The Dancing Wu Li Masters

by Gary Zukav

  I do not know how I knew these things while I was writing The Dancing Wu Li Masters—that it would be published, that it would be well received, and that it would sell around the world for a very long time—but they were realities to me. I also knew that I would not remain interested in physics indefinitely, even though it was my passion at the moment. Because of that, I decided to leave behind me the best gift that I could for those who would come later. A spirit of giving pervades this book, and that is one reason why, I believe, The Dancing Wu Li Masters has been so appreciated by more than a million readers, in many languages, around the world.

  Another reason is that The Dancing Wu Li Masters contains within it the seed of the thought that consciousness lies at the heart of all that we can experience, all that we can conceive, and all that we are. It also points toward the possibility that intentions create the reality that we experience. These thoughts were pondered by many of the founders of quantum mechanics as they discussed complementarity, the Uncertainty Principle and other aspects of the mathematical formalism that became known as the quantum theory. They are still pondered by philosophically inclined physicists today.

  When I began writing The Dancing Wu Li Masters, I could only suspect or deduce things about the role of consciousness and intention in the creation of experience, but I soon discovered that some of the founders of quantum mechanics had suspected and deduced the same things decades before me. This was exciting enough, yet as I became more engaged in the writing, I began to encounter phenomena that I never could have imagined. For example, I realized that the book that I was writing was more intelligent than I was. It was also funnier than I was, and it had a grander comprehension than I did. For example, I prepared an outline for each chapter before I began to write. The outline contained the central idea of the chapter, what I wanted to include in the chapter, how I intended to order the content of the chapter, and how I intended to present the ideas in the chapter.

  In every instance, I would write not for long before I had to choose between following the outline that I had prepared and going with the energy that developed as I wrote. I always went with the energy. If I had planned a certain discussion, but another one occurred to me that felt more exciting, I used the second discussion. I substituted examples, words, and ideas as they occurred to me for those that I had put into my outline. And I was amazed at the experience of a chapter coming to an end—at how clear it was for me, and how often the ending of a chapter surprised and delighted me.

  As I wrote more chapters, I noticed something else, too. The chapters fit together perfectly—even though I had not planned them that way. I might have been able to take credit for this if I had followed each of the outlines that I had prepared. But I never followed my outlines. I always followed the flow of energy and excitement that I felt as I wrote.

  Who orchestrated this? Who planned for a chapter—one that I completed before I began research on a later chapter—to fit into a later chapter as though I had written them together? Where did the humor in the book come from—the humor that took me away from the torment of my daily judgements about myself and others? Where did the gratitude originate that replaced my worries about paying the rent, which obsessed me when I was not writing?

  Eventually, the reality of these miracles became a part of my awareness. So did the contrast between the painful life that I lived when I was not working on The Dancing Wu Li Masters and the fulfillment that I felt when I was. At last, I decided to live my entire life the way that The Dancing Wu Li Masters was being written—spontaneously, intelligently, and joyfully. Eventually I learned how to do this, and how to explain how to do it.

  At the time I did not have the vocabulary to articulate what I was experiencing, or the ability to understand it. It was not until later that I was able to understand that writing The Dancing Wu Li Masters was my first experience of authentic power—of meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. It was also my first experience of nonphysical assistance.

  Now there is a vocabulary to express what I experienced. It is the vocabulary of authentic power—the alignment of the personality with the soul—and of multisensory perception: the expansion of human perception beyond the limitations of the five senses. I could not see at the time that my experiences were part of an evolutionary transformation that was, and still is, reshaping human experience. This transformation and the vocabulary to express it are the content of The Seat of the Soul, which I wrote ten years after The Dancing Wu Li Masters was published.

  This same evolutionary transformation continues to reshape human experience, one human at a time. As multisensory perception—the ability to access information that the five senses cannot provide—emerges in millions of humans, they naturally become interested in the relationship between consciousness and physical reality. The Dancing Wu Li Masters is a nourishing book for these individuals, and will continue to be, because it explores that relationship with enthusiasm and integrity.

  The last reason, I believe, that The Dancing Wu Li Masters is still so popular is that it is fun to read. It is an enjoyable way to learn about quantum mechanics, especially for people who have no mathematical or scientific background. It brings the early history of the quantum theory to life in a refreshing and exciting way, and that history will not change. The development of the quantum theory is one of the most well-documented intellectual adventures in the history of humanity. For those who come to this history as a newcomer, as I did, without preparation or prior interest, as I did, but with an open and excited mind, as mine was, The Dancing Wu Li Masters is the perfect book.

  This Perennial Classics edition celebrates the contributions that The Dancing Wu Li Masters has made for more than two decades to those who delight in the rigors of intellectual exploration into the most meaningful questions that philosophy and science can pose. It is a product of that delight.

