Relativity has demonstrated (not proven) in a left-brain verbal-analytic modality (relative truth) the Primordial Wisdom truth that the inherent nature of all arising relative phenomena is light energy. Let us then further explore this radical kosmic relationship. Human reference systems or frames of reference are perceptually and conceptually fabricated relative spacetime constructions of the consciousness—the cognition—of the perceiving subject, a thinking-conceptual mind, and do not exist a priori in nature, apart from the relative operations of the mind. Kant understood this a hundred years before Einstein. Therefore, it is through the operations of mind that we reify, designate and construct our local, relative spacetime reality. Of the great unbounded whole of appearing reality, there exist sentient beings whose perception or consciousness of systems of reference regarding the energy-motion of objects arising in the spacetime therein that reality, are relative to the motion or velocity of light ( c), which is absolute or invariant, the same for all observers, the light source, and of direction, position, and time. Indeed, light disregards the (Lorentz) transformation laws of classical mechanics altogether. Paradoxically, the reference system of “the observer” (believer) is not privileged. That is, all reference frames are equally privileged. The privileged reference frame of Maxwell’s “luminiferous ether” is denied. Temporal relations are not absolute. Time is relative. Newton’s absolute, one directional time is refuted. Linear causality is kaput. The end of time. In Special Relativity, the forward flow of time—the thermodynamic “arrow of time”—is illusory. Thus Boltzmann’s temporal asymmetry: the laws of mechanics do not preclude the arrow of time from moving in either direction. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is not deterministic, but probabilistic. There is nothing that causes entropy to increase. Nomically, entropy may increase or decrease. Time is dependent upon a particular reference frame, it has no independent existence. Time has no essential independent or absolute reality, but is merely a creative conventionally reified dependent array of causes and conditions, arising from an infinitely vast “causal nexus.” Time exists only relatively, by intersubjective convention and conceptual designation. Past, present and future are absent any absolute reality. Events that occur simultaneously at separate locations in one frame of reference, will not be simultaneous in all frames of reference. Simultaneity is relative (cf. p.43). Two observers in relative motion to one another see the others’ clock “run slow” with no contradiction. And all of this is relative to 37
the subjective Absolute in whom arises objective light-energy-motion whose velocity in the Quantum Vacuum is absolute, a universal constant. As we have seen, this ultimately subjective source of objective light-energy-mass of the E=mc2 equation, by whatever name is, ipso facto beyond physics—metaphysics—and is therefore not objectively knowable to the conceptual mind. Yet this matrix source may be recognized, then subjectively realized by a trained contemplative consciousness (p.59ff). Therefore, some of the relations which deterministic Galilean-Newtonian mechanics had held to be invariant or absolute—spatial distance, time, mass—have been relativized. But two critical Newtonian relations, the velocity of light and the universality of the laws of physics have been “absolutized.” Therefore it is a mistake to assert that Special Relativity claims everything to be relative. What is relative is the spacetime arising appearances to a perceiving consciousness. What may appear to an observer relative to the reference frame of the earth as twenty-five years, may appear to an observer moving at near the speed of light as one year (the “twins paradox”). Appearing phenomena are dependent on the state of motion of the observer, and are relative to that reference frame. No conscious observer, no phenomena. No consciousness, no arising appearing reality. (More on this in the Quantum Theory below.) General Relativity, the zen of spacetime. Special Relativity (1905) is “special” because it applies only for inertial systems in which gravitational forces (acceleration) are not present, that is, systems that move in uniform, not accelerated motion relative to one another. The force of gravity was included by Einstein in the General Theory of Relativity (1915) and applies to all observers whether in uniform interial motion or accelerated motion. The General Theory— arguably the greatest intellectual accomplishment in human history—is a speculative theory of gravity, a geometric generalization of Special Relativity that includes Galileo’s and Newton's classical theory as a limiting case. Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence, the essence of General Relativity, subsumed accelerated motion under gravitation making gravity not a force acting at a distance as Newton would have it, but a local result of gravity in curved spacetime. Spacetime is curved by local matter and energy; gravity is nothing more than the curvature of spacetime. Both of Einstein’s relativity theories are classical theories in that they are incompatible with the post-classical Uncertainty Principle of the Quantum Theory. Both relativity theories assert classical realist “locality,” that no signal can propagate faster than the velocity of light. Neither relativity theory addresses the problem of non-locality, Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance,” the instantaneous, superluminal (faster than light) propagation of light, and of gravity. Indeed, no classical theory can, by definition, explain the mysterious nonlocal, superluminal connectedness (quantum entanglement) of quantum reality. (Classical Galilean, Newtonian and Einsteinian relativity limit particle interactions to the speed of light). Definitive theorems and experiments by John Bell, Alain Aspect and many others have confirmed this paradoxical non-local, non-causal nature of hitherto “objective” appearing reality (p.49). A most amazing paradox. So, the velocity of an object in motion can be determined only relative to the consciousness of an observer. A person running down the aisle of a train appears to be moving at the speed of the train, plus 10 mph. This is known as a classical (Lorentz) transformation. Again, Einstein assumed that the speed of light (c) moving between the two reference frames was constant, i.e. the same for observers in both frames. Therefore, an observer in each reference frame will perceive the motion differently. Both observers are 38
correct! There can be no privileged reference frame which is really correct. A most amazing paradox. Again, time is not absolute, but relative. Again,simultaneity is relative. Time interval between two events is relative to the motion of an observer. This notion leads to the paradoxical result of time dilation. We have seen in the “twins paradox” that a space traveller moving at near the velocity of light (c) would be away for many earth years, yet only a few months will have passed in the reference frame of the space traveller. Synchronized clocks of any two observers in different reference frames will read differently.”Moving clocks run slow.” Clocks moving at the speed of light stop. (A moving clock does not run slower or stop compared to the clock of an observer at rest. A third clock must be used. Actually moving clocks do not really run slow. Remember, we cannot ask, “which reference frame is really correct. No reference frame is privileged; not even yours). E=mc2. Another result of Special Relativity is that the mass of a body in motion increases with its velocity until, at the velocity of light, its mass becomes infinite, a fabulous result, to be sure. Einstein later developed this hypothesis into his famous E=mc2 , that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. Just so, as space and time are not separate but constitute the continuum of spacetime, mass and energy are not separate but constitute mass-energy. This paradigm shift creates an entirely different conception of mass than that produced by the “web of belief” of Newton. Thus, this famous equation—E=mc2—was actually a footnote to Special Relativity, developed by Einstein between 1905 and 1907 when he published it. The first of what Einstein termed the two “balance principles” of classical, Galilean/Leibnizian/Newtonian relativity is the principle of the conservation of energy, which states that arising primordial energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form. For example, combustion converts stored chemical energy into thermal energy which may in turn be converted to kinetic energy to run a generator which produces the electrical energy that lights our homes. Throughout the conversions, energy is conserved, that is, neither created nor destroyed. The second balance principle is the principle of the conservation of mass. Classical physicists extended the first of these principles to include not only mechanical energy, but also to thermal, chemical and electromagnetic energy, that is, to all physical fields. Energy is conserved through all possible changes. Regarding the second principle, mass appeared to classical theorists to be the essential, invariant or absolute quality of matter. (The classical mind reifys absolute entities and does not discern quantum event moments arising from the process of reciprocal cognitive coupling of observer and that observed.) But this view did not hold up to Special Relativity and was therefore, transcended and included in the principle of the conservation of energy which had, as Einstein put it, “previously swallowed up” the other energy fields. Primordial light energy arising from its utterly ineffable source is always conserved. So now mass (matter) and energy are equivalent as mass-energy. Mass is solidified energy; energy is liberated matter. The great mind of Isaac Newton anticipated this truth in his Optiks when he asked, “Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another.” Hume referred to this greatest of all intellects as “the greatest and rarest that ever arose for the ornament and instruction of the species.” The great contemplative minds of the Buddhas and Mahasiddhas notwithstanding, only the astonishing syncretic genius of Aristotle would compare. 39
So, E=mc2 is the mathematical formulation of the Theory of Special Relativity to express the fundamental equivalence of matter and energy, where “E” is energy, “m” is mass (quantity of matter), and “c2 “ is the velocity of light squared (multiplied by itself), a huge number. Therefore, there is enormous energy contained in the smallest bit of matter. This equation represents the mathematical formula for the conversion of mass (matter) to energy that occurs in the nuclear reactions of stars, nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs. Einstein explains simply (1952): The mass of a body is the measure of its energy content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L/9x1020, the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grams. The E=mc2 equation applies not just to nuclear reactions, but to all energy transformations, thermal, chemical and electromagnetic. The most profound example of the equivalence of energy and mass is “pair production,” the pair creation of particles of matter and antimatter arising from the Quantum Vacuum that is the pure primordial energy base of the physical cosmos. This occurs in particle accelerators, black holes and the Big Bangs that create the many universes of the oscillating “Metaverse” (Multiverse). The wisdom of emptiness. E=mc2 demonstrates that all matter, all of material reality is actually light-energy (prana, shakti, lung, pneuma, ch’i) arising from vast primordial emptiness/matrix/ sourceground, just as the Vedas, Tantras and many other teachings of our Great Wisdom Tradition have told from the very beginning. On the account of our Great Tradition then, the physical cosmos is not simply a linear, material chain of cause and effect from the “Big Bang” (“First Cause”) to the present, but an atemporal, continuous emanation, manifestation, objectification or solidification of light-energy from its great timeless, ultimately or perfectly subjective, utterly ineffable base or source, the “supreme source” (kunjed gyalpo, cittadhatu), of all-inclusive Kosmos, (gross, subtle, causal, nondual aspects of the reality demensions of Body, Mind, Spirit), the Primordial Emptiness, Tao, Brahman of our Great Wisdom Tradition. According to Tibetan Dzogchen scholar and meditation master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu: It is the inherent nature of the primordial state to manifest as light, which in turn manifests as the five colors, the essences of the elements ...to produce the elements themselves, which make up ...the whole material dimension ...the spontaneously arising play of this energy ...may be enjoyed as such by an individual who remains integrated with his or her essential inherent condition, in the self-liberating, self-perfected state, the state of Dzogchen. -Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, 1999
E=mc2, with its light energy (motion matter), along with the inherent emptiness of such matter in the Quantum Theory, has bridged the gap, analogically, between space and time, physics and metaphysics, between the vexing modernist dualism of the Cartesian/Newtonian objective worldview, and the inherent subjectivity of the quantum and Buddhist worldviews. From this urgent synthesis now arises the incipient integral world reformation of the TwentyFirst Century that is the very foundation of the emerging Noetic Revolution. But first, the Quantum Revolution. 40
The Quantum Revolution The progress of science has now reached a turning point. The stable foundations of physics have broken up. . . Time, space, matter . . .all require reinterpretation.” -Albert North Whitehead (1967) Prelude: It’s only physical. Prior to the 16th and 17th century discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, humanity’s worldview was essentially subjective. The early Greek, Hebrew, Hindu and Chinese traditions as well as indigenous shamanism, were all based upon speculative subjective metaphysical systems with no organized objective methodology; no science. The Taoists, the Buddhists, the Hindus, Roman Cynics and Stoics, and Plato all speculated. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Plotinus and Nagarjuna speculated, classified and qualified. But the Copernican Revolution quantified. The history of Western science and philosophy since has been an objectivist/rationalist epistemological quest for the grail of absolute objective certainty, an Aristotelian strategy to “save the appearances” from the spectre of Platonic and Neoplatonist transcendence, unity and mystical and spiritual subjectivism. The great contemplative subjectivist knowledge paradigm that included the Greek Hermetic, Hebrew Kabbalistic, and Eastern wisdom traditions was sacked in a zealous Apollonian objectivist quest to measure and quantify everything. The primordial unity of the knowing subjective observer-perceiver and the apparently separate perceived object was thereby formally split into the duality of observer and that “other” object observed. From about 1600, Western science and philosophy have assumed—without empirical proof—the metaphysical presumption that all appearing reality is only physical (monistic Physicalism or Materialism), and that it is somehow separate from the mental and spiritual dimensions of our nature. This represents an absolute epistemological dualism of subject and object, observer and data, appearance and reality, matter and spirit, all the way into subatomic particles (plus charges and minus charges), the presumed ultimate constituents of phenomenal reality. By 1900 it was commonly assumed that the whole of appearing reality could be neatly reduced to little purely physical subatomic billiard balls whose behavior could be perfectly described and deterministically predicted by the sovereign classical mechanics of Sir Isaac Newton. The Ultraviolet Catastrophe Only the whole is completely objective. -William Earle Then, suddenly and without warning, the “ultraviolet catastrophe” struck the great theoretical estate that was the Modernist objectivist worldview. In 1900, German theoretical physicist Max Planck made a world shattering discovery. Transcending his objectivist predilections, Planck correctly formulated the mathematical description of ultraviolet radiation emitted from a perfect “black body” absorber proving that energy was absorbed and emitted, not in a continuous wave of electromagnetic energy as Thomas Young’s wave theory (1801) 41
required, nor in a continuous stream of individual atoms as the classical, billiard ball theory of Aristotelian and modernist atomic continuity required, but in a discontinuous emission of photons as discrete particle-like energy “packets,” which he named “quanta.” All submicroscopic phenomena—including not only photons, but electrons—exhibit such quantization. Indeed, in 1924 Prince Louis de Broglie proved that such quantization obtains not only at the subatomic level, but at the atomic level as well. This fundamental “graininess” of all physical reality has profound implications for the development of microphysics, cosmology, epistemology, and metaphysical ontology.7 Yet particles in motion also need Young’s related wave motion to fully describe their subatomic behavior. Thus energy or light was proven to be both particle-like and wave-like, a paradox that collapsed the old classical physics of Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes and Newton. Planck’s great discovery became the foundation of the new, post-classical, postmodern, nondeterminist and non-objectivist Quantum Field Theory, and won him the Nobel Prize in 1918. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century, Niels Bohr replaced the Rutherford atomic model with his own, which explained the other two nails in the coffin of Newtonian mechanics, namely the hitherto dubious physical existence of the atom, and the problem of discreet atomic spectral emissions. But by 1925 it was clear that the strict determinism of classical Newtonian mechanics was inadequate to explain the apparent dual wave/particle nature of light. In 1905—the prolific year he developed and published the Special Theory of Relativity— Einstein firmly established the particle-photon nature of light using it to explain the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. Newton’s theory of light was also a particle theory. As noted above, Thomas Young had previously established the wave-like nature of light with his ingenious, double-slit experiment in 1801. Thus, by 1925 the dual wave-particle nature of light was firmly established in modern and contemporary physics. However, recent particle physics is trending toward a wave theory of light (footnote 12, p.69) Well, which is it, wave or particle? The western logical canon states as its Law of Excluded Middle that “Either A or not-A” (contradictories cannot both be false). So which is it? Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity of the Quantum Theory replies that it is both. But how can a point-like particle be a wave spread out in space? Before a measurement, light is wavelike and demonstrates wave interference. Upon measurement, light behaves like a pointlike particle. Again, to fully understand the behavior of light we need both wave and particle descriptions and equations. Thus the behavior of light is not contradictory, it’s complementary. Physics just gets weirder and weirder.
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Planck demonstrated that both the “ultraviolet catastrophe,” and another nail in the coffin of Newtonian physics, the photoelectric effect, could both be explained by his new “quantum of action;” that the atomic vibrational energy of a photon is quantizied arising in multiples of discrete “wave packets.” This discovery is nothing less than a new constant of nature, namely Planck’s Constant (h). The theorem is E=hf where E is atomic vibrational energy, f is frequency, and h is the new constant (10-33) a minuscule quantity of measure of the microphysical graininess of the physical cosmos. If this tiny constant were zero the universe would be not granular, but smooth and continuous, the continuity of Aristotle, Galileo and Newton.
