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The Morphogenetic Universe and the Global Ethics of Attunement, Accommodation, and Actualization

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Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Since the emergence of classical mechanics in the seventeenth century, the universe as a mechanical clock had been the metaphor most frequently used by scientists until the twentieth century. With the emergence and development of relativity and big-bang cosmology in the first half of the twentieth century, this metaphor of the universe as a mechanistic clock started to lose its popularity among scientists, as they started to accept the idea that the universe has its evolutionary history which includes the birth of the solar system and the emergence of life on one of its planets. Towards the end of the twentieth century, scientists started to use such new metaphors as the “interconnected universe”, the “self-aware universe”, and even the “dreaming universe” to describe what the universe is like, pointing to the idea that the universe is like a living organism1. Although there are a large contingent of scientists who still cling to the materialist philosophy and the mechanical view of the way the universe works, the idea of the universe as a “living organism” is steadily gaining support among scientists today.2

Actually, the idea that the universe is like a living organism is not new. It has a long history that goes back to Greek philosophers and scientists who saw the order of the universe to be that of a living organism, and a long list of proponents of this idea includes such illustrious figures as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), William Gilbert (1540-1603), David Hume (1711-76), Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), William James (1842-1910), and Henri Bergson (1859-1941). David Hume, for example, suggested that the world could have originated from something like a seed or an egg. Recent proponents of the idea of the universe as a living organism point out that the universe is not a mechanical system like an inanimate clock made of matter, but rather a lively system full of spontaneity and creativity, whose evolution can only be described by such terms as “emergence” and “self-organization”3. Some go as far as using such terms as “meaning” and “purpose”, though doing so is still regarded as taboo by a majority of scientists.

Once we accept the idea that the universe is a living organism, it becomes possible for us to talk about ethics in the context of a scientific inquiry. This is so because it is in the context of the evolution of the universe as a living organism that human species emerged on one of the planets in its local system, and the question as to what kinds of behavior are required of us humans if we are to ensure coherence, order and viability of all systems in the universe can be discussed in that context. What kind of ethics is implied, then, by the idea of the universe as a living organism?

That the universe is a living organism means that its evolution involves the dual process of growth and decay, of birth and death, of all systems in it. In other words, the evolution of the universe has the creative as well as the destructive aspect to it. The creative aspect of cosmic evolution involves such phenomena as emergence and self-organization. The destructive aspect of cosmic evolution, on the other hand, involves such phenomena as disorder and decay.

Judging from the spontaneous appearance of order and coherence to be observed in such varied systems as a gas of electrons, a pan of heated water, a slime mold, and a colony of ants, systems in nature seem to be capable of making “meaningful connections” among thier constituent elements. These meaningful connections are spontaneously formed as if from nowhere, from the ground state of the universe, reflecting the “implicate order” to be found there, as one physicist suggests4. The universe as a living organism can be called a “morphogenetic universe” in the sense that every system in it has an inherent tendency to generate—and dissolve—“forms”, or “structured patterns of interaction”, among its constituent elements. The creative side of systems evolution in the universe involves two phases of “formation” and “preservation”, while the destructive side involves two phases of “contravention” and “dissolution”. The creative side of systems evolution is full of creativity and synergy, while the destructive side full of conflict and friction, among constituent elements in the space of interaction among all systems in the universe.

The idea that the universe is a living organism, while exciting and stimulating for its creative possibilities, is at the same time depressing and traumatic for its destructive implications. For one thing, the universe, if it is a living organism, will sooner or later come to its death, which is the end of history for all systems in it. Indeed, the cycle of birth and death, of creation and destruction, of formation and dissolution, is the inherent tendency of the evolution of all systems in the universe, including human systems such as groups, organizations, societies, and civilizations.

