Exchange with Lunares – “We are like the universe like islands in the sea . . .”

  Lunares – these last posts are super interesting Dana, I like them so so so much. Reading texts like this, I always think how different is Christianism and Buddhism in this point of view about the universe. That's why many times I think I'm very next to Buddhism although I have been educated like Catholic but Catholic does not teach some feelings I can feel: I always feel we are in the universe like the islands in the sea, if you watch the sea, you can see islands and islands, they look like different islands among themselves but if you remove all the water of the sea, you can see that the islands are all the same thing because they all are the same Earth. I think that's what happens with us but, because of some reason, for many people is very difficult to feel it.

  Deep and heartfelt appreciation for this beautiful response, querido Lunares. I hope you will not object if I make this today's post at Ancestral Well. It is indeed wondrous for one to see and feel, and realize different views discovered in our spiritual journeys – not necessarily "opposing" – just different – and wonderful to discover how we feel about them and their meaning in our lives, today, here and now. Your metaphor of the "universe like the islands in the sea . . ." is truly profound. (If only we could add this to The Threefold Lotus Sutr – it would certainly enhance the teachings of the Buddha. You are a wonderful man! and I'm privileged to know you.

  Agradecimiento profundo y sincero por esta hermosa respuesta, querido Lunares. Espero que no se opondrá si hago el post de hoy en esta Ancestral Bueno. De hecho, es maravillosa para que uno ve y siente, y se dan cuenta de los diferentes puntos de vista descubiertos en nuestros viajes espirituales – no necesariamente "oponerse" – simplemente diferente – y maravilloso para descubrir cómo nos sentimos acerca de ellos y su significado en nuestras vidas, hoy, aquí y ahora. Su metáfora del "universo como las islas en el mar..." es verdaderamente profunda. (Si sólo pudiéramos añadir esto a la Triple Sutra del Loto. Que sin duda mejorar las enseñanzas del Buda Usted es un hombre maravilloso y yo soy el privilegio de conocerte!

  Super super super interesting!!!! Yes Dana: finally, I can see how the new theories o physics known as “unified theories” are arriving at the same point of Buddhism: we ARE the universe, we are the same thing!!!

  Ah, mi querido Lunares, now you are with me in spiri – only it is really 1982 when I first began to discover these connections with the Buddha's teachings. At that time, had you been looking over my shoulder, I might have arrived where I find myself today much quicker!

  Ah, mi Lunares Querido, ahora están conmigo en espíritu – sólo es realmente 1982, cuando empecé a descubrir estas conexiones con las enseñanzas del Buda. En ese momento, había estado buscando por encima de mi hombro que podría haber llegado a donde me encuentro hoy mucho más rápido!

The Cosmos

Magically a Part of Us

  Here in Buddhism's atheism [or preferably, non-theism /dfs] is the key concept that separates the dualist faiths of man from this no-nonsense, unsupernatural belief-system. Mahayana Buddhism sees ALL existence as supremely sacred; it needs no other-worldly injunction to validate this sanctity, no God on High; and, most important of all, it sees the plain and mundane things of daily existence—when viewed from the right perspective—as sanctified as the loftiest ideals. In short, in this enlightened awareness, we can all see the marvelous wonder of our universe, blemishes and all, and find our home and comfort in a cosmos that is magically a part of us, and us a part of it. This interpenetration of the individual in the universe is what the teachings of the Buuddha are all about. This is their scope and majesty.

  You do not see the sky, you are the sky.  You do not touch the earth, you are the earth.  The wind does not blow on you, it blows within you.  In this simple one taste, you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole.  Supernova are born and die all within your own heart, and galaxies swirling endlessly, where you thought your head was, and it is all a simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn.

Milky Way over Jackson Lake, Wyoming

For Robert Eichenberg, Jonny Joe – The Hadron Accelerator – a personal journey

Beyond Newton and Einstein

on the New Frontier of Physics

by Timothy Ferris

© The New York Times Magazine

September 26, 1982

  A seminal article linking the teachings of the Buddha profoundly, although not realized at the time—perhaps its value not even fully realized today. The article certainly enlivened progress along “the path to gaining Buddha-knowledge.” Today, 2015, returning once more to this eloquent resource for practice. [italics added, indicating links to “gaining mindfulness.”]

  we talk of “the universe” as if it were far away, but of course it is right here too. Its history concerns not only the remote stars and galaxies, but our world as well—down to the atoms that make up these words, this page, you and me.