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Being and Time Time is nature’s way of preventing everything from happening at once. -Anon. Continuing our very brief history of time, in 1905 Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity, and in 1915 his General Theory of Relativity. In 1924 de Broglie discovered that matter has a wavelike character. These great discoveries led in 1926 to Max Born and Erwin Schrödinger’s 1926 ingenious wave equation and the development of Wave Mechanics where the electron becomes a probability wave. Werner Heisenberg’s 1927 formulation of Matrix Mechanics (a particle mechanics) with its catastrophic (to classical dualistic subject-object determinist objectivism) Uncertainty Principle (the Principle of Indeterminacy) led to Niels Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity. Together these two quantum mechanical principles comprise the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of the Quantum Field Theory which demonstrates an inherent duality and atemporal subjectivity at the very heart of physical reality. This duality is the behavior of matter (the position and momentum of its ultimate particles), and its physical constitution (light wave or particle?) Thus ended 400 years of classical and modernist, material realist, objectivist physics with its objective linear—directional and durational—arrow of time, and 2500 years of deterministic epistemological and ontological materialist and realist dualistic separation of relative appearances from ultimate reality, of spacetime matter from the immediate now of its timeless Spirit Source. All of this made Albert Einstein very unhappy, as we shall see. He expressed to his friend and colleague Max Born in 1948, “If one abandons the assumption that what exists in different parts of space has its own, independent, real existence, then I simply cannot see what it is that physics is meant to describe.” The Quantum Revolution has now firmly established the urgency of the new global nondual Noetic Revolution that began with the great Second Century sages Nagarjuna in the East, and Plotinus in the West. The end of time. These two great principles of the Quantum Theory have effectively demolished foundationalist epistemological and scientific Realism: absolute time, absolute space, and the objectivist linear Principle of Causality of the classical, Newtonian Modernist Enlightenment worldview, and with it the epistemological dualism of appearance and reality, of perceiving/ knowing subject and its separate perceived object, and the attendant ontological dualism of spirit and matter, mind and body. Particles are no longer separate. Observer and observed are no longer separate. Spiritual practitioner and nondual godhead are no longer separate. Einstein’s classical Special and General Relativity assume that Aristotle’s uncoupled absolutes of time and space are the spacetime continuum, the theoretical unity of time and space (cf. p.37). Heisenberg’s post-classical Quantum Theory expresses the left-brain exoteric philosophical truth that the observing subject and the object observed arise not separately in time, but as a timeless atemporal relationship of interdependence (Buddhist pratitya samutpada or Interbeing) through acts or processes of consciousness, that is to say, acts of empirical observation and cognition. “Subject and object are only one” (Schrödinger). “It is the theory which decides what we can observe” (Einstein). This exoteric truth of the timeless (not eternal) subjectivity of consciousness is the analog (but not reducible to) the right brain esoteric truth of our nondual primordial Great Wisdom Tradition: Tat tvam asi (That thou art). That is our 43
“supreme identity.” That is who we actually are. We are not ultimately separate from this great, vast expanse of the atemporal unbroken whole, the “supreme source” (cittadhatu) in whom we all arise and participate. So it is told by the masters of our Great Tradition. Thus the Quantum Revolution effectively ended the Modernist, rationalist Enlightenment Project and began the postmodern age that is now yielding to post-critical, post-metaphysical integral holism, ontological relativity (p.9), and methodological pluralism, beyond the foundationalist false absolute—materialism—of the Western metaphysical tradition. Thus emerges the Twenty-first Century new reformation in religion, science and culture—our new Noetic Revolution. Now is the time. According to our Great Wisdom Tradition—including Quantum Field Theory and its scientific and philosophical descendants—the subjective observer is not separate from the object observed, but lives in a relation of interdependence with it. We perceive such objects in what appears to be an external objective linear time. We’ve seen that this conventional “arrow of time” moves in a causal chain of quantum event moments (vasana) from past, to present to future (as codified in the second law of thermodynamics—entropy increases). Yet, the past and the future necessarily occur now, in the present moment of our internal memory and imagination. Time, as this “eternal present,” is then subjective. Thus our ontology of interdependence has an objective cause and effect relative-conventional level, and a subtler, direct atemporal subjective level (the Two Truths). So our objective experience of time is not definitive. Why? Events in time are perceptually and conceptually constituted or constructed only in relation to the process of change—relative motion—experienced by a sentient bodymind located in an objective relative-conventional spacetime reference frame (t= vtc = vc x Lc = Lvc ). Change is the moment-to-moment causal arising, dwelling and decay of phenomenal appearance to a sentient nervous system. Time—our sense of time—is then, a sensory-conceptual superimposition upon this vast perfectly subjective timeless process of change, of changeless Being Itself always in process of becoming. Parmenedes and Heraclitus together at last. Einstein’s Special Relativity and our Great Wisdom Tradition agree: contrary to Galileo’s and Newton’s classical mechanics, there can be no objective, universal or absolute time independent of, or unrelated to relative, conventionally arising phenomenal particulars. I have termed this Ontological Interdependence. Thus, the non-relativized absolute objective time of classical mechanics—from Aristotle to Newton—is a logocentric “false absolute.” So time is no longer “out there.” Time is “in here,” in the mind of the beholder. But where in here is it? According to Vedanta and Buddhist Middle Way wisdom, within the interval/bardo of this subjective now of the present moment lives the infinite/eternal Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jñana/yeshe) of the “fourth time” (turiya), a potential, usually unrealized state of being (turiyatita) that is the already present immediate, timeless nondual witness presence (christos, atman, vidya/rigpa) of the infinite expanse of Spirit that we always already actually are, here and now and nowhere else. This fourth time, the moment now, unconceived, is an emptiness of perceiver and perceived. This is Tibetan Buddhism’s ozel ling, and esoteric Christianity’s “upper room,” the secret place where the outshining luminosity (abhasa) of the primordial clear light (prabhasa) arises and enters in. Remembering the paradigmatic “Two Truths” of nondual ultimate Reality Itself we’ve seen that the present experience of spacetime reality in our mindstream, although 2
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objectively “real” by our conventional conceptual designations, is merely heuristic and “merely metaphorical” (Goethe)—it has no independent, separate, objective existence. All relative spacetime relationships among events and beings are fundamentally, mutually interdependent, coemergent, coextensive and interconnected, situated together in Relationship (hetu, tendrel), a context or ultimate causal matrix of radical, timeless, perfectly subjective primordial openness/emptiness (not nihilistic, atheistic nothingness). “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep” (Shakespeare, The Tempest). Implications of this astonishing result for the realist-idealist duality, the freedomdeterminism duality, the “hard problem” of the mind-body relation, and for an integral noetic epistemology and science are profound: appearance and reality, form and emptiness, becoming and being, + and - values, subject and object, self and other, woman and man, God and humanity, all the apparent binary dualities of relative-conditional contingent existence in time are already a timeless perfectly subjective prior unity! The two complementary streams of any binary—of all conventional dualistic reality—meet and merge in radically open emptiness (shunyata), Tao, Nirguna Brahman, the Gnostic Depth (Bathos), the Pleroma (fullness) of the still silence. This vast fullness/depth is also the womb-source of our Great Goddess Mother, infinite, ineffable feminine principle, clarity of the “sky-like” non-dual or transcendent Primordial Awareness Wisdom. Let us now explore this noetic logic of reality. Post-Quantum Logic: West Meets East Open mouth, already a mistake. -Zen Pith Neils Bohr’s Fundamental Principle of Complementarity that yields the wave-particle duality of the Copenhagen Interpretation of the Quantum Theory appears to violate two of Aristotle’s three “Laws of Thought,” the foundational laws of Western logic and mathematics, namely the Law of Contradiction, and the Law of the Excluded Middle. (Aristotle’s first law is the “Law of Identity, “A is A,” and not something other.) The Law of Contradiction—”Not both A and Not-A (A cannot be not-A) or contradictories cannot both be true—is violated because light cannot be both a point-like particle, and a wave spread out in space. Waves and particles are distinct objective entities. If an object is A, it cannot also be B. The Law of Excluded Middle—”either A or not-A” (contradictories cannot both be false)—is also violated because light must be either a particle or a wave, but not both. Moreover, in quantum mechanics, a particle—an electron—may exist in an ineffable “super position,” that is, prior to a measurement that “collapses the wave function” the electron is in two places at once! In other words the electron is both A and not-A. This proposition represents the essential ambiguity of quantum mechanical logic and ostensibly violates the law of Excluded Middle. Whether it is the Law of Excluded Middle or the Distributive Law that is violated, and whether or not Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity saves the Excluded Middle, this untidy “quantum measurement problem” is only a problem if one insists on the primacy of the Western Logical Canon. Is Aristotle’s syllogistic logic the last word? In this purely deductive logic, the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Excluded Middle are not apriori true assumptions, but are logically deduced from the definition of contradictories as stated in the 45
Law of Contradiction itself. But in the Eastern logical canon the truth of a statement is not logically equivalent to the falsity of its contradictory, as we shall see. Is the human mind then, entirely bound by the logical syntax of this binary purely deductive, merely two valued truth-functional logic? Are we forever yoked to a bivalent, bipolar view of reality that logically excludes the holism of both A and not A? This dichotomous, black and white mode of thinking, this pernicious, and unconscious intersubjective mythos of dualism has infected the history of ideas in the West—religion, science and culture—and we’re not even aware of it! Let us monitor—moment to moment in our mindstream— this logical pretense to knowledge. How do we move then, from this fearful habitual quest for the totemic, logocentric idol of absolute objective certainty—the limit of the logical syntax of language—to an atavistic, semiotic semantics, even a meditative contemplative integral understanding where the “modal mismatch“ of mathematical logical necessity and the radical contingency of the Quantum Theory and Buddhist Dzogchen are subsumed in their interdependent ontic prior unity? Both Hindu and Buddhist logicians in the East, and the European Intuitionists (Brouwer, von Pauler) deny Aristotle’s Western Law of Excluded Middle. This law is replaced with the unifying Law of Connection, “Both A and not-A,” (“Everything is connected with all other things”), and its complementary, “Neither A nor not-A.” These two together permit the ontological interdependence, the non-separateness of all arising phenomena—the “Interbeing” of Buddhist “dependent arising” (pratitya samutpada)—and do not assume or presuppose the existence of A, that is, the existence of anything at all. This then, permits a unified, East/West logic that allows, without contradiction, our fundamental Principle of Ontological Interdependence upon which turns the new post-material, post-metaphysical theories of ontological and universal relativity explored below. So, as Quine and Duhem have shown, even deductive logic is conventional and cannot be a path to objective certainty. This Law of Connection defies the Western logical orthodoxy—the great legacy of Aristotle, Frege and Russell—thereby revealing the ontologically prior, always present unity of the perennial Two Truths that is the one great truth that must be included in any theory of ontological or universal relativity, and in any “theory of everything.” The wave-particle duality of the Quantum Theory then, is in principle compatible with the Law of Connection—both A and not-A. Thus, with this urgent logical enrichment, primordial light is, or may be, without contradiction, both a point-like particle (after a measurement), and a wave spread out in space (before a measurement). Wu-wei. Neils Bohr’s coat of arms was the tai chi—the yin-yang symbol that outpictures the primordial emptiness ground (Wu) of Ultimate Reality (Tao) in whom arises these two primordial energies, yin and yang that is the very light that creates the five elements (wu-hsing) from which evolve all of material spacetime reality. This dialectic of the Tao of emptiness includes both ”is and is not,” “both/and,” “both A and not A,” both being and non-being. Tao/emptiness is the interdependent arising (pratitya samutpada) of all phenomena, all things spontaneously and effortlessly (te) as wu-wei (aporia), wayless non-seeking conceptual surrender, flowing return (fu) again to the light, supreme source that is “the stillness in motion that pervades heaven and earth.” “The wu-wei that does not aim at wu-wei, is truly wu-wei” (Lao Tzu). 46
The Great Quantum Debate: Einstein, Bohr, and a New Ontology It is difficult to locate a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat. -Confucius Prelude: Physics in trouble. There have been two great revolutions in science, the Copernican Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, and the Twentieth Century Quantum Revolution. Now, on the cusp of the Twenty-first Century we enter the new Noetic Revolution, the establishment of a science of consciousness—the long neglected study of the mind beyond or prior to the brain. Perhaps the greatest problem facing theoretical physics today is the incompleteness of the “Standard Model” and its Quantum Theory. The problem is intimately linked to the lack of a unifying Quantum Gravity that quantizes General Relativity unifying it with the Quantum Theory. Such a synthesis will relativize the logocentric idols of General Relativity, namely absolute spacetime and absolute locality. Unfortunately, the Standard Model and its theoretical quantum gravity candidates, Superstring Theory and Super Gravity, indeed all of the G.U.T. candidates cling to epistemological Realism and thus to absolute spacetime and absolute locality. What is needed is a cognitively courageous theoretical leap from this scientific fundamentalism toward a non-realist, non-materialist, non-local new physics paradigm. The emerging integral science of matter, mind, and spirit is an auspicious beginning of this urgent inter-dimensional, inter-paradigm project. Here, the absolute dynamics of pre-quantum physics is yielding to the interactive dynamics of the interdependent epistemology and ontology of the emerging Noetic Revolution. There is presently a glaring inadequacy of the Standard Model to explain 1) its free constants, the values of which define the properties of particles (their masses and the strengths of the forces), 2) the non-zero mass of the nutrino (CPT symmetry violation), 3) the Higg’s field and 4) the Standard Model’s inability to explain, or explain away the mystical Dark Matter and Dark Energy (the Cosmological Constant Problem) that together constitute about 96 percent of the known physical universe. Clearly, the Standard Model with its quantum mechanical description of nature is in dire need of that next more inclusive theory, a theory that will transcend its limits, yet include its many successes. By 1980 theoretical physics had established the quantitatively robust Standard Model, a supreme intellectual achievement. It is now the “old paradigm” scientific orthodoxy. Philosophers of physics generally agree that there have been no real breakthroughs since. The incomplete Standard Model is now in the “scientific crisis” that precedes a “scientific revolution” and a “paradigm shift”. It is unable to explain the Quantum Uncertainty Principle and quantum nonlocality (entanglement). String Theory mathematics is in yes, chaos, and the nonzero mass of the neutrino,8 along with Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and the “Problem of Consciousness” (the problem of subjectivity) are the new clouds on the horizon that portend at 8
Experimental results from Fermilab’s MINOS experiment, and others, indicate an asymmetry between neutrinos and antinutrinos. They appear to have different masses, which violates the Standard Model’s CPT symmetry of Relativistic Quantum Field Theory, which violates Einstein’s Special Relativity. This neutrino sector revelation, if true, demonstrates the limits of the Standrd Model and the need of a fundamentally new paradigm in physics.
