🌳 Before Quantum Physics, There Was Buddha

The story begins in 5th century BCE - nearly 2500 years ago - with the birth of Prince Siddhartha Gautama. His journey from a royal heir to the awakened Buddha is filled with spiritual determination and profound insights. Over time, many legends and miraculous tales got woven into his biography, making it difficult to separate historical facts from mythical legends.

During his lifetime, none of his teachings or discourses were written down. In the 500 years that followed Buddha’s passing, his disciples started compiling his teachings and discourses. Around 1st century BCE, the scripture now known as the Pali Canon or Tipitaka (meaning “three baskets” in Pali) was first written down in Sri Lanka. The Pali Canon is divided into three distinct sections (Pali for baskets), namely Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka, and Abhidhamma Pitaka.

• The Vinaya Pitaka focuses on rules of conduct for monastic life
• The Sutta Pitaka preserves what is traditionally considered the direct speech of Buddha
• The Abhidhamma Pitaka dives into the philosophical exposition of the Buddha’s teachings

Buddha maintained silence on 10 metaphysical questions, such as whether the universe is eternal or infinite, whether the soul and body are the same or different, and what happens to an enlightened being after death. He discouraged his disciples from engaging in metaphysical speculation as it distracts one from true awakening. According to him, these questions arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality and the self. Quote (translated) from Sutta Pitaka:

It is as if a man were wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions brought a surgeon… Suppose the man should say, ‘I will not let the surgeon pull out this arrow until I know who shot me…’ That man would die before he found out.”
- Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, MN 63

Over time, his disciples interpreted his silence in their own ways which led to the development of over 100 schools of Buddhism. In this post, I’ll be focusing solely on the doctrines found within the Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka. We can’t be certain whether the philosophical expositions within these Pitakas came directly from Buddha. But Pali Canon is our only source of truth, so let’s explore the Buddha of the Pali Canon.

In his first sermon after attaining enlightenment (nirvana), Buddha taught the four noble truths (Arya Satya), which form the foundation of all Buddhist teachings:

1. The world is full of suffering (Dukkha)
2. There is a cause of suffering (Dukkha Samudaya)
3. There is a cessation of suffering (Dukkha Nirodha)
4. There is a path leading to the cessation of suffering (Dukkha Nirodha Gamini Pratipada)

A lot of western philosophers have labeled Buddhism, and Indian philosophy more broadly, as pessimistic, pointing to its emphasis on suffering. This criticism is a result of misunderstanding Indian philosophy. While Indian Philosophy schools, including Buddhism, begin with suffering, they offer a path to transcend it and ultimately end it (liberation).

Another concept central to Buddha’s teachings is the law of cause and effect, known as Pratitya Samutpada (Theory of Dependent Origination). He treated it as a universal natural law - a principle governing all physical and mental phenomena in this world. Everything and everyone in the world is bound by the law of cause and effect. Pratitya Samutpada is best summarized by “THIS being, THAT arises”, highlighting the conditional nature of everything’s origination. According to this theory, everything that currently exists in the world is the result of previous causes, and in turn, will serve as the cause for what comes next. In other words, nothing has any independent existence - all that exists is relative, conditional, and dependent.

Another related but distinct teaching is the Doctrine of Impermanence, known as Anityavada. The debate between philosophical Eternalism and Nihilism has appeared in various forms across different traditions and eras. While Eternalism holds the ultimate reality is real and eternal (sat), certain radical schools of Nihilism describe the world as entirely illusory, comparing it to a flying horse or a barren woman’s son, metaphors that suggest pure conceptual fiction. In contrast, Anityavada is the middle path between these extremes. For Buddha, reality is neither eternal nor completely unreal - the world and everything within it is temporary and dependent on a web of interconnected causes. It exists, but only conditionally.

Following Anityavada and Pratitya Samutpada, Buddhism introduces the Doctrine of Momentariness, known as Kshanikvada. Kshanikvada holds that everything exists only for a brief moment, referred to as a kshan - the smallest possible unit of time. This idea is not explicitly found in the Sutta Pitaka, but is implicitly discussed and more fully developed in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.

When we combine Pratitya Samutpada (dependent origination) with Kshanikvada (momentariness), we begin to see that everything is both a cause and an effect within the same kshan. Imagine a rotating chariot wheel: at every instant, it’s leaving its previous position, which is the cause of its current position. At the same time, the wheel is also moving into a new position, which becomes the effect of its current position. This means that any attempt to pin down the position of the wheel is ultimately futile. Nothing is static and everything is arising and ceasing in the same moment - things are always in a state of becoming and not being.

According to the Buddha, material things are composed of momentary material atoms and living beings are aggregates of five momentary skandhas. This view is known as Sanghatavada - the idea that what we call a “person” or “thing” is merely a temporary collection of ever-changing parts. But then the question arises: If the building blocks of material things and living beings are momentary, why do we perceive the world as continuous and stable? To answer this, an example of a flame is usually given: In a burning flame, every atom is in constant flux, yet the change happens so rapidly that it becomes imperceptible to us.

