Early Galaxy - 6 billion years ago

(one half of the age of the universe)

Science and the Teachings of the Buddha

(In Three Parts)

PART ONE

Published in response to thoughts expressed by Blaine Smith, Jonny Joe, and Lunares in linking the teachings of the Buddha with contemporary science, and perhaps also for those engaged in Buddhist meditative practices (“mindfulness”), especially the Canadian artist, teacher, Allan O’Marra, and friend Cody Masek.

From work in progress

“Promises Made – Celebration of Life and the Threefold Lotus Sutra”

 (Dana F. Skolfield)

These are really thoughts of all men and women in all ages and lands,
they are not original with me.
If they are not yours as much as mine,
they are nothing, or next to nothing . . .

If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle, they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant, they are nothing.

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

  In 1982-83 the process of learning and study is jump-started by the Timothy Ferris article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, “Beyond Newton and Ein­stein” and from his PBS special, “Creation of the Universe,” luring me into a world of cosmology and quantum physics.

  Cos­molo­gists study the history of the uni­verse; quantum physi­cists, the very small, seeking a theory of a grand, unified force found in primor­dial energy resulting in the formation of all matter in the universe.

  Following this in 1983 and up to the present time, further insights from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time; Timothy Ferris’s Coming of Age in the Milky Way; physicist Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point, and Ken Wilber in an interview from the 1996 archives of “Shambhala Sun Magazine” on line. More recently, gaining new perspectives from further writings—significantly, and not surprisingly—enhancing and resonating with teachings of the Buddha.

  It must be emphasized here that I’m certain my present state of “mindfulness” and hopefully increasing awareness—celebration of life each day—has been made possible only because I’ve had the great good fortune to find remarkable, “life-affirming” friends, in person, as well as on-line responders to blog posts, a few mentioned above.

  When particle physicists began to explore the inner workings of atoms which make up everything in the universe, quantum mechanics and theories of rela­tivity opened up “two very different paths for physicists to pursue, leading to, as Fritjof Capra says in The Turning Point, “the Buddha or the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take.”

  These explorations led physicists to conceptions of the universe as an inter­connected web of relationships—webs of energy we call matter—and to the con­clusion that these “cosmic webs of energy” are intrinsically dynamic and can be understood only in terms of movement, action and interaction.

  Timothy Ferris reminds us in Coming of Age in the Milky Way that quantum physicists discovered in their observations that what is perceived in experiments depend on the point of view of the observer, and this “tore down walls, reuniting mind with the wider universe . . . we do not see things in them­selves, but only aspects of things. What we see in an electron path is not an electron, and what we see in the sky are not stars.” (One is reminded here of the central lesson of “The Magic City” – Chapter 7 of the Lotus Sutra – to see beyond appearances.)

  Just as the Buddha taught—things, phenomena, are what we choose to call them, in reality not really what they are; that the true aspect is the one law, namely, non­form. These insights began to emerge when I discovered in 1985 the writings of Nikkyo Niwano, co-founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, a Buddhist laypersons group. His Guide to the Threefold Lotus Sutra and Buddhism for Today, a modern interpretation of the Threefold Lotus Sutra and many other writings, insured my own “lifetime” dedi­ca­tion to the sutra, and to the Buddha’s teachings.

  With each new advance in theoretical science, physicists and cosmologists inform us that since the beginning of time, nothing in the universe today, including you and me, could have come into existence had not certain condi­tions caused it—matter created from primordial energy forming patterns of rela­tion­­ship, matter pre­dom­i­nating over anti-matter, elemental particles reaching out to inter­­connect to form webs of rela­tionship. Reaching back to the first second of time, the universe began to form out of the “big bang,” caused by funda­mental elements which make up all life in the universe today. “Every atom in your body was once inside a star.” (Alan Sandage, Cosmologist.)

  Buddha-thought presents a remarkably similar view. The central doctrine of the Buddha’s teachings, the Law of Causation, states that all phenomena in the universe are produced by causation, thus, all things are interrelated. From Niwano’s Buddhism for Today:

  “Shakyamuni Buddha did not regard this universe as God’s creation or his conquest, but as resulting from the relation of cause and effect by which all phenomena are produced. . . all things exist in relationship to one another and are interdependent.

  “All things and forms in the universe, how we view ourselves as human beings, are produced from one void that can neither be seen with the eyes nor felt with the hands. There is a great invisible life-force of the universe, the working of which produces all things from the void, and all things are produced by virtue of the necessity of their existence. Humanity is no exception. We ourselves are brought into being in the forms we take by virtue of the necessity to live in this world. Think­ing this way, we are bound to feel the worth of being alive as human beings, the wonder of having been brought into this world.”

  Buddhist teachings ask, “Is there something which is unchanging and eternal?” The Buddha suggests in the Lotus Sutra this “some­thing” is life itself, the desire to live, originating from primordial energy at the beginning of time—the great life-force of the universe caus­ing every­thing to live. The universe simply is, primordial energy caused its existence. The Buddha is not god or creator, but the appearing Buddha, Shakyamuni’s enlightenment that we are all one substance with “Original Buddha”—one substance with nothing other than the great life-force which caused everything to live from the moment of the “big bang” leading to the emergence of humankind.

  Revering the Buddha – recognizing “Buddha” presence in each moment of our lives, simply gives name to and a vision of celebration of life itself.