Introduction

The relationship between humans and animals is at present significantly imbalanced and unhealthy, essentially (but not entirely) characterized by a stark human attitude of dominance over what are considered “resources” of planet Earth. At the heart of this relationship is a profound human estrangement from nature that inappropriately fosters a dualistic mode of existence between us and the world, and even among ourselves. But what if nature was in fact much more interconnected than is apparent? This article is situated precisely on this issue and endeavors to unveil the latent interconnectedness of the universe and its usefulness for humanimal relationship.¹ Hither, the dialogue between science and religion, as represented in this instance by a conversation between quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy, is particularly germane.

The idea that reality is described as fundamentally interconnected in both quantum mechanics and Buddhism has been one of the recurring topoi of New Age enthusiasts, perhaps paradigmatically represented by Fritjof Capra’s ([1975] 2010, 130–-31) The Tao of Physics:

The most important characteristic of the Eastern world view—one could almost say the essence of it—is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness . . . As we study the various models of subatomic physics we shall see that they express again and again, in different ways, the same insight—that the constituents of matter and the basic phenomena involving them are all interconnected, interrelated and interdependent; that they cannot be understood as isolated entities, but only as parts of the whole.

Understandably, such claims received considerable critique from scholars, notably for misrepresenting Asian religions as a syncretistic entity (the equivocal “Eastern mysticism”; Esbenshade 1982, 225) and asserting that ancient mysticism merely anticipated the discoveries of modern physics (Crease and Mann 1990, 310). To an extent, these well-founded critiques and the literature they deconstructed perhaps had too much of a negative impact on the scholarly world. This had the unfortunate effect of limiting the scope of theories purporting to relate physics and Buddhism as a genuine subdomain of inquiry within science and religion. While no overarching limitation is systematically observed, the scholarship has heretofore tended to analyze this particular dialogue along the questionable and ambivalent rhetoric of “parallelism” characteristic of Capra’s (and his followers’) work.² Undoubtedly, this is not the only reason for the limited development of the field, nor has it annihilated any serious attempt at bridging science and Buddhism.³ For instance, the limited development of the field is to be contrasted with the discussions of mainstream science and religion, which remain predominantly focused on the intersection of science with Christianity (with a notable rise of Islam as a conversation partner). The level of complexity and breadth of themes of interest—both in terms of theoretical content and methodological approaches—is unmatched in science and Christianity/Islam compared to science and Buddhism. Comprehensibly so, the latter conversation is of late arrival in the science and religion narrative (Jinpa 2010, 871), which historically represents an enterprise of the Western cultural background from the time of the Scientific Revolution onwards, with precedents during the medieval Islamic Golden Age. But the fact is that thus far, the subfield of physics and Buddhism remains relatively marginal in scope, with insufficient attention to Buddhist lineages outside the Indian context and other interpretative frameworks of quantum theory.

In this context, and contra the general tendency, this article argues that there is a bona fide representation of interconnectedness in both quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy, one that is nonidentical to the assertions of equivalence of worldview made by New Agers like Capra but nonetheless showcasing a ubiquitous “principle of wholeness” in nature. More specifically, the interconnected state that animates the universe at its most fundamental level is therein introduced through the dialogue between physicist David Bohm’s ontological model of the “implicate order” and Huayan Chinese Buddhism (Chinese: 華嚴). While there are other interpretative theories of quantum mechanics, and philosophical schools of Buddhism that adduce interconnectedness in multiple ways, the dyad Bohm/Huayan exemplifies one of the most penetrative and illustrative accounts of large-scale interconnectedness. Because interconnectedness is deemed fundamental in the universe, it ought to question not simply our perception and understanding of reality but also (and perchance more importantly) our sense of an ethically responsible relationship with everything that exists, including animals. Indeed, in a world where the whole is primary, animals should no longer represent a controllable and unfathomable “other” free for us to exploit but an instance of a reciprocal togetherness.

As such, the argument is expressed in two parts: first, by carefully presenting and engaging with Bohm and Huayan’s respective reading of the wholeness of reality; and second, by explaining the ethical viewpoint emerging out of this dialogue. In both parts, potential drawbacks are considered to provide a nuanced and relative reading of interconnectedness. But first, in order for the reader to understand the theories advanced by Bohm and Huayan Buddhism, some brief elements of context are provided.

