Physical space

Physical space is the object that science clearly perceives today. For the ancients, this space was a small world: a vault of sky laid over the earth, stars twinkling at night, a moon hanging at a slant, and a dazzling sun.

Today space is a vast universe with countless celestial bodies gathered into galaxies. Our sun is a small star in a galaxy called the Milky Way.

Observed under the conditions of the earth, time rests on a basic system of seconds, minutes and hours. The unit of time is taken from the rotation of the earth, or from the oscillations of atoms.

With this one system of space and time, all the laws of physics are being gradually uncovered, down to the individual electron and to radiant particles smaller still.

Submarines roam beneath the sea to learn about the world of the ocean. Drills probe into the earth to learn its geological structure. Telescopes are turned towards the boundless universe to learn about distant celestial bodies. Electron microscopes are breaking through into the microscopic world of atomic structure.

The principles of motion are understood quite clearly (except the principle by which UFOs move), well enough for people to make flights that leave the earth's gravitational field.

The ecology of the Earth is monitored closely so that people can detect even the smallest changes. Electromagnetic waves blanket the whole earth as a means of communication everywhere. Computers can already carry out extremely complex calculations, and people are working hard to find artificial intelligence. Incurable diseases such as cancer and AIDS are understood down to the finest detail (in truth, "the finest detail" is far too coarse a measure), and finding effective treatments is only a matter of time. Lasers have entered every trade and made it more efficient.

Science is developing at a dizzying speed. And crime is racing along at the same speed.

Everywhere, people go on cheating, killing, dividing and hating one another without any let-up. The means of weaponry and communication make terrorists more dangerous and destructive. The destructive power of war is fiercer.

What science finds in this physical space does nothing to help people improve their morality!

With Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics, this space is fairly stable, orderly and simple. Two parallel lines never meet. Gravity depends on the mass of the objects, the distance between them and a constant K. Three days on earth are the same as three days on some distant star.

But with Einstein, space and time are strangely distorted according to conditions. For example, on a celestial body where the density of the gravitational field is higher, so that a person weighing 50 kg on Earth would weigh billions of kilograms there, time and space are not the same as on Earth.

This is like the old tale of Từ Thức, who strayed into the fairies' cave and lived there a few years, only to find on returning to the mortal world that several decades had passed.

Distance changes in the same way. An object three metres long on Earth may be only a few centimetres long on that other body.

Velocity also changes time and space. At a speed close to the speed of light, an object shrinks to half its length as measured on earth, and time seems to pass by only a few hours, while on earth it is several decades.

A change here has an effect on the whole universe, however slight. For the whole universe is a tightly formed composite of all matter, energy, space and time. Without matter there would be no vast emptiness out there. We should not simply think of space as nothing, unaffected by anything. On the contrary, space is something formed by matter.

With the structure of celestial bodies as it is now, space is the emptiness it is now. If celestial bodies had a completely different structure, closer together or further apart, in stranger shapes, space would change in even stranger ways. But how strange, we must wait for the calculations.

The carcass of an animal rots, decays and gradually disappears, seemingly without any effect on the whole of humankind carefree in its living and its struggling. In fact it has released into the air many new components produced by the bacteria gnawing at the corpse. The effect of those gases is small, but it still contributes to changing the environment.

A person is killed, and it seems to have no effect on the whole earth, which goes on eating, drinking and enjoying itself unconcerned. But behind this is a great change for the family and relatives. The wife may remarry. The children may go astray, and society becomes more dangerous.

What concerns us is that it is in this very physical space that everyone creates the causes of karma and receives the results. But we cannot find the path of karmic consequences here, because time and space separate us from it.

For example, a robber kills someone and escapes the law's investigation. Ten years later he drives over a mountain slope, the steering slips on the incline, the car cannot hold its direction and plunges into the abyss.

One could speculate, far-fetchedly, that after the victim's death his hard-working wife raised their child and paid for schooling, but, lacking the means, sent the child away to learn a trade. The child later made many friends, and one of them was a car mechanic. On the tenth anniversary of the father's death, the child invited friends to a feast. In the hurry to get to the memorial feast, the mechanic did not fit the steering wheel properly on the very car belonging to the murderer of long ago. When the murderer climbed the mountain slope, he received his karmic result.

Or, more far-fetched still: Mr Đình donated a large sum of money to build the road in his village, then died and was reborn in another country. Thanks to that road, life in the village became easier. Many village children were able to study and complete their schooling. One of those children went abroad to study and became a professor who taught Mr Đình (now a young man). Thanks to the professor's support, Mr Đình succeeded greatly in this life.