  This insight has long been entertained by poets and philosophers. Now it is bearing fruit in science, as physicists probing the tiny nucleus of the atom are uncovering evidence of how the universe as a whole may have taken shape in the first moments of time.

  Responsible for the breakthrough are new theories o physics—known as “unified theories”—that seek to improve scientific understanding of how nature functions from the very smallest to the very largest scale. These theories which stand on the frontier of physics, are most precisely expressed not in words, but as mathematical equations. They imply that all the known forces in nature are manifestations of one basic interaction and that once, long ago, all were part of a single universal force or process.

  That view might sound farfetched were it not for the fact that cosmologists—scientists who study the nature of the universe as a whole—have found evidence that everything that now exists began in a “big bang.” (See chart) That explosion would have generated the tremendous amounts of energy and pressure that the unified theories say would have been needed to fuse the apparently separate forces into one.

  The consequences of their discoveries and the newest ideas in cosmology is pro­ducing a new physics, one that sees matter, energy and the laws according to which they behave not as immutable and eternal, but as evolving processes in an evolving universe. Like archeologists unearthing the ruins of an ancient city, theorists are uncovering the outlines of a new, more profound and in some way, simpler physics, a physics that could reveal and explain much of the history of the cosmos.

  The consequences of their discoveries promise to reverberate throughout science and beyond. Textbooks may have to be rewritten and philosophies revised. Just as Newton’s work served as the basis for much modern science and technology, and as Einstein’s discovery of the equivalence of matter and energy, E = m c², led to such advances as the harnessing of nuclear power, so too the new understanding provided by the unified theories may lead to unexpected leaps in our ability to manipulate nature.

  It is, of course, impossible to predict where, specifically, those leaps will land us. But a unified physics would promote a scientific vision of nature worthy of Zen masters and Old Testament prophets alike—a vision revealing that everything about us belongs to a chain of cosmic revolution that leads back to the birth of the universe and forward to a glimpse of the fate of the universe.

*  *  *

  Physicists have hit upon this new vision of a unity of large and small not through the mystical transports of a William Blake who saw the world in a grain of sand, but while trying to do little more than put their scientific house in order. Their goal is not to rewrite Genesis, but only to craft a theory that would explain the interactions of the myriad particles – from the now-familiar quarks to obscure muons – that inhabit the subatomic world.

Later in article – quote sent to AW (and Cody)

  Normally we think of virtual particles as restricted to the quantum world of the very small. But in the first moments of cosmic history, the universe was very small. Con­ceivably, the whole show could have begun as a speck of quantum foam in a vacuum. “Nothingness contains all of being,” writes the physicist Heinz Pagels in his “The Cosmic Code.”

  “All of physics – everything we hope to know – is waiting in the vacuum to be dis­covered.”

Article concludes:

  “The belief that the world is understandable justifies itself by its results,” John Wheeler said one day recently. We sat in his living room, surrounded by books and paintings, watching the river town of Austin turn gold in the slanting rays of the sunset. “We find the world strange,” Wheeler said quietly, “but what is strange is us. It seems to me that we don’t yet read the message properly, but in a time to come, we will se it in some single simple sentence. As we say that sentence to each other, we’ll say, ‘Oh, how beautiful! How could we have missed it, all that time?”

3/10/12 – Comment from DFS:

  Perhaps that one simple sentence is from the Buddha’s teaching: “We are caused to live by the great life-force of the universe.”

Celebrating Life

Stories from The Threefold Lotus Sutra

  human kind, born from earth and sea on a planet formed from an exploding star in a galaxy called the milky way, emerged late in the earth’s four-to-five billion year history as a result of the same conditions which in the beginning, created the universe. The Buddha’s teachings propose that this remarkable, even mystical chain of cause and effect, was inevitable and necessary.

