The particle is just what a quantization of the field looks like. Any particular interaction involves many minute probabilities of it existing. It's a lot like

The particle is just what a quantization of the field looks like. Any particular interaction involves many minute probabilities of it existing. It's a lot like: two atoms can always exchange a low-energy photon, say, and move an electron between orbitals... but they could also exchange a _super high energy photon_ instead. It's just very highly unlikely. Nevertheless the fact that they can do that contributes to the physics, at least a little bit. But that virtual high energy photon (which shows up in the Feynman diagrams) isn't destroying anything either, for the same reason the Higgs isn't.