The Buddha and Christ Are Always Present, We don't Have to Wait for the Millennium
Reflections of a Buddhist Theoretical Physicist
By Fred Cooper, Ph.D
Published as: "The Millennium: A Bridge between the Relative and the
Ultimate", Tricyle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 1999; pp. 69-71.
(reprinted by permission of the author)

One way of viewing the Millennium is that the Infinite
would again take finite incarnation to benefit beings at a certain point in
space and time.Although such an occurrence is always welcome, we should be
aware that the infinite is always present and place our emphasis on recognizing
that. Otherwise, we are always stuck in finite, relative reality, where the
concepts of space and time constrain and solidify our experience. It is exactly
beyond the relative reality in which the concepts of space and time exist that
we contact the infinite, space and time being constructs co-emergent with our
finite incarnate mind-body system.

In Christianity, the event of the next arrival of a physical
incarnation is described as the second coming, and in Buddhism in this
particular era (good kalpa) we anticipate that 1000 Buddhas will appear,
Shakyamuni being the fourth and Maitreya the fifth (a few million conventional
years from now!).
As a working theoretical physicist, I am aware of the many
intriguing questions that still linger on the relative level connected with the
concept of time. During the earliest times in the history of the universe, as we
go back to pinpoint the origins of the Big Bang, energy densities became s high
that the gravitational force between elementary particles became as important
as the strong force (important in nuclear physics) and the electromagnetic force.
As a result, quantum mechanics, which governs the laws of elementary particles,
modified Einstein's classical theory of gravity (during that time period)
in such a manner that both space and time fluctuated. That is, the geometry
itself (the path light travels) which is determined by the distribution of
energy was not fixed or concrete, but pulsated in an uncontrollable fashion
around some average value.
The result: gravity gets described by quantum laws that
only govern probabilities and that possess uncertainty relationships; and
Einstein's theoryof relativity, which relates the nature of space and time
(geometry) to the energy distribution present, gets modified because the consti-
tuents of the energy-- and thus space and time themselves-- are governed by
uncertainty relationships.
Consequently, what we take for granted-- that we are defined
by being here in a particular place at a particular moment of time-- is only an
accident of our not being entities that were conscious during the creation of
this particular universe. For then, there were no space and time as we
experience them now. It was only as the Big Bang progressed -- so that the
universe expanded and energy densities decreased (total energy is fixed so that
energy per unit volume goes down as the universe expands) that as a result of
quantum decoherence a classical picture emerges and one can then again think in
terms of the scientists' conventional notion of space and time that Einstein so
clearly presented when he discovered general relativity.
The other aspect of time that we, as products of the
twentieth century, take for granted is that there is a direction of time--
namely that as time evolves there is increasing disorder, and that eventually
everything runs down to the most disordered state. This idea that there is an
``arrow of time" might also prove incorrect once we have the correct theory of
how the universe started. Since the energy densities were extraordinarily high
at the beginning of the Big Bang, we need a quantum mechanical description
of the entire universe--there needs to be one wave function that describes
everything. This is what Hawking and Hartle called the ``Wave Function of the
Universe".
This, then, leads to some fascinating questions, such as:
What was the initial state of the universe? Will time flow ``backward" (order
increase) if the universe collapses after it first expands? This latter
question confused even Hawking for a while. When science analyzes the first
moments of this universe in this manner, it is entering the more mystical field
where there is no initial separation -- no observed and observer. Starting from
this initial non-dual context, duality does somehow enter, and the concepts of
space and time, as well as subject and object, develop as the universe makes
a transition from the quantum unity and uncertainty to the classical certainty,
duality, and separation. Is this somehow related to the myth of the Garden of
Eden, the original sin of Christianity, the original co-emergent ignorance of
Buddhism? Did the ``arrow of time" have to emerge as a result of this
transition?
Finally in light of all this, what importance should we
give, anyway to an arbitrary conventional time period of one thousand years
based on a conventional decimal number system, which does not even correspond to
any important cosmological time cycle? Both Buddhism and Christianity have
three concepts to explain the inseparabilityof the absolute and relative
realities. In Buddhism there are the three inseparable aspects of enlightenment:
Dharmakaya (emptiness-absolute reality aspect); Sambhogakaya (clarity-energy Aspect): Nirmanakaya (physical emanation- manifestation). In Christianity
there is God the Father (Ultimate Reality), the Holy Spirit (Energy aspect),
Son of God (physical manifestation of the ultimate). Thus the finite
physicality of both Buddha and of Jesus may be understood as the embodiments
of the infinite.
The importance of the physical manifestation is that the
teachings of the absolute can then be transmitted using conventional methods
such as word and gesture that make contact with our ordinary senses of hearing
and sight.
On deeper reflection then, the millennium can be seen to
be a bridge between the relative and the ultimate. It can turn our attention to
considering the nature of space and time. It can lead us to reflect on the
relation between the absolute and relative realities, which are always
inseparable and to realize that the absolute need not be looked for outside our
own minds since it is always present. We just have to recognize it (the
essential nature of our mind). In this way we can always be in contact with the
Adi-Buddha (Samantabhadra) or Christ Consciousness or whatever limited
conceptual linguistic terminology we use in trying to describe the absolute.
Fred Cooper obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Harvard University
in 1968. He has taught Physics at Cornell, Brown, Yeshiva University, Boston
University, Boston College, and the University of New Hampshire. He is the
Group Leader of the Elementary Particle Physics Group at Los Alamos National
Labs and has written over 140 articles on various aspects of Theoretical
Physics including cosmology and quantum chaos. He is presently writing a
book on Supersymmetry in Quantum Mechanics. He has studied Tibetan Buddhism
with emphasis on Mahamudra under H.E. Kalu Rinpoche and H.E. Tai Situ Rinpoche
and teaches meditation at Kalu Rinpoche's centers in Santa Fe, N.M. and
Cambridge, MA. He is President of Kagyu Shenpen Kunchab Buddhist Center in
Santa Fe whose resident Lama is Lama Karma Dorje. He can be contacted by e-mail
at fredcath@earthlink.net.