  I hope that you enjoy it.

  With Love,

  Gary Zukav

  Introduction

  My first exposure to quantum physics occurred a few years ago when a friend invited me to an afternoon conference at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, California. At that time, I had no connections with the scientific community, so I went to see what physicists were like. To my great surprise, I discovered that (1) I understood everything that they said, and (2) their discussion sounded very much like a theological discussion. I scarcely could believe what I had discovered. Physics was not the sterile, boring discipline that I had assumed it to be. It was a rich, profound venture which had become inseparable from philosophy. Incredibly, no one but physicists seemed to be aware of this remarkable development. As my interest in and knowledge of physics grew, I resolved to share this discovery with others. This book is a gift of my discovery. It is one of a series.

  Generally speaking, people can be grouped into two categories of intellectual preference. The first group prefers explorations which require a precision of logical processes. These are the people who become interested in the natural sciences and mathematics. They do not become scientists because of their education, they choose a scientific education because it gratifies their scientific mental set. The second group prefers explorations which involve the intellect in a less logically rigorous manner. These are the people who become interested in the liberal arts. They do not have a liberal arts mentality because of their education, they choose a liberal arts education because it gratifies their liberal arts mental set.

  Since both groups are intelligent, it is not difficult for members of one group to understand what members of the other group are studying. However, I have discovered a notable communication problem between the two groups. Many times my physicist friends have attempted to explain a concept to me and, in their exasperation, have tried one explanation after another, each one of which sounded (to me) abstract, difficult to grasp, and generally abstruse. When I could comprehend, at last, what they were trying to communicate, inevitably I was surprised to discover that the idea itself was actually
quite simple. Conversely, I often have tried to explain a concept in terms which seemed (to me) laudably lucid, but which, to my exasperation, seemed hopelessly vague, ambiguous, and lacking in precision to my physicist friends. I hope that this book will be a useful translation which will help those people who do not have a scientific mental set (like me) to understand the extraordinary process which is occurring in theoretical physics. Like any translation, it is not as good as the original work and, of course, it is subject to the shortcomings of the translator. For better or worse, my first qualification as a translator is that, like you, I am not a physicist.

  To compensate for my lack of education in physics (and for my liberal arts mentality) I asked, and received, the assistance of an extraordinary group of physicists. (They are listed in the acknowledgments). Four of them in particular, read the entire manuscript. As each chapter was completed, I sent a copy of it to each physicist and asked him to correct any conceptual or factual errors which he found. (Several other physicists read selected chapters.)

  My original intention was to use these comments to correct the text. However, I soon discovered that my physicist friends had given more attention to the manuscript than I had dared to hope. Not only were their comments thoughtful and penetrating, but, taken together, they formed a significant volume of information by themselves. The more I studied them, the more strongly I felt that I should share these comments with you. Therefore, in addition to correcting the manuscript with them, I also included in the footnotes those comments which do not duplicate the corrected text. In particular, I footnoted those comments which would have slowed the flow of the text or made it technical, and those comments which disagreed with the text and also disagreed with the comments of the other physicists. By publishing dissenting opinions in the footnotes, I have been able to include numerous ideas which would have lengthened and complicated the book if they had been presented in the text. From the beginning of The Dancing Wu Li Masters to the end, no term is used which is not explained immediately before or after its first use. This rule is not followed in the footnotes. This gives the footnotes an unmitigated freedom of expression. However, it also means that the footnotes contain terms that are not explained before, during, or after their use. The text respects your status as newcomer to a vast and exciting realm. The footnotes do not.

  However, if you read the footnotes as you read the book, you will have the rare opportunity to see what four of the finest physicists in the world have to say about it as they, in effect, read it along with you. Their footnotes punctuate, illustrate, annotate, and jab at everything in the text. Better than it can be described, these footnotes reveal the aggressive precision with which men of science seek to remove the flaws from the work of a fellow scientist, even if he is an untrained colleague, like me, and the work is nontechnical, like this book.

  The “new physics,” as it is used in this book, means quantum mechanics, which began with Max Planck’s theory of quanta in 1900, and relativity, which began with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity in 1905. The old physics is the physics of Isaac Newton, which he discovered about three hundred years ago. “Classical physics” means any physics that attempts to explain reality in such a manner that for every element of physical reality there is a corresponding element in the theory. Therefore, “classical physics” includes the physics of Isaac Newton and relativity, both of which are structured in this one-to-one manner. It does not, however, include quantum mechanics, which, as we shall see, is one of the things that makes quantum mechanics unique.