If there is something unique about human systems, it is that the dual process of formation and dissolution for them is accentuated by the capacity our species has acquired during its evolution to influence human as well as natural systems around us. As a result, a human system, instead of making gradual adjustment in the changing natural environment, tends to make rapid adjustment in an artificially created environment of competing human systems as every human system is an open system that must carve out its niche in an ever-changing environment of Toynbeean challenges and responses among human systems.5 More often than not, challenges coming from other human systems, instead of being transformed into creative stimuli, are met with destructive responses in the form of conflicts and wars. Thus, the tragedy of human systems is that the natural tendency for formation and dissolution that comes from aging and generational turnover is artificially magnified into violent forces of change and transformation aided by raw human emotions and powerful technologies.

While destruction and death may be unavoidable for all systems in the universe, how can we prevent one human system from forcefully imposing destruction and death on other human—and natural—systems? While competitions and rivalries among human systems may be unavoidable, how can we prevent those competitions and rivalries from escalating into violent confrontations and wars?

Here developing, and acting on, an awareness of the universe as a living organism seems to hold a key to the creation of a new global ethics. Being aware of the universe as a living organism means that we are aware of the interdependence among all systems in the universe, for every system is an open system whose viability depends on the exchange of matter, energy and information with other systems. What emerges out of such awareness of the global interdependence among all systems in the universe would be a global ethics based on the shared sense of belonging to the universe6. Such a global ethics is not, however, a system of behavior rules based on fixed notions about what should be done and what should not be done. Rather, it is a system of spiritual practices that can be summarized by three A’s of “attunement”, “accommodation”, and “actualization”: to attune ourselves to collective memories we share with other systems from the evolutionary past of the universe, to accommodate changes taking place in the evolving network of interdependence among all systems in the universe, and to actualize ourselves to become mindful participants in that evolving web of reality around us.

  1. See Laszlo, Ervin, The Interconnected Universe, Singapore: World Scientific, 1995, Goswami, Amit, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World, New York: Jeremy Tarcher, 1995, and Wolf, Fred Alan, The Dreaming Universe: A Mind-Expanding Journey into the Realm Where Psyche and Physics Meet, Touchstone, 1995.
  2. See, for example, Sheldrake, Rupert, The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry, London: Coronet, 2012, and Capra, Fritjof, and Luisi, Pier Luigi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
  3. See, for example, Bohm, David, and Peat, F.David, Order and Creativity, New York: Bantam Books, 1987, Kauffman, Stuart, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, and Sheldrake, Rupert, The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry, London: Coronet, 2012.
  4. See Bohm, David, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London: Routledge, 1980.
  5. Toynbee, Arnold, A Study of History, London: Oxford, 1954.
  6. See Capra, Fritjof & Steindl-Rast, David, Belonging to the Universe, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992.

Crossing the river—twice a year—to the other shore

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Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

The spring equinox is a joyous day for the people living in the Northern Hemisphere as it signifies the end of long dark winter nights with daylight hours, which have been slowly getting longer day by day since the winter solstice, finally catching up with and overtaking nighttime hours as the day passes. With the Sun crossing the Earth’s Equator, the Northern Hemisphere is now blessed with warm sunlight showering over fields and gardens, inviting trees to shoot out their buds and flowers to come out of the earth.

For the Japanese, too, this astronomical event a joyous occasion that signals the official arrival of spring. In fact, it is designated as a national holiday as “the day to praise nature and love living beings”. But the spring equinox, along with the autumn equinox, is also an important occasion for the Japanese to be reminded of their Buddhist heritage.

In Japan, an equinox is also known by its traditional term, higan (彼岸). As an equinox occurs twice a year, with hot summer and cold winter in-between the two equinoxes, the Japanese often talk about “atsusa samusa mo higan made”, which can be translated as: “No heat wave, or cold spell, lasts beyond the equinox”. This popular saying attests to the keen awareness on the part of the Japanese of the passage of seasons, which they also exhibit in their haikus. For example, Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), known for his novel Rashomon, composed the following haiku on the occasion of the spring equinox: “take no me mo akane sasitaru higan kana” (Bamboo buds, too, start reddening with the light of the spring equinox).1

As used by the Japanese, higan does not refer to a single day but to a seven-day period around an equinox, with three days before and three days after the equinox. The first day of higan is called higan-iri, or “the start of higan”, and the last day higan ake, which means “the end of higan”. The spring equinox in 2015 in Japan occurs on March 21, meaning that higan for the Japanese this year starts on March 18 and ends on March 24. During the higan week, the Japanese are expected to perform their duties and obligations as Buddhist practitioners. An equinox’s connection with their Buddhist heritage comes from the meaning of its traditional term, higan, which means: “the other shore”.

