In Defense of Mystical Science

·期刊原文

In Defense of Mystical Science

By John A. Schumacher and Robert M. Anderson

Philosophy East and West

V. 29 No. 1 (1979, Jan) pp. 73-90

Copyright 1979 by University of Hawaii Press

Hawaii, USA

John A. Schumacher and Robert M. Anderson are members of the Department of Philosophy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

AUTHORS' NOTE: We would like to thank Cedric O. Evans, John Fudjack, John M. Koller, Karl H. Pribram, and the editor of Philosophy East and West, Eliot Deutsch, for their critical comments on earlier versions of this paper. Whatever errors remain are, of course, our own.

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Science and mysticism, as normally understood, exclude each other. A person cannot be both a scientist and a mystic. Indeed, a scientist is usually thought of as someone who would reject mysticism as being one way to lose touch with reality. On the other hand, a mystic might very well say the same thing about a scientist. Despite these apparent differences, however, some people are seriously beginning to reconsider the relationship between science and mysticism. It has been suggested that science and mysticism can be reconciled, even synthesized, to provide us with a new and fuller science.

An example of this attempted reconciliation, which we present in section I, is Robert E. Ornstein's Psychology of Consciousness.[1] Ornstein is concerned primarily to reconcile neurophysiology and mysticism, but he fails in the end to understand how such a reconciliation can be carried out. Accordingly, in section II we criticize Ornstein by presenting what a Buddhist, specifically a Mahaayaanist, might say about his work, and here we take the basic Mahaayaana view to be representative of mysticism as it is normally understood.

This basic view nevertheless contains a clue about how to reconcile science and mysticism which, along with the view itself, we explain at some length in section III. Indeed, when understood in the light of this clue, the work of David Bohm in physics[2] and of Norman O. Brown in psychoanalysis[3] may be seen as mystical physics and mystical psychoanalysis, respectively. Accordingly, in section IV we defend mystical science in general by drawing out the insights of the work of Bohm and Brown when understood in the light of the Buddhist clue, and then by extending these insights to reveal how Ornstein should have developed a mystical neurophysiology.

I

Ornstein's attempted reconciliation or synthesis of science and mysticism is based upon recent developments in the scientific understanding of the brain. During the last two decades or so, much has been learned about how the brain works. Of most importance to Ornstein is the apparent bifurcation of function between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain. Research involving people whose cerebral hemispheres were disconnected to treat their epilepsy first revealed this functional split, namely, that the left hemisphere functions in such a way as to carry out linear, verbal, rational processes of awareness, whereas the right hemisphere functions in such a way as to carry out nonlinear, nonverbal, nonrational processes of awareness. The latter processes may simply be called holistic, and they have, according to Ornstein,

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been mistakenly left out of science not only as important subject matter but also as a part of the very creation of scientific theories themselves.

To support this claim Ornstein appeals to various "esoteric" traditions, such as Zen Buddhism and Sufism, which have developed a deeper understanding of the value of holistic processes.[4] Although for Ornstein they have often gone too far in valuing these processes, for example, by claiming that they alone reveal reality, what they have learned through them does at least involve another aspect of reality to which we have paid insufficient attention. We also have gone too far in valuing the nonholistic processes, for example, by claiming that they alone reveal reality. On the contrary, reality has at least two aspects, one of which we have access to in the usual nonholistic mode and the other in the more esoteric holistic mode, such as in meditation:

Meditation is an attempt to alter consciousness in such a way that other aspects of reality can become accessible to the practitioner, who can add personal knowledge to intellectual.[5]

And these modes have their basis in our own nervous system:

They [the exercises of meditation] are . . . techniques designed to cultivate a certain mode of operation of the nervous system, at a certain time, within a certain context.[6]

Accordingly, these modes are "complementary"[7] modes of functioning of the nervous system.

From the nonholistic point of view we live in a world of separate but interacting objects whose interactions unfold in time according to the usual principles of causal relationships. This point of view, according to Ornstein,[8] is necessary to our biological survival, and this accounts for its place in our lives. From the holistic point of view, however, we do not live in a world of separate but interacting objects. Instead, the world reveals itself as being fundamentally a whole which does not admit of the usual discriminations between places and times, everything ultimately merging in such a way as to eliminate those boundaries. This is the sort of mystical position which science has usually rejected, but now with recent advances in our understanding of the brain it seems more arbitrary to reject it. Indeed, rejecting it may eventually lead, according to Ornstein,[9] to failing to understand certain parts of ourselves and our world which we will have to understand if we intend to enhance, if not to insure, our survival.

Examples of these parts of ourselves and our world are easy to see in the esoteric traditions, especially with respect to meditation. Ornstein nicely characterizes what a person may come to be able to do through meditation. Rejecting the interpretation which involves seeing it as merely a withdrawal from reality, Ornstein is able to show that adepts can have access to parts of themselves which we have long thought not to be under our control, such as the autonomic nervous system.[10] Bringing this system under control can easily

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be shown to increase not only our understanding of ourselves, but also our chances of fighting and resisting various kinds of illnesses associated with this system, such as hypertension, which may very well also be connected to the increased demands of the culture our nonholistic processes have created for us. This example thus shows the value of the holistic processes, both scientifically and culturally.

