Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

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Leo Rivers
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Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

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A Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Traditionally people have applied the physics over the world they know as metaphors to review spiritual insights. I thought of 3 metaphors from physics that I could apply to the notion of purity and impurity as an issue in personal transformation and the possibility of actually becoming non-samsaric. This is more that just a mechanical exercise but it is just an exercise, I hope to offend no one. It's Sunday afternoon and I was just thinking about this and that.

Leo :coffee:



ENLIGHTENMENT

One need not posit primordial purity. This model adapts the notion of ‘no physics nor space before the emergence of space time for physics to take place in.’

Undefiled need not imply Pure. Mind arises from an absence of defilement, defilement accruing as it arising unfolds. Think of an eruption of a volcano at the bottom of the sea... boiling water punches upward and boiling waves pour outward in every direction, steam flowing down from the basks of the waves as boiling water meets cold air. Before the Big Bang there was neither space nor time as both emerged with Space-Time together, space and matter co-emergant as bubbles of steam and the spreading of the waves being the expansion of space. So there was no Purity before phenomena arose and the complete removal of impurity will never be completely accomplished in the same way accelerating bodies will never reach the speed of light.

At pari-nirvana the Buddha vanished over the horizon of our bandwidth of perceivable degrees of impurity... to the Buddha he continues to experience a continued diminishment of ever more finely ground impurity.

Leo Rivers 09/12/2021 3:02 PM
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Leo Rivers wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:44 pm One need not posit primordial purity. This model adapts the notion of ‘no physics nor space before the emergence of space time for physics to take place in.’
I like that one.
:thinking:
It also happens to not conflict with Buddhist doctrine about beginningless time.

:namaste:
Kim
Malcolm
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Post by Malcolm »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Mon Sep 13, 2021 6:19 am
Leo Rivers wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:44 pm One need not posit primordial purity. This model adapts the notion of ‘no physics nor space before the emergence of space time for physics to take place in.’
I like that one.
:thinking:
It also happens to not conflict with Buddhist doctrine about beginningless time.

:namaste:
Kim
Ummm, yeah, actually it does. It also contradicts dependent origination.
narhwal90
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Post by narhwal90 »

Years ago I heard an HVAC technician talking about how refrigerant acted in a heat exchanger. In the the evaporation cycle the liquid refrigerant boils into gas, the bubbles acting to agitate the fluid and bring more into greater contact with the exchanger surface, expediting heat transfer. In the condensation cycle, the refrigerant in gas phase begins to condense, droplets forming which frees volume for more gas to collect and cool. The phases of the system are different, both are demonstrably true, neither can occur without the other and neither is sufficient to fully explain what is going on.
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Aemilius
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

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Leo Rivers wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:44 pm A Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Traditionally people have applied the physics over the world they know as metaphors to review spiritual insights. I thought of 3 metaphors from physics that I could apply to the notion of purity and impurity as an issue in personal transformation and the possibility of actually becoming non-samsaric. This is more that just a mechanical exercise but it is just an exercise, I hope to offend no one. It's Sunday afternoon and I was just thinking about this and that.

Leo :coffee:



ENLIGHTENMENT

One need not posit primordial purity. This model adapts the notion of ‘no physics nor space before the emergence of space time for physics to take place in.’

Undefiled need not imply Pure. Mind arises from an absence of defilement, defilement accruing as it arising unfolds. Think of an eruption of a volcano at the bottom of the sea... boiling water punches upward and boiling waves pour outward in every direction, steam flowing down from the basks of the waves as boiling water meets cold air. Before the Big Bang there was neither space nor time as both emerged with Space-Time together, space and matter co-emergant as bubbles of steam and the spreading of the waves being the expansion of space. So there was no Purity before phenomena arose and the complete removal of impurity will never be completely accomplished in the same way accelerating bodies will never reach the speed of light.

Leo Rivers 09/12/2021 3:02 PM
That is not the buddhist view, the higher deva realms are not destroyed at the end of Great Kalpa. The higher deva realms exist when a new universe starts to expand:
"The Abhasvara worlds form the upper limit to the destruction of the universe by fire at the end of a mahakalpa (see Temporal Cosmology), that is, the column of fire does not rise high enough to reach them. After the destruction of the world, at the beginning of the vivartakalpa, the worlds are first populated by beings reborn from the Abhasvara worlds."

http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/ ... ara_Worlds
svaha
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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Leo Rivers
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Post by Leo Rivers »

This is my understanding of the Buddhist Religion too, but in discussions of language and reality, epistemolgy and ontology as you get from Vasubandu on, the issue of the perfect way to say things vs you just can't say anything perfectly comes up ... it's a sutra vs saśtra sort of thing.

When looking for explinations that give context to practice I don't naturally think of kalpas ...
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Aemilius
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Re: Physics Metaphor application to Buddhist concepts - an exercise

Post by Aemilius »

SHôYôROKU, Book of Equanimity

CASE 23: Roso Faces the Wall

Whenever Roso saw a monk coming, he immediately sat facing the wall.
Hearing of this, Nansen said, "I usually tell my people to realize what has existed before the
kalpa of emptiness, or to understand what has been before Buddhas appeared in the world.
Still, I haven't acknowledged one disciple or even a half. If he continues that way, he will go
on even until the year of the donkey."

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/ ... yoroku.pdf
svaha
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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