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least a radical revision of the Standard Model, the model that explains nearly nothing about 96 percent of the physical cosmos, and absolutely nothing about consciousness, the non-physical or metaphysical subjectivity that is Kosmos Itself! That “next more inclusive theory” will transcend yet include the many truths of the Standard Model with its Quantum Theory, just as Relativity Theory included Newtonian Mechanics, which included Galilean Mechanics, which corrected yet included the celestial mechanics of Kepler, Copernicus and Aristotle. “Why,” asks physicist Lee Smolin, “is physics in trouble?” I will here, again argue that theoretical physics has at last “hit the wall” fabricated by its petrified, ideological attachment to a foundationalist Material Realist orthodoxy, grounded in the metaphysical assumption that the whole of reality is pre-given to the senses as an objective purely physical reality. This is the logocentric metaphysical false idol that is the sinister “myth of the given” with its denial of consciousness, intersubjectively fixed for the Western mind by Apollonian measure, the logic of Aristotle, and Galilean radical objectivity, that is to say, the dogmatic presumption of monistic Physicalism (Materialism) with its effective denial of subjective, even “vertical spiritually empirical” phenomena. Why must reality be only and ultimately physical? Modern and contemporary physics has resolutely ignored the clues given by the profound stochastic subjectivity of the Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Cosmology, the “Problem of Consciousness,” and Buddhist advaitic (nondual) epistemology. More on this below. The great quantum debate. The epistemological Scientific Realism of the Hidden Variables interpretation of the Quantum Theory—Einstein, de Broglie, Schrödinger, Bohm—in perennial debate with the nominalist, instrumentalist, anti-realist Copenhagen Interpretation of the Quantum Theory—Bohr, Heisenberg, Born—deny that the Quantum Theory is complete, that is, the Standard Model of physics is incomplete. Einstein and the realists claim that it fails to offer a non-statistical, non-instrumental, realist description of the real objective existence of the furniture of spacetime physical reality. The Quantum Theory must therefore, be understood as an incomplete description of physical reality. Einstein insisted on an epistemologically realist interpretation; there’s an objective observer-independent “real world out there” (RWOT) existing independently from we separate observing subjects with our instruments. On this essentialist, representational account the objects appearing to the senses exist as objective, independently, essentially real entities just as they appear and are given to us by the medium of our sense perception (the “myth of the given”). The “completeness of physics” here assumes without proof—that is, it begs the question—of Physicalism. If physicalist physics is a complete explanation of reality, reality must necessarily be only physical. On the other hand, both Heisenberg and Bohr rejected the foundationalist defences of the realist, mechanistic determinism of both Einstein’s and Newton’s classical physicalist worldview. Thus, Einstein’s “Inner Realist” required that properties of material objects (1) have an independently “real existence” and (2) all physical effects are local (electromagnetic signals cannot exceed the speed of light). The Copenhagen Interpretation allegedly violates this common sense realism of locality in that an individual quantum system—say, a pair of particles—can separate into two “spacelike” (separated by a light signal) entities moving apart from each other while their quantities (position and momentum) remain a single “entangled” entity. When a measurement is made of one particle of the system, the value of the other may be known instantaneously. That is to say, the particle pair seem to interact non-locally, 48
superluminally, via a signal that travels at faster than the speed of light. Such “quantum entanglement” is a violation of the “locality” required by Einstein’s neorealist Special Theory of Relativity. Indeed, without an experiment to determine a measurement of the particle quantities—position and momentum—the Copenhagen Interpretation holds that the particles are non-existent—not real—a result that Einstein vigorously resisted. Thus, it would seem that scientific Material Realism and the anti-realist Quantum Theory are utterly incompatible. Let us not foreclose debate just yet. In the infamous EPR thought experiment (Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen), published in 1935, Einstein’s attempt to “save the appearances”—to salvage the realist “myth of the given”— takes the form of a “thought experiment” challenge to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg. The EPR argument assumes the “locality assumption”—no particle interaction can be nonlocal—and argues that a measurement can be made that proves that a particle in a correlated quantum system at one location in space cannot be influenced by a measurement of a particle at another location. Rather, the first particle will have precise simultaneous values as to the particle’s quantities—both position and momentum—a violation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations. This conclusion, according to EPR, proves, not that anti-realist quantum mechanics is false, but that it is incomplete, that is to say, its description of the particle behavior in the correlated quantum system is not a complete description of the behaviour of the system. Thus the cause of determinist scientific Material Realism is furthered. Further proof argued by Einstein: “God does not play dice with the universe.” Bohr responded to this objection of the determinist Einstein to the Copenhagen indeterminist probabilistic view of reality thusly: “Oh Einstein, stop telling God what to do.” Einstein further argued that if the Quantum Theory is complete it must apply not only to micro-particles, but as well to macroscopic phenomena, cats, trees and stars. Is it not, after all, absurd to conclude that the location of a cat—Schrödinger”s cat, any cat—cannot be precisely determined, just because its electrons have no precise location? Bohr’s nominalist, instrumentalist anti-realist reply to EPR—that the two-particle quantum system does not exist in reality, but only in an ideal experimental context—was not at all satisfying to Einstein and the naive atomistic Realism of the hidden variables neorealists. For the next thirty years the EPR debate chilled. Then, in 1964 John Bell published a seminal paper introducing “Bell’s Theorem,” a mathematical proof that refutes any model of reality (not just phenomena) that requires the locality assumption; that is, reality must necessarily be nonlocal. Bell’s Theorem established laboratory experiments—based on the mathematical formalism of”Bell’s inequalities”—wherein the nonlocality of quantum mechanics could be tested and Einstein’s realist interpretation with its locality assumption could be proved or disproved. Upon Bell’s untimely death, these experiments were conducted by Alain Aspect, and later by many others, that proved that Einstein’s hidden variables are, necessarily, nonlocal and therefore, the Material Realism of classical and relativistic physics is disproved. Einstein and the Neorealist atomists are wrong and the holistic anti-realist, nominalist Copenhagen School is vindicated. That is the current academic and popular “high culture” view. Thickening the plot. Well, that’s not quite the end of the story. Lee Smolin argues (New York Review of Books, June 14, 2008) that Bell’s experimental result—”Bell’s inequalities”— 49
requires that only one of Einstein’s realist assumptions listed above is incorrect. Remember, these are (1) matter has a “real existence” prior to the “wave collapse” resulting from an observation or measurement, and (2) matter’s particle interactions are local, that is , they obey the classical Principle of Special Relativity, that all particle interactions are mediated by light signals, thus no particle can exceed the speed of light, and therefore Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance,” the bizarre nonlocality of quantum connectedness (entanglement) is false. Smolin speculates that it is assumption #2, particle interactions are local—the “locality assumption”—that is incorrect, as per Bell’s inequalities (cf. The Quine-Duhem Thesis above p.13). “This assumption can be denied while holding fully to Einstein’s notion of realism.” Thus Smolin’s Neorealistic “attempt to save the appearances” enlists the “special pleading” of the intrepid “hidden variables” argument whose ad hoc variations we may trace back in epistemic time through positivist, mechanist, empiricist, materialist/physicalist strategies all the way back to Leucippus and Democritus and the Greek pre-Socratic atomists, and the realist Buddhist atomists of the Abidharma. Smolin argues, “There are theories that make the same predictions as quantum mechanics and are fully consistent with Einstein’s notion of realism, but give up the assumption of locality.” These are of course, the “hidden variables,” theories of David Bohm, de Broglie, and recently, Ghiradi, Rimini and Weber. These theories give a Material Realist explanation of quantum events, and criticize the stochastic, epistemologically anti-Realist results of the Copenhagen School as incomplete. For Smolin, Alain Aspect’s experimental results on Bell’s Theorem ruled out only hidden variables theories that are local, but not the nonlocal theories above. Moreover, Smolin reminds us that recent experiments in the on-going effort to quantize General Relativity and unify it with the Quantum Field Theory through a more complete and inclusive theory of Quantum Gravity suggest that locality—physical interactions are local, not superluminal—is a primitive theory that describes quantum behavior arising from a primordial “fundamental reality prior to the spacetime locality of merely physical phenomena.” (Sounds like Buddhist/Vedanta Idealist metaphysics.) This incompatibility of General Relativity with the present state of the Quantum Field Theory it is assumed, will produce that next more inclusive, unifying realist theory, i.e. A Super-Duper String Theory that will correct the “problem of infinities” inherent in both theories, without appealing to a quite problematic ad hoc “renormalization” theorem. “Hope for a miracle.” Alas, it cannot. Material Realist theories operate in the epistemic, relative conventionally real spacetime world. Our conceptual understanding is limited by this dimension or modality and cannot penetrate any ineffable ontic Reality that may lie prior to the Planck limit (Planck time, Planck length) and the quantum uncertainty relations. Thus Realism necessarily refers us to that ontologically subtler strata of formation—ontologically prior to the purely physical—which lies beyond this essential limit of conceptual understanding. The epistemology of Foundational Material Realism—the conceptual realm of Relative Truth—cannot function as an ontological theory of ultimate reality in the subtler, nonconceptual realm of Ultimate Truth pointed to by the anti-Realism of the Unified Quantum Vacuum, and more completely described by the Transcendental Idealism of the Vedic/ Buddhist tradition. We have waited twenty-four hundred years for a hidden variable to save Material Realism! The entire edifice of the current world view of Scientific Materialism begs this question of 50
Physicalism, the metaphysical assumption that reality is purely material or physical (Appendix B: The Idols of the Tribe: The Metaphysics of Science). Again, the “completeness of physics” and its Quantum Theory begs this question of Physicalism. How much longer must we wait? Would it be unfair to assert that this materialist IOU has sold out the Western Tradition from the very beginning? And we’ve all bought it! In any case, the metaphysical, special pleading of the “hope for a miracle” hidden variable strategy of Reductive Materialism, Eliminative Materialism, and Scientific Materialism (Scientism) requires a watchful skepticism. Alas, the appalling academic suppression of new work on hidden variables—and consciousness and contemplative studies of the Buddhist contemplative cognitive “supernormal”—that dissent from the eristic ethos of the Copenhagen “orthodox ontology” has, as Smolin points out in his excellent The Trouble With Physics (2006), greatly inhibited further research. Perhaps such lettered hubris may best be understood as an unconscious intersubjective, deep background ontological reticence to rocking the epistemological boat of the status quo, lest we be cast rudely from our verecundiam comfort zone of instrumentalist quantum orthodoxy into that naked, “spooky” void of ultimately subjective Reality Itself. And this, while the anti-realist, even nascent ontological Idealism of the Copenhagen view points steadily beyond its nominalist, instrumentalist calculations, into this great open expanse of “metaphysical” emptiness. Thomas Kuhn would think so. A New Ontology? In any case, it is clear that with the epistemological failure of Material Realism to provide ontological solace, these two great physical theories of the twentieth century—General Relativity Theory and the Quantum Theory—require a “final theory,” or at least a more inclusive, post-realist, nonlocal new ontology to explain Smolin’s “unified nature” of arising, spacetime phenomenal reality. Smolin and other neorealists grasp at this next more inclusive theory, apparently unaware that epistemological Material Realism alone is necessarily precluded as an ultimate ontological theory by the conceptual—logical and epistemological—ambiguity barrier of the Planck time (10-33) and the Planck length (10-43). Our weighty Problem of Knowledge—how we know what there is—requires a new noetic ontological approach that transcends algorithmic computational (biomorphic or silicon) decidability and conceptual elaboration, yet that includes the non-discursive consciousness of the contemplatively trained human subject. Science and its functionalist material realists must become aware of this growing body of scientific literature. In any case, Roger Penrose and others have shown that human conceptual cognition is not computational, much less noetic contemplative cognition. The brain does not operate like a computer. (H.H. Dalai Lama 2005; Begley 2007; Wallace 2007, 2008, Penrose 1994.) Nature is in an obvious sense “united.” The universe we find ourselves in is interconnected, in that everything interacts with everything else. There is no way we can have two theories of nature covering different phenomena, as if one had nothing to do with the other. Any claim for a final theory must be a complete theory of nature. It must encompass all we know. - Lee Smolin, 2006
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Yes indeed. It must encompass not only all we know up to Material Realism’s Plank ambiguity limit of conceptual understanding, but beyond. To penetrate that Upanishadic “Forest of Wisdom” we must find “the light within.” Here we must, of logical necessity, forsake empirical representational Material Realism, a reasonable epistemology in the nominal realm of relative spacetime conventional reality, but untenable as the ontological ground of a final theory. Human beings possess an unmistakable innate imprint, a primordial urge toward metaphysical knowledge, knowledge of unobservable phenomena and subjective experience. We’ve seen that a purely objectivist, realist-physicalist epistemology is necessarily precluded as a method of reaching and explaining such subtle, non-objective or subjective phenomena that ontologically transcends it. For this deeper wisdom we must—via contemplative “vertical spiritually empirical” study and practice—leap into the fearful arcanum of the speculative, metaphysical, contemplative unknown. Let us be clear about this. The mind cannot think itself beyond itself any more than the eye can see itself. “The eye of mind sees everything, but cannot see itself” (H.H. The 16th Karmapa). While it is true that we utilize the conventional knowledge of the realm of spacetime Relative Truth (samvriti) (objective and subjective reality), in order to gradually accomplish Ultimate Truth (paramartha), enlightenment, moksha, Buddhahood—just as Nagarjuna and Plotinus told—still, there must be, as it were, sudden, non-conceptual, non-discursive meditative contemplative leaps into the vast expanse of naked, nondual Reality Itself. Our fearful skepticism that there is anything here, beyond, instantiates the psychological truth that we limit our psycho-emotional-spiritual growth and happiness by our preconscious, conscious and even superconscious attachment to the uncomfortable comfort zones of our conceptual and belief systems. Such an injunction to venture inside is truly a radical empiricism in the mode of William James. More epistemological and methodological logocentric “idols of the tribe” are sure to fall as we enter our new Noetic Revolution. Western foundational Material Realism—the Realism that denies the nonlocal nature of quantum reality while clinging to the logocentric absolutes of locality and spacetime—may be the first to go. So let us once again, at great risk of being cast, without tenure, into the metaphysical outer darkness, consult the “intellectually lightweight,” “mysterion” primordial wisdom of the ages, the great nondual wisdom tradition of the Vedic/Buddhist tradition that culminates in relative-conventional spacetime transcendent, utterly nondual Advaita Vedanta, and Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection.9 Here, once again, we enter in the primordial Two Truths, the truth of the epistemological Realism of science and the spacetime reality of Relative Truth, and the ontological Transcendental Idealism of the Ultimate Truth, nondual Spirit in whom everything arises. Once again, we remember the paradigmatic incommensurabilty—the duality—of these two conceptual modalities are a prior unity in the utterly non-conceptual, unfabricated one truth that is luminous nondual Reality Itself. Mind and body, spirit and matter are a non-conceptual, non-computational prior unity. So it is told by the masters of our Great Wisdom Tradition. Thus ends the Quantum Revolution, and the beginning of an inchoate noetic ontolgy, the new Noetic Revolution. 9
The nondual teaching of the great traditions are no more “mysterion” or metaphysical (beyond physical) than the quantum uncertainty relations, or the Quantum Vacuum, or Dark Energy, or String Theory. The ultimate nature of reality is an utter mystery to the limited, even brilliant conceptual mind, but not necessarily to the highly contemplatively trained mind of the meditation master (Begley, 2007, Wallace 2007).
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Toward A Post-Quantum Noetic Ontology Emptiness of mind is not a state of mind, but the original essence of mind. . .our original mind that includes everything within itself. -Suzuki Roshi Being Here: The Perennial Mind-Body Problem and The Middle Way The Quantum Revolution is complete. The Standard Model of physics is now undergoing the “scientific crisis” that precedes a “paradigm shift.” So let us pause a moment to introduce the essential question of human being, the classical “mind-body problem” as it arises in both the East and the West, then to explore the pivotal idea of the unity of Buddhist emptiness (shunyata) and “Dependent Origination” (dependent arising, pratitya samutpada), as this is fundamental to an integral understanding of the relationship of the nondual view of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection with the physics of the Quantum Vacuum of quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology. This all toward a new integral noetic ontology— Toynbee’s “rising culture”— that furthers the integration of the two paradigms— science and spirit/spirituality that is our ultimate aim. Can these two hitherto incommensurable knowledge paradigms be integrated? But they were never separate. And now we can see it. Human knowledge is biological, individual, cultural, and historical. Knowledge develops through three stages: opinion/belief (doxa); reason/inference (dianoia); contemplative/ mind-spirit understanding (noesis, epinoia). Wisdom (sophia, prajna) is knowing the prior unity of the exoteric (facticity, information), esoteric (theory), secret (knowledge) and innermost secret (nondual primordial wisdom) elements of these four. Liberation/enlightenment is the realization of the prior unity of this primordial nondual wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) with enlightened compassionate (karuna/nyingje, hesed/caris) lifeworld activity. The perennial Two Truths, relative and ultimate, that are the eternal dialectic between the Material Realism of science (matter), and the Transcendental Idealism of spirituality are resolved in the prior unity of the post-conceptual, post-mystical nondual one truth. To be or not to be, that is the essential question of human being (dasein). Being (Sein, Bhava) is the alpha and omega of religion and philosophy, of human ultimate concern. This binary equation—is or is not, sat or asat, one or zero, eka or shunya, existence or non-existence—expresses the necessary duality of our relative conventional being in spacetime. In the nondual Buddhist view of Dzogchen this perennial duality is transcended in the prior unity of being and not being that is the nondual one truth. In the uncertainty relations of the Quantum Field Theory this nonduality is expressed as the superposition state—both “is” and “is not”—of the quantum information bits (qubits/vasana) that constitute the elementary particles arising from the Unified Quantum Vacuum that is the quasi-physical matrix of all inclusive kosmos. At the collapse of the quantum wave function during a measurement or a perception this superposition of the nondual being state that is both being and non-being—both one and zero—becomes the apparent—but not actual—duality of either being or non-being. Pretensions to rationality. Our eternal quest for the certainty of being—the classical Problem of Knowledge—quickly becomes the problem of skepticism and nihilism. 53
Epistemological strategies against these two have, in both the East and the West, often assumed the form of the “mind-body problem,” the perennial debate between epistemological Realists and Idealists. With the failure of the mind-body Substance Dualism of Plato (early and middle Dialogues), Aristotle, Descartes, Leibnitz and Locke to pass epistemological muster (the “interaction problem”) Dualism has fallen on hard times. We are left then with Monism, reality is one substance, either physical or mental, matter or mind. Monistic epistemological Objective Idealism asserts that reality is mental or mind only. The creed of monistic Materialism/Physicalism, with Realism, asserts that there is a “real world out there” (RWOT) and it is entirely physical. Most Materialists are Reductive Materialists wherein the subjective mental and spiritual phenomena of human consciousness are reduced to objective, purely physical phenomena, or epiphenomena of merely physical brain states. In the modern and even Postmodern Western Tradition the prevailing scientific and cultural ideology is a fundamentalist, classical foundational Realism—twenty-four hundred foundational years of Aristotle’s physical substance monism—now packaged for world consumption as Scientific Realism and Scientific Materialism (Scientism). For the Eastern Mind, Idealism is the presiding ontology. With the failure of dualism, why monism? The answer lies in unity and economy of explanation. “An ontology that requires two radically different forms of reality—one physical, the other mental—is quite unbelievable” (J.J.C. Smart). Varieties of Buddhist experience. In Buddhism the Abhidharma of Sarvastivada and Vaibhashika Schools argue—with Western functionalist Material Realism—the realist atomistic position wherein reality consists of indivisible physical/material atomic particles that have an ultimately physical, objectively real—even absolute and eternal— existence separate or apart from a perceiving mind. Such Realists are essentialists, believing that reality exists independely and absolutely just as it appears from its own side, of its own power. This view is opposed by the Buddhist Objective Idealists, the Chitamattra or “Mind Only” school—along with Western Objective Idealists—Hegal, Bradley, Royce—who explain arising material objective reality as diaphanous subjective apparitions (avidya maya) of a perceiving consciousness. Reality is only mind. And Kant’s Transcendental Subjective Idealism—a duality of objective phenomena and the perfectly subjective unknowable utterly transcendent noumenon—is a Western version of our Primordial Wisdom’s Two Truths. Is there a middle way between this perennial bivalent, bipolar mind-body split? Yes. Between these two extremes—the realist/materialist reification of an absolute and independent physical and mental phenomenal reality, and the idealist nihilistic negation of it—abides the mean that is the Madhyamaka Prasangika, the Buddhist Middle Way Consequence School, the very basis, according to the Dalai Lama, of the nondual ontological view and practice of Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. Here we have not only a synthesis of Realism and Idealism, but a profound soteriology—a method of human liberation and ultimate happiness—of the highest possible excellence. Physics has yet to bridge its Nominalism/Realism dichotomy (Bohr’s Quantum Theory vs. Einstein’s Hidden Variables) with such a middle way. What is urgently needed is an epistemology and ontology that accounts for an ultimate or universal reality in which its particulars (mass, charge, spin, waves and particles) arise and participate. Moreover, physics, paralyzed by its fear of subjectivity and metaphysics offers no soteriology. The Unified Quantum Vacuum is 54
science’s inchoate quasi-physical, even metaphysical architecture for such a middle way methodology. The Prasangikas speak of the Two Truths, relative and ultimate. First, they acknowledge Realism by granting an objective existence to appearing reality. Yes, arising phenomenal objects do have an objective reality. They really are real. But this reality is merely the nominal contingent relative-conventional reality of the spacetime dimension of Relative Truth. This protean reality does not possess —is empty of (shunya)—any intrinsic or essential existence, essence or identity independent of related physical and mental causes and conditions, the numinous consciousness basis—the vast causal nexus—in whom or in which this all arises. Is there a non-dogmatic reason that a similar interdependent middle way view could not be developed by physics in its transition from realistic materialist/physicalist fundamentalism to a new more inclusive trans-materialist paradigm? For the Buddhist Middle Way then, the contingent, dependently arising objects of phenomenal reality to the mind are not independent but interdependent (Interbeing). Matter and mind are co-dependent. This of course, is the view of the Quantum Theory. The duality of objective and subjective reality—the realm of spacetime Relative Truth—and perfectly subjective mind nature or Ultimate Truth are co-extensive, participating in the unbroken whole that is the one truth, the nondual prior unity of this conceptual dualism. Thus is the Madhyamaka dualism of the Two Truths transcended in its nondual primordial Base (p.22ff). Does this mean that for the Madhyamaka Prasangika and Ati Dzogchen this Ultimate Reality is utterly transcendent and unknowable, like the separate “other” God of the theists, beyond relative spacetime reality? No. Nagarjuna makes it abundantly clear, “There is not the slightest difference between samsara and nirvana” (Garfield 1995). The Two Truths are one taste, one immediate, ultimate ground. We need not, indeed we must not try to transcend our ordinary mind of everyday spacetime reality for this natural luminous mind is the very nature of mind, perfect (if unrecognized) just as it is. That is the great nondual realization, the Great Completion or Perfection (p.27). Therefore, this ultimate, intrinsically non-separate, nonlocal, interconnected and interdependent nature of appearing reality is conventionally constituted by all dependently arising phenomena (pratitya samutpada/tendrel/nyingpo) from the vast expense of its primordial emptiness base, ground or source and abides within itself in a relation of identity. And this all is emptiness. Dependent Arising is emptiness. Emptiness is Dependent Arising. So, this is the highest or subtlest view of the Buddhist Middle Way, the Madhyamaka Prasangika the foundation of Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. The great Nyingma master Mipham Rinpoche teaches that it is the view of this Middle Way Consequence School that is the requisite foundational view for Dzogchen Trekchö (cutting through ego-self) practice (p.27ff). In the Vajrayana the foundation of the View—intellectual and contemplative understanding—through the Middle Way Foundational Practice (ngöndro) is absolutely essential to receiving transmission of the Dzogchen Trekcho and the fruitional Togal (direct crossing) teachings of the innermost secret mengagde/upadesha by the Dzogchen master. However, the nondual view as to Trekcho/Togal is that there is nothing to “cut through” and nothing to “cross over.” Again, the Nature of Mind is this bright presence, this paradoxical luminosity of ordinary natural mind, always already present from the very beginning (p.27ff).
