Entangled

How is it for us this morning? What is arising? Surely, what is arising in us includes what is happening in Ukraine for that is happening not only 5,000 miles away but also in our hearts. How do we respond?

Let us look into this together. Please, now, do not be reading a talk, instead, check inside. Let’s open up as completely as possible and see what is arising for us, in our body, as we read and as we speak.

To help us enter into this, I would like to tell two stories. One is an old Zen story and the other is a story that unfolded during the 20th century in Europe and America.

The stories of Layman Pang and his daughter Ling Xiao have been repeated for centuries. In their later years, Pang and Ling Xiao were dharma wanderers. They sold bamboo utensils they made themselves and had no fixed home.

As one story goes, the elderly Pang slipped and fell down a ravine and lay motionless at the bottom. Ling Xiao’s immediate response was to follow him to the bottom of the ravine and fall down beside him. This was the taking care of that she could offer: to be profoundly with him, to be, breath by breath, totally present in order to respond to what the situation needed. For she did not know what his situation was, she did not know what would happen next.

There are many ways that people have picked up this story. What strikes me is the immediacy of it. Ling Xiao did not make a choice and a heroic gesture, there simply was no separation between her and her father.

The story takes place in ninth century China. Fast forward over 1,000 years to 1935 for our second story. This one is a bit heady and has its twists and turns, so please bear with me. In that year, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger produced theoretical and mathematical work that introduced the idea of quantum entanglement. He posited that once two separate systems, in this case two subatomic particles, have interacted or have a common origin, they can no longer be separate entities, regardless of physical distance.

Albert Einstein took Schrödinger very seriously, but found his work confounding. Writing along with the physicists Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen he postulated that only one of two things could explain this phenomenon. The first was that one particle was influencing the other but information was being transferred faster than the speed of light, something that would violate a major tenet of his Theory of Relativity. If that was the case, the relationship between the two particles would be non-causal, something that Einstein found hard to imagine. With humor, he referred to what the theory was pointing to as “spooky action at distances.” The other alternative was simply that quantum physics was incomplete and incapable of explaining the proposed phenomenon. At the time, neither of these alternatives could be experimentally proven.

In 1964 the Scottish physicist John Stewart Bell presented, with mathematical precision, what would be necessary to experimentally prove that there was, in fact, a non-causal instantaneous relationship between entities at a distance, even very great distances.

And then in the early 1980s, the French physicist Alain Aspect, in what is seen by many as one of the most important series of scientific experiments of the 20th century, was able to demonstrate that Schrödinger was accurate, and that changes in entangled particles, even at great distances, were indeed simultaneous and non-causal.

What could this possibly mean? That something that was happening right now in Paris could also be happening, at the same time, in Boston or New York or Dublin? Another of the 20th century’s great theoretical physicists was amazed by these results and stepped forward to offer a stunning explanation with an illustration. David Bohm stated that human observers were only creating a problem when they tried to resolve the experimental outcome by trying to wrap their heads around what it would mean for one particle to affect another with no gap in time. The answer, as strange as it might seem, had to be that the particles, regardless of the distance between them, were not separate.

In his illustration he asks us to consider a situation in which there is a fish in an aquarium. However, we are not at the aquarium. Rather, we are viewing two screens side-by-side that seem to offer views of two fish. One view is a long side view of a big fish, the other shows a foreshortened fish face. As we watch these two different fish only the most observant amongst us might begin to notice something strange. When the big fish begins to move its tail there seems to be some very subtle change in the face of the other fish. What would it take for us to wake up and realize that this is one fish? Bohm, a very serious mathematical physicist whose early work was used in the development of the first atomic bomb, could only come to the conclusion that there
are depths of reality that the analytical mind has been unable to penetrate.¹

Now if Alain Aspect were to show the results of his experiment to the great Zen master Dōgen, the master would reply, But of course, I explained this to you in the 13th century, weren’t you listening?

Every morning I wake up in the presence of Ukraine. Is there anyone here today who doesn’t? What is it like? Deep in the gut, what is it like? A gnawing dark sense. Perhaps the return of images from the news video clips that we watched yesterday. A floating, queasy feeling that can quickly turn to fantasies in an attempt to self-calm or soothe.

What would real taking care of be? It would certainly mean not turning away. It would indeed be a profound turning toward, like Ling Xiao, a profound accompaniment. Our connection with what is happening is profoundly deep. It is not 5,000 miles away. It is right here. We are not apart from it, as much as we might try to be.

Can we rouse the energy to just come back, just come back to whatever is arising and give it the energy of complete witness, complete availability? Please, look and see, how is it now? How is it in your body now? Can you be complete witness? Without any answers. With no attempt to change it. There is a solidarity with all of humankind that is reachable and real in a way that the analytical mind, as with quantum entanglement, can never understand.

The human heart with its common origin is wonderfully, irrevocably entangled. Our fear and despondency are of no use to it. It calls for the energy of our caring attention. Will we be faithful?

May all beings have ease and spaciousness of mind, may all beings have peace of heart, may all beings be free of suffering.

1 A description of quantum entanglement can be found in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement ( Retrieved January 4, 2024). Biographies of Schrödinger, Bell, Aspect and Bohm can also be found in Wikipedia as follows:

Schrödinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schrödinger (Retrieved January 4, 2024)

Bell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stewart_Bell (Retrieved January 4, 2024)

Aspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect (Retrieved January 4, 2024)

Bohm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm (Retrieved January 4, 2024)

This is part of the upcoming book, Digging in the Earth to Find the Blue Sky.

Sensei Tim Butler is a dharma heir of Roshi Kennedy and founding teacher of City Mountain Zendo in Boston. He has worked as a teacher, psychologist, psychotherapist, and career counselor for over forty years. After retiring from the faculty of the Harvard Business School in 2024, he continues as Senior Advisor to Career Development Programs at the School.