  Be gentle with yourself as you read. This book contains many rich and multifaceted stories, all of which are heady (pun?) stuff. You cannot learn them all at once any more than you can learn the stories told in War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and Les Misérables all at once. I suggest that you read this book for your pleasure, and not to learn what is in it. There is a complete index at the back of the book and a good table of contents in the front. Between the two of them, you can return to any subject that catches your interest. Moreover, by enjoying yourself, you probably will remember more than if you had set about to learn it all.

  One last note; this is not a book about physics and eastern philosophies. Although the poetic framework of Wu Li is conducive to such comparisons, this book is about quantum physics and relativity. In the future I hope to write another book specifically about physics and Buddhism. In view of the eastern flavor of Wu Li, however, I have included in this book those similarities between eastern philosophies and physics that seemed to me so obvious and significant that I felt that I would be doing you a disservice if I did not mention them in passing.

  Happy reading.

  GARY ZUKAV

  San Francisco

  July 1978

  Part One

  WU LI?

  1

  Big Week at Big Sur

  When I tell my friends that I study physics, they move their heads from side to side, they shake their hands at the wrist, and they whistle, “Whew! That’s difficult.” This universal reaction to the word “physics” is a wall that stands between what physicists do and what most people think they do. There is usually a big difference between the two.

  Physicists themselves are partly to blame for this sad situation. Their shop talk sounds like advanced Greek, unless you are Greek or a physicist. When they are not talking to other physicists, physicists speak English. Ask them what they do, however, and they sound like the natives of Corfu again.

  On the other hand, part of the blame is ours. Generally speaking, we have given up trying to understand what physicists (and biologists, etc.) really do. In this we do ourselves a disservice. These people are engaged in extremely interesting adventures that are not that difficult to understand. True, how they do what they do sometimes entails a technical explanation which, if you are not an expert, can produce an involuntary deep sleep. What physicists do, however, is actually quite simple. They wonder what the universe is really made of, how it works, what we are doing in it, and where it is going, if it is going anyplace at all. In short, they do the same things that we do on starry nights when we look up at the vastness of the universe and feel overwhelmed by it and a part of it at the same time. That is what physicists really do, and the clever rascals get paid for doing it.

  Unfortunately, when most people think of “physics,” they think of chalkboards covered with undecipherable symbols of an unknown mathematics. The fact is that physics is not mathematics. Physics, in essence, is simple wonder at the way things are and a divine (some call it compulsive) interest in how that is so. Mathematics is the tool of physics. Stripped of mathematics, physics becomes pure enchantment.

  I had spoken often to a friend, who was a physicist, about the possibility of writing a book, unencumbered with technicalities and mathematics, to explain the exciting insights that motivate current physics. So when he invited me to a conference on physics that he and Michael Murphy were arranging at the Esalen Institute, I accepted with a purpose.

  The Esalen Institute (it is named for an Indian tribe) is in northern California. The northern California coast is an awesome combination of power and beauty, but nowhere so much as along the Pacific Coast Highway between the towns of Big Sur and San Luis Obispo. The Esalen facilities are located about a half hour south of Big Sur between the highway and the coastal mountains on the one side and rugged cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the other. A dancing stream divides the northern third of the grounds from the remainder. On that side is a big house (called the Big House) where guests stay and groups meet, along with a small home where Dick Price (co-founder of Esalen with Murphy) stays with his family. On the other side of the stream is a lodge where meals are served and meetings are held, accommodations for guests and staff, and hot sulfur baths.

  Dinner at Esalen is a multidimensional experience. The elements are candlelight, organic food, and a contagious naturalness that is the essence of the Esalen experience. I joined two men who already were eatin
g. One was David Finkelstein, a physicist from Yeshiva University (in New York) who was attending the conference on physics. The other was Al Chung-liang Huang, a T’ai Chi Master who was leading a workshop at Esalen. I could not have chosen better companions.

  The conversation soon turned to physics.

  “When I studied physics in Taiwan,” said Huang, “we called it Wu Li (pronounced ‘Woo Lee’). It means ‘Patterns of Organic Energy.’”

  Everyone at the table was taken at once by this image. Mental lights flashed on, one by one, as the idea penetrated. “Wu Li” was more than poetic. It was the best definition of physics that the conference would produce. It caught that certain something, that living quality that we were seeking to express in a book, that thing without which physics becomes sterile.

  “Let’s write a book about Wu Li!” I heard myself exclaim. Immediately, ideas and energy began to flow, and in one stroke all of the prior planning that I had done went out the window. From that pooling of energy came the image of the Dancing Wu Li Masters. My remaining days at Esalen and those that followed were devoted to finding out what Wu Li Masters are, and why they dance. All of us sensed with excitement and certitude that we had discovered the channel through which the very things that we wanted to say about physics would flow.