| ZEN PHYSICS (what is this?) The Science of Death, the Logic of Reincarnation David Darling 
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Anthropology has taught us that the world is differently defined in different places. . . The very metaphysical presuppositions differ: space does not conform to Euclidean geometry, time does not form a continuous unidirectional flow, causation does not conform to Aristotelian logic, man is not differentiated from non-man or life from death, as in our world... The central importance of entering into worlds other than our own ... lies in the fact that the experience leads us to understand that our own world is also a cultural construct.
– Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
The basic oneness of the universe as revealed by quantum mechanics is also the central characteristic of the mystical experience. And so, after more than two thousand years, we Westerners have come back full circle to a unified vision of the world that a holistic Greek thinker such as Heraclitus would have recognized immediately. More to the point, twentieth-century physics has finally caught up with the philosophy of the Far East – a fact not lost on some of the founding fathers of modern subatomic theory, including Bohr, Schrödinger, and the German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Bohr, for example, wrote:
For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory ... [we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao-tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence.Similarly, Heisenberg remarked:
The great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory.And the mystical roots of contemporary subatomic theory may extend even further back. In his book The Emperor’s New Mind Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose points to the eccentric sixteenth-century mathematician Gerolamo Cardano, who discovered, almost without any help from others, the basic laws of probability and complex numbers that now underpin quantum mechanics. “Perhaps,” writes Penrose, “Cardano’s curious combination of a mystical and a scientifically rational personality allowed him to catch these first glimmerings of what developed to be one of the most powerful of mathematical conceptions.”
In a sense, quantum mechanics has brought the conscious observer – ourselves – back into the universe with an important and potentially decisive role to play. This has profound philosophical implications. At the same time, the goings-on of the subatomic world seem very far removed from everyday life. We don’t feel personally touched by them. And so, in practice, the revelations of the new physics of the ultrasmall, strange and wonderful though they may be, have had little effect on the common psyche. Nor, as a matter of fact, have they influenced much of the way that science in general is carried out. The standard scientific approach – even in experimental particle physics – is still to proceed as if there were an objective world out there independent of our senses and experience.
From an early age, our minds are rigorously conditioned to think of the world and ourselves in a highly specific way. And at the heart of our traditional Western outlook is dualism. It seems so natural, so right to us, because of our cultural and social training, to believe that the world has both an inner, mental component and an outer, material one. So we tacitly assume that though our (mental) will we move our (material) bodies and, by means of them, other material objects in the outside world. Likewise, objects coming into contact with our bodies give rise through the nerves to the experience of touch: vibrations in the air, when they reach the ear, cause the sensation of sound; and light particles, striking the eye, lead to the sensation of sight. It appears so transparently clear to us that this must represent the true state of affairs. But we forget, or never really consider, the depth of our conditioning. Being a product of a Greek-inspired culture and upbringing, we are programmed at the very level of our neurons, in the arrangement of our dendrites and synapses, to think in a dualistic way.
Every second of our lives we are constrained in what we see and in how we interpret and react to our surroundings by the biological and cultural mind-set we have inherited. We suppose ourselves to be very advanced in thought. But our thinking has matured only in certain specific directions, notably the scientific and technical, which are concerned with manipulating aspects of the objective world. We have become masters at understanding the relationships between different things. Yet this mastery has been won only at the cost of shattering the unity of nature. A passage from Lewis Carroll describes our predicament well:
“We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to a mile!”In the West, we are very keen and adept at making maps – scientific maps of the reality in which we find ourselves. Boundaries, names, and labels have assumed with us enormous power. So we find ourselves inhabiting a world of bits and pieces, a world of apparently irreconcilable differences. And one of our principal misunderstandings stems from our use of the words “you” and “I.” For what we fail to recognize, or have forgotten, is that “you” and “I’ are purely constructs of our language, and of our linguistic interactions with others. “You” come about because we happen to be speaking English (or some similar tongue) and are therefore conforming to the rule that a verb must have a subject, and that processes are mysteriously initiated by pronouns. The syntax of Western language demands a clear indication of the subject-object relation. Therefore, every time we speak we reinforce our belief that every situation can be analyzed into a subject-predicate-object form. Our language forces us to be compulsive analyzers, to break down our experience of the world into composite elements. The fact that there might be entirely different modes of thinking usually escapes our attention. And yet such modes do exist.
