JA: At what stage do you see mankind’s evolution? For instance, if you were to look at the entire human race as one person, would you say we’re in childhood, adolescence, adulthood?
DL: According to the general Buddhist teaching—Buddhist scriptures—sometimes the world is better, sometimes worse. Now if you speak about the period of one aeon, then our era is still childhood, but within a smaller period, it is old. I will explain. According to the Abhidharmakosha,13 one great aeon is composed of eighty intermediate aeons in four groups of twenty. The first twenty are aeons of vacuity. The vacuity is the absence of the last world system. They are followed by twenty aeons of formation of the new world system; then twenty aeons of abiding; then twenty aeons of destruction of that system. Right now we’re in the aeons of abiding. Within these twenty intermediate aeons of abiding, we are in the first long period of decline. So, as this one is coming down, there are eighteen ups and downs afterward. Then the twentieth goes on up. Now we are in the first downward one, at the point in which the average life span is around a hundred years. In terms of this first period of decline, we are far along in it, and thus, old, but in terms of the twenty aeons of abiding, we are only at the beginning.
JA: Is this panoramic view from scriptural sources only?
DL: Yes.
JA: Is that the only proof that can be cited?
DL: I think so; probably just scriptural. But forget about all these aeons, it’s even difficult for us to explain in terms of science the nearest star. Quite difficult.
JA: What it’s like?
DL: What is its real cause, and so forth. What I’m talking about is one world system within a billion worlds, like explaining one galaxy.
JA: Well then, let’s go right to the beginning; what is the Buddhist view of the origin of the universe?
DL: In terms of matter, it’s really energy. In terms of the internal beings, or persons, the force that produces them is that of the actions they have accumulated, which cause them to be reborn in that way.
JA: What is the energy that manifests in material phenomena?
DL: In terms of the elements, wind is first. Its basis is space. Then the wind moves, and in dependence on that, heat occurs; then moisture, then solidity—the earth element. If you have to explain what the initial wind is a continuation of, then probably it comes out of the period of vacuity of the former world system. In any case, it’s infinite. If you speak about one world within a world system of a billion worlds, then you can speak about a beginning; otherwise, in general, you can’t.
JA: But what is the direct cause, initially, of space; and secondly, of this wind or energy14 you are speaking about?
DL: If you’re speaking externally, then just what I said; the period of vacuity of the former world system.
JA: Energy spontaneously arises from vacuity?
DL: It’s natural, not something fabricated, but behind that is karmic force.
JA: What is this karmic force?
DL: Of course, it’s necessary to explain karma. Karma means action. For instance, I’m speaking now, and that’s a verbal act. I’m moving my hands, and that’s a physical act. Then there are mental actions, which are cases in which there isn’t any physical or verbal manifestation. Due to these actions, there are both immediate and long-range results. Because of our speaking, a certain atmosphere is generated here and that’s an immediate effect. However, our speaking also establishes a potency, or makes an imprint on the continuum of the mind. Through this imprint there come to be further good, bad, and neutral actions long after the original ones stop. Thus there are good, bad, and neutral karmas. There is this state of destruction—the state of the activity’s having ceased—and this remains in the mental continuum. This state of cessation is an affirming negative—an absence that includes something positive. It is a potency that is not just the mere cessation of the action, but also has the capacity of producing an effect in the future. These states of cessation are capable of regenerating moment by moment until an effect is produced. When it meets with the proper conditions, it fructifies, or matures. It doesn’t make any difference how much time passes. It could even be billions of aeons. If one hasn’t engaged in a means to cause the potency to be reduced—such as confession and intention of restraint in the case of bad actions—then it will just remain.
JA: Where does it remain?
DL: With the continuum of the mind. There are two bases that are explained for this imprint. One is continual, the other temporary. The temporary one is the mental continuum, and the continual one is the mere “I,” the relative self of a person.
JA: Without getting into such detail yet, what is the basic difference between mind and matter?
DL: Matter is physical; mind is mere illumination and knowing.
JA: What has caused this mind?
DL: As regarding the causes of mind, there is a substantial cause, as well as cooperative conditions—an empowering condition and an observed object condition. This last condition—the object that is perceived—could be a form; but a form, a physical thing, cannot be the substantial cause of a mind. It must be something that, itself, is illuminating and knowing. For instance, when I look at the tape recorder, my eye consciousness has as its observed object condition the tape recorder. Its empowering condition—that which enables it to see color and shape—is the sense power of the eye, but its substantial cause (also called its preceding condition), which generates it into an entity that is illuminating and knowing, must be a previous moment of illumination and knowing, a previous moment of consciousness.
JA: That entity that is illuminating and knowing: what has caused that? Is that spontaneous, too? Where does that originally come from?
DL: And thus there’s no beginning to the mind.
JA: There is no beginning to the mind …
DL: No ending, either. With regard to specific minds and consciousnesses, there are beginnings and ends, but with regard to this mere factor of illumination and knowing, there’s no beginning or end. Now, with some consciousnesses, there are cases where there is no beginning, but there is an end. For instance, an afflictive emotion. When you finally remove a specific mental affliction such as jealousy, then the continuum of that consciousness meets its end. The very nature of mind is that it is this thing that is illuminating and knowing. Right? There isn’t anything further.
