| EINSTEIN |
BUDDHA |
| According to general relativity, the concept of space
detached from any physical content does not exist.
-Einstein |
If there is only empty space, with no suns nor planets
in it, then space loses its substantiality.
-Buddha |
| Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind,
and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world.
-Einstein |
All such notions as causation, succession, atoms,
primary elements...are all figments of the imagination and manifestations
of the mind.
-Buddha |
| Time and again the passion for understanding has led to
the illusion that man is able to comprehend the objective world rationally
by pure thought without any empirical foundationsóin short, by
metaphysics.
-Einstein |
By becoming attached to names and forms, not realising
that they have no more basis than the activities of the mind itself, error
risesÖand the way to emancipation is blocked.
-Buddha |
| In our thinking...we attribute to this concept of the
bodily object a significance, which is to high degree independent of the
sense impression which originally gives rise to it. This is what we mean
when we attribute to the bodily object "a real existence." ...By means of
such concepts and mental relations between them, we are able to orient
ourselves in the labyrinth of sense impressions. These notions and
relations...appear to us as stronger and more unalterable than the
individual sense experience itself, the character of which as anything
other than the result of an illusion or hallucination is never completely
guaranteed.
-Einstein |
I teach that the multitudinousness of objects have no
reality in themselves but are only seen of the mind and, therefore, are of
the nature of maya and a dream. ...It is true that in one sense they are
seen and discriminated by the senses as individualized objects; but in
another sense, because of the absence of any characteristic marks of
self-nature, they are not seen but are only imagined. In one sense they
are graspable, but in another sense, they are not graspable.
-Buddha |
| The belief in an external world independent of the
perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however,
sense perception only gives information of this external world or of
"physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative
means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never
be final. We must always be ready to change these notionsóthat is to say,
the axiomatic basis of physicsóin order to do justice to perceived facts
in the most perfect way logically.
-Einstein |
While the Tathagata, in his teaching, constantly makes
use of conceptions and ideas about them, disciples should keep in mind the
unreality of all such conceptions and ideas. They should recall that the
Tathagata, in making use of them in explaining the Dharma always uses them
in the semblance of a raft that is of use only to cross a river. As the
raft is of no further use after the river is crossed, it should be
discarded. So these arbitrary conceptions of things and about things
should be wholly given up as one attains enlightenment.
-Buddha |
