Transmigration – Rebirth Reconsidered

At the request of the author, this post has been removed.

Book Review: Living as a River

*For full disclosure I’ll mention that Bodhipaksa was my first meditation teacher, “way back in the day,” as they say (in the fall of 2000 in Missoula, MT). However, since he got his business degree and his website became wildly successful, he’s managed to avoid me well for quite some time and even waited for me to be safely in India before returning to Missoula on his recent book tour.

That said, his recent book, “Living As a River: Finding Fearlessness in the Face of Change,” is a marvelous piece of work. It is, in essence, a call to reflection for each of us, to reflect on our lives and our potential, and to reflect on the fact that we too often (nearly always) squander that potential by seeking happiness in all the wrong places.

The book unfolds as an offering (dāna). What is offered is an alternative to our unhappiness, our mere fleeting happiness, and our chasing of ever more happiness. The alternative is framed around the Buddhist Six Element Practice. But as Bodhipaksa says, this is not “a ‘Buddhist book.’” While the traditional Buddhist Six Element Practice forms the spine of the book, the heart is as fresh and modern as the many psychology experiments and quantum physics theories you will read about in its pages. It consists of fifteen chapters, plus an introduction, filled with philosophy, mythology, science, poetry, and the author’s own experiences, all winding a common path toward the destruction of our habitual, and false, idea that we have an unchanging self.

In fact “Living Like a River” begins with a psychology experiement in which a professor asked subjects to imagine the death of their partner. The result? The subjects, “reported feeling more positive about their relationships and less troubled by their significant others’ annoying quirks.” This makes the point that, more often than not, the things that we think will make us happy, do not – and the things that we think might make us unhappy – or be simply morbid, like imagining death – can actually improve our lives.

For the Buddhist, this can be an obvious fact. Most philosophers as well, East and West, have noted that human suffering is rooted in our incorrect understanding of ourselves and the world. But these days, neither Buddhist teachings nor philosophy have managed to penetrate deeply into the Western psyche. That is why Bodhipaksa’s use of psychology and other sciences so important. Science, especially the natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology (all discussed in the book), has a special place in the minds of educated Westeners as the major, if not final, arbiter of truth. So if science can “catch up,” so to speak, with these important truths of the Buddha and certain other philosophers, there’s a chance that the rest of us also might get it.

And so the book marches forth, beginning at times with a bit of poetry, a story from Bodhipaksa’s life, or an interesting fact from recent scientific research, all woven together around the key insights first elucidated by the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, some 2500 years ago. The purpose of the book isn’t to be “about Buddhism” as the quote mentioned above makes clear. It is about a way of thinking, a way of seeing clearly (or cultivating “insight” as the Buddhist meditation vipassanā is commonly translated) ourselves and the world. For all readers, it should be a joyful jorney through a hand-picked series of scientific articles and discoveries, poetry, and anecdotes. It is lucidly written, and even consistently funny (a nice change of pace for some of us!).

As I re-skim it now to write this, I find quote after quote and story after story that I’d love to recount for their simple and direct teaching power. But alas, I’ll spare you all of that and just suggest you get the book yourself. You’ll be glad you did. (available at Soundstrue or Amazon)

Cross-posted at American Buddhist Perspective.

The Purpose of Meaning

(Cross Posted at The Reformed Buddhist)

If there was one thing that stands out as a great testament to our human endeavor as a species here on earth, it has been our wild ability to use the world around us, to mold, shape and create form from it, in order to better our living conditions and our material lives. Humans have an uncanny ability to twist the objects in the world, creating some of the most brilliant and mind boggling inventions, making countless discoveries of the properties of matter and form and have advanced our society to feats many thought unattainable just a few hundred years ago. The great minds of our scientists and pioneers that have made these advancements possible are due partially to accidental discoveries, but more importantly, it has been the ability for these people to view the objects of the world as having infinitely more potential that what is its stated purpose, its accepted meaning.