Huayan Buddhism is considered one of the highest philosophical developments of Chinese Buddhism, and more generally a milestone of Mahāyāna Buddhism (Williams [1989] 2009, 132–40). Born in the seventh century CE under the T’ang dynasty (618–907 CE), the school focused exclusively on the study of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (Chinese: Huayan jing, 華嚴經), a later Mahāyāna sūtra of a predominantly idealistic character (i.e., centered on consciousness as the source of reality) (Hamar 2014, 145; Cook 1977, 20). The five patriarchs who acted as masters of the school endeavored to develop a profoundly holistic explanation of the universe characterized by the “interpenetration” of all things, wherein the one contains the many, and the many dynamically reflect the one. Their metaphysical and complex analytical writings demonstrate a substantial move from earlier Indian Mahāyāna, especially of the kind by Nāgārjuna (ca. second to third century CE), as Huayan philosophy was infused with a distinctively realist and positive Chinese spirit (Khalil 2009, 59). The practical holistically oriented ethos of Taoism that imbued Chinese society indeed influenced the Huayan patriarchs to give more ontological substance to Buddhist doctrines, foremost among which was the interpenetration of all things.⁴

At the other end of the spectrum, Bohm’s implicate order is based on the pilot-wave interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed in his seminal 1952 paper. In stark contrast with the standard formulation of quantum mechanics, which sees the wave function as a mathematical tool from which can be obtained probabilities for particular physical outcomes in experiments, Bohm posited the wave function to be a real physical phenomenon separate from particles but guiding them along determined trajectories. The specificity of this wave function in Bohm’s model is that it is inherently nonlocal, i.e., interconnected through entangled relations irrespective of spatial distance, due to a new term Bohm introduced in the mathematical formalism: the “quantum potential” (Bohm and Hiley 1975, 1–4). The centrality of nonlocality in Bohm’s interpretation later led him to propose the implicate order as an ontological model of reality emphasizing the preponderance of the whole, in which the particular implicates everything and is itself contained within each segment of the whole.

On the Principle of Wholeness in Nature

Bohm and Huayan Buddhism each developed a type of “holistic” thinking of reality (i.e., the whole is more than the sum of its parts) that was in many ways innovative and counterintuitive in their time. Both indeed promoted a radical worldview in which they substituted the particular for the whole, thereby instigating a sharp discrepancy from our ordinarily localized and fragmented apprehension of reality. They understandably came from very different horizons. Bohm was a theoretical physicist puzzled by the prevailing attitude of the physics community to only see quantum physics as a remarkably accurate tool to correctly predict results of experiments, bereft of any tangible metaphysical rhetoric. From the 1950s onwards, this view would be epitomized by the dismissive and rather daunting “shut up and calculate” motto, although the forefathers of quantum theory would certainly not have approved of such an instrumentalist definition (Kaiser 2011, 3). The Huayan patriarchs were primarily concerned with matters of causality to explicate the interdependent nature of reality. All phenomena arise in dependence upon causes and conditions so that none can exist independently from the whole, a concept known as “dependent-origination” in Buddhist philosophy (Sanskrit: pratītyasamutpāda, Chinese equivalent: yuánqǐ, 緣起). As was enunciated by the Buddha, human beings tend to cling to transitory objects and phenomena in an endless search for completeness through external things. But since everything within the universe is by nature impermanent, this inclination to attachment invariably leads to suffering. The first of the Four Noble Truths substantiates suffering as a principle pervasive in nature, originating in craving for permanence, but from which we can free ourselves by following the Noble Eightfold Path towards nirvāṇa (i.e., full contemplation of the end of suffering) (Gethin 1998, 59).

The objectives of Bohm and Huayan could not have been more different then. But as is shown throughout this article, they in fact ended up closer in their exposition of reality through attention to interconnectedness. What they had in common from the outset was a desire to push beyond the frontier of what was conventionally established and undisputed, infused by a mindset of discovery characteristic of the human spirit in times of breakthroughs.

