The universe, physicists tell us, has no edge, yet the mass, and other “stuff” like dark matter, are all more or less uniformly distributed throughout. Even stranger, if you take a long journey in a straight line from any starting position, they say, you will never reach a boundary. There’s no boundary because there’s nothing “outside” of it to be bounded by. The Big Bang, which is still the most scientifically validated theory explaining how our universe came to be, was not an eruption of matter at a point in space, but an eruption of matter that also created the space it expanded into – a “space” which was nonexistent before it arrived. This sudden, roughly uniform, expansion of matter into four-dimensional space-time explains why, wherever we look into the cosmos, the cosmic background radiation—that remnant signature of the big bang itself--appears quite uniform in all directions, confirming that there is, indeed, no “center” to the universe; that it exists within its own self-created boundless, edgeless, “bubble”.
We can draw some analogies with our own “inner” universe of Mind. For those of us experienced with meditation, an activity in which we explore the mind directly, we find that it, too, has no boundaries, and that, from whatever position we start traveling within it, we never reach an edge. We can say nothing about whatever is outside our mind because we don’t have access to it; in fact, asking what’s outside our mind is like asking what’s beyond our universe. If there’s something beyond our universe, then it’s still of our universe. We also come to realize that our sense of an “outside” world is created by the mind, which processes and interprets sensory information. From information alone, we construct an impression of a 3-dimensional world.
Although this is a revelation that often comes to meditators, it became a guiding principle in Chinese Chan, largely through the efforts of Xuan Zang (Hsüan-tsang 玄奘) who, during the 7th century, travelled to India to learn from Buddhist monks. He returned to China with a large bounty of texts which were quickly translated and absorbed into the Buddhist community. Xuan Zang and his collection of texts dovetailed the spiritual practice of Yogacara (Yogācāra), or Yoga practice, with the ontological insights gained from its practice, which, together, became referred to as “mind only” or “consciousness only”. His enthusiasm for Yogacara culminated in the Discourse on the Perfection of Consciousness-only (Chéng Wéish Lùn 成唯識論), which subsequently formed the basis for the Chinese Wei Shi, or Yoga, school, one of the early Mahayana schools, and later contributed to the birth of the Chan school. While the Wei Shi school faded away, its principles were integrated broadly into Chinese Buddhism, and we commonly hear reference to them in Dharma talks from Chan monks. One of the most influential sutras during the early development of Chan was the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, which gives an in-depth accounting of Yogacara’s practice and philosophy. It became central to the rise of the Chan school and is still studied and revered by Chan monks today. Considered an accurate accounting of the Buddha’s own words, the Laṅkāvatāra describes the essence of Mind as the totality of existence, which we can realize if we don’t allow it to attach to itself—it’s through attachments that we mistakenly perceive an external realm to exist independently of us:
Mind, attached to itself,
Evolves resembling an external realm.
What is perceived by mind does not exist,
And therefore, there is nothing but mind.
Another development in contemporary theoretical physics is the notion that the universe may be a hologram--a projection of 3-dimentional (3-D) space onto a 2-dimensional (2-D) “plane”. Like a hologram, the theory posits that our reality is a 3-D projection onto a 2-D space, and that this 2-D space contains all the information needed, through that projection, to generate the 3-D world we perceive. The reason this idea has gained much traction over the last few decades is because, with this assumption, it becomes much easier to solve many of the fundamental problems which have plagued physicists since the mid 20th century: from understanding the dynamics of black holes to the connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
If we are indeed living in a 2-D holographic space, what might this mean? We could posit that we would be unable to distinguish our 2-D existence because we have evolved, as creatures, to construct the 3-D image from the information provided in the 2-D holographic realm—an automatic process hidden from consciousness, because consciousness arises out of the reconstructive process itself. As Neurokinetikz puts it, “If the universe is a hologram, then the central nervous system is likely a reference beam for its re-construction.” That is, the brain and all the tendrils of neurons connected to it, provide the generative force that creates the impression of the physical world in which we live. From information alone, we construct an impression of a 3-D world.
Another interesting feature of the hologram is that, when a 3-D image is mapped onto a 2-D film, that 3-D information exists equally in all parts of the film; that is, the information needed to create the 3-D image exists throughout the film. This can be demonstrated by cutting the film in half. An observer will notice that each half reveals the same complete three-dimensional image. If those pieces are cut in half again, the same full image can be seen in each of those halves as well. This can continue ad infinitum, assuming a perfect system, because the whole image exists within every part of the medium. If the holographic representation of the universe is more than mathematical game-playing by physicists, i.e., if it truly describes an aspect of reality, it could explain why mystics—those of us who delve deeply into the unseen world of Mind—describe realty as both infinite and singular, with no separation between observer and observed. There are no parts, just a perfect whole. Chan monk, Hsu Yun, offered such perspective with the concluding verses to his ox-herding poems:
Coming Home with Folded Hands
How wide are the horizons of the spinning earth!
The moonlight leads the tides and the sun’s light will not be confined
within the net of heaven.
But in the end all things return to the One.
The deaf and dumb, the crippled and deformed are all restored to the One's Perfection.
The Concluding Song
In the beginning there was nothing, nor was anything lacking.
The paper was blank. We pick up the paint brush and create the
scene...
The landscape, the wind whipping water into waves.
Everything depends upon the stroke of our brush.
Our Ox lets the good earth lead it,
Just as our brush allows our hand to move it.
Take any direction, roam the world to its farthest edge.
All comes back to where it started... to blessed Emptiness.
The value of the holographic metaphor to our own inner universe is that it gives us another way to understand and conceptualize the experiences we have when we travel into the domain of Mind. I think Xuan Zang would have appreciated the holographic model of the universe, as it reveals, in a sense, the “spiritual” aspect of our existence, an aspect that cannot be directly seen, but can be intuited through the meditative process. It’s remarkable how mathematics can offer deep insights into the nature of reality, which are not only non-intuitive, but beyond our ability to comprehend intellectually. It’s equally remarkable that, purely through the power of contemplation and meditation, we can arrive at similar insights.
Chuan Zhi, July 2022
NOTES
To create a hologram—a three-dimensional visual reconstruction of an object from a 2-dimensional image—a thick transparent film is exposed by reflecting a laser beam off an object and projecting it onto the film where it interferes with another beam from the same source which did not reflect off the object—the reference beam. The resulting image stored in the film can then be cut in half to again reveal the full three-dimensional image of the object in each half, and each of those halves can be cut in half again to reveal the full image in each of those halves. This can continue ad infinitum, assuming a perfect system, because the whole image exists within every part of the medium.
Readers seeking to delve deeper into the philosophical and ontological insights offered by the meditation masters of the Yogācāra school may be interested in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, the Pratyutpanna Sūtra, the Daśabhūmika Sūtra and, of special relevance to Chan, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.
Neurokinetikz’s reference can be found here: https://medium.com/@neurokinetikz/the-holographic-universe-21089d68e460
The quote from the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is from Hsüan-tsang (Xuan Zang) in Demonstration of Consciousness Only, in Three Texts on Consciousness Only, p. 64, Translated from the Chinese of Hsiian-tsang (Taisho Volume 31, Numbers 1585, 1586, 1590), by Francis H. Cook. Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 1999.