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WBraun
climber
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Apr 28, 2015 - 05:37pm PT
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The Electron beyond the mental speculators
"I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.”
Apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakrtim param
The non material atom, the jiva-bhutah, which is living entity itself.
Thus largo is giving you the door to the non material atom.
Instead Base104, fruitcake, healy etc are still in the crude gross material world of duality crying Largo doesn't know sh!t.
That is why you are so upset and completely bewildered as usual because scientifically you are and have been left behind .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 28, 2015 - 05:44pm PT
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DMT: Do pigs fly in your no-limits universe, bro?
Ha-ha. (Good one.) Well, actually they do, in my mind (it too a thing).
PSP:
I seem to remember a zen story where an enlightened student has a meeting with his teacher, and the teacher asks the student whether the container of water on the floor is half full or half empty. To wit, the student kicks over the container and walks away.
Base: . . . most of what we do in an average day is heavily subjective.
You make some huge generalizations for a science guy. You’re making this stuff up. What is subjectivity anyway? (This is the same kind of comment I made to Jgill.) How can you talk about stuff that you can’t grab onto or know what it is? I’d ask for references, but it would only bring out belief systems.
Look, the point to sitting quietly and still is to see seeing. THAT is no-thing. (I’m sure you’re now going to give me some theoretical explanation of what seeing is, but that will be a concept, an abstraction, a model, an idea. What is seeing for you before you start naming and defining it?)
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 28, 2015 - 05:50pm PT
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Mike, this might have been before you got on this thread.
We had a huge discussion about subjectivity. It went on for many months and at first I was a little leery. It wasn't just me. I came late to accepting it, but it is true. We experience in a highly subjective way.
Go back and read the whole thread. It is there.
Do you disagree?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 28, 2015 - 06:50pm PT
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Now we move to particles. We ask a very simple question. We not for example the phenomenon of "spin." So we ask: WHAT is spinnin? . . .
You say that matter is an effect of a foam of quarks and gluons. Meaning that matter is "sourced" or created by quarks and gluons. Now what IS a quark or a gluon?
Now while I am no scientist, it's not like I haven't looked at this material rather closely
Here we have space itself conjured as a thing, not continuous and smooth, rather an array of discrete pixels, or grains, sometimes referred to as space-time foam. This is old news.
This is just too good to let drift away in a flurry of pages. This is Largo at his best, studiously contemplating the fabric of the universe. Some time back he was riveted on Hilbert spaces . . . until I created an actual Hilbert space, giving it his name. It can be found on my website. Thereafter, he lost interest and moved on to fundamental particles, encouraged by his carpool prodigies.
Priceless.
;>)
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 28, 2015 - 07:18pm PT
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He's grasping. I don't know why, it isn't necessary for him to do so.
It is entertaining, though.
Did you really do that, JGill?
I admit it. I have no idea what Hilbert Space is. If only I had access to that carpool. I mean man, I would sure sound smart.
Back on topic, I know that a lot of the 19 Republican hopefuls have denounced evolution in some manner or other. A few are staying mum, so they don't look silly in general elections.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 28, 2015 - 09:42pm PT
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Lago is grasping. I don't know why, it isn't necessary for him to do so.
He's struggling for a apt analogy - the distinction between a [physical] object and it's properties and what he thinks, or is told, are [no-thing (massless)] 'objects' (such as bosons, i.e. photons) which nonetheless have 'properties' and 'effects' which can be experienced or 'explored'.
He's saying his meditative no-thing - or by extension, what underlies / defines the mind - is like a photon, which has no mass (it lacks muchness / 'existence'), and like a photon is not a figment of his imagination. It's also at the heart of his 'what has spin?' or [should be] 'what has mass?' questions. He's trying to show there are non-imaginary no-things to support his claim there is a similar no-thing that is the 'real' mind.
So a photon / particle is one example to hold up as a way of trying to explain it. A problem with that is it's functionally similar, if not indistinguishable from, saying there is a god and if you pray correctly and enough and open your heart to him you will see he is real and will always be there for you. It's a perceptual and experiential belief - one through meditation, one through prayer. John will disabuse you of the idea the two are remotely similar - and I might agree - but from a developed perceptual belief perspective the two are indistinguishable statements.
Now Lago hates that comparison with religion and boogeymen in the sky, but thay are functionally equivalent in terms of perception, faith and belief. However, where Lago's experience meditating leads him to [fervently] believe the no-thing underlying the mind is 'real' ("we say...") in the way a photon is, at the same time he is rather dismissive of religious folks' experience of god through prayer and their belief in a soul. In other words, we're in there meditating in a ferocious group dynamic experiencing no-thing and that is somehow [functionally] different than an equally dynamic pentecostal service experiencing god.
And while he never comes out and explicitly states it, that no-thing, by its nature, has to be / must be 'universal' much as gravity is. The distance between that universality and Werner's soul, however, can be traversed by more of a side-step shuffle than a true leap [of faith].
