As I was growing up I didn’t like science very much. It seemed to me a lot of empty facts, bits of knowledge about the formation of the planets, or atomic valence, or the parasympathetic nervous system – stuff that I had to memorize but that didn’t matter much in my everyday life. I would much 
rather read a novel by Dostoyevsky or a philosophical essay by Camus, something that spoke directly of the joys and sorrows of life. I only began to be interested in science when I realized that it was, in fact, all aboutme. The law of gravity tries to explain what holds me on this planet; photosynthesis is the process that grows the fuel that powers my life: the complex web of neurons in the brain are what create my experience. (I also think my interest in science coincided with the beginnings of my meditation practice.)
Now I keep a file in my computer just for science information, and almost every day I make another entry, often returning later to speculate on what it means. I’m especially drawn to the scientific discoveries that point to annica, dukkha or anatta, (impermanence, unsatisfying, non-self) the Buddha’s three characteristics of existence. Occasionally I will read about some research, or even find a single fact that sends me into an altered state, a revelation of non-duality, a feeling of self-liberation. Some science information I just find whimsical or funny. Here are a few entries from my science notebook, accompanied by my comments and musings. My extrapolations are often questionable, but all of the basic information is science, so it must be true.
NUMEROLOGY
I recently read that there are 100 sextillion stars in the universe. Sure. I’ll go along with that. Some astronomers must have counted them. Meanwhile, an astrophysicist claims to have figured out the size of the universe — it’s 10 billion, trillion, trillion cubic light years large. All right, approximately. And remember, this was as of May, 2007.
Modern science keeps presenting us with these enormous numbers, but most of them are meaningless in the sense of being incomprehensible to our tiny little brains and even tinier perspectives. I’ve now got so many of these gigantic numbers in my head that I get confused when I’m not near my notes, about whether there are an estimated 50 or 100 billion galaxies, and whether there are 50 or 100 trillion cells, and sometimes I confuse the two categories. Maybe we will discover that there are exactly as many galaxies in the universe as there are cells in our bodies, and that will either be a strange coincidence, or a hint that reality isn’t just random chaos bumping into itself. As science presents us with all of these big numbers, it’s becoming more and more convenient to be a mystic, and just see it all as “one.” Of course, the essential question remains, “Who’s counting?”
YUCKOLOGY
A few important facts to know about laughter. Research shows that when you have a belly laugh, you breathe in 6 times more oxygen than normal. Some experts estimate that 20 seconds of laughter is equal to 20 minutes of cardio-vascular exercise. Usually something is funny as well, which is its own reward. In fact, laughter stimulates euphoria centers in the brain, the same ones that light up over chocolate or sex.
Actual scientific studies have been done on “the vocalization and burst rates” of laughter, finding that across cultures, the most constant consonant of laughter is “h.” Most of us go “ha ha,” or “hee hee,” “ho ho,” or “heh heh.” The researchers also found that nobody laughs with mixed consonants, as in “ha, fa, la, ca, kee, po….”
Anthropologists now believe that the human “ha-ha” evolved from the rhythmic sound made by other primate species when tickling and chasing each other in play. They make a sound like “hooh hooh.” Primates like to tickle each other, and one scientist has determined that the first joke ever made was the fake tickle, when the gesture to tickle is made but withdrawn before contact. “Ha ha. Fooled you.”
More numbers. Every cell in your body goes through 4,000 transactions a second – processing fuels, exchanging chemical and electrical signals with other cells, monitoring the environment, creating proteins and enzymes. Considering that you have approximately 50 trillion cells in your body, there are literally quadrillions of events taking place inside of you every single second. Stay mindful!
NEUROLOGY
I love the new neuroscience, especially when it confirms my meditation experience. But sometimes I sense that the science information is bringing a bias into my practice. For instance, ever since I heard that greater activity in the left frontal cortex of the brain correlates with more contentment, I’ve been sort of “leaning” that way in meditation, exploring that area of my head with my attention. When I first started to meditate I would often focus on the pressure around my “third eye,” until my teacher Goenka told me to stop because it would lead to the yogic powers known as “siddhis,” and then I’d be seduced from the pure path of the Buddha. But I’m going to let myself do a little more exploration of that left frontal cortex. If I find the sweet spot I’ll let you know.
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CLIMATOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, WHATEVER
Global warming is a big problem for modern humanity, but our ancestors would have welcomed it. Just fifty thousand years ago, glaciers covered the land masses of Europe and North America all year round. There wasn’t even a season worthy of name “summer,” which was only invented a few millenia ago, presumably by the “Summerians.” They also figured out that when the sun gets hot, it’s a good time for plants to grow and that led directly to the invention of agriculture, civilization, and mint-flavored iced tea.
But for many thousands of years it was soooo cold on planet earth, that people even prayed to the sun, like in Egypt, where they worshiped the sun god. (That religion, no doubt, was the origin of the chant, “Rah, Rah, Rah.”) Anyway, now we’re worried that it’s getting too hot. And we’ve also discovered that human activity is one reason for the increasing heat. Simply put, we are starting to cook ourselves. If greenhouse gases increase too much we will be poached. But if the ozone layer is destroyed we will be micro-waved. Would you like fries with that?
