Although interesting from any point of view, the book that made Capra famous is particularly fascinating to one coming from a Western culture. The aim of the book is to illuminate some of the parallels between physics and Eastern mysticism (the subtitle says it all) and to propose why these parallels exist. A few of these similarities: the method employed by the physicist and the mystic is empirical (the physicist relies on experiment, the mystic on meditative insights); a physicist wanting to repeat an experiment must go through many years of training, just as mystical experiences and their repetition requires many years of training; the quantum world nor the world of mystical experience can be expressed verbally; both the mystic and the physicist see the world as interconnected and interrelated; both the mystic and the physicist see the world as intrinsically dynamic; both physics and Eastern mysticism include the concept of the “participator” rather than “observer”; both the physicist and the mystic view opposites as unified; and so on. It is not difficult to ascertain the reason for these parallels when one considers that both quantum physics and Eastern mysticism are peering into the essential nature of things.
In the process of exploring these parallels, Capra also ends up explaining the basic aspects of quantum physics, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen. Thus, not only is the average Westerner being offered enthralling new ideas to consider, but she/he is also gaining some fundamental insight into science and religion that most people are not privy to.
The Tao of Physics, along with a number of other books, is at the forefront of a modern movement (for lack of a better word) predicting and facilitating the transformation of traditional cultural world views and the prevailing paradigm. It is an exciting and informative read, but it does have its flaws. One flaw comes in its publication date. It originally was published in 1975 and is thus outdated. The inclusion of the afterwords to the second and third editions is at least somewhat of a help, and the updated findings in quantum physics only serve to further strengthen Capra’s argument of the parallels between physics and Eastern mysticism. Another flaw is the language of the book, and by this it is meant the way that Capra presents his ideas. From the start he claims he is attempting to write in such a way that the layman can follow him, but this is not always the case. He manages to elucidate his ideas very well in the majority of the book, but there are some chapters (especially those dealing principally with physics) that are more than a little tough for the average reader without any prior knowledge of the subject to follow. This is definitely a book that could have benefited from a glossary. Other than these few complaints, this reader found The Tao of Physics to be an insightful and thought-provoking read and foresees numerous re-readings in the future.
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“The Tower is as wide and spacious as the sky itself. The ground is paved with (innumerable) precious stones of all kinds, and there are within the Tower (innumerable) palaces, porches, windows, staircases, railings, and passages, all of which are made of the seven kinds of precious gems…
And within the Tower, spacious and exquisitely ornamented, there are also hundreds of thousands…of towers, each one of which is as exquisitely ornamented as the main Tower itself and as spacious as the sky. And all these towers, beyond calculation in number, stand not at all in one another’s way; each preserves its individual existence in perfect harmony with all the rest; there is a state of perfect intermingling and yet of perfect orderliness. Sudhana, the young pilgrim, sees himself in all the towers as well as in each single tower, where all is contained in one and each contains all” (293). - from the Avatamsaka Sutra, paraphrased by D.T. Suzuki
“In the heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact is everything else. ‘In every particle of dust, there are present Buddhas without number’” (296). - The metaphor of Indra’s net, from the Avatamsaka Sutra, in the words of Sir Charles Eliot
“One is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical idea of analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts…We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent ‘elementary parts’ of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independently behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole” (138). - David Bohm
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