Curious Similarity between Buddhism and Particle Physics

第4話 File4. What is "ENGI"?

Buddhists sometimes think about “ENGI” namely Luck. They usually use this word like “Bad ENGI” whose meaning is close to “Bad Luck”. But the correct meaning of ENGI for Buddhism is “Cause and Result”. Buddhism thinks all events in this world are occurred by a series of ENGI. For example, if you encounter a traffic accident, you would think “Oh, bad luck”. But you really know that an accident occurred as the result of someone’s carelessness or any other reasons. Yes, an accident is occurred by very complicated and mixed physical causes, for example, car’s speed, braking effect, friction of road, timing of pass, etc. etc. If you came that point only one second earlier or if you moved one meter around, you might avoid the accident.

This way of thinking is very similar to that of Physics. Physics tells us every result has mixed physical causes and if we can fix all conditions precisely, then we can always get same result. And the result will become new causes and add other causes, moving to the next stage like Dominos. A little exaggerated, this chain of “Cause and Result” had started at the point of “Big Bang” of Universe and will continue until the Doomsday of Universe.

Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, our Universe was created by so called “Big Bang”. Before that there was not “ENGI” nor “Physical Laws”. Only “Nothing” had been existing. Because of the birth of Universe matters were separated from anti-matters and ENGI and Reincarnation had started. Many stars had been created by gravity laws, also planets, life forms and humans. Without Big Bang, without Pair Production, without Symmetry Breaking, then any star, any planet, any life form and any human would never be born.

How do you think about this? Are we lucky or unlucky? Buddhism tells us we are unlucky. Because of Big Bang, ENGI had started and all matters including humans had been involved in the cycle of Reincarnation. It seems very strange but I would like to say again that Buddhism thinks “Nothing” is normal and “Existing” is abnormal. We humans had agony because we had a body. Without a body, no disease, no death, no fear, no agony. Is there any other religion which has such curious strange thought?

Let us continue to explore this strange Buddhism’s World.