The Coherent Continuity of Responsive Naturing versus the Theory of Chaotic Causal Determinism
I have written a series of articles on Responsive Naturing with the intention to show that the profound axiom of Great Responsiveness of the Vajrayana vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism is the ‘theory of everything’ that can bring a shared understanding to both Science and Spirituality, ending a false dichotomy that is tearing our world apart. You can find the list of articles here:
Responsive Naturing is the ‘Theory of Everything’
Personally, I don’t see how we will survive the coming decades without changing how we think about ourselves, our relations, and our place in the world. The old calculus of “I, Me, Mine” ensures a bad end for all. Great Responsiveness, as an axiomatic depiction of how reality works, gives us a clearer way forward, enabling us to see what must be changed.
Never heard of Great Responsiveness? It is found in the Great Perfection teachings in Tibetan Buddhism. I am sure you have heard of Emptiness, which is a second aspect of this Perfection — meaning the perfection of the philosophical system of Buddhism. In fact, the word “great” in these titles means “without selfish motivation,” because the Great Perfection is empty of an intrinsic self. There is no entity making things happen, creating the world.
Are you put off by that? Or turned on?
In the first case, I have to ask: Why do you think that God would work as you and I do? Is it not enough that Reality is creatively responsive, showing no preference that is not contextually relevant to increasing the harmonious presence of formal complexity? And in the second case, I have to ask: does the possibility of an origin for this world that doesn’t derive from your limited paradigm of chaos and causal Determinism truly frighten you that much? Why waste your bandwidth on something that, in either case, we can’t possibly know — and in both cases, has no impact on how things work.
Why am I writing about this? Because the practice of modern science has become schizophrenic over the last century, having discovered the nondeterministic nature of reality at a quantum level at the beginning of the last century, which directly undermines the physical determinism that is the foundational understanding of modern sciences.
So on one hand, Science says everything is determined by the laws of nature that scientists have formulated, and neither free will, nor conscious intent have any control over what happens, and on the other hand, everything is indeterminate on the quantum level until consciously observed with the intent to ‘measure’ it.
And these contradictions are infecting every other level of our world. Because of the idea that everything is determined by physical laws, most people are confident that Science can find solutions to Global Warming. But the quantum indeterminacy found underlying all things explains why scientific and technological efforts to attain technological supremacy over Nature are never successful.
Determinism is why Science says you have no free will, while you obviously experience that you do — and are held responsible for your actions by Society. It’s also why Science can’t find a reason for the existence of consciousness on an evolutionary/biological level, even though being conscious is the most important aspect of being alive.
It is because of these problems and the closing window of opportunity to reorganize ourselves to stave off the most extreme repercussions of today’s environmental and cultural problems — and the extreme suffering of all sentient beings in this world that our failure to do anything will cause — that I have written these articles. Together, they form a coherent thesis.
Long before I was invited to take part in advanced Vajrayana studies, before I had even heard of the Great Perfection, I wrote a book about Awareness, and in that book I introduced the term “Omnific Awareness.” Omnific means “creating all things,” and I used that expression to explain how I perceived reality to be responsive — manifesting a coherent response to extant conditions within each contextual moment and the possibilities they engender — allowing our attention, and what we pay attention to, to be the most important condition in our lives.
But it did more. It also explained how this insight of responsive naturing supported the kind of phenomena that scientists study as well, which has brought us such technological wonders — while robbing us of our humanity, because of their misinterpretation of what is happening, as they do when they declare that we have no free will.
My goal then, and now, is to have an enlightened science founded upon the structure of responsive naturing, rather than causal determinism. Imagine my surprise and excitement then that this wisdom has been known — in its most developed form — within Tibetan Nyingma Buddhism and Yungdrung Bön for millennia. And rather than being limited to only those individuals who do the work to have a direct meditative experience of this divine naturing, as I did, we can deploy this paradigmatic understanding via normal education and socialization.
Responsive Naturing is as logically coherent as strict determinism, while being universally applicable to all domains, rather than just a limited subset of phenomena. It is the theory of everything fervently desired by scientists the world over, especially physicists working at the quantum level, and it is the only paradigm that reinforces our humanity, rather than undermining it.
Personally, I don’t see how we will survive the coming decades without changing how we think about ourselves, our relations, and our place in the world. The old calculus of “I, Me, Mine” ensures a bad end for all. Great Responsiveness, as an axiomatic depiction of how reality works, gives us a clearer way forward, enabling us to see what must be changed.
I’d love to hear from you after you finish reading and digesting these articles if you would like to discuss.
In the hope that all beings be comforted — no longer suffering in fear, resentment or anger.
James