To see an ordinary stick on the ground, most of us would be able to think of 50 ways we could use that stick to our advantage; sharpen it for a weapon, peel the bark to make rope, use it to fish, create shelter, etc. In our minds however, many times, the thoughts that arise within us, we attach to them, end up applying stark rules of purpose, casting ideas and concepts into a definitive meaning and rigid roles. When we do that, I feel sometimes we are robbing both ourselves and these objects of the world of all their marvelous potential, inhibiting all the things they can and will become. To see the world in this stark contrast of such stringent use, we are greatly limiting ourselves and our nature.

Since our Buddhist practice is not meant to turn off our endless stream of thoughts, but rather to understand the nature of our existence more clearly, we certainly shouldn't shun the thoughts that arise within us nor label them into any unbreakable purpose. Indeed, it is when we can live our lives, realizing this mind of ours is an amazing tool, full of endless potential and unremitting possibilities, beyond the confines of absolute meaning, beyond the prison of purpose, that we can perhaps better understand the boundlessness nature of our infinite mind.


Dhammapada

An untroubled mind,
No longer seeking to consider
What is right and what is wrong,
A mind beyond judgments,
Watches and understands.
Know that the body is a fragile jar,
And make a castle of your mind.
In every trial
Let understanding fight for you
To defend what you have won.

When Science and Philosophy Collide

(Cross Posted at The Reformed Buddhist)

The Higgs-Boson, a theoretical particle which some scientist have speculated give mass to all matter, has become the big new thing within the elite circles of the physicist community. The Large Hadron Collider(LHC), encompassing a 27 Kilometer tunnel straddling under the Swiss and French borders, will be coming on line piecemeal over the next 6-8 months, and finding this Higgs-Boson will become one of the primary objectives of the tests conducted by the Physicists. The Higgs-Boson has been nicknamed the God particle because the theory states it is a particle which never experiences change, and which always has solid mass.

It's no secret that I love science and I love how certain aspects of it fit in well to my Buddhist practice.I was watching a PBS documentary about both the LHC and the Higgs-Boson the other night, in which many of the scientists were expounding excitement over the anticipation of finding this particle, and spoke about the ramifications of it if discovered. One Physicist, grinning ear to ear, pointed to a chair in the room where he was being interviewed, and told the interviewer, “It is important because it will explain what give mass to all things, it is the reason this chair can exist. Without it, this chair could not exist.” As much as I love and respect these kinds of scientific endeavors, the Zen Buddhist in me immediately sprung into verbal hostility at the TV. “Exist?” I huffed out loud, as my girlfriend looked at me like I was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, “Haven’t they learned by now that all things change?” I inquired to her in a somewhat dramatic tone. To which she responded, “Did you take out the trash out yet sweetie?” That shut me up.

From the discovery of the atom to the electrons, protons and neutrons to that of quirks, each step was hailed at the time as being the smallest particle of mass in which all matter is created. And each time, new information and technology soon came to light to show that all these pieces were made up of yet even smaller more baffling pieces. Sometimes, in science, the most significant understandings of the true nature of reality come when a theory is dis-proven and the only thing that is found is just more questions. I love science and its dedication to finding truth and fact, with reason and logic and the ability to accept failure in light of new information. Sure, that chair the scientist pointed to exists, but it exists only in that smallest wisp of a moment before it changes, and more importantly exists only as part of the whole. This isn’t some off the wall, far flung theory; this is the immutable truth of transiency.

I think what worries some scientists is that at some point, all the experiments and equations and logic in the world will not be able to answer some of the most basic yet elusive questions concerning the nature of reality, and hence, must enter into a partnership with more philosophical understandings. Putting our finger on the ultimate nature of existence with ideas, equations and theories is like chasing our own shadow. We can see it, know it for what it is, but can never seem to catch it no matter how far and how long we chase it. Indeed, the only thing that really separates that chair and the scientist is, in fact, his mind.

