Actuality and Reality in the Buddha’s Teachings I was surfing the net and came across an image of two sign posts, each pointing in an opposite direction; one direction pointed to Reality and …
Li and Chi representing hidden and manifest Actuality
5 AprLi and Chi representing hidden and manifest Actuality
After reading Ruth E. Kastner’s book, Understanding our Unseen Reality, (2015) and re-reading sections of R.G.H. Siu’s book, Chi, (1974), out of an interest, I decided to speculate about an apparent commonality between two perspectives. While throughout the history of Chinese philosophical thought the expressions Li and Chi have had significantly diverse meanings, this short paper compares Li and Chi to the new noumenon and phenomenon aspects described in the Transactional Interpretation of quantum physics.
Chuang Tsu, Chinese philosopher of the 4th Century BC, had described characteristics of Chi as “When the Chi condenses, its visibility becomes apparent so that there are then the shapes (of individual things). When it disperses, its visibility is no longer apparent and there are no shapes. At the time of its condensation, can one say otherwise than that this is but temporary? But at the time of its dispersing, can one hastily say that it is then nonexistent?” For Tsu, Chi/Qi described vital force functions as the dynamic force out of which all objects or events emerge and into which they all return when their manifestation is completed.
Chu Hsi, an important neo-Confucian Chinese philosopher, (1130-1200) expanded on this concept by stating that there is ‘Li’ which is the underlying yet hidden base essence of the universe, and Chi is the expressed Li in concrete form. He wrote: “In the universe, there are Li and Chi. Li is that which pertains to what is before shapes, and is the source from which all things are produced. The Chi is the material (literally, instrument) that pertains to ‘what is within shapes,’ and is the means whereby things are produced. Hence men or things, at the moment of their production, must receive this Li in order that they may have a nature of their own. They must receive Chi in order that they may have their bodily form.” (Reply to Huang Tao-fu, Collected Literary Writings)
Therefore, Chi is described as the condensed material that creates and is expressed in the uniqueness of the many myriad forms of the macroscopic, spacetime world giving rise to everything manifested. On the other hand, Li, of the microscopic or, I suggest, quantum world, is the essence for the macroscopic world. That is, it is in the realm of ‘no things’ or virtual, that is Li. Hence, a ‘thing’ is a concrete manifestation of Li and it therefore, possesses Li from the first moment of its existence. It is Li that makes things what they are. Thus, according to neo-Confucianism, all categories of objects, sentient or not, possess Li. Since manifested Chi depends upon the Li for its operation, when there is an agglomeration of Chi, Li is also present within it. Chi is the Li as the capacity to condense and thus form things. Yet, the Li constitutes only a pure and ‘empty’ world, without shapes or traces. “But the Chi is the capacity to undergo fermentation and condensation, and thus bring things into existence. And yet, whenever the Chi exists, the Li is present within it.” (Recorded Sayings, chtian 1.) The Chi that moves is called the Yang; the Chi that rests is called the Yin. Thus, according to Chu Hsi, the dualistic elements that are the fundamentals of the universe in Chinese cosmology are produced. He says: “Whereas the Yang is in movement and the Yin in quiescence, the Supreme Ultimate is neither in movement nor in quiescence. But there are the Li of movement and of quiescence. These Li are invisible, and become manifest to us only when there are the movement of the Yang and the quiescence of the Yin. The Li rests upon the Yin and Yang just as a man rides on a horse.” (Complete Works, chiian 49.)
We recognize a similarity of Hsi’s Li and Chi to Kastner’s description of the transaction process that creates spacetime and the manifest objects that are found there. This consists in the idea that there is more to reality than spacetime, and that quantum theory is what describes that subtler, unseen reality. In this hypothesis, quantum processes take place in a realm scaffolding the spacetime realm. Quanta are not contained in our spacetime world but in the realm of possibilities outside spacetime. Kastner explains that according to the transaction interpretation of quantum systems, such as electrons, travel by what is a physical entity called an offer wave , which is offered from a source called an emitter, to a destination called an absorber. The microscopic emitters and absorbers are quantum objects and not in spacetime. When there is absorption of the offer, this process gives rise to a confirmation wave that travels back to the emitter. This process of an offer responded to by a confirmation is the basic ‘handshake’. The confirmation is also like a mirror image of the offer representing an incipient transaction whose essence is merely possible energy rather than real energy. The process of the creation of new particles can only be treated by relativitsic quantum mechanics.
Once there is a matching confirmation, then the property is defined as actualized, brought into spacetime and is a classical property. The incipient transaction is actualized and becomes an observable event in the macroworld.A spacetime object begins at the point at which a confirmation has been generated. Real energy is only conveyed in the actualized transaction, in fact, only through an actualized transaction can real energy be radiated or transferred from one object to another. So indeed, a reliable macroscopic object is a consistent absorber and can be defined as a system of many actualized transactions. Kastner uses the example of a geiger counter to illustrate the difference of the two ‘worlds’. A geiger counter exists as an object in the macroscopic world being a conglomerate of actualized transactions. But it also maintains its roots in the quantumland domain of possibilities because it is comprised of atoms, which can act as emitters or absorbers. Measurement occurs both whenever an absorber is accessible to an emitter and when confirmations are generated.
So we can consider that the emitted offer wave from ‘quantumland’ or ‘Li’ is actualized in the transaction or ‘Chi’ created from the process at the inherently unpredictable quantum level to the macroscopic level of transformed spacetime events. In fact, there is no spacetime or things and substance apart from those transforming events. In the subtler level of uncertainty or quantum, emission or absorption of transaction are not automatically assured, they are only tendencies: the swapping of virtual quanta which do not participate in energy transferring transactions unless they are elevated to offer waves or real photons.
The distinction between macroscopic world and microscopic or quantum world is made when classical physics describes the macro of atoms and other fundamental components of matter while the underlying hidden actuality corresponds to the quantum level. For humans then, the essence of existence is fundamentally ‘quantumland’ or Li while our experienced Actual as expressed through Chi is the manifested in spacetime.
So everything around us is the result of an actualized event established through actualized transactions. This is the world of appearance or spacetime. But all those events are brought into spacetime from the vast unseen hidden reality of quantumland which exists as the essential scaffolding that supports our spacetime world of experience. In this light, it becomes possible to clearly draw the similarities between the Chu Hsi’s Neo-Confucian concepts of Li and Chi with Kastner’s proposed operation of quantumland and spacetime. This matching of perspective helps to illuminate the position of both on the operation of forces in the universe.
Interesting and Surprising Facts about the Buddha and his Teachings
12 MarThe Buddha was the first thinker in known history to teach the doctrine of human equality and social freedom amongst all humans. Society should be open to all, regardless of caste, color, or class. No caste, class, or race privileges existed among his lay followers or in the Order of the Sangha that he founded. Instead, social classes and castes are nothing but functional divisions of society, man-made, subject to change and resulting from social and historical factors. Any social doctrine based on the alleged superiority of a caste, class, or race, and advocating to keep it dominant by the use of force, will lead to the perpetuation of social tensions and conflict, and never bring about harmony and equality. The Buddha’s doctrine of equality means each person should be treated equally with dignity, and given an equal chance to develop their inherent potentials of economic, moral and spiritual progress, and of human perfection. Also, the Buddha was the first who attempted to abolish slavery, which included the traffic in, and the sale of, females for commercial purposes. In fact, this is a prohibited trade for his followers.
A man named Dighajanu once visited the Buddha and said, ‘Venerable Sir, we are ordinary laymen, leading a family life with wife and children. Would the Blessed One teach us some doctrines which will be conducive to our happiness in this world and hereafter?’ In a large number of his discourses, the Buddha has given practical guidance for the lay life and sound advice to cope with life’s difficulties. The Buddha identified four traits conducive to lay happiness (Pali: sukha) in this life: hard-working (uṭṭhāna-sampadā), being skilled and diligent in one’s livelihood; vigilance (ārakkha-sampadā), protecting one’s wealth from theft and disaster; virtuous friendship (kalyāṇa-mittatā), associating with and emulating those who are learned, generous, virtuous, wise, who will help one along the right path away; and, balanced living (sama-jīvikatā), abstaining from drunkenness, gambling and unwholesome friendships and behaviors.While accepting material comforts, Buddhism always lays great stress on the development of the moral and spiritual character for a happy, peaceful and contented life as well as society.
Buddhism teaches ‘The Middle Way’ because it avoids the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.