For Ornstein, then, opening to other aspects of reality by developing our holistic processes is valuable, even in science. And, indeed, such opening is a mode of functioning of our nervous system, primarily involving the right cerebral hemisphere of our brains. Meditation turns out, on this view, to be a way of developing or training our brains, and this, of course, makes for Ornstein's easy connection to biofeedback training.[11] But, again, it is also crucial for Ornstein that we restrain ourselves from overindulging the right hemisphere by taking its processes to be primary. He makes this most evident in discussing how mystical techniques enter into the creation of scientific theories:

The problem for a scientific inquiry into these phenomena is, of course, that science is restricted to the lineal and analytic. Each investigator would like "proof" of these phenomena within his own terms. However, . . . Western scientists must be prepared to satisfy the conditions of these subtle phenomena in order to demonstrate their reality.[12]

For me, it is only when the intellect has worked out these glimpses of form that the intuition [a result of a kind of holistic, right-hemisphere process] becomes of any use to others. It is the very linearity of a book which enables the writer to refine his own intuitions, and clarify them, first to himself, and then if possible to others.[13]

Accordingly, the two hemispheres work together to give us a full picture of reality; they cannot do so alone. If we are to make real progress in scientific understanding of ourselves, we must, following Ornstein, use and see both modes as complementary.

II

Buddhism was, of course, developed as a way of life which, if followed, could eliminate human suffering.[14] Essentially, human beings suffer because they try to make permanent what is impermanent. Or, to put it another way, human beings usually cannot come to terms with impermanence. And yet all life and worldly things are marked by impermanence. Ail things pass away in time, and even if they do not give signs of doing so, we fear it and anxiously try to prevent it. As some people have claimed, our whole culture is just one such attempt.

At the heart of Buddhism, then, is a message about eliminating human suffering. Clearly, the basic message is this: do not get attached to life and other worldly things. Nonattachment, Of course, is not detachment or noncaring. It is simply becoming aware of the impermanence of those things we

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might become attached to and, most fundamentally, of the impermanence of our own selves. Once we overcome this fundamental attachment we can more completely open to life and the world, not only seeing that inherent impermanence lies there but also allowing ourselves to participate in life without the usual anxieties and fears. We thus live more fully.

But there is more to the story. And in telling it, although we must move from early Buddhist teachings to later, specifically, Mahaayaana teachings, we continue to refer to the expounded view as if it were held by all Buddhists, leaving to the next section the task of clarifying the origins and details of our path through Buddhism.

There is, then, a surface level notion of impermanence which we all can accept quite readily even from a nonholistic point of view. Here we are still talking about the impermanence of things which can be separate but interacting, their interaction, we could say, eventually leading to their demise. On the other hand, we can speak of a depth level notion of impermanence which, unlike the surface level notion, is not a relative notion.[15] At the surface level, things may still be relatively permanent, only eventually passing away. At the depth level they cannot be: there impermanence reigns in the sense that there is no longer sufficient separation between things to afford the possibility of judging relative permanence. Just to pass the judgment of relative permanence, a thing has to have what the Buddhists call self-existence (svabhaava): its existence must involve some sort of separation or independence from other things. But it is just this sort of separation or independence which vanishes at the depth level. There all things are neither separate nor independent. They merge with, or participate in, undivided wholeness. They are empty of self-existence

Accordingly, there are two levels involved in the Buddhists' advice with respect to suffering: the surface level takes us only so far, and then complete elimination of suffering involves reaching the depth level, or enlightenment. At this level, one may feel, it would be appropriate to say that the normal world is illusory, including one's self. But this is to misunderstand Buddhism. What things lack is the kind of existence we would attribute to them at the surface level or from the point of view of nonholistic awareness. When we can take them up without self-existence, they are just as they are, namely, lacking separateness and participating, along with us, in undivided wholeness:

The theme . . . is the identity of the world and Nirvana [or the Unconditioned], with the aim of transcending their identity and difference. Emptiness is now regarded as the identity of yes and no,. . . [b]eyond all separate marks whatsoever . . . [b]eyond all difference and discrimination. . . beyond all possibility of suffering . . . beyond all possibility of growth or diminution, of gain and loss, by self-identification; but the fullness of reality is undiscriminated from the separate, exclusive, deficient selves.[16]

Consequently, a Buddhist would say that such emptiness of self-existence is a fullness, the fullness of everything.

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Obviously, here we have a primacy of the holistic point of view. Yet we have it for a purpose, namely, to eliminate suffering. Unless we can see that all things, even ourselves, lack self-existence we will be sufficiently attached to seeking permanence that we will suffer and, as a Buddhist would say, suffer needlessly. To do justice to a Buddhist holistic point of view, then, we must let it have primacy over any nonholistic view. Nevertheless, this does not entail forgetting about nonholistic views. Part of the journey to undivided wholeness involves completely understanding its various stages. This explains why, for example, the autonomic nervous system comes under one's control on the journey. But the journey does not stop there, and it is exactly at this point that Ornstein's synthesis of science and mysticism fails.

