Poetries
of Nothingness:
Finding
a Common Ground Between
Heidegger, Zen Buddhism
and Theoretical Physics
A Thesis Submitted to
The Philosophy Department
Ateneo de Manila University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
of Philosophy 110
by
Anton Luis C. Sevilla
BS Biology-A & AB Philosophy
Table of Contents
0
Introduction
1
Poetries
of Nothingness
1.1
Martin
Heidegger, Being / Nothing
1.2
Zen Buddhism,
Emptiness
Tathata and the Doctrine of Not-self
One:
Interbeing and the Circuminsessional Relationship
Emptiness
as Absolute and the Standpoint of Śūnyatā
The
Soku Dialectic
1.3 Theoretical Physics, The Vacuum
Less
that Nothing, Nothing and Other Recent Discoveries
The
Vacuum Fluctuation Theory of Creation
The
Constitution of Matter
The
Ontological Status of the Vacuum
Unfolding
the World from the Scientific View of Nothingness
On
the Possibility of a Poetry of Science
Science’s
Poetry of Nothingness
2
The
Triangle of Dialogues
2.1 Being,
Nothing, Emptiness and the Soku
Dialectic
Heidegger’s
Guidewords to Being
Being-soku-Nothing via Beings-soku-Non-Being
2.2 Śūnyatā, Tathata and the Unfolded Reality of Physics
Anitya and Not-Self
Interbeing
Sameness
of Existence and Void
2.3 Nothing as the Death
of Enframing: The Limit of Scientific Thinking
Heidegger’s
Critique of Science and Technology
Calculation
and the Forgetfulness of the Nothing
On
the Road to Recovering Nothing in Physics
The
Vacuum and the Fates of Enframing and Scientific Thought
The
Path to Meditative Thinking
3
Conclusion:
Speaking the Language of Nothing
3.1 The Question of
Reality: What is?
3.2 The Question of Man:
What is man in such he that asks what is?
3.3 Conclusion: Parallels
of Nothingness and Beyond
Cited Sources
References
The contemporary age, as an age of information and globalization, presents the most pervasive occurrence of the clash of races, cultures, schools of thought, and other elements of humanity, made possible by the breaking of the walls of distance. In the realm of thinking and thinkers, many modes of thought that have been separated by time, space or tradition have been brought to bear upon each other, through various media such as international conferences, on-line libraries, multi-disciplinary discussion groups, etc., brought about by the coming of this age.
There is hence a need to bring these schools of thought to dialogue, not necessarily in order to unify them, but at least to present the locus of intelligibility of each school in a manner that is intelligible (though not necessarily agreeable) to the other schools and intellectual traditions. Translation presents the possibility of the dialogue between two schools that have encountered each other. But as one delves into a foreign mode of thought, one can see that different schools of thought in different cultures differ not only in manner of presentation, language and use of metaphors, but in the very underlying view of the world as well. The very manner in which each school views reality as a whole, how the teachings of the school bring forth reality is its own poetry of the world. In these very poetries, different modes of thought vary. These poetries of the world stem from a ground, a fundament so to speak, upon which various branch ideas grow. Hence, dialogue rests not merely on the dialogue of structures, but primarily on the dialogue between these fundaments.
This thesis aims to present an attempt to bring different modes of thought to dialogue in their very ground. Martin Heidegger’s thought, Zen Buddhism and Theoretical Physics shall be brought to bear upon each other in dialogue. These three represent distinct knowledge-seeking disciplines, distinct not only nominally but in their very approach to reality: western philosophy, eastern philosophy and science. But how is one to bring such different schools of thought to bear upon each other? This shall be done through three concepts that reveal themselves at the ground of each poetry of the world.
Martin Heidegger heralds a return to Being, a return which, unlike the rest of the forgetful western tradition, remembers Being as other than beings, that Being is no-thing, that Being is one with the Nothing. Zen Buddhism, via Keiji Nishitani and other Zen thinkers, lays the roots of reality and man upon the field of emptiness (śūnyatā). Various groups of theoretical physicists expound the possibility of all being in the vacuum, via theories such as Vacuum Fluctuation Theory and Superstring Theory. As we present the Nothing, emptiness and the vacuum, a relationship between these three fundaments shall emerge. For now, we bind the three beneath a hypernym, which we shall henceforth refer to as Nothingness. As a hypernym, Nothingness presents an unexplicated unity between these three fundaments, a unity that shall be elucidated by the end of this thesis. It is in this unity, the three schools of thought can be brought to dialogue, and in this dialogue, there lies the possibility of elucidating an absolute ground.
The approach of this thesis shall be primarily western, with a strong Heideggerian influence, because of the academic background of the author and his intended audience. However, there will be perceptible shifts in tonality and approach, as is necessary when dealing with eastern texts or scientific theories.