For six years the, to be, Buddha fervently followed a path of self-mortification, yet it led, not to higher wisdom and enlightenment, but only to physical weakness and the deterioration of his mental faculties. Ascetic Gotama then thought of another path to enlightenment, one which balanced proper care of the body with sustained contemplation and deep investigation. He would later call this path “the Middle Way”. He had experienced both extremes, the former as a prince and the latter as an ascetic, and he knew they were ultimately dead ends. To follow the middle way, however, he realized he would first have to regain his strength. Thus, he gave up his practice of austerities and resumed taking nutritious food. Later, He became Awakened and The Noble Buddha.
The name bhikkhuni refers to a fully ordained Buddhist nun i.e. a woman who has taken higher ordination (upasampada) in the Buddhist monastic community. Bhikkhunis live a simple life, equal to that of a bhikkhu or monk. In fact, all the monks and nuns are equal as the disciples of the Buddha. The order of nuns was established lastly, after the Bhikkhu Sangha, and the communities of laymen and laywomen. Ananda asked the Buddha, “Lord Buddha, can women attain enlightenment?” The Buddha said to him, “Ananda, yes of course they can.” He said, “If they can, why don’t you allow them to join the Sangha, learning and practicing directly?’ Because of practical considerations, it took some time and persuasion for the Bhikkhuni Sangha to be established by the Buddha, but thanks to Maha Pajapati-Gotami and Ananda’s support it came to be.
In Buddhism, actions are not termed ‘sinful’ but unskilful or unwholesome. Buddhists do regard humans as sinful or ‘evil’ by nature but the wicked person is ignorant, foolish and immature. They need instruction most of all, more than punishment and condemnation. The Buddha has encouraged us to develop and use our highest understandings through responsibility for our thoughts and actions. Our suffering is not handed down by the Gods, instead, it is created by our not understanding the great principles of life: Life is impermanent, continuously changing and interrelated; there is No-Self and there is Suffering in life. As our Enlightened teacher, The Buddha advised us on how to lead a pure life and achieve the attainment of nibbana.
The Buddha did not encourage the use of magic, charms or fortune telling to improve our lives. They have no spiritual significance or value. It is only through our Right Understanding, Right Effort and Right Practice that we advance.
In the Kalamas Sutta, the Buddha said, ‘Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.’ Many honest seekers today, like the Kalamas, of the Truth become confused and worried by the many conflicting and inconsistent sects and theologies that are pronounced daily by so many people calling themselves the ‘light to follow’. The Buddha provided a simple and direct test to guide us to know the truth of his teaching: trust yourself, your own experience, and through your experience of the correct teachings which you have found to be reliable and insightful – follow and use. Those people who are “the wise” will teach with the plan that you will see the benefit for yourself through your experience and transformation and not through blind faith and, therefore, you don’t become a slave to their wisdom, instead, you use your reason, your common sense, and your own experience as the ultimate guide and confirmation. So you develop insights for yourself ultimately. While you can benefit from reading books and listening to teachers, etc, your true reliance is upon your real understanding created through the real work that must ultimately be done in transforming and purifying our individual mind. In the end you know for yourself the confirmation of the Buddha’s teachings – there is suffering and the ending of suffering- and this is the only authority needed or desirable.
The Buddha spoke of “beginningless time” and how there is no beginning. The Buddha said that “there is no first beginning, no first beginning is knowable.” (Samyutta Nikaya 15.1-2) This implies that certainly at even the most basic level of existence, everything is made of the same atoms and cosmic ‘stuff’ and we see exclusion and separation only made by our minds.
The Buddha gave to all a practical method (Eighfold Path) for the development of the mind and heart for the shaping of our lives to eventually achieve Awakening or Enlightenment. He did not teach theology or doctrinal orthodoxy. The Buddha understood that all religious doctrines and theology are human inventions built up by the particular authors out of their own mentalities and foisted on people’s minds from the outside. Instead, The Buddha was the teacher who gave the lessons and, if we so want, we are the ones who practice sincerely what he taught and thereby develop our own insights and knowledge of especially the primary Three Universal Truths of Impermanence, No-Self and the existence of Suffering. In Buddhism this is entirely a matter that each individual has to settle for him/herself. But if one makes the effort sincerely- the benefits appear immediately.
Emperor Asoka (304–232 BCE) was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from c. 268 to 232 BCE. He [propagated the relatively new doctrine of Buddhism to new heights, as far as ancient Rome and Egypt. He made Buddhism his state religion around 260 BC. He built thousands of Stupas and Viharas for Buddhist followers. The Stupas of Sanchi are world famous and the Stupa named Sanchi Stupa was built by Emperor Ashoka. During the remaining portion of Ashoka’s reign, he pursued an official policy of nonviolence (Ahimsa). Even the unnecessary slaughter or mutilation of Animals was immediately abolished. Everyone became protected by the king’s law against sport Hunting and branding. Limited Hunting was permitted for consumption reasons but Ashoka also promoted the concept of vegetarianism. Ashoka also showed mercy to those imprisoned, allowing them leave for the outside a day of the year. He attempted to raise the professional ambition of the common man by building universities for study, and water transit and irrigation systems for trade and agriculture. He treated his subjects as equals regardless of their religion, politics and Caste. The kingdoms surrounding his, so easily overthrown, were instead made to be well-respected allies. He is acclaimed for constructing hospitals for Animals and renovating major roads throughout India. After this transformation, Ashoka came to be known as Dhammashoka (Sanskrit), meaning Ashoka, the follower of Dharma. Ashoka defined the main principles of Dharma (Dhamma) as nonviolence, tolerance of all sects and opinions, obedience to parents, respect for the Brahmans and other religious teachers and priests, liberality towards friends, humane treatment of servants, and Generosity towards all.
Buddhism teaches that the two qualities-wisdom with compassion—are as interdependent as the two wings of a great bird. Together, where there is true wisdom there is compassion, where there is true compassion there is wisdom. This teaching develops positive cooperative relationships among all people and with sentient beings. It is a teaching for a peaceful, fruitful world and enlightened personal mentality.
Buddhism is concerned with how anyone, male or female, can follow a definite path of mental culture and development to have that same realization. In his own lifetime, The Buddha saw many of his followers realize Enlightenment. After his death, and down through the centuries, thousands have experienced the awakened state – and not only monks. Buddhism is a teaching that explains how realization can be acquired in one’s life – here and now.
The Greeks had a story of a handsome young man named Narcissus who went to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image or illusion. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, later he fell in the water and drowned. Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself and one’s physical appearance.
The Buddha, before the Greeks, warned of the suffering caused by a belief and love of the illusion of a self. The Greek story is a nice exposition on this ignorance and the dire consequences of it. The Buddha taught the doctrine of Anatta or no-self.
Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, the first representations of the physical Buddha were developed. These were absent from earlier Buddhist art, which preferred to represent the Buddha with symbols such as the stupa, the Bodhi tree, the empty seat, the wheel, or the footprints. The Buddha never encouraged statues or artistic representations of himself when he was living. The physical Buddha image like the standing Buddha in the photo was inspired by the sculptural styles of Hellenistic Greek influence.
When some people hear Buddhists say that ‘The World is an Illusion’ they think that means everything in the world is unreal, an illusion. This is a misunderstanding. The Buddha taught that the external environment is ‘real’ but our understanding of it is filtered through our senses, expectations, identities, and memories so our mental construction of the world is an illusion in that we believe that to be the ‘real’ reality but it isn’t – it is like a magic show. To be Awakened is to see beyond the tricks of the magician.
The Doctrine of Karma or Kamma is not a mystical force and does not entail fatalism. Instead, it is a natural phenomenon, like gravity. Our thoughts create consequences inside our mind which we then act on. The doctrine refers to our intentional mental actions- our volitions. What we are now is determined by our thoughts and actions in the past and what we do next, in the future, is determined by our thoughts and actions in the present. Therefore, our kamma has the potential to continuously change depending on our development of our thoughts and actions. The Buddha was very clear in teaching the Noble Eightfold Path that we can definitely transform the quality of our mind and action for the better and ultimately achieve Enlightenment. So Karma does not mean that we have a fixed destiny across lifetimes that we must passively accept or that bad or good things happen only because of our past actions.
