Zen - Science and Poetry

[Heiso]

I stumbled across the two following articles by chance, one seemed to relate to recent chapters I've read from the Shobogenzo and the other to the Heart Sutra so I thought I'd share here in case they are of interest to anyone.



The following seemed to me to relate to how dragons, fish and other beings see water as water (as opposed to humans who see it as water) in Sansui Kyo - although in reality it could relate to any number of zen teachings:

In quantum mechanics ... we can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to have objective and subjective features.

- Niels Bohr

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/01/niels-bohr-science-religion/

The second seems a beautiful description of form is emptiness emptiness is form:

Relationship among all things appears to be complex and reciprocal — always at least two-way, back-and-forth. It seems that nothing is single in this universe, and nothing goes one way.

In this view, we humans appear as particularly lively, intense, aware nodes of relation in an infinite network of connections, simple or complicated, direct or hidden, strong or delicate, temporary or very long-lasting. A web of connections, infinite but locally fragile, with and among everything — all beings — including what we generally class as things, objects.

- Ursula Le Guin

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/10/ursula-k-le-guin-late-in-the-day-science-poetry/

Gassho,

Neil

STLah

(Sorry Jundo, I will add a photo!)

[Jundo]

I stumbled across the two following articles by chance, one seemed to relate to recent chapters I've read from the Shobogenzo and the other to the Heart Sutra so I thought I'd share here in case they are of interest to anyone.



The following seemed to me to relate to how dragons, fish and other beings see water as water (as opposed to humans who see it as water) in Sansui Kyo - although in reality it could relate to any number of zen teachings:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/01/niels-bohr-science-religion/

The second seems a beautiful description of form is emptiness emptiness is form:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/10/ursula-k-le-guin-late-in-the-day-science-poetry/

Gassho,

Neil

STLah

(Sorry Jundo, I will add a photo!)

Yes, I photo ... so that we can see a human face inside our heads.

Which leads to the following long post on how "mind" and is inside and outside our heads. Maybe it connects here ...


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In Buddhist philosophy, the concept of "inside" and "outside" the "self" is not a clear border. Inside and outside are totally dependent on each other and one thing, whole and interflowing, so you really do not stop at the borders of the skin. I am writing a book where I give this example ...

Consider, for a moment, how we usually look at and experience a tree. There seems in our mind to be something outside us which we usually call a “tree,” light reflects off of its surface and into our eyes, the light is translated into an electo-chemical signal that is transmitted into the brain where we experience a lovely image which is a representation of that tree outside. We promptly recognize this and label it as “a tree.” Then, we may react to the tree in some way, perhaps admiring its beauty, or proceeding to sit under it, or maybe even to cut it down. As part of this process, we include a sense that “I” am looking at the “tree outside me,” and that there is separation between us. That is good, because otherwise you could not function in life if you did not know the difference between yourself and the trees.

But is that the only way to look at it? Buddhists, and many neuro-scientists these days, might point out that there is also a kind of feedback loop at work here, in which the cycle of tree, light, eye, brain and response might be judged one whole thing, one single mutually integrated phenomenon. For example, you have your sense of “you” inside you precisely because there are trees to see which you deem outside you. Seeing the tree and experiencing it gives you something to experience, not to mention sit under. In turn, your mind gives definition, and imposes characteristics on much of the world. For example, while the “tree” is likely a certain group of atoms which happens to reflect from it photons of a certain frequency of vibration, it is your brain which then interprets those photons as “green tree,” and even may add additional value judgments based on your own relative position and preferences, such as “tall green tree” (based on some inner comparison to your relative size) or “beautiful green tree” based on your tastes and sense of symmetry. In that way, while the atoms and vibrating photons may exist apart from you, in a very real sense the experience of a world of “beautiful tall green trees” only exists because there is you, and other human beings, to experience and mentally define things so. I doubt that a lady bug, for example, experiences those atoms in quite the same way and, if her brain is capable of thinking anything at all, it is probably not much more than as a surface to crawl on. Thus, there is the old question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound.” Well, the answer is that some event may make vibrations in the air, but without some sentient ear to hear it and interpret the same as a subjective experience, there can be no “sound.”

In this way, there is a wonderful loop by which we human beings do very much create “beautiful green trees” out of our own thoughts (although something is likely out there), and in turn, the world “out there” lets you draw a line of inner experiences which you define as your “me in here.” You create the world in part, and that world lets you create your sense of “you” in part.

However, you do not need to draw the border of separation quite where it is, at the edge of your skin or the top of your head. You can also come to define yourself, in a very real sense, as the whole feedback loop itself.

As I summed it up elsewhere ...

As I sometimes point out, it means that "mind" is not simply something between your ears (in the sense that, in Buddhist terms, when "you" see a "tree outside" with your eyes and register an image of "tree" with your brain, Buddhists might consider the whole loop ... outside tree/eyes/inside experience of tree ... as "mind", not just the part inside the head. Add to that the sun in the sky, the wind, every atom that lets there be "trees" and "eyes" and "yous" in the first place ... and those are also thrown into "mind" too as all necessary prior parts of the whole process of being and seeing trees. )

All of that, the kitchen sink, the whole universe and whatever is beyond that led to you being here ... is you ... is "Buddha" and "Buddha Mind"

Also ...

The human brain creates a hard sense of self/other in the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobe in connection with many other regions of the brain such as the visual cortex (in my limited understanding). In other words, data pours in through the senses, and the brain creates its own inner model of reality in which your "me" ends about at the border of the skin. Roughly, what is beyond the border is not yourself, what is within the border is your "me". The human mind also likes to separate and categorize, e.g., that a "chair" is not a "table" or a "tablecloth" (although it can also redraw borders to see the whole thing as a single "whole" of "dining set" for example.)

In Zazen, those hard borders between "self" and the outside "other" that is not myself may seem to soften, perhaps fully drop away, so that all becomes experienced as an interflowing whole. It can happen all at once, in a big booming Kensho or subtly and softly like borders becoming gently translucent or crystal clear. Likewise for all the separate things of the world, which now can be perceived as an interflowing whole.

The creation of the world (at least, the experience of "the world") is much more two-way "participatory" then we give it credit for, and you can even include all the events from the big bang that led to there being tree molecules, photons, eyes, brains and hands to start with!

Gassho, J

SatTodayLah