B. Alan Wallace, 19 Apr 2016
We begin the session by returning to the practice of Taking the Mind as the Path. In the introductory comments to the meditation, Alan mentions the two-fold division of Buddha-nature (1. the naturally abiding Buddha-nature and 2. the evolving Buddha-nature). One is already present, while the other is evolving, transforming (the latter is a deliberate evolution or transformation towards enlightenment, this is the path). With this practice of taking the mind as the path, we rest in awareness, always luminous and cognisant, our closest approximation to resting in and being fully cognisant of our naturally abiding Buddha-nature. But we are observing our own mind, and we see that from month to month, from year to year, our mind is changing, is becoming saner, more gentle, compassionate thanks to diligent, continuous and intelligent practice. We can transform the mind with effort (through lojong training, lam-rim, stage of generation & completion) to make it a Buddha’s mind. And then we have the effortless approach of resting in rigpa (Dzogchen) and watching it happen by itself (stay home and watch the show, it turns out well!).
The meditation is on Taking the Mind as the Path (silent, not recorded).
After meditation, we go back to the astonishing statements of the Prajñāpāramitā sutra in hundred thousand verses. Is it possible to stroke the sun and the moon? Or is it just a joke? In the western, eurocentric world we have a common story coming from science (the universe started 13.8 billion years ago with the big bang etc.), but also in the US there are many people who are creationists. If we have been educated in science, basically we have been given one story, but there is also one story coming from the Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam). The creationist story is deeply rooted in metaphysical realism, and was believed without question by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Darwin instead could not reconcile his Christian faith with what he discovered about evolution. It was a big schism. However, Darwin candidly said that he had no theory about the origin of life, and he acknowledged that God might have done it. Now we leap forward to Maxwell, who was also a very devout Christian. Then Einstein believed in a higher intelligence that created the entire universe, Spinoza’s God, and he spoke very respectfully of religion. Then in the same trajectory we arrive at Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître (1894 – 1966): Belgian priest, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven, proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, and he also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his “hypothesis of the primeval atom” or the “Cosmic Egg.” Alan comments that basically all the history of science since Copernicus to Lemaître is judeo-christian science, rooted in a worldview where God started it, it was already there, it is absolutely real, and scientists are “representing” or approximating a God’s eye view. The point is that, if one is Christian or Muslim etc., God created this universe, God imbued the universe with meaning. The universe is meaningful because God made it meaningful. God is a source of eudaimonia, there is hedonia, and there is a path to salvation.
But what happens if we take God out of the equation? To explain this, among others Alan quotes Stephen Hawking (1990): “The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can’t believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.”
However, modern science, to this day, has no answers nor a scientific testable theory to the questions about the origin of the universe, the origin of life on earth and the origin of consciousness. But scientific materialists give the public the impression that they already know that the universe originated from purely physical causes, as did life and consciousness in the universe. They don’t know this, they simply assume it and falsely claim their metaphysical beliefs to be scientific truths. This is a charade. You pretend to know something that you don’t know.
We finally arrive at what Alan calls “The General Theory of Ontological Relativity”: it pertains not just to the relation between the desire realm (including the physical universe) and the form realm, but rather points to the relativity of all phenomena in relation to the methods of inquiry and the role of conceptual designation. Whether you live as an animal, a hell-being, a preta, a human or a deva, whether you live in the form or formless realms you are making measurements, and the reality that rises to you is relative to your observations. This applies everywhere, and this gives rise to the Madhyamaka constant—the emptiness of inherent existence of all phenomena—which is invariable across all cognitive frames of reference. The conclusion is that there is no one definitive description of the universe anywhere (not in Modern Science, not in Kalachakra, not in Abhidhamma, not in Dzogchen, not in Hinduism or Christianity, not in string theory or quantum theory). There is no one actually true, truly right, account of an objective universe out there, because there is no objective universe out there existing in and of itself. There is no one right story, and some stories are false - people make up stuff.
Then Alan returns to Buddhism, especially Buddhist cosmology. What to do with the Buddha’s statements about Mount Meru and the four continents? Devas influencing the weather? The fact that previous Buddhas lived for thousands of years before Gautama came along? The Buddha states that what he said comes from his direct experience. If we take the perspective of metaphysical realism, we cannot have incompatible - and true - descriptions of the real objective universe.
Finally Alan quotes Yangthang Rinpoche, a great Vidyādhara, who gave teachings on Mount Meru, the four continents and multiple world-systems last year. In that occasion Alan asked this great master: “Who sees this? What realisation do you need to have to see this?” Rinpoche’s response was “first dhyana.” This is what you see if you are viewing from the form realm. Different set of questions, different measurement system - different reality that rises to meet you from that different set of questions and different measurement system. In the form realm you have purely mental consciousness, but you are seeing form. In the form realm there is a sun and a moon. In the form realm you can see Mount Meru and all the four continents. The Buddha saw this from the perspective of achieving the dhyanas. He never said we can see this from an ordinary perspective. Other people can check this out by achieving the first dhyana and putting it to the test of experience. Shift your perspective, shift your system of measurement and you see a different reality. From the form realm you can reach out and touch the sun and moon.
