The Imper­ma­nence of Reality 

Noth­ing has a per­ma­nent, unchang­ing exis­tence in itself — nei­ther mate­r­i­al nor men­tal phe­nom­e­na. This under­stand­ing is con­firmed by two seem­ing­ly dis­parate fields: quan­tum physics and Bud­dhist meditation. 

The Mate­r­i­al World 

In the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry, physi­cists dis­cov­ered that macro­scop­ic phys­i­cal phe­nom­e­na do not exist inde­pen­dent­ly, but are com­posed of atoms and elec­trons. Fur­ther research revealed that atoms them­selves do not have a per­ma­nent exis­tence, but are made up of even small­er par­ti­cles — quarks, lep­tons, pho­tons, and oth­ers — which arise from an under­ly­ing, vibrat­ing quan­tum field. These par­ti­cles have short-lived exis­tences before dis­ap­pear­ing and being replaced by oth­ers. This rapid flow of fluc­tu­a­tions at the ultra micro­scop­ic lev­el cre­ates the illu­sion of more per­ma­nent phe­nom­e­na at the macro­scop­ic level. 

The Men­tal World 

Sim­i­lar­ly, two and a half mil­len­nia ago, Bud­dhist med­i­ta­tion tech­niques revealed that men­tal and meta­phys­i­cal phe­nom­e­na do not have inde­pen­dent exis­tence either. Devel­oped by Sid­dhartha Gau­ta­ma, who became known as the Bud­dha, these tech­niques demon­strate that noth­ing in the mind has a per­ma­nent self-exis­tence, but is com­posed of more or less short-lived man­i­fes­ta­tions of some­thing uni­ver­sal under­ly­ing. This real­iza­tion can be rec­og­nized through train­ing, and it is an enlight­ened state called Nib­bana (Pali) or Nir­vana (San­skrit).

The Intersection 

Both quan­tum physics and Bud­dhist med­i­ta­tion reveal that real­i­ty is not com­prised of per­ma­nent, inde­pen­dent enti­ties, but rather dynam­ic process­es and phe­nom­e­na that arise from a uni­ver­sal under­ly­ing. By rec­og­niz­ing this imper­ma­nence, we can shift our under­stand­ing away from fixed ​“things” and toward the inter­con­nect­ed, rela­tion-based nature of existence.