For example, consider an extended version of our earlier quote from Ornstein concerning the exercises of meditation:

They [the exercises of meditation] are . . . techniques designed to cultivate a certain mode of operation of the nervous system, at a certain time, within a certain context. This is the use of "thinking of nothing."[17]

And, later in the same chapter, we find that:

. . . One primary effect of the concentrative meditation exercises is the state of emptiness, the non-responsiveness to the external world, evoked in the central nervous system . . . by the exercises. . . . [18]

This is as far as Ornstein goes in understanding emptiness, thereby reducing the state of emptiness to the nonresponsiveness of the central nervous system to the external world. Indeed, given his "lineal" conception of science, this is as far as he can go. Yet such an understanding of emptiness is not adequate. For within it the brain, like any other element of the nervous system, gains its place in our lives, whether scientific or not, by occupying an exclusive position in space and time, that is, by having self-existence. To put the brain in its ultimate place, no matter which cerebral hemisphere we are talking about, is to blend it into undivided wholeness, thereby rendering it beyond the reach of the kinds of awareness and language Ornstein uses with respect to it.

A Buddhist would conclude that Ornstein is right, but not completely right. He is right in the sense that at the surface level there are ways of getting us closer to the depth level. And, in his terms, it may very well be that these ways have something to do with right cerebral hemisphere activity. We certainly do need to bring surface holistic processes into more prominence. There are, for example, all sorts of tacit, nonverbal, paranormal forms of communication that we need to be able to control and understand.[19] But this kind of holism is of a certain whole: it is of the whole in which we carry out our lives, the surface whole we dwell in. If we reach, so to speak, the boundaries of this whole, then the depth whole or, rather, undivided wholeness is within our reach, but not before. Ornstein at least advocates, rightly, that we take the

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journey to the boundary of our surface whole. And science, as he sees it, will take us this far, but no further. For the rest of the journey we need to get beyond Ornstein's conception of science.

Although the problem Ornstein fails to confront here becomes even more evident in the context of its resolution later in section IV, an example of it can easily be revealed. When Ornstein comes to talk about paranormal phenomena, he talks about unusual transmission of information which defies nonholistic principles, and he thus puts 'transmission', 'sender', and 'receiver' in scare quotes.[20] After all, with respect to undivided wholeness, transmission makes no sense; everything is everywhere and at all times, anyway. But at the stage that Ornstein reaches he cannot have recourse to such undivided wholeness without making the nonholistic processes significantly less primary than the holistic ones, and this would have challenged his conceptions of science and, especially, of the brain. In other words, his problem is this: granted that it makes sense to see the brain as housing surface holistic processes which do not entail any radical readjustment of the way we go about identifying someone's brain as among the other objects in our world, how do we then proceed to say that the brain also houses depth-holistic processes which do entail such an adjustment, indeed, an adjustment which seems to undermine the very conditions upon which we do identify someone's brain as among the other objects in our world? Ornstein neither poses nor confronts this problem. It needs to be confronted.

III

To confront this problem we need to reconsider in more detail just what the depth level means. As it has been presented so far, for example, it may not be clear that the depth level actually involves the surface level, and that it does so in a way which will provide the clue about how to reconcile science and mysticism. As we understand it, the depth level is the special contribution of the Mahaayaana Buddhists, especially of their Maadhyamika school.[21] And following Edward Conze's interpretation of one of the principal Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutras, the Heart Suutra,[22] will help us to understand both the depth level and the associated clue.

The Heart Suutra involves what Conze calls a dialectics of emptiness which unfolds in five stages. At each stage we see that what we took to be basic (or fundamentally real) at the previous stage is empty of self-existence and therefore no longer basic. And we begin at home, namely, with the world as we normally conceive of it. Accordingly, at stage one we see that what we normally take to be basic, the things and persons which make up our world, are no longer basic:

To interpret experience as a succession of interrelated dharmas is more true to what is really there than the ordinary view which arranges the data of experience into things and their attributes, or into persons and their doings.[23]

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That is to say, when we look closely at our normal experience we do not find there what we would expect to find. Instead, we find that it is made up of more fundamental components or dharmas, traditionally clustered into the five heaps or skandhas, which lack the sort of self-existence we normally attribute to things and persons:

Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, he beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty. [24]

As Conze explains:

[D]harmas are devoid of all those features which in the appearance of commonsense things and persons spring from the illusion that individual selfhood is really there.... Dharmas last but one moment, and lack in the apparent stability of things and persons. . . . A dharma lacks in independence or self-dependence. . . . The rise and fall of each dharma depends on conditions not its own.[25]

At stage one, then, we replace things and persons with what we may call a dynamic web of dharmas.

However, at stage two we must look more closely at what we have taken to be basic at stage one. We wished to replace the separate or autonomous components of our normal experiential world with something which lacks such separateness or autonomy, but we have still not completely achieved our task. For dharmas, even though they lack the self-existence we normally attribute to things and persons, have a self-existence of their own: we may still single out each dharma as lasting but a moment, as depending on conditions not its own, and thereby we may also grow attached to them and "prevent Nirvana from revealing itself in its true nature." [26] Accordingly, we must strip dharmas of any remaining self-existence:

Here, O Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.[27]

And now that the three fundamental ways of marking off dharmas from one another are denied to us, we are forced to confront their emptiness more fully.