JA: Does it satisfy you to say it’s just nature?
DL: There are four types of investigation of phenomena. One is by way of dependence, such as seeing that smoke depends on fire. Another is to notice the functions of things. The third is by way of reasoning; proving correctness or incorrectness. The last is the recognition that such and such is the object’s nature. For instance, that we want happiness is just our nature. There’s nothing else to discover. Now, with regard to universal causation, either you have to accept a creative deity, or you have to accept that the universe is beginningless. There’s no other way; there’s no other possibility.
JA: We’re talking about many things at once, and I know you’re very tired at the end of the day. Is it okay?
DL: I’m quite fresh.
JA: You’re quite fresh? Excellent. Okay. Would you give a little detail from your personal experience so that people can identify with these abstract topics? For instance, you’ve spent much of your lifetime engaged in meditation. What is your personal experience of the nature of the mind?
DL: Its entity, or its nature, is that it is illuminating and knowing. Through the casting of an object’s image, it is generated into that—into knowing that. The consciousness knows that object by way of being generated in its image, like a reflection. Now, for different Buddhist schools, there’s a disagreement over whether the object exists externally or not. In other words, whether the object exists as a different substantial entity from the consciousness that knows it.
JA: Does it?
DL: Some say it does, and some say it doesn’t.
JA: To go back to universal causation … On the one hand, we have this illuminating knowing factor called mind and on the other, we have matter. What’s the cosmological connection between these two?
DL: There’s one kind of space that has the nature of lightness and darkness. This space is that of area—like what appears to our eyes. There’s another space that is just a mere negative; an absence of obstructive contact. The latter one is permanent and thus unchanging. There are, however, causes and conditions for the former type of space. Hence you have to posit its continuum as beginningless, since it must arise from concordant, or similar causes. The space that I was speaking about earlier—that which serves as the basis of wind—and this one, which is impermanent but the continuum of which is beginningless, are probably the same. I can’t explain this thoroughly. I think it would be impossible or difficult to say that consciousness arose from matter or that matter arose from consciousness.
JA: Why?
DL: Though it is in dependence upon the mind’s being tamed or not tamed that actions are done that can have results in the material world of substances, when you talk about the continuation—the whole continuum of those substances—it is difficult to say that it’s produced from consciousness. Also, if consciousness were produced from matter, then at times when there is no matter—such as during the aeons of vacuity following the destruction of a world system—there would be no sentient beings. This would contradict reason.
JA: Let me try to connect this to Western science. Twenty-six years ago, one chemical, DNA, was shown to organize all types of life on this planet. What, if any, significance do you see in this?
DL: You are talking about very fine particles, right? These very fine, very minute particles cannot be seen directly by the eye consciousness. Correct? But nowadays, in dependence upon technology, people are able to discover these very subtle things, and they are being found to be physical. They are very subtle, disintegrating moment by moment, but they can be found.
JA: But what is the life that is in the chemical? Is it consciousness; is that what life is, consciousness?
DL: DNA is probably not consciousness. It doesn’t have to be that everything that moves about has consciousness. Trees have shape and movement and the particles inside rocks are moving about. If DNA was necessary for consciousness, then the child’s consciousness would have to come from the parents, and there’s no way that could be true. That just isn’t the case.
JA: In the current materialist view of science, certain chemicals on an inanimate planet self-organize into myriad life-forms. What force, do you think, guides the cause of their evolution? Is it collective karma?
DL: Oh yes.
JA: Can you say more about that?
DL: There is collective karma and specific karma. The collective karma involved in this world system is not just that of humans but also of every type of sentient being—bugs and so forth—in the system. If four people set their hands on this table, the table becomes an object used by the four in common. Thus, this action causes them to accumulate a karma in common, the fruition of which they will experience in the future. Now, those things that one uses individually, they are based on—as well as produce—one’s own individual karma.
JA: In other words, you believe that DNA—shaped by the karma of all the beings in this world system—is the material vector or vehicle of consciousness?
DL: I’ve not had the opportunity to look into DNA in detail, to study it. It is matter; it is an object of comprehension by an eye consciousness. Can you see it through a microscope?
JA: Yes. It’s collected into sixty-four chromosomes in each human cell. Each chromosome carries thousands of DNA combinations called genes.
DL: It’s physical. Once it’s physical, then it has parts to it and directions. There’s no way for it to be partless. If it were partless, if anything were partless, then there wouldn’t be any form. The form couldn’t be there. It probably doesn’t have consciousness but serves as a basis of consciousness.
JA: Since you said that consciousness does not create matter, then what produces this inanimate DNA, which in turn manifests consciousness?