This thesis shall be composed of three main chapters. The first chapter shall be an independent study of the poetries of nothingness of each school. It shall begin with a discussion of nothingness and all concerned topics in each school. The first section is an in depth discussion of the Nothing of the western philosopher Heidegger and human existence in relation to such. The second section shall discuss the eastern Zen Buddhist notion of nothingness as presented by Nishitani Keiji, Thich Nhat Hanh, Nāgārjuna, and other classical and contemporary Zen thinkers. We shall begin with tathata and the doctrine of not-self. From there we shall proceed to the notion of interbeing and the circuminsessional relationship, then culminating with emptiness as both absolute and standpoint of enlightenment. Having elucidated such, we shall discuss a dialectic that emerges from such a standpoint: the Soku dialectic. In the third section we shall discuss the scientific viewpoint of nothingness via several theories of physics on the manifold of space-time (the vacuum). We shall begin with a survey of science’s preoccupation with nothingness, in order to prepare the ground for several discoveries related to negative energy and the fluctuation of empty space. Having clarified such, we proceed to the microscopic level, where we tackle the question of what all this matter is made of via Superstring theory. These shall lead to a questioning of the ontological status of the vacuum as to whether it is something or nothing. Having clarified such, we move to the possibility of a poetry emerging from science, and the author’s poetic conception of science’s perceptions of nothingness.
The second chapter shall be a triangular comparative of the three schools’ poetries. The first section shall compare Heidegger’s Nothing and Zen’s emptiness. This shall be done with extensive use of Heidegger’s guidewords to Being and the Soku dialectic. The second section shall compare Zen’s emptiness with the physicist’s conception of empty space-time, and the literal manifestation of Zen doctrine in the world as seen by modern physics. The third section shall delve into a scientific response to Heidegger’s critique of the essence of modern science and technology, dealing with various important Heideggerian conceptions such as calculative thinking, enframing, and meditative/essential thinking.
The third chapter shall conclude the three dialogues with one single exposition that seeks to speak all three “languages” as a unified exposition of nothingness. Herein shall be explored nothingness as the absolute ground, the standpoint-less standpoint, encompassing the questions of reality, man and the ought.
1.1 Martin Heidegger: The Nothing, Being and the Status of Da-sein
What is nothing? To most western thinkers, this question is most perplexing, if it is seen as a question at all. The word “nothing” evokes a plethora of negations: not a thing, not being, not possible, not important, not valuable. Parmenides took the negation of the nothing to the extreme, depriving nothing of everything: relevance, rational possibility, importance. Nothing became the unspeakable, the unthinkable, to be relegated to the trash bin of embarrassing philosophical conundrums. Against the unshakable ground of being, the nothing was declared the arch-nemesis, the unspeakable enemy of the very ground of the entire western philosophical endeavor.
In his inaugural lecture to the
The word “access” has been italicized as the word shall become a recurring theme in Heidegger’s dissection, with regard to what he shall declare possible and impossible. For us to be able to make use of a concept that follows from a root concept, we must first have access to this “root concept.” In this case, the definition of the nothing comes from a marriage of two ingredients: the totality of beings and the operation of negation. But for this definition to be plausible, we must first have access to its ingredients. And we do not have access to the totality of beings. If we did, we would be omniscient, and we would have no need to bother with philosophy. But then the second element hints at something of interest: the operation of negation. Do we have access to this? But we shall see later on that it is the very movement to the Nothing that defines negation, as something more original than it.
Heidegger indicates that the “definition” of the nothing he conveniently furnished does allow us a path:
An essential distinction prevails between comprehending the ensemble of beings in themselves and finding oneself in the midst of beings as a whole. The former is impossible in principle. The latter happens all the time in our existence.[2]
Therefore if one is to arrive at the Nothing, not having access to the entirety of being, one may then instead encounter the nothing through a fundamental alteration in how one finds oneself in the midst of beings as a whole. Instead of negating the totality of beings, one encounters the nothing through a negation of the very manner by which one exists. And this alteration does occur in the fundamental mood of anxiety [Angst].
The fundamental mood of angst attunes the human being to the Nothing itself. It is in angst wherein the very manner of human existence undergoes a shift. How can one describe this fundamental mood? Angst is similar to fear, however it is fear without an object. It is an indeterminate dread of nothing in particular. Beings as a whole, and along with this world of beings our very selves, slip away into indifference. This slipping away throws us before the Nothing. Heidegger’s description of this slipping away is peculiar:
All things and we ourselves sink into indifference. This, however, not in the sense of mere disappearance. Rather, in their very receding, things turn toward us. The receding of beings as a whole, closing in on us in anxiety, oppresses us. We can get no hold on things. In the slipping away of beings this ‘no hold on things’ comes over us and remains.[3]
It is as if in anxiety, there is a lucid impotence of mind. The grasp of mind (prehension) present within comprehension and apprehension fails in the slipping away of all things, bringing us into a clear awareness of the limitation of thought. One becomes acutely aware that one’s grasp of things is naught, and this failure to grasp things makes the beyondness of things stand out. The slipping away of all things from prehension, the sinking (as the pit of one’s stomach, wrought with dread) of the meaning found in one’s grasp of things, thrusts us toward something essential, that is, the essence of Nothing.
