Quantum leaps in consciousness: a Buddhist perspective

Due to our karma anything can appear, said Buddha. We’ve already taken countless rebirths in countless worlds since beginningless time and, if we don’t figure out how this keeps happening, we’ll be taking countless more. And most of them are pretty dark. None of our lives proves to be perfect, despite any high hopes, because all of them are samsaric lives made out of delusions and “in this impure world there is no real happiness to be found”, as Venerable Geshe Kelsang says. In the words of the therapist to Jason #1, who is disillusioned with his new hard-won life:

Perhaps your expectations were too high. It is still life.

However, our Get Out of Jail Free card is the realization that none of these worlds exists outside of our mind. Our body doesn’t exist outside of the mind. We ourselves don’t exist outside of the mind. This means that if we keep trying to change these things from the outside in, we shall never succeed – but if we change our mind, we change our reality.

There is no way to change our reality outside of our mind because reality doesn’t exist there.

As you may know, our Founder Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni, appeared in this world to explain all this to us with mind-expanding clarity, in 84,000 teachings, 2600 years ago, as I talk about a bit here: Waking up and staying awake. That’s not even counting all the previous Awakened Ones who have been appearing in our hallucinatory worlds to explain it since beginningless time. I don’t suppose they have ever felt like this, though:

On my own, the ordinariness of the moment is almost too much to stand. I glance around the restaurant, taking in the faces of the waiters, the customers. Two dozen noisy conversations mixing into a kind of meaningless roar. I think, What if you people knew what I knew? ― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

What’s the matter?

But “Jason who?”, you may be wondering?! My latest Sci-Fi discovery is Dark Matter, based on the novel by Blake Crouch, in which the star protagonist is called Jason Dessen. It has given me entertaining ways to think about and even picture some of the most important themes in Buddhism: identity, do we have choice, the power of meditation, impermanence, what really matters in life, the nature of reality. I’ve had similar thoughts to this while watching fish swim:

Imagine you’re a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you’d have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you’re a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of. – Jason Dessen

I’m not suggesting you have to plough your way through this series yourself – this article should still work without that. But it got me thinking, so here goes …

Brief plot (without too many spoilers)

Jason Dessen (Jason #1), in one version of reality, has invented a quantum superimposition box that can transport its user into multiple parallel universes.

We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.

In an alternate version of reality, where his life took a different path, Jason Dessen (Jason #2) has not invented anything much, and is just having fun with his wife and kid, teaching college physics – he decided earlier in life to forgo his scientific ambitions for domestic bliss. He is the kinder, more peaceful version of the two, though he finds his life boring at times.

Jason #1, regretting the life he chose, has decided to go back and steal the life of Jason #2 (with the lovely wife), and abducts Jason #2 to take his place in his world. He knows how the box works because he invented it, so he can switch between these two realities.

Jason #2 wakes up in a world that is not his own. Once he figures out what is going on, he is now frantically trying to get back to his wife and kid.

To cut to the main visual concept from the series that I find helpful … Jason #2 and his traveling companion Amanda enter the box, take a medicine to shut down parts of their pre-frontal cortex, and find themselves in an infinite corridor of doors. Each door they open finds the box in the same temporal and geographical coordinates, but in the middle of a (sometimes dramatically) different universe.

From a quick Google of the quantum mechanics upon which this box concept is based: particles exist in a superposition of states that can only be described probabilistically. However, interaction with the world through an act of observation reduces the particle to a single state. From a Buddhist point of view, likewise, things can only come into existence/appear in dependence upon observation.

Therefore, although it takes a while for Jason #2 and Amanda to figure out how this empty box works, eventually they figure out that their state of mind just before opening a door determines what world appears.

If you go in with fear, fear is what you’ll find.

The power of meditation

But it proves very hard to direct their thoughts at will. In Dark Matter, meditation is brought in as a key practice that influences everything about their journey. For starters, anyone in the box needs the ability to clear their mind and think exactly the thoughts they want to think. Given that uncontrolled thoughts and subconscious desires derail so many of Jason and Amanda’s attempts to get back to what they know, even when they focus as best as they can on this, this shows the importance of concentration, mindfulness, and mental mastery.

It’s a troubling paradox – I have total control, but only to the extent i have control over myself.

As the protagonists enter different realities, they need meditation as a coping mechanism for dealing with the trauma and stress of their experiences – to calm their minds, reduce anxiety, and find peace amidst the turmoil. Meditation provides them with an anchor to stay grounded in the present moment, even when appearances are terribly disorienting. It provides the means for them to mentally and emotionally prepare for the journey through alternate realities and make any sense of them.

This is true for all us in samsara, walking through the endless doors of all our lives.

Another character, Blair, has decided that she’d rather stay holed up in a dystopian version of her original world – notwithstanding the swarms of hornets that have killed everything in sight – than spend another minute in that box. Better the devil you know, as it were. But is it? You can’t really blame her for not wanting to get back in that crazy box, but surely it is better to escape from every uncontrolled rebirth permanently? “Temporary liberations from particular sufferings” is not good enough, as Venerable Geshe-la says. We need renunciation for all fleeting, uncontrolled rebirths in samsara.

As it says in Offering to the Spiritual Guide:

Fearing the blazing fires of the sufferings of bad migrations,
From the depths of my heart I go for refuge to the Three Jewels,
And seek your blessings to strive sincerely
To abandon non-virtue and practice the entire collection of virtue.

How do we prevent our next rebirth from being a jump out of this frying pan into the fire? We need refuge in something and someonethat can go with us, which would be refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

Accessing deeper consciousness

Also, we need to get to the point when we can use meditation to absorb into a deeper level of consciousness. From a Buddhist point of view, new worlds and appearances arise out of the clear light mind – our most subtle level of consciousness. To gain full control over our mind and our world means, therefore, to manifest and gain complete control over this deepest level of mind, something we learn to do in Tantric practice.

More in this next article, Navigating the infinite worlds of our mind, including impermanence, how do we choose where to take rebirth, mandala offerings, the illusory nature of reality, and the union of the two truths. (That’s all).

Please share your thoughts in the other box below 😁