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Thus, the spacetime reality of Relative Truth (samvriti satya) is relatively or conventionally real through our reified conventional consciousness imputations and designations, while the ultimate nature and source of all empirical spacetime reality is the Madhyamaka luminous emptiness, and the Vajrayana Nyingma perfect sphere of Dzogchen, Ultimate Truth (paramartha satya), the “ultimate mode of existing of everything.”10 Astonishingly, this perfetcly subjective non-entity that is luminous emptiness is intrinsically aware (rigpa/vidya)! And all beings abide here, whether or not they realize it. And this, according to our nondual Great Wisdom Tradition, is our bright indwelling actual nature, whether or not we realize it. Tat Tvam Ami. That I Am! Cartesian Meditations: The “Hard Problem of Consciousness” and the Nature of Mind Rene Descartes’ dictum, cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”—the infamous Cartesian Reduction—was intended to refute the nihilism of Skepticism’s doubt that God, or anything else ultimately exists—the one certain proposition that proves that something— namely the self-aware thinking “I”—most certainly objectively, independently, unequivocally exists! We may doubt everything, yet there exists that one who doubts. I doubt, therefore I am. Essence precedes existence. For the Eastern mind however, particularly the genius of the Indian mind that produced the great Vedic-Vedanta and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings, “I am” also when I am not thinking. For the Eastern mind conceptual thought is not the sine qua non of consciousness, for clearly “That I am”—tat tvam ami—in preconscious, prepersonal and super-conscious, transpersonal awareness mindstates (deep sleep, samadhi, moksha/mukti, turiya), just as surely as “I am” in waking, thinking and in dreaming states. For the Eastern contemplative mind it is not “I think therefore I am,” but “I am therefore I think.” Essence precedes existence. The truth (gnosis/jnana/yeshe) of Primordial Ultimate Consciousness Being Itself (Nirguna Brahman, Tao, Mind Nature, cittadhatu, sems nyid) is ontologically prior to the individuated spacetime being-in-form that is our physical and mental support for cognition— attention, perceiving, feeling, thinking—and its relative-conventional intentional objects and emotional beliefs that are the content of discursive concept-mind (manas, citta, sems). As we’ve seen, the numinous “I Am” presence, the witness—the indwelling presence of this atavistic Ultimate Reality—is ontologically prior to (transcends yet includes) finite relativeconventional beings that think and reflect. Indeed, nondual Being Itself (Interbeing), the primordial, interdependent infinite awareness continuum—by whatever name—is the very source of relative becoming in conditional spacetime reality. There is no difference or separation. Samsara and nirvana are one and the same (samata). The realization of this truth is Buddha cognition (samatajnana) that is finally Buddhahood. What “hard problem?” With no science of mind, the objectivist realist materialist tradition in the West,—through its infernal taboo of subjectivity—denies, splits, reduces, pathologizes or demonizes the subjective reality of the contemplative science, technology and philosophy of mind of the East. But in the Middle Way view of the Madhyamaka Prasangika of Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and 10
Buddhist Madhyamaka epistemology has three classifications of the knowledge of relative conventional phenomenal reality—the realm of Relative Truth: evident (empirical, representational knowledge; hidden (indirect inferential knowledge; extremely hidden (subjective spiritual knowledge beyond direct experience and inference for the average consciousness, but not for the trained contemplative mind.) For example, our knowledge of Ultimate Truth is hidden. The one truth that is nondual Buddha cognition (samatajnana) is extremely hidden.
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Tsongkhapa, and the nondual view of Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta it is not logically possible to doubt or deny, without contradiction, the subjective spirituality—not religion—of the witness presence (vidya, rigpa, atman/saksin) of the very ground (cittadhatu) or basis (gzhi) of the primordial consciousness that is Absolute Spirit—the atman that is Brahman, the Tao that cannot be told, the ultimate happiness that cannot be lost. Why? Because the mental operation of doubting/denying necessarily participates in that which it denies, namely the very awareness or consciousness (chit, vijnana, shespa, cittata) that is identical with nondual Spirit Itself. The doubt or denial of consciousness necessarily requires the very consciousness that is doubted or denied. The objects or contents arising in mind and consciousness may be denied, but not consciousness itself, the very nondual base awareness continuum in whom doubter, doubted and everything else arises, abides and passes away. Indeed, we may doubt, deny or reduce all complex or compound entities and beings, but not this prior awareness matrix of experience in whom we all appear and participate, right now! How can That (Tat) possibly be doubted? This is the seed of truth in Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. This is the great truth of the Buddhadharma, the Sanatanadharma, and Taoism. Therefore, it is contradictory, if not foolish to deny consciousness. There is then, no ultimate “hard problem of consciousness.” There is necessarily, obviously, and always an essential wakefulness, an aware presence or witness to the reflection of the discursive thinking mind that is not reducible to the mere cognitive contents of the mind. The thought “I think therefore I am” arises as conscious relative-conventional experience within this essential consciousness matrix, Quine’s “web of belief” that is our Great Wisdom Tradition’s nondual Ultimate Spirit, Absolute Consciousness Being Itself (svabhava) beyond or ontologically prior to our concepts and beliefs about existence, God or anything else. This nondual Spirit is the luminous awareness continuum that is Reality Itself, pure primordial awareness (kadag) that suffuses every act of consciousness (lhundrub). This is the Supreme Source (cittadhatu) of all appearing mental, emotional and physical existence. In whom does this doubting, thinking “I” or self appear? “In whom does this all arise”? Do you not feel or intuit the presence of a Matrix within which everything is arising? . . . Remain awake in the feelingremembrance of the eternally present Divine Being. . . Doubt is simply a reflection of ourselves, our reluctance to . . .become lawfully oriented to infinity . . . Concepts about “God” may be doubted, but that which is divine and eternal is always perfectly obvious. . . We all share this same God. - Adi Da Samraj (1998) The Nature of Mind, a space of one’s own. Therefore nondual ultimate Spirit, pure consciousness of the sourceground primordial awareness of all phenomenal appearance—that presence present in all cognition—that alone cannot be denied. That is the Real. That is the Dalai Lama’s “luminous continuity of awareness.” That is vidya, Kham Brahm “The Bright” of the Vedas, Upanishads and Vedanta. That is the “light of Tao that is beyond heaven and earth,” the very Gnosis of Light “that lighteth every one that cometh into the world” (Gospel of John). That (Tat/Sat) is the very consciousness of the awareness continuum through which academic philosophers and neuroscientists ponder their “hard problem of consciousness” that is actually this always already present presence, the very nature and sourceground of embodied mind. The “problem” 57
arises and is perceived conceptually, at the gross physical energy dimensional limit. Its resolution, bridging (samadhi/satori) the “explanatory gap” requires subtler lifestage and consciousness dimension (subtle, causal) experience and contemplative training, just as the great transcendental dialecticians—Nagarjuna, Plotinus and Shankara—have always told (Appendix C: The Structures of Consciousness). This reductio ad absurdum argument of Shankara—that the denial of consciousness requires consciousness—is based upon his understanding of Nagarjuna’s dialectic, and is a subjective take on Descartes’ objectivist cogito ergo sum. For Descartes and the rational Western mind, without benefit of the yogic, contemplative technologies of the East, conscious, rational conceptual thought—reason—is the apotheosis of mind and its objects of consciousness. Here, consciousness must be conscious. All acts of consciousness are “intentional,” that is, consciousness of a physical or mental object. Here, consciousness is always directed toward its intentional object. However, the contemplative Eastern mind deracinates then expands consciousness to include much more than its objectively conscious contents (kalpana). Contemplative mind includes preconscious sensory attention and superconscious contemplative mindstates as well. Indeed, we have seen again and again how the vast expanse of the great consciousness or awareness continuum, the Base (gzhi) or unbounded whole enfolds, embraces yet transcends the Unified Quantum Vacuum that gives rise to the particular consciousness of a perceiving subject dualistically apprehending its intentional object. Further, all states (state processes and operations) of consciousness of our embodied mind—waking, dreaming, deep sleep and the timeless turyia—are necessarily and essentially rooted in this atavistic ontologically interdependent deep background prior primordial awareness continuum that is their very sourceground (App. C). This is the Buddhist Nature of Mind, Mind Essence, the wish fulfilling jewel in whom all of these states and stages can be, and everything else appears, exists, abides, disaggregates and arises again and again. Sense and nonsense: the wisdom of uncertainty. We’ve seen then, that nondual Consciousness Being Itself (svabhava), “wisdom goddess” (prajaparamita/nirvakalpa jnana) of pure radiant primordial awareness that is our Supreme Source—Plato’s First Principle and Suzuki Roshi’s Big Mind—is a perfect or ultimate subjectivity that is not reducible to any of its objective qualities or contents, despite twenty-five hundred years of material realist epistemic effort. But here the irony thickens. Astonishingly, this ultimately subjective consciousness base is the very “theory of everything,” the “ultimate organizing principle” that science seeks, yet has ideologically precluded through its pathologically rational grasping at absolute objective certainty. This, in the gloss of contemporary philosophy of mind, is the irreducibility of consciousness. To attempt to reduce the ineffable, pure primordial perfectly subjective consciousness Base to its mere objective contents— the theoretically constituted products, superimpositions and projections of egoic relativeconventional perception and concept-mind (vikshepa-maya, adhyasa, avida-ignorance, dianoiaamnesis, Satan)—is to commit some species of the “reductionist fallacy” and thereby to obscure or “miss the mark” (hamartia-sin) that is our Supreme Source (cittadhatu, kunjed gyalpo), the luminous emptiness Base (gzhi/kadag) of our thinking, reflecting relative-conditional bodymind. With this our natural “original mind” missing, negative emotions (fear/anger/ aggression/ hatred/greed) prevail and our merely rational ethical precepts cannot be kept. The result is terror, war, genocide and despair. The actual basis or source of morality then, is our luminous primordial original mind, our inherent indwelling Buddha Nature/Buddha Mind 58
(samatajnana) that is none other than our ordinary natural mind that is the compassionate wisdom of emptiness. To the extent that we keep this recognition—”keep the view” and surrender (wu-wei) to this wisdom of uncertainty (vicikitsa)—to that extent our ethical precepts keep themselves. (See p.73 “Toward a Secular Ethic of Compassion”.) Finally then, we see that it is the Supreme Source or Base of Reality that is, ironically, the key to a unified subjective-objective “Final Theory of Everything,” the very grail of objective scientific and philosophical inquiry, our heart’s desire and the aim of all our seeking. Alas, we have seen that the legacy of Modernist, fundamentalist, functionalist Scientism that is the Cartesian-Newtonian objectivist worldview has become the infernal material realist “taboo of subjectivity,” the nihilistic reduction and denial of our perfectly subjective consciousness base. This denial becomes thanatos/death, the root cause of human evil. This taboo is rooted in the fearful psychospiritual contraction from our primordial life current that is the very ontological Spirit Base of all phenomenal reality arising and appearing through the consciousness of living beings. How then, do we surrender to this one great truth? One Truth: The Prior Unity of Quantum Physics and Buddhist Metaphysics That everything is included in your mind, is the essence of mind. -Suzuki Roshi The Integral Imperative. It is urgently incumbent upon scientists, psychologists, teachers,philosophers, and students of religion who presume to engage the great scientific, philosophical and moral questions of our species, to consider what I have called the Integral Imperative: bracket your own paradigm or “web of belief” and review the teaching and injunctions of both Eastern and Western epistemology, ontology/metaphysics and spiritual wisdom, the exoteric, esoteric, and greater esoteric (secret and innermost secret) texts and commentaries of our Great Wisdom Tradition. The outer/exoteric and inner/esoteric understanding—reason/rationality—alone do not reveal the View, Path and Conduct that realizes the one truth that is the bright, unbounded whole. The recent lights of this Great Tradition, those scholars and meditation masters in both the East and the West, often consider the pinnacle of our Great Wisdom Tradition as abiding in the nondual (maha ati) wisdom of Tibetan Buddhist Ati Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, as we have seen. Might this numinous nondual primordial wisdom yet inform post-quantum physics and cosmology in its quest for a post-realist, post-materialist, post-analytical ontology to situate and ground its great scientific contributions to the knowledge of our species? Intimations of immortality. I have argued above, remembering the “Two Truths” of the post-metaphysical one reality, that the Material Realism (Neorealism) of the Hidden Variables theorists, and the nominalist, anti-realist view of the Copenhagen School of the Quantum Theory—and indeed all of the material reality of the dualistic spacetime dimension of conventional “Relative Truth,” including the subtle physicality of the Unified Quantum Vacuum—is subsumed, transcended and embraced in an ontologically prior, quintessential, perfectly subjective non-eternal, nondual ultimate reality—”Ultimate Truth,” Absolute Spirit. This conceptual unity of the Two Truths then, is the metaconceptual or metacognitive nondual one truth, the very nature of the mind that is our actual “supreme identity” abiding beyond or 59
prior to and as the sourceground, essence and nature of common discursive mind. We’ve seen that the traditions of our Great Wisdom Tradition agree: this empty and absent, yet “always already” present presence of the luminous sourceground abides at the heart of all human beings—that “flower absent from all bouquets” (Mallarme)—the all-embracing sphere of Dzogchen. Truth is One. Many are its names” (Rig Veda). This is the paradoxical truth that makes us happy. This radical/nondual noetic ontology is ancient. We have just seen that it arises as the perennial idea of the paradigmatic Two Truths—relative and ultimate—that is the postconceptual liberating nondual one truth of our Great Wisdom Tradition. We see it in Pythagoras and Plato, and in nondual Greek Hermetic and Coptic Gnostic Christian texts and praxis (Valentinus, Thomas), and in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus and in Philo. It is present in the “Upanishadic Monism” of the Hindu Sanatana Dharma of Advaita (nondual) Vedanta; and we see it fully developed in the Buddhadharma of Buddhist Middle Way Schools, particularly the Madhyamaka Prasangika so profoundly elaborated by Nagarjuna (2nd Century), Chandrakirti (8th Century) and Tsongkhapa (14th Century). We see this wisdom of emptiness as the essence of Ati Dzogchen and Essence Mahamudra of the Nyingma and Kagyu schools. We find intimations of it in Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumenon, and in Locke’s “real” and”nominal” essences. We find it beautifully explicated in the wisdom commentaries of Alan Wallace and Ken Wilber. We find it in the reluctant panpsychism of leading edge consciousness studies philosopher David Chalmers (1996). This duality of the Two Truths that are the perfectly subjective nondual one truth is the key to the urgent paradigmatic reconstruction in science that is the challenge of unifying relative “scientific” and ultimate “spiritual” knowledge. Is this urgent nondual recognition of the prior unity of the Two Truths by religion, science and culture not the great challenge of an urgent new integral noetic ontology? Has this recognition not been the resolution of the perennial problem of the unity of the competing paradigms of objective and subjective knowledge from the very beginning? The dialectic of physics and metaphysics. Thus for both Buddhism and physics the ontological problem of knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality turns upon this one truth that is at once, the physical emptiness unity of the Zero Point Energy Field—the Unified Quantum Vacuum—as well as our Great Wisdom Tradition’s metaphysical emptiness of all relative spacetime phenomenal reality that is all-embracing sphere of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. Both physics and Buddhist Madhyamaka are epistemologically rational, empirical, objective, naturalistic, pragmatic and process oriented. Alan Wallace points out that both are opposed to dogma, contain rigorous systems of logic and education, and a literary and philosophical wisdom tradition. However, while Buddhism teaches a promethean optimism as to liberation, physics, in spite of the indeterminism of the Quantum Theory, retains a deterministic pessimism. Growing through and beyond such nihilism “is possible only if we identify a new higher order articulating for science and metaphysics a non-dogmatic soteriology” (Bitbol 2003). The Buddhist Great Perfection is a likely candidate. Buddhist epistemology is empirical and objective in that it emphasizes immediate radically empirical experience through first person “spiritual empirical” introspective reports. Buddhist practice emphasizes, not pathology, but qualitative, subjective positive and compassionate mind states toward the end of realizing the wisdom of emptiness thereby liberating human consciousness from the ignorance (avidya) that results in terrible individual and collective suffering. Pathology cannot long exist in 60
