Episode 4 Was Schrödinger’s Cat Enlightened? Quantum Superposition & Buddhist Awakening

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Push against a wall. Go ahead, try it. Can you f

eel the wall pushing back against your hand with exactly the same force you’re applying. Now here’s the question: When you hurt someone, does the universe push back on you in exactly the same way?

I almost always focus on quantum physics, but today I’ve decided to step back in time — way back — to a man who changed how human beings understand motion, gravity, and causation. Sir Isaac Newton. Born in 1643 in rural Lincolnshire, England. By some accounts, not a particularly warm human being — famously reclusive, obsessive, and more than a little difficult to be around. He never married. He reportedly died a virgin. He spent as much of his later life on alchemy and biblical prophecy as he did on physics. He was, in other words, deeply and magnificently weird.

And yet — in 1687, he published the Principia Mathematica, one of the most consequential books in human history. In it, he laid out three laws of motion that described the physical universe with such precision that engineers still use them today, three hundred and thirty years later, to calculate rocket trajectories.

His Third Law is the one that stopped me in my tracks the first time I really heard it: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton was talking about billiard balls and falling apples. But to my very Buddhist ears, he was describing karma.

The Buddha taught the law of cause and effect over two thousand years before Newton picked up a pen. Different language, different culture, different century. Same pointing. Nothing in the universe happens in isolation. Every action has a consequence. The wall always pushes back.

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[SECTION 1: NEWTON’S THIRD LAW – THE PHYSICS]

Welcome back to Quantum Awareness Sound is Emptiness Emptiness and Sound, where we explore the fascinating intersection of quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and Buddhist philosophy. I’m QP, your Quantum Preceptor.

Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if I do something, there will be a direct, measurable result to my actions

The law is beautifully simple when we look at it in purely physical terms. As I push on a wall with my finger, the wall exerts an equal force back onto my finger. The result here is balance unless one force overpowers the other. This is relatively easy to understand. It’s observable. It’s measurable. And it’s predictable.

Think about what this means on a physical level. When you walk, you push against the ground, and the ground pushes back against you with equal force, propelling you forward. When you swim, you push against the water, and the water pushes back. When a rocket launches, it pushes exhaust downward, and that creates an equal and greater force pushing the rocket upward.

The universe is in constant conversation with itself. Every action creates a response. There’s no such thing as a one-way interaction in physics. And as we’ll explore, there’s no such thing as a one-way interaction in life, either.

[SECTION 2: FROM PHYSICS TO PSYCHOLOGY]

Now, if I hurt you, you will likely hurt me. This is also quite clear. It’s the interpersonal manifestation of Newton’s third law. You strike me, I strike back. Action, reaction. Cause, effect.

But here’s where it gets more interesting, more subtle, and frankly, more useful for our actual lives: If I hurt you, do I by default also hurt myself?

I think so. At the very least from an emotional or psychological standpoint. Even on an interpersonal level, Newton’s third law still stands. And the proof is in the pudding.

The residual effect of violence is that one has mental imprints of guilt, sadness, and hatred. These aren’t abstract philosophical concepts—these are real psychological states that we carry in our bodies, in our nervous systems, in our patterns of thinking and behaviour.

When you commit an act of harm, something happens inside you. You might rationalise it. You might justify it. You might even feel temporarily powerful or vindicated. But underneath all that, there’s a trace, an imprint, a karma—if you will—that gets planted in your mind.

Buddhist psychology speaks extensively about these mental imprints, or in Sanskrit, samskaras. Every action we take, every word we speak, every thought we think creates a subtle impression in the mind. These impressions accumulate. They form patterns. They shape who we become.

This isn’t mystical thinking. Modern neuroscience confirms this through the concept of neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections. Every time you think a thought or perform an action, you’re strengthening certain neural pathways. You’re literally rewiring your brain.

So when you act with anger, you’re not just affecting the person you’re angry with. You’re reinforcing the neural pathways of anger in your own brain. You’re making it easier to be angry in the future. You’re training yourself in anger.

The wall pushes back. Always.

[SECTION 3: THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE EQUATION]

But here’s the beautiful part—and this is really crucial—positive actions function in exactly the same way. Acts of kindness perpetuate more acts of kindness and positive emotions.

I remember the “pay it forward” idea in the early 2000s. In the drive-through lines in Canada, people were paying the food bills for others in the line behind them with no expectation of anything in return other than the good feeling of doing something nice. This phenomenon continued for some time.

Why? Because kindness, like violence, creates momentum. When someone does something kind for you, you feel moved to do something kind for someone else. The neural pathways of generosity get reinforced. The habit of compassion gets strengthened.

