Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

Duality is a prevalent concept in science. An attempt to explain natural phenomena in terms of duality may be traced back to Aristotle when he explained the universe in terms of dual concepts of matter and forces, where matter consisted of the four elements of earth, water, air and fire, and forces of the two movements of gravity and levity. The Aristotelian idea of explaining the universe in terms of dual concepts of matter and forces was inherited by physicists, as witness the dual concepts of position and momentum employed in classical mechanics.

By far the most remarkable discovery of duality in the universe would be in the field of quantum mechanics known as the wave-particle duality. This is how that duality in quantum mechanics is explained by Stephen Hawking (1942 - ), one of the most remarkable physicists whose contributions range from cosmology to relativity to quantum mechanics: “Although light is made up of waves, Planck’s quantum hypothesis tells us that in some ways it behaves as if it were composed of particles: it can be emitted or absorbed only in packets, or quanta. Equally, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle implies that particles behave in some respects like waves: they do not have a definite position but are ‘smeared out’ with a certain probability distribution. … There is thus a duality between waves and particles in quantum mechanics: for some purposes it is helpful to think of particles as waves and for other purposes it is better to think of waves as particles.”¹

While duality in science is regarded as a useful, even essential concept in explaining natural phenomena, duality in Buddhist thought, as represented by the idea of existence and the idea of non-existence, is regarded as a concept that needs to be avoided. In the Samyutta Nikaya, for example, the Buddha explains duality as follows: “This world, Kaccana, for the most part depends on a duality—upon the idea of existence and the idea of nonexistence. But for one who sees the origin of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no idea of nonexistence in regard to the world. And for one who sees the cessation of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no idea of existence in regard to the world.”²

Why are there such sharp differences in the way the concept of duality is treated in science and Buddhist thought, despite parallels and similarities that exist between the scientific and the Buddhist view of the world? We must note, in the first place, that there is a semantic difference in the use of the concept. Although the same word is used, duality in science is used in the sense of “complementarity” to refer to two aspects of the same reality. Duality in Buddhist thought, in contrast, is used in the sense of “opposition” between two views about the nature of reality such as sassatavada (eternalism) versus ucchedavada (annihilationism) and atthita (the idea of existence) versus natthita (the idea of nonexistence). The so-called Cartesian dualism originally proposed by Rene Descartes (1596-1650) can be regarded as an example from the history of science in which the concept of duality was used in the sense of “opposition”, where mind and body were regarded as referring to two separate entities. Today, of course, most scientists have abandoned the Cartesian dualism between mind and body in favor of “holism”, Paul Davies explains: “Mind and body are not two components of a duality, but two entirely different concepts drawn from different levels in a hierarchy of description.”³ In addition to a semantic difference, there is, of course, a substantive difference between science and Buddhist thought as to what duality actually refers to. While duality in science refers to features of some physical entity in nature, duality in Buddhist thought refers to features of our conceptual understanding of the world around us.

Duality in science is treated as a useful concept because it gives us a complete picture of a natural phenomenon such as the position-momentum duality in classical mechanics or the wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. On the other hand, duality is treated as something to be avoided in Buddhist thought because it represents two opposing and extreme views about the nature of reality in the world around us. Hence, the Buddha’s recommendation of the middle way: “‘All exists’: Kaccana, this is one extreme. ‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme. Without veering toward either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle…”⁴

Since duality is to be avoided, overcoming dualistic thinking becomes an essential aspect of Buddhist practice. That practice involves, for example, from the abandoning of unwholesome thoughts connected with lobha, dosa, and moha, or “greed, hatred, and delusion” to the cultivation of samatha and vipassana, or “serenity and insight”. In any event, we will be completely liberated from duality, or dualistic thinking, only when we obtain that clarity called enlightenment, as Master Sheng-yen explains: “It is like clear vision that is completely aware of what is in front: when this clarity is perfect, it has no likes or dislikes. Why? Because the essence of this clarity is nondual and itself has no likes or dislikes. … Complete Enlightenment is universally illuminating in quiescent-extinction without duality.”⁵

1. Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.36.
2. Bhikku Bodhi, In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Boson: Wisdom Publications, 2005, pp.356-357.
3. Davies, Paul, God and the New Physics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, p.83.
4. Bhikkhu Bodhi, op.cit., p.357.
5. Master Sheng-yen, Complete Enlightenment: Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Boston: Shambhala, 1999, p.26.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

During his long career as a teacher who answered all kinds of questions put to him from his monastic as well as lay followers, the Buddha is known to have occasionally refused to answer certain questions. One of the best-known examples of the Buddha’s refusal to answer questions is recorded in the Culamalunkya Sutta, in which the Buddha refuses to answer ten questions put to him by the monk Malunkyaputta. Included among these ten questions are such questions as: whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether the world is finite or infinite, whether the soul is the same as the body or the soul is one thing and the body another.