Thoughts about The Buddha’s Teaching: Seeing Without Illusion
18 JanThe Buddha placed primary importance on our thinking and volition. In fact, our difficulties arise when our thinking is unwholesome, in the past and in the present. Our citta or heart/mind is our kingdom or our own mentality. It is our private place where the swirl of thoughts continually passes across our mind. No one but yourself can know what truly goes on there. There is both privacy and the possible control to think the thoughts you want. You can choose which thoughts to accept or refuse. Whichever thoughts you allow will shortly be expressed through your volition in the outer environment. Once you think the thoughts, you can not take them back. Your choice lies in thinking or not thinking them in the first place. The more you think unwholesome thoughts, it is like taking a substance that will sicken you both physically and mentally. What your mind dwells on will sooner or later become your ‘world’ and you will attract those energies to you. To entertain and encourage thoughts and feelings of anger, jealousy, resentment, greed, etc., is certain to not only damage your health in some way but also cause a lot of trouble and suffering in your life. So the Buddha taught you to be Mindful or aware every moment onwards, to watch even your habitual thinking with utmost care and nurture and promote only wholesome and skillful thinking. May All Beings Be Well and Happy.
The Buddha emphatically declared that the first beginning of existence is something inconceivable.“When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When
this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases, namely: dependent on ignorance, arise volitional formations … and so on … Thus is the ending of this whole
mass of suffering.”There is a flux of
psychological and physiological changes, a conflux of mind and body (nāma-rūpa).Anamatagga Saṃyutta, S II 179
And even now in physics, they say that ‘Now’ is not something that moves forward but it is the empirically-always-present field of change which is the domain in which events are created. Therefore, the future is always indeterminate and creating new possibilities opening for genuine free will. Ruth E. Kastner
The young man said to the Buddha, ‘I will take up the Eightfold Path when I am older, but first I want to enjoy myself and have fun.’ Many people have this idea that by following the Eightfold Path they will be giving up things like intense sense pleasures and self-importance as well as riches and beautiful objects that they will regret not having experienced later. Instead this misses the big picture which is that what one truly comes to sacrifice by personal development through the Buddha’s teachings is selfishness, fear, alienation, insecurity, physical malady, unwholesome pleasures, pride, vanity, doubt, jealousy, self-pity, cravings, anger, hatred, etc. and, instead, what one gains through the Bhavana training includes immeasurably more happiness, peace, joy, compassion, bliss,serenity and vastly improved relationships with all sentient beings as well as oneself. So only giving up things that are not truly worth having and instead of gaining that which is, is the final ample compensation for proceeding diligently on the Eightfold Path until achieving Enlightenment.
The Buddha gave to all a practical method (Eightfold Path) for the development of the mind and heart for the shaping of our lives to eventually achieve Awakening or Enlightenment. He did not teach theology or doctrinal orthodoxy. The Buddha understood that all religious doctrines and theology are human inventions built up by the particular authors out of their own mentalities and foisted on people’s minds from the outside. Instead, The Buddha was the teacher who gave the lessons and, if we so want, we are the ones who practice sincerely what he taught and thereby develop our own insights and knowledge of especially the primary Three Universal Truths of Impermanence, No-Self and the existence of Suffering. In Buddhism, this is entirely a matter that each individual has to settle for him/herself. But if one makes the effort sincerely- the benefits appear immediately.
A wonderful and powerful practice is with especially people we have difficulty with but also all people- when you see or interact with that difficult person imagine seeing their living Buddha Nature and then you will see the layers and type of ignorance with which you are interacting. This practice is good for not only maintaining our own composure but also helps in our judgment of the difficulty of the situation. With metta.
The Realms or Worlds from ‘hell’ to ‘heaven’ are commonly described as extra-human realms but they are also instructive to us when viewed as all of our ranges of mental experience created by our conscious as well as non-conscious mental or cognitive processes.
Whatever we give our attention to, is what governs our life – mentally and physically. We have freedom in our ability to choose what we direct and maintain our attention on. What we consistently pay attention to becomes our ‘world’ and habitually dominates it. If we constantly direct our attention on the ever-changing, impermanent outer world we suffer anxiety and uncertainty; if we direct our attention on nothing in particular then nothing, in particular, is expressed in our life with uncertainty and boredom. If we direct our attention to the four divine internal states and eventually arrive at Emptiness we experience happiness/bliss, good health, compassion, wisdom and certainty in the Truth of the Four Noble Truths.
Metta (loving-kindness) is defined as follows: Loving-kindness has the mode of friendliness for its characteristic. Its natural function is to promote friendliness. It is manifested as the disappearance of ill-will. Its footing is seeing with kindness. When it succeeds it eliminates ill-will. When it fails it degenerates into selfish affectionate desire. Eventually, one can begin to practice loving-kindness towards a dearly beloved companion, and then towards a neutral person as very dear, or towards an enemy as neutral. It is when dealing with an enemy that anger can arise, and all means must be tried in order to get rid of it. As soon as this has succeeded, one will be able to regard an enemy without resentment and with loving-kindness in the same way as one does the admired person, the dearly loved friend and the neutral person. Then with repeated practice, jhana absorption should be attained in all cases. Loving-kindness can now be effectively maintained in being towards all beings.Ñanamoli Thera
However, those who believe in a soul only too often override the limits set by experience and concern themselves with “something completely unknowable,” as Bertrand Russell says. Moving along these wrong tracks of thought, they readily admit that all cognizable and experiential constituents of the “personality” are subject to constant change, to an unceasing rise and fall; and for that reason, they, of course, cannot be considered as an abiding ego. But it is, so they believe, just from behind or beyond the cognizable and experiential components of the personality that the true eternal self or soul appears which, naturally, must be beyond cognition and experience. What is wrong in such a position and in these conclusions, has chiefly to be attributed to the fact that an empty concept has been raised to the dignity of man’s true essence or core—a concept obtained by mere abstract ratiocination, having nothing in common with observation and experience. The futility of such a play with words has been shown by Kant. For him, a way of thinking that transgresses the limits drawn by experience is playing with ideas, and the alleged vision of something imperceptible is “a poetic fiction transcending everything imaginable, a mere whim.”The Buddha and his monks, however, are no dreamers chasing after metaphysical phantoms. They are sober realists who will not admit such groundless speculations even to the range of their considerations or refutations. Dr. Anton Kropatsch, Vienna
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all -Joni Mitchell
This is the true question that the Buddha’s teachings really address – ‘Do I Really Know Life At All?’ And in investigating the question, the answer becomes quite clear- for the uninvestigated mind, No…I don’t. All existence is much too complex, interrelated and deep for us prideful humans to truly comprehend and indeed mystery is the result. But this is not a defeat but an affirmation of our embeddedness and interrelatedness with All of other existence. Not the folly, alienation and separateness of the conceit of humans being the supreme being of the universe or even earth but the authentic identification of the true ecological, co-arising nature of all things. You will hear people say, ‘I am trying to find myself.’ But if you want to find yourself, then transcend yourself. When we transcend our-self, we truly find each other and our interconnection with all. We are not alone! Just look around you, there are creatures of life everywhere. If we feel alone, that is our blindness to life all around us, our suffering of alienation created by the illusion of separateness and ‘I’.
The Buddha understood how humans create “conceptual proliferation”- thinking, a representational and abstracting process that they believe and attach to. This is another way to speak about that:
When the animals evolved the talent to produce a virtual presence, they acquired a soul.
Then there was a God to be adored.
And an Adam was created.
As production of virtual presences increases, man’s tie to the Real decreases. Soon, he praises innovation and inhuman courage. He invents thrills and excitements. He relies on myths and mysteries. He downgrades Nature with a reckless chisel. Life becomes the Grand Illusion. With a facility in the manipulation of the virtual presences, the primal Superman was born. With perfection in the art, a second Devil took charge. It was then that man came to defy the God. The interminable conflict thrusting the virtual presences against the real intensifies. R. G. H. Siu
Upon Awakening the Buddha realized emptiness and the illusion of duality and a substantial Self- the consequences of the ignorance of dualistic thinking is expressed well in the following quote by Professor l. k. Tong-‘And so you opted for the substantialist’s art of self-making, Cutting off all umbilical cords to the Mother of Field-Being. You first dignify yourself in the kingly robes of an independent entity, enthroning yourself in the lonely kingdom of ego-substance. Then with the projective magic of your subjective substantiality, you objectify everything on your way to Godlike rigidity. And with the pointing of the substantializing wand, a bond was broken; a shade of mutuality has withered and waned. Now everything becomes merely external and separate from everything else. External is your objective world, you objectified a God, and your objectified self. Anything you cannot safely possess and control you relegate to the dark side of the Other, the Hell, the objective pole, And condemned it as ugly, or evil. Oh, in carrying your Godlike rigidity to all eternity (as if you were in fact rigidly eternal), you, a virtuoso in dualization, have created the most unhappy situation.’