As Conze explains:

Influenced by the 'perverted views' we normally attribute properties to conditioned dharmas which are in fact exclusively found in the Unconditioned. . . . The Unconditioned further provides a standard by which the conditioned is increasingly measured and found wanting, with the result that the longing to regain the Unconditioned is intensified. .. . They [dharmas] are doomed to fail us, since they are devoid of anything that we could hold on to, and can provide no reliable point of attachment, no refuge or support, no home or security. . . . Measured by the standard of the full Truth (Nirvana) they are illusory.[28]

At stage two, then, we deepen our understanding that within the dynamic web of dharmas, within the fully conditioned, we will not find something basic

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to replace that in which we normally take refuge. We must get beyond the conditioned altogether, and this, of course, also means leaving the surface level behind, at least for the moment, since the relative permanence at that level "cannot provide the permanence for which we long. "[29]

Consequently, at stage three we can for the first time, as we are now free from the conditioned, opt for nirvaa.na or the Unconditioned. Here, of course, we are to understand nirvaa.na as being opposed to the world within which we eventually found only the fully conditioned, or rather, understand nirvaa.na as opposed to sa^msaara:

Therefore, O Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sightorgan element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.[30]

And, as Conze explains, a nirvaa.na which excludes all those ways we can be distracted from its emptiness can provide us with a deep freedom:

'Emptiness' [at this stage] means the unconditioned dharma's [or Nirvana's] freedom from this world . . . from any sign of conditioned (worldly) things . . . from any (worldly) reactions to conditioned things . . . from death or any kind of impermanence ... from the deceptiveness of the illusory world, and from any of the qualities and ideas derived from false appearance, i.e., [we have] the true reality and the real truth. [31]

At stage three, then, we embrace nirvaa.na and leave altogether behind the world understood at the surface level.

But now we come to stage four, which is the special contribution of the Mahaayaana Buddhists, and which is, in our terms, the depth level. Here we must come to understand emptiness in a deeper way, one which involves looking back over the steps we have taken and noticing that stages two and three are not as free from marks of self-existence as we had thought. We wished to get beyond the kind of separateness we found in our normal world, but we have failed completely to do so, for stages two and three themselves depend upon a separateness arising from "the distinction and contrast between the conditioned and the unconditioned."[32] In our attempt to understand emptiness we have fallen into an exclusiveness which is not in the spirit of the Heart Suutra. At stage one such exclusiveness was denied relative to dharmas clustered into the five heaps:

Here, O Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form; the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.[33]

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Accordingly, at stage four we must deny the exclusiveness of the conditioned and the unconditioned, of sa^msaara and nirvaa.na:

The theme of stage 4 is the identity of the world and Nirvana, with the aim of transcending both their identity and their difference . . . beyond all separate marks whatsoever ... beyond the difference of permanence and impermanence . . . of ease and suffering . . . of self and other . . . beyond all difference and discrimination . . . beyond all possibility of change . . . beyond all possibility of suffering. . . . [34]

At stage four or the depth level, then, we embrace nirvaa.na and the world as one, thereby also bringing the surface level back in although, of course, not as it was conceived at stage three. Indeed, it is this switch in the conception of the surface level which will provide the sought-after clue.

But before we say what we can learn from the dialectics we should finish the dialectics itself:

Therefore, O Sariputra, it is because of his nonattainmentness that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the perfection of wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble, he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana.[35]

As Conze explains:

When the paradoxes of the fourth stage have succeeded in removing all attachment to logical modes of thinking, they again must be left behind. On the highest level an eloquent silence prevails. Words fail, and the spiritual reality communicates directly with itself. [36]

Often stage five, which all Buddhists again hold in common, is referred to simply as Noble Silence, and it would seem that, of all the stages, this would have the least to do with science. Yet even this stage will have its place in science, as we show in section IV. So, then, let us turn to revealing the sought-after clue.

Our everyday experience involves division and leads us to search for what grounds those particular divisions which most of us take to be real or to make up our experiential world. Such grounding may not be independent of our experiential world or, perhaps more ideally, it may be independent of that world. [37] Any such grounding is, however, rejected by the dialectics. There is no grounding of division, either with respect to our experiential world (stage two), or with respect to whatever may be thought to be independent of that world (stage three). What is ultimately real is undivided. But-and here is the clue-it is also not separate from what is not ultimately real and divided (stage four). Naagaarjuna puts it this way:

That state which is the rushing in and out [of existence] when dependent or conditioned-

This [state], when not dependent or not conditioned, is seen to be nirvaa.na. . . . There is nothing whatever which differentiates the existence-in-flux (sa^msaara) from nirvaa.na;

And there is nothing whatever which differentiates nirvaa.na from existence-in-flux.[38]

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And, although division is not grounded as such, it is grounded as a whole; what is divided is made possible by what is not divided, and thus the undivided limits the divided:

The extreme limit (ko.ti) of nirvaa.na is also the extreme limit of existence-in-flux;

There is not the slightest bit of difference between these two.[39]

Accordingly, the process of division or, one could say, of experience confers apparent self-existence upon that which is really empty of self-existence but which nevertheless lends itself to the process: what is really everywhere can, in being an object of experience or attention, appear to be some place and, indeed, must do so for experience to be possible.[40] What our experience brings before us at the surface level as occupying an exclusive position, say, in space and time, is within the undivided whole at the depth level, although not as it appears to us. There it occupies an inclusive position, ultimately merging with everything.