Overall I have no problem whatsoever stating I have extensive experience with his no-thing and the real difference between our beliefs relative to that 'no-thing' is one interpretation of the experience, framing / context / culture, and to a lesser degree semantics - regardless of how much John will dispute and decry those statements and claim I've never done it so I've never experienced the no-thing he's talking about. It's a belief which, in many respects, is just plain sad on so many levels and quite akin to a christian claiming a muslim can't know the 'real' god.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 28, 2015 - 10:07pm PT
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It strikes me that a lot of the misunderstanding here is that John is using the terminology of Zen to describe his experiences even though he claims not to be a Zen Buddhist. I think this creates difficulties because most people here have an acquaintance with that terminology and its religious connotations so they immediately assume he's pushing religion. I also happen to think since I struggled with it for a long time before switching to the vocabulary of Indo Tibetan Buddhism, that Zen does have the most abstract, impersonal and obscure vocabulary for describing these experiences. And finally, if he were to choose some other vocabulary it might be just as mystifying or even more aggravating to the non religious. So what can he do?
The main thing for me is to be aware that there is a lot of different vocabulary that can describe the ultimate experience John calls no-thingness. Buddhism has always said there are different methods for different people and has confused many westerners by refusing to use a single term for this perceived ultimate reality, hoping that it would prevent people becoming fixed and dogmatic.
Some other terms for no-thingness are the void, suchness, oneness, clear light, mirror-like wisdom, sunyatta, nirvana, the celestial Buddha, the one above all others (dainichi nyorai), and the great body of radiant bliss. Take your pick. Would any of those seem less religious? More accurate? More scientific? More neutral? More explicit?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 28, 2015 - 10:41pm PT
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My issue isn't his language per se, but rather the idea there is a 'the way' to get there. In the same manner there are 'many words' there are also 'many ways'. To say 'my word' or 'my way' is the right/only way for me is a major failure to understand the essence and whole point of it all. It also seems strikingly immature for someone I previously thought was a bit more 'enlightened' as opposed to some modern-day Sōhei - particularly so given the history of internecine warfare and beliefs among Zen sects which took place for centuries throughout the establishment and evolution of Zen in Japan.
And then, once 'there', how one interprets their experiences and what beliefs one forms around those experiences are highly - omg, subjective. Of course I have no doubt the framing / context / culture of an intense group dynamic can shape both the interpretation and belief, even if often in some fairly blinder-like and dogmatic ways.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 28, 2015 - 10:59pm PT
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Well that is a question in my mind too. Does Largo really believe there is only one way or is he just using the vocabulary of Zen which is very dogmatic in its own intuitive, obtuse way? The problem with being in any particular tradition or relationship over a long period of time, is that the familiar becomes so familiar one thinks that the whole world sees it that way too.
The opposite of course is to forever remain a dilettante. I like the image of the hungry ghost in Tibetan Buddhism where the poor things died attached to the earth and so suffer from their earthly cravings for eons on another plane. The have big bellies and scrawny necks, forever hungry but never sated. I have often imagined I could end up as one with a belly full of books about meditation but never having found the time or will power to do it.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 28, 2015 - 11:20pm PT
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Werner... where is that long quote up-thread (about Dawkins) from?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 28, 2015 - 11:31pm PT
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The opposite of course is to forever remain a dilettante.
A matter of perspective I should think. Lago would no doubt be a dilettante in the eye of some monastic Zen ascetic. I might look like one to him (or you).
My own journey has been one of experiencing 'life' variously and alternately from different perspectives over decades such as deep sitting meditation, isolation / sensory depravation, chanting meditations, and flow activities: climbing, running, [especially] distance swimming, and even a couple of decades of many, many hour-long meditations on tightropes and highwires. In fact, I spent so much time on a hard pulleyed-down, bowstring taut, 11mil rope set at nine feet in the late 70's/early 80's that I did this to about a dozen pairs of early 'running' shoes:
It added up to enough time in those meditations that the 11mil seemed like a sidewalk after a couple of years and I even briefly fell asleep once while laying on it after a long jag of coding (and trust me, discursive or any kind,of thought is the last thing I have 'in mind' when I'm coming down from programming - then or now).
I also got to the point with the meditation and isolation tanks where I could gain some measure of control over my metabolism and to this day can shut it down somewhat more or less at will to the point where physicians have assumed I've been sedated on taking my vital signs.
But over the long haul, my interpretations and beliefs became ever more centered around the idea of not achieving 'that state' via various dedicated activities, but rather through and in my moment-to-moment life to the degree I can - and trust me, that's a practice as well. But hey, that's just me, YMMV.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 28, 2015 - 11:50pm PT
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I think I am somewhat in the same place although I do have my hungry ghost worries from time to time. That's why I was very struck by those photos of Buddhist monks pounding through concrete in the streets of Kathmandu. In the West people have tried to make Buddhism more activist at the same time emphasizing meditation. It struck me that this may be happening in the East as well. Perhaps there is a convergence. Or perhaps as my Nepalese friends say, we can work out many karmas in one life because we live longer now. Instead of a life dedicated solely to meditation, perhaps we are going back more to the Southeast Asian model of a period of time in a monastic environment and then back into the world. And of course in our isolated individualistic society in the West we don't have to be in a monastary to live like a monk.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2015 - 12:05am PT
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One thing which, much later in life, catalyzed my change in thinking was when I was younger I had helped a climbing partner with ten-day stress-challenge trip he was short-handed on where we took a dozen very troubled and abused/abusing younger gang members from inner-city Chicago into the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois.