  Progressing from the beginning of the universe to the formation of planet earth, to the dawn of human beings five to six million years ago, thus did the flow of time lead to the birth of us all, and in the 6^th Century before the Christian Era, the birth of Prince Siddhartha who became at the moment of his enlightenment, Shakyamuni Buddha, “the enlightened one of the Shakya clan,” the Buddha who sees beyond the universe, beyond space and time, perceiving that his birth as a human being emerges out of limitless, eternal incarnations, a continuity shared with all humanity.

  In the moment of his enlightenment, the Buddha is awakened to the profound interconnection of all living things. He perceives that an imperishable energy, a universal life-force, is the cause of all existence, imbedded in all laws. From emptiness, the profound Law of the Void, itself the Great Perfection, he realizes human beings and all living things, are equal in the fundamental value of their existence and are caused to live by the will to live, brought into being by virtue of karmic necessity, evolving creatively with planet earth.

  He has awakened to a profound truth that has existed from the infinite past, even before he appeared in this world. His fundamental desire in teaching this “final profound truth” is that all living beings will discover it for themselves.

Enlightenment

  Questioning “What is Enlightenment?” Enlightenment is something to accomplish in a moment of time,. an experience of absolute awareness—but awareness of what? perhaps that’s the question, or perhaps, How can I describe the experience? (Good luck!)

  The Buddha never specifically defines Perfect Enlightenment he attained under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya. Ultimately in the One Vehicle Sutra, the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, Chapter 16, he will declare his “Perfect Enlightenment” has existed eternally, addressing the Bodhisattva in the great assembly,

  “Listen then all of you attentively to the secret, mysterious, and supernaturally pervading power of the Tathagata. All the worlds of gods, living beings and asuras consider: ‘Now has Shakyamuni Buddha come forth from the palace of the Shakya clan, and seated at the training place of enlightenment, not far from the city of Gaya, has attained Perfect Enlightenment.’ But, my good sons and daughters, since I veritably became Buddha, infinite, boundless hundreds of thousands of myriads of  hundreds of thousand kalpas have passed.”

  At the close of the chapter, enlightenment is defined as something accomplished, the Buddha asking himself how he shall cause all the living to accomplish it speedily.

  "I, ever knowing all beings,

  those who walk or walk not in the Way,

  according to the right principles of salvation

  expound their every law,

  ever making this my thought:

  How shall I cause all the living

  to enter the Way supreme

  and speedily accomplish their buddhahood?"  (enlightenment),

  As a member of Rissho Kosei-kai in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, I came across a back issue, July 1982, of their monthly publication, DHARMA WORLD, Volume 9, © 1982; Kosei Publishing Co., Tokyo. Hui-neng's Enlightenment—Here and Now by Pracy Pugh, committee member of the Buddhist Society of N.S.W., Australia.

  Here’s an eloquent answer to What is Enlightenment?

  The absence of all thoughts to cease discriminating indicates the mind adheres to no "object" but relaxed in self-expression, appreciates itself in pure mirror-activity and stilled perception.

  “Here lies the ultimate, subtle, and elusive truth of all Buddhism: enlightenment occurs in the realization of one's own inner primal nature, which, as the buddha-nature, is infused with all experience, is absolute and universal—purest being—the totality of all things, a spontaneous awakening occurring at the root of consciousness that comprehends the entire manifold world. Moreover, this primal vision encompasses the opposites of existence, including the darkness of non-being. So it is ineffable and mysterious. Here, says Hui-neng, rejoice in your primal nature where samsara is nirvana, and nirvana is samsara. . . becoming is being, being is becoming.

  “This remarkable doctrine of self-salvation centers on the identity of one's own nature with the Buddha. It is the Buddha (or the Tathagata) in the minds of the aspirants who save themselves. From this insight a charity and a morality arise, because the individual and the totality are one ecological organism, mutually dependent.”

The Appearing Buddha

and

Stories from The Threefold Lotus Sutra (1)

  Those who walk the Buddha-way (“Buddhists”) may forget at times the original source for their practice derives from the teachings of Shayamuni Buddha, enlightened one of the Shakya clan, born in India about 660 B.C., who became “extinct” around 480 B.C. at the age of 80, his teachings transmitted in “sutras,” most notably the “One Vehicle” – The Threefold Lotus Sutra. Awakening to his teachings in this sutra, reading, reciting, copying, memorizing, strengthens and affirms the presence of the Buddha, not as a detached “god” floating around in the cosmos, but as an existing presence within each one of us, in each moment of our lives—the vibrant, all-pervading universal life-force that causes everything to live, immanent in all phenomena of the material world.

