excerpted from an article by James Oroc Empty of What?

excerpted from an article by James Oroc

Ironically it was science's unquenchable thirst for breaking things into smaller and smaller pieces that ultimately bought the walls of Newtonian physics tumbling down. As our instruments grew more and more powerful, and we began to probe the subatomic realm -- the supposed "building blocks" of the universe -- scientists came to a staggering realization. In the realm of the very small, Newtonian physics did not hold. In fact, in the realm of the very small, nothing we believed in as solid reality turned out to be true. Solid reality, if we look deep enough, does not seem to exist at all!

To understand how this is possible, we have to comprehend a concept that is central to the ideas of quantum physics. It is called "nonlocality." It refers to the capacity of quantum particles (such as two electrons) that have once been in contact to retain a connection even when separated -- the actions of one will always immediately influence the other, no matter how far apart they are. Today it is widely accepted that, in the subatomic realm, one quantum entity can influence another instantaneously, over any distance, despite there being no exchange of force or energy.

Physicists started moving toward this realization in 1935, when Einstein, along with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, published a paper -- the so-called EPR thought experiment or EPR paradox -- that showed that under certain circumstances, quantum mechanics predicted a breakdown of locality. According to this theory, a particle could be put in a measuring device in one location and, through that action alone, would instantly influence another particle an arbitrary distance away. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen themselves refused to believe this effect -- which Einstein labeled "spooky action at a distance" -- and viewed the experiment as evidence that quantum mechanics was incomplete. However, the EPR experiment set the basis for a potential scientific proof of the existence of nonlocality.

Almost thirty years later, J. S. Bell proved mathematically that the results predicted by quantum mechanics could not be explained by any theory that preserved locality. In the forty years that have followed, countless experiments using physical instrumentation have been performed to try to prove the EPR experiment. In the empirical experiments of French physicist Alain Aspect in the 1980s (subsequently replicated in laboratories all over the world), a bizarre thing took place. In the experiments, the correlation of spin state between two particles was maintained -- instantaneously -- irrespective of how far apart the particles were. (Theoretically this would apply if the two particles were on opposite sides of the universe.) In Aspect's original experiments, the speed of this transmission was estimated at less than one billionth of a second, about twenty times faster than the speed of light in empty space. In a subsequent experiment performed in 1997 by Nicolas Gisin, it proved to be 20,000 times faster than the speed of light. Many consider these experiments as "proof" of nonlocality. These experiments also obviously put a dent in Einstein's special theory of relativity, which states that nothing can travel faster than light.

"Teleportation" experiments of the 1990s -- Webmail  where one electron has been "teleported" to another position -- have also been cited as "experimental proof" of nonlocality. And in 2004, two independent teams of physicists -- one at the National Institute of Standards in Colorado, the other at University of Innsbruck, Austria -- announced that they had "teleported" the quantum state of entire atoms. While nonlocality still has its skeptics who state that "sufficient experimental proof" has not been offered, today the concept of nonlocality is assumed to be valid in quantum physics.

This realization was the deathblow for Newtonian physics as a model for the whole universe, since matter could no longer be considered to be individual and separate. Actions did not have to have an observable cause over an observable state. Nothing (at the quantum level) can be considered independent of anything else; all can only be understood in terms of their relationships to each other. The quantum model proposes that the universe exists as an interconnected web of relationships, forever indivisible, since nothing has any meaning by itself!

Our great instruments, which we had built to confirm the solidity of the universe and our concept of the world as a machine built of understandable and predictable parts, now reveal that at its most basic level, the universe is as ethereal and drifting as a dream and as solid as a mirage! Nothing is solid; nothing is real; the universe is a seething field of energy and potential. What is even more astonishing is the realization that we -- the living consciousness that observes "reality" -- may be the most essential ingredient in this indivisible and interconnected universe. The quantum physicists found something that could have as profound implications for the destiny of the human species as anything we have ever discovered. They found that: "the state of all possibilities of any quantum particle collapsed into a set entity as soon as it was observed or a measurement taken."

To understand this we have to reexamine the model of the atom we were all taught at school, which is that of electrons orbiting the nucleus like planets going around the sun. This model has been proven to be completely incorrect. What physicists now believe is that a cloud of "potential," which can cause the electron to materialize in any position, surrounds the nucleus. To visualize this, imagine a race around a track where the runners "appear" at certain spots on the course for a second or two, then disappear and reappear a hundred meters further along -- without having to physically cross the distance between the two points. This happens for no apparent reason, nor with any indication as to where they might disappear and appear again. Where this gets really weird, is that some physicists now believe that the "force" causing an electron to appear in some particular position --which is only a possibility and does not have to happen -- is the fact that a living consciousness is observing it.

At the subatomic level, where everything is a pulsating sea of electrical charge and possibility, the universe takes physical form (which we call reality) only because we are here to observe it. The act of observation "forces" the electron to appear in a position out of that sea of possibility, and so by observing, we cause "reality" to happen. Just as the Australian Aboriginals believe that their ancestors sang up the world as they walked through the desert, it is possible that through perceiving, we create the universe and everything in it.

Quantum Poem November 25 2009

underlying a course of cognitive experience

between observer and observed

speaks of common origin

both causal and synchronistic perspectives

makes mind experience Jung's  ''coincidences''

simultaneously surprised by and able to observe the distinction

between psychic events

a quanta of uncertainty is just that

-ShareRiff

Empty of What?