Karma may well have travelled that winding road to arrive at its result. But if we go looking for karmic consequences in this physical space, we will be bewildered, because every case has its own path and no two are alike. Harder still is the spreading influence that carries on until the one who created the cause has been reborn in another life and still receives the influence they created in a previous life. How can anyone keep track of where a person will be reborn, when science has no such thing as a rebirth detector?

Or take Khải, who was very good at mathematics thanks to a professor who understood the subject deeply. That professor was good at mathematics thanks to some very carefully written books. Unknown to them, those books were written by Khải in a previous life.

In some cases it takes a hundred intermediaries before a person enjoys the fruit of their own deeds. Tracing the path of karma in such cases is far from simple.

There are things regarded as good or bad luck. In truth they are entirely the result of earlier karma. The influence of that karma wanders through physical space (actual life) by way of many intermediaries and finally meets again the person who created it.

The author Kim Dung, who writes Chinese martial-arts novels and whose name is known across the world for the deep philosophy contained in his works, was fond of the kind of karmic consequence that takes effect directly within this present life. His works all have a tight structure of cause and effect. He leaves out no good or evil act without speaking of its karmic result.

Thạch Phá Thiên sacrificed himself by eating the Laba porridge on behalf of the martial-arts fellows; everyone thought the porridge was poisoned, so unwittingly he increased his inner power many times over (The Swordsman's Travels).

Âu Dương Phong, the Western Poison, because of his wicked intentions, finally became insane. But while insane he became gentle and kind, and in the end he regained his senses and died joyfully.

Quách Tĩnh helped Genghis Khan invade everywhere, and in the end had to take his own life because he could not hold the city of Xiangyang against the army of the Yuan dynasty (The Five Great Masters of Martial Arts).

None of Kim Dung's works leaves any gap in karmic consequence. However, he likes to demonstrate the concrete kind of karmic consequence, in which one can easily see how the influence of karma leads to its result within the lives of the characters.

Of course, the path of karma in this physical space is not the heart of the law of karmic consequences, because it follows no fixed rule. Sometimes we see it as a matter of luck. In the case of the mechanic who, hurrying to a memorial feast, fitted the robber's steering wheel carelessly, the event looks like a mere chance of fortune, with nothing certain about it. But it is the power of karmic consequences, working unseen, that linked the events together so that the robber was bound to bring his car in for repair on the tenth anniversary of his victim's death.

So in this physical space we can observe how the influence of karma gradually arrives at its result, yet we still cannot "see" where the essence of the law of karmic consequences lies, because that law is a property of the Absolute Essence. Only the extraordinary saints who have realised the Essence can "grasp" this law thoroughly.

Yet this physical universe is the outer appearance of the Essence. The physical universe is not separate from the Essence. We can compare the Essence to the root of a tree and the physical universe to its flowers and fruit in countless colours and forms. However much the universe differs in its thousands of ways, all return to one in the Essence. Or we can compare the Essence to a light bulb and the physical universe to the light passing through a multicoloured prism. The light has many colours, but all return to one at the bulb. In the same way, the phenomena of the physical universe arise and transform without end, but all share one source in the Essence. It is within this Essence that the law of karmic consequences is formed and governs the lives of everyone in the physical world. The power of the law of karmic consequences is immense, even though we cannot see it with the naked eye.

In the physical world, the influence of a karmic cause winds and wanders from one person to another, then, as if by chance, meets again the author who created the original karma, bringing that author joy or suffering. If we observe the phenomenal world, the path seems vague and a matter of luck, but why does it always find its author again? In truth, unseen, the law of karmic consequences within the Essence governs without any gap.

A drug trafficker is arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. By the law, he has received the consequences of his crime in full. But the influence of his karma has not let him go. After death he is born into a family whose parents are drug addicts who were part of his own smuggling ring in the previous life. His parents commit crimes and are imprisoned. He becomes an idler, falls into drugs, takes to snatching and robbery, and is shot dead. That is not all: for many lives afterwards, the karma of drugs still pursues him, and he continues to be born into surroundings full of addicts. The degradation he spread to others has become a spider's web wrapping around him through many lives of rebirth.

Thus the sentence the law passes on an offender does not reflect the karmic consequences of the law of karmic cause and effect. This law has its own course, of which the law of society is only a small aspect. Going to prison does not mean that every earlier debt has been paid.

