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We know that the scientist Albert Einstein had views very close to Buddhism. But then we will be surprised to see that there are times when Einstein said exactly the same, almost 100% exactly like Buddhist teachings. Especially when Einstein wrote a condolence letter to a close friend in 1950...

For example, all dharmas are Emptiness. For example, all dharmas are consciousness. Einstein expressed both of these views.

In the Small Emptiness Sutra MN 121, and the Great Emptiness Sutra MN 122, the Buddha guides the way to focus from a content with much content to a content with little content, and from little content to enter Emptiness to dwell.

Sutra MN 121 says: “Hey Ananda! Because of abiding in the nature of emptiness, now I am able to abide in much.”

Regarding consciousness, Buddhism has the Consciousness-Only school which advocates that all dharmas are consciousness-only, simply put, all dharmas are manifestations of consciousness.

Is the meaning of all dharmas only consciousness-only from the analysis from the Dhammapada Verse 1 when the Buddha taught, “Mind leads all dharmas, Mind is the master, mind creates...”?

Or is the meaning of all dharmas only consciousness-only from Sutra SN 35.23 when the Buddha taught that the world is the six internal sense bases and six external sense bases, that is, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, and form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and other than that there can be no other world?

What does science say about the above two views?

First, let me tell a story about Albert Einstein, a great scientist.

A close friend of Einstein was Robert S. Marcus, who was then the Director of the organization World Jewish Congress. After Marcus's son died of polio, Einstein wrote a letter dated February 12, 1950, to console his friend.

Einstein's letter, translated as follows:

“Dear Marcus:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion…” (link: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/11/delusion.html)

That is, according to Einstein, when someone feels they are separate from the rest of the world, it is an “optical illusion of consciousness”… That is, it is consciousness that creates the illusion. Thus, escaping from illusion is the requirement of true religion. It sounds like an echo of the Diamond Sutra that all things are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows…

Einstein's passage suggests that all things can be understood as Emptiness, because the optical illusion of consciousness seems to speak of an empty mind mirror that is easily refracted by the viewer? And also a manifestation of consciousness?

Here, we can examine consciousness…

On November 3, 2017, Geekwire published an article titled “Where does consciousness come from? Brain scientist closes in on the claustrum”. (https://www.geekwire.com/2017/consciousness-come-brain-scientist-closes-claustrum/)

The word claustrum is a medical noun, in Vietnamese it means “nhan truong tuong”… a thin piece of nerve tissue, located in the middle of the brain.

This complex news story is about neuroscientist Christof Koch, who spent decades investigating the location of consciousness, then probed the brains of mice, and then met with the Dalai Lama.

Dr. Koch is the Director and Chief Researcher at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, headquartered in Seattle. Koch and the late Francis Crick, who co-discovered the helix structure of DNA, noticed the claustrum more than a decade ago.

Koch said on October 27, 2017, at the World Conference of Science Journalists in San Francisco that it is the claustrum that connects the outer gray matter to create consciousness, and that the claustrum functions as a conductor in the orchestra of consciousness.

Christof Koch said that in AIBS studies, tiny cameras and microscopes were attached directly to the brains of chromosomally altered mice, tracking how the claustrum and brain networks lit up while the mice were moving. Koch showed a videotape showing the mouse brains lighting up according to the activities.

Koch said that the neurons in the mouse brains lit up according to different movements.

Does that mean the mice are conscious? Koch said yes. And then, Koch called himself a “panpsychist,” which could be translated as “universal-consciousness,” suspecting that consciousness spans many levels, rather than a clear distinction between humans and other animals.

According to Koch, the difference between mice and humans is exactly the same as the difference between an Atari 2600 video game console from the 1970s, and an iPhone today. Both machines have computing functions, but the Atari 2600 can’t talk to you. Whereas the iPhone’s Siri software can.

Koch said that experimenters are trying to turn the claustrum on and off in mice to see what happens.

Koch noted one case where accidentally activating the claustrum of an epilepsy patient caused the patient to fall into a kind of paralysis. When the electrodes are turned off, the patient has no memory of what just happened.

If consciousness can be turned on and off, isn't it just like a computer?

Koch has been reaching out to the Dalai Lama for support in his research for many years.

Koch says, “If you have what Buddhists call pure experience or naked awareness, which is a content-less experience, you are just conscious. The meditator is conscious without any particular content in consciousness.”