One consequence of this position which will clarify our clue is that with respect to the depth level nothing new arises; only with respect to the surface level does something new arise. To say that something new arises requires a means of identifying an object as among others existing in time. This we can do only relatively with respect to the existence-in-flux, which constitutes our experience. Ultimately, we cannot do so, for at the depth level the categories which divide up the existence-in-flux no longer apply. A crude analogy can be constructed if we think of Wittgenstein's figure of a duck-rabbit:[41]

The figure itself is neither a duck nor a rabbit, but when experienced it holds the possibility of becoming for us either a duck or a rabbit; either way, at the level of the figure nothing new arises. Obviously, the figure itself could not represent undivided wholeness, yet, with this analogy in mind, consider Murti's characterization of Naagaarjuna's position:

There is no difference between Nirvana and Samsara; . . . [they] are not two separate sets of entities, nor are they two states of the same thing. The absolute looked at through the thought-forms of constructive imagination is the empirical world; and conversely, the absolute is the world viewed sub specie aeternitatis, without the distorting media of Thought.[42]

Accordingly, we can say that experience projects the empirical world out of

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the absolute, or projects division out of undivided wholeness, and without such projection we have nothing but that undivided wholeness. To anticipate section IV, the inclusiveness of undivided wholeness thus can be characterized like this: everything is everywhere and at all times, yet still can lend itself to being experienced at a place and a time.

IV

The physicist David Bohm has developed a new general physical description which, in its essential features, is analogous to the view just extracted from the dialectics. In this description there is a new notion of order:

This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g., in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time. . .. It will be useful . . . to consider some further examples of [such] enfolded or implicate order. Thus, in a television broadcast, the visual image is translated into a time order, which is "carried" by the radio wave. Points that are near each other in the visual image are not necessarily "near" in the order of the radio signal. Thus, the radio wave carries the visual image in an implicate order. The function of the receiver is then to explicate this order; i.e., to "unfold" it in the form of a new visual image.[43]

But a more striking and useful example of implicate order comes from holography:

Coherent light from a laser is passed through a half-silvered mirror. Part of the beam goes on directly to a photographic plate, while another part is reflected so that it illuminates a certain whole structure. The light reflected from this whole structure also reaches the plate, where it interferes with that arriving there by a direct path. . . . The relevance of the interference pattern [recorded on the plate] to the whole illuminated structure is revealed when the photographic plate [that is, the hologram] is illuminated with laser light. . . [A] wavefront is then created which is very similar in form to that coming off the original illuminated structure. By placing the eye in this wave, one in effect sees the whole of the original structure, in three dimensions, and from a range of possible points of view (as if one were looking at it through a window). If we then illuminate only a small region R of the plate, we still see the whole structure, but in somewhat less sharply defined detail and from a decreased range of possible points of view (as if we were looking through a smaller window). . . . The interference pattern in each region R of the plate is relevant to the whole structure, and each region of the structure is relevant to the whole of the interference pattern on the plate.[44]

Here, then, the whole structure is implicated by, or enfolded into, each region R of the hologram, and thus the laser light and the eye can explicate or unfold the whole structure from each such region. Consequently, we have in the hologram an excellent analogy to the undivided wholeness of the implicate order in physics which Bohm proposes:

To generalize so as to emphasize undivided wholeness, we shall say that what "carries" an implicate order is the holomovement, which is an unbroken and undivided totality. In certain cases, we can abstract particular aspects of the

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holomovement (e.g., light, electrons, sound, etc.). But more generally, all forms of the holomovement merge and are inseparable. . . . Thus, the holomovement is undefinable and immeasurable.[45]

The aspects of the holomovement when explicated may appear as separate or autonomous but, as with the dialectics, one must not be misled by this:

Thus, the word "electron" should be understood as no more than a name by which we call attention to a certain aspect of the holomovement, . . . so that such "particles" are no longer considered as autonomous and separately existent.... Thus. we come to a new general physical description in which "everything implicates everything" in an order of undivided wholeness. . . . "All implicates all," even to the extent that "we ourselves" are implicated together with "all that we see and think about." So we are present everywhere and at all times, though only implicately (that is, implicitly).[46]

Accordingly, "the whole implicate order is present at any moment" and what is "growing out" of it [47] may do so as follows:

In discussing how attention is to be called to such aspects [of the implicate order in the holomovement which are relevant in some limited context], it is useful to note that the word "relevant" is a form obtained from the verb "to relevate," which has dropped out of common usage, and which means "to lift up". . . . We can thus say that in a particular context that may be under
consideration, the general modes of description that belong to a given theory serve to relevate a certain content, i.e., to lift it into attention so that it stands out "in relief".. . . [Thus] explicate order arises primarily as a certain aspect of sense perception and of experience with the content of such sense perception.[48]

Bohm's work, then, hardly needs to be interpreted to tie into the dialectics. Sa^msaara and nirvaa.na, as they are understood at the depth level, can be correlated to the explicate and implicate orders, respectively, and the experiential relationship between them is identical: thought-forms or theories serve to lift into attention aspects of what is otherwise essentially undivided.