The essence of the Nothing is betrayed in the very directionality of the sinking, receding and slipping away of all in angst, as seen in this particularly cryptic explication:
In anxiety there occurs
a shrinking back before . . . that is surely not any sort of flight but rather
a kind of entranced calm. This ‘back before’ takes its departure from the
nothing. . . . But this repulsion is itself as such a parting gesture toward
beings that are submerging as a whole. This wholly repelling gesture toward
beings that are slipping away as a whole, which is the action of the nothing
that closes in on Dasein in anxiety, is the essence of the nothing: nihilation.[4]
One does not
encounter the Nothing directly. One does not have access to the Nothing by
directly grasping the Nothing, for there would be nothing to prehend. One gains
access to the Nothing through one’s grasp of something, everything, through the
very finitude of the act of grasping itself. When this ontological grasp is
beset by the fundamental mood of angst, one experiences a slipping away, a drawing back, a sinking (down) of
all that is. The italicized words indicate a direction, angst reveals a
direction. Nihilation is the movement
in the indicated direction, and such is the essence of the Nothing. The
direction that nihilation undergoes in angst points to the Nothing.
An experiential example beyond Heidegger’s common explications may help clarify the befuddled. When in our lives do we use the word “nothing?” What do we mean when we say, to effect, “there is nothing,” a phrase obviously logically nonsensical? If one were asked for example, to look for food in the pantry, and one checks to find the pantry without food—only dust, cobwebs and a few empty tins, one might reply: “There is nothing here.” But in fact, there is something in the pantry—dust, cobwebs, tins, air. The pantry is never truly empty so to speak. But the word “nothing” in the reply indicates that there is nothing of significance, nothing that matters in the pantry. For the mind that looks for food, the pantry is empty. This helps elucidate the negative aspect of a minimal nothing. Nothing as negative indicates an absence, a lack, an unavailability of that which is significant.
All things and we
ourselves sink into indifference. This, however, not in the
sense of mere disappearance. Rather, in their very receding, things turn
toward us.[5]
The passage indicates that the Nothing possesses a sense of greater magnitude then a mere negation. Another experiential example would be helpful in seeing the Nothing in greater magnitude, as that which makes things apparent, makes things turn toward us. When a woman is exasperated with her lover, and everything imaginable has gone wrong—her trust, her affection, her security in him is lost—and he dares ask: “What’s wrong?” She may very well snap, with a striking vitriolic tone, “Nothing! Nothing is wrong.” Precisely, “nothing” here indicates that the very overwhelming nature of the phenomena deprives the response of a point to originate from. In the inability to grasp and put forth the phenomena, “nothing” indicates the overwhelming abundance of the phenomena (in this case, what has gone wrong) in the very beyondness of the phenomena from grasp. One sees here that “nothing” plays through extremes of insignificance and an overwhelming magnitude of significance—from no-thing to beyond any thing, from zero-value to a magnitude that transcends value. The Nothing is a privation that indicates a poignant abundance.
Hence we have secured a relatively simple explication of Heidegger’s conception of the Nothing. It is that to which the fundamental mood of anxiety points, in the direction of the movement of nihilation, wherein all things and we ourselves slip away into insignificance, and in their very slipping away into privation indicate a poignant abundance of reality.
Here, it begins to become apparent that the Nothing is no mere counter-concept or opposite to Being. Nothing is not only the direction of insignificance, but the possibility for significance as well. Nothing is not merely empty, in its emptiness it is full. The relationship of the Nothing and Being is such, as Heidegger puts it:
The nothing does not
remain the indeterminate opposite of beings but unveils itself as belonging to
the being of beings. . . . “Pure Being and pure Nothing are therefore the same. ” This proposition of Hegel’s (Science of Logic, Book I: Werke,
vol. III, p. 74) is correct.[6]
Nothing = Being [Sein]. The Nothing and Being speak the
same. In the postscript, Heidegger clarifies this equivalence through the
ontological difference:
Unlike beings, being
cannot be represented or brought forth in the manner of an object. As that
which is altogether other than all beings, being is that which is not. But this
nothing essentially prevails as being.[7]
That is, Being is nowhere, never a being. Being is not a being. Being is not. Being is
No-thing. Hence saying Being “is” is as ridiculous, structurally, as saying
Nothing “is,” though within the structure of the English language, one must
simply be aware that one has no choice.
But the ontological
difference alone does not define the relationship between Being/Nothing and
beings. That is, while Being is nowhere and never a
being, Being “is” only in so far as
beings are. Put another way, Being is only the Being of beings, and beings are only
beings in such that they enact this verb, to Be. Being stands behind all beings as their verbality. Somehow, the
word “nothing” does not evoke this sense, and it remains for us to awaken the
verbality of the Nothing later on. Let Heidegger’s words suffice for now, as we
move on to the relationship of our human existence [Da-sein] and the Nothing:
Only because the
nothing is manifest in the ground of Dasein
can the total strangeness of beings overwhelm us. Only when the strangeness of
beings oppresses us does it arouse and evoke wonder.[8]
Our access to the
Nothing, hence the fundamental mood of angst, entails the very possibility of
seeing a being as a being. Epistemology requires a point of division in the process
of conceptualization, such that to know that something is, one must first begin to become aware of what it is not. Analogously, saying that such is a
being requires that one become aware of it in its strangeness, that it is not nothing.