An important point to understand first is that this particular relationship between Bohm and Huayan does not reveal the phenomenon of wholeness per se. The notion of wholeness is already applicable to either of the two fields, independent of their relationship, as is expounded later. The purpose of putting them in conversation lies in emphasizing how a given idea recurs in two contrasted spheres of human knowledge. Therefrom, it may be argued that observing several occurrences of interconnectedness effectively, though inductively, uncovers a principle of wholeness in nature common to various cultures throughout the history of humankind. Let us proceed.

Huayan constitutes a distinct development in the history of Buddhism marked by a clever rewriting of the philosophy of “emptiness” from early Mahāyāna as a state of “interpenetration” of all things (Anālayo 2020, 1099–100; Cook 1977, 14). Emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā, Chinese: kōng, 空) is the idea that all things are interdependent because they lack intrinsic existence and properties; they cannot exist as reified entities but must necessarily be interconnected and interdependent by virtue of their causal relations. The Huayan patriarchs made a direct association of emptiness with interdependence, identifying it as the ultimate nature of reality. In the process, they also reinterpreted and furthered interdependence as interpenetration. This dialectic movement is, however, relatively abstruse within the philosophical writings offered by the patriarchs, and in a sense is quite comparable to Western analytic philosophy and its emphasis on mathematical reasoning applied to philosophy. Therefore, the following presentation of the philosophical underpinnings of interpenetration will be slightly complex to fathom for the unfamiliar reader, although caution will be taken to simplify as much as possible without losing the substance of the argument.

Within Huayan metaphysics, interpenetration is expounded in a fourfold framework. In Buddhist terminology, this is referred to as the Realm of Dharmas (Sanskrit: dharmadhātu, Chinese: fajie, 法界), which can be broadly equated with the universe (Fox 2009, 73; Cook 1977, 3). Although Dharmadhātu is fundamentally unified, it is also represented in four parts to allow the categorizing and unenlightened analytical mind to elucidate its meaning. Simply stated, the four parts of the Dharmadhātu comprise the Chinese version of the doctrine of Two Truths central to Buddhist philosophy—Principle/noumenon (Chinese: li, 理) and Phenomena (Chinese: shi, 事)—and their mutual entailment (Fox 2009, 74).⁵ While li represents the ultimate principle of emptiness and interpenetration per se, shi is the direct translation of the phenomenal world in all its multifariousness. Far from being disconnected, li and shi form a dyad of complementary concepts, an approximate characterization of a fluctuation between two incessantly interpenetrating levels of reality. The key to this interpenetrative account of the world resides in the mutual entailment of both concepts, as the dynamic relationship between the ultimate reality and the conventional phenomenal world exemplifies how phenomena intermingle to simultaneously partake of the undifferentiated wholeness of li because of their mutual identity, while being plural and dissimilar in shi. Both levels of reality are fully identical with each other, making it possible for the one (=Principle) to contain the many (=Phenomena) and the many to evince the one. By way of analogy, one could think here of the perichoretic union of the Trinity in Christian theology. The three persons composing the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—are consubstantial hypostases of God, in the sense that each dynamically partakes of the divine and the others while being individualized as a person. Naturally, there is no direct correspondence here between perichoresis and the Dharmadhātu, for the Dharmadhātu is solely concerned with the universe humans (and other dharmas) indwell, while perichoresis describes the interplay between the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of Godself. The Dharmadhātu is a perspectival, fractal apprehension of the nature of reality, where perichoresis exceeds the universe itself through God as the extraneous force of creation.

A suitable illustration of this whole/part mereological relationship between li and shi can be seen in the metaphor of the ocean used by the first Huayan patriarch, master Dushun (557–640 CE) in his Meditations on the Huayan Dharmadhātu (Chinese: Huayan Fajie Guan Men, 華嚴法界觀門). In this metaphor, the ocean is the epitome of the universal and unbounded li, whereas the individual wave is a representation of shi, and their natures dynamically intertwine and reflect one another:

The meditation observes:

This all-embracing principle is beyond [the comprehension of the] ordinary mind and is difficult to understand. It cannot be depicted [properly] by means of any metaphor of this world. [But being compelled now to illustrate the subject, the following metaphor is used.]