Bohm arrives at his view through a careful consideration of relativity and quantum theories of the universe.[49] He points out that in both theories the notion of undivided wholeness has come to play a central role. Yet despite playing such a role the theories, as they are presently developed, do not adequately take it into account. At some level in each theory there remains an autonomous residue which cannot be reconciled with the undivided wholeness implied by the other theory:

It seems clear then that the relativistic notion of a signal does not fit adequately into the "quantum context." This is basically because such a signal implies the possibility of a certain kind of analysis [based on a kind of independent and autonomous "information content" which is different in different regions] which is not compatible with the sort of undivided wholeness that is implied by the quantum theory. . . . [And in quantum theory it] is just this kind of abstract analysis [into separate and autonomous components at the level of statistical potentialities, namely, quantum states] that does not cohere with the underlying basic descriptive order of relativity theory. . . [which] implies that such "objects" have to be understood as merging with each other. .. to

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make one indivisible whole. . . . [However, to] give up both the basic role of signal and that of quantum state is . . . no small thing. To find a theory that goes on without these will evidently require radically new notions of order, measure and structure.[50]

Indeed, the theory which Bohm goes on to develop [51] and which we outlined is radically new, reconciling what is significant in both relativity and quantum theories by allowing the notion of undivided wholeness to play the role it ought to play. Ornstein's theory also leaves a residue which cannot be reconciled with undivided wholeness, namely, his notion of the brain and the nervous system. As in relativity and quantum theories, if we are not careful, we will hold on to some notion which still implies that separate, interacting objects are ultimately real, and thereby we will fail to reach stage two of the dialectics. Bohm rejects any such notion and is still capable of developing physics. His work may be called, we suggest, mystical physics, for it is fully compatible with the dialectics, especially at stage four. Indeed, even silence plays a similar role:

Thus, holonomy [the law of the whole] is not to be regarded as a fixed and final goal of scientific research, but rather as a movement in which "new wholes" are continually emerging. And of course this further implies that the total law of the undefinable and immeasurable holomovement could never be known or specified or put into words.[52]

As we learn at stage four and dwell in at stage five, undivided wholeness is "beyond all possibility of attainment-by body, word or thought-and yet it saves all."[53]

Of course, the body referred to here is a surface or explicate body much like Ornstein's, and thus we can see once again his shortcoming. But what of the possibility of a mystical body which merges with, or participates in, undivided wholeness? Here we can turn to the work of Norman 0. Brown, who comes to such a notion of a mystical body through psychoanalysis. In Life Against Death he makes the call for psychoanalysis to reveal its mystical character:

[T]here is a particular need for psychoanalysis, as a part of the psychoanalysis of psychoanalysis, to become conscious of the dialectical, poetical, mystical stream that runs in its blood.[54]

And then in Love's Body he reveals it:

The proper outcome of psychoanalysis is the abolition of the boundary, the healing of the split, the integration of the human race.[55]

There is a marriage... between psychoanalysis and the mystical tradition, combining to make us conscious of our unconscious participation in the creation of the phenomenal world. [56]

Psychoanalysis can be used to uncover the principle of union, or communion, buried beneath the surface separations, the surface declarations of independence.[57]

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The antinomy between mind and body, word and deed, speech and silence, overcome. Everything is only metaphor; there is only poetry.

Hereby the duality, the discrepancy between mind and body, mundane form and supramundane formlessness, is annihilated. Then the body of the Enlightened One becomes luminous in appearance....[58]

We can see here, then, how Brown takes psychoanalysis to be working toward an understanding of reality akin to the dialectics. We already have before us notions which can be correlated to the surface and depth levels. What we need to be clearer about is the relationship between them, especially with respect to the depth level notion of the body. And, of course, here we come across the notion of repression:

Separateness (on the outside) is repression (on the inside). Separateness, then, is the fall-the fall into division, the original lie. . . . The fall is into language.[59]

And through repression we fall from body:

Originally everything was body, ONE BODY. . . .[60]

Contrary to what is taken for granted ..., the distinction between self and external world is not an immutable fact but an artificial construction. It is a boundary line; like all boundaries not natural but conventional. . . .[61]

Fusion: the distinction between inner self and outside world, between subject and object, overcome. To the enlightened man, the universe becomes his body....[62]

To recover the world of silence, of symbolism, is to recover the human body. . . . What is always speaking silently is the body.[63] It cannot be put into words because it does not consist of things. Literal words always define properties. Beyond the reality-principle [which is an unreal boundary drawn between real and imaginary] and reification, is silence, the flesh. [64]

Accordingly, just as thought-forms or theories serve to lift into attention what is essentially undivided, language or conventions, operating through repression, serve to lay before us a phenomenal world of separateness and division which is a lie and thus overlays what is essentially undivided. Once we overcome repression, that is, our unconscious participation in, or attachment to, separateness and division, we recover our original body: the universe as an undivided whole.