In the Kalamas Sutta, the Buddha said, ‘Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.’
Many honest seekers today of the Truth, like the Kalamas, become confused and worried by the many conflicting and inconsistent sects and theologies that are pronounced daily by so many people calling themselves the ‘light to follow’. The Buddha provided a simple and direct test to guide us to know the truth of his teaching: trust yourself, your own experience, and through your experience of the correct teachings which you have found to be reliable and insightful – follow and use. Those people who are “the wise” will teach with the plan that you will see the benefit for yourself through your experience and transformation and not through blind faith and, therefore, you don’t become a slave to their wisdom, instead, you use your reason, your common sense, and your own experience as the ultimate guide and confirmation. So you develop insights for yourself ultimately. While you can benefit from reading books and listening to teachers, etc, your true reliance is upon your real understanding created through the real work that must ultimately be done in transforming and purifying our individual mind. In the end you know for yourself the confirmation of the Buddha’s teachings – there is suffering and the ending of suffering- and this is the only authority needed or desirable.
‘To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to purify one’s mind—this is the teaching of the Buddhas.’ (Dhammapada 183.) Throughout human history, innumerable plans and schemes and doctrines have been invented to make people happy, serene and compassionate by making changes in human’s external conditions while leaving the quality of the mentality untouched and the result has over and over again been the same- failure. The Buddha taught that this failure is so because the very nature of our external existence is only changed by the purification of our conscious awareness. The difficulty for human history and never finding the key to happiness and compassion is that purification of one’s mind takes effort, diligence and devoted practice to be successful. We must have constant unceasing vigilance and mindfulness to break the old unwholesome mental habits which are so troublesome. The Buddha understood this but also understood the benefits that arise when we do the Eightfold Path with the result of Nibbana. ‘This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Nibbana.’— AN 3.32
To purify our mind as the Buddha taught, we need to release any anger or resentments toward others or our self. When we experience hurt, disappointment, deception, etc, from other people, these feelings sink into our memory and cause inflamed and festering emotional/psychological wounds of anger, resentment and possibly revenge. To purify our mind, we need to forgive. Forgiveness is a conscious, willing decision to release any feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. Forgiveness is difficult and it does not mean condoning or excusing offenses nor does it does obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you or releases them from accountability. Instead, forgiveness brings the forgiver peace of mind and frees him or her from corrosive anger and resentment. Forgiveness involves letting go of deeply held negative feelings but also maintaining a feeling of at least neutral goodwill toward everyone who may have injured you in any way. In that way, you to recognize the pain you suffered without letting that pain define you, enabling you to heal. By forgiveness, you set yourself free from the attachment to the link that you maintain even mentally to the past and the negativity. Setting yourself free from the attachment, releases you. This includes forgiveness of oneself for actions you did that you now understand was unwholesome and unskillful. Through purification and letting go of the guilt or resentment, happiness and peace will follow as well as increased wisdom and equanimity.
The Importance of Personal Refinement
14 Dec- This blog is about the topic of refinement in a personal sense.
I have read in different sources the difference between people who have developed a “refined” behavior, comportment vs. others who haven’t. For example, recently, I read a book on Haiku and there was a passage about Matsuo Bashò – the famous Japanese poet – in which he had expressed his thoughts on the nature of refinement and the nature of high art. He had written “Through the waka of Saigyò, the renga of Sògi, the painting of Sesshù and the tea of Rikyù, one thing flows. People of such refinement submit to nature and befriend the four seasons. Where they look is nothing but flowers, what they think is nothing but the moon. Perceiving shapes other than flowers amounts to being a barbarian. Holding thoughts other than the moon is akin to being a beast. Come out from barbarians, depart from beasts. Submit to nature, return to nature.”
I must admit that for some reason, when I was growing up, I had not learned well the importance and self-efficacious nature of refinement. I had approached the topic with suspicion and trepidation. I had associated it with pompousness, exaggerated ego and elitism. It appeared to be a behavior of the upper class not necessary or desirable for the working middle class. It was a bother like music lessons. Now I see this erroneous attitude of mine had to do with an understanding/approach to myself.
Growing up in the USA, a perspective I had learned was that I should be simple, plain, and not self aware to any great extent, not taking pleasure in the appreciation of my own development needed in personal refinement. Much of my distaste for personal refinement was a psychological attitude toward myself fostered by a Protestant ethic of simplicity, sameness and plainness. While I certainly was taught good manners and etiquette in my family as well as encouraged to appreciate art and music, etc, my mental block toward fostering personal refinement was the attitude toward the self. Simplicity was equated with simplicity of self as from a Protestant perspective. Now I see that as an American, the cultural linage from the Quakers, Amish, Baptists and other moral but stern Christian people have been a pervasive cultural baggage that significantly influenced my psychological development.
Max Weber had written extensively on the Protestant ethic and the following quote exemplifies this ethic’s approach to the Fine Arts. “But the situation is quite different when one looks at non-scientific literature and especially the fine arts. Here asceticism descended like a frost on the life of “Merrie old England.” And not only worldly merriment felt its effect. The Puritan’s ferocious hatred of everything which smacked of superstition, of all survivals of magical or sacramental salvation, applied to the Christmas festivities and the May Pole and all spontaneous religious art. That there was room in Holland for a great, often uncouthly realistic art proves only how far from completely the authoritarian moral discipline of that country was able to counteract the influence of the court and the regents (a class of rentiers), and also the joy in life of the parvenu bourgeoisie, after the short supremacy of the Calvinistic theocracy had been transformed into a moderate national Church, and with it Calvinism had perceptibly lost in its power of ascetic influence.
The theatre was obnoxious to the Puritans, and with the strict exclusion of the erotic and of nudity from the realm of toleration, a radical view of either literature or art could not exist. The conceptions of idle talk, of superfluities, and of vain ostentation, all designations of an irrational attitude without objective purpose, thus not ascetic, and especially not serving the glory of God, but of man, were always at hand to serve in deciding in favour of sober utility as against any artistic tendencies. This was especially true in the case of decoration of the person, for instance clothing. That powerful tendency toward uniformity of life, which today so immensely aids the capitalistic interest in the standardization of production, had its ideal foundations in the repudiation of all idolatry of the flesh.”
Also as David Kelley wrote, perhaps my coming of age in the ‘60’s had important consequences to my attitude toward the self discipline needed to refine one’s mental culture and behavior. “Rousseau hated the cosmopolitanism and refinement of Enlightenment life and vehemently criticized inequality, which he thought was an inescapable consequence of civilization. He offered an idealized image of primitive man not yet corrupted by civilization and of life in a nature not yet polluted by cities or machines. The source of those primitivist views was Rousseau’s antipathy to reason. He felt that emotion and instinct should be our guides to action. In this respect, he was the father of the 19th-century Romantic poets and of the counterculture of the 1960s, with its demand for sexual liberation, its contempt for “bourgeois morality,” its emphasis on self-expression rather than self-discipline. The Age of Aquarius sought release from the constraints of reason through drugs and New Age religions. Like Rousseau, it rejected the cosmopolitan modernism of the Enlightenment and praised the authenticity of primitive modes of life.”
Whatever the influences, it wasn’t until I started to explore other cultural points of view that I began to experiment with new ways of approaching myself. A significant influence for me became, and continues to this day, Buddhism with its emphasis on mental culture and etiquette as a means of better comprehending and relating to one’s self and the world. Etiquette became for me a practice which, in general, is concerned with the refinement of human behavior in its relationship with other human beings. Instead of being a system of self approval and haughtiness/superiority- ‘my etiquette is better than yours’-, it is a method of self refinement done in humility.
With my study and practice of Buddhism, I slowly began to approach my thoughts and behaviors in a manner that fostered refinement with humility. The results were satisfying which continued to encourage my practice. The use of meditation, esp. mindfulness, opened a new experience. As Robert Bogoda wrote, “The particularly important method of experiential verification necessitates consistent Buddhist practice—usually contemplation and meditation-as this refines the ability of a person to trust his or her senses through the cultivation of awareness and the implementation of mindfulness in everyday life. Buddhists posit that cultivated awareness is a requisite for trusting the information gathered from the senses, so that emotions and prejudices do not cloud one’s judgments. The refinement of one’s ability to accurately perceive the world and thus trust his or her senses is a primary reason why meditation is central to Buddhist practice.
