There was no "Big Bang" (audio)

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich, KPFA Berkeley, 3-19-14

A first point, a first cause, a prime move(r) -- the Big Bang is no better than positing an all-powerful God who did it, yet we fool ourselves by using words to say nothing.

  

Recent reports of a major "breakthrough" on inflation less than a trillionth of a second after the purported Big Bang are exaggerated, but for good reason: There are Nobel Prizes at stake.
 

No doubt banging has gone on in space, big banging worse than the worst gang banging at The Bada Bing in Jersey. Nevertheless, there was no BIG Bang, a beginning to everything. Recently a scientist was being interviewed (maybe on NPR audio or C2C) and admitted that "the Big Bang" was not the beginning of everything, just the beginning of our ability to find a beginning, the edge of the knowable. What a gyp.

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Buddhist cosmology: 31 Planes of Existence

We were not all raised with the fantasy-tale that science had an answer to the origin of the universe? But now there are multiverses, and scientific uncertainty is expressed more openly, and even if a Big Bang occurred ~13 billion years ago, that in no way says that was IT, that was the beginning of all, the first cause.
 
There is no sensible or meaningful first cause, and one would become deranged pondering such a question. It is one of the Four Imponderables in Buddhism -- which not only would never lead one to enlightenment but would certainly, if persisted in, drive one to madness. Here is a simple analogy to see why: A professor starts drawing a circle on a chalkboard, and after the 33rd loop asks the class,
 

Count chalk loops or watch me pole dance.

"Where does this circle start?"
 
"Wherever you first placed the chalk," they answer.
 

"Where was that?"
 

"Hmmm, we didn't notice."
 

"Where does it start now?"
 

"Well, after you started it -- at some arbitrary point -- it ceases to have a meaningful 'beginning.' Any point, pick a point. Is that your point?"
 

"Yes, if you track and analyze the chalk marks, undoing each of the 33 or million loops to reveal incontrovertible forensic evidence of the first track, the original loop, what will it get you?"
 

"It will tell us exactly where you first set the chalk down!"
 

"And what will that tell you about the beginning of a circle?"
 

"Of a circle, nothing. But of this circle, nothing... Hey, wait a minute!"
 

"Exactly! This won't tell you who or what set it, or why, or where chalkboards come from, or what chalk is for, or anything else that matters about our existence. It will only lead to endless speculations and enduring academic careers that result in nothing about the true nature of existence (such as the Three Marks or how YOU or your life, such as it is, came to be).

 

A better bang to find

"But if one were to meditate, one could potentially see for oneself how things (galaxies, universes, and people) originate, turn, and fall away -- again and again and again."
 

It is possible with Buddhist meditation on the Four Elements (not four material things but four primary or fundamental qualities of materiality) to begin to see the ultimate "particles" of perception (called, in Buddhist physics, kalapas). One can go from the smallest, these features of matter, to the most cosmic -- world expansions and world contractions. And what is another word for the transition between those two periods (aeons) than a Big Bang?
 

There is a Big Bang, but there was no "the Big Bang," no beginning. And if we crave to know about the first in the endless cyclical series, it would tell us nothing of the space it blew up or into or created as it blew, or the matter that burst into expansion (inflation), or subsequently collapsed and caused yet another implosion, which gives rise to another explosion.
 

Hmm, maybe lines and symbols?

Worst of all, assuming the insanity for pondering this imponderable is not the worst thing, you and science will be none the closer to finding or figuring out "how it all began." Keep blowing up infinitesimally small particles at CERN/LHC instead.

Ignorance, O ignorance! (cartoon)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, CC Liu Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines; GoComics.com; Dilbert.com

IGNORANCE (avijjā, Sanskrit avidya) refers to lack of insight, lack of wisdom, nescience, unknowing. As a Buddhist term it is synonymous with "delusion" (moha, one of the three roots of all unwholesome action). In fact, it is the primary root of ALL bad karma and unhappiness in the various planes of existence generally referred to as "the world" or "universe."

It veils our mental eyes and prevents us from seeing the true nature of existence. It is the delusion or wrong view tricking beings by making life appear to them as (1) permanent, (2) happy, and/or (3) personal. Seeing its beauty without being mindful of inherent danger, living being cling to existence and experience even as it is passing away, disappointing, and impersonal.

What might we be were it not for ignorance? Enlightened here and now in this very life?

