Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute talk, Alex Berzin establishes a rational, empirical common ground between Buddhism and Western science. He opens by explaining that the Buddha’s core instruction—to test all teachings rather than accept them on faith—mirrors the scientific method exactly. From there, Berzin walks through Buddhism as a problem-solving system: problems arise from impulsive behavior rooted in disturbing attitudes like attachment and aversion, which in turn arise from insecurity about identity, which stems from a fundamental lack of awareness. He traces this causal chain using a chemistry-inspired working-backward approach, then shows how both traditions pursue understanding of reality to eliminate the causes of suffering. The talk moves into cosmology, explaining how Buddha’s two different descriptions of the universe each serve a specific purpose (wisdom-development vs. meditative integration) rather than literal navigation, and how Buddhist ideas about cycles of universes with space atoms parallel contemporary physics discussions. Finally, Berzin explores the Buddhist concept of emptiness—not nothingness, but the absence of fantasized, solid-seeming ways of existing—and draws parallels to science: atoms make up seemingly solid objects; relativity shows observation affects description; and even quantum particles shift between matter and energy depending on conceptual framing. Suited to those approaching Buddhism from a scientific or skeptical background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 S and B.mp3
UUID: 09c5bf2f-6ae6-41ad-aa2c-784d3eb77d16
Teacher: Alex Berzin
Collection: Science and Buddhism (Alex Berzin)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.2 minutes
Words: ~6,673
Well, I have to sit really close to this. Thank you very much for that very kind introduction. Does that actually work? Can you hear me? Well, I’m very happy to, be here in Adelaide.
We’re going to, talk this evening about, Buddhism and science. Is there a common meeting ground? Talk like this. Nice and close. And I suppose it’s a fairly interesting topic to a lot of people in the West when we approach Buddhism to have some ideas.
Is this just a strange type of religion which is talking about things in other worlds and other lives and has nothing to do with our Western way of living, Western values? Or is this something which can have, something in common with, our Western values, our Western way of approaching things? I myself approached, Buddhism originally coming from a scientific background. I originally, was studying chemistry in, university, and I found that I didn’t really want to pursue that as my life’s profession and went further into studying oriental things from very young. I was quite interested in oriental types of things, started doing yoga when I was quite young.
And at university, although I was doing chemistry, I was taking a survey of Asian civilization and found that very interesting. And in that course, it spoke about how Buddhism was taken from one civilization to another in Asia, and this whole process of translation going from one civilization to another, how things are culturally adapted and so on fascinated me very much. And from that, I went into a new program, which was being started at a nearby university for, opening up their Asian languages departments for further students. So I pursued that and continued doing Chinese, Japanese, then into the Indian side with Sanskrit and eventually to Tibetan. But the basic scientific approach which I had from my earlier training, is something which I’ve tried to maintain throughout my career.
And it’s this particular scientific approach, to things which forms one of the most fundamental common grounds between Buddhism and science. This is something which His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, always emphasizes. He himself is quite interested in science. He’s the head of the Tibetan Buddhist group and the most developed and highly respected teacher and spiritual master among the Tibetans, and as well as being the political leader of the group in exile, the Tibetans in exile. But anyway, he himself has a great interest in science, and as he travels around the world, he particularly makes it a point to meet with astrophysicists, nuclear physicists, and, neurologists, these three groups in particular, to, discuss with them, various ideas about, the particles of matter, what are the forces that hold them together, the origin of the universe, and how that developed, and how the brain works, how learning theory works, all these sort of things, because Buddhism has a great deal to say on this subject as well.
And, in fact, there tend to be quite a few points which come out in common. But let’s start with the basic approach which we have both in science and Buddhism. The Buddha himself, who lived about two thousand five hundred years ago, set out the general principle, which is that never believe what I say, would have said, just out of respect for me, but test everything out, check it out for yourself, as if you were buying gold. Now, this is a very reasonable and rational type of approach to things, Buddha is saying basically, only accept things that are, you know, what’s rational, what’s logical, what can be verified by valid experimentation and valid experience, which obviously is the basic approach in science. Science has the idea of exploring different fields of information, fields of knowledge, trying to understand what’s going on and doing that also by experimentation, not just taking things, you know, on faith, not taking it out of respect for some authority figure, but going out and trying to actually find out for ourselves and verify things.