Sati or bare attention is an important aspect of mindfulness. Sati is the objective seeing of things stripped bare of likes and dislikes, bias and prejudice. It is viewing things and events as they really are — the naked facts. The ability to do this is a sign of true Buddhist maturity. The principle of bare attention should be applied vigorously to everyday thinking. The results will be: clearer thinking and saner living, a marked reduction in the pernicious influence of mass media propaganda and advertisements, and an improvement in our inter-personal relationships. “
The Buddhist approach teaches that progress along the path does not follow a simple linear trajectory. Rather, development of each aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path encourages the refinement and strengthening of the others, leading the practitioner ever forward in an upward spiral of spiritual maturity that culminates in Awakening. Put briefly, it states that action is real, effective, and the result of one’s own choice. If one chooses to act skillfully and works to develop that skill, one’s actions can lead to happiness.
Now I think that refinement corresponds to sensitivity and comprehension. An increased sensitivity which of course also means an alteration in the self. The self is ‘entangled’ – (I borrow a term from quantum physics which means, ‘a system (relationship) containing two or more objects, where the objects that make up the system are linked in a way that one cannot adequately describe the state of a constituent of the system without full mention of its counterparts, even if the individual objects are spatially separated with the other.’ The division of self/object is absent and both are one interacting experience. It is a sense based experience.
From another perspective David L. Barnhill wrote, “Phenomenological hermeneutics focuses on experience, seeing it not as a subjective being experiencing an objective reality but rather a mutual implication of subject and object. That is, subject and object are not separate entities but part of a single field of experience, like poles of a continuum. What the author (for example Bashō) experienced was his particular being-in-the-world, not some objective reality. The text arises out of that experience and is itself a presentation of a mode of experience.”
Several examples of this experience are the following translations of a haiku written by Bashò:
Thinking to gaze at them, I drew extremely close to the cherry blossoms, making the parting ever so painful. trans. James Brandon
Gazing at them, these blossoms have grown so much a part of me, to part with them when they fall seems bitter indeed! trans. Burton Watson
“Detached” observer Of blossoms finds himself in time Intimate with them– So, when they separate from the branch, It’s he who falls…deeply into grief. trans. William R. LaFleur
So to conclude, I now understand better and value highly what Bashò wrote regarding refinement, however, I would not be so strong in my characterization of people who haven’t yet come to understand the significance and transformative nature of personal refinement –“barbarian”. I like better the terms skillful vs. unskillful.
O’ GREAT SPIRIT help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence. Cherokee Prayer
IS QI/Ki/CHI REAL or only a NEW AGE FANTASY? 2
14 DecTo continue this topic—
There is no longer any doubt that electrical currents do flow through the entire body in an intercommunicating network [54], and these electrical currents can indeed be detected as ultraweak magnetic fields by the SQUID magnetometer.
Acupuncture meridians were observed to have the properties of electrical transmission lines [46, 47]; by contrast, acupuncture points typically exhibit 10 to 100-fold lower electrical resistances compared with the surrounding skin. Acupuncture points may correspond to singularities or gaps between collagen fibres, or where collagen fibres are oriented at right angles to the dermal layer. Indeed, acupuncture points tend to be located along cleavage planes between muscles, or between muscle and bone or tendon [48]. Acupuncture points may also represent important junctions between channels and can thus simultaneously influence distant sites, as for example, sticking a needle into the acupuncture point at the side of the little toe could either be stimulating the eye to create signals in the visual cortex of the brain, or else it could be stimulating both eye and brain at the same time.
The conducting water channels in the connective tissues are continuous with the ordered hydrogen-bonded water proton wires – in the ion-channel proteins of the cell membrane. There is thus a direct electrical link between distant signals and the inside of every single cell in the body, capable of causing physiological changes inside the cells, including all nerve cells. This electrical channel of intercommunication depends on the mechanical continuity of the connective tissue matrix, a continuum that always changes as a whole. Mae- Won Ho
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It is important that you know about the progress that has been made by modern science in the study of Qi. This will keep you from getting stuck in the ancient concepts and level of understanding. In ancient China, people had very little knowledge of electricity. They only knew from acupuncture that when a needle was inserted into the acupuncture cavities, some kind of energy other than heat was produced which often caused a shocking or a tickling sensation. It was not until the last few decades, when the Chinese people were more acquainted with electromagnetic science, that they began to recognize that this energy circulating in the body, which they called Qi, might be the same thing as what today’s science calls bioelectricity. We must look at what modern Western science has discovered about bioelectromagnetic energy. Many bioelectricity related reports have been published, and frequently the results are closely related to what is experienced in Chinese Qigong training and medical science. For example, during the electrophysiological research of the 1960s, several investigators discovered that bones are piezoelectric; that is, when they are stressed, mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy in the form of electric current. This might explain one of the practices of Marrow Washing Qigong in which the stress on the bones and muscles is increased in certain ways to increase the Qi circulation.
It is understood now that the human body is constructed of many different electrically conductive materials, and that it forms a living electromagnetic field and circuit. Electromagnetic energy is continuously being generated in the human body through the biochemical reaction in food and air assimilation and circulated by the electromotive forces (EMF) generated within the body.
In addition, you are constantly being affected by external electromagnetic fields such as that of the earth, or the electrical fields generated by clouds. When you practice Chinese medicine or Qigong, you need to be aware of these outside factors and take them into account.
Countless experiments have been conducted in China, Japan, and other countries to study how external magnetic or electrical fields can affect and adjust the body’s Qi field. Many acupuncturists use magnets and electricity in their treatments. They attach a magnet to the skin over a cavity and leave it there for a period of time. The magnetic field gradually affects the Qi circulation in that channel.
Alternatively, they insert needles into cavities and then run an electric current through the needle to reach the Qi channels directly. Although many researchers have claimed a degree of success in their experiments, none has been able to publish any detailed and convincing proof of the results or give a good explanation of the theory behind the experiment. As with many other attempts to explain the How and Why of acupuncture, conclusive proof is elusive, and many unanswered questions remain. Of course, this theory is quite new, and it will take more study and research before it is verified and completely understood.
Much of the research on the body’s electrical field relates to acupuncture. For example, Dr. Robert O. Becker, author of The Body Electric, reports that the conductivity of the skin is much higher at acupuncture cavities and that it is now possible to locate them precisely by measuring the skin’s conductivity. Many of these reports prove that the acupuncture which has been done in China for thousands of years is reasonable and scientific.
Although the link between the theory of the Body Electric and the Chinese theory of Qi is becoming more accepted and better proven, there are still many questions to be answered. For example, how can the mind lead to Qi (electricity)? (Of course, we know that there is no separation of mind/body- so there is no mystery- Rodger)How actually does the mind generate an EMF (electromotive force) to circulate the electricity in the body? How is the human electromagnetic field affected by the multitude of other electric fields which surround us, such as radio wiring or electrical appliances? How can we readjust our electromagnetic fields and survive in outer space or on other planets where the magnetic field is completely different from the earth? You can see that the future of Qigong and bioelectric science is a challenging and exciting one. It is about time that we started to use modern technology to understand the inner energy world which has been for the most part ignored by Western society.