Meditation is silent and not recorded.
CORRECTION in the recording: Alan said that the region of south Asia lies in the spatial region of the Southern Continent; North America corresponds to the space of the Northern Continent; Europe corresponds to the Eastern Continent, and the Pacific region to the Western continent. Instead Europe corresponds to the Western Continent, and the Pacific region to the Eastern continent.
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Shift your Perspective, Shift your system of Measurement and You see a Different Reality.
Olaso.
So we return to taking the mind as the path. And I’d like to make just some brief comments because we have, I think very interesting material to look into after the session, just this brief comment. A number of you have some I think quite solid background in the Gelugpa tradition or New Translation schools, and so you’ll be very familiar with the kind of twofold division of buddha nature. In Tibetan [Tibetan 00:27] - The naturally abiding buddha nature, which is always present, always present. Of course that can be interpreted in different ways, but the one standard interpretation is, is that - emptiness of inherent nature of the mind, which is primordially the case, nothing to be added or subtracted, that’s just the way it is, and it’s because, it’s because the mind is inherently empty that buddhahood is possible.
If our minds were inherently existent, it’s perfectly obvious we have some sentient beings minds, right? With mental afflictions, that would mean that we are inherently sentient beings and inherently not Buddhas. So if there are Buddhas they would have to have been never like us and we will never be like them. Because we’re inherently, really, truly, intrinsically, by our own nature - sentient beings. It’s only because the mind is not inherently existent that there’s a possibility of our being sentient beings and eventually being Buddhas. Sentient being by its definition means - not enlightened. That’s how it’s categorized.
[1:30] And so that’s already present. And then we have secondly the [Tibetan 1:31] the evolving or transforming, evolving it’s a good word, evolving and it’s a deliberate, conscious, evolution or transformation towards enlightenment that the mind that is right now is subject to mental afflictions, obscurations, really unwholesome activity and so forth can improve. It can be developed, refined, purified, develop those six perfections until they’re all perfected and you become enlightened and so then we see - this is the path. We are transforming, growing along the path. One is already present, immutable, unchanging, primordial, and the other one is transforming. Here we are in an analogy of that. We’re resting, just resting in awareness, which has always been luminous and cognizant, and when the Buddha referred to this Bhavanga - this primordial consciousness, the not primordial consciousness the substrate consciousness, but he referred to it as Pabhassara citta - the brightly shining mind. The clear light mind, which is by nature pure and luminous but adventitiously becomes obscured. But you don’t improve it. Probe it to its core, probe it to its ground, and that of course is rigpa, right. And that’s where we’re seeking to rest. In that stillness like a low symbol here, no big deal, just an index finger, but that’s the symbol of it that we know so well. That the, it’s our closest approximation to resting in and being fully cognizant of our naturally abiding Buddha nature. Which when clearly revealed manifests itself as rigpa which is dharmakaya. But we’re observing the mind, we’re not observing somebody else’s mind, we’re observing our own mind and we see it’s in a constant state of flux. But with diligent, intelligent, continuous practice, we see from month to month, year to year, decade to decade, it’s not the same, there’s improvement. Gradually mental afflictions subsiding, mind gets a bit saner, bit more balanced and so forth. Virtues, altruism, compassion, and empathetic joy and so forth, coming forth, coming forth. So we see, you know, the mind’s changing, we’re going in the right direction, right? And we can be cultivating that effortfully, through Lojong through Lamrim meditation through Stage of Generation and Completion, cultivating in a myriad ways to transform that mind which is so evidently not a Buddhist mind, a Buddha’s mind, into a Buddha’s mind. And there’s the, how do you say, the full developmental approach which has enormous merits to it. And then we have the Dzogchen, effortless approach of simply resting in rigpa and then just watching it happen by itself.
[4:19] So here we are, so to best approximation as we go right to the practice, your best approximation - do really establish yourself. Find your home, come to rest, get comfortable, stay home for a while. Don’t go out bar hopping. Party, party, party. People like that woman there, hopeless, always bar hopping from one place to another, party party party, [laughter] party goer. Don’t be like her, big party girl. [laughter] audience member says jokingly - terrible! [Alan continues] I know, that’s why I’m letting everybody in the podcast know - not like her. [laughter] She’s a party goer, I’m a party pooper. [laugher] Don’t be like that, stay home, stay home. And watch the show. Settling the mind in its natural state- just watch the show. It turns out well, it has a happy ending. [laughter]
[5:26] Find a comfortable position.
Let’s have a silent session, that’ll be good.
[05:35] Meditation has ended, talk begins.
