E=mc2 The God in Einstein and Zen

God does not play dice with the universe

- Albert Einstein

God is not relevant in our universe. With or without God, we can travel the river of life.

- Zen

Why is life so full of pain and suffering? Why is there so much evil around us ? Why did a benevolent, all-powerful, omniscient God create such a world? If God is really perfect, why does he need a fawning humanity’s constant affirmation and praise ? How can a loving God dish out everlasting hellfire to erring mortals whose lives on Earth are merely fleeting moments ? What is the true meaning of life and human destiny? Questions like these haunted me in my youth, reared as I was in the Catholic faith. Up to recent times, they kept me wake on certain nights. Since no one could give me satisfying answers to these nagging questions, I became skeptical of my faith and organized religion. I found myself drifting back and forth, between atheism, deism, and agnosticism. My deep hunger for ‘enlightenment’, a kind of mysticism within the ambit of reason, translated into a feverish reading of books of all kinds: novels, poetry, philosophy, religion, history, and science. I devoured all the books I could get that would assist me in my search for life’s meaning and purpose–if there was any. I also sought out and had numerous encounters with learned people from different faiths and walks of life. But skepticism prevailed. I would carry this outlook in my career in journalism, diplomacy, and later, humanitarian work. …The main subject of this book is Albert Einstein’s profound insights into the very mystery of life and creation, and how Zen (with snippets of Hinduism and Taoism) fits into Einstein’s elegant mathematical and cosmological view of reality… To me, Einstein’s brilliant, breakthrough insight about the workings of the universe, distilled in his famed equation E=mc2, was the key that opened the door to a true understanding of nature, existence, and reality : the key that would lead to my personal redemption. This book is an attempt to bridge the gap between science and mysticism, through a relatively unbeaten path. But more important, it is one man’s desperate effort to end his quest with answers he can live with. …This is therefore a large painting of the human condition and reality, as I see it, with broad strokes of the brush. In that painting, there is a realm of uncertainty, paradox, and mystery where science and mysticism meet and converge. At another level, the painting depicts Zen’s central message of “letting go” ( relinquishment ) and its popular metaphor of life being a river, with all its beauty, danger, and uncertainty. I have also touched on the destructive power of self-centered “dualistic” thinking in personal, religious, environmental, and geo-political terms. I have not, however, spared Zen from criticism when I think it deserves it. When I finally finished the first draft of the book last December, at age 69, my daughter Anna , echoing my eldest son, Narc, asked me why I was writing it ? What did I hope to gain for the effort ? I told her the book is like the mango tree I planted at our farm in Romblon, Philippines, 7 years ago, after dilly dallying for years and much ribbing from my wife. It has yet to bear delicious fruit and its sparse leaves and scrawny branches are still no match for the heat of a noonday sun- but in time, I HOPE IT WILL.