Why did the Buddha refuse to answer these questions? One reason for the Buddha’s refusal seems to be the speculative nature of these questions to which only speculative answers could be given. But a more important reason is that these questions are irrelevant to what the Buddha considered to be the imminent task for the people to find the solution to the question of suffering that permeates life: “Whether there is the view ‘the world is eternal’ or the view ‘the world is not eternal,’ there is birth, there is aging, there is death, there are sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair, the destruction of which I prescribe here and now.”¹ Using the well-known simile of the man wounded by a poisoned arrow, the Buddha convinces Malunkyaputta that a question such as whether the world is eternal or not eternal “is unbeneficial, does not belong to the fundamentals of the spiritual life, does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana.”² And in the Mahasaropama Sutta, the Buddha employs another well-known simile of the heartwood to teach his monks that “it is this unshakable liberation of mind that is the goal of this spiritual life, its heartwood, and its end.”³

Included among the ten questions asked by Malunkyaputta, in addition to the ones mentioned above, is the question about life after death, which is couched in the form of a question as to what happens to a Tathagata after death. Needless to say, this is another question to which the Buddha refuses to provide an answer for the same reason he gave to other questions. The Buddha’s refusal to answer the question of life after death reminds us of Confucius, another sage in the tradition of Eastern thought, who also refused to answer such a speculative question. When asked by Chi-lu about death, Confucius replies: “You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?”⁴ While Confucius differs from the Buddha in that his primary concern was about the question of establishing social order, it is clear that he, too, refused to answer certain questions as speculative and unbeneficial.

The tradition of Western thought, especially that of science, has not been shy about asking all kinds of questions, some of which would no doubt be labeled as speculative and unbeneficial in the tradition of Eastern thought as represented by the Buddha and Confucius. Take, for example, the question of whether the world is eternal or not eternal, to which the Buddha refused to give an answer. Centuries of passionate endeavors by Western scientists to find an answer to this question have resulted in a remarkable answer known as the big-bang theory, which states that the world, or the universe, began at a finite past with the event called the “big-bang”.

As a scientific theory, it is an idea, or a model, about how the universe began, whose validity is still being debated among cosmologists today. But the problem with an answer such as a big-bang theory is that it raises further questions. Especially troublesome is the question of what the universe was like before the big bang, to which even scientists hesitate to answer. Thus, Stephen Hawking states: “If, as is the case, we know only what has happened since the big bang, we could not determine what happened beforehand. As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences, so they should not form part of a scientific model of the universe.”⁵

It is interesting to note that this statement by the physicist Hawking is almost in agreement with the words of Pope John Paul II: “Science cannot of itself solve this question (concerning the universe’s beginning): there is needed that human knowledge that rises above physics and astrophysics and which is called metaphysics; there is needed above all the knowledge that comes from God’s revelation.”⁶ We should perhaps say that Hawking the physicist is “almost” in agreement with Pope John Paul II because the last part of the Pope’s statement does mention the role of God the creator of the universe as he would as the head of the Catholic Church.

To the extent that there are certain questions to which no satisfactory answers can be given, we are reminded of an answer given by Shylock in Act IV of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice: “I am not bound to please thee with my answer.” Though given in a completely different context of a legal strife, we need to remind ourselves that sometimes no answer is the best answer, whether the question concerns mundane affairs or extramundane affairs. The refusal to answer certain questions does not deny the importance of seeking knowledge of the world around us, whether by direct experience or by scientific method. What is being denied is the possibility of finding satisfactory—and beneficial—answers to all the questions about ourselves and the universe, for the very act of asking questions is meaningful only in the context of cosmic evolution which has given us life on a tiny speck in the universe called Earth.

1. Bhikkhu Boddhi, In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005, p.232.
2. Ibid., p.233.
3. Ibid., p.237.
4. Confucius, The Analects, London: Penguin Books, 1979, XI.12.
5. Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.46.
6. Pope John Paul II, “Cosmology and Fundamental Physics”, October 1981.