DL: This would be similar to the sense power of an eye. That is matter; it is not consciousness, yet it serves as a basis of consciousness and by doing so is a cause of consciousness. For instance, the brain. It’s not consciousness, yet it serves as the basis of consciousness. Once something is a consciousness, it is necessarily not shape and color. However, as I mentioned earlier today, in dependence upon the power of meditative stabilization, samadhi,15 you can achieve or create a higher order within a physical level. There are two types of this: that which can be observed by the senses, and that which can be perceived only by the mental consciousness. There are subtle physical things that can only be known by the mental consciousness. Thus there is fire and water that is produced by the power of meditative stabilization, and yet they are really not fire and water, for they are produced in dependence on samadhi only. But they can perform the function of burning or making something wet.
JA: Where is this fire you’re describing?
DL: It is produced by a person who is capable of cultivating it: fire, water, wind, and so forth. This is similar to a photograph that a person has imprinted with a mental image, which we saw earlier today. This is like that.
JA: So at a certain degree of mental control, physical objects can be manifested?
DL: Yes.
JA: To what purpose?
DL: Just depends on one’s motivation.
JA: I see. I’d like to ask you about something related to this. Since you were a little boy, you’ve been very interested in science. Why?
DL: Why? It is my wish. Well, let’s see. I looked at many pictures, and then from that, I got interested. I had a lot of curiosity as a child. And as you extend the “how’s” back, that’s how you get interested in science.
JA: Looking for a root cause?
DL: If you look for the root cause, then that’s not science. Science comes after the root cause.
JA: Halfway through your life you emerged from a world where there was no technology into the midst of the twentieth century. Which developments or discoveries have interested you most?
DL: Again, today, this scanning machine. That is something special. Body scanning; it takes every centimeter of your body in cross section. Very marvelous.
JA: Why did that one interest you?
DL: Hm? Very beneficial. There’s no need to operate on the person to get the picture.
JA: Some machines seem to cause as much harm as help. How is technology best used?
DL: That depends on motivation. Moderation and kindness. It’ll go all right; that’s it.
JA: How do you feel about nuclear energy?
DL: Good. I think it is good.
JA: Why?
DL: Because it helps. If you use it properly, I think so.
JA: You think the benefits outweigh the danger?
DL: Everything is a dependent-arising. You see, whether nuclear power is absolutely of benefit, of course not. But we have a difficult topic. You cannot determine that nuclear energy is bad on the basis of itself alone, because if you do that, then you’ll just be an extremist yourself. If you go to any one extreme, it could be harmful.
JA: What do you think about the broader implications of nuclear power? We’ve tapped the energy in the atom, and with this most fundamental force—nothing less—might well destroy our world. Do you see anything ironic in that?
DL: Again, this just depends on your skill in knowing how to use nuclear energy. For instance, with respect to diet, if you don’t know how to eat properly, you might kill yourself.
JA: Returning to evolution: life has developed from simple to highly sophisticated structures. How do you equate this linear evolution with the Buddhist view of cyclic existence in which beings migrate in an essentially circular pattern through the same basic life-forms?
DL: According to the scriptures I mentioned earlier, we also believe in both a highly developed state, which slowly degenerates, and a primitive one, which evolves. Otherwise, I don’t know. It’s difficult to say. We have to investigate this further. I feel that different things could exist together. What science has found the present nature of evolution to be could be true, and at the same time, another type of evolution could also exist. It’s difficult to say.
JA: Is there a specific point, set down in the scriptures, when time and space will be emptied of all beings?
DL: According to one Buddhist scripture, it is explained this way. If you dig down one thousand yards into the earth and then dig around one thousand square yards and then fill this space with hairs a half-inch long each; if you then throw away one hair every hundred years; when you are done, that will be the length of one intermediate aeon—one of the eighty. So like that.
JA: Does it say how many great aeons there are going to be?
DL: Oh, limitless. There is no limit to the maha or great aeons. The existence of this kind of earth disintegrates, begins to take form, and disintegrates again everywhere in the universe.
JA: So there is no fixed point when samsara, cyclic existence, will cease? It is said, isn’t it, that samsara is beginningless, but it will have an end?
DL: Individually, it can end. Collectively, it is beginningless and endless. If you examine an individual person, there exists the possibility to bring to an end the causes that produce that person’s samsaric existence. Therefore, there will be an end. But now, when we speak of the whole of samsara, then it is difficult to say because it has no limit. So something which is limitless—how can you put a time on it? That’s the problem.
JA: A final question—the life-forms we see around us primarily exist via one of two strategies: the internal conversion of energy by plants and the external collection of nourishment by animals. Do you see any significance to this division?
DL: (Loud laughter) That is difficult. According to Buddhism, there might be a difference based on whether it is a sentient being or not.
JA: Are plants sentient beings? Do they have consciousness?
DL: Generally as a plant, no. But now again, there is a further complication. What is a real plant and what is something animal? That is difficult. These plants around us may be real plants. In that case, we would consider them not to have consciousness. There are some kinds of plants, however, where it is difficult to say if it has consciousness or not. Even if you take the human body, when you break down the cells, I’m not sure which kind don’t have consciousness and which do. According to Buddhist texts, there are about eighty thousand cells with consciousness, eighty thousand sentient beings in the body, including worms. I think it’s impossible for the human body to contain eighty thousand worms, which could be seen with the naked eye, but as I said, everything that moves doesn’t necessarily have consciousness.