I feel this isn't much different than the fear of some who hold fast to a static view of the world, those who see the world in black and white, who place blind faith over experience. It's amazing when you think about it, 2,500 years have passed, and people are still arguing over those same stubborn views of materialism vs nihilism. And no amount of calculations nor blind beliefs will ever be able to live up to or deny the answer of the middle way.

Perhaps, I should take out the trash now.

God and The Fundamentalist's Problem with Time

(Cross Posted at The Reformed Buddhist)

Time is nothing more than the measurement of change. Just as a ruler measures length, a thermometer measures temperature and a scale measures weight, time is merely a tool, a human concept to help us parse the endless cycle of change into weeks, days, hours and minutes to help us in our everyday lives. Even science has shown time to be nothing more than other dependent, conditional on, and relative to everything else around it.

I see what scares a lot of the fundamentalists Christians is this need to fill that gap left by our concept of time with something absolute, something beyond time. If you have spent any amount of time meditating, you probably have some deeper insight into this concept of time and have experienced the futility in believing in absolute beginnings and absolute ends; and it is certainly a damn scary feeling. Fundamentalists I think also feel this fear, as they take such stubborn refuge in our dualistic mind, and they always find they are frightened by the change that surrounds them on a moment by moment basis. They, I imagine, on very conscious level in protection of self, take harbor in their concept of a God creator, to fill that gap of time, to fill those burning questions; "Well if God didn't make me, why am I here? Who created the universe? Why is something here instead of nothing?"

Once we can go beyond this concept of time, realizing that a better understanding of the true nature of our existence can not be answered by beginnings nor ends, we can move past this fear of falling into that dark abyss of not being. Perhaps, if they asked themselves if they can truly feel God inside them, then maybe God was never separate from us after all.

I invite all my Christian friends to explore Buddhism with an open mind, knowing that Buddhism does not ask one to relinquish their beliefs as a prerequisite to practice. Perhaps it is this, that frightens so many of your fundamentalists friends concerning Buddhism. However, do not believe me and do not believe them, but find out for yourself with an honest and open mind.

Job 9:20-21 - If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.  Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.

gently holding the idea of death

scrodinger's cat is a thought experiment in which a cat is theoretically inside a box, and has a 50-50 chance of being dead or alive. this, to work as a metaphor for something in science which would otherwise be difficult to explain - how can something be a wave and a particle at the same time?

the idea of a thought experiment is to explain a real life scenario which would not be carried out, so no cats are harmed!

in this case, the thought experiment encourages us to hold the idea of life and death as possibilities - illustrating the wave/particle business in quantum physics. but, for me, the schrodinger's cat experiment resonates with the idea of meditating in part to make a good life, and in another part to make a good death. and, further, the exercise of holding both the idea of life and the idea of death in awareness at the same time.

here is a clip where the experiment itself is explained

Everything Happens for a Reason? - Macro-Karma

I wanted to take a few moments to talk about karma, less in a sense for what it means to humans exclusively, but in a larger sense of‘ a ‘macro’ karma and its role in the relative world for which we are all a part of. I thought it might be interesting to look at this ancient teaching of karma in a different light, outside the realm of its many interpretations to its interaction with the human mind. The cause and effect of karmic entanglements shape the circumstances of our everyday lives and certainly affects how we act, react and define the world we live in. Please feel free to disagree or chime in with your thoughts or comment as these are just some meandering thoughts, exploring karma from a bit of a theoretical perspective.

I hear it all the time; “Everything happens for a reason." It seems to be such a popular mantra for many people in the West these days. But I'm not sure they understand exactly what they mean when they say it; though for many, I believe they think it is some belief that a God creator shapes the way events unfold in life, based on the concept of good and bad, for a particular reason or purpose. Another popular phrase of today is karma. It is without question the most over exposed, over used yet least understood words that Buddhism has ever produced. It is used everywhere, in pop culture or strewn around in every day conversation or used as a catch phrase in a desperate attempt to understand the ups and downs of life. These two ideas of reason and karma are more closely related than one would think. I see there maybe a more understandable interpretation of karma, one that penetrates the real consequences of human and non human activity, and how the cause and effect of these infinite actions spider out like an endless web of motion and condition.

