The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

358 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINGoverall activity. So quite generally, energy enfolds matter andmeaning, while matter enfolds energy and meaning... But alsomeaning enfolds both matter and energy... So each of these basicnotions enfolds the other two. 8Simplifying an exceptionally subtle and refined vision, youcould say that for David Bohm meaning has a special andwide-ranging importance. He says: "This implies, in contrast tothe usual view, that meaning is an inherent and essential partof our overall reality, and is not merely a purely abstract andethereal quality having its existence only in the mind. Or toput it differently, in human life, quite generally, meaning isbeing . . ." In the very act of interpreting the universe, we arecreating the universe: "In a way, we could say that we are thetotality of our meanings." 9Could it not be helpful to begin to imagine parallelsbetween these three aspects of David Bohm's notion of theuniverse and the three kayas? A deeper exploration of DavidBohm's ideas might perhaps show that meaning, energy, andmatter stand in a similar relationship to each other as do thethree kayas. Could this possibly suggest that the role ofmeaning, as he explains it, is somehow analogous to theDharmakaya, that endlessly fertile, unconditioned totality fromwhich all things rise? The work of energy, through whichmeaning and matter act upon one another, has a certain affinityto the Sambhogakaya, the spontaneous, constant springingforth of energy out of the ground of emptiness; and the creationof matter, in David Bohm's vision, has resemblances tothe Nirmanakaya, the continuous crystallization of that energyinto form and manifestation.Thinking about David Bohm and his remarkable explanationof reality, I am tempted to wonder what a great scientistwho was also a really accomplished spiritual practitionertrained by a great master could discover. What would a scientistand sage, a Longchenpa and an Einstein in one, have totell us about the nature of reality? Will one of the future floweringsof the great tree of the bardo teachings be a scientificmystical dialogue, one that we can still only barely imagine,but that we seem to be on the threshold of? And what wouldthat mean for humanity?The deepest parallel of all between David Bohm's ideas andthe bardo teachings is that they both spring from a vision ofwholeness. This vision, if it was able to invigorate individualsto transform their consciousness and so influence society,