Hence, our very existence as Da-sein
requires access to the Nothing. For us to exist essentially, that is, for us to
see beings as beings, we must stand before the Nothing. Heidegger says:
Only on the ground of the original revelation of the nothing can human existence approach and penetrate beings. . . . Da-sein means: being held out into the nothing.[9]
Being held out into the Nothing shows our essential openness to Being/Nothing. Only through this essential openness can we approach beings. But the Nothing is beyond the thinking of beings. The Nothing lies beyond representation, calculation and reification, precisely as that which eludes representation, defies calculation and is forgotten in reification. Therefore to think in a manner that does not forget this essential openness, in order to truly think, requires a thinking that is beyond calculative thinking—beyond all representation, calculation and reification. To truly think means to think meditatively [Besinnung] and let reality present itself as itself instead of re-presenting it as calculated and reified. Only in meditative thinking do we truly actualize our being as Da-sein.
We have arrived at the culmination of Heidegger’s
re-evaluation of the Nothing. From mere absence of relevance, meaning, even
logical possibility, the Nothing has acquired a fundamental relevance as the
very locus wherein existence and meaning become possible at all. Heidegger has
brought the Western tradition face to face with the Nothing. And through this,
the Western tradition may reckon with the East as well.
1.2 Zen Buddhism, Emptiness and the Soku Dialectic
The idea of “being” is the Archimedan point of Western thought. Not only philosophy and theology but the whole tradition of Western civilization have turned around this point. All is different in Eastern thought and Buddhism. The central notion from which Oriental religious intuition and Belief as well as philosophical thought have been developed is the idea of “nothingness.”[10]
Śūnyatā
is a Sanskrit word that comes from the root word sunya, zero.[11]
It is translated in various ways: Nothingness, Emptiness or Voidness. These
three are all translations of the same “concept.” The first translation is that
which is used by the
Emptiness is the ground, the bastion so to speak, of Zen Buddhist teachings. What does “emptiness” mean? Could one perhaps furnish a definition of this “concept?” Such would be problematic, for emptiness is neither a concept, nor is it something that can be defined. However, as many are not necessarily familiar with the usage of emptiness and whatever it points to, it becomes necessary to speak of it. But as it is done so here, one must remember that the author merely alludes to emptiness, that words may bring forth a vastness that cannot be captured in words or mere concepts. One must not see any of this talk as definitive.
A possible manner of presenting emptiness is through two senses, two angles of approach. First, emptiness can be seen as the absolute. Second, emptiness can be seen as the standpoint of the awakened. To do so, one may follow a pattern, as one follows the facets of one same gemstone. We shall begin with tathata (thusness) which is seen by Buddhism through the doctrine of Not-self. Then we shall move on to the doctrine of inter-being that follows from the first doctrine, wherein the circuminsessional relationship shall be seen. Through these two doctrines, we shall arrive at last at emptiness as absolute, and emptiness as the standpoint of the awakened. Having thus garnered a sketchy grasp of what Zen Buddhism seeks to point out with emptiness, we can tackle the Soku dialectic, a form of logic where tathata (thusness) through the standpoint of śūnyatā (emptiness) is seen most clearly.
To approach emptiness as the absolute, we must first begin where all philosophy should begin: reality. Tathata, translated as thusness, is reality as it is. In Buddhist thought, the approach to tathata begins with the doctrine of not-self. The doctrine of not-self says: “Things do not possess a self (Sarva dharmas nairatmya). Nothing in itself contains an absolute identity.”[12]
This denial of self, absolute identity and intrinsic nature is one that needs to be elucidated. What does it mean to be not-self? The answer to this question has various facets. Thich explains the denial of identity as such:
This [Not-self] means a rejection of the principle of identity, which is the basis of formal logic. According to this principle, A must be A, B must be B, and A cannot be B. The doctrine of not-self says: A is not A, B is not B, and A can be B.[13]
The rejection of “A is A” entails the rejection of A’s independent standing as substance (A is not A), and an acceptance of A’s fundamental connection and relation to all not-A elements (A is: not-A, A can be not-A). Nāgārjuna explains further the absence of intrinsic nature in light of causation, in the classic text Vigrahavyāvartanī:
Those things which are dependently originated are not, indeed, endowed with an intrinsic nature; for they have no intrinsic nature (ye hi pratityasamutpanna bhavas te na sasvabhava bhavanti, svabhavabhavat).—Why?—Because they are dependent on causes and conditions (hetupratyayasapeksatvat). If the things were by their own nature (svabhavata), they would be even without the aggregate of causes and conditions (pratyakhyayapi hetupratyayam). But they are not so. Therefore they are said to be devoid of an intrinsic nature, and hence void. Likewise, it follows that my statement also, being dependently originated (pratityasamutpannatvat), is devoid of an intrinsic nature, and hence void.[14]
Hence we see here that the rejection of self also entails the rejection of A’s independence in causation, as A is dependent on a plenitude of not-A for its genesis and continued existence. The thing, A, does not stand on its own, and is therefore contingent and relative. But this is not only in the material causation of things. In the very representation of a being as such a being, it is already contingent on conception. Paul Williams brings this hermeneutic angle forth:
In Tibet it is sometimes said that the particular meaning of the important Buddhist term ‘dependent origination’ (pratītyasamutpāda) for the Prāsangika Madhyamaka is origination in dependence upon the designating mind; that is, when we say that all entities without exception are empty of inherent existence because they are dependently originated, one meaning of this particularly stressed by the Prāsangika is that all entities are simply mental constructs . . . [15]
For instance, when the reality of A is represented conceptually as A, the A that has come forth is no longer the reality of A itself. It is a representation of A, a mental construct that is contingent upon the mind, and is thus devoid of inherent existence. This implies that all entities that we become aware of are represented, from this representation alone, all entities as representations are immediately, absolutely contingent.