About the only thing that almost all people can agree upon about karma is that it is a Sanskrit word that literally translated means ‘action’ or ‘to act’. Historically karma, as it is best understood though the ancient Buddhist teachings, is the basic law of cause and effect, action and reaction. It is sometimes set in motion by personal motivations or sometimes by the natural world, which create both known and unknown repercussions for themselves and the world around them. It is also known as the actions of a willed life and the resulting consequences can and do usually reach far beyond the actors that it began with. This karma, in essence, is truly just a naturalistic law that constitutes this present moment. However, I realize these are both vague and incomplete interpretations of what karma exactly is.

Science has shown that our reality is shaped by the nature of how the actions of all the relative objects of the universe are affected, in varying degrees, by all the other energy and objects that exist. Both Sir Isaac Newton’s Universal law of Gravity and Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity are perfect examples of how science shows us this intimate interdependency and interaction between objects and energy, even to the point of warping both space and time. It’s a lot like a tangled ball of string, each movement on one string will, in someway, affect all the other strings; some may loosen, some may tighten and some may break. Our actions and the actions of others sometimes have consequences that stretch far beyond our ability to see or know how these karmic actions will eventually play out. In fact, everyday, all the daily activities of our life are affected by all the different actions from the world around us, preceding up to this moment. For many of us, this fact is lost since we tend view ourselves and other objects as separate unchangeable entities that persist through time and space.

If someone is dealt a Royal Flush in poker, they may consider this great luck or perhaps some divine reward or good karma. However, instead of dismissing this incident as some mystical or cosmic magic, we must look deeper into all the events that occurred before the Royal Flush was dealt to understand how actual actions caused the event. For example, say the poker dealer before she came to work that evening was worried about her sick child and was nervously biting her fingernails. When she gets to work she notices her hands and face were sweating from worry, which caused a few of the cards to stick a bit, and her fingernail unintentionally clipped an edge of a card while shuffling, which in turn affected how the card fell into place before dealing. While her actions had direct consequences on herself, unintentionally that particular deck of cards she shuffled ended up dealing a Royal Flush to an unsuspecting person. Then in turn, the person who won a lot of money from the hand decides to go have a blast with his new found wealth, which in turn that creates more karma and other consequences that then in turn affect other things, etc. This maybe written off as luck, but none the less, a series of events took place, perhaps unseen to those around it, which caused the cards to come out a certain way. It is very important not to confuse these events that occurred as something that was willed by a greater being to render a particular outcome, or the result of some mystical force.

Karmic effects, or better yet ‘macro’ karmic effects, can and do reverberate for long periods of time or entangle with the effects of other karmic action. This present moment could be looked at as the product of all karmic activity, all the ever changing and expanding effects of the innumerable activities of all that came before it. In quantum physics they call this causality, which is nothing more or less than the effects of the events of objects on all other objects, or simply the nature of all relative phenomena. However, this does not mean that humans lack free will or suffer some type of predetermination, but only explains the ever changing daily circumstances we all must deal with. How we deal with these circumstances of life is ultimately up to us, with conscious, motivated and willed effort of mind.

In a moral and philosophical sense karma is neither good nor bad, but only interpreted as such by those affected by the actions of the events in their lives. When one proclaims "everything happens for a reason" they are indeed quite correct, however, this reason is an unwilled, unseen and unmotivated resultant set of causality. I think this is where the great error is formed; of believing that there is some great cosmic force that manipulates good and bad, right and wrong to reward the just or punish the wicked. I understand the allure of this metaphysical concept and a lot of people latch on to it and speak about it as a matter of fact. But perhaps, when we look closely, we will see this causality of karma to be nothing more than part of the great law of nature, a wonderful window into understanding the teaching of dependent arising. The selfless and kind deeds we do here, in this life, are the reward in themselves.