the continued presence of such beneficial mindstates. This compassionate “mind of enlightenment” (bodhichitta) then recognizes and realizes not the quantitative hedonic felicitas of Western psychology, but the qualitative eudaemonic beatitudo that is the ultimate happiness—mahasuka, paramananda the happiness that cannot be lost—that is always present from the very beginning, our indwelling Buddha Nature, awake at the spiritual heart (hridyam) of the human being. Indeed this is the core liberation teaching of the nondual Great Wisdom Tradition of our kind. The meditative/contemplative mind training of the practice of the Path removes the negative afflictive emotions that cloak (vikshepa) this prior ultimate happiness, our bright original face. In essence science and spirituality. . .share the same end,which is the betterment of humanity. . . This too is the union of wisdom and compassion. . . We are all connected in a journey toward the happiness that is called enlightenment. -H.H. The Dai Lama (2005) Metaphysics informs science; science informs metaphysics. Physics can learn from Buddhist epistemology. Buddhist epistemology can learn from mathematical physics and cosmology. The two views are complementary. Indeed, physics and metaphysics are a continuum. Both must utilize the Two Truths and find its own unifying middle way. In other words, Buddhism must continue to utilize the empirical methods of neuroscience to further its contemplative technology. Without this it will never be taken seriously by science. Science must utilize its “epistemic authority,” not in a materialist rejection of idealist subjectivity that denies or marginalizes consciousness, but to find its own middle way that includes the “phenomenological doublet” of both third person objectivity and the first person subjectivity that is human consciousness. Without this conceptual and methodological enrichment, science will remain mired in its epistemic and ontic presumptions of the dogmatic foundationalist metaphysics of Functionalism and Material Realism, contributing little to the emerging integral paradigm that is unifying physics and metaphysics, science and spirit. Science must transcend its objectivist evidential modesty in a new integral explanatory ambition that includes both objective and subjective phenomena. The semantic reach of science must exceed its current epistimeic grasp. Therefore, science must participate in the emerging integral Noetic Revolution by recognizing and utilizing—not marginalizing—the introspective first person methodologies of contemplative science and consciousness studies. Science must commit to study consciousness. Science must study not just objective physicochemical brain, but the bright noble interior subjectivity that is mind. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, with the help of the Dalai Lama and his meditating monks, is doing this (Luisi 2009, Begley 2007). Further development will require an outshining epoche, a decisive bracketing (shoshin/beginner’s mind), or placing in abeyance science’s 400 year old obsession with foundational monistic Materialism and Realism. In short, we need a radically empirical (James), non-essentialist physics, a physics that refuses to cling to the metaphysics of a Material Realism. In this largely unexplored noetic mindscape the aboriginal disjuncture of matter and mind cohere, and for a moment, essentially non-different science and spirit hang together. Such is the arising of the paradigm shift that is the new Noetic Revolution. 61
We have seen that from the Material Realism of the view of spacetime Relative Truth (samvriti satya), limited by the Planck Scale and quantum uncertainty at which the laws of physics break down and the conceptual mind boggles, there can be no nondual ultimate knowledge. And we have seen that this scary limit of discursive conceptual mind does not mean the end of consciousness, as the ideology of the cult of Scientism would have us believe. Astonishingly, this confusing limit of concept-mind is the very aperture that opens into nondual Spirit, Ultimate Truth, thus we are necessarily referred to a more subtle strata of formation, an ultimate subjectivity that is ontologically prior to, or beyond the mere physicalist reach of realist contemporary physics. Metaphysics must again become the inward reach of physics. (Metaphysics just means beyond the physics of observable phenomena and includes the non-objective phenomena of the Quantum micro-world and of Quantum Cosmology. Mysticism just means the meditative experience of the prior unity of objective physical and subjective spiritual.) The profound intellectual and hermeneutic tension between objective science and subjective metaphysics, appearance and reality, Realism and anti-Realism must at last bear its integral fruit. Science is deeply grounded in metaphysical assumptions (Physicalism Materialism, Realism, Objectivism, the Closure Principle, etc., Appendix B). Metaphysics utilizes scientific rationality, analysis and naturalism. Science need no longer fear metaphysics. Science and metaphysics need not be unknown to one another. They are, as I have said, a dialectical continuum (cittasantana) of experience. They complement one another. This dialectic extends the reach of science’s empirical observation beyond the narrow limit of immediate empirical sense experience into the realm of unseeable and undecidable first person subjective phenomenal experience. The purely objective God’s eye “view from nowhere” of the old paradigm science was never possible. Experience and knowledge is intersubjective. Science requires and utilizes metaphysics. Knowledge and wisdom ask metaphysical questions that transcend mere observation statements. Science has now grown beyond the mere physical appearances. The domain of wisdom requires both of these methodologies. How then may we continue to integrate them? From the epistemology you choose, comes the metaphysics you deserve. Ah, metaphysics, the bane of the prevailing retrograde postmodern academic Scientific Materialist orthodoxy. And we have noted the timid reticence of neorealist materialist physics (usually embodied in conventionally real, but not ultimately real physicists) to leap into this vast postmaterialist noetic crucible. Alas, herein again arises the perennial burden of skepticism as the spectre of paradigm shift becomes the metaphysical dread of a defensive scientific materialist orthodoxy now cast in academic political stone. Through the focusing power of attention and contemplation, what you think is what you get. Not to worry. Ultimately, as the ostensibly metaphysical sourceground—the conceptual Two Truths that are the nondual one truth—is gradually, then immediately, contemplatively realized by individuals, the contrived duality of physical/metaphysical is transcended in its nondual source condition, a new scientific/noetic paradigm shift occurs, and “mountains and rivers” are no longer the body of Buddha, but again become just “mountains and rivers.” Bowl and tea and bread again become simply bowl and tea and bread. Physics, metaphysics. Integrated methodology. One reality. “Truth is one.” No problem at all. Have a cup of tea. Echoing Aristotle, Eighth Century Middle Way Buddhist Scholar-Master Chandrakirti offers, if not an antidote, an advisory to this perennial problem of skepticism and nihilism. 62
Relatively speaking, it is a methodological error to expect more of a modality of explanation than the inherent nature and limit of that modality permits. The perennial Two Truths are a case in point. Emptiness and form, Brahman and the world, Ultimate Truth and Relative Truth, science and Spirit, are ontologically incommensurable—different orders, modalities, or dimensions of being—even though these dualities are rooted and unified in and pervaded by an ultimate nondual reality. We must not demand that our conceptual elaborations and expectations, derived as they are, from the necessary epistemic limits of the domain of dualistic, empirical Relative Truth (space, time, logic, causality), grasp and reveal that subtle ultimate nondual domain that, from the relative view altogether transcends this reified discursive cognitive dimension of concept and belief. Until the full bodhi of enlightenment, these two domains are ontologically distinct and incommensurate modal realities. Although the Two Truths are one truth, and as Nagarjuna reminds us, we utilize the difficulties of the path of Relative Truth to accomplish Ultimate Truth—nondual Spirit Itself—we must again remember, moment to moment, that the ground of all phenomenal arising, negative or positive, is the perfect sphere of the Great Perfection—by whatever name—and therefore an aperture into, and a path toward the recognition, then realization of that luminous ultimate ground that is, astonishingly “always already” present and awake right here—at the Heart—in the chaos of our everyday lifeworld. (See Appendix D, The Non-Meditation That is Happiness Itself.) Indeed, the nondual truth of the Great Perfection is that the still emptiness of the primordial ground, the three Buddha Bodies that are the Trikaya of the Base (gzhi), the perfect sphere of Dzogchen, is Dependent Arising (pratitya samutpada), the very light energy prana of spacetime phenomena continuously cascading from this original causal matrix ground that is our supreme source. Samsara and nirvana are the same (Samata). “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” That is the realization. That’s it. Can we really do this? “Just open the door and follow the path, all the way to the end.” (H.H. the Dalai Lama). And yet, paradoxically, “It is already accomplished” (Garab Dorje)—that primordial seed of Buddhahood—always awake at the spiritual heart (hridyam/nyingpo) within each human form. Thus it is, the now commensurable paradigmatic Two Truths that are relative science and ultimate spirit continue in a middle way methodology—grounded in an appropriate realist or even nominalist epistemology, and an ontology of interdependence—in support of the new postmetaphysical, post-quantum physics and cosmology. This toward our integral noetic understanding of the always already prior unity of matter, mind and spirit. Shakyamuni, the Buddha of our historical time expresses this wisdom of the ages thusly: What you are is what you have been. What you will be is what you do now. . . . The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness, The nature of mind is clear light . . . . So leave it as it is, and rest your weary mind, All things are perfect, exactly as they are. . . . And all the Tatagatas will rejoice. -Shakyamuni Buddha (from the Prajnaparamita literature) 63
The Secret of Human Happiness? There is nothing absent from your happiness. -Adi Da Samraj We are happy when we can bring others to happiness. -Guy Newland The theories of physics, if not the laws of nature, change from time to time. In micro physics and in cosmology they are relative, contingent, theoretical-conventional maps to comprehend the nature, perhaps the very ultimate nature of nondual Reality Itself. But the map cannot be the reality. According to the masters of our Great Wisdom Tradition, exoterically viewed there is an inherent modal or dimensional difference or hierarchical (holarchical) separation between the paradigms of the relative knowledge of science (vikalpa, drhsti, doxa, opinion, information, scientific theory) and spirit, the prior absolute or ultimate primordial wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe) that is the fruition of nondual greater esoteric (“innermost secret”) contemplative “spiritual” realization. These two participate together in the unbounded whole as different ontological strata of formation, as distinct modal realities. Some of the propositions of science and some of those of religion may be “valid cognition” (pramana), veridical, falsifiable, non-contradictory and worthy of research. The prior, direct non-dual, conceptually unfabricated ultimate source (cittadhatu) of all experience holarchically transcends, pervades and includes the less subtle physical, emotional and mental dimensions of the egoic bodymind, and cannot ultimately be grasped or comprehended by the conceptual self, the ego-I of the body-mind. This is ontological interdependence. Yet both are necessary aspects of the vast unbounded whole. Only the whole resolves the duality. The parts are uncertain. We must remember and realize this noetic, primordial dialectic. Nagarjuna, the great Second Century Indian Buddhist sage told, “There is no way to realize Ultimate Truth (nondual liberation, ultimate happiness), except in reliance upon Relative Truth (dualistic, gradualist spiritual practice).” Through dualistic concept-mind we utilize the gradual, finite, relative “spiritual path” to stabilize “the View” and deconstruct the destructive ego-self; then to recognize, realize and perfect the immediate, subjective nature of mind (cittata/sems nyid), our indwelling seed, the wish-fulfilling jewel that is our Christ/Buddha Nature—that presence always present—forever becoming ultimate Consciousness Being Itself. Yet, paradoxically, that is who we actually are from the very beginning. That (Tat/Sat) is both the origin and aim of all our seeking. And so, esoterically, ultimately there is no essential difference or separation between the finite matter that we are, and infinite spirit that we are, between samsara and nirvana, between the Quantum Vacuum and primordial emptiness, between appearance and reality, mind and body, subject and object, you and me; although from the dualistic exoteric view of Relative Truth this nondual view seems utterly panglossian. From the nondual view of perfectly subjective Ultimate Reality—the sublime ontological smile of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection— all such dichotomies abide as an interdependent, ontic prior unity. The paradoxical, simultaneous cognition (samatajnana) or recognition of the continuous unity of these Two Truths—”brief moments, many times”—in the very midst of the relative-conventional chaos of our everyday lifeworld, is the realization of this one truth that is ultimate Happiness Itself. “Just follow the Path, all the way to the end of it.” But wait! “It is already accomplished.” Here, now, great joy. 64
Postscript Notes on Quantum Emptiness, Ontological Interdependence, and Free Will Our original mind includes everything within itself. -Suzuki Roshi Causality. With the advent of General Relativity, and the Quantum Theory with its inherently subjective Quantum Vacuum, theoretical physics now resembles the contemplative epistemologies of our Great Wisdom Tradition. As we have seen, the Uncertainty Principle (Heisenberg) and the Principle of complementarity (Bohr) of the Quantum Theory’s Copenhagen School have demolished absolute time and the linear Principle of Causality, the efficient causality upon which the classical, old paradigm physics is based. Causal correlation and Hume’s “constant conjunction” have failed as a theory of causal explanation. Causality now looks more like the Buddhist beginningless or infinite causal continuum. Here, things arise as a result of prior causes and conditions in a vast interdependent causal nexus, but there is no primordial first cause, no Big Bang or theistic genesis. The Buddhist Madhymaka non-linear contextual causal view of interdependent origination (dependent arising, pratitya-samutpada) is at root, luminous emptiness (shunyata). From this follows the view of anatman or no-self, and anitya or impermanence. Both the apparent self, its karma, and all the arising phenomena of mind are causally relatively or conventionally real, yet without essential intrinsic absolute existence or identity, and without a first cause. Arising reality is rather, luminous emptiness (Shunyata, Wu, Tao) which is, paradoxically, the divine fullness, the Plenum (Pleroma) that is the primordial sourceground or Base or Depth (Bathos, I Am), Consciousness Being Itself in whom mind and individual consciousness and all phenomena arise. The linear, local efficient causality principle of the old paradigm functions as a special limiting case of a more comprehensive, non-reductionist, contextual view. The Principle of Non-Reductionist Causality. There is no one unique causal explanation for anything. Causality may be non-linear, or linear. For our Great Wisdom Tradition causation is downward (from thought and pure non-physical nondual consciousness to physical matter). For scientific materialism causation is upward (from elementary particles, to electro-physical brain states, to consciousness). The gradual, causal spiritual path is bottomup. The sudden, immediate enlightenment of the non-causal, not-gradualist path is top-down. A complete account of causality must include Aristotle’s four causes—material, formal, efficient cause and effect, and final (teleological). The mere efficient causality of biology and physics is not, alone, an adequate causality. Causation is complex, nonlocal, multifactorial and contextual as is Buddhist Madhyamaka causation. For example, Newton's theory of gravity (the gravitational constant) functions causally in the realm of the "middle dimensions" (molecular to solar system distances) as a special limiting case of Einstein's relativistic mechanics. But, in the realm of the very small, at or near the Planck distance (10-33 cm.), in the realm of the very large (intergalactic gravitational effects), and in the realm of the very brief (Plank time 10-43 sec. just after the “Big Bang”) the efficient causality of physics is precluded. Here the acausal 65
stochastic predictions of quantum mechanics are more accurate than either Newton's or Einstein's classical theories.11 In any case, the Planck Scale represents the distance, energy or time at which all of our concepts of causality—matter-energy and space-time—the very laws of physics break down, the concept-mind boggles and new methodologies and geometries are required. At this scale of reality General Relativity and the Quantum Theory are incompatible and contradictory. It is hoped that a quantum theory of gravity can somehow penetrate this essential limit of conceptual causal understanding by finally unifying General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. Superstring Theory, S-Matrix Topology, M Theory, Quantum Loop Gravity and Super-Symmetry are the unlikely candidates. With the exception of the Quantum Field Theory, all of these refuse to surrender their metaphysical attachment to foundational Realism which must be a prerequisite for a unifying theory of anything. Alas, we have just seen that such computational excess has hit the wall of the Planck Scale ambiguity barrier beyond which merely conceptual mathematical knowledge is necessarily, logically precluded. The third person method of inquiry—the scientific method— does not obtain here. It is at this ontological strata of formation, beyond the physical/material and the merely computational, that first person methodologies—noetic introspective intuitive, tacit, meditative/ contemplative modes of knowing arise (Luisi 2009, Wallace 2005, 2006). Thus we are introduced to the non-classical, noetic Problem of Knowledge. The marvellous enterprise that is physics will indeed produce that “next more inclusive theory,” yet the ultimate nature of mind necessarily remains non-algorithmic and non-computational, knowable only through first person contemplative technologies. Any unifying theory must utilize the “phenomenological doublet” of both first person and third person methodologies as we have seen above. Ontological interdependence. As to this holy grail of grand unification, it is but the latest idol in the modernist quest for absolute objective certainty, and precluded by David Finklestein’s “Universal Relatively Principle” which precludes all grand unified theories (GUTs) and final theories of everything (TOEs). Finklestein, paraphrasing Einstein, points out that the purpose of a theory or model is to evolve a more subtle, elegant and inclusive theory or model. A successful theory is a relative, temporary position which eventually becomes an “idol of the tribe,” (a species of Francis Bacon’s “Idols of the Mind”), a false, logocentric absolute which cannot be corrected within the phenomenological or epistemological modality or context of the theory, as the great dialecticians Gödel, Whitehead, Hegal, Kant, Shankara and Nagarjuna have demonstrated. This noetic Principle of Universal Relativity—our Principle of Ontological Interdependence—agrees with the teaching of Mahayana Madhyamaka (Middle Way) Buddhism regarding seeking, grasping and clinging at anything—a belief, a theory—not even the highest, or most elegant, or most integral. Through such ideational grasping, we become the fearful, hopeful advocates of the developmental limits of our current lifestage conceptual and belief systems. However, General Relativity has now been tested to be correct to one part in 1014, an improvement over the Quantum Field Theory which is accurate to 1011 , based on 20 years measurement of the orbital decay of the Hulse-Taylor pulsar.