It is from this multi-faceted principle of not-self, foreign and absurd to most of the West, that Zen Buddhism approaches reality as a whole, allowing a pervasive unification of all that is. An adequate understanding of this doctrine already entails an understanding of the notion of emptiness itself, as we will see later on. But for the uninitiated, a detour through the doctrine of interbeing and its corollary is necessary.
The doctrine of not-self, by allowing A and not-A (either a contradictory, contrary or polar other) to be free of their independence and selfhood, and showing that A is contingent on a plenitude of not-A for its genesis, continued existence and coming-forth as A, makes possible the relationship and unity of A and other not-A elements. From here, we can depart to a doctrine that is perhaps more familiar to the western thinker through a similar concept: the metaphysical concept of unity.
Interbeing is a notion that states that all beings are one. This oneness can be seen metaphorically through the network of relations of A and all other things not-A. A hammer for example, is related to man and housing, through which it is related to weather, to which it is related to the movement and constitution of the planet Earth, to which it is related to the rest of the solar system, which emerged as part of this galaxy, and all these things, the hammer included, are related to man in that he considers them . . . All of these non-self (non-hammer) elements are one with the self (hammer). But is this unity merely the unity of relations?
Interbeing goes beyond the unity of mere relation to an absolute unification of all absolute contradictories. But how does this become possible? Does this not become a totalization, such that all things are reduced to the same, depriving things of their otherness by the loss of self? In Zen Buddhist teaching, the absolute uniqueness of every being must be explicitly preserved in the very oneness of all existents. This is best clarified in Nishitani’s explication of the “circuminsessional” relationship that radicalizes the dependence of things on its causes and conditions:
That beings one and all are gathered into one, while each one remains absolutely unique in its “being” points to a relationship in which, as we said above, all things are master and servant to one another. We may call this relationship, which is only possible on the field of śūnyatā, “circuminsessional.”[16]
That “all things are master and servant to one another” is a peculiar relationship to elucidate. This means that, say given this thing, A, this thing is the home-ground, a constitutive element in the being of every other thing, even things that are not-A. To be the home-ground of every other thing, means to be, in its very existence, the very possibility of each other thing coming forth as they are.[17] It is hence a servant to all other beings. But at the same time, every other thing is the home-ground and constitutive element in the being of this thing, and hence this thing is master. All not-A make possible the existence of A as A, and A makes possible the existence of all not-A as not-A. But as we see, it is the very difference of A and not-A, the very otherness of things that allows their co-constitutive nature.
This interrelation of A and not-A cannot be seen without first letting go of the self-substance of the thing. The thing must first be seen in its primordial unity with the not-self, before one can see that the thing is constituted by a world of non-self elements, and at the same time constitutes the non-self world.
As we see, the very point of departure of Zen Buddhism necessitates an awareness of unity. Distinction is only possible on the level of convention. If one delves into the heart of the matter, into tathata (suchness) itself, one must arrive at unity. Hence a distinction between A and not-A must dissolve by the doctrine of not-self, and arrive at belonging-together through the doctrine of interbeing. Only through these two simultaneous movements can reality as it is be seen in its unity.
Through these two notions, not-self and inter-being, we arrive at emptiness. In his tribute in seventy verses to emptiness, the Śūnyatāsaptati, Nāgārjuna says: “Since all things altogether lack substance—either in causes or conditions, [in their] totality, or separately—they are empty.”[18] But the emptiness of all things goes beyond denial. Thich asserts:
Emptiness, here, means empty of a separate, independent entity called a self. But empty of a separate self means full of everything![19]
It is through the very emptying of each being’s intrinsic nature, identity and self that things can exist as infinitely rich and related to reality as a whole. Emptiness is one with tathata and is the means through which one penetrates into tathata.