Interestingly enough, I caught a program on TV that was documenting and interviewing past members of the Cambodian Khmer Rogue and how they felt about some of the atrocities they committed during their horrible genocide campaign in the 1970’s. One man, who said he was a Buddhist, admitted he acted as a torturer and executioner for the Khmer at its height of terror. Obviously distraught, crying and rocking back and forth during the entire interview, the man expressed great remorse and regret for all the people he killed and spoke candidly about his fear that bad karma would come into his life and cause him great suffering. He looked like a skeleton of a man, living a life in fear and sorrow, and I thought to myself, “You are already living in your own private hell, no bad karma is needed.”

Moment after Moment

The stars seem so bright this evening. I’ve forgotten how amazing it is to stir my sight into the night sky, lying down on the soft spring grass, allowing my mind to drift where it may through the vastness of space and time. To see the stars is to see the past. As science now understands it, light from the stars takes a very long time to reach us, so we are literally watching the past tumble forward before us. In fact, it is said, if one were to take a spacecraft off earth, going faster than the speed of light, and then be able to turn around, watching with a 'God-Like' telescope, we could see the previous events of Earth unfold.

Albert Einstein theorized that time is relative; its properties are dependent on the density and speed of matter over a given area of space. The faster an object moves, the slower it changes, and the more stationary the object, the faster it changes. Sometimes boredom can make time seem to go so slow, can’t it? And conversely, the busier one becomes, the faster time seems to pass? Isn’t time really just a measurement of change, just a human conception that helps us manage our daily activities of life by compartmentalizing the hours and days?

I think because of change, it is inherent in our human intelligence and desire to see impermanent objects as having a beginning and an end; a creation and destruction, form and substance. Maybe many of us assume that the universe, or all that ever existed, must have had a beginning and therefore will have an end. In the same line of thought, perhaps one would bring up a God as the creator, and then the inevitable follow up question will arise, “But who created God?”. This is all silly. If we just closely paid attention, we could see that nothing exists separately from anything else. We would see that all things arise, because of everything else around it, and nothing exists independent of anything else. As one of my favorite blogger's, Jody Wieler so eloquently wrote

"...reminds me of music, where that chord or note that you hear right now, only makes sense because of what came before it, and where it resolves to in the next moment to come - in a sense, we exist in an eternal state of commingled past, present and future, where each can only be truly known as all are considered."

Buddhists teachings have talked about a beginning-less beginning, and an endless end. The ancient masters try to point out to us that perhaps, our idea of creation and time are just human inventions, and maybe all that is and will ever be has always been and at the same time never was. It is not a God that creates the objects of the world, but only our minds. To see the world as if one moment ends and another begins is a false impression. Moment after moment does not exist. Only this one present moment exists, ever changing and eternal.

I think our thoughts are much like these stars, dwelling on the past, watching them rise and fade, innumerable, unquenchable, so distant from this very moment, one after another. Our minds seem embraced in a mortal dance with creation, splitting the world from one to many. It seems to wrap itself up in the passing moments of the world, labeling and judging each object, giving them permanence and form.

Bruce Lee once wrote,

“Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.”

Ah, too much idealism and conceptualizing in this writing. I think I’ll go back to lying on the grass, watching the stars turn in the night sky. Maybe I can forget myself for just a moment in the melodic freedom and blissful rhythm of this moment. There is plenty of time until the dawn comes, right? The stars are so beautiful, and I wish not to lose them.

The Itch As Glitch: Deconstructing Externality and Sensation

Any meditator will undoubtedly be very familiar with our old friend, the itch. While I think the connections between scientific discoveries and Buddhist beliefs can be over-emphasised, in this article, taking uncontrollable itching as a starting point, Atul Gawande looks at the new light being thrown on the relationship between external objects, sensation, and consciousness.