Both of these, of course, both the scientific and the Buddhist point of view, put a great deal of emphasis therefore on having respect for a human being, respect for the capacity of humans to be able to understand things. That you can tell also from the definition of what exists, which is given in Buddhism. And the definition of what exists is what can be known. And so if it exists, it can be known. If so then it follows that if it can’t be known, then it doesn’t exist.
So again, it’s this approach that we are capable of understanding all the phenomenon of the universe, all the phenomenon about our life. Buddhism is never a mystical type of religion which is calling for a leap of faith to believe a whole set of dogma or doctrines which are beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend or encompass. When we read in some of the Buddhist literature how it says that, well, there are certain things, the deepest fact about things, or the ultimate is beyond the mind, beyond words, and so on, that has to be understood with some explanation, because what it’s saying is that, an awful lot of, the way that we operate, the way that our mind works, is that, we tend to categorize things into black and white categories. Know, put them into little cubbyholes with big black lines around it, and the deepest facts of reality, are beyond that type of mind which would categorize it in black and white terms, or in a type of verbal terminology which would categorize it that way. But it doesn’t mean that it’s beyond the mind to mind’s ability to be able to encompass everything can be known.
And as the Dalai Lama has said, this basic approach, which is respecting the ability of man to be able to understand things, and which is based on verifying things, that he is willing to put everything in Buddhism to that test. And he has often said that if the scientist can disprove rebirth, that he’s willing to drop it from Buddhism. And so, you know, this is a very radical type of statement by the head of a major world religion to say something like that. And so clearly it’s showing this very open minded type of attitude. Of course he says, you know, on the other hand as well, that if you can’t disprove, rebirth, then, that’s not a valid rational grounds to then dismiss it.
You know, you have to either be able to prove it or disprove it. If you’re not able to do either, then you have to at least consider it. So, you know, it’s this basic type of very rational, logical approach which is, taken. Now, the way that Buddhism is oriented, it’s mostly a problem solving type of system, whether you call it a religion, a philosophy, a psychology, it could be called by many different terms, it depends who you are talking to. But basically, it’s a problem solving technique and approach.
It would have said that we all face many problems, everybody has problems in their lives, but these problems are things which have causes. They are not just things which happen for no reason at all. The world isn’t something which is just everything happening at random, arbitrary, with no laws, which again is the scientific approach. Things are explainable, understandable, and so are our problems. And, the, idea then is that it is possible then to achieve a stopping of our problems.
It’s possible to end them. They aren’t things which we are condemned to be able to live out forever and that we have no way of dealing with it. But our problems can be eradicated, and he taught a basic approach to that. And the basic approach to that is eliminate the causes, you’ve eliminated the problems. So again, a very rational way of looking at things.
And this is something which appealed to me very much, coming from a chemistry background, because it’s a little bit like trying to synthesize a compound in organic chemistry. And organic chemistry, at least the way that I studied it years ago, was you would have a compound, this is what you wanted to get to, and then you had to figure out how to get to that, all the steps that led to that. And so here, in the Buddhist approach, it’s a similar type of thing, sort of working backwards from a given quantity or a given entity. So the given quantity here, or entity, would be our basic problems. And we all face a lot of problems in our life.
These are problems, for instance, of having very difficult relationships with others. For instance, we might be a type of person who is very insecure and we are always nagging with our partner, you know, where did you go, why didn’t you call me last night, why didn’t you say you love me, these sort of things. And this is something which can cause a great deal of tension in a relationship. The other person says, Hey, wait a minute, give me a little bit of space, don’t be on my back all the time, that makes us feel even more insecure, we get a little bit more worried, Well, where did you go last night? And we nag some more.
It is a problem which can cause a breakup in the relationship, and what happens is we get into another relationship and again the same thing happens. The same insecurities, the same nagging, where did you go, why don’t you tell me you love me, this sort of thing. Again the person feels claustrophobic, again it breaks up, and again we get into another relationship, the same thing over and over again. This is what is called in Buddhism, saṃsāra. It’s uncontrollably recurring problems, things that keep on repeating and we have no control over them.
