Shakyamuni's Enlightenment and the Cosmic Gestalt: Dr. Hidetoshi Tomabechi on the Truth of "Emptiness" and the Destruction of Preconceptions

Is this “reality” we take for granted every day truly the universe as it is? Modern physics and cognitive science are revealing the astonishing fact that the world we inhabit is nothing more than images reconstructed through each individual’s brain filter, or extremely limited fragments of information.Our brain, a sophisticated information processing organ, selectively extracts only a tiny fraction from the vast, countless data that exists, conveniently piecing them together to create a continuous self called “I” and the “world” that spreads around it.

Long before such scientific insights became widespread, approximately 2,500 years ago in India, there was a person who recognized the essence of this universe and humanity ahead of his time, grasping it as an overwhelming direct experience. That person was Shakyamuni (Gotama Siddhartha).His teachings, as the founder of Buddhism, were later organized into a grand conceptual framework encompassing ideas like dependent origination and emptiness, spreading as a global religion. However, much of the doctrine transmitted to later generations has, in a sense, deviated from the truth originally intended by Shakyamuni, becoming confined within the framework of language.

This article uses the dialogue video “What Was the Content of Shakyamuni Buddha’s Enlightenment?” by Dr. Hidetoshi Tomabechi, a functional neuroscientist and cognitive scientist, as its subject. It delves deeply into the “overwhelming truth of the information space,” a concept that vastly transcends the framework of conventional religious interpretation.What is discussed in this dialogue is neither a simple moral sermon nor a literal interpretation of sacred sutras. What Dr. Tomabechi reveals is the very mechanism of the cognitive process by which the human ego constructs this virtual reality space. It concerns the cosmic laws hidden behind terms like “emptiness” (kuu) and “Gestalt,” laws that fundamentally shake the very foundations of our perception and existence.

What was that indescribable, absolute state that Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have attained beneath the Bodhi tree, having relinquished nearly all desires?Furthermore, what process is necessary to remove the unconscious “blind spots” that deeply imprison us daily and rewrite our future reality space in a better direction with our own hands? Using Dr. Tomabechi’s overwhelming treatise—a brilliant fusion of cutting-edge cognitive science and the ancient, unbroken wisdom of Buddhism—as our guide, let’s boldly dive into the structure of this world and the deep layers of human consciousness.

The Reality and History of Rebellion in Early Buddhism

Before approaching the truth of Shakyamuni’s enlightenment, it is essential to understand the harsh social reality they faced at the time and the background of the intense rebellious ideology of early Buddhism that arose from it.The image we modern people hold of “pure and tranquil Buddhism, a religion of quiet prayer in temples” is merely the form it took after being refined and intertwined with state power throughout history. The real Buddhism of Shakyamuni’s time was far more raw, disruptive, and life-or-death.

Shakyamuni was born as a prince of the Shakya clan in a small kingdom in southern Nepal. Within the rigid caste system dominating Indian society at the time, he held a privileged position as a Kshatriya warrior prince, second only to the Brahmins at the very top. Yet he abandoned all this absolute stability and wealth to embark on the path of ascetic practice.In a caste society where one’s birth determined everything, for someone of lower status to imitate the Brahmins (the religious leaders and priestly class) was an extremely dangerous act of rebellion that fundamentally undermined the very foundations of society.Indeed, Shakyamuni ultimately welcomed even those completely outside the caste system—outcasts—into his order, regardless of their origins. This carried such intense social impact that it drew death threats from existing power holders and the Brahmin class. As the scholar points out, early Buddhist disciples faced repeated poisoning attempts, and Shakyamuni himself likely died from poisoning, possibly involving deliberate intervention, near the end of his life.

Moreover, the existence of the monk’s robe known as the “rag robe” powerfully symbolizes the early Buddhist doctrine of “renunciation of attachment to this world.” This robe was made by collecting cloths that had wrapped corpses or rags discarded and soiled with excrement and urine along the roadside, washing them in rivers, and patching them together like a quilt.In Shakyamuni’s teachings, which completely denied the existence of an eternal, unchanging soul after death and aimed for liberation from endless rebirth, the human corpse was no longer the shell of a venerable soul but merely an “object.” Therefore, wearing the worthless cloth that had wrapped a corpse signified complete liberation from all worldly wealth, adornment, and social values.The fact that the golden, ornate kasaya robes worn by monks today during ceremonies originally derive their color from the “blood and excrement-stained hue” of these dung-sweeping robes vividly illustrates the tremendous resolve of the ascetics seeking truth in those times.

