Meditating on emptiness results in freedom

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): The wave-particle duality discovered by Louis de Broglie, a French physicist, brought science to a new startling revelation that the solid, independent building blocks of the universe that scientists had been seeking all along turned out to be illusionary. How can mutually exclusive wave-like and particle-like behavior both be properties of one and the same light? The likely explanation is they are not properties of light. They are properties of our interaction with light. Depending upon our choice of experiment, we can cause light to manifest either particle-like properties or wave-like properties.

The new physics, quantum physics, thus tells us that an observer cannot observe without altering what he sees. Observer and observed are interrelated in a real and fundamental sense. The exact nature of this interrelation is not clear, but there is a growing body of evidence that the distinction between the "in here" and the "out there" is illusion.

In 1964, JS Bell, a physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, published mathematical proof of this strange connectedness which came to be known as Bell's theorem. Some physicists are convinced that it is the most important single work, perhaps, in the history of physics. One of the implications of Bell's theorem is that, at a deep and fundamental level, the "separate parts" of the universe are connected in an intimate and immediate way.

Some 2,500 years ago, the East gave birth to a genius spiritual scientist, Buddha Gautama, who through his enlightened state discovered the same conclusion of the pervading unity of all "parts" of the universe. Ultimately, religion -- or perhaps philosophy, the way many opt to see it -- does not necessarily have to be booked a separate room to science. According to Buddhist philosophy -- and in some way many other Eastern religions -- reality is "virtual" in nature. What appear to be "real" objects in it, like trees and people actually are transient illusion which result from a limited mode of awareness. The illusion is that parts of an overall virtual process are "real" (permanent) "things". "Enlightenment" is the experience that "things," including "I," are transient, virtual states devoid of separate existences, momentary links between illusions of the past and illusion of the future unfolding in the illusion of time.

In short, Bell's theorem and the enlightened experience of unity are very compatible.

Buddha Gautama further posited that the entrapment and attachment to this illusion of separation is what causes suffering. This concept was then named Anatta, which literally means "without soul" or "without I". The same concept is often named Emptiness to refer to the dependent, subjective, thus illusionary, nature of "ultimate reality."

Anatta inevitably deals with the question, who is "I"? Which part of my body am I? Am I my arm? Am I the gray matter in my skull? My pride? Or am I my mind?

Remember a situation in which you were extremely angry. How does "I" appear to exist at that moment? It seems very solid. There is a real me that someone is insulting. That "I" has to be defended. The "I," the self, feels findable -- it is somewhere inside our body-mind.

The "solid" body-mind turns out to be constantly changing. Our body ages and one day withers away. Our mind goes from one state to the next. There is no one moment of our mind that has always been and will always be us.

The "I" or the self does not exist independently of the body and mind. Nor can it be found within the body or mind. Nor is it the body and mind together. In other words, the solid "I" that we feel when we are angry cannot be found anywhere. Why not? Because it doesn't exist. The "I" is empty of being independently existent.

Is it really so? If we do not exist then who is talking to whom right now? We are not negating our existence, what we are negating is its independent or inherent existence. We do exist, only dependently. We depend on causes: the sperm and egg of our parents, our consciousness that came from another life. We depend on parts: our body and mind. We depend on concept and label as well: on the basis of our body and mind being together, we conceive of this as a person and gave it the label "I."

When we realize emptiness, we see there is no solid person who is angry. There is no real person whose reputation needs to be defended. There is no independently beautiful person or object that we have to possess. By realizing emptiness, our attachment, anger, jealousy, pride and so on vanish, because there is no real person that has to be protected, and there is no real object to be grasped. With the extinction of our above mentioned mental defilement, we become free. That will be the end of suffering. We have achieved enlightenment or Nirvana.

However, that does not mean we become inert and unambitious like vegetables. "There's no real me, no real money, no real wife. So why do anything?" That's not the correct understanding. Realizing selflessness (emptiness) gives us tremendous space for action, for rather than having our energy consumed by attachment, anger and ignorance, we are free to use our tremendous wisdom and compassion in many ways for the benefits of others.

The correct and complete understanding of this most profound, ivory tower-like concept can only be attained through firsthand experience. Words are insufficient to describe enlightenment. Enlightenment entails casting off the bonds of concept (in Buddhist termination, "veils of ignorance") in order to perceive directly the inexpressible nature of undifferentiated reality. Enlightenment is a state of being and it is common misconception to mistake the description of a state of being for the state itself.

This is where meditation comes into play. We live in a fallen world full of unsatisfactory situations. We cannot control the world but we can control how we perceive the world and respond to it. By generating the determination to be free from all unsatisfactory situations and the altruistic dedicated heart, if we then mediate on emptiness, we will be able to purify our mind completely of every defilement. By removing our limitations, we will also to develop our good qualities to perfection, so that we will have all skillful means necessary for helping others. Our mind is capable of being transformed into such a state. It is possible for us to go from confusion to enlightenment, from being a sentient being to being a Buddha, by realizing these three principle aspects of the path.

The writer is director of the Satori Foundation, a center for study and development of human excellence through mind programming and meditation techniques.