I wanted to throw this out there to see your thoughts on the similarities.
This is a rendition of the net of indra
and this is the cosmic web
This is a rendition of the net of indra
and this is the cosmic web
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Gassho,
"Heitetsu"
Christopher
Sat today -
I find it compelling that the spritual truths of the past become the scientific proofs of the presentGassho,
"Heitetsu"
Christopher
Sat todayComment
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Things I find very interesting
I myself have studied the parallels between science and Eastern religions, especially quantum physics and Zen Buddhism. The parallels are quite striking. What meditators have intuited for thousands of years, the scientists are now beginning to discover.
Here's one instance of that:
"In 1964, J. S. Bell, a physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, zeroed in on this strange connectedness in a manner that may make it the central focus of physics in the future. Dr. Bell published a mathematical proof which came to be known as Bell’s theorem. Bell’s theorem was reworked and refined over the following ten years until it emerged in its present form. Its present form is dramatic, to say the least.
Bell’s theorem is a mathematical construct which, as such, is indecipherable to the nonmathematician. Its implications, however, could affect profoundly our basic world view. Some physicists are convinced that it is the most important single work, perhaps, in the history of physics. One of the implications of Bell’s theorem is that, at a deep and fundamental level, the 'separate parts' of the universe are connected in an intimate and immediate way.
In short, Bell’s theorem and the enlightened experience of unity are very compatible." --Gary Zukav, from The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Sent from my iPad using TapatalkLast edited by themonk614; 01-07-2017, 12:51 PM."You may wander all over the earth but you have to come back to yourself." --Jiddu KrishnamurtiComment
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Personally, I think that drawing too direct parallels between some traditional Buddhist teachings and the discoveries of modern science can be risky.
For example, the lovely artists's depiction of Indra's net that Chris posted is meant to show the interpenetration and mutual reflection of all phenomena into all other phenomena of the cosmos via a picture of mirrors, each mirror reflecting the light of all other mirrors and the image of Buddha at the center. I am not sure what that has to do with showing a picture of all the density fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation as in the second picture posted by Chris. In fact, it almost shows the opposite, as the various clusters of matter pull apart from each other, and grow apart, under the pull of local gravity. That picture shows the universe separating into individual islands of matter.
Still, we Mahayana Buddhists believe that all the universe (or universes if they exist) constitute a great tapestry, each bit connected to all the other bits, all influencing all the rest in great and small, direct and indirect ways. Perhaps a better model for that would be all the directly and indirectly interconnected neurons of the human brain, all interwired and interinfluencing to form an amazing whole which is YOU.
We do believe that all phenomena in the universe are interflowing, whole and one with all other phenomena ... but if that is the case, literally any photo at all shows that! Literally, a picture of any two or more random things in the whole world shows it!
Still, to take some idea by someone from the 3rd Century CE, and to project it too literally onto what scientists see through there instruments ... reminds me a bit of seeing Jesus in a slice of toast.
Even the use of "quantum" and the tendency to too easily connect that to some traditional Buddhist ideas, hmmm ... It could be that there are some parallels. Likewise, there are some parallels in some of Dogen's seemingly very fluid, flexible and relative view of individual time(s) and Einstein's views of relative time.
But there are many many more examples of ancient Buddhist thinkers that have been dead wrong ... silly even ... in their descriptions of how physical phenomena in the universe work or things are structured (see our recent discussion on traditional Buddhist beliefs in Mt. Sumeru as the center of the cosmos).
Meditators have also "intuited" all kinds of mirages, delusions and dreams that are far from anything science is likely to find anywhere ever. Buddhism as a mystical tradition is more apt to be filled with imagined religious fantasy as it is to have accidently discovered quantum mechanics a thousand years ago.
Anyway, one must be cautious about seeing correlations sometime.
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 01-07-2017, 02:19 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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PS - "Dancing Wu Li Masters" (and the "Tao of Physics") were fun and thrilling to read in the 70s, but have been criticized by many folks for the simplistic presentation of quantum theory and the like ...
For example ...