This global warming problem is another sign of human inability to understand the law of karma. It should have been more obvious. In just the last 100 years or so, humans have burned up millions of years worth of the sun’s stored energy. Try to imagine it: an estimated 50 million barrels of oil — that’s a huge lake full of oil — set afire, every single day.
Meanwhile, the threat of global warming can arouse feelings of gratitude by reminding us that we are now living through a very benign climatic era. The birth of agriculture arrived at the end of an ice age, and since only about 10 thousand years ago we’ve been able to feed ourselves with plenty of time and energy left over to do things like invent automobiles and stoves, and learn how to meditate.
Now global warming will be a test of our smarts and tool making ability. Can science come to our rescue and turn down the planetary thermostat? According to a 2007 story in the New York Times, engineers are now coming up with ways to stop or mitigate global warming—mostly schemes to deflect the sun’s rays. For instance, one idea is to put millions of reflecting lenses into orbit in order to bend sunlight away from earth. It would be like putting sunglasses on the planet. From outer space it would look like the earth was making a fashion statement.
Another solution being proposed – and I’m not making this up — is a plan to float white plastic, or white foam disks across great stretches of the ocean. I don’t know, but maybe we should consult with the dolphins first. Meanwhile, a similar plan proposes to cover vast areas of the deserts with white plastic mulch. But we already tried that — it’s called Los Angeles.
I have a better idea. Let’s have the government pave the streets with gold…literally. That would reflect the sun’s rays back into space, and at the same time make good on the great American dream. Maybe the paving contract could go to Haliburton. They could use the profits they made from the Iraq war, and spread them all across the country, along the yellow brick road.
Of course, the obvious solution, is to cut back on our carbon consumption. But we’re made out of carbon! Are we getting too fat on the stuff? Do we need to get the whole planet on a low carb-on diet?
We shouldn’t wait for our politicians to inspire us to consume less energy. I had an image of George “W” Bush looking up at the sun with that macho smirk on his face, and saying, “Bring it on!”
Global warming inevitably brings me around to the Buddha’s fire sermon, where he declares that everything is burning. In fact, nirvana means “no fires.” Maybe meditation is exactly what humanity needs more than anything right now. It’s time to chill.
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ASTROPHYSICS, EVOLUTION, AND BUDDHOLOGY
As you may have heard, we no longer can regard space or time as separate dimensions. They are as inseparable as up and down, light and dark, right sock and left sock. Time and space are now space-time, and we can become familiar with the new reality by using the conjunction more often. We live in space-time. Where you are is also when. (Spiritual seekers might want to take note, that if space-time is a single dimension, then “be here now” is redundant.)
Meanwhile, the mind-body split still seems to persist. Prominent modern pundits and spiritual adepts still proclaim that we are born through a spiritual medium as opposed to a physical one, and they insist that our essence has nothing to do with flesh and bones.
But what if both matter and spirit are necessary for our existence? Perhaps they are as inseparable as space and time (space-time), and both are necessary for our soul or consciousness to manifest. Maybe we could think of ourselves as spirit-matter.
And what if we come to believe that our essential identity lives and dies along with our physical body? How might that alter our behavior or our understanding of the value of this life? Without fear of our next-life would we all lose interest in enlightenment, or run amok, as some eminent Buddhist teachers warn? I agree that consciousness is a marvel, but for now I don’t know, and don’t think I can know of consciousness from any perspective or in any context except inside of this body and nervous system. I know that it isn’t “my” consciousness, but that doesn’t mean it is independent of living protoplasm. If I could only believe that my “essence” is not tied to this rotting flesh, then I might lose my fear of death. On the other hand, perhaps what I should really be afraid of is another life.
SUB-SUBATOMIC PHYSICS
I read in some Buddhist literature (probably the Abhidamma) that the Buddha experienced things changing millions of times in the link of an eye. (Did he slow down his mind enough to count the changes?)
Meanwhile, inside the subatomic world we find evidence of an impermanence that is so impermanent it makes our ordinary reality seem frozen in time. Way down inside of everything, where the quarks are doing a line-dance inside of an electron, events are occurring in increments far shorter than the blink of an eye. (Considered to be one 10thof a second.) In the subatomic world, time is sometimes measured in what scientists have named “atto-seconds” — a millionth of a trillionth of a second. It takes an electron about an atto-second to travel all the way around a proton.
Meanwhile, inside the proton, perhaps one level deeper into reality, an attosecond would be regarded as a long nap. Down here time is measured in zepto-seconds – abillionth of a trillionth of a second. Before you can even blink – Zepto! – it’s gone.
I think at some point the physicists realized that they had entered a Marx brothers routine, where the jokes are coming so fast you begin to see that it’s all a joke. So when they started to measure things changing even faster — in trillionths of a trillionth of a second — they named it a “yocto-second.” Atto, zepto, and yockto. “Hello, I must be going.”
By the way, the time it takes for a quark to go around a proton is somewhere between a zeptosecond and a yocktosecond.
All you can do is smile, and let go.
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(This article is taken from the book Crazy Wisdom Saves the World Again, by Wes Scoop Nisker)