Olaso
But I think it’s time to wrap up. This trying to unpack and make sense of this citation from a hundred thousand verse Prajnaparamita Sutra, and of course lingering on that one, Buddhist astronomy. The first moon landing, for somebody reaching out and touching it. The first sun landing was somebody reaching out and caressing the sun. It sounds so wildly implausible that one just kind of wonders, does not compute, one is tempted to just move on and, say - somebody has made that one up. It’s hard not to just start laughing, especially the notion of caressing the sun. The Tibetans have a joke about the dhakis, a couple of dhaki jokes, they tell about the press release from the Ladhakhi government saying - we’re now soon to launch a the first man landing on the sun.. and journalist raises his hand and says - how you going to do that it’s too hot?. And then this very wise smile came over the representative of this, you know, the sun landing and he said - we’re going to land at night. [laughter] So, that’s, I like, I’ve been telling that joke for years, I enjoy it every single time and we laugh very rightly, because it’s just so wonderfully silly. And is reaching out and caressing the sun any less silly? That’s the real question. But this, the Ladhakhi joke is not in the Prajnaparamita sutra, it’s not in the Digha Nikaya, it’s not in the writings of Karma Chagme Rinpoche, it’s not taken seriously by brilliant minds for 2500 years, taking that literally, and not just Buddhist. So what do we do about that? Well the first point I think, and we’ll just do a little bit of a walk down history lane here, is that very notion, and I’m going to back this up with a bit of Buddhist cosmology just to give it some context, that will come soon. Is that we really feel, if you’ve been raised in the West or let alone West, raised in Singapore and gone through secular education right through university, you know there’s one story, we’re very familiar with it - 13.8 billion years ago there was a big bang and everything else happened and that’s the one story. And if you’re religious then you have a lot of other stories, and if you’re a fundamentalist religious person then you’d basically just turn your back on science. And I did check and it is truly 40% of the American public, are creationists. Believing in the six, literal interpretation of six day creation. This is the United States, and they’re about to vote somebody to become president, and more than 2 thirds of regular church goers in the United States are Creationists. More than 2 thirds, so that’s sobering really. Because it looks like, you know, they walk into the room of science and they just hold their nose and close their eyes and say I’m having nothing to do with this. Because we know what God said, God is infallible, God is omniscient, you people, you’re mere mortals, Stephen Hawking and so forth, what do you know? God knows everything and God told us exactly what happened. That’s the end of the discussion, you know. And for many people. So there it is.
[9:00] So, but there’s one, but the notion of there being one story and there is pretty much, pretty much one story, from modern science, and it’s one we’re all educated in, if you’ve learned astronomy, physics, chemistry, right through college and so, it’s one story. We all know that, right. But that wasn’t always the one story. If we go back to the time of Copernicus there was one story and that’s for all of Europe. And it’s the Abrahamic story, it’s the Genesis account. And it’s accepted by of course Jews, it’s accepted by Christians and the Muslims. These are all three Abrahamic religions, they all accept the book of Genesis, they all, looks like they are really are worshiping the same God. Different nuances, different emphasis, and so forth and it’s one story. And so for really all of European history for the last two thousand years there’s been one story, it’s the Genesis account, it’s the Abrahamic story, and we have the Muslim interpretation, we have the Christian, the Jewish, but it’s one story. And since the time of the Greeks, going back to you know, Socrates, everybody East, starting from Turkey and going East - they’re barbarians. They were a threat. They really were a threat, right. The Turks, the Persian empire and so forth, they were a threat, you don’t go to learn from them, be afraid of them because they can take over, they’re barbarians and Greece was civilization. Rome was civilization. Outside of Rome - barbarians. Within the Roman Empire, okay - civilized or getting civilized, because of the Romans, right. So one story, we Eurocentric people are very big on one story and just don’t even consider other stories. Because they’re Heathen religions or they’re just religious nonsense, superstition and so forth, we’re very big on one story. Remember what William James said about having, thinking there’s only narrative, only one story - well the story starts this way - and that is after the six day creation, which everything was done, except one thing, then, Genesis 2.7 - then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. And the woman came shortly after and then God gave them their marching orders - be fruitful, multiply and so forth and the rest is history. But there it is, that’s the story.