This article is a direct translation of text from the book Taijiquan, Classical Yang Style by Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. YMAA 1999
theoretical incompleteness
14 Dec- That the human mind does not perceive what is “there”, but what it believes should be “there”. H. von Foerster
- “The Theory is only proposing a more detached view of the place in which our Consciousness is spacing; it is meant to be a more holistic kind of Physics. On the other hand, we must accept the fact that all theories, including the present one, are only approximations of the Truth. Only if Man had an infinite mind he/she would be able to grasp Total Reality. By just verbalizing something, we have already approximated it. Math comes closer, but it is still an approximation, because Nature has too many domains from which it emanates. The fact that it is open-ended at its outer edge doesn’t allow us to take seriously any Theory of Everything.”R. Lampis
- Thus it is most likely the case that no human endeavor is immune to theoretical incompleteness. This would then imply that any idea or concept cannot be completely defined, axiomatized or contextualized. It would also mean that a general correspondence theory of truth is unattainable and, moreover, that the notion of truth, itself, is undefinable. J.Mathen
- Vasubandhu writes “Thought involves a transformation of consciousness. For that reason, what has been thought does not exist. Therefore, all this is mere concept.” There is no denial of an object here. What is denied is the existence of a real object that is reflected “as it is” in consciousness. The fact that consciousness, while reflecting the object, has passed through several transformations makes it impossible for the object to be known “as it is.” For this reason, all that is available is a “concept” (vijnapti), not an ultimate reality or substance, either in oneself or in the world of experience. D.J. Kalupahana
- Basic reality, i.e., reality which exists independently of the observer, is in principle not accessible in any DIRECT WAY. Rather, it is observable or describable by means of pictures on different levels, i.e., levels of reality. W. Schommers
- Everything is located in the head, not only the products of fantasy and scientific laws, but those things which we understand as “hard” objects. This is because we do not have the “hard” objects actually in front of us but “only” their pictures. W. Schommers The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment. B. d ‘Espagnat
- When we reflect we abstract, that is, we divert attention from all that does not concern our purpose, and we generalize and construct in reflection only under the logical conceptions which are appropriate from our standpoint. Thus we study a living being from one or another outlook. It is sheer fallacy to assume that because one of those views is itself justified the others are therefore false. Reality is more than what in each case it has taken by abstraction to be, and if it is so no single order of conceptions is adequate to complete explanation. Viscount Haldane
- “The entire universe has to be understood as a single, undivided whole, in which analysis into separately and independently existent parts has no fundamental status.” Bohm
- The reason we see our world as we do is because of what we use to observe it. The human body is a just barely adequate measuring device. Quantum mechanics does not always wash itself out, but to observe its effects for larger and larger objects we would need more and more accurate measurement devices. We just do not have the sensitivity to observe the quantum effects around us. In essence we do create the classical world we perceive, and as Brukner said, There could be other classical worlds completely different from ours. Brukner and Kofler
- There must exist, beyond mere appearances (…) a ‘veiled reality’ that science does not describe but only glimpses uncertainly. In turn, contrary to those who claim that matter is the only reality, the possibility that other means, including spirituality, may also provide a window on ultimate reality cannot be ruled out, even by cogent scientific arguments.” B.d’Espagnat
- David H. Wolpert, a physics-trained computer scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, has chimed in with his version of a knowledge limit. Because of it, he concludes, the universe lies beyond the grasp of any intellect, no matter how powerful, that could exist within the universe. Specifically, during the past two years, he has been refining a proof that no matter what laws of physics govern a universe, there are inevitably facts about the universe that its inhabitants cannot learn by experiment or predict with a computation.
- Continuous time then appears epistemologically as a heuristic abstraction just as are ALL concepts describing reality. H.D.Zeh
- As Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, puts it: “That your predictions about the universe are fundamentally constrained by you yourself being part of the universe you’re predicting, always seemed pretty obvious to me.”
- According to classical physics, the universe consists of bodies in space. We are tempted to assume, therefore, that we live in a physical world consisting of bodies in space and that what we perceive consists of objects in space. But this is very dubious. J.J.Gibson
- The objective reality of the universe, if such can be supposed to exist, must forever be unknowable to Man as to Microbe. Wei Wu Wei We are only aware of that aspect of the universe of which the senses we possess are able to inform us. Wei Wu Wei
- A man has six senses – as oriental psychology has always understood – for he is aware of that aspect of the universe which is his mind. If we had further senses we may suppose that we should become aware of further aspects of the universe. To imagine that the universe is restricted to that of which we are aware is probably as ill-founded in our case as in that of the insect. Wei Wu Wei
- In this post-modern world we must update the old positivistic, reductionist, deterministic, non-duality paradigms. Rodger
- Bohm termed the world of the “implicate order”. While the explicate order deals with seperateness and independence, the implicate order is holistic and mutually enfolding. To lapse into “explicate language” for a moment, the implicate order is much vaster than the explicate. It is like a great ocean reaching below the surface of the explicate. The fact that our world appears stable is not so much that objects remain static in our world, but that the same patterns are constantly being born again only to die away as fast as thought.Only limited aspects of the implicate order can be made explicit, one at a time. Thus the entire implicate can never be totally accounted for. F. David Peat
- …all knowledge in the conscious content is a differentiated system that cannot by definition articulate the universal principle of order. M Kafatos, R Nadeau
- The observer as an observer necessarily always remains in a descriptive domain, that is, in a relative cognitive domain. No description of an absolute reality is possible. Such a description would require an interaction with the absolute to be described, but the representation which would arise from such an interaction would necessarily be determined by the autopoietic organization of the observer, not by the deforming agent; hence, the cognitive reality that it would generate would unavoidably be relative to the knower. H.R. Maturana
- Somewhat ironically, science, having set out to know the ultimate nature of reality, is discovering that not only is this world beyond any direct experience, it may also be inherently unknowable P. Russell
- Human thinking can only imagine reality, just as a portrait represents a person. And as a portrait is not “the person” it represents, likewise any theory is not “the reality” it describes. We then must humbly recognize that our minds’ coherence and logic do not necessarily match the consistency of reality. And that also entails that reality does “occur” and that we cannot conclude it is an “illusion of our minds” simply because we cannot make sense of it. Henri Salles
- If the thing and the thought about it have their ground in the one undefinable and unknown totality of flux, then the attempt to explain their relationship by supposing that the thought is in reflective correspondence with the thing has no meaning, for both thought and thing are forms abstracted from the total process. The reason why these forms are related could only be in the ground form from which they arise, but there can be no way of discussing reflective correspondence in this ground, because reflective correspondence implies knowledge, while the ground is beyond what can be assimilated in the context of knowledge. D. Bohm
- “When you perceive intelligently, you always perceive a function, never an object in the physical sense. Cameras always register objects, but human perception is always the perception of functional roles. The two processes could not be more different…. Stanislaw Ulum
- The primary source of our confusion in analyzing the results of the experiments testing Bell’s inequality is that we have committed what Whitehead termed “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. We have accepted abstract theoritical statements about concrete material results in terms of single categories and limited points of view as totally explanatory. The fallacy is particulary obvious in our dealings with the results of the Aspen and Gisin experiments. Although the results infer wholeness in the sense that they show that the conditions for these experiments constitute an unanalyzable and undissectible whole, the abstract theory that helps us to coordinate the results cannot in principle disclose this wholeness. Since the abstract theory can only deal in complementary aspects of the complete reality disclosed in the act of measurement, that reality is not itself, in fact or in principle, disclosed…. With the discovery of nonlocality, it seems clear that the whole is not identical to the sum of its parts and that no collection of parts, no matter how arbitrarily large, can fully disclose or define the whole. R. Nadeau,M.Kafatos
- …WE ARE LED TO UNDERSTAND NATURE IN TERMS OF AN INEXHAUSTIBLE DIVERSITY AND MULTIPLICITY OF THINGS, ALL OF THEM RECIPROCALLY RELATED AND ALL OF THEM NECESSARILY TAKING PART IN THE PROCESS OF BECOMING, IN WHICH EXIST AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF RELATIVELY AUTONOMOUS AND CONTRSDICTORY KINDS OF MOTIONS. AS A RESULT NO PARTICULAR KIND OF THING CAN BE MORE THAN AN ABSTRACTION FROM THIS PROCESS, AN ABSTRACTION THAT IS VALID WITHIN A CERTAIN DEGREE OF APPROXIMATIONS, IN DEFINATE RANGES OF CONDITIONS, WITHIN A LIMITED CONTEXT, AND OVER A CHARACTERISTIC PERIOD OF TIME. SUCH AN ABSTRACTION EVIDENTLY CANNOT REPRESENT AN ABSOLUTE TRUTH; FOR TO DO THIS IT WOULD HAVE TO BE VALID WITHOUT APPROXIMATIONS, UNCONDITIONALLY, IN ALL POSSIBLE CONTEXTS, AND FOR ALL TIME. HENCE, ANY PARTICULAR THEORY WILL CONSTITUTE AN APPROXIMATE, CONDITIONAL, AND RELATIVE TRUTH….(NATURAL) LAWS HAVE AN OBJECTIVE CONTENT, IN THE SENSE THAT THEY REPRESENT SOME KIND OF NECESSITY THAT IS INDEPENDENT OF OUR WILLS AND OF THE WAY IN WHICH WE THINK ABOUT THINGS. D.BOHM
quotes about Unity of mind/body, consciousness, universe, 6th sense,synchronicity,choice, intention
14 Dec