For the adherents of the Pure Land sect of Buddhism, the spring equinox is designated as the day on which they visit the graves of their ancestors, who are in “the other shore”, or the Pure Land for them, which is believed to be in the west, the direction in which the Sun sets on the day of the spring equinox. The custom of visiting graves of ancestors on the day of the equinox, in spring and in autumn, is said to have begun during the Heian period (794-1185), when the Pure Land Buddhism gained influence among the Japanese against the background of great social strife and turmoil, which led them to believe that they were living in the latter days of Buddhism.

For Buddhist practitioners in general, higan signifies the period during which they remind themselves of their resolve to accomplish the goal of “reaching the other shore”, whose Chinese expression tohigan (到彼岸) comes from the Sanskrit term “paramita”. Paramita is also translated as “perfection”, suggesting that the term refers to the final state of accomplishment in Buddhist practice. During the higan week, practitioners are supposed to go through six paramitas, three paramitas of danaparamita (generosity), shilaparamita, (morality) and kshantiparamita (patience) before, and the remaining three paramitas of viryaparamita (diligence), dhyanaparamita (meditation) and prajnaparamita (wisdom) after the day of the equinox, which is set aside for rest and reflection. The reason six paramitas are chosen for this occasion is because they are regarded as the key practices in Mahayana Buddhism, known as the six bodhisattva practices for crossing to the other shore. The practice begins with danaparamita (generosity), which the Buddha uses in Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra, known as The Diamond Sutra, as an example to show Venerable Subhuti how the happiness beyond conception and measurement can be obtained from the practice of generosity without relying on any form, sound, smell, taste, tactile object, or dharma.

The custom of practicing six paramitas during the equinox week, according to Nihon Koki, an official history of the country compiled during the early Heian period, begun in 806. It was this year that the higane (彼岸会), or “a Buddhist prayer service during an equinox”, was held for the first time in Japan. The occasion was to pacify the spirit of Prince Sawara, a younger brother of Emperor Kanmu (737-806), who starved himself to death on the way to his exile in Awaji in protest against the charge that he was involved in the assassination of Fujiwara Tanetsugu, the chief architect of the Emperor’s new capital at Nagaoka. With the death of the Emperor’s wife and other family members and a number of natural disasters such as pestilence and volcanic eruptions that followed the death of Prince Sawara, Emperor Kanmu was compelled to hold a proper Buddhist ceremony to honor Prince Sawara, who was a devout practitioner of Buddhism, by inviting Buddhist monks to recite The Diamond Sutra.

Some may consider the custom of practicing six paramitas just twice a year during the equinox weeks another evidence of the decline of Buddhism as a spiritual guide for the Japanese. On the other hand, there may be others who argue that practicing six paramitas twice a year may be better than not practicing at all, for what is important is the Mahayana idea of crossing the river together to the other shore in a large vessel. What is most challenging for Buddhist practitioners today everywhere, not just in Japan, is the widening of the river that separates this shore from the other shore. Standing, as we do, on this shore full of violent conflicts and confrontations in the globalized world today, we need to practice six paramitas every day of the year if we are to cross to the other shore, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests: “The practice of the paramitas can be the practice of our daily lives. We are on the shore of suffering, anger, and depression, and we want to cross over to the shore of well-being. To cross over, we have to do something, and that is called paramita. … We can practice “perfection” every day.”2

  1. The original Japanese expression are as follows:「竹の芽も茜さしたる彼岸かな」
  2. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, New York: Broadway Books, 1999, p. 192.