[11:15] So this is absolutely rooted in metaphysical realism, that a truly existent God created a truly existent universe, finished it, then created man out of dust, which is the very important element, and then he breathed prana, I mean breath of life, what is that if not prana? So God, from a supernatural source, breathed prana into this dust created image like a clay statue, and of course it not only became living, it became conscious. So with the prana there had to be consciousness as well. So God breathed consciousness and prana into this craven image that he created and then we have a human being, a living human being with an immortal soul. And created woman, and there we go. That’s the story, that’s the one story, and this was believed without question by all the founders of modern science. We start with Copernicus because modern astronomy begins with him and he was a theologian, a church man, he was employed by the church and he formulated his heliocentric theory within the context of the Abrahamic story, just tweaking it a bit. You can’t take everything literally, but that didn’t even challenge his faith, he just interpreted the bible a little bit differently. He’s still the same Christian he was. Leap forward to Kepler, Kepler was a theologian, trained as a theologian, remained a theologian, leap forward we have Galileo, trained as a monk, trained as a novice in a contemplative monastery, a devout, well informed Christian. Leap forward - Newton was a theologian. Wrote extensively on theology, a very devout Christian. Leap forward - Darwin could not reconcile the notion of a compassionate God with what he saw of nature. It just, I think he just couldn’t imagine the beastality, the savagery, the mint suffering and so forth in the animal kingdom and of course, including human beings, and he started out as a Christian and then just couldn’t,. just couldn’t believe it anymore. So he disengaged from the Abrahamic religion, created a big broo ha ha, a big debate and so forth, that was the first big schism. Galileo - that was a tweek. They just told him to stay in his room for heaven’s sake, it’s called - you’re grounded! [laughter] That’s not exactly severe. And no TV for a month. [laughter]. No he just stayed home and he had all, he wrote, he continued writing and having friends over and so forth. Big deal, that’s not exactly savage. But when it got to Darwin that created a real problem. Because what the Genesis account doesn’t say is God took a Chimpanzee and breathed a very large frontal cortex into it. [laughter] It doesn’t say that. The chimpanzees were always chimpanzees, right. And the baboons and the apes and so forth and so on, they just remained as they were and God started from scratch, I mean literally scratch, dust. You know, floor sweepings, and then breathed life into it and that’s where we came from not from apes, right. So Darwin said - uh uh - the evidence is contrary, you know. But something interesting about Darwin, he was very candid, he seemed like a very admirable man, and he acknowledged very candidly - look I’ve got a theory with enormous explanatory power to explain evolution over millions and millions of years, contrary to any interpretation of the biblical account, any kind of, that holds closely to it. But as for the origins of life, the first life, he said I have no theory. I have no theory. And he acknowledged, as I recall, God might have done it. God had no role in evolution, natural selection and so forth but ok maybe we need God to start the whole thing. I don’t think he ever referred to himself as an Atheist. He just said - natural selection is just that. It is not Theological, it’s not god driven and so forth, it’s like that. But then we leap forward to James Clerk Maxwell, he was the, he was the Newton of electromagnetism, he was a very devout Christian, we leap forward to Einstein, he was a secular Jew but he believed in the God of Spinoza who was also a secular Jew. He believed in Deism, that there was a higher intelligence. When he said God doesn’t play dice, very famously to Niels Bohr, he wasn’t joking, there’s a higher intelligence here that created the entire universe, it’s Deism, does not answer prayers, not involved, not a person but there had to be some higher intelligence creating all of this and Einstein was also a metaphysical realist. It’s out there - he’s very biblical.
[15:50] Just that God doesn’t run things but he was happy for God to start it. A higher intelligence, Spinoza’s god, you can check it out. And he spoke very respectfully of religion, he said all scientists, all great scientists are deeply religious people. Not necessarily following an institutional church but they have that drive, he said that. He wasn’t anti religious at all. Then we spring forward in this same trajectory, to a man I didn’t know much about until today. His name is Georges, I’m going to give you the whole thing - Georges Henri Joseph Edouard Lemaitre, [laughter] hows that? French people - she’s oh no you know, another American trying to pronounce French [laughter] okay, Georges Lemaitre, I think that’s okay. He’s interesting, he lived from 1894 to 1966, so recent. He was a Belgium Priest, Roman Catholic Priest, an astronomer and a professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven, is that how you pronounce it? In Belgium, yeah. That’s an interesting combination, right. I didn’t mention that Mendel, Gregor Mendel started genetics, he was a Roman Catholic monk. So all of the history of science from Copernicus to Lemaitre is basically Judeo-Christian science. It’s rooted in a worldview where God started it and then you can tweak it as you like but God started it, it was already there, it’s absolutely real and scientists are representing, or approximating a God’s eye-view. And so this fellow, this Georges Lemaitre, he was very interesting, he was the one, I think it was about 1960, he proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, that was his idea. And he also proposed what became known as the big bang theory of the origin of the universe.
[17:42] That fits in very neatly with the Biblical account. That there was a void and then God started the whole thing, a long time ago, you know, seven thousand years ago. That’s a long time for most people, well just you know, stretch it out a bit. Seven thousand years, thirteen point 8 billion, now whats a few years among friends? [laughter] But it’s the same principle, it’s the same principal. It’s still very Abrahamic. And who started the big bang? Ask him. I think we know. He’s a Roman Catholic priest, he’s not going to become a heretic, he never got excommunicated. He’s orthodox, he’s just tweaking the Genesis Account into the 20th century. And so he, he was the originator of the big bang theory, which is not just going like - everybody knows that’s true. And he called this big bang theory, he called that - The Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom. Or the Cosmic Egg. Cosmic Egg. So I guess God laid an egg. [laughter] Not quite sure how that works, what comes first the chicken or the egg ? [laughter] I don’t know. But there it is.