Excerpts from The Heart of Understanding- Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh

    According to Avalokiteshvara, this sheet of paper is empty; but according to our analysis, it is full of everything.  there seems to be a contradiction between our observation and his.  Avalokita found the five skandhas to be empty.  But, empty of what?  The key word is empty.  To be empty is to be empty of something.

    If I am holding a cup of water and I ask you, "Is this cup empty?" you will say, "No, it's full of water."  But if I pour out the water and ask you again, you may say, "Yes, it is empty."  But, empty of what?  Empty means empty of something.  The cup cannot be empty of nothing.  "Empty" doesn't mean anything unless you know "empty of what?"  My cup is empty of water, but it is not empty of air.  To be empty is to empty of something.  This is quite a discovery.  When Avalokita says that the five skandhas are equally empty, to help him be precise we must ask, "Mr. Avalokita, empty of what?"

    The five skandhas, which may be translated into English as five heaps, or five aggregates, are the five elements that comprise a human being.  These five elements flow like a river in every one of us.  In fact, these are really five rivers flowing together in us:  the river of form, which means our body, the river of feelings, the river of perceptions, the river of mental formations, and the river of consciousness.  They are always flowing in us.  So according to Avalokita, when he looked deeply into the nature of these five rivers, he suddenly saw that all five are empty.  And if we ask, "Empty of what?" he has to answer.  And this is what he said:  "They are empty of a separate self."  That means none of these five rivers can exist by itself alone.  Each of the five rivers has to be made by the other four.  They have to co-exist; they have to inter-be with all the others.

    In our bodies we have lungs, heart, kidneys, stomach, and blood.  None of these can exist indepently.  They can only co-exist with the others.  Your lungs and your blood are two things, but neither can exist separately.  The lungs take in air and enrich the blood, and, in turn, the blood nourishes the lungs.  Without the blood the lungs cannot be alive, and without the lungs, the blood cannot be cleansed.  Lungs and blood inter-are.  The same is true with kidneys and blood, kidneys and stomach, lungs and heart, blood and heart, and so on.

    When Avalokita says that our sheet of paper is empty, he means it is empty of a separate, independent existence.  It cannot just be by itself.  It has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud, the forest, the logger, the mind, and everything else.  It is empty of a separate self.  But, empty of a separate self means full of everything.  So it seems that our observation and that of Avalokita do not contradict each other at all.

    Avalokita looked deeply into the five skandhas of form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, and he discovered that noe of them can by itself alone.  Each can only inter-be with all the others.  So he tells us that form is empty.  Form is empty of a separate self, but it is full of everything in the cosmos.  The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

Long Live Emptiness

Form is the wave and emptiness is the water.  You can understand through that image.  The Indians present concepts in a way that can confuse us, but we have to understand their way of expression in order to really understand them.  In the West, when we draw a circle, we consider it to be zero, nothingness.  But in India, a circle means totality, wholeness.  The meaning is the opposite.  So "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" is like wave is water, water is wave.  "Form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form.  The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness," because these five contain each other.  Because one exists, everything exists.

    In the Vietnamese literature there are two lines of poetry made by a Zen Master of the Ly dynasty, twelfth century.  He said:

   If it exists, then one speck of dust exists.  If it doesn't exist, then the whole cosmos doesn't.

He means that the notions of existence and non-existence are just created by our minds. He also said that "the entire cosmos can be put on the tip of a hair, and the sun and the moon can be seen in a mustard seed."  These are images that show us that one contains everything, and everything is one.  You know that modern science has perceived the truth that not only matter and energy are one, but matter and space are also one.  Not only matter and space are one, but matter, space, and mind are one, because mind is in matter and space.

    Because form is emptiness, form is possible.  In form we find everything else- feelings perception, mental formations, and consciousness.  "Emptiness" means empty of a separate self.  It is full of everything, full of life.  The word emptiness should not scare us.  It is a wonderful word.  To be empty does not mean nonexistent.  If the sheet of paper is not empty, how could the sunshine, the logger, and the forest come into it?  How could it be a sheet of paper?  The cup, in order to be empty, has to be there.  Form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, in order to be empty of a separate self, have to be there.

    Emptiness is the ground of everything.  Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible.  That is a declaration made by Nagarjuna, the Buddhist philosopher of the second century.  Emptiness is quite an optimistic concept.  If I am not empty, I cannot be here.  And if you are not empty, you cannot be there.  Becuase you are there, I can be here.  This is the true meaning of emptiness.  Form does not have a separate existence.  Avalokita wants us to understand this point.

    If we are not empty, we become a block of matter.  We cannot breathe, we cannot think.  To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out.  We cannot be alive if we are not empty.  Emptiness is impermanence, it is change.  We should not complain about impermanence, becuase without impermanence nothing is possible.  A Buddhist who came to see me from Great Britain complained that life was empty and impermanent.  (He had been a Buddhist for five years and had thought about emptiness and impermanence a great deal).  He told me that one day his fourteen-year-old daughter told him, "Daddy, please don't complain about impermanence.  Without impermanence, how can I grow up?"  Of course she was right.

    When you have a kernel of corn, and you entrust it to the soil, you hope that it will become a tall corn plant.  If there is no impermance, the kernel of corn will remain a kernel of corn forever, and you will never have an ear of corn to eat. Impermanence is crucial to the life of everything.  Instead of complaining about impermanence, we might say, "Long live impermanence!"  Thanks to impermanence everything is possible.  That is a very optimistic note.  And it is the same with emptiness. Emptiness is important because without emptiness, nothing is possible.  So we should also say, "Long live emptiness!"  Emptiness is the basis of everything.  Thanks to emptiness, life itself is possible.  All the five skandhas follow this same principle.