The Universe in a Single Atom
I’ve been trying to read the Dalai Lama’s most excellent book The Universe in a Single Atom - The Convergence of Science and Spirituality for two years now. It keeps slipping through my fingers.
Before it last disappeared, I managed to at least get a sense of his handling of a topic very dear to my heart. The unification, if you like, of head and heart. The rational and the spiritual.
It always delighted me, when I finally got to watch What The Bleep Do We Know, that you could not tell the difference between the quantum physicists and the mystics. When the interview subjects names and titles were revealed at the end, I laughed and laughed.
This seems to parallel the experience of Fritjof Capra, well known author of The Tao of Physics, who brings the two sides together within his own practice - as both physicist and mystic. See the wikipedia entry on Capra and Nobel Laureate physicist Werner Heisenberg’s conversations in 1972 for another glimpse down the rabbit hole.
So, back to the Dalai Lama’s universe. In a word, emptiness.
Once I find it again, I might reflect some more.
Perhaps I’m reading it right now in a parallel universe!
Another book with, not by, the Dalai Lama I shall have to get my hands on is The New Physics & Cosmology - Dialogues with the Dalai Lama.
“What happens when the Dalai Lama meets with leading physicists and a historian? This book is the carefully edited record of the fascinating discussions at a Mind and Life conference in which five leading physicists and a historian (David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Arthur Zajonc, Anton Zeilinger, and Tu Weiming) discussed with the Dalai Lama current thought in theoretical quantum physics, in the context of Buddhist philosophy.
“A contribution to the science-religion interface, and a useful explanation of our basic understanding of quantum reality, couched at a level that intelligent readers without a deep involvement in science can grasp.”