So my point here is that if you’re Christian, and the vast majority of them, right through the 20th century were Christian, some, well, pretty much Christian, some Jews, but they tend to be secular like Einstein. The utter conviction, the unquestioned belief that is the core of their worldview from Copernicus right through Lemaitre, from one Christian priest, Roman Catholic priest to another Roman Catholic Priest and a whole bunch of theologians in between, is that God created this universe, God said it was good, God created man in his image, God imbued the universe with meaning, mysterious are the ways of the Lord, there must be a higher meaning, you don’t know what’s in the mind of God but this is going to turn out well, and the universe is meaningful because God made it meaningful and human beings are in God’s image and we have divine souls and so it’s okay. And moreover God is the source of eudaimonia and there’s a path, a path of salvation, of righteousness, and what comes after this life, if you’re you know, faithful, virtuous person, you have faith -it turns out well. So that’s very livable. You’ve got eudaimonia you’ve got hedonia, you got some really cool science. But now what happens if you take God out of that equation? What if you just chuck out God? And that’s everything God does, I mean image, man created in the image of God, throw it out. That there’s a compassionate field that permeates the whole world - throw it out. That there’s meaning in the universe - well there’s no God - then there’s not meaning in the universe. What happens if you just throw that out, what happens if you take this, basically a new denomination of Judeo-Christianity called Modern Science, and then you gut it, you take out the divine, you take out spirit, you take out the sacred, you take it all out, you take out subjectivity, all subjectivity and you’re left only with the world of services. Total objectivity. What do you have then? When you have Judeo Christian science evolving over 400 years but you pluck out its heart. God, the soul, the divine, blessings, salvation, miracles, divine intervention, the whole thing, you just pluck it all out. What happens? What do you get? Well here’s what you get, Stephen Hawking said this in 19, wrote it in 1990, he said it, and I have the source here , 1995 - here’s Stephen Hawking - What’s this Judeo-Christian vision that’s evolved over 400 years through science look like when you pluck God out? And pluck out the human soul, so that as Stephen Hawking says - the mind is simply, you know, the program of the brain, destroy the brain - there’s no mind, you’re finished, you’re terminated.
[21:30] So what’s it look like? Here’s what he says and I quote him verbatim - The human race is just I have to say it slowly, The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies, we’re so insignificant that I can’t believe the whole universe exists for our benefit, that would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes. So God breathed the breath of life into dust, take out God and you’ve got chemical scum, ‘cause that’s what dust is with no prana, with no consciousness, no buddha nature, and we are the stuff of stardust, we are stardust, we are chemical scum. If you’re a materialist, that’s it. So you know when you fall in love and you have the big romance, you should address her - you know for chemical scum I really, really like you. [laughter] Do you like me too?
Is that what you felt? [laughter] Here’s the chemical scum that just captures my heart. [laughter] It does, takes the romance out of the universe, you know, I mean tall, short, fat, skinny, chemical scum, but when it’s all said and done it’s all chemical scum. So that’s for us, we’re chemical scum, an accidental byproduct of complex amino acids and so forth and so on.
But how about the universe at large? Now again take out the divine. Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics and astronomy, he writes very succinctly - and this has been quoted many times - The more the universe seems comprehensible the more it also seems pointless This whole Judeo Christian vision starting with Copernicus and culminating let’s say in Lemaitre, with no God - it’s just pointless, it’s meaningless and the more thoroughly you understand it the more meaningless it appears. A big mindless machine grinding on and on, going nowhere, except for maybe just whimpering out and going cold. But then how about life on our planet?
[23:40] And so Darwin’s story, okay however it started, there’s been evolution for 13.5 billion years, something like that, so what’s the nature, what’s that feel like, what’s happening with evolution from a single set of organisms to us? Stephen J Gould is an eminent, very, he’s very, the late Stephen J Gould - eminent, very distinguished evolutionary biologist, speaks for the mainstream and he writes and I quote - evolution is purposeless, non progressive and materialistic . So that’s the world we’re left with. That is the world of scientific materialism, and people defend it as if it’s a wish fulfilling jewel, you know. The allegiance to this vision is amazing, okay.