So if we have these type of problems, then you know, the point is to let’s work backwards and figure out where it came from. Because if we want to get rid of the problem, we’re going to have to seek out the root cause for it, how it arose. And so, you know, if you start to go backwards, then, well, this problem of rotten relationships with others based on all this mode of conduct that I described is arising because I’m acting impulsively. Impulsively meaning that the impulse comes to my head to say, Where did you go last night? Or the impulse comes to my head, I’m feeling insecure, to nag to the other person, to cling to the other person.
Or if you’re on the other side of this tango, to, you know, the impulse comes to your head, to, you know, really feel, overwhelmed by somebody who asks you that type of question, and to, just shut yourself off and to withdraw even further. You know, works two sides. As a great philosopher once said, it takes two to tango. So both sides are playing this game and it’s arising from this impulsive type of behavior. Impulsively we nag.
Now that’s what karma is talking about, by the way. karma in Buddhism, you see an awful lot of problems that have arisen concerning the understanding of Buddhism in the West, have arisen because of the either the English words which have been chosen to translate the Buddhist ideas a hundred years ago, or some of the jargon in Asian languages, which has come into our Western languages, also with not quite the meaning that it has in Buddhism. So a lot of the terminology is quite misleading. And one of them is this word karma, because often in the West it’s come into the English language to mean something like fate or destiny. Somebody was hit by a car, and we say, well, tough luck, that was their karma.
And you know, that’s very much as if it were fate or God’s will. It has nothing to do with that in Buddhism. What we’re talking about when we talk about karma is impulses impulses that come to our head to act in certain ways, or impulsive type of behavior. Why that impulse came to the person’s head to cross the street at just that moment when they would be hit by the car, and not five minutes earlier, five minutes later. Or why the impulse, or how impulse comes to your head to yell at somebody, to nag at somebody, to scream at somebody, these sort of things.
That’s the issue of karma. Problems come because we act impulsively, we have no control over how we’re acting. That by the way, is another thing that should be added to that discussion of karma, this point of karma, is that there’s no reason in the world why we have to act out the impulses that come to our head. A lot of crazy impulses come to our head and, we’ve learned already as a child, you know, growing up that certain things, you know, you just don’t do, certain things you know you just don’t say because it’s, destructive. It’s, you know, not going to make things any better for you.
It’s just going to create more problems. So the same thing, the whole idea of karma in Buddhism is not just shut up and accept your fate, but rather understand that our actions are being caused by various impulses that come to our head, and we always have the choice to be able to decide are we going to act out this impulse or not. We have basic ability as human beings to be able to distinguish and differentiate between what’s going to be constructive and what’s going to be destructive. And this type of ability is something which is respected very much. And you do have the ability, we all have that ability, to know that if I say this to my partner, to my friend, that’s really going to be destructive, it really is not going to help.
Or if I restrain myself from that, or if I give them a little bit more leeway, a little bit more freedom, that’s gonna be very constructive. So based on being able to see that, then we have, the ability to change our karma, as it were, to change the way that the impulses are working. So anyway, we get these impulsive type of behavior. Now where are those impulses coming from? Let’s go one step back further.
Again, the same sort of scientific approach. And the reason why these impulses to act in certain ways are coming to our mind is because we have a lot of disturbing type of attitudes. Attitudes like, desire or attachment. Right? We, want this other person to say I love you I love you I love you.
Or to stroke us or to, always you know, be with us, always show us attention. We’re somehow infatuated with this and, we can’t get enough of it. Right? And so because of that, then the impulse comes to our mind to constantly demand that the other person do this for us. Or it can be a disturbing attitude of repulsion, of, you want to get something away from us, you know, don’t nag me, don’t bug me, don’t be on my back, this sort of thing.
And so the response is one of hostility to try to get that away. Or it could be a disturbing attitude, which would then, by the way, give the impulsive behavior to back off and reject the person who’s nagging us. Or it could be a type of disturbing attitude of closed mindedness. You you just, you don’t wanna hear it. You don’t wanna deal with it.