In Bohm's terms we could say that we repress our implicate reach: if we are implicately present everywhere and at all times, we are certainly not in touch with this, as most of us simply dwell in our explicate world. To overcome such repression is thus to recover our implicate reach, that is, the universe as an undivided whole. Perhaps merely due to the way he works toward such a notion, Brown's version of our implicate reach ends up being instantiated in body: we might say that our implicate body is the undivided whole. Our explicate body, on the other hand, is our entry into division or, just as well, into history, being at a time and a place. For Brown, the way we divide up our

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bodies sexually is the source of our separateness in general, and once we see through such division the separateness disappears as well:

Symbolism is polymorphous perversity, the translation of all our senses into one another, the interplay between the senses, the metaphor, the free translation. The separation of the senses, their mutual isolation, is sensuality, is sexual organization, is bondage to the tyranny of one partial impulse, leading to the absolute and exclusive concentration of the life of the body in the representative [that is, divided] person.[65]

Orthodox psychoanalysis warns against the resexualization of thought and speech; orthodox psychoanalysis bows down before the reality-principle. The reality-principle is based on desexualization; in symbolic consciousness thought and speech become resexualized. . . .[W]hen our eyes are opened to symbolic meaning, our only refuge is loss of shame, polymorphous perversity, pansexualism. . . . As in Tantric Yoga, in which any sexual act may become a form of mystic meditation, and any mystic state may be interpreted sexually.[66]

This is, we suggest, a mystical psychoanalysis which, like Bohm's mystical physics, is an example of a mystical science clearly compatible with the Buddhist dialectics, our model of mysticism.[67]

Putting the work of Bohm and Brown together can now help us to understand what Ornstein should have said. For Bohm, Ornstein's "brain" is an explicate notion: nonmystical neurophysiological theory serves to lift into attention brains which are separate, interacting objects. That there are such objects cannot be supported, at least ultimately. Yet what we call attention to by the word "brain" need not only be considered at the surface level. In Bohm's terms, what we call attention to is an aspect of the holomovement, and as such can be considered at the depth level or as implicate order: implicately, a brain is present everywhere and at all times. If we simply content ourselves with the surface level, as Ornstein clearly does, we will not develop a mystical neurophysiology. We must consider a brain not only as explicate but also as implicate and, indeed, as implicate a brain could very well play the same role as, or rather, be an aspect of Brown's mystical body. Just as the theory embedded in our everyday experience serves to lift into attention our bodies as divided, so does nonmystical neurophysiological theory. We need to recognize the limitations of such theories with respect to revealing what is ultimately real.

From the explicate point of view, of course, we do not need to say much more than Ornstein does. We can identify a brain explicately as something which exists as an interacting member of a world divided into many other objects, some others being brains too. We can study brains from this point of view and come up with their characteristics and interconnections, just as Ornstein does. But we are not limited to such a study, and by failing to realize this we can disguise from ourselves, especially in neurophysiology, the potential significance of studying brains from an implicate or mystical point of view. We talk about, for example, telepathy between minds but not between brains,

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because we are more ready to allow merging minds (even if only to reject it in the end) than we are merging brains. But why are we holding back here?

Consider what Brown says with respect to this question:

The real world, which is not the world of the reality-principle, is the world where thoughts are omnipotent, where no distinction is drawn between wish and deed. [68]

In the deepest level of the unconscious we find not fantasies, but telepathy.[69]

Accordingly, given what else we know about Brown's view, the mystical body is the ground of omipotence and telepathy.[70] (A similar conclusion is clearly made possible, if not entaileds, by Bohm's view that we are implicately present everywhere and at all times.) This should lead us to think that, as implicate or mystical, a brain may be telepathic, merging with other brains in an order of undivided wholeness. We may, after all, have mystical brains.

Consequently, Ornstein stumbles over trying to mix two levels together: he has an explicate or surface right cerebral hemisphere which is supposed to instantiate an implicate or depth functions. This cannot be supported. Instead, he must speak about how it is that a brain can merge with, or participate in, undivided wholeness, just as a Buddhist must speak about how it is that a self does so, just as Brown must speak about how it is that a body does so, and just as Bohm must speak about how it is that, for example, an electron does so. Should he, or any other neurophysiologist, do so, he will be taking the first step toward a mystical neurophysiology.[71]　

NOTE

1. Robert E. Ornstein, Psychology of Consciousness (Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1975); hereafter cited as PC.

2. See especially, David Bohm, "Quantum Theory as an Indication of a New Order in Physics. Part A. The Development of New Orders as Shown Through the History of Physics," Foundations of Physics 1 (1971): 359-381; and "Quantum Theory as an Indication of a New Order in Physics. Part B. Implicate and Explicate Order in Physical Law," Foundations of Physics 3 (1973): 139-168; hereafter cited as Part A and Part B, respectively.

3. See especially Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History (New York: Vintage Books, 1959); and Love's Body (New York: Vintage Books, 1966); hereafter cited as LAD and LB, respectively.

4. PC, especially chapter 1.

5. PC, p. 156.

6. PC. p. 122.

7. PC, p. 156.

8. PC, especially chapter 2.

9. PC, especially at the end of chapter 6.

10. PC, chapter 9.

11. PC, especially chapter 9.

12. PC, p. 241,

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13. PC, p. 84

14. See especially Walpola Rahula, What The Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1974).

15. Roughly, the surface and depth level notions of impermanence can be correlated to the first and second tuning; of the Wheel of Dharma, respectively. The first turning is represented by the first sermon of the Buddha at Benares, and the second by the Praj~naapaaramitaa doctrine, which we discuss at some length m section III, herein. See especially Edward Conze, Buddhist Wisdom Books (New York: Harper and Row, 1972); hereafter cited as BWB.

16. Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India: Three Phases of Buddhist Philosophy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), p. 249; hereafter cited as BTI. As Conze explains, the position sketched in the quote can be attributed to the Mahayana and is not held in common by all Buddhists.

17. PC, p. 122.

18. PC, p. 140.

19. With respect to tacit, nonverbal forms of communication, see Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). For paranormal forms of communication, see PC, chapter 10, and section IV, herein, especially note 70.

20. PC, chapter 10, especially pp. 242-243,

21. See BTI, Part III, chapter 2.

22. See BWB and BTI, Part III, chapter 2.

23. BTI, p.24.

24. BWB, pp. 77-78.

25. BTI, p. 246.

26. BTI, p. 247.

27. BWB, p. 85.

28. BTI, pp. 247-248.

29. BTI, p. 247.

30. BWB, p.89.

31. BTI, p.248.

32. BTI, p. 248.

33. BWB, p. 81.

34. BTI, p. 249. The elimination of the difference between ease and suffering is, perhaps, the crucial move in the second turning of the Wheel of Dharma, which "brings out the deeper meaning of the original doctrine" or of the four holy Truths set out by the Buddha in his first sermon at Benares. See BWB, p. 100.

35. BWB, p. 93.

36. BTI, p. 249.

37. The former case is a version of subjective grounding and the latter of objective grounding, which has, at least up to now, played a significant role in scientific thinking.

38. Naagaarjuna, Muulamadhyamikakaarikaas: Fundamentals of the Middle Way, in Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1967), pp. 216-217.

39. Ibid.

40. It is exactly this sort of position which has allowed philosophers to make a comparison between Naagaarjuna and Kant. See especially T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London: George Alien and Unwin, 1955).

41. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 194.

42. Murti, Central Philosophy, p. 274; also quoted in BWB, p. 84.

43. Part B, pp. 147-148.

44. Part B, pp. 144-145.

45. Part B, p. 149.

46. Part B pp.153,164

47. Part B. p. 152.

48. Part B, pp. 149-150. 156. More specifically, the explicate order relevated in an experience is determined by an intersection of implicate orders of movement, one of which is associated, at times through the functioning of an instrument, with the central nervous system (Part B, pp. 151. 153, 156). In a personal communication to us, Bohm has pointed out that this position neither

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entails nor excludes the existence of psychokinesis. See our discussion below concerning the nature of a mystical body; and to understand how for Bohm research on psychokinesis fits into contemporary physics, see Bohm and B. J. Hiley, "Some Remarks on Sarfatti's Proposed Connection Between Quantum Phenomena and the Volitional Activity of the Observer-Participator," Psychoenergetic Systems 1 (1976): 173-179.

49. Part A.

50. Part A, pp. 378-380.

51. Part B.

52. Part B, p. 155.

53. BTI, p. 249.

54. LAD, p. 320.

55. LB, p. 160.

56. LB, p. 255.

57. LB, p. 142.

58. LB, p. 266. The indented portion of this quote is from A. Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 226.

59. LB, pp. 148, 257.

60. LB, p. 141.

61. LB, p. 142.

62. LB, pp. 253-254.

63. LB, p. 265.

64. LB, p. 265. Here think of things as having self-existence, and literal words as defining properties of such things. The reification of these things or words is our fall, and thus there is no way to draw a real boundary between real and imaginery. Emptiness leaves no trail of distinctions: "Everything is only metaphor; there is only poetry."

65. LB, p. 249.

66. LB, p. 250.

67. Although there has been much discussion about whether psychoanalysis is a science, or rather, about whether nonmystical psychoanalysis is a nonmystical science, it is beyond the scope of this article to enter into this discussion. Indeed, as we and, we believe. Brown would claim, this discussion has failed to resolve itself because it has not considered the mystical strain in psychoanalysis in such a way as to realize psychoanalysis as a mystical science.

68. LB, p. 151. The difference between wish and deed is like any other difference that vanishes at stage four.

69. LB, p. 158.

70. For evidence to support this view, see C. O. Evans, "The Parapsychotogical Interpretation of Freud," Psychoenergetic Systems 2 (1977): 259-266; and also his unpublished manuscript, "The Parapsychological Interpretation of Freud Applied to His Case History: 'Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis (1909)'." Evans develops and supports a theory that Freud's "primary process is to be understood to be a process of unconscious telepathy" which is "the basis of mind."

71. Some preliminary work along the lines suggested here may be found in R. M. Anderson, "A Holographic Model of Transpersonal Consciousness," The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 9 (1977): 119-128; Norman S. Don, "The Transformation of Conscious Experience and its EEC Correlates," The Journal of Altered States of Consciousness 3 (1977): 147-168; and E. H. Walker, "Consciousness and Quantum Theory," in Edgar D. Mitchell and John White, eds., Psychic Exploration (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974), pp. 544-568. In all of these articles we see the development of a conception of a human body which is very different from Ornstein's in that it allows a body and especially its brain to get beyond their apparent self-existence in the physical world of locality in space and time. Of particular importance is Anderson's attempt to make use of the holographic theory of the brain, tying it into the notion of implicate order in physics proposed by Bohm.