The penetration into tathata requires a dissolution of distinctions that arise from the reification of things, returning them to the ground of their primordial unity. But interbeing does not reveal the ground of emptiness when merely superficial distinctions are dissolved. Certain distinctions such as between a dog and a cat can be seen in unity by merely descending to a more general category (mammals in this case.) But in the case of absolute contradictories such as samsara and nirvana or beings and non-being, revealing the primordial unity necessitates descending to the absolute ground where all distinctions are unified in their roots. This ground is the field of emptiness. And if all distinctions, even absolutely contradictory distinctions, lay their roots in this ground and are hence unified, then all distinctions are relative to this absolute ground.
Hence we can now come to emptiness as an absolute. Precisely, emptiness is the absolute. To emptiness, everything else is relative. The field of emptiness is the field wherein both presence and absence, distinct and indistinct, fullness and privation, spatial and aspatial, temporal and atemporal, and being and non-being, descend into their primordial unity and are seen as one. All distinctions, designations, characterizations and categories are relativized beneath the absolute, which is emptiness. Hence emptiness is no mere negative, as an opposition to fullness or being. Emptiness is where all these paradoxical opposites like being and non-being are one.
As the absolute, emptiness can be seen as the standpoint of one who sees reality as it is—the awakened. Being “awakened” here is similar to the Heraclitean notion of being awakened, such that while for the most part, humans are “asleep,” that is blind and inattentive to reality as it is, those who are truly living up to the essential character of humanity are those who are “awakened,” continuously open and attentive to reality as it is.
However as we have just seen in the East, tathata, reality as it is, is very different from the western notion of reality. Tathata is rooted in the doctrine of Not-self and of inter-being. In light of this nature, “sleeping” is not characterized by a “lack of thought” as it is in the West, but instead, an excess of conceptually-fixated thought. Conceptual fixation constantly represents “A as A,” independent from and discriminated from other beings. Such mode of thinking bars human beings from approaching the reality of A, which is not-A, and one with all other beings. Hence awakening is entering into a state of mind wherein one is able to let go of representational thinking and embrace things as they are on their own home-ground. One no longer represents. One has entered the mode of samādhi-being, open to the being of beings as they are.
Samādhi means settled.[20] Unlike the awakened man of the West who rises from slumber, the awakening into samādhi is a settling, a release. Instead of rushing to fill the void that is lacking in thought, one who embraces the standpoint of śūnyatā settles down to empty himself of representational thinking, to allow the very being of the beings unfold themselves upon their own home-ground. The awakened reckons with things as they are immediately present, and in this allows the unfolding of the world as One, a unity that preserves the very difference of all beings. This is man in his unfettered, fundamental ontological state.
Reality is empty. The approach to reality as it is, is through emptiness. The fundamental ontological state of man is a settling into the standpoint of emptiness. In the immortal words of Avalokitesvara to Sariputra:
Form is here emptiness, emptiness is form; form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form; that which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness is form The same can be said of sensation, thought, confection, and consciousness. O Sariputra, all things here are characterized with emptiness . . . [21]
From the doctrines of not-self and interbeing, a logical technique has emerged—a dialectic that mindfully seeks the unity of absolute contradictories through the standpoint of emptiness. This logic is known as the Soku dialectic, which has its roots in the classic Zen Buddhist writing, the Diamond Cutter (Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita) Sutra, which contains many lines in the form: “The A which is not A is truly A.”[22] In verse five we read:
“Subhuti, what do you think? Is the Tathagata to be recognized after a body-form?”
“No, World-honoured One, he is not to be recognized after a body-form. Why? According to the Tathagata, a body-form is not a body-form.”
The Buddha said to Subhuti, “All that has a form is an illusive existence. When it is perceived that all form is no-form, the Tathagata is recognized.” [Underlines supplied.][23]
Again, we encounter the pairing of contradictories in verse seven, this time with the contradictories of preaching:
“Subhuti, what do you think? Has the Tathagata attained the supreme enlightenment? Has he something about which he would preach?”
Subhuti said: “World-honoured One, as I understand the teaching of the Buddha, there is no fixed doctrine about which the Tathagata would preach. Why? Because the doctrine he preaches is not to be adhered to, not is it to be preached about; it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma. How is it so? Because all wise men belong to the category known as non-doing (asamskara), and yet they are distinct from one another.” [Underlines supplied.][24]
Many more verses in the Diamond-Cutter Sutra repeat these couplings of contradictories. Body-form-soku-not-body-form, form-soku-not-form, dharma-soku-not-dharma... Soku is also used to link other common Buddhist contradictories, such as form and emptiness, samsara and nirvana, fleeting and permanent, etc. The Soku dialectic follows the general form “A-soku-not-A is A.” But what does “soku” mean? “Soku” functions as a link between A and not-A, and can be translated as sive, qua, in, “as it is, is _ ,” or “is” (in the sense of identity). As a link of contradictory identity, whereby things that are commonly seen as excluding one another are brought into unity, the Soku dialectic seems to make no sense at all!