  Those who uncompromisingly celebrate life will know.

  Those who do not define their spiritual journey as “walking the Buddha-way” or perhaps not even aware of the Buddha’s teachings, are not excluded from the presence of this vibrant, all-pervading universal life-force which causes everything to live. The Buddha declares in the Lotus Sutra, “I look upon everyone, everywhere with equal eyes, to those who are not in this assembly, do you proclaim my words, to those whose hearts are longing, I appear to preach the Law, the one and only Law of emancipation and nirvana.”

  Those who attain personal satisfaction through creating that which brings wellness, joy and happiness to others, who freely celebrate life with compassionate hearts, with unquestioning reverence for life, “releasing the personal ego,” who recognize that all the living equally possess the buddha-nature—the potential for enlightenment, “these too attain the Buddha-way.”

  Shakyamuni Buddha, in his final commission reveals that it is only because he himself has practiced this “rare Law of Perfect Enlightenment for incalculable hundreds of thousands of myriads of countless kalpas,” that he now may entrust it to the compassionate ones to “wholeheartedly promulgate this Law and make it increase and prosper far and wide . . . In other domains, wherever you may go, I shall be Buddha, though under different names.”

Stories from The Threefold Lotus Sutra (1)

Monday’s Celebration:

  Reading the Threefold’s opening for the first time sends my head spinning with its presentation of great assemblies composed of human and non-human beings, the deeds of the Great Enlightened One (the Buddha) “whose moral breeze and virtuous fragrance deeply per­meate all.”

  This is dramatized history, proclaiming the names of those great men and women who followed the Buddha. Also “present” are gods and dragons, “musicians of Indra, garudas—birds with golden wings,” and all sorts of entities, foretelling the Buddha’s desire to set no limits on those who might “receive” his teachings in their hearts and minds.

  “Of these bodhisattvas there is none who is not a great saint of the Law-body.  They have attained commands, meditation, wisdom, emancipation, and the knowl­edge of emancipation. With tranquil minds, and constantly in contem­­plation, they are peaceful, indifferent, nonactive, and free from desires. They are immune from any kind of delusion and distraction. Their minds are calm and clear, profound and infinite. They remain in this state for hundreds of thousand of countless kalpas, and all the innumerable teachings have been revealed to them. Having obtained the great wisdom, they penetrate all things, completely understand the reality of their nature and form, and clearly discriminate existing and nonexisting, long and short.”

  Is such attainment possible? A far-reach indeed! But this moment of meditation is worthy of celebration, accompanied by great personages who have attained meditation, wisdom, emancipation, knowledge of emancipation, tranquil minds, constantly in contemplation, peaceful, indifferent, free from desires, immune from any kind of delusion and distraction, mind clam and clear,  completely understanding the reality and nature and form of all things, able clearly to discriminate existing and nonexisting.”

  Beings numbering in the thousands attending these great assemblies? Believing or not believing such gatherings ever took place or how many attended, is of little consequence. Do we not suspend belief in our world today, thrilling to grand displays in fantasy worlds, in fiction and films, and stories of other-worldly epics, larger-than-life histories, rendering a sense of how wonderful it is to be alive. So it is with a sense of wonder and awe we approach epic stories in The Threefold Lotus Sutra.

  “Thus have I heard!” We’re in for a teaching told with grand eloquence, open to comprehension of the Buddha’s intent, and the intent of all enlightened ones who appear in the world encouraging us to enter the Buddha-way.

  “Entering the Buddha-way” has no parallel in other religions. It doesn’t require worshiping a god-like image outside ourselves—not even worshiping the Buddha himself, nor embracing some exotic religious doctrine. The Buddha’s mission in his lifetime was to cause all living beings to enter a path leading to self-awareness—to enlightenment in this life-time, a teaching of compassion and liberation, attaining a state of mind—“mindfulness”—free of delusions.