In the Buddha’s universe a personal, separate self is an illusion, just as substance is an illusion to the atomic physicist. Distinctions between an “outside world” and an “inner realm” of the mind are arbitrary. Everything in human experience takes place in one field of forces, which comprises both matter and mind. Thought and physical events act and react upon each other as naturally and inescapably as do matter and energy. But the basis of the natural world is not physical.