For example, a swindler is arrested and imprisoned. In later lives he constantly falls into poverty and want and is repeatedly cheated.

Over the course of a single life, we create countless karmas through thought, speech and action. Billions of people do the same. All of it creates a karmic influence that spreads in all ten directions, interwoven and tangled with one another, yet none of it gets mixed up with any other. If it were fed into a computer to be decoded, this would perhaps be an extremely interesting and complex calculation. Science is devoting all its strength to understanding all the laws of this physical space. The laws here are objective. Human wishes cannot change them. Plants, for example, tend to grow towards the light. We can cut off the top of a tree, or bend its crown into the shade, but other shoots will still reach out to the light. We affect it only superficially; we cannot change that law.

Scientists look for the laws of the viruses that cause disease so that they can find treatments accordingly. If the law is not firmly grasped, the treatment is ineffective and sometimes even dangerous. A steroid hormone introduced into the body from outside brings a temporary surge of vigour, but will do harm later.

The principle of conservation of momentum is the basis of the jet engine: when a rocket expels a mass of matter backwards at high speed, the rocket itself moves forward at a corresponding speed.

At present this principle is the highest method of travel known to the people of Earth. Flying saucers use another, very strange method that we do not yet know.

Electron-scanning microscopes have taken people into the microscopic world, where they can see images of atoms and the activity of cells, and from there they come to know better the laws that were not yet known.

People can only discover the laws of the universe and find ways of applying them to their own benefit. These laws exist objectively, independent of human wishes. It is precisely because of this objectivity that science is held in high esteem. No one can use power to change the truth of the universe or the laws of society; no one can use theories of belief, party or the like to cover up the truth. In the end, science will discover and answer everything, and anyone who goes against science will be discarded without mercy. The time has come when those active in religion have no right to lack scientific knowledge. Nearly all religious philosophies are several thousand years old. Their followers are complacent in claiming that their own religion is the truth, and however much time passes and however far science advances, their religion's teachings and dogmas remain unchanged.

This complacent, exclusive and stubborn way of thinking is wholly harmful to a person who wants to find the ultimate truth.

A road is of no use to someone who does not want to walk it. Light is of no use to someone who does not want to see. In the same way, truth cannot help someone who buries themselves in outdated beliefs.

If we ask the followers of the religions, they will always say that their own path is the best. Even within Buddhism, each school considers itself the highest and disparages the others. The book "Journey to the East" recently set this out very clearly. Monastics spend more time attacking one another than truly practising.

To find real truth, we must cast off all prejudices held beforehand. Do not, out of attachment to self, always regard whatever relates to oneself as fine: my opinion, my school, my religion, my doctrine... Truth has nothing to do with these "mine"s.

The Buddha taught that everyone should have a spirit of doubt when searching for the truth. Do not believe anything just because it was handed down by tradition, passed on by others, spoken by someone respected, or accepted by your own preference. We must learn to doubt with humility. Doubt everything, including our own thoughts. We should not doubt other people's thoughts while trusting our own.

Those active in religion in today's age of scientific progress must learn to doubt even more. The ideas and teachings handed down from long ago seem reasonable, but when examined more carefully they may still reveal great errors.

"What my founder taught and my teacher preserved is always right." This conservative thinking is not suited to the human society of today.

Truth is objective and does not depend on any individual's wishes. If we trust too much in the thoughts of the self, we move away from the truth. The objectivity of the physical universe all the more requires us to abandon our subjective biases if we want to understand the truth.

Everyone says they are searching for truth and living in truth. Scientists say so, and so do those who study the Way. If both are searching for truth, there must come a day when they meet. Those who study the Way must have the spirit and knowledge of science, just as scientists must know the questions of religion. Sometimes the spirit of religion suggests many questions to science. For example, Buddhism has long spoken of countless worlds in the universe. And conversely, science helps religious people fall less into superstition and fanaticism. Many people fear that in the future violence will come not from purely political organisations but from religions with a tendency to fanaticism.

In short, this physical space is objective and relative. Its laws do not depend on human wishes. At the same time, the properties of space, time, mass and so on change according to many conditions. In this space people create karma and receive its results. The karma people create has an influence on life, and that influence spreads on until it meets again the author who created it and brings that author joy or suffering in due proportion.

However, this space is not the only one in the universe. It is only a phenomenon of the Essence, and all its movement, birth and transformation arise from the hidden laws of the Essence. Even the influence of karma wandering through life does not arise by random chance; it is always governed by the law of karmic consequences from the Essence.