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”
A language that encourages less frequent use of “I’s” and “yous” tends to downplay the role of the individual. In Japanese, for instance, the first or second person is often omitted as the subject of a sentence. Instead, it has to be inferred by context. The Japanese approach is not to point explicitly to the subject of an action, unless necessary, but rather to locate the individual in experience.
In Japanese, a single word may serve as a complete and sufficient statement. For example, a man might be walking in the quiet countryside, surrounded by tranquil autumn scenery, when a feeling comes to his mind – that of solitude. In our language, we would instinctively analyze this feeling, identify a subject and an object, and make a comment such as “I am feeling lonesome,” or perhaps “The scenery is lonesome.” Our expression of the sentiment would involve an immediate distancing of the perceiver from the perceived, or of the actor from the action. But this is not the way in Japanese. The man on his walk might simply say “samishii” (lonesome), thus projecting the experience immediately, nonjudgmentally, without analysis. Of course, in Western language, too, people sometimes speak in abbreviated form. But when they do so, they are always conscious of the fact that what is being said is a shortened version of a more detailed description. The syntax of a language like English demands a subject-object declaration, either explicit or implied. Japanese, by contrast, does not insist upon the specification of an individual or an independent performer of deeds.
Language, culture, and a people’s general mode of thought are bound up together in close, complex symbiosis. And whereas our Western upbringing teaches us to see the subject, the self, in sharp relief, the Japanese style is to give precedence to interconnectedness, to human relationships over the individual. This is reflected in the fact that personal pronouns are much more complicated in Japanese than in other languages. Special pronouns are required for superiors, equals, inferiors, intimates, and strangers, and if an improper choice is made, then confusion, difficulty, and that worst of all disasters for a Japanese, loss of face, may ensue. Therefore, every time a native speaker uses a personal pronoun, he or she must have at the forefront of their mind such relationships as rank and intimacy.
Number is not always made explicit in the grammar of Japanese sentences. Nor is distinction always made between the singular and plural forms of words. On the other hand, when a statement definitely is expressed in the plural, several kinds of plural may be used to suit different occasions. For example, domo and tachi are used for persons of equal or inferior status or for intimates, as in funo-bito-domo (boatman), hito-tachi (people), and tomo-tachi (friends). When respect must be shown, the suffix gata is used – anatagata (you), sensei-gata (teacher), and so on. In short, the use of plural suffixes is determined by the relationship of social ranks and the feeling that the speaker entertains for the persons of whom he is speaking. Again, this reveals the Japanese trait to think in terms of human connectivity or embeddedness rather than of separate selves in an objective world.
When this type of thinking has the upper hand, consciousness of the individual as a distinct entity becomes less clear-cut. There is a shift away from regarding each person as an objective unit and a greater tendency to emphasize the concrete immediacy of experience. The individual becomes not so much a distinct object or even a subject in the world, but rather an integral and inseparable part of life’s ever-rolling stream.
With the self seen not in isolation, and individuality regarded as more of a negative than a positive trait, the character of a nation is fundamentally influenced. The Japanese have a favorite saying: “The nail that sticks up will be knocked down.” Yet rather than being a sign of oppressiveness, this is intended to sum up the essential undesirability of acting in a self-willed way. Children are taught not to be different (rigorous conformity being especially obvious in the Japanese educational system) and not to express their emotions too openly or to make a fuss, even when confronted by considerable hardship or even disaster. The Japanese “poker face” is well known and the inscrutability of Orientals, in general, has become almost a caricature. But in fact, this quality of equanimity is a real and essential part of life in the Far East. The Japanese call it gaman and it was evident most recently in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake. Outsiders watching the scenes of devastation on television were amazed at how calm and composed the victims of the quake remained and at how little looting took place. The behavior of the victims may have appeared unemotional and unfeeling, but it was in truth a remarkable demonstration of the inner strength and sense of quiet fatalism this people draws from its non-egocentric perspective of the world.