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The metaphysical assumption of Realist Scientific Materialism that all phenomena— physical, mental, spiritual (body, mind, spirit)—are reducible to, and explainable in terms of electro-physical brain, i.e. that everything is physical, is a case in point. This assumption becomes an unconscious, unquestioned, intersubjective, deep background idol, a logocentric false absolute, in need of relativizing by that next more subtle, inclusive, elegant theory i.e. a post-quantum dualistic objective, relative Material Realism embraced, yet transcended in a subjective, ultimate nondual Transcendental Idealism. This, of course, is the perennial Two Truths that are one truth—”one taste”—of nondual Buddhism and Vedanta. The paradigm shifts—the revolutions—in the sciences have been just such relativizations in prevailing theory and ideology, with the fall of the old tired idols and the rise of the next more inclusive paradigm. As we have seen, we are now witnessing the demise of the twenty-five hundred year old foundational metaphysics of Material Realism, and the phoenix-like rising of a noetic integral ontology. Just so, the post-classical Quantum Theory—the “non-objective physics”—extended relativity and transcended yet included the objective classical absolutes of General Relativity, which did the same for Special Relativity, which did the same for Newton’s, Galileo’s, Kepler’s, Copernicus,’ and Aristotle’s logocentric idols of space, time and spacetime. The Quantum Theory transcends yet includes the worn out epistemological idols, the monistic absolutes of reductive physicalism, mechanism, material realism, and the destructive dualism of absolutely separate observer/subject from it’s perceived object, a dualism of appearance and reality, of mind and body, of spirit and matter, of plus and minus charges, all arising in absolute space and absolute time. Indeed the next idol to be relativized by the wisdom of ontological relativity—emptiness and dependent arising—will be the now unstable Standard Model with its Quantum Theory of particle interactions, as it is subsumed, along with General Relativity, into that next more subtle, inclusive and elegant theory. And such a theory, as we have seen, requires an Ontology of Interdependence that subsumes mere relative-conventional realistic epistemologies, and transcends, yet includes the protoreligious totemic idol that is Scientific Materialism (Neorealism). A Rose is a Rose: The Paradox of Perception. Consider the lovely rose arising in spacetime. From whence has it come? Where will it go? As it dwells with us for a time our senses rejoice in its impermanent reality. Then it returns to its ineffable source. Where else could it go? According to our Great Wisdom Tradition, its essential nature therefore, is not other than the luminous emptiness (shunyata) of the vast expanse or depth (bathos) of this Supreme Source (cittadhatu), the very essence or nature of what is—the very Nature of Mind (cittata/sems nyid) that is Basic Mind essence. Now generalize this consideration to include all arising phenomena, moment to moment, eon to eon in the life of the mind of all sentient beings, throughout all worlds and all times, past, present and future. Eventually, through such ontological inquiry and noetic analysis (vipashyana), we recognize that this continuous process of the vast causal nexus, the infinite continuum of Consciousness Being Itself—Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis, jnana, yeshe)—is ultimately dependent upon everything else. (The exoteric mathematical analogs of this deep esoteric truth are described by the mathematics of complexity, e.g. the “butterfly effect” of Chaos Theory; the S-matrix topology of Jeffry Chew’s Bootstrap Theory; the Large Number Hypothesis of the Anthropic Principle). 67
Thus, our understanding situates the relative-conventional spacetime reality of exterior and interior cause and effect into an acausal, perfectly subjective matrix or context of fundamental openness or emptiness, the luminous sourceground or potential existence of our rose, and of everything else that arises and appears to our perception. Again, in this way the relative duality of absolutism and nihilism, of existence and non-existence (samvriti) is resolved in the “protean encounter” with non-conceptual, post-theoretical contemplative ultimate truth (paramartha) that transcends yet embraces it. “True mind is not dualistic mind. The Nature of Mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness. The Nature of mind is clear light” (Shakyamuni, the Buddha, from the Prajnaparamita literature). Our finite bodymind, our awareness here and now with its spacetime relative-conventional phenomenal content, participates in and is identical in essence to the non-dual infinite continuity of awareness of the essential Nature of Mind, non-dual Spirit Itself. It is this “primordially pure” (kadag) emptiness potential in whom the interdimensional co-emergent light energy (lhundrup) of matter, life, mind, soul and free ethical activity arise. Therefore, awareness or consciousness does not arise from phenomenal existence; rather, existence arises from primordial awareness. Again, Ultimate Spirit cannot be reduced to independently “real” conceptual entities, the egoic false absolutes of spacetime located phenomena or beings, not even avatars or gods. This is the “error” of spiritual materialism and of religious provincialism. Rather, spacetime phenomena and all perceiving beings abide in an infinite causal matrix that is non-local, non-dual Spirit Itself, ultimate Reality Itself. Yet, wonder of wonders, “Brahman is also the world,” and “Emptiness is also form.” This Spirit is the great non-dual Ultimate Truth (paramartha) that is actualized through full bodhi—the realization of the presence (vidya/rigpa) of Primordial Awareness Wisdom (gnosis/jnana). This is the liberation of highly realized, enlightened beings. This liberation is the ultimate potential of every sentient being, and the immediate potential—the happy recognition of indwelling spirit presence—of each self-aware human being. This then, is the greater, more inclusive truth that provides a resolution to the perennial dualism of the epistemological “mind-body” problem arising from this paradox of perception: since the perceived object is dependent upon the cognition of a perceiving subject—which is the real— this perceived subjective mental idea, or its apparently material objective physical object? The immediate internal cognitive/mental experience of our rose, or its external apparently physical attributes? Epistemological idealists believe the internal mental or cognitive idea is the primary reality; Realists and Materialists (usually physicalists) believe it is the external physical appearance that is real. Solipsists believe that only the subject, the perceiving ego-I of the self is real. Nihilists deny that any of it is real. Do we have a choice? Choosing reality: quantum emptiness and free will. Another result of quantum mechanics (along with the transistor, the microprocessor and the laser) is a tentative theoretical rescue of human freedom, "free will," from the determinist grip of Newtonian mechanics. If the universe is just a great mechanical clock (the Cartesian-Newtonian classical view) then theoretically, given enough objective knowledge, future events can be predicted and everything is pre-determined, even our present choices. This precludes free will. This unhappy result has been called Laplace’s Demon after the 18th Century Newtonian physicist who first described it. However, according to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, it is not 68
possible, even in principle, to ever know enough about the present state of the universe to accurately or completely predict any future event, even the most basic. For example, Thomas Young's ingenious double slit experiment of 1801 proved the wave-like nature of light. In 1920 Einstein proved the particle-like nature of light. Quantum uncertainty and complementarity have demonstrated that it is both12. According to the quantum theory, the ultimate nature of physical reality is, in principle, unknowable to the theoretical conceptual mind. As we have seen, there is an ambiguity barrier (Planck scale, divine ignorance, Mu, the barrier of the supreme nondual teaching of the Chan/Zen Patriarchs) which the discursive concept-mind cannot penetrate. As Kant pointed out, human reason cannot transcend phenomena to the ultimate reality of that that is the noumenon. Kant’s notion of the perennial “Two Truths” is that the phenomena of relative spacetime reality, are “empirically real” because they appear to our experience, yet their ultimate nature is not ultimately knowable. Material phenomena are mere relativeconventional cognitive relations between perception, concept and the ultimately ineffable “thing in itself” (ding an sich). For Kant and the neo-Kantians, Reality is but the totality of phenomenal relationship and has no intrinsic independent existence. This of course is precisely the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) Buddhist view. According to the quantum uncertainty relations the observer must choose that which is to be measured, either a particle's momentum (p) or its position (x). We cannot accurately measure both. Due to wave diffraction, no quantum object may have a definite location and a definite momentum before a measurement. So, it’s not that we don’t know the precise values, x or p for a particle; it’s that the particle does not even have these values before a measurement. It is the consciousness of the observer that determines the nature of the reality observed. What we observe of that which appears depends upon our consciousness, our choices, our physiological sensory-perceptual apparatus, and its extension by means of measuring instruments, and then finally our conceptual-theoretical value laden interpretation choices about these observations. For example, an electron has never been observed, much less a quark, or a graviton. Nor can they be observed, even in principle. Yet these subjective purely theoretical entities are given arbitrary mathematical values and physical attribution, and therefore are not excluded from scientific study as objective data representing objectively “real” entities arising and appearing in or to the mind. We have seen that, there can be no purely objective observation by an independent observer. Subjectivity enters the picture as the consciousness and cognition (perceptions, concepts, beliefs) of an observer who is always a participant in the process of the perception, observation or measurement. Moreover, as we pursue our exploration of matter to its ultimate depth we discover that ultimately, there isn't any! Just an infinity of particles within particles, non-linear networks within networks. And if the sub-quantum particles of the aboriginal stuff of reality are, in their essential nature, empty of inherent existence (shunyata), without substance, without attributes (nirguna), how can macroscopic sentient observers be otherwise? This understanding of course, 12
A recent experiment by physicist Shahriar Afshar has cast doubt on Bohr’s sacrosanct Principle of Complementarity. Afshar has shown by experiment that when the particle aspect is observed, the wave aspect is also present. But the particle aspect is not present when the experiment is set up to observe the wave. Thus the wave nature, even during particle interactions, seems to be prior. Einstein and Schrödinger may have been right after all. The wave, not the particle, not both, may be the ultimate foundation of matter. The wave behavior of the Zero Point Energy Field of the Quantum Vacuum seems to support this thesis.
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parallels the nondual view of our Great Wisdom Tradition. Such a philosophical generalization from the microscopic world of quarks and leptons to the macroscopic world of cats, trees and stars seems justified, at least in the conventional realm of the “relative truth” of empirical, objective spacetime reality. Once again, the objective reality of phenomena is nominally real from the view of relative-conventional truth. The things of the spacetime dimension of Relative Truth are real. Yet, ultimately, from the view of ultimate truth, this all is maya, illusion, mere conceptual elaboration, imputation and reification by an impermanent self absent any inherent intrinsic existence; illusory in the mode which the ancient Vedas, Upanishads and Tantras have told for millennia. "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning" (Heisenberg 1958). Observer, observation and theory are interdependent, interconnected designations and imputations—creations of the mind—ascending and descending each moment each breath from the depth of the plenum, implicate order of the whole, great primordial nondual sourceground or matrix of all that is. "Our experience contributes to causing particles to emerge from a reality extended in space-time" (Bernard d'Espagnat). Physical and mental phenomenal reality is "a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories" (Erwin Schrödinger 1958); in a word, consciousness. "Mind and world arise together" (Humberto Maturana 1987). Physicist Geoffrey Chew on the quantum emptiness at the micro level of reality: There is no continuous space-time atomic reality as described in terms of isolated events that are causally connected but are not embedded in continuous space-time. Space-time is introduced macroscopically, in connection with experimental apparatus, but there is no implication of a microscopic space-time continuum. You should not try to express the principles of quantum mechanics in an apriori accepted space-time. That is the flaw of the present situation. (in Capra, Uncommon Wisdom, 1988)
The observer then, does not directly experience physical reality. What is experienced through the appearances is the process of consciousness that is our deep intersubjective interrelatedness, autopoiesis, our “structural coupling” with the physical Unified Quantum Vacuum, and its prior metaphysical unbroken whole, Ultimate Truth, nondual Spirit, Consciousness Being Itself. Here observer and observed are not separate, but intrinsically connected. Here is the complementarity of the Two Truths of Reality Itself, Tao, Suzuki Roshi’s “Big Mind” that is the primordial consciousness base in whom arises “Small Mind,” relative, empirical phenomenal spacetime reality. We have seen that the contribution of Niels Bohr's quantum Principle of Complementarity is that the nature of light is both particle-like and wave-like. Both aspects are necessary to explain its behavior. Coherent, experienced physical and mental reality (light) is constituted of physical and mental/conceptual complementary opposites: wave-particle, yin-yang, negativepositive, quark-lepton, eros-agape, deus-theos (transcendent-immanent), free will and determinism, appearance and reality, body and mind, matter and spirit, objective and subjective, all binaries, all dualities, relative energy structures, the dance of geometry that is our relative spacetime mindstream. "An independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can be ascribed neither to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation" (the physical mechanisms of 70
perception and the scientific instruments that extend that perception), (Niels Bohr 1934). Reality Itself (light/mind/spirit) arises in spacetime dualistically, as wave-particle, subjectobject, plus-minus charges. Remembering the Principle of Non-Reductionist Causality, both views are complementary descriptions or explanations of the same coherent phenomena. We must see both poles without attaching to either (the phenomenal “bracketing” of the transcendental epoche, the shoshin response) in order to transcend the dualism in the bigger picture, the non-dual view of our absolute emptiness base or matrix source in whom the entire enfolded process unfolds and arises for us. So quantum theory has demonstrated, in a left-brain exoteric modality, that the integral holism of our Great Wisdom Tradition is correct—the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but “there is a mutual dependence between parts and the whole” (H.H. The Dalai Lama). Yet, more importantly, it has demonstrated that there are no independently existing inherently separate parts at all! As our Principle of Ontological Interdependence asserts, the parts, arising observable phenomenal thoughts and objects are a nonlocal, interconnected pattern or network of relationships with no separate, independent, intrinsic existence. Back to free will. Can human beings freely choose to act in the face of scientific determinism? Our sense or feeling of free will or volition seems to be supported by Heisenberg's discovery that an essential indeterminacy exists at the very heart of nature, the quantum level of reality. Moreover, both the subjective non-causal (free will) and the objective causal (determinism) are necessarily complementary modalities of adequate explanation. Both are necessary. In Bohr's words, “Volition and causality are equally indispensable elements in the relation between subject and object which forms the core of the problem of knowledge" (Bohr, 1934). Causal determinism and acausal volitional free will are a complementary process. Laplace’s Demon—a clockwork determinism— is slain. However, if the indeterminist interpretation of mechanics at the quantum level, or even of the neuronal level of reality is correct, this does not necessarily allow for free will at the macro-level of human action and behavior. Nor is free will precluded even if some of our actions are shown to be determined, psychologically, at the macro-level of behavior. Human happiness and free will. We create or designate our reality by our participation or observation or placement of attention (cognition). "You become (or duplicate the qualities of) whatever you meditate on or whatever you identify with via the surrender that is attention itself" (Adi Da Samraj). "What you are, is what you have been. What you will be, is what you do now" (Shakyamuni Buddha). Is it selfless, authentic and kind? This Perennial Wisdom truth has been called the law of karma, reaping what is sown which, according to the Dalai Lama, is a subset of the Causal Principle, the more general Law of Cause and Effect. “What you do now” results precisely in your future. Psychospiritual growth lies in opening to the use of whatever is given here, now. “Make the path the goal.” The path is now. Thus, whether the self is empty of inherent existence or not, each human being creates a destiny by his/her choices of the placement of attention, emotion, thought and action. Our behavior is objectively, causally and structurally determined (biomorphically), yet externally, subjectively causally undetermined, unpredictable and free. What you choose is what you get! Although the burden of past actions (karma) is profound, yet we are free to choose a way to liberation. This “Way” is represented by our primordial Great Wisdom Tradition's “View, Path and Result,” psychospiritual practice under the guidance of a qualified master. The purpose of the choices of the practice of the spiritual path is to “know thyself,” and thus to 71
realize the ultimate freedom that is Happiness Itself (mahasukka, mahananda). Yet, “We need a teacher because it is impossible to study ourselves by ourselves” (Suzuki Roshi). The subtle defences of the ego-self are prodigious. Our Great Wisdom Tradition is quite clear on this urgent point. Although it takes “ego strength” to deconstruct the ego or self-sense, one who acts as his/her own guru, has a fool for a student. Strange interlude: reduction, paradox and realization. That the Quantum Field Theory aids our metaphysical understanding does not however, mean that physics "proves" the assertions of religion, or the truths of our primordial wisdom tradition. It remains a fallacy (the "reductionist fallacy") to attempt to logically derive or "reduce" assertions from one dimension or phenomenological level to those of another. For example, we cannot logically or mathematically derive or deduce macrocosmic qualitative (value) principles (psychology, religion, ethics, free will) from the principles of the quantitative behavior of subatomic microcosmic events, try as we may. The dimension of ultimate reality—noumenon—holarchically transcends, pervades, includes, and is prior to the physical/mental dimension of phenomena, but cannot be proven to be so by the logical or ontological rules of either dimension (Gödel, Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, Chandrakirti). Remember the prior unity of the “Two Truths,” finite relative-conventional phenomena and the infinite nondual absolute, the Supreme Source of all of this arising. Ultimately the conceptual Two Truths are the nondual one truth. However, relatively they are empirically, logically and ontologically distinct dimensional modalities. Therefore, confusion, paradox, mystification or metaphysics must not be identified or conflated with religious mysticism. Nor should mysticism be identified or confused with vertical “spiritual empirical” meditative contemplation. Meditative contemplation (the contemplative accessing of the nondual wisdom state of presence, vidya, rigpa, christos-logos of the primordial source) is the result or fruition of gradual dualistic, then nondual spiritual practice on a wisdom tradition path with a qualified master. And this result appears confusing, mystifying and paradoxical to relative, dualistic, materialistic mind states, indeed, even to the practitioner on the path. The mystery or mystical bliss is not itself however, the desideratum of the moment to moment nondual contemplative state of presence. Nor are meditative, mystical transcendental experiences (nyams). Liberation is not transcendental. It is rather the realization of the prior perfection of our natural “ordinary mind.” Nagarjuna told, “There is not the slightest difference between samsara and nirvana.” While its results may be experienced, the primordial nondual state of “immediate spontaneous pure presence” is not a concept and not an experience. What is it then? All that can be said conceptually is that it is non-conceptual, “nothing special,” generous and kind, often has positive affect, may be directly transmitted or “pointed out” by a master to a prepared student, and may arise through the gradual practice of the path (“brief moments, many times”) as the negative afflictive emotions—anger, fear, greed, pride—are surrendered. Then, by grace this wisdom is stabilized and ultimately realized, integrated and compassionately actualized in the lifeworld, to the great benefit of beings. And all the while it is always “already accomplished,” now present and awake at the heart of each human form. Indeed, a most amazing paradox.