The entire ocean is [embodied] in one wave, yet the ocean does not shrink. A small wave includes the great ocean, and yet the wave does not expand. Though the ocean simultaneously extends itself to all waves, it does not by this fact diversify itself; and though all waves simultaneously include the great ocean, they are not one. When the great ocean embraces one wave, nothing hinders it from embracing all other waves with its whole body. When one wave includes the great ocean, all other waves also include the ocean in its entirety. There is no obstruction whatsoever between them. Contemplate this. (Translated in Chang [1971] 2008, 146)⁶

One can see here how Dushun renders the complex interwovenness of li and shi by showing how each part is simultaneously different from and identical to the whole. According to this metaphorical description of reality, one phenomenon includes the whole without omission or need for expansion. The whole of reality is completely contained within each of its individual phenomenal expressions. This is only possible because phenomena are mutually identical in their emptiness. Master Fazang (643–712 CE), the third and most eminent Huayan patriarch, articulates in his Treatise of the Golden Lion (Chinese: Jinshizi zhang, 金獅子章) how interpenetration constitutes the kernel of Huayan teaching: “All is one, because all are the same in lacking an individual nature; one is all, because cause and effect follow one another endlessly. Capacity and Function encompass each other, and whether folded into one or unfolded into many, each is in its place. This is called the ‘all-encompassing Mahāyāna teaching of oneness’” (translated in Van Norden 2014, 88–89).⁷

At this stage, the description given of interpenetration in Huayan philosophy may remain partially, although hopefully not entirely, mysterious. Such bewilderment is perfectly normal and for the most part a result of the way one is supposed to access this profound understanding of reality as interpenetrative. A realization of the deeply undivided nature of the universe can only happen in deep meditation, where the subject’s consciousness truly experiences this wholeness and identification of everything within oneself.

In Bohm’s ontology, interconnectedness is drawn from the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics based on so-called hidden variables. This interpretation was originally developed to remedy the abstruse “measurement problem” of quantum mechanics—the fact that observation in experiments seems to ineluctably disturb the state of a quantum system by collapsing its wave function to a definite actuality (i.e., precise quantities such as position, momentum, or energy, which cannot be in a state of superposition once measured). Bohm (1985, 114) supposes that a particle has a well-defined position X at all times and is guided by a new type of wave field assumed to be an “independent actuality that [exists] on its own, rather than being merely a function from which the statistical properties of phenomena could be derived.” Bohm therefore sees the wave function as a real physical phenomenon. A prime consequence is that the multidimensional space in which the wave function evolves, otherwise part of the mathematical abstraction in the standard formulation, is similarly considered real. In the language of quantum theory, this 3N configuration space is the sum of all the coordinates (x, y, z) of particles within a physical system (i.e., two electrons in a system will be represented by a six-dimensional real wave function, with three dimensions each) (Barrett 2019, 191; Bohm [1980] 2002, 237). In correlation, the wave field is described by a “guidance” equation that satisfies Schrödinger’s linear equation but contains an extra term from which Bohm derived his ontological interconnectedness, the quantum potential (Q). The quantum potential is nonlocal; it works through influences at a distance known as entanglement. Such nonlocality has been empirically proven on multiple occasions and seemingly foregrounds the idea that physical reality is wholly interconnected at the largest scales, extending in principle to the entire universe (Bohm and Hiley 1975, 7).

Bohm thinks these radically novel characteristics of the quantum potential in multidimensional space expose the inadequacy of the reductionist model underlying most of contemporary science. The present language and concomitant worldview of physics is indeed improper to characterize reality, because nonlocality cannot be thought of as a collection of parts but only as a complete system where the parts are organized by the whole. Embracing the hidden potentialities of interconnectedness in this case requires scientists to adopt a reinvented framework to conceptualize the world, “a new notion of physical reality, in which we start from unbroken wholeness of the totality of the universe” (Bohm and Hiley 1975, 11). With the implicate order, Bohm devises a mereological system capable of unveiling the dynamic relation between the interconnected reality and its parts.

