Dear Fellow You-niverse(s),
Let us turn for awhile from discussion of new technologies to help rescue suffering beings in the near and coming future ...
... and let us look for awhile at another question, and another meaning of "Buddha" ...
From my book ...
~ ~ ~
Is the conception of a cosmic, universal “Buddha” compatible with modern science, and our present understanding of the nature of reality and our place in it? **
I believe it is.
** FOOTNOTE: To the extent that people of other religions or belief systems may conceive of their “God” or other universal principle in much the same terms as the universal “Buddha” which I shall now describe, they may find that there are few incompatibilities.
Can such a “Buddha” offer perspectives on who we are in this universe, as well as key insights into birth and death and other difficult questions, also in ways compatible with modern scientific understanding?
I believe that it can.
To explain how, let’s first look at just what “Buddha” we are talking about. Here, we are referring to a “universal” sense of Buddha.
Until recent times, of course, Buddhists would not have thought about this universal sense of “Buddha” in modern, scientific terms for a very simple reason, namely, “science” as we know it did not yet exist. The ancients merely conceived of this Buddha as representing the wholeness of reality that is behind, or another face of, all the world’s apparent divisions and individual things. Even so, there can be nothing really to conflict with modern scientific understanding to the extent that this “Buddha” stands as a symbol or code word referring to the “totality of everything,” or “just what is.” Thus, whatever science should ever determine about the ultimate nature of reality, and the nature of everything in it in its entirety, that will be just what is. Thus, no conflict is possible. In other words, whatever the actual nature of reality actually is and proves to be, that must be this Buddha that is whatever reality actually is.
In the last few chapters, as a model and summit toward which we humans might aim, we encountered the image of the “human Buddha,” a mortal being who lived in a particular place and time like you and me, who grew old, got sick, and eventually died as we all will someday. He symbolizes a human ideal, yet could not realize all his plans and dreams in life despite incredible efforts, could not persuade everyone he met to agree with his opinions, could not help everyone he encountered even if he wished to do so. He appeared unable (although some say that he was merely unwilling) to answer several basic questions on the origins of the world, the nature of being and the specific details of what happens after death. In short, that mortal Buddha who lived and died in India long ago, appears to have been incredibly and impeccably wise, caring, insightful, sincere, dedicated and diligent, yet still imperfect and bound to a human body. He bequeathed to the rest of us, who are mortal and imperfect beings too, precious guidance on making this life of trouble and pain a bit less so as we build our future world.
No, “Buddha, the human being,” never found a cure for growing old, getting sick, and eventually dying: all as shown by the fact that he himself eventually grew old, got sick, and finally died.
But that is not quite true:
For, in fact, the Buddha did find an absolute and ultimate cure for growing old, getting sick, and dying.
If one looks closely, the answers he provided to various hard questions, sometimes using words, sometimes (according to traditional accounts) by actions or in silence, elegantly transcend and resolve such issues. Better said, he provided a perspective on growing old, getting sick, and dying by which they continue to occur, yet by other perspective, do not. He provided insightful answers to these questions in ways which suggest that many of our questions are posed incorrectly from the outset, or thought about too narrowly by most human beings. The answer to Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be?” for a Buddha or Zen master is a possibility transcendent of, while yet encompassing, both options.
In very wise ways (ways which I believe even the most science-minded skeptic might consider plausible once correctly understood), the Buddha did find a cure and escape from aging, sickness, and death, depending on how one views and defines such events and our self-identities. He, and the Zen masters who followed him, offered important alternative standpoints regarding who we are in the universe, the meaning present in our existence here and now, and how we should look at events which transpire during a lifetime. I contend that such viewpoints and answers are ones that can help make sense of our universe, and Buddhism itself, into far future generations, even until the end of time and beyond!
How?
Buddhist insights work their trick by mentally redefining and redrawing the lines of our time and space limitations as mortal, isolatable, individual beings. In a nutshell, Buddhist teachings and practices aid us in realizing that we are not only creatures born into the world who live our life, do our thing for a period of time, then pass away, but that we are the world doing its thing in our being born and living our life in one little spot in the world, and likewise for all the other people, animals and things of this world doing their individual things. As a corollary, the world is all of us doing our things. We can learn to redefine and know this world, and its myriad objects and activities near and far, as the greater we/me. Furthermore, such redefinition of our respective self-identities can occur without resort to ideas in any way in conflict with basic modern understanding of how the world is put together and functions.
In a nutshell, rather than seeing ourselves as merely separate creatures temporarily born and alive inside the world, or as just component “parts” of the world, we can redefine our identity as more akin to the world itself in microcosm, “just the world world-ing in our place and time, in our guise for awhile.” We are not just a part of reality, but rather we are reality provisionally in the form of our faces and hands. For example, to say that our eyes, nose and mouth “are our face” is different than saying that they are merely “parts of the face” or just “eyes, nose and mouth,” and to say our fingers and palm “are our hand” is quite different from saying that they are just “parts of the hand” or just “fingers and palm.” In fact, all such ways of defining and experiencing face and hand and their constituent elements are correct, depending on how we define them. More than intellectual understanding of this fact, Zazen meditation and other practices allow the brain to redefine and personally experience its self-understanding in this way. Accordingly, although we may die, whereby our personal faces and hands will disappear from the world into the grave, to the extent that the world keeps going after our time, we thereby keep going … because we are intimately and completely just the world’s going.
( ... more on this next time ... )
Gassho, J
stlah
dlt jinkan hospite.jpegtsuku.jpg
Comment