It was actually an eye-opening trip for me and it was great to see these kids get some positive feedback and experiences for a change. I was an education student at the time, though, and after the trip was over I couldn't stop thinking about how, while that was great for them, what would it take to give those kids some of the same feedback and experiences in their own inner-city environs rather than out in the woods.
That outing was a once in a lifetime deal for most of them as opposed to something they could use / experience everyday when they woke up and stepped out onto the street. Eventually it dawned on me that what I was after in my explorations was not experiences / explorations / tools in isolation or in isolated blocks of times, but rather ones I could use every day, all day whenever and wherever I was and whatever I was doing.
And movie cliches aside, some bottom-up reinforcement of all that also came in the form of lot of sweeping, mopping and shoveling which I didn't realized I had always liked this in a weird, methodical and meditative (Karate Kid) sort of way. It helped me understand that the 'no-thing'/flow could be had in even the most 'mundane' activities we sometimes consider menial.
I agree it doesn't need to be an all-or-nothing sort of deal and long, sustained experiences are pretty much required to gain experience and insight when encountering anything new or re-encountering something after a long hiatus.
And of course in our isolated individualistic society in the West we don't have to be in a monastery to live like a monk.
Yep, you can now be completely connected and remote as the moon all at the same time.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Apr 29, 2015 - 02:26am PT
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Nothing Exists
Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."
Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"
This Koan I read tonight resonated with me. At first I thought how the 'nothing' Yamaoka spoke of was a metaphor for 'no-thing' in relation to the conversation on this thread. My thought was, "See, nothing can be no-thing, 'no-thing' is obviously a foolish conception born out of the mental manipulations of philosophical thought."
But then I realzed I was missing the point regardless of wether or not I think that 'no-thing' actually is a valid concept. (Or whatever it is). What truly resonates with me about the Koan is that it fits me. My bewilderment and disillusionment with society and spiritual ideas are similar to the bewilderment felt by Yamaoka. The anger I have sometimes felt at the world and the ignorance of men is projected anger. I forget that it is actually the anger I occasionally feel at the meaninglessness and unanswered questions about my own life.
For a professed atheist I dwell an awful lot on spiritual matters. I say that I rely on good fortune as opposed to good luck. Are they not the same thing? I dismiss out of hand most phenomenon not explained by scientific theory or method. Putting that aside for now, I can see how my current views regarding spiritual ideas being meaningless or without merit and then causing me to feel anger is more than just about my frustration, it is also a manifestation of my inner turmoil over something my rational mind does not believe exists (God, souls, spirits, magic, reincarnation, afterlife, or faith). This reaction to my own rejection of these ideas is obviously not just a 'nothing' reaction. So there I have it; the root of my bewilderment is not just at the outside world, but also towards myself. Because I don't have the answers.
These thoughts do not originate from 'no-thing,' but they might prove to be nothing.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 29, 2015 - 06:54am PT
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Nice post Bushman
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2015 - 08:02am PT
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Since we can't measure them, their existence is entirely based on imagination.
Says the man who can't measure the limits of his own self ......
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2015 - 08:56am PT
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Thus since you can't measure the limits of your own self your reality of your own self is entirely based on your own imagination.
Thus you've contradicted yourself against your argument against Largo.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Apr 29, 2015 - 10:29am PT
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German physicist, Dr. Nietsnie Trebla, was the first to have declared that the 'self' was immeasurable, due to a cosmological inconsistency known as...
shrinkage!
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2015 - 10:45am PT
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Of course I can measure myself.
No you can't and you''ll soon see why.
You think you are your body.
But that is not your "self".
You don't have a clue who you really are.
After that you'll post your next simplistic poor fund of knowledge .....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Apr 29, 2015 - 10:57am PT
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You can't have energy without mass.
I asked my Caltech friends about this since it's really a physics question and they said:
e=mc^2 doesn't say that mass and energy are proportional, it says that mass and energy can be converted into each other, or alternatively that mass is a form of stored energy. One of the big leaps of quantum mechanics is that momentum can exist without mass, photons can have momentum without having mass. Of course the larger question is: What, exactly, is moving.
Photons have NO MASS in the conventional sense, but yet, they carry energy (and momentum, and spin). And don't forget, to detect a photon, you have to "capture" it and thereby destroy it. So you might as well ask: Do photons really exist at all, or are they simply a convenient mathematical shorthand for a certain kind of transfer of energy and momentum in which the E and p disappear at one point and reappear at another point after a time interval given by Δt=Δx/c.
Trippy stuff, but verily, Dingus, you clearly CAN have energy sans mass.
JL
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