In this model, the whole is implicit as an enfolded potential within every single thing and dynamically unfolds into the explicate order of extended phenomena. The implicate enfolded state of wholeness, akin to a hologram, is made possible due to the nonlocal character of the quantum potential, whereas the explicate unfolded state of matter gives a certain degree of independence to phenomena. Bohm (1990, 273) encapsulates the implicate order as follows in one of his last papers:

The essential feature of this idea was that the whole universe is in some way enfolded in everything and that each thing is enfolded in the whole. From this it follows that in some way, and to some degree everything enfolds or implicates everything, but in such a manner that under typical conditions of ordinary experience, there is a great deal of relative independence of things. The basic proposal is then that this enfoldment relationship is not merely passive or superficial. Rather, it is active and essential to what each thing is.

That the whole universe is enfolded as a potential in each thing, and reciprocally each thing is contained everywhere within the whole hither means that an atom, for instance, contains the whole universe enfolded in it and is itself scattered as an information potential in every corner of the universe. Bohm ([1980] 2002, 232–33) further emphasizes this point in his main opus Wholeness and the Implicate Order:

Such enfoldment and unfoldment in the implicate order may evidently provide a new model of, for example, an electron, which is quite different from that provided by the current mechanistic notion of a particle that exists at each moment only in a small region of space and that changes its position continuously with time. What is essential to this new model is that the electron is instead to be understood through a total set of enfolded ensembles, which are generally not localized in space. At any given moment one of these may be unfolded and therefore localized, but in the next moment, this one enfolds to be replaced by the one that follows. The notion of continuity of existence is approximated by that of very rapid recurrence of similar forms, changing in a simple and regular way . . . Of course, more fundamentally, the particle is only an abstraction that is manifest to our senses. What is is always a totality of ensembles, all present together, in an orderly series of stages of enfoldment and unfoldment, which intermingle and inter-penetrate each other in principle throughout the whole of space.

This dynamic state of enfoldment/unfoldment is made possible because what undergoes the process is pure information (or “active information” in Bohm’s terminology). There is thus no issue of extreme density that would appear should any fundamental particle contain all the matter of the universe.

The foregoing descriptions of Huayan and Bohm seem eminently similar. Is it sufficient to state that both are converging on a worldview that grounds reality in a holistic process? I argue that it is. Convergence does not mean differences are overlooked. After all, the distinction between li and shi in Huayan metaphysics is not identical with the implicate and explicate orders. Whilst li and shi are more intermeshed by concentrating on the reality of causal phenomena—that is, they are internally related as a characterization of a unitary reality—the implicate and explicate orders are externally related, with a possible dissociation due to the relative independence of phenomena in the explicate unfolded state of matter. In lieu of equivalence, there is in fact complementarity and mutual enhancement between the two theories. The mathematical foundations of the implicate order in the causal interpretation buttress the theoretical li/shi framework with a physical and practical representation (through nonlocality). In return, the Huayan Two Truths doctrine supplies the implicate order with an illustrative imaginative power. Both Bohm and the Huayan patriarchs agree on the fact that the ultimate understanding of such a principle of wholeness remains accessible only through imagination and internal perception, however (Bohm and Hiley 1975, 12). For instance, it is possible (although not likely, subject to empirical confirmation) that the meditative experience of wholeness rendered analytically and metaphorically by the Huayan patriarchs is itself higher dimensional, explaining the difference of perception from regular states of consciousness where the whole is enfolded to meditative states of consciousness pervaded by nonlocality. Therefore, one can admittedly infer from this dialogue that there exists a timeless principle of wholeness in nature that is represented in various cultures, whether modern scientific experimental theories or ancient religious and metaphysical ones.

An Ethical Perspective on Interconnectedness

Owing to the highly metaphysical nature of the argument on the interpenetration of reality presented by Bohm and the Huayan patriarchs, adopting an ethical stance thereof, especially of the sort of applied ethics, would be done with great difficulty. This is not to say that interpenetration is ethically inconsequential, for the implications of a principle of wholeness in nature are far-reaching, extending beyond mere metaphysical speculations. What is suggested instead is that ethics needs to be extracted, inferred from such a principle of wholeness, so that its full potential can be, as it were, applied to society. This could indeed in principle affect the worldview, and resultantly modus vivendi, of the human species. Within the scope of this article, it is thence relatively apropos to discuss and defend an ethically inclusive revision of humanimal relationship based on metaphysical interpenetration.