 

It prevents us from seeing that everything -- every compounded thing that comes into existence or originates dependent on supportive conditions -- is, ultimately speaking, radically impermanent, unsatisfactory, and void of "I," "me," or "mine": It is basically unattractive, foul, impure. (See The Four Perversions that make it appear otherwise).

 

Ignorance is defined as "not knowing [i.e., fully penetrating the truth of] the Four Noble Truths, namely, (1) unsatisfactoriness, (2) its origin, (3) its cessation, and (4) the way to its cessation" (S. XII, 4).

 

Kermit would have remained in the dark...

This root ignorance is the foundation of all karma that leads to becoming, all rebirth-producing actions, of all harm and suffering. Therefore, it stands first in the formula of Dependent Origination -- the 12-linked causal chain of the arising of present unhappiness.

But on account of it being first, explains the Path of Purification (Vis.M., XVII, 36f), ignorance should not be regarded as "the causeless root-cause of the world... It is not causeless. For a cause of it is stated: 

The Buddha glowing golden (Mesamong/flickr)

"'With the arising of defilements (taints, cankers, outflows, āsavas), there is the arising of ignorance' (MN 9). But there is a figurative way in which it can be treated as a root-cause. Namely, when it is made to serve as a starting point in an exposition of the Round of Existence... 

"As it is said: 'No first beginning of ignorance can be perceived, meditators, before which ignorance was not and after which it came to be. Yet, it can be perceived that ignorance has its specific [causal or supportive] condition'" (AN.X.61).

The same statement is made (AN.X.62) about the craving for [eternal] existence. The latter and ignorance are called "the outstanding causes of karma that lead to unhappy and happy destinies" (Vis.M. XVII, 38).

 

Ignorance as wrong or false view

As ignorance still exists -- albeit in a very refined way until the attainment of full enlightenment -- it is counted as the last of the Ten Fetters, which bind beings to samsara, the Cycle of Rebirths. As the first two unwholesome roots, greed and hate, are themselves rooted in ignorance, ALL unwholesome states of mind/heart are consequently and inseparably bound up with it.

 

Ignorance (delusion) is the most obstinate of the three roots of unhappiness. It is fully eliminated by the dawning of enlightenment, insight, final knowledge, liberating wisdom.

 

Ignorance is not only one of the taints or cankers, it is one of the proclivities. It is often called a mental hindrance (e.g., in S.XV.3; A.X.61) but does not appear together with the usual list of Five Hindrances [which it is at the root of].

The other definition of "ignorance" is anyone who disagrees with me (dilbert.com)

Doubt, doubt, what about doubt?

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (kankhā); Ven. Ñanamoli, Discourse Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth

Buddhist novices or samaneras (wellhappypeaceful.com)

 

Monastic doll, Thailand (ChristyB30/flickr)

"Doubt" (kankhā) may be either an intellectual uncertainty, or it may be a psychologically detrimental [persistent] skepticism.

The latter may manifest as wavering indecision, which impedes progress on the path. Or it may persist as negative skepticism, which is worse than indecision. 

 

Only this detrimental skeptical doubt (called vicikicchā) should be rejected and replaced. [This can be accomplished by cultivating confidence, faith, or saddha]. It is either useless, harmful, or very karmically unwholesome. It paralyzes thinking and hinders inner development. [It is one of the Five Hindrances to meditation and enlightenment.]
 

Reasoned, critical doubt in dubious matters [when it leads to investigation] is to be encouraged.

 

The 16 doubts enumerated in the sutras (e.g., MN 2 or Middle Length Discourses, second sutra) are the following:
 

Wondering and wondering would keep one revolving in fruitless doubt (Nyanamoli)

1. Have I been in the past [in past lives]?
2. Have I not been in the past?
3. What have I been in the past?
4. How have I been in the past?
5. From what state into what state did I change in the past? 
6. Shall I be in the future?
7. Shall I not be in the future?
8. What shall I be in the future?
9. How shall I be in the future?
10. From what state into what state shall I change in the future?
11. Am I?
12. Am I not?
13. What am I?
14. How am I?
15. From whence has this being come?
16. Where will it go?"

The way to confidence

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Four ways of developing confidence and wisdom are also enumerated throughout the texts. For example, in the Buddha's first discourse ("Turning the Wheel of the Dharma," SN 56.11, see below), he focused on Four Ennobling Truths:

1. What is suffering?
2. What is the cause of suffering?
3. What is the cessation of suffering?
4. What is the way to the cessation of suffering?