The sense of the Soku dialectic lies in its simultaneous two-fold movement: the first, one of liberation, and second, one of settling. The first movement seeks to liberate the mind from vikalpa[25] (vain discernment). As the name Diamond-Cutter implies, the sutra cited above and its technique of pairing contradictories serves to cut like a diamond through the vain discernments and distinctions of the mind. Zen Buddhism has a profound perception of the limitations of concepts, a limitation perhaps only recently recognized in the West, most clearly in hermeneutics. In the formulation “A-soku-not-A,” A and not-A are conceptions that are rendered inadequate when the absolute relation of things are considered. The concept of A always fails to capture the infinite richness of the reality of A, and the reality of A always contains elements that are not-A, that is, elements that a representation of A as A fails to capture. Therefore in order to see into the true nature of A as circuminsessionally related to all other elements, one must be able to reckon with not-A and see them from a field where A and not-A are one. That is, soku brings the not-A to bear upon the A, with aims to smash the contradicting concepts and liberate the mind from its feeble conceptions and allow tathata (suchness) to come forth as it is.
The second movement is seen in the linkage of soku itself. To bring not-A to bear upon the A and see them as one, one is compelled to take the standpoint of the soku, that is, a standpoint wherein absolute contradictories are one. In seeking this primordial unity, one must enter samādhi, a settling-down into the field of emptiness. Settling-down indicates that grappling with a soku formulation is an active process.
When one is beset by absolutely contradictory pair in soku formulation such as beings-soku-non-being, the settling is not immediate, nor is the liberation from the vikalpa (vain discernment) that makes non-being a stranger to beings. One does not look upon the formulation, smile, and say “alright, beings and non-being are one.” No! If it were that easy then everyone would be a Buddha. One grapples with a soku formulation, as liberation requires a struggle. Nishitani reminds us of the following:
From ancient times the word samādhi (“settling”) has been used to designate the state of mind in which a man gathers his own mind together and focuses it on a central point, thereby taking a step beyond the sphere of ordinary conscious and self-conscious mind and, in that sense, forgetting his ego.[26]
One must unceasingly focus his mind upon the necessary unity of, in this case, beings and non-being. But if the formulation contains a truly contradictory pair (as in this case), finding a locus of unity will not be possible if one remains in the representational sphere of thought. There is no conventional way to garner an understanding of why beings and non-being are one, until one has descended to an awareness from a settled state, a state free of (mis)representations, a standpoint from emptiness.
1.3 Theoretical Physics, The Vacuum[27]
It seems unlikely that science will concern itself with nothingness, seeing in the past two sections how nothingness seems like a truly meta-physical concept. True enough, the nothing that science perceives seems very alien to the Nothing and emptiness. In the world of physics, the nothingness they concern themselves with is more familiar as the word “vacuum.” It may go by other names, empty space, space-time, the manifold of space-time, the manifold, etc.[28] We will use the word vacuum to mean all these, but first we see how science stumbled upon their own perception of nothingness.
Science has been bickering over its own representation of the nothing for over two thousand years. Could there be a true physical vacuum—a region of space that contains absolutely nothing? Aristotle and Plato said that a true vacuum was impossible.[29] On the other hand, Lucretius said that matter, being composed of discrete constituent particles, and that “the basic nature of the Universe was a motion of these atoms in the void that lay between them.”[30] In other words, the vacuum was everywhere, provided you probed deeply into the spaces between the littlest of things.
Such pre-modern conceptions led to the possibility of the first empirically tested search for the nothing: an attempt to clear out a region of space of all things in it. This was to be accomplished by sucking all the air out (hence the colloquial understanding of the word vacuum) until all that remained was a region devoid of all physical existents. This study was intimately tied to the theory behind the workings of water pumps and the conception of air pressure. Work on this was done primarily by Galileo, Torricelli, Boyle, and Otto von Guericke, and the final result was a radical realization. “The Earth was cocooned in an atmosphere that thinned out as one ascended from the Earth’s surface and was eventually reduced to an empty expanse that we have come to call simply ‘space . . . ’”[31] Closer, modern science crept toward the physical nothing as we now know it. Von Guericke composed a psalm in honor of the nothing:
Everything is in Nothing and if God should reduce the fabric of the world, which he created, into Nothing, nothing would remain of its place other than Nothing (just as it was before the creation of the world), that is, the Uncreated. For the Uncreated is that whose beginning does not pre-exist; and Nothing, we say, is that whose beginning does not pre-exist. Nothing contains all things. It is more precious than gold, without beginning and end, more joyous than the perception of bountiful light, more noble than the blood of kings, comparable to the heavens, higher than the stars, more powerful than a stroke of lightning, perfect and blessed in every way. Nothing always inspires. . . . Nothing is everywhere. They say the vacuum is Nothing; and they say that imaginary space—and space itself—is nothing.[32]
Up to this point in scientific history, the vacuum is seen as that which is fundamentally other to physical being. What is not mass-energy (or matter) is no-thing, and a region of space without any existents is a region of nothing, a vacuum. The vacuum does have its importance, as the region in which matter exists, as a locus for matter, but it has yet to become inextricably linked with physical being, as the Nothing of Heidegger and the emptiness of Zen Buddhism.