The simple view, then, would be that Zukav has simply misunderstood his subject; he has taken a few speculative statements by a few physicists about the meaning of quantum mechanics and stretched them far beyond their limits. However, he is not the first to do that either, and he is quite willing to discuss his famous predecessors in this endeavor, including such founders of the field as Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli. His views are also shared, at least to an extent, by some contemporary physicists and philosophers, many of whom are named in the Acknowledgments to the book, and who read over it at Zukav's request--some only parts, but at least four read the entire manuscript and offered extensive comments. But many other contemporary physicists and philosophers who hold quite different views are conspicuous by their absence, and this is a major failing of the book, not because any book on quantum mechanics must scrupulously include all viewpoints, but because Zukav does not pitch this book as expounding his own personal philosophy, but as simply trying to lay out for the lay person what the new physics says. What he ends up laying out, however, is often what he would like the new physics to say, and what he and a few others, including some physicists, believe the new physics says--but which many other physicists, whom Zukav did not bother asking about the matter, do not believe the new physics says, and which is not by any means required by either the phenomena or the basic theory of the new physics.
http://www.peterdonis.net/philosophy...hyreview2.htmlALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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I was definitely struck by this...
I'm also aware of this.
Where they got it right, the most we can do is give the ancient Buddhist thinkers and meditators good marks for some precocious hunches. Where they got it wrong, what we have to do is simply discard their wrong-headed notions to the dust bin.
In fact, The Dalai Lama has made radical statements as whatever in our religion does not accord with science should be discarded.
As long as we keep in mind that these parallels may be proven wrong or inadequate in the future, for some people, like me, finding parallels between science and religion makes for an interesting intellectual exercise...
Gassho,
Matt
SatToday"You may wander all over the earth but you have to come back to yourself." --Jiddu KrishnamurtiComment
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day!
I attended a "Mind & Life" science conference with the Dalai Lama a few years ago, and one has to listen closely to what he is saying when he says stuff like this. He seems to imply that he has full faith that there will be no or little conflict with science because science will eventually confirm most ideas of Tibetan Buddhism! He is willing, however, to concede to science on what he considers certain secondary issues.
From Donald Lopez's wonderful book "Buddhism & Science" (Chapter 3) ...
Gassho, JBuddhism has also explained the outer world over the course of its
long history, and in the view of the Dalai Lama, several of these teachings
are simply wrong. As noted in the discussion of the Mount Meru
cosmology in chapter 1, he is willing to dismiss a number of Buddhist
doctrines about the physical universe. There I cited his statement in The
Way to Freedom, where he wrote, “The purpose of the Buddha coming
to this world was not to measure the circumference of the world and
the distance between the earth and the moon, but rather to teach the
Dharma, to liberate sentient beings, to relieve sentient beings of their
sufferings.”15 In The Universe in a Single Atom, he states that “if scientific
analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism
to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon
those claims.”16 The important phrase here is “conclusively demonstrate
to be false.” Thus, photographs of the earth taken from space conclusively
demonstrate that the world is not flat, as the sūtras describe it.
However, the Dalai Lama makes a distinction, drawn from Madhyamaka
philosophy, between not finding something (ma snyed pa) and determining
that it does not exist (med pa nges pa). For him, the flat earth
has been determined not to exist. But other Buddhist doctrines, most
important, rebirth, have simply not been found. Indeed, a central concern
of The Universe in a Single Atom is to defend one Buddhist doctrine
(rebirth) and one Buddhist value (compassion) against possible scientific
refutation.
...
The Dalai Lama speaks of the “limits of scientific knowledge” regarding
questions of the nature of consciousness, questions that are central
to the Buddhist doctrines of karma and rebirth; for him rebirth is something
that science has not found, but also has not found to be nonexistent.
He is critical of the theory of natural selection ..... First,
the random nature of mutations is at odds with the doctrine of karma,
which he defends at several points: “From the scientific view, the theory
of karma may be a metaphysical assumption—but it is no more so
than the assumption that all of life is material and originated out of pure
chance. . . . I believe that karma can have a central role in understanding
the origination of what Buddhism calls ‘sentience,’ through the media of
energy and consciousness.”
...
Thus, the Dalai Lama speaks repeatedly of a “fruitful collaboration”
between Buddhism and Science. He is willing to concede the scientific
view on almost all questions of cosmology. At the same time, he
holds firmly to the doctrine of karma and the immaterial nature of consciousness.
He clearly feels that there are questions crucial to scientific
exploration to which Buddhism can contribute. Indeed, he seems to anticipate
a kind of “paradigm shift,” one that will confirm what he sees as
the fundamental truths of Buddhism.