These contemplations, particularly when undertaken immediately after emerging from the purifying meditative-absorptions (jhanas) are a source of progress: They lead to direct knowledge, to liberating insight, to complete emancipation (nirvana). They are ennobling inasmuch as they lead to noble attainments.

In that case, What is this thing we translate as "suffering," a translation that leads to so much confusion and debate about whether or not "all conditioned existence is suffering"? The Buddha defines the technical term in the following sutra. We try to avoid confusion by translating the very broad Sanskrit/Pali term dukkha as "disappointment" or "unsatisfactory." For all conditioned existence is unsatisfactory.

The True Wheel

Ven. Ñanamoli Thera, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Discourse Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth (SN 56.11). Alternate translations by Harvey and Ven. Piyadassi

The Buddha delivering the first sutra or "sermon" to the five ascetics (and countless devas) in the Deer Park, in the suburbs of ancient Varanasi, India

 
Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the "Resort of Seers"). There he addressed the group of five ascetics [his former companions prior to his enlightenment].

 

"These two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good. And there is devotion to self-torment [self-mortification, severe asceticism, insane austerities as distinct from the 13 Sane Ascetic Practices], which is painful, ignoble, and leads to no good.

 

"The middle way discovered by a Tathagata ["Wayfarer," Welcome One," "Well Gone One"] avoids both of these extremes; it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to peace, to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nirvana. What is that middle way?

It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

 

What is "suffering"?

"The noble truth of suffering is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation (crying), pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering -- in short, suffering is the Five Aggregates of Clinging.

 

"The noble truth of the cause (origin) of suffering is: It is the craving [clinging, attachment based on ignorance of how things really are] that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, enjoying this and that -- in other words, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for [eternal-] existence, or craving for non-existence [annihilation].

 

"The noble truth of the cessation (end) of suffering is: It is the remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting [by insight not willpower] of this craving [which is always rooted in ignorance].

 

"The noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering is: It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path....

 

"'The noble truth of suffering is this.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me before. 

"'The noble truth of suffering can be diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas never before heard by me. 

"'The noble truth of suffering has been diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas never before heard by me.

 

"'The noble truth of origin of suffering is this.' Such was the vision... 'This origin of suffering, as a noble truth, can be abandoned.' Such was the vision... More

Amazing India (video)

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (BRAHMANISM CO-OPTED BUDDHISM)

The spectacular and iconic Muslim art of the Taj Mahal, Agra, India (sjpaderborn)

(Shakti Gyana) This is the second episode of a five-part documentary on the history of Hinduism explained in Western perspective. 

Om, the primordial sound of the universe

This explanation of Brahmanism/Hinduism should not be taken as absolute fact but rather as an interpretation. What ancient Brahmanism evolved into was directly influenced by the historical Buddha's Dharma (Buddhism). This became modern Hinduism.

 

It is closely related to Mahayana-Buddhism, a popular reform movement from the more austere Buddhist schools, most of which became defunct. The strawman Mahayana and Brahmin philosophers set up to decry they called Hinayana, the "Lesser Vehicle." It refers to Sarvastivada and other sects. Theravada is not one of the "Hinayana" schools of thought, but as the only other extant and viable Buddhist school, laypeople often equate them.

There are sheaths or bodies within this body

The Buddha's teachings run contrary to the Vedas, the views of the ancient Brahmins, and modern Hinduism. Those teachings survive in Theravada Buddhism. What makes Mahayana so popular?

 

Many of the peculiar Mahayana "innovations" are actually reformulations of the very things the Buddha rejected. The Buddha did not arrive on the scene to affirm the Vedas but to correct strong misconceptions. Those misconceptions reassert themselves again and again.

Only by the realization of certain counterintuitive truisms, like the eternal existence of a self or unchanging soul (atta, atman) can one finally breakthrough to liberating insight, find enlightenment, and glimpse nirvana. Endless lip service given to discerning "emptiness" (shunyata) in place of anatta, finding a "higher self" or "true self" rather than no-self (anatta), essentially personalizing the impersonal, identifying with timeless verities, or mistaking consciousness as self... all of these very high minded notions miss the mark.