The True Realm Shakyamuni Attained and the Limits of Words

Many Buddhist thinkers and devout believers hold that the very essence of what Shakyamuni realized was “dependent origination” (enki) and “emptiness” (kuu).Dependent origination is the truth that all phenomena in this universe exist solely through interdependent relationships, and that there is no absolute entity (self-nature) existing independently. The concept of “emptiness,” refined and systematized later by figures like Nagarjuna, also developed from this idea of the absence of inherent essence. However, Dr. Tomabechi makes an extremely fundamental and shocking observation here.

What Shakyamuni realized was neither dependent origination nor emptiness. …It encompasses dependent origination and defines emptiness. But that’s Shakyamuni’s explanatory principle—it’s what he spoke, not what he realized.

Hidetoshi Tomabechi “What Was the Content of Shakyamuni’s Enlightenment?” Dr. Tomabechi’s Free Dialogue (Video Edition)

The Decisive Gap Between Enlightenment and the Language Space

What Shakyamuni realized was neither dependent origination nor emptiness; these were merely “explanatory principles (tools)” he later devised to guide immature people toward the truth.The state Shakyamuni reached after wandering the brink of death through extreme ascetic practices beneath the Bodhi tree was an overwhelming “sensory experience” beyond words, attained by pushing human senses to their limits and elevating the brain’s information-processing abstraction to its absolute peak.

It is fundamentally impossible to convey that ultimate cosmic experience directly to others through language. The moment language is used—to distinguish “I” and “you,” “light” and “darkness,” “life” and “death”—the world becomes artificially segmented. The fluid, unified cosmos that should be one becomes fixed and fragmented.The level of abstraction inherent in the linguistic realm remains confined to a dimension far lower than that of the universe itself. Therefore, any attempt to fully express the truth of the universe within the confines of language inevitably results in information being lost.

Shakyamuni constructed a logical system aligned with the language, cognitive frameworks, and social rules of his time, striving to lift people toward the ineffable state he had directly experienced. In other words, concepts like dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and emptiness (śūnyatā) are not the truth itself, but merely “finger tips” pointing from afar to where the truth lies.The Doctor’s critique—that we should directly grasp the universe itself pointed to by the fingertip with our own minds and bodies, rather than obsessively scrutinizing the fingertip and getting bogged down in scholarly debates over whether the doctrine of emptiness is correct or dependent origination is superior—vividly highlights the limitations of the “theory supremacy” and “text-centric bias” modern people often fall into.

Unraveling the Essence of the Self Through Cognitive Science

To gain a deeper understanding of the vastness of the universe as seen by Shakyamuni, we must clearly elucidate the true nature of the “ego” we take for granted, using the frameworks of functional neuroscience and information science.

Me as the Evaluation Function Defining the World

When asked to “define yourself to the ultimate extent,” we list our parents’ names, birthplace, schools attended, current job, favorite foods, and so on. Yet, the more we attempt to define ourselves, the more we describe only “external events and physical/social objects with which we have formed relationships.”Viewed strictly from an information theory perspective, the self is not a solid, substantial point, but merely an “entangled knot of relationships” spread out infinitely.Just as a point in geometry—the intersection of lines without thickness—has no substance, and no matter how much you magnify it, no inner reality exists, so too the core of the ego network is merely a bundle of empty relationships. Here, precisely, the truth taught by Buddhism from its earliest days—that “all phenomena lack a self” (i.e., all things lack a permanent, enduring entity)—manifests as the structure of the information space.

Regarding this self, a bundle of countless relationships, the Doctor presents an even more powerful definition: the self is “an evaluation function that rearranges the universe according to what is important to oneself.”

From the vast, seemingly infinite information scattered far and wide, we unconsciously select only the information deemed highly important by our own evaluation function, thereby reconstructing the real world. Precisely because we evaluate our physically close family as overwhelmingly more important than the living conditions of some unknown person on the other side of the globe, an individual virtual reality emerges, centered around limited human relationships and specific social roles.It is not the existence of the ego that gives rise to the evaluation function; rather, the very act of the brain selecting information as an evaluation function is the true nature of the ego.

The Reality Hidden by the Psychological Blind Spot: Scotoma

When this ego evaluation function activates, a decisive side effect invariably occurs. This is the phenomenon known in cognitive psychology and coaching as the “scotoma” (psychological blind spot). Information deemed unimportant is completely excluded from our perception by the brain’s filter, even if it physically exists within the space and an image is formed on our retinas.