One of the most problematic and questionable aspects of the relation between humans and animals is that animals are usually approached from an exclusively (and unidirectional) human-oriented perception. Knowledge is acquired through the senses and processed by the brain of the subject having a conscious experience of self-awareness of the other, e.g., animals here. This is a direct result of a complex biological evolution that led to the emergence of unsurpassed sentience in human beings, which sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. But this complex self-reflexive consciousness is concurrently responsible for the deleterious behavior of dominance commonly observed by humans on Earth. As animal behavior specialist Lynda Birke (2011, xix) tells us, this alarming, claimed superiority of our adaptable minds over the rest of nature is carried by a dualistic and strongly compartmentalizing spirit between us and the controllable “other.” This ill-adapted mindset has been progressively incorporated into society following the rise in the Western world of the mechanistic theoretization process innately characterized by a tendency to dichotomize the inert from the animated, objects from subjects, and animals from humans (Selby 2004, 23).

Thus, faced with an evident perceptual fragmentary reality, the issue is to know how to restore the deeply ingrained state of wholeness so that we can be in alignment with our true nature as an instance of the whole embodying interconnectedness rather than separation. Environmental ethics specialist Lisa Kemmerer (2011, 81) acutely reflects on this point by suggesting that “[t]oday, what we need . . . is not theorizing ‘others,’ but a change of heart and a change of lifestyle. If we are to save ourselves, our planet, and these many individuals, we must see and accept our commonality with all creatures and stop posing theories that begin with an assumption of critical difference.” For her, the very process of theorizing about the other is detrimental in its own right, until we as a collective are capable of mapping out new or renewed ways of handling humanimal relationship that would “reflect an understanding that we and they [i.e., animals] are one” (Kemmerer 2011, 79). Is theory necessarily laden with dualism, and hence bound to failure in our attempt to develop a discourse on the relations between all living creatures (including us)? While the mechanistic paradigm cannot remedy this issue of separation, built as it is on an instrumentalist view of nature, the principle of wholeness inferred from Bohm and Huayan philosophy can help decentralize the eye from human beings and promote a much more symbiotic and lateral relationship with animals.

What are the practical implications of this thinking of interpenetration? If the whole is enfolded in every part, as Bohm and the Huayan patriarchs argue, then one must recognize that animals contain us as an information potential as much as we contain them. In a universe of interpenetration, the one always reflects the whole, while simultaneously being enfolded in it. Every action performed that leads to exploitation and suffering (e.g., using animals for sustenance or experimenting on them for medical and cosmetic purposes) thusly affects us by virtue of our interconnection. However, with the exception of empathetic feeling of the suffering of others, these actions seldom cause a reaction within us because of the relative degree of independence of macroscopic systems, a consequence of Bohm’s pilot-wave interpretation and extension in the implicate order. In addition, our sensory perception evidently presents us with a spatial localization that induces separation between objects and can scarcely accommodate the higher dimensional ground of the implicate order or the intimate experience of interpenetration of the meditative practitioner. Should this be seen as a limitation of interpenetration, which might be effective only at the quantum level or in deep states of meditation? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, since macroscopic objects like animals are not subject to quantum effects of entanglement due to decoherence (i.e., loss of information of complex systems to the environment upon interaction). No, because interpenetration is also a matter of macroscopic causation, as expressed by the Huayan patriarchs. Understood along this line, the principle of wholeness is a communion of theories presenting converging but nonidentical perspectives on fundamental interconnectedness, a diachronic and multilayered prospect that favors the whole in place of the singular.