Death is regarded with none of the fear or despair that it often invokes in the West. Instead, the Japanese see it as a natural, integral part of life and are raised to approach death in a manner of calm, resigned dignity. This attitude has led, in the past, to some extraordinary Japanese customs including, in the most extreme case, that of hara-kiri (literally, “belly-cutting”), a ritual form of suicide practiced by members of the ruling class. An official or noble who had broken the law or been disloyal received a message from the emperor, couched always in sympathetic and gracious tones, courteously intimating that continued life was no longer an option. A jeweled dagger usually accompanied the message, and with this the custom was enacted with scrupulous formality. In his own baronial hall or in a temple, a dais three or four inches high was constructed. Upon this was laid a mat of red felt. The suicide, clothed in his ceremonial dress and accompanied by his second or kaishaku, took his place on the mat, with officials and friends arranged around him in a semicircle. After a minute’s prayer the dagger was handed to him with many obeisances by the emperor’s representative, and the doomed man made a public confession of his wrongdoing. He then stripped to the waist and tucked his wide sleeves under his knees to prevent him from collapsing onto his back, for it was only considered honorable for a Japanese noble to die falling forward. A moment later he plunged the dagger hard into his stomach below the waist on the left side, drew it across to the right, and, turning it, gave a slight upward cut. At the same time his faithful kaishaku leapt forward and brought his sword down on the outstretched neck. Obligatory hara-kiri like this became obsolete in the middle of the nineteenth century, and was abolished in 1868. However, voluntary hara-kiri continued and occasionally is carried out today. With such stoicism and selfless bravery in the face of death a deeply ingrained national trait, it becomes easier to understand how the infamous Japanese suicide pilots were able to complete their devastating missions during the war in the Pacific. Nowhere in the world is the ego kept smaller and weaker than in Japan; nowhere, therefore, is there considered to be less to lose in death.
This makes it hard, very hard, for us to penetrate fully the Japanese mind. And, failing to understand properly a system of thought and culture that is so totally different from our own, we tend to criticize it because it doesn’t measure up to our standards. To us, the Japanese seem lacking in new ideas and individualism. We characterize them as being great copiers and adapters but poor innovators. And it is often pointed out how few Nobel prize-winners Japan has produced considering its technical prowess. Indeed, the Japanese have recently begun to find fault with themselves on these accounts, but only because they are becoming increasingly Westernized in their outlook. Traditionally, Japanese language and culture are rooted in man’s direct experience of the world, so it naturally leans away from theoretical or systematic thinking. Whereas we put a high value on logic, analysis, and abstraction, in Japan there is more of a tendency toward the aesthetic, the intuitive, and the concrete.
And not just in Japan. Across the East, in India, China, and other neighboring lands, a traditional way of life has evolved that is remarkably at variance with our own.
To pick up but one strand in the labyrinthine history of Eastern thought: twenty-five hundred years ago, in China, lived Lao-tzu (pronounced “Low Dzoo”). In a sense he was the world’s first dropout—an anticonventional, independent thinker. Very little is known about him, not even his proper name, since Lao-tzu means simply “old philosopher,” or even “old child.” He may, for all we know, have been more of a lineage, as perhaps Homer was, than a single person. What matters, though, is not his identity but the book he wrote, which for the past two millennia has been called the Tao Te Ching (“Dow They Jing”) – the Tao Virtue Classic. Though only five thousand Chinese characters long, it gave birth to Taoism, shaped Buddhism, spawned Ch’an meditation, and encouraged the development of Chinese landscape painting. The fact that we know virtually nothing about its author is particularly appropriate since of the things Lao-tzu rejected, including violence, oppression, superstition, and imposed authority of any kind, he rejected none so insistently as the self.
At the heart of Lao-tzu’s message is Tao, which translates as “the Way.” By its nature, Tao is held to transcend description. As Lao-tzu said: “The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao.” And so, if Lao-tzu’s words are read with a view to logically analyzing them, the effort is bound to end in frustration. No matter how our intellect tries to sneak up on Tao we are ultimately repelled by a “not this, not that” force field. The Tao of Lao-tzu is reality as a whole – not a patchwork of diverse theories such as we have in the West to try to explain the universe. Tao is considered to be on top of everything as well as in everything. It is the nothing as well as the something; the nothing that penetrates all reality from the space inside atoms and between stars to the inner space of the human mind. Above all, Tao is not anything that we can apprehend or appreciate by thinking about it. In fact, Lao-tzu is at pains to reject learning and intellectual effort as a waste of time. Give up learning, he urges, and you will have no anxieties – a philosophy echoed in the Bible’s plea for us to be as little children.