But science’s outlook on the vacuum has changed. Recent advances in astrophysics regarding the questions of the origin of the universe and the search for a Grand Unified Theory, aided by advances in technology for more accurately and precisely observing the most minute of particles and the most distant of galaxies, has ushered a new age of nothingness. The vacuum has been afforded a deeper level of understanding and importance in this age, particularly in quantum theory, relativity theory and Superstring theory. The vacuum has become intimately tied with the existence of mass-energy (matter) itself, resulting in a possibility for a scientifically tenable world-view of a world of nothing.
We shall explore the vacuum in its newfound richness by first delving into a peculiar discovery—negative energy. From there, we move on to the vacuum fluctuation theory of creation, one of the theories that attempts to explain how the universe came to be. Proceeding to the world of minutiae, we seek the answer to the question “what constitutes matter,” in an overview of certain implications of Superstring Theory. Such will raise a question—is the vacuum really nothing? And when that has been answered, the way has been paved for a possible unfolding of the physical universe through the vacuum.
“Can a unit of space contain less than nothing?”[33] Common understanding would posit that upon removal of all the matter and energy in a unit of space, one would be left with a vacuum—empty space. In the complete absence of somethings, there is nothing. And nothing is a basement so to speak, it is as low as you can go, quantity-wise. But physics has proven yet again that reality can be so strange.
Experimental evidence from studies of squeezed states of light and Casimir’s effect[34] have shown that a unit of space can indeed have less than nothing, such that the energy density of the given volume is less than zero.[35]
Researchers in quantum optics have created special states of fields in which destructive quantum interference suppresses the vacuum fluctuations. These so-called squeezed vacuum states . . . are associated with regions of alternating positive and negative energy. The total energy averaged over all space remains positive; squeezing the vacuum creates negative energy in one place at the price of extra positive energy elsewhere.[36]
The existence of negative energy is not merely a theoretical possibility, it is an observed phenomenon.
On a side note, it must be clarified that negative energy, sometimes referred to as exotic matter, is not antimatter.[37] Antimatter has a positive mass/energy. When matter collides with antimatter, there is an annihilation that releases positive energy in the form of gamma radiation. Negative energy or exotic matter, upon collision with an equivalent amount of positive mass/energy does not annihilate. There is no explosion. Both simply cancel each other out and “blip out of existence.”
So what is negative energy? Negative energy, like positive energy, is energy—a form of matter with an equivalent expression as (negative) mass. But what does it mean for energy to be negative? I once asked my little brother (who was then eight years old), “if you have four apples and you eat three, how many do you have left?” Having learned quite a bit of arithmetic, he quickly answered, “one.” Then I asked him, “if you have four apples and you eat five, how many do you have left?” He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face, paused, and after quite a bit of hesitation said: “In math the answer is negative one. But if I only have four apples, how can I eat five?” The statement reveals that implicitly, one cannot have less than no apples. Negativity in the physical world is understood as privation, not an actuality in itself. Hence in light of current discoveries, it is necessary to expand what “negative” means in our physical realm.
A theoretical situation can be concocted as a pedagogic aid: one has an apple made of the usual (positive) mass-energy, and an identical apple made of negative energy. If these two apples came into contact with each other, they would simply vanish without a trace! This would be an event demonstrating: “1 + -1 = 0.” We see here that negative energy implies the actual existence of a nullifying actuality, an existent that can deprive another existent of its existence.
Negative energy has other interesting qualities. Because of the equivalence of mass and energy, negative energy has a negative equivalent mass. And from its negative equivalent mass, exotic matter is hence gravitationally repulsive with positive mass/energy. In classical Newtonian physics, the attraction of the force of gravity is a function of the masses of the two bodies and their separation distance (FG=Gm1m2/r2).[38] If one of the masses is negative, the direction of the force vector is flipped (FG becomes negative), and instead of the two masses being attracted together, they are pushed away. Using the rubber sheet metaphor of Einstein, where a positive mass causes a depression in the rubber sheet (representing space/time curvature) that causes other bodies to roll toward it, a negative mass causes a “hill” that causes other bodies (of positive mass) to roll away from it. This function of negative energy is one of the things that makes it interesting to physicists—negative energy, if only it could be harnessed, could be used to evaporate black holes, dilate wormhole openings to make them traversable, and many other things.[39]
The discovery of negative energy also changes the perception of empty space, in light of the discovery of virtual particles and quantum fluctuations in empty space. Recent studies suggest that while the average energy of empty space is zero, due to quantum fluctuations, the energy density randomly fluctuates slightly above and slightly below zero through the course of time. This phenomenon is physically manifest in the appearance of pulses of positive energy that quickly disappear, followed by equivalent pulses of negative energy that again, quickly disappear—creating a “sea of virtual particles coming in and out of existence” in this apparent vacuum.[40] The term virtual must not be equated with “insignificant.” Henning Genz writes:
The experiments at the LEP collider have shown us many times that all virtual particles need in order to become real is energy. . . . the energy needed for the passage from virtual particles to real ones could become available by that very passage.