So long as mind is bound by even subtle traces of greed (sensual lust), aversion (fear, hate), and delusion (ignorance, wrong view), it is not released. Temporarily suppressing these defilements through samadhi (purifying-concentration) and jhana (dhyana, meditative absorptions) will not in itself lead to Buddhist enlightenment. Only when it is used as a foundation for the practice of insight by turning persistent attention (mindfulness) to four posts or foundations: body, feelings, mind, and mind objects, all of which are defined in details in the Maha Satipatthana Sutra.

 

Welcome to India

(BBC.co.uk/programmes) This observational series continues to explore what life is really like in some of the densest neighborhoods on the planet: the backstreets of India's mega-cities. A popular tactic for people here, so adept at operating in a crowded world, is turning the stuff others would call waste into an opportunity. Johora started out as a rag-picker, but through building a bottle recycling business on a railway embankment, she has big ambitions for her family of seven kids. When the local gangsters increase their protection payment demands, she boldly takes out a big loan and attempts to push her illegal business to another level. (Episode 2 of 3).

• Meeting System of a Down's Serg Tankian (Hollywood)
• Cars fueled with ordinary alcohol instead of gas or petrol

Intellect, Intelligence, and Intuition (Dr. Ashby)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Elizabeth Ashby, "Three Mental Faculties" (Buddhist Publication Society, Bodhi Leaves No. 44)

The brain is not the actual source of knowing, just a citta routing station (DK Books)

Three Mental Modes

Emotional is not emotionally intelligent

In Western Buddhist literature we often find intellect and intuition contrasted with one another, usually to the disadvantage of intellect. This is a very short-sighted view, for both are necessary for the understanding and practice of Dharma (Pali, Dhamma).

The intellect is the reasoning faculty in humans. It sees things in their right proportions. It investigates, analyzes, and discriminates. It accumulates knowledge and is inclined to forget that “knowledge” isn’t “wisdom.” Too much stress on intellect produces mental dryness, harsh judgments, and a lack of kindness (mettā) and compassion.

The Buddha's Brain (Hanson)

 Another danger is that investigation may become mere idle speculation. “Speculative views” about the subjects that the Buddha refused to define will lead us into the wilds of skeptical doubt, with all the mental suffering that involves. Another danger is opinionatedness -- the canker (mental defilement) of clinging to views as in the case of certain Brahmins of old who declared: “This alone is the truth; all else is falsehood!”

Therefore one of the early Zen Patriarchs went so far as to say: 

Do not seek after the true;

Only cease to cherish opinions.

 
The cherishing of opinions leads to disputes and to vexation, for we wound one another “with the weapon of the tongue.”
 

Jim Olson studies creativity and the human spirit in medicine proposing to treat cancer with scorpion venom. Those using synthetic chemical poisons and cancer-causing radiation call him crazy (onbeing.org)

Intuition is the faculty that perceives truth without having it demonstrated or explained. It feels the truth before the intellect can grasp it and turn it into concepts. Hence intuition is closely allied to the emotions, and this constitutes a danger because the emotions go hand-in-hand with the imagination, and an imagined “truth” may be mistaken for “real truth.” 

This happens because intuition functions on both the mundane and the transcendental plane (lokuttara). Our intuitions -- our instinctive feelings for and against people or ideas, and our useful “hunches” -- do not mean that we already possess bodhi, the transcendental intuition that “knows according to reality.” 

This mundane intuition can be extremely deceptive and may lead to all kinds of trouble. It has to be examined in the light of a third mental faculty: intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to make skilful (kusala) use of the intellect. Lacking this, both intellect and intuition go astray.

Their emotions are like koans to me, with no easy way to solve their mysteries (CS).

  
All Buddhist schools recognize the part intuition must play in the attainment of wisdom (gnosis) -- that sure certain knowing that “done is what had to be done.” The winning of enlightenment by intellectual means, “the way of the head” (jnana or nyana), is very, very rare, though some of the Great Disciples are known to have done so.

The Zen School in particular stresses the importance of intuition. A great feature of Zen is to accept life as it comes and to make the appropriate response. Note, it is the appropriate or right response. This does not mean acting on the first impulse that comes into one’s head. Most human impulses arise from greed, hate, or delusion [the three roots of all unskillful karma], and it is only the trained disciple who can act both spontaneously and rightly every time.

Impulsive action frequently ends in disaster, as in the case of Don Quixote. More