Tao stresses “nothing-doing,” which means not projecting one’s self as the center of all that happens, not manipulating people and things, not imposing one’s will on events, not trying to control reality. And with regard to this last point, Lao-tzu counsels against naming things. Giving names is seen as an effort to subjugate reality through abstraction and analysis. To live in harmony, we shouldn’t name things but intimate with them. Reality can never be captured in words, or as Lao-tzu put it: “He who speaks does not know, and he who knows does not speak.”
Lao-tzu introduced a method of posing logical paradoxes as an antidote to naming and rational thought. Sometimes these are taken for subtle witticisms, but their purpose is not to entertain or even to state profound truths. Instead, it is effectively to bypass the intellect and illuminate by sudden flashes – to rend the veil of words.
Lao-tzu contrasts the contentment and effortlessness of moving with the flow of events in nature, with the tension of always acting on the world. He proposes an attitude toward life that is full of warmth, amusement, awe, and acceptance, and not a reaction against nature that continually strives to control, improve, and make the self the focus of attention. His philosophy, in fact, is the diametric opposite of that to which most Westerners adhere.
Even among those in the modern West who profess to be antiestablishment, who devote themselves to personal meditation, communal living, unorthodox appearance, and fighting environmental issues, the underlying ethos remains that the meaning of life is to be found through self-expression. In our culture, ego-centrism is as much a trap for the outs as for the ins. From a Taoist perspective, we are the “do something” set. We fight against each other and the elemental forces of nature; we mess up the environment and then strive to fix it; we struggle to teach our children, to make them conform, and wrestle with the problems of delinquency and drugs; we match violence against society with organized violence sanctioned by society; we praise, blame, manipulate, and restrain. We even try to do good by controlling – by seeking peace and eliminating oppression. Lao-tzu’s way, by contrast, is not to exert the will at all but to go with the flow, to simply experience reality – all of man’s being and all of nature’s working. In modern times, this approach was perhaps most conspicuously and successfully adopted by Mahatma Gandhi and his followers in their nonviolent resistance to British imperialism.
Presumably, the Way came about as a reaction to the patterns of self-willed violence, authoritarianism, and deceit that emerged as civilization took hold in ancient China. At the time of Lao-tzu there would still have been many people living under essentially Stone Age conditions, following a simple lifestyle based on daily sustenance and intimacy with nature. And Lao-tzu would have been able to compare firsthand this unforced approach to life with the problems that arose when people adopted a more self-centered, control-over-nature attitude in the towns and cities of Bronze Age culture.
In any event, Taoism took root and evolved to become one of the two principal Chinese worldviews, alongside Confucianism. In it, the universe was seen to be organic rather than mechanistic, spontaneous rather than contrived, circular rather than linear, synthetic rather than analytic. Unlike the conventional Western conception of God as someone or something “out there,” Tao is inherent and pervasive. From a Western perspective, Tao may seem to be a negation of existence – a vacuum or void. And such an interpretation appears superficially justified by comments like those of the Taoist philosopher Chuang-tzu: “In the great beginning, there was nonbeing. It had neither being nor name.” However, we have to be careful when judging other outlooks on life with our rigid dualistic mind-set. In the Western sense, being and nonbeing are mutually exclusive and opposed, whereas in the Chinese view they are mutually inclusive and complementary. As far as Taoism is concerned, the universe was not created or ordered by some external power. There is nothing external or apart from Tao. All exists together, at once, and the universe is considered to be inherently self-generating.
Because in Taoism man is embedded in nature, traditional Chinese art, culture, and language became imbued with this sense of identity between the experiencer and the experienced. The individual saw himself, as it were, wedded to his surroundings. And Taoist poetry and painting reflected this direct perception and conscious experience of nature’s integrity. Chinese landscape painting, in its wonderful economy of brushstrokes, its subtlety, its sense of timelessness, and, above all, its use of space, portrays life as going beyond human definition and limits. Emptiness is seen to have as much importance as the scenery and the characters. As in the verses of William Wordsworth the Taoists, in their art, grasped the world as a living organism, its streams and groves infused with a mysterious spirit, its rocks and mountains possessed with a life of their own.
Chinese religion and philosophy, if these terms are not too misleading, reflect a “one-in-all” appreciation of the nature of reality and self. In Taoism this view reached its most developed form before migrating further East, to the islands of Japan. And in Japan we find at last our true antithesis to Western analytical thought – that extraordinary thing which is not a philosophy or a religion, and which is known as Zen.