In the interview video, the doctor cites the example of a LAN cable casually placed in the studio.For someone well-versed in network technology and aware of its absolute value in broadcasting and communications, a “Category 6 LAN cable” enabling high-capacity transmission is critically important information. Even in the corner of their vision, it would instantly catch their eye. However, to someone who pays no attention to network wiring, it appears merely as a meaningless string, leaving no trace even in their memory fragments.

The worries and hardships we deeply carry in our daily lives possess exactly the same structure. In truth, the solutions, or the door to an entirely new, free way of living, already stand proudly right before us. Yet, the evaluation function that defines “the current me,” fixed by past experiences and old memories, processes these hints of solutions as “unimportant noise” and pushes them beyond the invisible scotoma.It can be said that we are trapped in a state of endless circling within reality because the very dimension of our perception is bound by the outdated framework of old evaluation functions.

The Path to Truth and Advanced Mathematical Expression

Among Buddhism’s many teachings, the Heart Sutra is the scripture most widely read in Japan, copied by millions. Yet the Doctor emphatically asserts that the content of this revered text is fundamentally flawed from the perspective of information theory and mathematics.

The emphasis is on the idea that emptiness and form are exactly the same thing… Emptiness and form are the same thing. Hold on a second. Form refers to material things. Material things and emptiness are the same. You don’t understand Buddhism, do you?

Hideto Tomabechi “What is the Content of Shakyamuni’s Enlightenment in Buddhism?” Dr. Tomabechi’s Free Discussion (Video Version)

The Fallacy of Abstract Level in “Form is Emptiness”

The most famous passage of the Heart Sutra, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” This profound teaching—that material phenomena (form) inherently lack substance (emptiness), and that the state of emptiness inherently manifests as material phenomena—has been explained by many monks and Buddhist scholars. However, when examined against the strict definitions of analytical philosophy and information theory, this expression is logically untenable.

The Chinese sentence structure “A is B” implies that both entities belong to the same dimension, that is, the same “level of abstraction.” As the level of abstraction increases, the amount of information contained decreases, and it encompasses (includes) more subordinate concepts.Just as the higher-level concept “animal” encompasses diverse beings like dogs and cats, the concept of “animal” itself is a space where information like “characteristics of specific dog breeds” has been stripped away. If we rephrase it as “a dog is an animal, and an animal is a dog,” then every animal on Earth would be limited to being a dog, causing the logic to completely collapse.

The “void” presented by the Doctor, based on a mathematical definition, is the highest-level concept encompassing all phenomena in the universe. It is the ultimate abstraction that completely encompasses even “existence” and “non-existence.”It is the absolute pinnacle of an information space that transcends even time and space, residing at the root of all phenomena and encompassing everything. That is Emptiness. Therefore, this description, which equates the subordinate concept of material phenomena (form) with the supreme concept of Emptiness through “isness,” is positioned as a logical confusion by later compilers who failed to correctly understand the hierarchical structure of abstraction.

Moreover, historical evidence supports this fact of later compilation. It is now an established academic fact that the Chinese translations of the Heart Sutra (such as those preserved at Japan’s Horyuji Temple) are physically older than the oldest extant Sanskrit version of the Heart Sutra.This provides strong evidence that the Heart Sutra is not a direct transmission from Shakyamuni Buddha, but rather a “pseudo-sutra” created in China in later times, which was later “back-translated” into Sanskrit to establish its authority.Despite Shakyamuni’s strict prohibition against using incantations or spells when conveying abstract truths to the masses, the Heart Sutra concludes with added incantations like “Gate Gate.” This too is nothing less than a historical trace of how indigenous Taoist and magical elements infiltrated Buddhism as it spread, altering the very form of the truth.

The Practice of Enlightenment and Full Brain Engagement

So, how can one transcend the limitations of verbal logic, avoid being trapped by erroneous scriptural doctrines, and reach the true state?When it comes to Buddhist practice, a static image is widely established: sitting in zazen in a quiet main hall, emptying the mind, stopping thought, and maintaining a blank, mindless state. However, Dr. Tomabechi strongly warns, “It is a mistake to think that enlightenment is a vegetative state achieved by not using the mind.”

The Active Approach to Buddhist Meditation

In Zen temples, there is a practice where a keisaku (a bamboo stick) is used to sharply strike a practitioner’s shoulder during zazen. This is not simply because “their legs went numb and their body moved.”The disciplinarian monk, whose senses have been sharpened through rigorous training, discerns the moment when intense self-attachment (distracting thoughts) arises within the practitioner—such as “anger toward a past lover who rejected them” or “the desire to cut practice short and eat something delicious”—and when that subtle mental fluctuation manifests as an unconscious muscle reflex. It is precisely this moment that prompts the strike.