It should be noted here that not all Zen Buddhist schools “maintain naked awareness” or “contentless awareness,” because in principle, knowing must be “knowing something.” For example, the practice of mindfulness of breathing, which is common in body awareness, has content in the object of consciousness, that is, knowing whether the breath is long or short, and so on.

In Buddhism, Tibetan and Zen meditation practices focus on gradually coming to a realization of the mind, called the Emptiness of consciousness, that is, “naked awareness,” where all objects of consciousness appear. For Buddhists, the mind is like a clear, empty mirror, which is not at all similar to the claustrum that Koch studies.

The Buddha also taught in the Majjhima Nikaya how to direct consciousness from more content (like a village, a forest, etc.) to less content, and then to no content, that is, to abide in Emptiness.

Koch recounts a disagreement with the Dalai Lama, that at a meeting in which the Tibetan Buddhist leader asked the scientist whether neuroscience could lend support to the concept of reincarnation. Koch replied, “If there is no brain, there is no mind.” (‘No brain, never mind.’)

Koch said, there must be a physical part for consciousness to function, it could be something strange, like quarks, it could move itself in space or something, but there must be a transport mechanism.

The reporter asked Koch, so how did the Dalai Lama react?

Koch said, He just smiled.

In an article in Lion’s Roar on January 8, 2017, there was a very interesting title: “Leading neuroscientists and Buddhists agree: “Consciousness is everywhere”… That is, “Neuroscientists and Buddhists agree: Consciousness is everywhere.” (https://www.lionsroar.com/christof-koch-unites-buddhist-neuroscience-universal-nature-mind/)

Which means, to put it almost exactly like, “all dharmas are consciousness only,” all dharmas are manifestations of consciousness.

New theories in neuroscience suggest consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity.

Professor Koch says, the heart of consciousness is to feel something, so “how can a piece of matter, like my brain, feel anything?”

In 2013, Koch went to a monastery in India, attended a conference, and discussed that question with a group of monks: Koch and the Dalai Lama debated brain science and mind for a whole day.

They had different approaches Koch presented contemporary scientific theories on the subject, and the Dalai Lama presented Buddhist teachings. But at the end of the discussion, the two agreed on all points.

Koch said that in his research on consciousness, Koch collaborated with a researcher named Giulio Tononi. Tononi is the father of the most popular theory of consciousness, called Integrated Information Theory (IIT).

This theory measures consciousness by a metric called phi. This metric is understood as “the quantity of consciousness.”

Tononi measured the amount of phi in a human brain. Just like ringing a bell, scientists send a magnetic signal into a human brain, observing the vibrations through the neurons, back and forth, side to side. The longer and clearer the vibrations, the more consciousness there is. Using this experiment, Koch and Tononi can tell if a patient is awake, asleep, or under anesthesia.

The practical use of consciousness experiments is that doctors can measure phi to know whether a person in a vegetative state is really dead, and to know the level of consciousness of a person with dementia, as well as when a fetus becomes conscious, to know the level of consciousness of animals, and even to know whether a computer can feel.

This theory states that anything with phi greater than zero is conscious. This means animals, plants, cells, bacteria, and Perhaps even protons are conscious beings.

In an academic paper summarizing their research, Koch and Tononi write that their theory “treats consciousness as an intrinsic, fundamental property of reality.”

This means “all dharmas are consciousness-only.”

The article mentions that Dogen (the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect) wrote in his book Shobogenzo, “All are sentient beings.” Grass, trees, the sun, the moon, and the stars are all mind. (Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism, went so far as to say, “All is sentient being.” Grass, trees, land, sun, moon, and stars are all mind, wrote Dogen.)

Koch says his research agrees with Buddhist teachings about selflessness, impermanence, and the absence of a creator god.

At Drepung Monastery, the Dalai Lama told Koch that the Buddha taught that sentient beings are everywhere, to varying degrees, and that we humans should be compassionate toward all sentient beings regardless of their realm. Koch says that it was only then that he saw the serious power of scientific research into consciousness: “And then when I see insects and ants in my house, I don’t kill them anymore.”

In fact, the study of consciousness is still in its early stages, although it has many medical applications.

Go Here, we can recall Einstein's words about the optical illusion of consciousness in the above letter. Did Einstein also agree that this world appears as an optical illusion of consciousness, and that in reality everything is egoless?

Einstein's condolence letter obviously pointed to the core teachings of Buddhism. It can be guessed that there have been (or will be) many Buddhists who happily borrow this letter to express their condolences when seeing their friends in mourning.

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