We know from physics, for example, that the book you’re holding and the hand that holds it are reconstructed (that is, reborn) moment after moment as a blur of rapidly moving molecules and atoms, each exchanging electrons and energy with other molecules and atoms at enormous speed. As a result, in no two instants is there the same book or hand. The whole picture reduces to energy and movement.

We know from physics, for example, that the book you’re holding and the hand that holds it are reconstructed (that is, reborn) moment after moment as a blur of rapidly moving molecules and atoms, each exchanging electrons and energy with other molecules and atoms at enormous speed. As a result, in no two instants is there the same book or hand. The whole picture reduces to energy and movement.

Yet we continue to think of people as being particular ways—good or bad, happy or sad, generous or stingy, friendly or threatening. Though everything about that person has changed, we don’t see it because the objects of our minds become like icicles—brittle and inflexible—and we pay attention to those frozen objects instead of to Reality


Our problems with matter stem from the fact that, unlike consciousness, which is directly experienced, matter is always secondary—that is, experienced indirectly, via mind. This is our actual, immediate, direct experience—it’s purely mental, not physical