Now this morning I had a treat, I kind of bumped into Thomas Hertog, not in person of course, but you remember he was the one that co authored that paper by Stephen Hawking - that there is no objective, definitive, single story of the universe that actually happened. But all possibilities of histories of the universe are coexistent, simultaneously present in the superposition state. And the history that rises up to meet you, which is true, relative to your questions and systems of measurement, arises out of that when you make the measurement. But there is no real history. Of what actually happened. No one story. So this is Thomas Hertog. So I checked him out, he’s, got curious, well who is he? Because everyone knows who Stephen Hawking is but who’s this Thomas Hertog dude? Well it turns out he’s not that, he’s not very old. Middle aged man. He’s a Belgian, theoretical physicist, and he teaches right there at that same university in Belgium that Lemaitre was, that same University of Leuven, ya, Leuven. So I watched a 16 minute youtube account, it was a TedX talk that he gave this morning and I was just about to stop watching because it was the same old, l’ve heard it so many times, and then he made one comment, and I said, I’ve got to write that down, and then he, oh, I’ve got to write that down, and so he really perked my interest about halfway through. Listen up :- He is a close colleague and he taught for a while and did research at my UC Santa Barbara, my home town. As well as [? 26:08] So he is very distinguished. World wide reputation, very solid physicist, no question about that. Here’s what I wrote down from his TedX talk this morning, I think you’ll enjoy it. ; - Whether or not we exist, seems, in the big bang theory, So just assume that starts with a Copernicus, it’s a smooth trajectory, Copernicus to Lemaitre, theologian to theologian. With lots of theologians in between. Whether or not we exist, we human beings exist, seems in the big bang theory completely irrelevant I mean those first six days was done deal, whether God breathes life into a bit of dust, I mean the rest of the universe won’t care, all the stars and planets and so forth, our planet, all the other life forms, will they even notice if we never showed up? No environmental degradation and so forth. So we’re just irrelevant, whether or not we exist - completely irrelevant to all other species, to the planet and the entire universe, completely and absolutely irrelevant. But there’s one catch. The big bang theory does not explain how the universe came into existence. That is it is said it happened, but if you have a theory about something you should be able to explain how it happened. What were the causes. Just like mind. If mind exists then what do we do, where did it come from? Where’s it located? Where does it go? Then you have a theory of mind. But if you have no idea where it came from then you have at best an incomplete theory Or you have no scientific theory at all. So we say well we have a theory about the big bang but no theory, I mean not a clue what caused the big bang. Lemaitre would probably almost certainly say God, of course, but if you don’t believe in God then you just don’t even have a scientific theory that’s in any way complete. That’s for the universe. Secondly there is no scientific theory for the origins of life. Lots of theories, they all mutually contradict, none of them are testable so you may as well have none, rather than many that all contradict each other and are not testable, so that is none.
[28:20] And then origins of consciousness in the course of evolution or in the course of the development of a human fetus - no theory. So these are the three big questions, right. The origin of the universe, origins of life, origins of consciousness, and modern science to this day is sitting with its mouth hanging open, just having no answers for any of those three questions. This is clearly incomplete science. Three big questions, there’s just no answer, and not even a scientific theory let alone one that’s testable, let alone one that’s confirmed. And yet, and that’s fine, ignorance is fine, I’m comfortable with ignorance, but then to pretend that there’s no ignorance - no we have a complete story, the big bang tells it all - No we have a complete story we just haven’t figured out the details but life emerges from inorganic, you know, dust. And consciousness? No just sufficiently complex interaction of neurons. This is a charade. Because you are pretending to know something you don’t know. That’s, that’s not bad science, that’s pseudoscience. If you have no theory at all and then you’re pretending as if you not only have a theory but you already found the truth - now that’s fraudulent. As Gomer Pyle used to say - Shame shame shame. [laughter]
This get’s interesting though. This, the big bang theory does not explain how the universe came into existence, this created somewhat of crisis in cosmology because not only did the big bang remain outside the realm of science, furthermore it seems that it was precisely, mysteriously ‘designed’, so to speak, to create just the universe in which life could emerge. And obviously I didn’t transcribe here on my cell phone a 16 minute talk, but he said you know, the laws of physics, the constants and so forth, of our universe - they had to be very very precise and there are a lot of them, very precise. To allow for life as we know it to emerge. If any one of these, if inverse square law of gravity, if it were something else, life as we know it wouldn’t be there. The nature of carbon, if it weren’t as it is, we wouldn’t be here. If it weren’t for the gravitational constant, we wouldn’t be here. The temperature at which water freezes, if that were very different we wouldn’t be here. There’s a lot of variables like that. It had to be just so. And if all of those were not lined up then there just wouldn’t be any life in the universe that we know of. So how did that happen? Why is this universe life friendly? At least the little corner of it that we know about it? Because there were many, many variables that had to be just so. As if, he says, and this is a physicist of course - It’s precisely, mysteriously ‘designed’ so to speak, to create just the universe in which life could emerge. Then he goes on to speak of string theory, I don’t understand it very well, I won’t pretend to but it has multiple dimensions, eleven dimensions and he says the shape of, and there are six hidden dimensions so he clearly knows what he is talking about, I don’t, but he does so I’ll just quote him this shape of the six hidden dimensions, the ones above that are evident, three dimensions of physicals, physical space and then the dimension of time, space time, four, so there’s four, we have six that are hidden, hidden. The shape of the six hidden dimensions in string theory determines the laws of physics in the visible dimension Now that’s the shape of hidden dimensions, determines the laws of physics in the visible dimension. This is reminiscent, not identical to, but reminiscent of this theory of Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli.