So, you just, with that type of attitude, then if somebody’s nagging us, well, we just turn on the TV and, pretend that they’re not there. We don’t respond at all. You know, are many types of disturbing attitudes that can bring on this impulsive type of behavior. So, then the next step is, well, where are these disturbing attitudes coming from? What’s the basis for that?
And the basis for this disturbing attitude is that we’re insecure. We’re grasping for some sort of identity, right, to make ourselves secure and we have to either assert that or we feel threatened about it or we have to prove something, this sort of thing. And so if our identity is that well, I’m somebody who needs a great deal of attention and care, or I’m somebody who you know, I’m no good, I’m short, fat, and ugly, nobody loves me, this sort of identity, then we feel very, very insecure about that. And then to sort of bolster this, or to try to set up something a little bit more strong, then we feel attachment, this disturbing attitude comes up of, you know, well, if, you know, the other person will just always tell me that they love me, then, well, you know, maybe that will make this identity of mine, you know, that’s feeling very insecure, a little bit better, I’ll feel better, something like that. Well of course it doesn’t always work, most of the time it doesn’t work because if our basic identity is I’m short, fat, ugly and nobody loves me, I’m no good, I don’t deserve to be loved, this type of attitude, then, you know, although we can have great attachment and desire for the other person to tell us that they love us, still, we are never going to believe them.
You know, oh you are just saying that, you don’t really mean it. This type of attitude and it never suffices, it never makes us feel secure no matter how much anybody else says that they love us. Or if our self image, our identity is that we’re ugly, well, it really doesn’t matter how many times the other person tells us you look beautiful tonight. We don’t really believe them. Or if our identity is that we’re fat, then, you know, no matter how much weight we lose, we never accept that, you know, in the person’s mind who thinks that they’re fat, they’re always fat.
It doesn’t matter how much they weigh. So, all of these disturbing attitudes, you know, this anger, you want to get something away from us, you know, that’s threatening us, like my identity is that I’m an independent person, you know, fourteen-year-olds have this, identity is that I’m an independent, grown up, I can take care of myself and you don’t have to tell me what to do. And so then to make that secure, because obviously they’re insecure in that, then they have to reject any type of advice, any type of help that the parents offer. With this whole type of rebellion syndrome of fourteen-year-olds to try to make their identity as an independent adult person secure. So we have many, many ways of doing this.
Now, if we trace, where does this come from? This grasping for some type of ego identity, which then we feel we have to prove or we feel threatened about. Where does that come from? That’s coming from basically a lack of awareness of how we exist. We’re not quite sure who we are, what’s going on in the world, how other people exist, and so on.
Because of that we experience this lack of awareness as insecurity. If we don’t know really who we are, then you feel very insecure. If you don’t know who you are, if you feel insecure, then you grasp some identity, like we grasp at our body, I am a young healthy body. This is my identity, or I’m an athlete. That is our identity, then you know you hang on to that.
You don’t want to let that go, you don’t want that to change. And obviously we get into a lot of trouble with that because what happens is we have to then prove it. Right? So we’re attached to proving it and so we might have to go out there and, you know, we could be getting quite old, yet we have to go out there and jog. We have to prove that we’re still a young person, or that we can do it.
Or our hair is turning white or gray, well that doesn’t fit in with this identity, and so we are hostile towards the color of our hair, reject that, and you have to color your hair, or put on all sorts of makeup, or go out and have a love affair with a young person in order to prove that we’re still able to do it. You know, because we’re grasping really tight to this identity that I am an athlete or I am my young healthy body. Then obviously all the impulsive behavior comes up to, you know, well I have to go out there and jog, and so you go out there and jog and it could create a big problem. You have a heart attack or something, you know, as a sixty-year-old person out there jogging. So this is the basic type of analysis that Buddhism presents, going backwards from problems trying to trace what really are the causes.