..an order parameter isomorphism connects mind and body, will and brain, mental and neural events. Mind itself is a spatiotemporal pattern that molds the metastable dynamic patterns of the brain. Mind-body dualism is replaced by a single isomorphism, the heart of which is semantically meaningful pattern variables…. we sould take Sherrington’s “enchanted loom” image of the brain very seriously indeed. To provide a comprehensive online resource for those interested in learning about a sixth sense we call the squiggle sense. Why? Although all human beings possess the squiggle sense, most are unaware that they do. JA Scott Kelso
Choice is the degree of freedom of potential action of a quantum coherent organism which is maximally spontaneous and free. Rodger
The “self” is a representation of the autopoietic life experience of the quantum coherent human organism. Rodger
The “mind” is not distinct from the body. There is no mind/body dualism. The mind is the embedded consciousness of the quantum coherent organism. Therefore, the “mind” is intimately responsive to the physical aspects of the body-at all levels. Rodger
Intention is the innate autopoietic matrix of the quantum coherent organism. Rodger
Can’t have our cake and eat it too: The price we pay for living/activity is the arrow of time. Rodger
Consciousness emerges as a manifestation of the dissipative quantum dynamics of the brain. Professor Abrams
What does all this mean for consciousness? It simply means that reality, as empirically and mathematically demonstrated, does not exist in terms of a separately existing thing from which we take data. It means that reality is a question of a great number of configurations in which consciousness, the measuring device, and the thing measured exist in a configuration in which consciousness is an innate and intimate element. It means,… that consciousness is a necessary and original aspect of the universe as a whole and that consciousness is not merely an epiphenomenon piled on top of some material complexity, but that it was always already there in some aspect yet to be determined; … it means that the intuition of Nietzsche, the cosmic will to power, as described in Beyond Good and Evil, section 36, reflects a quantum mechanical view of the world. Nietzsche’s BGE 36 does nothing less than raise the question, consistent with the cosmology of his cosmic will to power, of the inseparability of perception from the material-energetic universe, a world which is not really external anymore–… it is, I believe, the most astonishing page in the history of philosophy… This is an ontology in which the stuff of the universe, whatever we may call it, has the element of consciousness. You cannot understand this statement if you insist on adhering to the idea of local and pre-existing reality for which you have been prepared by 2500 years of Platonism. What does this have to do with the macroscopic world? Let us turn to the idea of “coarse-graining”, a good introduction is found in Gell-Mann’s The Quark and the Jaguar. And let us remember that reality exists as a series of configurations and not as pre-existing and absolute local reality on which we will exercise our unprejudiced, scientific method. To put it another way–there are a great number of parallel universes and no original created and absolutely existing universe to which we blithely apply the scientific method in order to find out the truth. William Plank
It is clear that in some way, human nature is nature observing itself. This involves a self-referential recursion that must somehow be drawn from the wellsprings of its own nature. Human beings can be thought of quite literally as the complementary nature observing itself. This indicates that nature must entail some kind of non trivial self-reference. JA Scott Kelso,DA Engstrom
The universe must be self-reflectively aware of itself as reality-in-itself to manifest the order that is a prior condition for all manifestation of being. Since consciousness in its most narrow formulation for human beings can be defined as self-reflective awareness founded upon a sense of internal consistency or order, we can safely argue that the universe is, in this sense, conscious. Complementary constructs appear to be as fundamental to our conscious constructions of reality in ordinary and mathematical languages as they are to the unfolding of progressive stages of complexity in physical reality. The suggestion is that human consciousness infolds within itself the fundamental logical principle of the conscious universe, and is thereby enabled to construct a view of this universe in physical theory which describes the unfolding of the cosmic order at previous stages in the life of the cosmos. M Kafatos, R Nadeau
Reality… is pictured as a limitless series of levels which extend to deeper and deeper subtleties and out of which the particular, explicate order of nature and the order of consciousness and life emerge. Synchronicities can therefore be thought of as an expression of this underlying movement, for they unfold as patterns of thoughts and arrangements of material processes which have a meaningful conjunction when taken together. F.D. Peat
In discussing singularity,”…the expansion is better envisaged as that of space itself, carrying the galaxies along for a ride. So when all the matter of the Universe was gathered together, that was because the space between galaxies was shrunk(or rather, not yet expanded). Space itself, and time, were created, like matter, in the big bang; there was no ‘outside’ into which the explosion expanded.”Davies/Gribbin
“In physics, combination of space and time used in the theory of relativity. When developing relativity, Albert Einstein showed that time was in many respects like an extra dimension (or direction) to space. Space and time can thus be considered as entwined into a single entity, rather than two separate things.” Dictionary
“Within other rhetorical contexts, Dogen goes to equate time with one’s body and mind, ….These kinds of identification between time and the world suggests that space and time are inseparably interconnected and interpenetrate each other. In fact, Faure observes that Dogen’s ontologization of time is simultaneously a spatialization of it.”C.Olson
“The space/time continuum -A very simple definition: space and time considered together as one entity.”D. Faige
“The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” –Hermann Minkowski
“This being present, that arises; without this, that does not occur. Everything is interconnected. If you were not, at this moment, and did not tie up or ever tie up all the aggregates or constituents that make you up, then those aggregates or constituents either might not have ever existed, or if they did, would be split up and used somewhere else, bumping everything from where it is to some other place…because if you were not, that is, never existed, then everything and every part that ever proceeded leading up to you being you would not have unfolded the way it has or be where it is or was or be impacted by what you are or have done or will do.”
It (psychological phemomena)is, surely, an ecology(Gibson), a synergy( Haken), a Gestalt(koffka), a coalition (Shaw&Turvey), a communion(Buddhism) – a deep and inextricable interaction between organism and environment (if such a distinction is accepted, for reasons of scientific analysis. P. Treffner
Healthy Organs -Liver
12 DecTwo events promoted me to write this bog. First, in my last blog on Traditional Chinese Medicine, I was interested in how TCM places great importance to the health of the organs of the body through both diet and exercise. I noticed how this approach was quite different from the typical, popular health exercise and diet discussion in the USA and other western countries which almost never discusses the health of the body’s organs. However, I believe that the TCM perspective is valuable and so I decided to further explore what exactly Western health experts say about organ wellness.
Secondly, the other day I was talking to a friend about healthy living and I commented on how most Western health exercise programs emphasize only muscle/skeletal and in general cardio vascular exercise for fitness. I said we also need to be aware of the health of the body’s organs because actually most of serious health problems are located in the organs not in our muscle-skeletal system. My friend laughed and said “The organs, what can you do for the organs?” so, for the above two reasons, this blog explores what the American experts say about it.
If you need more info about this topic contact your health care professional.
Ways to Take Care of Your Liver
Health Lifestyle Eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly help the liver to work well. Eating an unhealthy diet can lead to liver disease. For example, a person who eats a lot of fatty foods is at higher risk of being overweight and having non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Eat foods from all the food groups: grains, protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables.
Eat foods that have a lot of fiber such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, rice and cereals
Limit the Amount of Alcohol You Drink Alcohol can damage or destroy liver cells. Liver damage can lead to the buildup of fat in your liver (fatty liver), inflammation or swelling of your liver (alcoholic hepatitis), and/or scarring of your liver (cirrhosis). For people with liver disease, even a small amount of alcohol can make the disease worse. Talk to your doctor about what amount of alcohol is right for you.
Manage Your Medications When medicines are taken incorrectly – by taking too much or the wrong type or by mixing – the liver can be harmed.
- Learn about medicines and how they can affect the liver
- Follow dosing instructions
Talk to a doctor or pharmacist often about the medicines you are taking
Avoid Breathing in or Touching Toxins Toxins can injure liver cells.
- Limit direct contact with toxins from cleaning and aerosol products, insecticides, chemicals, and additives in cigarettes
Do not smoke
- Take care with aerosol sprays. When you use an aerosol cleaner, make sure the room is ventilated, or wear a mask. Take similar protective measures when spraying insecticides, fungicides, paint and other toxic chemicals. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Watch what gets on your skin. When using insecticides and other toxic chemicals, cover your skin with gloves, long sleeves, a hat and a mask. Wash off any chemicals you get on your skin with soap and water as soon as possible.
- Eating healthy foods for the liver can improve and support liver function on a daily basis. Having a healthy liver results in greater energy and general well-being.
- A poorly functioning liver can result in tiredness, headaches, bad breath, allergies and intolerances, problem skin and weight gain.
Foods that are healthy for the liver fall into two main categories.
- First are those that promote the detoxification process of the liver. And second, are those that are high in antioxidants and therefore protect the liver while it’s carrying out its detoxification processes. Below is a list of the top eight foods that are considered to be good for your liver.
- GARLIC and ONIONS.
- Garlic contains allicin which is a sulphur-based compound needed by the liver for effective detoxification. Garlic helps the liver rid the body of mercury, certain food additives and the hormone oestrogen.
- CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage).