But it goes even deeper than that. When you act with kindness, you’re not just making someone else feel good. You’re transforming your own mind. You’re creating positive samskaras, positive mental imprints. You’re training yourself in the direction of wisdom and compassion rather than ignorance and hatred.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition speaks about this in terms of purification and accumulation. Every positive action purifies negative karma and accumulates positive merit. But this isn’t some cosmic bookkeeping system. It’s describing a very real psychological and neurological process.

You become what you practice. If you practice anger, you become angry. If you practice kindness, you become kind. If you practice awareness, you’ll become aware. This is Newton’s third law playing out in the laboratory of your own mind and life.

[SECTION 4: KARMA AS NATURAL LAW]

It seems that even Newton knew about karma, at least on a physical level. But if it’s true that on a psychological or interpersonal level a similar law exists, we would be wise to begin treating every being as we ourselves would like to be treated—or at the very least, stop planting weeds in our own minds.

Because if we don’t, the wall will begin to push back on us in ways we will not like.

Now, let’s be clear about what karma actually means, because it’s one of the most misunderstood concepts in Buddhist philosophy. Karma is not fate. It’s not destiny. It’s not some cosmic punishment and reward system where an omnipotent judge is keeping score.

Karma simply means “action” in Sanskrit. The law of karma is the law of cause and effect. You plant a seed of anger, you harvest the fruit of suffering. You plant a seed of kindness, you harvest the fruit of happiness. It’s that straightforward.

But there’s a common misconception that karma means “what goes around comes around” in some simple, direct way—like if you hurt someone, that exact person will hurt you back in the exact same way. That’s not quite it.

The law of karma is more subtle than that. When you hurt someone, you’re creating a tendency in your own mind toward harmful action. You’re reinforcing neural pathways of aggression. You’re training yourself to see the world through the lens of hostility. And that training will manifest in countless ways throughout your life—in your relationships, in your health, and in your overall sense of wellbeing or suffering.

Similarly, when you act with kindness, you’re not guaranteed that the person you helped will help you back. But you are transforming your own mind in the direction of openness, connection, and joy. And that transformation is its own reward.

[SECTION 5: THE SCIENCE OF KARMA]

Modern science has started to catch up with what contemplative traditions have known for millennia. There’s fascinating research on how our actions affect not just others, but ourselves.

Studies on compassion meditation, for instance, show that when people practice generating feelings of loving-kindness toward others, they experience measurable changes in brain structure and function. The areas of the brain associated with empathy and emotional regulation actually grow denser. Stress hormones decrease and immune function improves.

In other words, the act of wishing others well literally makes you healthier and happier. The wall pushes back—but in this case, in a beneficial way.

Similarly, research on the psychology of moral behaviour shows that when people act unethically, they experience what researchers call “moral residue”—a psychological discomfort, a sense of wrongness that persists even if they’re never caught or punished. This is the mental imprint, the samskara, that harmful actions create.

We’re not talking about guilt imposed by external rules or social conditioning—although that exists too. We’re talking about something more fundamental: a natural consequence of acting against our deeper nature, which is fundamentally compassionate and interconnected.

Buddhist psychology suggests that our true nature—our Buddha nature—is characterised by wisdom, compassion, and joy. When we act in harmony with that nature, we feel at ease. When we act against it, we create internal friction, dissonance, and suffering.

Newton’s third law, applied to the mind: For every action contrary to our nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction—suffering.

[SECTION 6: INTERCONNECTION AND RESPONSIBILITY]

Here’s where it gets really interesting: Newton’s third law implies something profound about the nature of reality. It implies that nothing exists in isolation. Everything is connected. Every action ripples outward and comes back to its source.

In Buddhist philosophy, this is the principle of dependent origination, or pra tītya samutpāda. Everything arises in dependence upon everything else. There are no isolated, independent entities—everything is part of an interconnected web of causes and conditions.

You are not separate from the wall you push against. You are not separate from the person you interact with. You are not separate from the world you inhabit. The boundaries we perceive between self and other, between subject and object, are useful conventions, but they’re not ultimately real.

When you hurt someone, you hurt yourself because, at a deeper level, there is no absolute separation between you and them. When you help someone, you help yourself. Not as some metaphorical nice idea, but as a description of how reality actually functions.

This understanding brings with it tremendous responsibility. If everything you do comes back to you, if every action plants a seed that you will eventually harvest, then it matters how you live. It matters how you treat people. It matters what intentions you cultivate in your mind.

But it also brings tremendous empowerment. You’re not a victim of random circumstances. You’re not at the mercy of fate. You’re participating in the creation of your own experience through every choice you make, every action you take, and every word you speak.

[SECTION 7: THE PRACTICE – PLANTING GOOD SEEDS]

So what do we do with this understanding? How do we apply Newton’s third law to our lives in a practical way?

