Quantum mechanics is time being, but so is classical physics. Both describe the interactions of matter and energy as they move through time and space. The difference is one of scale. At the smallest scales and atomic increments, energy and matter start to play by different rules, which classical physics can’t account for. So quantum mechanics attempts to explain these quirks by positing a new set of principles that apply to atomic and subatomic particles, among which are:
• superposition: by which a particle can be in two or more places or states at once (i.e., Zen Master Dōgen is both alive and dead?)
• entanglement: by which two particles can coordinate their properties across space and time and behave like a single system (i.e., a Zen master and his disciple; a character and her narrator; old Jiko and Nao and Oliver and me?)
• the measurement problem: by which the act of measuring or observation alters what is being observed (i.e., the collapse of a wave function; the telling of a dream?)
If Zen Master Dōgen had been a physicist, I think he might have liked quantum mechanics. He would have naturally grasped the all-inclusive nature of superposition and intuited the interconnectedness of entanglement. As a contemplative who was also a man of action, he would have been intrigued by the notion that attention might have the power to alter reality, while at the same time understanding that human consciousness is neither more nor less than the clouds and water, or the hundreds of grasses. He would have appreciated the unbounded nature of not knowing.