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Toward a Secular Ethic of Compassion. To be or not to be. “In the moment of love, the nature of emptiness dawns nakedly” (Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche). Concerning our human conduct and its relation to happiness, Plato told, “No small matter is at stake. The question concerns the very way in which human life is to be lived” (Republic, Book I). “We enter the future backwards” (Paul Valery). As we proceed into our future on the thermodynamic “arrow of time,” the precise result of our thought and action cannot be foreseen. Nevertheless, we’ve seen that from the interdependent arising of all spacetime phenomenal reality, with all the impermanent conscious beings who perceive it and act in it, emerges the inexorable karmic law of cause and effect. Interdependent Relationship. What we give, positive and negative, consciously and unconsciously, is what we receive. Our present life situation—our view, our suffering and our happiness—is caused by our previous thought, intention and action. What we do now, our thought and conduct creates and determines our future destiny. What we are now is exactly the result of our past actions. Here, there can be no egoic “plea for excuses,” no fudge factor. Nothing is lost. Simply put, this “law of karma,” of reaping what we sow, is the basis of human freedom. We are free to choose the unbiased and impartial love-wisdom unity path to enlightenment—our step-by-step supreme happiness and liberation from suffering—in direct relation to the process of our gradual recognition, then realization and actualization in conduct of the imponderable, inexorable timeless truth of interdependent relationship (hetu/tendrel), the Law of Karma. “What you are is what you have been; what you will be is what you do now” (Shakyamuni, the Buddha). This path, whether or not one is aware of it, is the lifestage developmental path or evolutionary path toward our liberation from alienation and suffering. Thus spake the masters of our nondual primordial Great Wisdom Tradition. Because we are utterly interdependent and interconnected, and because we all desire happiness and desire to avoid suffering, an altruistic secular Ethic of Compassion naturally re-emerges from this Great Wisdom Tradition teaching. All of our major religious-cultural traditions and most secular ethics within these streams have founded their ethic upon human kindness and compassion (karuna, maitri, nyingje, bodhicitta, ahimsa, hesed/charis, altruism). “Ultimately the purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion (H.H. The Dalai Lama, 1999). Compassionate thought, intention and action (conduct) is the very basis of moral virtue. Non-virtue results “from causing harm to another’s experience or expectation of happiness . . . A positive result cannot come from a negative cause” (H.H. The Dalai Lama). A thought, intention or act is ethical or morally right, based on ”The Good” of happiness—the motivation—and wrong if it causes suffering—the consequences. Therefore, intention, motivation (deontology) and consequence (teleology) of an act determine the karmic result. The effect or consequence of an act is inextricably linked to its prior intention-motivation. Both determine its ethical content. What then shall we do with this precious life we’ve been given, this time to attend to opening to the great source that links us all together? The primary moral imperative is the wisdom of kindness. This emerging secular ethic of interdependence requires the practice of wise, unbiased, gentle and generous activity in the service of all beings (including ourselves and our Mother Earth). This is “the courage to be” that is the wisdom of uncertainly, beyond fear and hope, continuous ego- self-surrender in the 73
fearsome face of emotional-spiritual transformation. With self-surrender (wu wei, aporia) arises the nondual state of equanimity that is the compassionate Witness Presence—our original mind that is our indwelling, always present presence, our christ/buddha nature that is who we actually are now. Here our ethical precepts are lived spontaneously, without effort. “If you keep your original mind the precepts will keep themselves” (Suzuki Roshi). “Make of yourself a light,” (the Buddha’s last words to his disciples). “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jesus of Nazareth). This is our Great Wisdom Tradition’s secret of liberation that is Happiness Itself, the happiness that cannot be lost. The practical significance of this Moral Imperative for the 21st Century? We learn to transcend ego-ethnocentric hatred—thanatos, the deadly denial of our primordial Wisdom Mother (Gnosis, Shaki, Prajnaparamita, Yeshe)—and help one another, or perish from the earth. This is our choiceless choice (cf. “A New Secular Ethic of Compassion,” www.davidpaulboaz.org). All the happiness there is in this world comes from compassionate service to others, and all the suffering comes from serving oneself. -Shantideva Clearly, these primordial truths of our shared Great Wisdom Tradition have great constitutive power in the unfolding of an incipient integral noetic resolution to the pressing problems of knowledge (wisdom), morals (conduct), and governance (political economy).
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Appendix A
Dzogchen, The Great Perfection “The nature of mind is the unity of awareness and emptiness.” - Shakyamuni Buddha I. The View: The Buddha’s Two Truths are “one taste,” all views condensed in essence to a single point. A. From the view of Absolute or Ultimate Truth Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, is a primordially pure whole, a single all-inclusive sphere, transcending, pervading, embracing samasara and nirvana, all phenomena, beings, views arising in mind (sems), prior to concept and belief. Dzogchen, the vast causal nexus, transcends spacetime causality. It is the very Nature of Mind (sems nyid) nondual and perfect “from the very beginning.” B. From the view of Relative-Conventional Truth Dzogchen is our prior nondual unity of: 1. The Base or source with its corresponding View. “Recognize your own true nature.” 2. The Path with its corresponding Meditation. “Choose the state of presence, beyond doubt.” 3. The Fruit or Result with its corresponding Conduct. “Continue in the state with confidence.” II. The Base (Ground): Gzhi, Buddha Nature, the Supreme Source, the Nature of Mind, Yeshe/jnana . A. View: the three aspects, or Primordial Wisdoms of this emanation Base/Source present in all arising form. 1. Its Essence is Emptiness (shunyata), the vast expanse of primordial purity (kadag). 2. Its Nature is Luminosity/Clarity (gsal ba), clearlight mind of spontaneous presence (lhundrup). 3. Its Energy rays emanate continuously as light/motion, (tsal/rolba), physical/mental phenomena, and in human conduct through spontaneous presence as wisdom-compassion (thugs re), the Four Boundless States/Four Immeasurables: love, compassion, joy, equanimity (relative bodhicitta). B. The Trikaya of the Base (the Essence Body, Svabhavikakaya): Absolute Bodhicitta, The Supreme Source, the Three Vajras, Three Gates, or Three Bodies of the Trikaya of the Base. Primordial Energy of the Base arises in spacetime (dependent origination/pratitya samutpada) as the mandala of our own vajra. 1. Body: Dharmakaya, Om, Adi Buddha Samantabhadra, crown, Energy. 2. Voice (speech): Sambhogakaya, Ah, Buddha Vajrasattva, throat, Nature. 3. Heart Mind (wisdom mind): Nirmanakaya, Hum, Buddha Shakyumuni, heart. Essence. III. The Path: Development Stage, the way of practice. Letting be, as it is. Meditation on Body, Voice and Mind; opening heartmind, seeing ignorance/desire of the five skandhas of attachment to conditional existence and its three marks: impermanence (anitya), no-self (anatman) and suffering. Purification of misdeeds. Awakening bodhicitita of intention and action. The Two Accumulations: wisdom (prajna) and merit (means/upaya) as compassion (karuna). “Descend with the View, ascend with the Conduct.”. A. The Three Dzogchen Meditation Series: Semde, Longde, Mengagde (upadesha). Introduction, recognition and stabilization of rig pa/vidya (“brief moments, many times”) or Mind Essence, the self-perfected, always present state of presence of our Supreme Source, the primordial state of each being. Development of deep heartmind devotion for the master and all enlightened beings (rigzin), and compassion for all unenlightened beings. The five poisons (ignorance, desire, anger, pride, envy) are the five wisdoms. Pure vision: abiding without concepts “It is already accomplished” (Garab Dorje). B. The Secret Upadesha (the master’s pith instruction): The Longchen Nyingthig is the Secret Heart-Essence of the Great Expanse, Yeshe Lama, Trekchö (wisdom/purity) and Togäl (means/presence) practices follow ngöndro, the foundation practices. Obstructions to living the teaching self-liberate into rig pa, the luminous primordial awareness wisdom of their Supreme Source (cittadhatu), beyond concept, belief fear and hope. IV. The Fruit (Result): Perfection Stage. Realization of our base/source; means (male), wisdom (female) unified; liberation from the suffering of ignorance that is desire-seeking-attachment and fear-anger-aggression. A. Realization and integration of the View, our prior unity of awareness and emptiness, (spontaneous presence and primordial purity), through shamatha/vipashyana practice. Continuity of rig pa, primordial presence demonstrated through The Conduct. From “undistracted non-meditation” the search falls away as samadhi of wisdom-compassion-love arises spontaneously. Realization of nondual refuge and bodhicitta. The Three Times—past, present, future—are the on-going timeless instant of rig pa, the fourth time (turiya). The Two Truths—relative and ultimate— Thee Bodies of the Base, a realized unity. Emaho! Mahasukaho! The Great Happiness that cannot be lost. B. Realization (full bodhi) of the Great Transfer of the Body of Light (ja lus), Rainbow body, the identity of primordially pure Essence Nature and Energy of the Supreme Source that is Yeshe, nondual primordial wisdom (jnana, gnosis) of emptiness, prajnaparamita, mother clear light of buddhahood. Svaha. ©David Paul Boaz, 2000, Copper Mountain Institute, www.davidpaulboaz.org
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Appendix B The Idols of The Tribe: The Metaphysics of Modern Science Science and its scientists must make conscious their ap rio ri preconscious metaphysical presuppositions, value assumptions and beliefs underlying modern scientific ideology and methodology. These “idols of the tribe” become the “false absolutes” of science that belie the interdependence of subject and object, experimenter and experiment. Scientific study and research into subjective aspects of mind and consciousness is thereby precluded. For example, the view that the whole of reality is objective and physical, or that it is subjective and spiritual, is a judgement of value, not a scientific fact. These unproven and unprovable metaphysical assumptions and beliefs are the totems or m ana of scientism, the cult of modern and postmodern scientific materialism that permeates the view of the physical and social sciences, humanities and our global mass culture. This quite unscientific protoreligion is largely responsible for our catastrophic reduction of subjective spirit to mere objective consumable matter. We may now summarize these unexamined exclusionist biases, assumptions and beliefs. 1. The Principle of Physicalism (Material Realism): An essentially pre-given separate and independently existing, exclusively p hysical spacetime reality exists as the basis of all appearing phenomena, a p rio ri, independent of observation or experiment by any sentient observer (the “myth of the given”). 2. The Principle of Objectivism: This purely physical reality is ultimately knowable to separate human observers via objective, quantitative scientific observation, experiment and mathematical analysis (although objective proof has remained unfindable for 400 years). Reality is ultimately objective. The mind’s subjective personal and transpersonal phenomena are not proper study for objective science (the “taboo of subjectivity”) 3. The Principle of Material Substance Monism: There is no reality other than, or transcendent to this objective physical reality, and no truth or truths discoverable or existant beyond the view of this objectivist material realist “scientific method.” 4. The Principle of Reductionism: All subjective experience—private, first person, mental, emotional and spiritual events—can be reduced to their objective, purely physical electrochemical neural correlates. Mind, experience, behavior, God are nothing more or less than an “emergent property,” an epiphenomenon or “artifact” of physical brain and its physical-chemical processes. Causality is always “upward” from physical to mental. “Downward causality,” mental to physical is ideologically precluded. 5. The Principle of Local Universal Causal Determinism: All events are determined by their local, purely physical causes. If we knew all the initial causal conditions, then we could predict or determine with complete certainty all of the effects (objects/events) in the universe. 6. The Closure Principle: This purely physical realm of all existence is “causally closed” to any non-physical causal explanation. The validity of any causal explanation beyond the purely physical dimension is implicitly or explicitly denied. 7. The Principle of Universalism: The preceding principles are the only correct explanations as to the nature of reality, its discovery, prediction, explanation and interpretation. No other views or methodologies can lead to truth. All differing views are in error. (Thanks to Werner Heisenberg, Neils Bohr, Willis Harmon, Alan Wallace, Ken Wilber, David Finkelstein, Adi Da Samraj, Richard Tarnas, Owen Barfield, Amit Goswami and the many astute critics of Scientific Materialism.) __________________ ©2008 by David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu). All rights reserved. Copper Mountain Institute, 505-898-9592. www.coppermount.org, e-mail
[email protected].