And so this is something which, from my own scientific background, appealed to me very very much because here is a very rational type of explanation for how our problems arise and a rational way of trying to pinpoint the real underlying reason for it, and not just apply a superficial band aid, because then, obviously, if we can understand who we are, what’s going on with reality, then all of these other things won’t follow. We won’t feel insecure, so you won’t have to grasp for an identity, then you won’t have any disturbing attitudes because there’s nothing for you to prove, And then you won’t act impulsively, you won’t create problems. Of course, it can be explained in a much more sophisticated and complex way. But basically, this is sort of the approach. Therefore, to stop the uncontrollably recurring problems that we have, go back to their causes, this is our lack of awareness, and if we can gain awareness, if we can understand reality, then we won’t have problems.
Now this is certainly the pursuit that we have in science, which is to try to understand reality. What is actually going on in the world? Now we can talk about that on many levels. What is reality? And we can speak about what’s conventional reality.
Like, for instance, what is about the earth? What’s going on with the earth? Now, as was mentioned in the introduction, I’ve acted for many years as the interpreter for various lamas. And I remember once I was in New York City in speaking in translating for one lama, who was speaking in Harlem. Harlem is the predominantly black ghetto in New York.
And he was speaking at a black bookstore, there was a bookstore which was mostly oriented towards Negro culture in America, it was a spiritual group. And after the teacher spoke, the Lama spoke for a while, and then he asked for questions from the audience. And one person raised their hand and they stood up and they said, in a very strong accent, they said that, Well, I understand that the earth is hollow and that there are volcanoes, and volcanoes go down to this hollow in middle of the earth, and the flying saucers come out of there, because that’s where Atlantis is, and I want to know is the earth really hollow? Well you can imagine trying to translate that into Tibetan, with flying saucers in Atlantis. Anyhow, I managed to get the idea across and the Lama looked at this person and he said, Well, you know, the Buddha described that the world appears differently to different people based on their background and so on, but if you really want to know, the earth is square and flat.
Next question! And it was the absolute perfect answer to this man’s question because it was even more weird than the question. And so the guy just said, Square and flat? Yep! Sat down.
Now, like that, there are various descriptions of the world which are given. And the Buddha himself gave two descriptions of the universe and the world. And the fact that he gave two, which sounds a little bit weird when we read about them with Mount Meru and continents and all sorts of things like that, all sorts of different realms and so on. The fact that Buddha gave two different views is very indicative of the fact that obviously there is more than one way of looking at it. And that it’s not set and concrete and the fact that there’s two means that there could be three as well and so it’s not contradictory with Western science and the scientific description because basically in Buddhism each of these different descriptions of the universe is for a specific purpose.
And so if you don’t understand what the purpose is, obviously, on superficial looking at it, can say, well, this is just a weird type of mythology or whatever. But in the systems that you have, you have, for instance, a once general set of teachings called general knowledge, or Abhidharma in Sanskrit. And in the general knowledge teachings, there’s a very complex description of the universe with all sorts of realms and the, characteristics of each of these different life forms. It sounds like something out of Tolkien. And it is very complex.
And the whole point of it is to develop wisdom, it says. It is to develop the mind. And so you have two sets of commentaries to it, and basically it’s taking this fantastic complex system, and then it says, if we change one variable here, how does that change everything else in the system? Or if we change this other variable, how does it change all the other things? You know, the qualities of this realm or that realm.
And so, you know, whether or not what it’s describing is true is totally irrelevant because the whole point of it is to develop the ability of the mind to deal with very complex systems of very many variables and how different variables affect one another. And that’s what it says, it doesn’t say the purpose of this description of the universe is to navigate a ship or to send a rocket to the moon. It’s not intended for that. It’s intended to develop, as I say, this wisdom. So it’s not in contradiction to the scientific description.
The same with the other description of the universe that the Buddha gave, which is in Kālacakra, which is the wheel of time teachings, or cycles of time, rather. And in that, there’s a whole description of the universe in which all the proportions and everything are the same as the proportions of the human body. And it is intended to, be able to see the parallel type of forces that we have working on a macrocosmic scale in the universe and on a, inner scale in the human body and with the workings of the energies of the human body so that all these external and internal energies can be approached in an integrated manner for developing various spiritual things, developing the mind and so on. So again, it’s intended for a very different purpose than navigation. It’s intended for having a way of bringing external and internal phenomenon into a meditative type of practice.