The crucial point here is the borderline between “distracting thoughts” and true “meditation.” Objectively re-examining one’s past experiences and reorganizing them flatly within the information space for contemplation is itself a process of increasing abstraction and is not a distracting thought. However, the moment muddy, emotional attachments of the ego—like anger, dissatisfaction, or the desire for self-display—become mixed in, it falls from meditation into distracting thoughts.

The true meditation Dr. claims is not about shutting down the brain and stopping thought. On the contrary, it is an active process of pushing one’s brain and the five senses of the body to their absolute limits, while thoroughly elevating the abstraction of thought.It involves detaching from daily constraints and partial information, expanding macro-level abstract concepts like dependent origination and emptiness to their utmost limits within the mind, overcoming all contradictions through debate and logical thinking, and finally intuiting even that logic itself beyond the barriers of language. The ascetic practices Shakyamuni undertook, clad in rags and risking his life, were the ultimate form of an extremely advanced, high-dimensional cognitive activity.

The Absence of Complete Information and a New Form of Faith

As our understanding of the information space and the self deepens in this way, it compels a fundamental revision of the concept of “God” as primarily shaped in the West. Historically, many religions, including Christianity and Islam, have strongly believed in an “absolute God as complete information” who fully comprehends all phenomena, is omniscient and omnipotent, and contains no contradictions whatsoever.

However, as time progressed, Gödel’s “Incompleteness Theorem,” proven in the 20th century, and its subsequent extensions into information theory and algorithmic information theory, logically demonstrated that a “framework that encompasses complete information and is also free of contradictions” cannot mathematically exist. This means that a perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful absolute god, free of contradictions, cannot hold true, at least within the logical space.Since an absolute god possessing complete information does not exist, blindly asserting the absolute nature of one god inevitably leads to conflicts in the definitions of “our god” and “their god,” triggering severe wars between religions.

That said, it is not the case that all religious beliefs or spiritual faith are worthless and mistaken.The cognitive structure in Christianity that “faith creates evidence” is itself an approach with extremely high validity in human neuroscience. It is not that we believe because God scientifically and objectively exists somewhere; rather, “precisely because we believe intensely, information aligned with that goal of faith escapes from the scotoma and begins to function as evidence (miraculous experiences or grace) in reality.”What the modern worldview, shaped by the incompleteness theorem and beyond, demands is not blind faith that suspends critical thought toward an absolute being. Rather, it requires a deep understanding and intentional utilization of this “mechanism inherent in the human brain, where faith and goal-setting rewrite the perception of real-world information.” Only by standing on this perspective can religion be redefined, not as a spark for conflict, but as the ultimate tool for unlocking human potential.

Leaping into an Overwhelming Future Space

If the ego is merely an evaluation function, and that function determines the “reality” we inhabit (the minuscule information left outside our scotoma), then there is only one way to dramatically transform our stagnant lives. It is none other than “setting future goals that lie beyond the extension of the present state and fundamentally rewriting the evaluation function.”

Here, we return to the absolute experience of Shakyamuni’s enlightenment. If the ego rearranges the universe to suit itself, then the ultimate method to completely remove the scotoma is to “regard everything existing in the universe as completely and equally important.” When the evaluation function becomes perfectly flat, the blind spots created by specific importance levels vanish instantly.A state where the partial self expands to its utmost limit, becoming equivalent to the entire universe. The moment when every phenomenon—from grains of sand and starlight that previously seemed separate and unrelated, down to the LAN cable before your eyes—connects with overwhelming meaning, without exception, manifesting as the “giant Gestalt of the entire universe.” This is the very essence of the enlightenment Shakyamuni attained, the supreme informational experience.

It is not easy for us to become one with the entire universe in an instant, seeking no reward, as Shakyamuni did. However, setting an overwhelmingly high goal—one utterly unattainable in our current state—is possible for anyone. A completely new goal, set with intense vividness, destroys and resets the brain’s old evaluation functions.You become liberated from fears rooted in past failures and societal constraints. Only the information essential for the future envisioned by the goal begins to flood your field of vision. And this is the “key to the solution” that was always right before your eyes, hidden only by your blind spots.

This dynamic transition of information space is precisely the solid mechanism for rewriting reality suggested by Shakyamuni 2,500 years ago and proven by modern functional neuroscience.Release your fixed, small ego and view this world holistically from the high level of abstraction of the future you intensely desire. The world perceived after shedding unnecessary attachments is no longer yesterday’s constricted, stifling reality. It becomes an entirely new universe pulsating with limitless potential, directly connected to your powerful will.