- These vegetables are very powerful detoxifiers of the liver. They contain chemicals that neutralize certain toxins such as nitrosamines found in cigarette smoke and aflotoxin found in peanuts. They also contain glucosinolates that help the liver to produce enzymes it needs for its detoxification processes.
- FRESHLY SQUEEZED LEMON IN HOT WATER.
- Drinking freshly squeezed lemon juice in a cup of boiled water first thing in the morning helps to cleanse the liver and promote detoxification. It also stimulates bile production, cleanses the stomach and bowel and stimulates a bowel motion.
- BEETROOT (BEETS). It’s a blood-purifying tonic that is also capable of absorbing heavy metals.
- HIGH-ANTIOXIDENT FRUITS.
- In a study done by the US Department of Agriculture at Tuffs University, it was found that the following list of fruits had the highest levels of antioxidants (in descending order): Prunes, raisons, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, plums, oranges, pink grapefruit, cantaloupe, apples and pears. Antioxidants help to protect the liver from the high levels of free radicals that are naturally produced during the process of detoxification.
- APPLES.
- Apples contain pectin that bind to heavy metals in the body (in particular in the colon) and help their excretion. This reduces the load on the liver and its detoxification capacities.
- ARTICOKE.
- Increases bile production. One of the jobs of bile is to remove toxins through the bowel, as well as ‘unfriendly’ micro-organisms. It has been suggested that 30 minutes after eating globe artichoke, bile flow is increased by over 100%.
Artichoke contains both liver-protective/restorative powers. It acts as a blood purifier and has been proven in clinical studies to lower cholesterol, triglyceride levels and other metabolic waste products
- BITTER LEAFY SALAD GREENS (dandelion, chicory, endive, rocket).
- The bitterness of these foods helps to stimulate bile flow within the liver.
Top 10 tips for a Healthy Liver and Lymph
Your liver has many functions; stores certain vitamins, minerals and sugars for use as fuel, cleanses/filters the toxins out of your blood and controls the production/excretion of cholesterol. Your overall health and vitality, to a great extent, depends upon the health of your liver. The thousands of enzyme systems that control virtually everybody activity are created there. If your liver fails to create even one of these enzymes, overall body function is impaired, creating greater metabolic stress on your body.
THE LYMPH composed of Lymph fluid consists of; the ’tissue fluid’ in which all of our cells are bathed, and the fluid within the ‘lymph vessels’. These are ‘blood vessel’ like tubes, which connect the lymph glands of the body. The Lymphatic System is also called the Immune System.
Modern lifestyles can overstress your liver. Alcohol, tobacco, environmental pollutants, food additives, agricultural pesticides, popular cosmetic ingredients, common household products, stress, pharmaceutical and OTC (over-the-counter) drugs (including oral contraceptives and caffeine), gallstones, home repair materials, artist materials, garden chemicals and building materials can all kill liver cells.
Symptoms of liver imbalance include headaches, bruising easily, anxiety, depression, confusion, fatigue, jaundice, impaired libido (sex drive) and mental function, food allergies, multiple chemical sensitivities and PMS, as well as conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease. When your liver is damaged it cannot remove toxins, which then build up in your blood and eventually, your brain.
Try the following tips for a healthy liver and lymph:
Avoid any foods of which you suspect you may be intolerant: They will produce toxins in the gut that can cause stress to the detoxification mechanisms. Bacteria, viruses, too much alcohol, coffee and other caffeine-containing drinks, smoking and the medicines that have powerful effects on the liver, stomach and other parts of the body can prove toxic Chew your food well to help release the enzymes that aid digestion. Consume plenty of foods containing: Consume plenty of foods containing foliate, flavonoids, magnesium, iron, sulphate and selenium and B-vitamins 2,3,6 and 12, since toxicity in the body can be caused by deficiency of the nutrients that the liver needs for detoxification as much as by exposure to toxins. Think along the lines of salads, beans, fresh juices, stir-fries cooked in a little good-quality olive oil, nuts, seeds, yoghurt (full-fat is fine). Steaming is a quick and healthy way of cooking vegetables, and the only vegetables to avoid are potatoes. Aim for a diet build on complex carbohydrates (brown rice), lean protein (beans, lentils, eggs, chicken, fish and a little lean red meat) and organic fruits & vegetables. Cut down on stimulants: such as tea and coffee, and depressants such as smoking & alcohol. Aim at drinking at least 2.5 liters of water a day.
Eat foods rich in antioxidants: which aid the natural detox mechanisms like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts and Soybean products. Nutrients that enhance our immune system are Vitamin C, Vitamin E, the B-vitamins, Zinc and Magnesium. These nutrients are either potent anti-oxidants capable of stopping the free-radical cascade of tissue damage or are involved in the enzymes that help detoxify damaging chemicals. Rest and feel good! :
One more really good way to boost your immune system and it’s free.
Laugh, Rest and feel good!
A depressed mind can cause a depressed body.
Laughter actually increases production of an antibody that is responsible for our first line of defense against bacterial infections. Laughter, lovemaking and exercise are the best medicine of all! Laugh Over time, the health of the liver and lymph may be restored. Taking beneficial herbs regularly and following a detoxification process can help to provide protection to either the sick or healthy liver during the course of daily life. This stabilizes cell membranes and encourages the regeneration of liver cells destroyed during their normal functions. Overview Poor nutrition is rarely a cause of liver disease, but good nutrition in the form of a balanced diet, may help liver cells damaged by hepatitis viruses to regenerate, forming new liver cells. Nutrition can be an essential part of treatment. Many chronic liver diseases are associated with malnutrition. Watch the Protein To quickly determine your daily protein in grams, divide your weight in pounds by 2. Too much daily protein may cause hepatic encephalopathy (mental confusion). This occurs when the amount of dietary protein is greater than the liver’s ability to use the protein. This causes a buildup of toxins that can interfere with brain function. Protein is restricted in patients with clinical evidence of encephalopathy. However, controversy exists regarding the type of protein a diet should contain. Vegetable and dairy protein may be tolerated better than meat protein. Medications, such as lactulose and neomycin, may be used to help control hepatitis-related encephalopathy. Due to the body’s need for proteins, protein restriction should only be undertaken with a doctor’s advice. Watch the Calories. Excess calories in the form of carbohydrates can add to liver dysfunction and can cause fat deposits in the liver. No more than 30% of a person’s total calories should come from fat because of the danger to the cardiovascular system. To figure out your daily calorie needs, you’ll need a minimum of 15 calories a day for each pound you weight. Watch the Salt Good nutrition also helps to maintain the normal fluid and electrolyte balances in the body. Patients with fluid retention and swelling of the abdomen (ascites), or the legs (peripheral edema), may need diets low in salt to avoid sodium retention that contributes to fluid retention. Avoiding foods such as canned soups and vegetables, cold cuts, dairy products, and condiments such as mayonnaise and ketchup can reduce sodium intake. Read food labels carefully as many prepared foods contain large amounts of salt. The best-tasting salt substitute is lemon juice.
Watch Vitamins A and D- Excessive amounts of some vitamins may be an additional source of stress to the liver that must act as a filter for the body. Mega-vitamin supplements, particularly if they contain vitamins A and D, may be harmful. Excess vitamin A is very toxic to the liver. Beware of Alcohol -You’ll need to stop drinking completely to give your liver a break – a chance to heal, a chance to rebuild, a chance for new liver cells to grow. This means avoiding beer, wine, cocktails, champagne, and liquor in any other form. If you continue to drink, your liver will pay the price, and if your doctor is checking your liver function tests, it may be hard to determine if a change in a test means there has been damage to your liver due to the disease itself or because of the alcohol. Beware of Alcohol and Acetaminophen -Acetaminophen is an ingredient in some over-the-counter pain relievers, and is contained in many over-the-counter drugs used for colds or coughs. Taken with alcohol, these products can cause a condition called sudden and severe hepatitis which could cause fatal liver failure. Clearly, you should never combine these two substances. If you have any doubt about what medicines to take simultaneously, ask your doctor. Beware of “Nutritional Therapies”- Herbal treatments and alternative liver medicines need to undergo rigorous scientific study before they can be recommended. “Natural” or diet treatments and herbal remedies can be quite dangerous. Plants of the Senecio, Crotalaria and Heliotopium families, plus chaparral, germander, comfrey, mistletoe, skullcap, margosa oil, mate tea, Gordolobo yerba tea, pennyroyal, and Jin Blu Huan have all been indicated to be toxic to the liver.
We are all Interconnected even with the Universe 