So it’s on that basis that we can say that there’s not a contradiction here between the scientific and the Buddhist descriptions of the universe, because each is intended for a very different purpose. Now, when it comes to talking about the universe, though, if you ask, well, what does the Dalai Lama talk to these astrophysicists about when they talk about the forces of the universe? Obviously they’re not talking about Mount Meru and continents. So what are they talking about? And this gets to the whole description of what’s going on with the universe.
Now this is quite fascinating, I found. From the Buddhist point of view, the way the Buddha described, you have basically not just one universe, but you have many, many different universes. And each of these universes goes through a cycle. And so you start off with an empty period. I’ll discuss that Well, the empty period, there’s two points of view of this that Buddha taught.
One is that all the material matter of the universe, the atoms and so forth, are in potential form. Now from another point of view, and this is the one that the Dalai Lama speaks more to the scientists about, because it’s very fascinating, is that during this empty period you have what’s called space atoms. Now, atoms are referring to well, there’s two ways of looking at it. But it’s either the situation in which the subatomic particles are not held together. All right?
So the forces that are holding, you know, various subatomic particles together are not operating, and so you just have these free floating particles. That would be the empty era. That would be the space at the situation of space atoms. Or, another way of looking at it is that the space atoms are referring to the space between the subatomic particles within an atom, which again is getting to the same point of view of, you know, that situation between them, you know, when they’re not sort of held together. But, any case, you have either in potential form or in a non held together type of form, these atomic forces, and then the universe starts to come together, it starts to manifest, and so it develops, You have evolution, you have all the heavenly bodies first evolve, then you get different life forms evolving.
So there’s no contradiction with evolution either. Then, you know, certain life forms stabilize and then after a while things start to become extinct and eventually all life becomes extinct in the universe. Then the stars, the planets, and so on will either explode in some sort of fiery type of end, or they will dampen out, you know, sort of go cold, these sort of things, which again is very reminiscent of what science is talking about. And again, it collapses and it goes back to a situation of everything being either in potential form or in the form in which the subatomic particles are no longer held together. Then, again, it comes together, again it coagulates, again you get another universe, and it goes through cycles.
And there are many universes which are going through these cycles, but without them being synchronous, so that when one universe is building up, one, everything can be in a process of becoming extinct. So there’s this type of discussion which is very stimulating to the scientists. The scientists then will likewise explain that, you know, well all the scientists disagree, there’s many theories. You know, Big Bang theory or black hole type of things. All this sort of stuff becomes very exciting because there’s a great deal of interchange of ideas, stimulation.
You know, the Buddhist description can stimulate scientists to, well, know, maybe it’s like this, gives them another model to work with. And also it’s very fascinating because it again is working towards the scientific desire to find some sort of uniform field theory, you know, some explanation which is going to link the whole description of the forces of the universe that hold matter together, the subatomic forces, gravitational forces, all these sort of things, and from the Buddhist point of view, that is right on. They’re talking about everything being interrelated. So we have this type of general dialogue which goes on in terms of talking about the conventional level of the reality around us. But what about the deepest view of reality, the deepest facts about reality?
And concerning this, in Buddhism we talk a great deal about what’s usually translated as voidness or emptiness. Now again, it’s a bit of a misleading term because the English word gives the connotation of talking about nothingness, nihilism. And it’s certainly not talking about that in Buddhism, it’s just a poor translation. What it’s talking about is an absence. There’s an absence, something not there, something that’s not the case.
And what is not the case is fantasized ways of existing. In other words, we have all sorts of fantasies about what’s going on in the world, and these things are not the case. Now that of course is the scientific approach as well. We want to clear away all the superstition, all the fantasies, all the misconceptions about reality because they are not the case. There’s an absence of them, that’s what voidness is talking about.
Which, you know, clear out all these cobwebs and we get down to what actual reality is. What is the case? Now, there are many different levels described in Buddhism of what are fantasized ways of existing. You know, you can imagine that things exist that way, but it doesn’t refer to actuality. And, you know, if we start looking at that, again, we find more and more common ground between Buddhism and science.
