Are there questions which have no answers? Can we formulate some sort of idea for which there can never be an understanding? I’m not speaking of nonsense. That is easy. We can ask nonsense questions like, “how long is forever”. And “forever” isn’t an answer. We can say nonsense things like, “that which lies within is without”. And pretending it contains some deep insight into reality doesn’t make it so.

Then again, Zen masters have been asking students nonsense questions for a thousand years. What is the sound of one hand clapping? Nonsense. And when asked questions about the Truth, they yell something like “not even a hair’s width separates them”. More nonsense. And yet monks have been reaching enlightenment for those same thousand years. Is it these seemingly random statements, these maddeningly impossible questions, which are nonsense? Or is it ourselves, full of our own built-up nonsense, who cannot understand the Truth?

When the student asks, “does a dog have the Buddha nature”, the master shouts “Mu”, which is Chinese for nothing. Its not a yes. And its not really a no. We might expect, as the monk surely did, Master Joshu (who is attributed to saying all this) would reply “yes”. After all, Buddhism teaches that all beings can evolve to attain enlightenment, that they posses this Buddha nature. A dog certainly fits into the category of all beings. But the regurgitation of doctrine has never enlightened any monks, much less dogs. Therefore, mu.

So what does Joshu mean? What does he want us to see? Is there some arcane Buddhist knowledge hidden in some ancient, dusty scroll that would unlock the mystery if only we could read it? All this mu nonsense forces the monk (and us) to look at something beyond doctrine, beyond the accumulation of teachings and scriptures. Even if such a wonderful scroll existed, it would have more value to a museum than to our understanding. Better to burn it for heat in the winter. The now warm monk might understand in that very moment (since that sort of thing always seems to happen to monks). So through mu, or really any of the other koans, we are forced to come to an understanding of enlightenment, not as a collection of memorized words and ideas, but as a real experience which lies somewhere just outside of our comprehension. It is something which we must see for ourselves, even though the Master points the way. Its not really nonsense at all then, is it?

I don’t claim to understand it all myself. Mu is just mu. And so I have a question with no answer – how do I find enlightenment? And there’s an idea I can’t understand – the Buddha nature. I’m not so much different from the dog.

My favorite question is, quite simply, “why”. There is an elegant simplicity to this single word. It has driven the gears of human thought for uncountable generations. And though an equally unquantifiable number of words have been written on this one word, the fascination, the wonder of it, has yet to subside. It is universally asked and universally unanswered.

It may be that I am simply disillusioned with my culture, focusing on the shortcomings while neglecting the strengths. Still, I cannot help but feel that there is some element lacking in the sum of Western thought, some key Truth that has been missed in the plethora of writings from Socrates to Descartes, from Kant to Moore. Perhaps it is not too surprising, then, that I tend to read a lot of Eastern philosophy. More specifically, ancient Eastern Philosophy.

Like Alan Watts.

If you have never heard his lectures or read his books, I certainly recommend them to everyone. “Talking Zen” is one of my favorites. What I find so remarkable about Watts is his ability to expound upon Eastern ideas while appealing to the Western mind. So many of the translated work from India, China and Japan seem, at least to me, so seeded in Eastern culture as to be alien. Frankly, a lot of it is just too hard to read. (That doesn’t stop me from trying, mind you. I just don’t get as much out of it as I would like.)

By now you might be wondering what any of this has to do with the title – “The Essence of Oneness”. Please bare with me for a bit longer and hopefully what I say here will, at least to some degree, answer that question. For now, let’s just assume the answer is, “everything”.

Western culture has a bad habit of classifying every little thing, placing this and that into one idealogical bucket or another. To us, and by “us” I am assuming that my audience is primarily Western, this plurality of existence is Truth. Could it be any other way? Surely I am separate from you, from that cat, from that tree, from that boulder. Our first classification, albeit a rough guideline, is precisely “me” or “not me”. Everything else is secondary.

Of course, we weren’t satisfied by this separation. We had to take it to the next level. So then we say things are “animate” or “inanimate”, “animal” or “plant”, “large” or “small”, and so forth. Its a very useful mechanism we have created. Imagine the plight of our ancestors if they could only say, “Look out! ‘It’ is coming this way!”. I’d be more alarmed if ‘it’ was a bear than a drop of rain. Nor could I just ask, “could you please pass ‘it’” at the dinner table. But somewhere along the way, we became obsessed with this tool. Somehow we began to believe that this arbitrary nomenclature was in fact a law of nature, rather than a mechanism of our own creation.

Undoubtedly you’ve heard a mildly humorous story, at one point in your life, about a student who asks his wise teacher if such-and-such has the Buddha nature. But I case you haven’t, it goes something like this:

One day Sum Yung Gai asked of Master Wong, “Master, does a hairless yak have the Buddha nature?” Without hesitation Master Wong replied, “Ah-hah! My laundry is finished.” And then Yung Gai was enlightened.

A bit of an exaggeration on my part, but the idea is there. When asked such a question by the student, the wise old master’s reply is invariably absurd. It seems to us that the completely non sequitur answers are useless. Still we read about all these students magically becoming enlightened while we sit at home and scratch our heads. What does laundry have to do with a hairless yak?

The Western mind, deeply rooted in the separateness of all things, very quickly rejects the idea that the question and answer are in any way related. We cannot get beyond the “fact” that a hairless yak and a pile of dirty clothes belong to different buckets of classification and therefore cannot adequately describe the Buddha nature. We aren’t hearing what we expect, that is, a set of classificatory buckets into which we might be able to place those things which possess and those which do not possess the Buddha nature. We want a set of rules which, when applied, give us the ability to separate these things. The only problem, at least for us, is that such a set of rules does not exist. Here’s where I think those crazy old Chinese geezers got it right by proclaiming the done-ness of their clothes. Their message is, in less jocular terms, “Its all the same.”