To give a more nuanced response and understand where one stands regarding the ethics of interconnectedness, some issues are hereinafter introduced. Does recognizing the interconnectedness of all things specify the ways in which we should behave towards animals? In other words, does the principle of wholeness simply constitute a heuristic tool that should spur us into acting in communion with animals? Wholeness by itself does not incentivize action, in that there is no logically necessary consequence between the theoretical (and partially empirical) claim of interconnectedness and the following normative statement of promoting action. This is the Humean fallacious is/ought argument (Comstock 2016, 168–69). Noticing a recurring principle of wholeness in nature does not warrant adopting an interconnected mindset and acting accordingly, nor does interconnectedness alone lead to action, as Bhikkhu Anālayo remarks (2020, 1100). This is further reinforced by the inductive inferential nature of the argument that does not have the same degree of logical consistency and cogency as a deductive argument. Nevertheless, even if the principle ought us not to take action, as it were, it still gives sufficient leeway to encourage prioritizing the whole, which may drive actions as a result. The dialogue between Bohm and Huayan’s interpenetrative thinking therein represents not a completely new ethics but “‘a new moral rearmament,’ a revival of moral dedication” (Frankena 1979, 3). As Birke (2011, xviii) recalls in Theorizing Animals, theory matters precisely because it nurtures change, and hither permits a reconstruction of the whole as radical interconnectedness that is all but common knowledge in our present day and age (see also David Selby (2004) for an adaptation of radical interconnectedness to environmental education).

The second issue pertains to the specific focus on humanimal relationship. The whole is by nature undifferentiated, encompassing the diversity of its parts but remaining itself a universal, unchanged entity that is not merely identical with a sum of its parts. The place of animals within this framework is therefore questionable, not in the impossibility for animals to feature in the whole (as they belong to this universe as much as everything else) but in the critical difference one should be expected to make if relying solely on a general principle of wholeness. Neither Bohm nor the Huayan patriarchs provide an answer to this question, understandably so as they were focused on matters of ontology and metaphysics. Whether in Bohm or in Huayan, the metaphysical models of interconnectedness are horizontal, in that both are indifferent to the minutiae of particulars. Buddhist scholar Ye Xiong (2024, 7) expresses thus the meaning of such equality of animate and inanimate things within the whole in the context of Huayan: “Even if it seems like there is no direct relationship between two distinctive objects (or dharmas), they are connected within the dharmadhātu.”⁸ If the implicate order and the Dharmadhātu are unconcerned with individuated things in reality, then one might encounter a paradox vis-à-vis the present discussion on animal ethics. For where would lie any legitimacy in prioritizing animals over and above, say, elementary particles? This points to an innate deficiency of the usefulness of a general order of fundamental interconnectedness for practical matters like animal rights and interspecies interactions. This paradox necessitates further study, as it might showcase the limits of metaphysical considerations in informing societal growth. Perhaps the words of historian of religions Thomas Berry (2006, 8) can inspire a provisional response: “Although the intimacy exists with the stars in the heavens and with the flowering forms of earth, this presence of humans with the other members of the animal world has a mutual responsiveness unknown to these other modes of being throughout the universe.” Berry’s poetic statement shows that the relation with animals, despite being grounded in the larger interconnectedness of the universe, has a unique mode of interaction with humans enacted through our shared sensory capacity to respond, even in nonverbal ways. In the animals, we find a voice to be heard that reflects our inherent relatedness, a voice upon which we should construct a theory of the whole.

To that end, an important step to be taken would be to promote the science and religion dialogue through a holistic lens. Holism is of particular interest in its restructuring of reality by reversal of the reductionist mindset, but it has too often been rejected as a manifestation of New Age thinking considered improper in the academy. Yet, many areas within the science and religion discourse can benefit from this holistic turn. Not only is holism (in its whole-over-particular analytical dimension) a persistent theme in various religious traditions—from Christian Trinitarian theology to the Hindu unity of Ātman in Brahman and the equivalence of “above” and “below” in Hermetic philosophy—but it has also become prevalent in contemporary science (evidently in quantum mechanics from the aforementioned, and emergence in biology and systems theory).⁹ Holism does not discard other modes of thinking in science and religion but invites an inclusive approach that transcends the barrier between so-claimed independent or conflictual magisteria in the mind of the general public, and can even provide a path towards more integration for the scholar. The all-embracing nature of holism can become a powerful tool to transfer the academic discourse to society and find new ways of interaction betwixt our subjective selves and the objectified other that would part with the tendency to divide the world.

By way of conclusion, let me simply quote these powerful and inspiring words from Lynda Birke (2011, xvii) that embody the convergent principle of wholeness of quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy this article purports to cultivate: “Humans, nonhumans, ecosystems—all are profoundly entwined. Just maybe, out of all this intense debate we might wake up to the fact that we humans are not alone, that we inhabit this world with an astonishing array of others, whose lives we affect by our actions.”