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 01-07-2017, 02:48 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Science can't do what Buddhism does. Personally I'm kind of sick of people placing science and religion against one another. They don't need to confirm or deny one another. Trying to validify Buddhism via science strikes me as very self centered and foolish. Not any different than believing the earth is 6,000 years old because of the Bible and selectively looking for proof. In essence it's the same ego driven syndrome. The Dalai Lama is a politician. He's stuck trying to work his way out of that mess trying to make everyone happy. Poor guy. Fortunately we can just practice and study Buddhism without that obnoxious burden.
Gassho
Sat TodayComment
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I find little in our Zen Practice that need be in conflict with science, because we are cool with whatever is. As I sometimes say ...
If the earth is flat and 10,000 years old, we sit on the flat young earth ... chop wood and fetch water.
If the earth is round and 6 billion years old (which seems more likely to me, and what I personally believe), we sit on the round 6 billion year old earth ... chop wood and fetch water.
No problem, because whatever is just is ... and we embrace that. Whatever science finds, we just sit with that.
Other aspects of our Practice need not be in conflict with modern scientific discoveries at all. For example, our view that the human mind takes in sense data, categorizes, interprets and judges it to create our subjective experience of the world, seems perfectly in keeping with what is now understood about the human senses, brain and mind. Our view that there is a certain wholeness and interconnection to the world, and we might see ourselves as one manifestation of that wholeness and interconnection, is not in conflict with anything particularly in physics, chemistry, biology as far as I know (and actually seems confirmed by a lot in those fields). We are made of stardust, man. The deep interpenetration and interconnection, direct and indirect, of all phenomena in Indra's Net that Chris presented is not in conflict with anything I know in scientific discoveries.
Furthermore, there are certain very real "truths" about life which science can never quite express ... such as the "truth" of a child's smile, a beautiful poem, a sunrise, the feeling of love. All the chemistry formuli and equations can't really nail those down as subjective experiences, yet they are real "truths" of our lives. There are certain aspects of our Practice which might be described as like that smile, poem or feeling of love ... true because we experience so, without regard to whether or not there is an equation to capture it. So, for example, if we experience peace, non-violence, compassion, equanimity and like emotions, than that is just the truth of what we are experiencing and no need to reduce it to a chemical formula.
The key aspects of our Zen Practice do not seem in conflict with science, or to particularly be dependent on science, and that is good. Some actually seem quite harmonious with or supported by science. Some of the more far-fetched or superstitious beliefs of Buddhism are not central to my practice, so I leave those aside or stand as a disinterested agnostic about them.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 01-07-2017, 05:06 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Also, Indra's Net is an illustration of our inability to fully comprehend reality. It doesn't need to conform with anything scientifically provable. Apples and oranges.
Gassho
Sat TodayComment
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Interesting takes on this. Some are impassioned to find connection between our practice and science. Some are impassioned to fight connection based on a lack of need or a lack of reliability. Personally, i have always found faith and science to be two sides of the same coin. Science tells us how,faith tells us why. or at least asks us to consider a reason for why. its worth noting many ancient religions taught the sciences along with their faith.
Now as to drawing a direct link from one to the other, i agree with jundo - that might be dangerous or at least irresponsible. what i am saying though is that parralells do exist, and that seems to say to me that at some level we can intuit or be open to the truths of the universe SOMETIMES. that thought is encouraging. but it is also worth noting that even though the similarities are neat and can be a positively encouraging foot note, that our practice is life itself and life is practicing us independent of whether or not our beliefs match up to science or diverge from it 100% of the time.
I just wanted to hear some thoughts.Gassho,
"Heitetsu"
Christopher
Sat todayComment
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From the Lankatavara Sutra:
"All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. This is not comprehended by the philosophers and the ignorant, but those who thus see things see them truthfully. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination and, as they depend upon discrimination, they cling to dualism. The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing one's own image reflected in a mirror, or one's shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in a valley. People grasping their own shadows of discrimination become attached to this thing and that thing and failing to abandon dualism they go on forever discriminating and thus never attain tranquility."
From the same sutra:
"But neither words nor sentences can exactly express meaning, for words are only sweet sounds that are arbitrarily chosen to represent things, they are not the things themselves, which in turn are only manifestations of mind."
And later on:
"This teaching is found in all the sutras of all the Buddhas and is presented to meet the varied dispositions of being, but it is not the Truth itself."
As is my understanding, the issue of Buddhism clashing or harmonizing with scientific understand is irrelevant. It's truth and purpose is in an individual's experience humbly seeking to learn Buddhism earnestly and not on anything else.