First, we become more mindful of our actions. We start to notice: What am I doing? What am I saying? What mental states am I cultivating? Am I planting seeds of happiness or more seeds of suffering?

This doesn’t mean becoming paralysed with self-judgment or moral anxiety. It means developing awareness. Just noticing, with interest and curiosity, what’s happening in your mind and in your behaviour.

Second, we begin to make different choices. When you understand that anger will come back to you as suffering, you become less interested in indulging it. When you understand that kindness will come back to you as wellbeing, you become more interested in cultivating it.

This isn’t about being “good” to earn some reward. It’s about understanding cause and effect and acting accordingly. It’s pragmatic wisdom.

Third, we develop what the Buddhist tradition calls “skilful means.” We learn to work with our minds, to redirect habitual patterns, to gradually shift our tendencies in more beneficial directions.

Maybe you have a habit of harsh speech. You understand now that every time you speak harshly, you’re reinforcing that neural pathway, planting that seed, creating that karma. So you start to pause before you speak. You notice the impulse to lash out. And maybe, just sometimes, you choose differently. You speak with kindness instead. Or better yet you stay silent and let your first word be your breath. Or you find a middle way—honest but not cruel.

Each time you do this, you’re weakening the old pattern and strengthening a new one. You’re applying Newton’s third law in reverse: You’re changing the action, which changes the reaction, which changes you.

[SECTION 8: BEYOND PERSONAL KARMA]

There’s another dimension to this that’s worth exploring: collective karma.

We don’t just create karma as individuals. We create it together, as families, as communities, as societies, and as a species.

When a society engages in violence—through war, through systemic oppression, through environmental destruction—the whole society experiences the karmic consequences. The wall pushes back on all of us.

You can see this playing out in the world today. Climate change is a perfect example of Newton’s third law on a planetary scale. We push on the environment—extracting resources, burning fossil fuels, destroying ecosystems—and the environment pushes back with rising temperatures, extreme weather, and ecological collapse.

The same is true for social systems. When we build societies based on inequality and exploitation, we create suffering that reverberates through the whole system—crime, poverty, disease, social unrest. The wall pushes back.

But the positive side is also true. When communities come together to act with wisdom and compassion, the benefits ripple outward. Acts of collective generosity, of social healing, of environmental restoration—these create positive momentum that lifts everyone.

This is why individual practice matters, but it’s not enough. We need to engage with the world. We need to work for collective transformation, not just personal enlightenment.

[SECTION 9: THE ULTIMATE TEACHING]

So here’s what Newton’s third law teaches us, when we look at it through the lens of Buddhist wisdom:

You are the architect of your own experience. Not in some simplistic, “manifest your destiny” way, but in a profound, moment-to-moment way. Every action, every word, every thought is planting seeds that will bear fruit in your life.

The universe is not indifferent to what you do. It responds. It pushes back. But it’s not punishing or rewarding you—it’s simply reflecting back to you the nature of your own actions.

If you want to know what seeds you’ve been planting, look at the fruits you’re harvesting. Are you experiencing a lot of conflict in your relationships? Look at how you’ve been treating people. Are you experiencing inner peace? Look at the quality of your actions and intentions.

And if you don’t like what you’re experiencing, you can change it. Not overnight, not magically, but gradually, through consistent, mindful effort. Plant different seeds. The harvest will change.

This is both the challenge and the profound teaching of the dharma: You’re not stuck. You’re not condemned to repeat the same patterns forever. You can transform. You can learn. You can grow.

The wall will always push back. The question is: What force are you applying?

[OUTRO]

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So Newton gives us the physics, the Buddha gives us the practice, and between them they’re saying the same thing: you are not separate from what you do. Every action ripples back. The wall always pushes back.

But here’s a question that’s been sitting in the back of my mind — and maybe yours too, if you’ve been paying attention to the world lately. If karma is about intention, about the quality of awareness behind an action… what happens when the entity taking the action has no biology, no nervous system, no breath, and quite possibly no inner life whatsoever?

I’m talking about artificial intelligence.

Can AI be conscious? And if it can’t — if there’s no one home behind those responses — does that mean there’s no karma? No moral weight? No suffering? Or does it mean something even stranger: that we’ve built something that looks like awareness from the outside, while being completely empty on the inside?

Next time on Quantum Awareness, we go deep into one of the most unsettling questions of our time — one that quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and Buddhist philosophy each have something very interesting to say about. And I promise you, by the end of that episode, you will not look at your phone the same way.

This is QP. Sound is emptiness, emptiness is sound — every action echoes through the infinite web of connection, returning to its source transformed.

Catch you on the flip side…