[31:52] There’s a hidden dimension and the laws there, these archetypes and so forth and then if we go back to Pythagoras maybe the mathematical laws are there in the realm of pure form. Because the mathematics is there, because the archetypes are there then when it manifests in its cruder, grosser manifestation of what we call the desire realm or the physical universe, well - the laws here are predetermined because of the laws in this underlying, hidden dimension. Or form realm, or unus mundus. So it’s not the same but there’s definitely a very similar theme here. The shape of the six hidden dimensions in string theory determines the laws of physics in the visible dimension. So he caught my attention at this point. But the hidden dimensions can have all sorts of shapes which leads to an ensemble of universes each containing different laws of physics. We can describe the physics of the big bang, it’s not going to predict a unique world.
So this is now, it was Hertog and Hawking of course, that wrote there’s not one history of the universe, there are many depending on the questions you are posing, the system of measurement you are using and that history will rise and it will be accurate, sophisticated, rigorous and scientific, relative to the questions you’re asking and the measurements you’re making. But you can ask different questions and use different systems of measurement and have another story, and those stories don’t have to be compatible. The laws of physics can be different from one to the other, right. He’s not now got my interest. It leads to a reality This vision here, this string theory, This leads to a reality, a worldview which is completely different from what we have in the METS cosmology This is still Abrahamic. Big bang, one God, created the one big bang for one real universe that’s absolutely out there and we scientists are exploring it as metaphysical realists, right. And if you throw out God then you’re scientific materialists, living in an incredibly bleak universe. And leading a pointless life. String theory gives you a multiverse, an ensemble of universes with different laws of physics which coexist in the theory, simultaneously and which have certain relative probabilities determined by the laws of physics. And then he gives an analogy - I like this You can think of that quantum reality a bit like a tree, the branches represent all possible universes So you can see he really was that co author with Stephen Hawking Possible universes right now, possible universes, depending on the questions you pose, the system of measurement you use right now, possible, multiple ones. Rising from the superposition state on the basis of your observations but also for the whole past. Multiple possible histories of different universes, coexisting simultaneously and mutually incompatible because they’re operating under different laws of physics, right. And all of this - relative.
[35:00] So this is now what I called earlier - General Theory of Ontological Relativity. It’s not just desire realm and form realm, it’s everything. Everything, whether you live in the form realm, the formless realm, whether you live as a preta, an animal, a hell being or a deva, you’re making measurements in a reality that rises to you, is relative to your observations. That’s not just desire realm, form realm and archetypes manifesting here. It’s everywhere. Which gives rise to the Madhyamaka constant. The invariable across all cognitive frames of reference. Madhyamaka, Kalachakra system says this explicitly, there is no one definitive description of the universe, anywhere. Not in Abhidharma, not in Dzogchen, not in Kalachakra, not in Hinduism or Christianity, not in modern science, not in string theory, not in quantum theory, there is no one definitive, actually, truly, right account of an objective universe out there because there is no objective universe out there existing in and of itself. So there is no one right story. And whether it’s Buddhist or Atheistic, there’s still no one right story. It’s all, and some stories are false. I mean people just make up stuff, that’s not a true story just making up stuff. So you can think of that quantum reality a bit like a tree, the branches represent all possible universes, and these are not just stories, make believe, fantasies, these are universes that are based upon questions, rigorous measurements, sound inference, and proceeding. So it’s not just story telling. Modern Science, the 13.8 billion year, that’s not just a story, some fiction somebody dreamed up, there’s a lot of very very good science. Precise measurement and brilliant intellect. Fantastic mathematics, so we should not denigrate this as just a story somebody made up.
[36:49] The branches represent all possible universes and our observations and he interjects here - we are part of we, we are part of the universe so we are part of that tree. Suddenly we don’t look like chemical scum anymore. And suddenly it doesn’t look like our existence is totally irrelevant. Because we are part of the tree, we are bringing human existence back into nature rather than leaving it out, which was crazy, because it’s describing a universe that doesn’t exist, one that’s empty of mind. Mentioned that before. The branches represent all possible universes and our observations were part of the universe so we’re part of that tree and our observations select certain branches and thereby give meaning, or give reality to our past in a quantum world So rather than someone else, some divine being out there, some ‘inherently, truly existent being’ out there, creating the whole thing and then adding us as a glorious footnote, he said WE, we, our observations select certain branches, we select this universe, that universe and thereby give meaning so we are not relying on God to give meaning to the universe, we give meaning to the universe by our questions by our measurements, what we do with the information we have and we thereby give meaning or give reality to our past not just to the present to our past in a quantum world quantum theory indicates that we may NOT be mere chemical scum. So you can fall in love with each other all over again. [laughter] I love you even more now you’re not chemical scum, you’re free, I love you. [laughter] But much nicer, the wedding ceremony is much nicer than - and now I’ll bring this chemical scum with this chemical scum do you agree to unite and create more chemical scum? [laughter] Not a very nice story. No poetry there.
