Quote from Einstein and Buddha

Einstein and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

Thomas J. McFarlane

Ulysses Press, Berkeley, California, 2002. 194 pages.

"The concept of space detached from any physical content does not exist."

or in other words:

"If there is only empty space, with no suns nor planets in it, then space loses its substantiality."

One of those statements was by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, who lived around the 5th century BC and founded a major religion which today has 350 million followers worldwide. The other statement was written in the 20th century by Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity revolutionized the science of physics. (To find out who said which statement, see page 136.)

Although the two men lived millennia apart, on opposite sides of the earth, and used different methods to understand and investigate the nature of reality, both discovered many of the same truths. Besides the nature of space, statements by Einstein and other modern physicists parallel those of Eastern mystics in such areas as the nature of time and matter, the wholeness of all things, the description of reality through paradox, the relationship between the observer and the observed and the need to test knowledge through experience. In many (though not all) aspects, modern physics leads us ever closer to the view of reality embraced by ancient Asian philosophies.  -- page xi

-- Quote submitted by Jennifer Knight

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