Scientific developments are challenging what Gawande calls the ‘naïve view’ – that we perceive the world directly, that sensations transmitted by objects are ‘picked up by our nerve endings, transmitted through the spinal cord like a message through a wire, and decoded by the brain.’ Rather, he argues on the basis of this research, the mind is not so much decoding sensations, as constructing objects from signals, signals which are ‘radically impoverished’ compared with our experience of embodiment. On this view, perception, rather than being a response to external stimuli, is in fact the brain’s ‘best guess,’ or inference, about what’s ‘happening out there.’ Phenomena like phantom limb pain, or itching in places with no nerve endings, are what happens when the best guess happens to be wrong; and thus a solution might be possible if that guess can be adjusted – in the case of phantom limbs, by ‘mirror therapy’ through which patients appear to themselves to possess the missing limb.

What’s interesting about this from a Buddhist perspective, it seems to me, is that it dovetails with the teaching that our impression of our own embodied objectivity, and hence our whole concept of the ‘reality’ we inhabit, is illusory, and that in normal everyday life we do not have access to unmediated experience (indeed, this would suggest that there can be no such thing as unmediated experience, only the experience of experience as mediated – though the nature of meditative insights is not a subject on which I’d claim any authority from experience whatsoever). It seems to me (from my limited knowledge) that there’s a particular affinity here with Yogacara perspectives on cognition as constitutive of a (supposed) reality external to consciousness. The mind not only imposes particular constructions on objectively-experienced sensation as a result of contact with objectively-existing, separate external objects; all those sensations and separate objects exist as they are experienced only as a result of being constructed mind-objects, or dharmas.

As well as giving a new approach to problems like those mentioned above, this perspective on consciousness might also relate to new practices in dealing with pain. Rather than distraction - an older technique - Gawande notes that people with chronic pain are now often advised to ‘work through’ the pain, giving the body a chance to ‘reset’ pain sensors. Though it’s not mentioned in the article, there’s some fascinating work out there on mindfulness as a method of long-term pain management, which would seem to bear definite similarities.

I wouldn’t want in any way to diminish through comparison the agony people experience when dealing with these kinds of medical problems. But there is something fundamental here about the fact that our suffering can be our own creation, and that we may not be conscious of this, or, if we are, this intellectual understanding in itself does not serve to mitigate that suffering. Sakyamuni is often understood as a physician, and in identifying ‘everyday life’ itself as dukkha, we might ask what treatment we could use to help readjust our fundamentally faulty understanding – which brings us full circle, away from these abstracted intellectual meanderings and back to the cushion…

Quantum Physics and the Oneness of Reality

Physicists over the past 100 years have stumbled across some of the most bizarre and intriguing phenomena created in laboratory experiments. Today, some of these experiment phenomenas are still simply unexplainable by scientists and remain some of the most controversial cosmic mysteries. Many theories have been extended to try and put this mysterious nature of reality into some nice neat equation and interpretable parity. As of yet, reality hasn't been willing to be captured by simple ideas that can be placed into some epic textbook of everything. Perhaps, as Buddhists, we have a slightly different take on this weird and strange thing they call the nature of reality.

The Double Slit Experiment (Explanation)



So, just the act of being present and watching matter, changes the entire course of it's behavior? Interesting, isn't it?

Quantum Entanglement - (Explanation)



Wait! Physicists are saying that all matter and energy that 'is' and constitutes reality aren't really separate and distinct objects? So the change of one part in some aspect affects everything else in the universe?

The exotic oddness doesn't stop here!

The Brain, Creation, Realization and Time Reversal Symmetry (Partial Explanation)



When we start to watch our mind and the world around us, moment by moment, with the honest eye of a scientist, it is possible to start to understand all of these absurd and outlandish phenomenas that science can't put into a simple textbook explanation or equation. Have no illusions, what we begin to understand can be frightening to some at first, but nevertheless, cosmically and universally profound.

Buddhism, in a relative sense, can begin to bridge this gap between science, religion and philosophy. Science is beginning to see that we must study the mind and its workings in conjunction with studying natural phenomena. We are very fortunate to live in this moment, to be part of this great evolution of spiritual thought and scientific endeavor. Its no miracle to see these things if we watch and are mindful of the nature of transiency. In fact, I think miracles aren't luck or divine or mystical, just dependent arising.

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism...."
~Albert Einstein