Gassho
Sat TodayComment
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Well, I agree to a point. If there is a traditional belief of Buddhism ... such as that someone doing a certain meditation can actually predict fortunes and levitate, or that a certain chant will actually bring rain, or that a person suffering a psychiatric condition is actually "possessed by an evil spirit" ... and science shows that as most unlikely or even quite otherwise, well, then I tend to reject that as an aspect of my practice. Don't think that Zen Buddhism was not overflowing with those and countless other like beliefs over the centuries. Such beliefs and practices were often more central to what Zen priests dealt with each day than Zazen and Dogen!
And it was not just during the Tokugawa period, but really throughout the entire history of Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.Popular understanding of Zen Buddhism typically involves a stereotyped image of isolated individuals in meditation, contemplating nothingness. This book presents the "other side of Zen," by examining the movement's explosive growth during the Tokugawa period (1600-1867) in Japan and by shedding light on the broader Japanese religious landscape during the era. Using newly-discovered manuscripts, Duncan Ryuken Williams argues that the success of Soto Zen was due neither to what is most often associated with the sect, Zen meditation, nor to the teachings of its medieval founder Dogen, but rather to the social benefits it conveyed.
Zen Buddhism promised followers many tangible and attractive rewards, including the bestowal of such perquisites as healing, rain-making, and fire protection, as well as "funerary Zen" rites that assured salvation in the next world.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7883.html
Gassho, J
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 01-08-2017, 01:23 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Well, the cosmic wed is supposed to be a web of interconnected filaments of gravity holding together the unvierse. Actually when you broughtvup the human brain, i thought that was rather apropos. the cvosmic web has been described as a 'sort of giant neural network ' of the galaxy. or like a skeleton. zen bones, maybe?Personally, I think that drawing too direct parallels between some traditional Buddhist teachings and the discoveries of modern science can be risky.
For example, the lovely artists's depiction of Indra's net that Chris posted is meant to show the interpenetration and mutual reflection of all phenomena into all other phenomena of the cosmos via a picture of mirrors, each mirror reflecting the light of all other mirrors and the image of Buddha at the center. I am not sure what that has to do with showing a picture of all the density fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation as in the second picture posted by Chris. In fact, it almost shows the opposite, as the various clusters of matter pull apart from each other, and grow apart, under the pull of local gravity. That picture shows the universe separating into individual islands of matter.
Still, we Mahayana Buddhists believe that all the universe (or universes if they exist) constitute a great tapestry, each bit connected to all the other bits, all influencing all the rest in great and small, direct and indirect ways. Perhaps a better model for that would be all the directly and indirectly interconnected neurons of the human brain, all interwired and interinfluencing to form an amazing whole which is YOU.
We do believe that all phenomena in the universe are interflowing, whole and one with all other phenomena ... but if that is the case, literally any photo at all shows that! Literally, a picture of any two or more random things in the whole world shows it!
Still, to take some idea by someone from the 3rd Century CE, and to project it too literally onto what scientists see through there instruments ... reminds me a bit of seeing Jesus in a slice of toast.
Even the use of "quantum" and the tendency to too easily connect that to some traditional Buddhist ideas, hmmm ... It could be that there are some parallels. Likewise, there are some parallels in some of Dogen's seemingly very fluid, flexible and relative view of individual time(s) and Einstein's views of relative time.
But there are many many more examples of ancient Buddhist thinkers that have been dead wrong ... silly even ... in their descriptions of how physical phenomena in the universe work or things are structured (see our recent discussion on traditional Buddhist beliefs in Mt. Sumeru as the center of the cosmos).
Meditators have also "intuited" all kinds of mirages, delusions and dreams that are far from anything science is likely to find anywhere ever. Buddhism as a mystical tradition is more apt to be filled with imagined religious fantasy as it is to have accidently discovered quantum mechanics a thousand years ago.
Anyway, one must be cautious about seeing correlations sometime.
Gassho, Jundo
SatToday
the point here maybe was that we think we KNOW so much. sometimes its science, we know so much that we dont believe in anything not supported by empirical evidence. sometimes its faith, we believe so much we turn away things that disagree with our beliefs. sometimes its practice, we practice for 6 months, or 5 years, or a decade and we know everything there is to know about Buddhism to the point we dismiss everything not specifically buddhist as irrelevant to our practice.
Dont get too hung up on things, especially 'not getting hung up on things'Gassho,
"Heitetsu"
Christopher
Sat todayComment
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