Yes, from hairless beasts of burden to laundry to trees to boulders to stars to air to fire, everything is ultimately the same. I could go on and on about this topic, and certainly for those who have had the immense pleasure, or excruciating displeasure if it be so, of knowing me will have heard me go on at length about such things. But to say that all things are ultimately one is to miss the mark by several millions of light years. There is actually a little bit more to it than that…… but not much.

Separation is a fact of life. I can touch a pencil and I know that this pencil is not a part of me as is the hand which touches. Obviously, if I cut the pencil in half with a knife, I feel nothing, save perhaps a bit of anxiety over destroying a very nice writing implement. Oh the other hand, and please pardon the pun, if I was to lop off my arm with that knife, I be felling quite a bit of pain because of it. If everything was exactly one thing, then I’d feel a great deal of pain from that pencil. That isn’t to say I think there is no connection. Instead, I think the Essence of Oneness, as it were, is a bit of East and West all rolled up into one.

There’s that “O” word again. “One”. Yes, in reality East and West are the same. And the efforts of either side of the philosophical battle to claim victory are ultimately doomed to fail. Now then, if we want to truly get close to the mark of reality, we simply add differentiation into the oneness of things. That is, being different is obviously no different than being the same. It is true that I am not a hairless yak. It is also true that the now infamous yak and I are at the core, one. We intimately share a quality, that yak and I, of existence. We are built of the same one-stuff, the same energy. We only have to look as far as modern physics to show us that everything is energy. But energy doesn’t just stand still and become matter. It moves. It flows. It changes.

It is that flowing of energy through the universe which ties us together. We are all of the same flow. What is me now, this computer now, and you now, will be completely replaced as the energy flows through us. Regardless of static form, the energy moves. In time, I will be composed of your energy, of the computer’s energy, of the energy from my yak.

Before I close, I’d like to address my opening statement briefly. The question was “why”. The answer, quite simply, is “one”.

More importantly, I was contemplating the fuzzy lines between the physical world and the electronic world. I was playing with a procedural world generator last night called MojoWorld. You can freely download the binaries for Windows, Mac, or Linux. (Not open source, but still a neat toy) And some of the imagery is rather stunning. This is not real-time by any means, but still, the pictures look “real”. One day we will have this level of detail streaming to us in real-time over the net. Perhaps we will wear some special glasses. Maybe the images will be displayed directly upon our retinal matter. Regardless of transport, we will be able to stand in this foreign landscape. And it will seem as real as walking through Madison Square Garden. If by all means of perception we deem this world to be “real” is it any less so simply because it was generated by a machine?

Take one part “Matrix”, two parts “Lain”, stir vigorously. Serve warm.

Now then, leaning towards the Lain end of things I got to thinking more. This time about connection and consciousness. If reality can become that which is generated by a machine, and if we can share this new reality, then in some sense we are connected by electrical impulses sent through countless miles of glass and copper. Now then, given a sufficient amount of connection between entities, what might we expect as a result? I wonder at the emergent properties of a fully connected world. Like the neurons of the brain, independent cells with little individual worth, but properties of consciousness through connection, might not the same order emerge from the connection of humanity? Would we even realize the existence of this new property should it come to be? And if, through global connection, we realize some greater piece of consciousness, could this be God, a higher-order consciousness which exists beyond all of us, yet exists because of all of us?

Particle physics and Eastern mystics are seemingly in agreement about the nature of the universe – everything is one. If this topic is of any interest, I suggest the book “The Tao of Physics” by Frijtof Capra. (You may also wish to consume “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” by Gary Zukav, though I have yet to read it myself.) An interesting aspect of this line of thought is that, ultimately, everything is energy. Not that this is a new idea, mind you. But if we look at in in a certain way we come to notice that matter is not “real” and more than a movie is “real”. Instead matter is simply a state of energy trapped in such a way as to manifest itself in an apparently solid form. In a sense, matter is an emergent property of energy and arises naturally from the mere existence of energy. It is not different from energy.

At the core, we see waves (energy) converge into localizations (matter). In turn, we see matter converge into all manner of things (elements). Elements because molecules. Molecules form compounds. And so forth, until we have the myriad of things we see before our eyes at this very moment.

In this light, it is absurd for us to think that this emergence of things would end with the construction of ourselves. Surely, from a great enough distance our solar system resembles the atom! The galaxy itself is no different. So then, I say that we can assume, even expect, the emergence of something beyond ourselves though our connection.

Let me go out on a limb here and pose this question:

How can humanity realize a Lain-level emergence of higher order cognition if we, the “neurons” of the Gaia Brain, do not connect?

I’ve been obsessed with the Matrix, the Metaverse, or whatever you want to call it, for quite some time. The idea seems to be a part of me. My deep fascination with computer programming has always led me down the path to that goal, regardless of my realization of that fact. But I am constantly frustrated by the limits of connection available to us today. The separation caused by the written word, while at times it draws us and connects us, it is at a different level than, say, an intimate conversation with a friend.

I crave the next level. I want to go beyond the keyboard and monitor and reach into the very reality of the Net itself. I want to be one with the Great Information Flow. Only then can we hope to realize the emergent God quality of humanity – our purpose to become Gaia.