Another helpful analogy is of a video, which is just a sequence of still frames played at high speed. Though each frame is distinct, we experience them as a continuous, flowing image. In the same way, the constant flow of momentary atoms and skandhas, governed by cause and effect, gives rise to the illusion of continuity. Things appear permanent, but this is only because of the speed and regularity of their transformation. While everything is arising and ceasing moment by moment, the process happens so seamlessly that we mistake it for continuous existence.

Does this mean that we, too, are momentary? According to Buddha, yes. As explained in Sanghatavada, what we call a “person” is simply a collection of five skandhas that account for all our bodily and mental processes: Rupa (body/form), Vedana (feelings), Sanjna (perceptions), Samskara (mental tendencies), and Vijnana (consciousness). When we observe these closely, we find that each of them is momentary (kshanik) - constantly changing from one instant to the next. Therefore, what we perceive as “self” is really just an ever-changing stream of impermanent skandhas. Quote (paraphrased) from Sutta Pitaka:

Bhikkhus, form is like a lump of foam… feeling is like a bubble… perception is like a mirage… formations are like a plantain tree… consciousness is like a magic trick.
- Vakkali Sutta, SN 22.95

Moreover, if everything in the world is dependent and conditional as per Pratitya Samutpada, then not only are we merely temporary but also conditional and dependent in our existence. This is the foundation of Buddha’s No-Self Doctrine (Anatmavada): there is no eternal unchanging soul within us. Buddha compares the belief in an eternal soul to falling in love with a beautiful lady whom no one has ever seen or heard - a fantasy held onto without any supporting evidence.

It’s important to note that Buddha doesn’t reject the idea of “self” entirely, but only rejects the idea of a permanent and enduring self. For him, the self or soul is just a conventional label or name given to the aggregate of the five momentary skandhas. Thus, the soul in Buddhism reduces to a series of momentary and fleeting states. While Buddha doesn’t affirm a metaphysical soul as Descartes does, both do accept soul as the practical knower - the one who knows, doubts, thinks, and experiences. In fact, David Hume and Heraclitus express views quite similar to the Buddha of the Pali Canon. Hume described the self as a “bundle of perceptions”, and Heraclitus famously said “You cannot step into the same river twice”.

But if everything about us is momentary and impermanent, how does rebirth happen? Doesn’t karma require a permanent self to carry it forward? Buddha answers this with an amazing analogy: Imagine a lamp that is nearly extinguished lighting another lamp. Is the second flame the same as the first or is it a new flame? It’s not the first flame as it is separate from it. It’s also not independently new as it arose from the first flame. Likewise, our current life causes and conditions the next life without requiring anything permanent to be transferred in this process.

While the relative aspect of reality as per Buddha is the transitory empirical world, the absolute aspect of reality is nirvana. What does this mean? Nirvana is not a “thing” that arises and ceases like other phenomena. Nirvana is what remains when all conditions have ceased (unconditioned reality). In that sense, nirvana is the only “absolute” or unchanging aspect of reality in the Buddha’s teachings. Once a person attains it, there is no return to the cycle of rebirth.

For Buddha, nirvana means the cessation of suffering, and the liberation from the cycle of birth and death. But what happens after that? When asked whether the enlightened being (Tathagata) continues to exist after nirvana, Buddha refused to answer it directly and offered an analogy instead: Where does the flame go when it is extinguished? Does it go east? West? North? South? These questions don’t make sense and don’t apply now because the flame has ceased.

Buddha and Physics: A surprising convergence

Buddha’s view of reality as impermanent and interdependent finds surprising resonance in modern physics:

1. Quantum Field Theory says that particles are not static things, but manifestations of fluctuating fields. A particle arises as a localized excitation in a field and then disappears, as observed in Casimir effect experiments. This echoes Buddha’s teaching of arising and ceasing.
2. As per Quantum Decoherence, particles exist as a probabilistic blend of all possible states (like a “potential” rather than a thing). They do not have inherent properties like position or momentum until measured (as described by the observer effect in quantum mechanics). Properties are relational, not intrinsic. This mirrors Buddha’s insight of relational existence.
3. At the smallest scale, around 10^-43 seconds, known as Planck time - physics speculates that time itself may be “granular” and not continuous, hinting at reality’s momentary nature.
4. Quantum Entanglement shows that particles can remain connected and exhibit correlations across space that appear instantaneous. This also correlates well with the Buddha’s teaching of relational existence.

It’s important to clarify:

Quantum physics does not aim to validate Buddhist philosophy, nor did the Buddha intend to explain subatomic reality. Physics investigates objective behavior of matter and energy while Buddha focuses on phenomenological insight into suffering, perception, and liberation.

Yet, the quantum realm does suggest things as processes, always in flux, conditionally manifesting, and lacking independent identity. As theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli writes:

Reality is not a collection of things, it’s a network of events. - Reality Is Not What It Seems

Hope you found this article interesting. 2500 years later, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what one man, without Google, figured out sitting under a tree.