Number of words: 133 Brahman, the ultimate reality, is understood as the ‘soul’, or inner essence, of all things. It is infinite and beyond all concepts. Yet, people want to talk about this reality and the Hindu sages with their characteristic penchant for myth have pictured Brahman as divine and talk about it in mythological … Read more
Number of words: 740 The first important step towards an understanding of nuclear structure was the discovery of the neutron as the second constituent of the nucleus, a particle which has roughly the same mass as the proton (the first nuclear constituent)-about two thousand times the mass of the electron-but does not carry an electric … Read more
Number of words: 665 Quantum theory has thus demolished the classical concepts of solid objects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature. At the subatomic level, the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve into wave-like patterns of probabilities, and these patterns, ultimately, do not represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections. A … Read more
Number of words: 317 Zen Buddhists have a particular knack for making a virtue out of the inconsistencies arising from verbal communication, and with the koan system they have developed a unique way of transmitting their teachings completely non-verbally. Koans are carefully devised nonsensical riddles which are meant to make the student of Zen realize … Read more
Number of words: 316 In atomic physics, many of the paradoxical situations are connected with the dual nature of light or – more generally of electromagnetic radiation. On the one hand, it is clear that this radiation must consist of waves because it produces the well-known interference phenomena associated with waves: when there are two … Read more
Number of words: 296 Studying a limited group of phenomena can also mean studying their physical properties only over a limited range, which may be another reason for the theory to be approximate. This aspect of the approximation is quite subtle because we never know beforehand where the limitations of a theory lie. Only experience … Read more
Number of words: 130 Shikan-taza is a heightened state of concentrated awareness wherein one is neither tense nor hurried, and certainly never slack. It is the mind of somebody facing death. Let us imagine that you are engaged in a duel of swordsmanship of the kind that used to take piace in ancient Japan. As … Read more
Number of words: 84 Another well known example of spontaneous intuitive insights are jokes. In the split second where you understand a joke you experience a moment of ‘enlightenment’. It is well known that this moment must come spontaneously, that it cannot be achieved by ‘explaining’ the joke, i.e. by intellectual analysis. Only with a … Read more
Number of words: 120 Anybody who wants to repeat an experiment in modern subatomic physics has to undergo many years of training. Only then will he or she be able to ask nature a specific question through the experiment and to understand the answer. Similarly, a deep mystical experience requires, generally, many years of training … Read more
Number of words: 151 This way of basing all theories firmly on experiment is known as the scientific method and we shall see that it has its counterpart in Eastern philosophy. Greek philosophy, on the other hand, was fundamentally different in that respect. Although Greek philosophers had extremely ingenious ideas about nature which often come … Read more
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