Physics and Buddhism

Justin Vandenbroucke

        Two years ago I read The Tao of Physics, one of several recent books asserting a deep connection between modern physics and traditional concepts of Eastern religion.  I became interested in the idea and read more about it.  This summer I worked in Nepal with the Stanford Volunteers in Nepal.  With another student, I taught two English classes to monks at a Tibetan exile community (Paljorling) monastery in Pokhara.
        While in Nepal and during a trip to Tibet, I was able to experience Buddhism more directly than in the United States.  I have also continued to read literature relating physics and Buddhism.  My initial conclusion is that the connections drawn are superficial and limited to analogies rather than significant content.  In physics, analogies used in popular expositions are replaced in the professional context by precise mathematical statements.  Indeed many would argue that the content of physics lies entirely in mathematical equations.  Replacing the equations with words in any way that is not trivial (such as merely replacing each symbol with a word) necessarily reduces the accuracy of the statement.  Philosophical interpretations following from verbal descriptions are hence dubious.  This is no incidental result: the primacy of the equations in physics supports a positivism that itself denies philosophical interpretation.  Equations have means of external verification (experimentation and observation); interpretations generally do not.  From the scientific standpoint of empiricism, this makes statements derived from equations valid and those from interpretations questionable.
        Many authors of the physics-Buddhism literature argue that the indescribability of physics  is akin to the indescribability of Buddhism as asserted by its sages.  This is certainly a sound similarity between the two.  However, the authors are understandably frustrated that the similarity is a degree removed from the actual content of the two realms.  They delve into the content itself, and in doing so, exactly violate the dictate of the one sound similarity they have: that the content is beyond words.  They describe modern physics in word after word.  With each equation replaced by words, they move further from the truth of the equations and weaken any conclusions they make from their inaccurate descriptions.  In parallel, they recount Buddhist mystics' experiences in words and continually displace their descriptions from the primacy of the experience itself.
        As I grew more familiar with the physics-Buddhism literature, I thought more about its origin.  Does the literature's emergence in a climate of Western fascination with and glorification of Eastern thought (especially strong in the United States since the 1960's) warrant skepticism of its integrity?  This concern expands to the general question of how our idealizations affect our actions, from the intellectual to the political to the social to the recreational.  I considered several questions of motivation during my trip: Why were so many people supporting the incredible array of English guides to Buddhism in Nepali bookstores?  Why were so many people visiting Tibet and wearing popular "free Tibet" t-shirts?  Why were the Stanford volunteers, including myself, volunteering for Tibetans in Nepal when there were many needier Nepalis all around us?  These questions of motivation imply questions of validity.  Is interest in Buddhism legitimate when reached through glorification of its image?  Are actions to help a people because they have a glorified culture legitimate?  In general, is action motivated by idealization valid?
        This is a difficult question, but I think it is important to consider.  It seems only human to become fascinated.  Indeed, this is perhaps the strongest motivation there is.  But at the same time, aren't actions motivated solely by superficial images destined to be fleeting at best and themselves superficial at worst?


Myself with another Volunteers in Nepal teacher, Veronica Yovovich, and our younger class
(from left): Jampa Wangchuk, Jampa Choejor, Jampa Kelsang, Jampa Ngawang, and Jampa Lodoe.
 
 
 


The young class plus the three members of the older class (from left):
Jampa Tenzin, Jampa Tendar, and Jampa Tsultsim.


The Bodhnath stupa.  We stayed in Bodhnath, a large
Tibetan exile community, while in Kathmandu.