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Appendix C
The Structures of Consciousness: A Review of The View One Ground, Two Truths, Three Bodies, Four Views, Five States Exoteric/Outer, Waking States, Gross Body: Dualistic, indirect, relative-conventional truth, concept-belief; empirical subject-object knowledge (doxa, namtok, opinion, information, third person objective scientific data). Manovijnana, the gross waking state (physical, emotional, mental). Empirical spacetime Gross Body energy dimension; exoteric/outer conceptual and experiential belief in a separate material reality and a separate God. The Bardo of living. Ground stage introduction to the View. Shamatha, mindfulness meditation practice. Nirmanakaya. Esoteric/Inner, Dream State, Subtle Body: Dualistic, “lesser esoteric” form; meditativedevotional first person subjective recognition of the “state of presence”; discriminating, quasiconceptual knowledge-wisdom (dianoia, sophia, prajna). Deity realms. Subtle Body energy dimension, klishta manovijnana, Saguna Brahman, Ishvara, esoteric/inner but separate God. Path stage. The Bardo of Becoming. Quiescence and introspection practice Nirmanakaya. Greater Esoteric/Innermost Secret, Deep Dreamless Sleep State, Causal Body: Alayavijnana, Causal Body energy dimension. Wisdom of Satchitananda, Fruition stage. The Bardo of Dharmata/Ultimate Reality. Deity meditation and Vapashyana or insight meditation. “Path Luminosity.” Sambhogakaya. Non-Dual State/Turiya, Essence Body: Dharmakaya realized through the transcendent witness presence, beyond dualistic, subject/object, two-valued concept, belief and even the subjective bliss of deep contemplative experience. Final fruition stage. Realization of the prior unity of the Two Truths (relative and ultimate), the three kayas and three vijnanas. The primordial Tao/emptiness of Absolute or Ultimate Spirit lived with its cognitive, meditative and compassionate ethical conduct finally stabilized and actualized in the lifeworld (transcendent primordial awareness wisdom mind, prajnaparamita, noesis, gnosis, christos, logos, vidya/ rigpa, yeshe); Plato’s noetic-logoic final development stage); mahasiddha Christ-Buddhahood. This is Svabhavikakaya, prior unity of the Trikaya of the Base (gzhi), body of pure alaya (amalavijnana), turiya “the fourth,” realized as turiyatita, the final non-dual fifth state. “Ground Luminosity.” Atman that is Nirguna Brahman. Non-Dual “Real God,” beyond all theistic concept and belief. Fruition of Mahamudra, Madhyamaka and Dzogchen. These four views or dimensions display as a prior unity in the unbounded whole. This perfectly subjective whole transcends yet embraces all arising objective phenomena (the Two Truths). These five innate states of consciousness, supported by their four corresponding energy bodies or dimensions are potentially, momentarily available directly to each self-conscious being. However, the ascending levels of meditative stability and realization (samadhi), are non-ordinary aspects of these five states that result only from the contemplative mind training of the spiritual Path (lam). The various levels of understanding of the interdependent relation of these four views of the “two minds” or Two Truths of this one great sourceground—the vast Reality that is non-dual Spirit Itself—constitute both the exoteric-conventional and the more subtle, esoteric- contemplative View of this supreme source of all appearing reality for the religious and philosophical wisdom traditions of our primordial Great Wisdom Tradition. Just so, from the View emerges the Path to the realization of that unbounded whole, and its Fruition or result in the everyday lifeworld and ethical conduct of the individual, and thereby the spiritual and moral worldview and its potential realization for the sociocultural whole. ____________________________
*©2008, David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu), Copper Mountain Institute (505) 898-9592, www.coppermount.org, e-mail
[email protected].
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Appendix C: Part II The Structures of Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism* Life Stage/Mind State (evolutionary, developmental) 1, 2, 3 Egocentric Physical, Emotional, Mental Stage; Individuation of lower mind. Dualistic material seeking strategies dominate the view and behavior. Sleepwaiting denial of spirit-presence. Exoteric, relativeconventional response. Gross ignorance of the essencelessness and impermanence of the five skandhas of existence and the five sense consciousnesses. Om Gate. . . 4 Ethnocentric Spiritual development ground and path stage; dualistic conventional religious and beginning mystical seeking; finding the master; conditional savikalpa samadhi; the lesser esoteric response. Shamatha mindfulness practice. The Mahatman or essence-self recognition; diety practice. Spiritual materialism. Path of form. Kindness. Quiescence practice. Para Gate. . .
Consciousness Dimension/State (avastha) (non-developmental, inherent in all beings.) Waking State (Exoteric) (vaishvanara/ jagrat) Intentional, ego-motivated, desire-mind awareness, estranged and ignorant (avidya) of non-dual Atman that is Brahman. Empirical reality. Subject-object separation and dependence. The physical and lower mental phenomenal worlds. Physical and emotional body of desire. Lifeworld ruled by fear and hope. Prepersonal to personal. The Bardo of Living. Nirmanakaya. Dream State (Esoteric) (svapna) Prepersonal, preconscious, subtle body of desire. Non-empirical illusory (maya) subjectobject independence. Objective, relativeconventional realism. Beginning compassion. Fear and hope. Personal to transpersonal. “State effects” not yet “trait effects.” The Bardo of Becoming.
Deep Sleep State (Greater Esoteric) (formless sushupti/ prajna) 5, 6 Transpersonal, transrational; profound, wise Worldcentric compassion. A lifeworld devoted to Spiritual completion fruition stage; deity, surrender, renunciation and service. formless and kosmic mysticism; the Subjective idealism. Transpersonal subtle to greater esoteric response, vipashyana causal cognition. Path of the siddhas, rishis, practice. Moksha-nirvikalpa samadhi. arhats, saints and bodhisattvas. Transcendent Karma ceases only when in turiya (vidya/ rigpa); compassionate transcendent Witness Presence awareness. Transpersonal, transrational. The Bardo of Dharmata. Witness practice, Dzogchen, Essence Sambhogakaya Mahamudra. Frequent “clicking” from asleep to awake states. Insight practice. Turiya (“The Fourth”) Parasamgate. . . (The innermost secret, non-dual 7 transcendent Witness) Theocentric Realization (liberation) of personal identity with Spiritual perfection stage; final furition, Absolute Reality, Brahman, Buddhahood, alpha pure non-dual realization; full primordial, non-dual Spirit Itself in whom arises bodhi; Atman identity with Brahman; no all phenomena. Great compassion. Transcends more learning; muni; transcendent and includes the previous relative states. The integration of conditional self in lifeworld timeless “fourth time,” prior unity of (moksha-sahaj samadh), behond fear Svabhavakakaya/ Trikaya of the Base; and emptiness hope. Karma ceases; Maha-rishi, Christ(shunyata) realized through yeshe/ jnana/ Buddhahood. Realization of Kham gnosis,
Corresponding Energy-Body/Kosha Dimension/Vijnana (Body, Mind, Soul, Spirit) Gross Body Gross physical matter-energy body (annamaya-kosha). Life, Prana or Emotional Body (pranamaya-kosha). The Quantum potential. Mental Body (manomaya-kosha), manas desiremind/sense-mind (citta or sems). Brahman as Virat. Conditional self and its identities. The five skandhas/ sense consciousnesses (panchdvara-vijnana) plus mind (manovijnana) Om... Subtle Body (sukshma-sarira) (vijnanamaya-kosha) Transcends & embraces previous koshas. Buddhi, higher mental, citta, reflecting and discriminating mind. The will. Intellectual and subtle dharma understanding. Beginning insight and bhakti/ devotional meditation (dhyana). Path of the yogis/saints (love wisdom). Brahman as Prajapati or Hiranyagarbha. Klishta-Manovijnana, subtle body, the root of ego-I. Mani... Causal Body (karana-sarira) (anandamaya-kosha) Soul, transcendent mental, wisdomspirit-bliss; path of sages arhats, bodhisattvas 8th & 9th bhumi. Non-dual Witness practice. Causal dimension to non-dual Absolute. Saguna Brahman as prana-vayu or sutratman. Alayavijnana
Atman The non-dual, untainted divine presence (vidya, rigpa, logos), Supreme Identity, the Witness (saksin) that is identical to Nirguna Brahman, the Supreme Source. Transcends and embraces previous samadhis, koshas and all conditional experience. Mouna, the great Peace in the Silence. Om Shanti Om. Tao, shyunyata/emptiness, Dharmakaya. The unobstructed Pure Alaya (amalavijnana). Buddha NatureUltimate Mind Nature(sems nyid/ cittata, gnosis). Tao.
* The multidimensional pie of Spirit descending as phenomenal reality and the ascending realization of its non-dual Source is sliced in slightly different ways by different Wisdom Traditions, and even within traditions. Moreover, although the koshas of Vedanta and the vijnanas and kayas of Buddhism generally correlate, there is at present, no agreement on the definitions and correlation of consciousness dimensions, lifestages, bodies, levels, structures, and mindstates. ©2005, David Paul Boaz, www.davidpaulboaz.org
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Appendix D
Being the Primordial Awareness Wisdom* The Non-Meditation That is Happiness Itself
Now is the moment we abide in primordial essence Luminous nature of mind empty awake awareness itself Whatever experience arises Pleasant neutral unpleasant no need to change it Whatever arises let it be without judgement positive or negative without past or future without attachment or aversion without affirmation or denial without closeness or distance Whatever arises is pure clear light of mind opening into the very ground of being Thus whatever arises is liberated Now let it be exactly as it is Perfect openness Perfect space As it is already accomplished Simply relax into it
_________________ * Excerpted from Stromata, Fragments of the Whole: Selected Essays of David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu) ©1009 David Paul Boaz. All rights reserved. www.davidpaulboaz.org, Coppermountain Institute,
[email protected], www.coppermount.org, 505-898-9592
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Appendix E Toward an Integral Ecology of Mind The barrier between subject and object does not exist. Subject and object are only one.” - Werner Heisenberg What’s in a Name? The normal obscuring sectarian bias regarding our own views, opinions and beliefs may be somewhat mitigated by an awareness that the following key terms of our primordial Great Wisdom Tradition are mere conceptual relative-conventional truths, useful archetypes and metaphors for the ultimate truth that is the utterly ineffable great unbounded whole, intrinsic primordial awareness that is non-dual Reality Itself. These signs symbolize and support our direct, noetic non-conceptual, recognition, then stabilized realization and ethical fruition of the great mystery of the Word-Logos, one breath of many voices, fugue of the presence of the source that steadfastly links us to unseparate Ultimate Spirit. This great Reality is the prior, fundamental underlying unity, our primordial sourceground that is the very Nature of Mind, the “Big Mind” in whom we all appear and participate, and its primordial awareness wisdom through whom we understand, then realize this great process. The Bright. For example, Tao, Ta’i Ch’i, Wu/Mu, Zen, Purusha, Nirguna Brahman, Satchitananda, Samantabhadra, Shunyata (the Great Emptiness), Tathata (Suchness), kadag/gzhi/The Base, Longchen (the Great Expanse), Dharmakaya, Dharmata, Mahamudra, Apeiron/Chronos, Anthropos, Urgrund, En Sof, Fitrah, haqiqa, Bathos/The Depth, and the I AM of Abba the primordial Father, all refer to the ineffable, perfectly subjective interdependent non-dual prior unity of all that is. Although this great awareness continuum is known by these and many other names, it is always the still womb of our Great Mother (Prajnaparamita, Shakti, Isis, Maria), indivisible, divine, Supreme Source or Base of all finite objective and subjective arising phenomenal reality. Relative Motion. Just so, the light-energy-motion that appears as the lifeforce of our bodymind with its sentient experience is this continuously arising relative spacetime phenomenal reality descended from our perfectly subjective primordial sourceground. This light/life energy of form is ch’i, prana/vayu, tsal/lung, pneuma, spiritus, ruach, an-Nur, Rupakaya, pleroma, light. Being Here. The ever-present Witness of our primordial sourceground is this pure intrinsic awareness presence of that ultimate reality, always already spontaneously present and fully awake at the spiritual heart of each human being. This presence is known as vidya-rigpa, logos-christos, parousia, purusha, atman-saksin, ming, tawhid, shekhina, in the turiya of the moment Now, whether or not it is recognized by individual participants of this great whole. This is the presence of our compassionate wisdom mind that recognizes, then realizes the unbounded whole that is Reality Itself. This is the awareness that is the ultimate truth (paramartha) of our innate, non-dual transcendent Primordial Awareness Wisdom—Gnosis, Jñana, Yeshe, Noesis, Fana, Shakti, Samantabhadri, Prajnaparamita, Tathagatagarbha. This is our primordial wisdom mind that continuously recognizes and realizes itself as ultimate essential Mindnature, the “unbounded” Whole that is our Supreme Source. Who Is It? How shall we accomplish this great realization? Through dhyana (meditation, zen, gompa) under the guidance (satsang) of a qualified living master we stride the spiritual path. This is the great work (sadhana) to be done. We may then come to realize, then actualize in the world—for oneself and for others—that prior unity of wisdom and compassion that is “Ultimate Happiness Itself” (ananda, mahasuka, eudaemonia), the fruition of the “innermost secret” View of this great process. Such a realization is, this moment now, sleepwaiting in the eternal womb of our Great Wisdom Mother, infinite potential of the compassionate, continuous samhadi of certainty, equanimity and joy that is the heartseed witness presence of our ever-present Christ-Buddha Nature (Christos, Tathagatagarba). It is That (Tat) according to the masters of humanity’s Great Wisdom Tradition, that is the essential Nature of Mind (cittata, sem nyid, gnosis), our very Mind Essence (svabhava, cho nyid, asti, ousia, eidos ) that is the actual Supreme Identity and potential ultimate happiness of each one of us, and indeed, of every sentient being in every dimension of every world system. Who is it? Tat tvam ami! That I Am! Without a single exception. __________________ ©2008 by David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu). All rights reserved. Copper Mountain Institute, 505-898-9592. www.coppermount.org, e-mail:
[email protected].
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Appendix F
Being Here Reflections on the Nature of Mind* What does it matter what poetry is? All that matters is the eternal movement behind it. -Dylan Thomas
What is this eternal movement? What is the nature or essence of mind who is aware of it? Who is it that moves in this beauty, and shines awake? In whom does this all arise? The energy that we are arises and descends each moment from its great sourceground as movement, relative motion in space and time. This ultimate source or matrix of the light energy that is organized as matter is prior to time, an infinite non-dual subject/object unified field. It has many names. It is utterly ineffable. Humanity’s Wisdom Tradition, including recent quantum physics, views this ground of physical and mental forms unfolding as a primordial unbounded whole in whom is enfolded the perpetual mystery of all that is. This supreme source transcends yet embraces all phenomena arising therein. Perception ruled by conceptual mind sees only the parts. Wisdom mind understands, then acts in conscious relationship with the whole. Wisdom knows “Energy is Eternal Delight.” Sublime beauty. Great joy for us. How then shall we move from being apart to being this whole? It is told through our Great Wisdom Tradition—that stream of radical truth that flows through all traditions—of the non-dual singularity of this whole there are “Two Fundamental Truths,” two ways of being here. We live in two worlds at once! Ultimate Truth is the vast expanse of the whole itself, all embracing non-dual Spirit that is our “Big Mind.” This selfless, pure intrinsic awareness cannot be grasped by the concepts and beliefs of the realm of Relative Truth that is “Small Mind,” the dualistic, subject/object separated reality of our perceptual and conceptual knowledge and experience. However, the ultimate unbroken whole—our acausal perfectly subjective source embracing all arising physical and mental objects—informs, enlightens and delights our everyday relative cause and effect world. It is profound. Yet, wonder of wonders, it is always fully present and awake at the Heart. At our spiritual Heart we may touch it. Here, undreamt of in the thoughtful slumber of human reason and belief, beyond hope and fear this, our all inclusive base of reality—reality itself—is experienced by all human beings, brief moments, perfectly, just as it is. Whether or not we recognize it. Wisdom recognizes it. Wisdom trusts this awakening. How then shall we awaken to this uncommon wisdom? Primordial Wisdom continually recognizes itself in the paradox of the natural perfection of all our experience, shines awake through the mind and abides at the Heart of all beings. Calm, clear, delighted. Great beauty of it. Here is the happiness that is always present. Here is the happiness that cannot be lost. No need to seek it. No need to improve it. Good to practice it. Practice consumes conceptual/emotional veils that seem to obscure its constant presence. Practice recognizes, not tomorrow, but here and now this primordial wisdom seed at the Heart, then realizes, then actualizes in the world—for oneself and for others—the great happiness. Practice is the imperfect intention, then action of our perfect, innate, selfless wisdom mind. Such wisdom naturally intends kindness toward all beings. Wisdom delights in kindness. This wisdom of kindness arises spontaneously through occasional, then moment to moment recognition of the all-inclusive unbounded whole that is our origin and aim. This prior essential great perfection is the vast love that binds the worlds. That force is essence of our being, the very nature of mind. This bright enlightened Heart essence, by whatever name, is who we are. Relax now into That and be supremely happy. So it is told by the masters of our Great Wisdom Tradition. Thus it is, from such a ground do we descend, breath of one voice, bright fugue these many colors, forms falling, light steadfastly mirrors our never separate, ever present presence of this supreme source as we ascend again, each moment return to that in whom this all arises. Who is it? Tat tvam ami. That I am. Without a single exception. David Paul Boaz (Dechen Wangdu) ________________
* ©2008 by David Paul Boaz. All rights reserved. Copper Mountain Institute, www.coppermount.org,
[email protected]
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