Because first of all, Buddhism will say that what is absent, what’s not the case, is that things exist as concrete solid entities, which is the way that they appear to. But rather than things being solid and concrete, big black lines around them, everything is made up of atoms. Now this is something which science will agree to as well. You you look at your hand, your hand looks as though it’s solid and concrete, but you stick your hand under an electron microscope and we get down to the atoms, get down to the electrons and the subatomic particles, you get down to all the space in between the electrons, and so on, and all of a sudden this isn’t something solid and concrete at all, especially if you try to find the boundary between the atoms of your hand and the atoms of what’s going on around it. It’s a very fuzzy barrier, or transition, between these.
So this is something which is very common with science. Things are made of atoms, And it speaks about how things arise dependent on various parts and so on. Now, again, there is something that Buddhism can contribute here, because what Buddhism says is that everything is dependent on parts, everything is dependent on smaller and smaller things, which is what science is leading to. In science it says, well, the hand is made up of atoms, of molecules, molecules made of atoms, the atoms are made of electrons, the nucleus, the nucleus is made up of all the subatomic particles, and you go down, each one is made up of its parts. And what Buddhism says is that there is no ultimately smallest particle, which of course is a preoccupation with scientists these days to try to find the ultimately smallest building block.
And they never get down to it because no matter how small they go, they find after five years or so that they’ve been able to split that up as well, and they find that even that’s made of parts. Buddhism would say that’s a futile search to try to find the ultimately smallest particle because even if you get down to something like that it’s going to have a north side, a south side, an east, and a west side. So even that’s going to be made up of parts. So, again, you know, there’s a common meeting ground in terms of the whole idea of everything being made up of parts. Buddhism has a lot to offer in terms of saying, you know, well you’re really knocking your head against the wall if you want to find an ultimately smallest one.
And there are some scientists who are starting to think in those ways, there might not be in fact this ultimately smallest building block. Then, in science we talk further about relativity. That it’s a fantasized way of existing to imagine that things are just sort of static the way that the forces are described in Newtonian physics. You have to take in the theory of relativity as well, which means that to describe the data about some sort of moving object, have to also take into account the observer and the speed that the observer is going on. You know, you have these classic descriptions of, you know, well, how fast is the train going?
And, you know, if the observer is standing on the platform looking at the train going by, it’s a very different picture than if the observer is sitting on a train that’s going in the opposite direction from the train that’s going by. I mean, it’s clear that the whole situation looks very different and the description of it’s going to be different based on the observer, and the physical position, and things about the observer. Now Buddhism as well talks about that. And it says that it’s again a fantasized way of existing to imagine that things exist just from their own side totally unrelated to the observer, totally unrelated to the mind of the observer. Things can’t exist.
You can’t really speak about them in terms of their own data on their own side, but it has to be in relation to the observer. You have to take into account the whole thing about what’s going on with a mind that’s observing it. So this again is something in common, something that we agree upon. Also, of course, it helps stimulate both sides to learn how each side describes that. How they formulate that, because, you know, you get a different angle on it, it can give you different insights.
But, is not, what Buddhism would go a little bit further, and science does as well, and, it would say that this relativity here is not just in terms of the physical variables about the observer, like how fast the observer is going and this sort of thing, but also it’s in terms of the observer’s conceptualizing process. In other words, you have this in science already. In science you can have a certain type of particle, let’s say a photon. And what is this? Is this matter or is this energy?
And the scientists would agree that there are certain points of view, from certain points of view, you look at it in a certain way, it’s matter. You look at it from another way, then it’s energy. So this is clearly a case in which, you know, things are going to be something, you know, either one thing or another, depending on what we could call in Buddhism mental labeling, conceptualizing process, what it’s called. So you have, for instance, an example that I like to use is a booth, a telephone box? What do you call it in Australia?
Don’t just say yes. Which one? Telephone Okay. You have a telephone box, right? Now imagine that you have a telephone box and imagine that, we’re a thousand years in the future, and, an archaeology team goes digging and they find this object, right?
This telephone box. They find this object and they have absolutely no idea what this is. Right? And so they think and they think and they label it. This is an object from an ancient civilization.
Okay, fair enough.