[38:43] Quantum theory indicates we may not be mere chemical scum, life and the cosmos are in the quantum theory -a synthesis, rather than life just being an accidental by-product and we are totally irrelevant, life in the cosmos, cosmos, life in the cosmos are in the quantum theory a synthesis and our observations NOW, give in fact reality to its earliest days so if you’d like to listen to a 16 minute talk, it starts out boring and gets really really interesting you can look it up, youtube, TedX. So that’s how I started my day. And now we finally come back to Buddhism.
Stroking the moon, caressing the sun, [laugher] and there’s background information here, we’ve got to go background because it’s much worse than that. If you think that was a blip, that was an editorial error, sun is a lot, the word sun is a lot like the word dog and he actually meant stroking a dog. [laughter] It would be nice to do that, you know scholars like to do that, and the moon - well it’s actually a lot more like cat so it says is you can stroke a cat in the dark, and now we’re finished, you know. [laughter] It would be really nice to do that, but there’s no truth to that at all. But, so, this is the tip of the iceberg, I mean the problem is much deeper than a line item in the Digha Nikaya or the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. You want to see how deep this really is? How deep the problem goes? Here we go - the Buddhist description of the universe appears to be fundamentally incompatible with that of modern physics and astronomy. I think we’re right back to only the Pali canon, here. For example in the Anguttara Nikaya and all of this is sourced, you can find every source here, in the Anguttara Nikaya, one of the most definitive, that whole body of definitive sutras, absolutely clearly the Buddha did teach this stuff, the Buddha gives a description of the universe in which there is no mention that the moon is particular to planet Earth, and that other planets have their own moons, there’s no mention of that at all. It assumes that each world system or Loka [Tibetan 41:11] each world system which may be equivalent to a planet inhabited by sentient beings, has one sun and one moon. It assumes that every planet has one sun and one moon, that’s just, that’s no way that’s compatible with modern physics, right. So just for starters, it gets much worse. Each world system has Mount Sumeru. Okay, Mount Meru is back and every one of them, not just ours, we don’t have a weirdo planet, all the planets have Mount Meru. Oh you thought stroke now that stroking the sun and the moon looks like child’s play God, I think we can work with that but Mount Meru? Oh oh! [laughter] Each world system has Mount Sumeru at its center surrounded by the same four continents, oh yikes, described by the Buddha in the 5th century before the common era. He’s saying all these world systems have a Mount Sumeru, a sun and a moon and four continents. What do we do? This is getting terrible here. [laughter] Buddhist tradition and modern astronomy both present the universe as vast in time and space, yeah, with countless planets - yeah, or world systems capable of supporting living conscious organisms but the differences between the detailed descriptions of planets are obvious. So we got a big problem there. Where’s Mt. Meru? You know, we’ve climbed Mt. Everest, K2, climbed Mt Everest, how high was it? Where was it? Which satellite photo picked it up? Oh, it gets worse.
[42:91] A second area of incongruity between Buddhism and Science has to do with the causes of natural phenomena. So to take just one example, in the Samyutta Nikaya again, Pali canon, one finds the question asked - why does the weather become warm? [laughter] This was before global warming so don’t ask that. [laughter] Why does the weather become warm, why does it become cold? Why are there storms, why does it become windy, why does it rain? And the Buddha answers each of these phenomena, that each of these phenomena are caused by a particular class of devas. And I give the source. This answer could hardly be more different than the explanations presented by the meteorology. [laughter] I’d love to see it on the evening news [laughter] - We have these devas coming in from the West and they’re blowing up a storm. [ laughter] But the nagas on the East are really retaliating and they’re creating a lot of moisture from the ocean. [ laughter] I would love to see the Buddhist network you know, [laughter] that’s their version here’s our version. I would find the latter more interesting myself. [laughter] It gets worse, if you’re not feeling really, if you’re a devout Buddhist it gets much worse. You ready? We have two areas, right. The first is Mt. Meru and that whole business, the second one is natural causes, devas are kind of really doing a lot. And the third one, this gets really bad, [laughter] a third area of incompatibility between Buddhists and Scientific descriptions of the physical world has to do with history of our world and other worlds as explained in discourses attributed to the Buddha. It’s again Pali canon. The early canonical texts speak of past Buddhas, bearing in mind in the cycle of Buddhas Buddha Shakyamuni was the 4th, right. So what about the first three? Past Buddhas, three of whom are said to have lived in Northern India in the very same region where Gautama lived and taught and their lifespans were remarkably long. [laughter] Okay. Kakusandha the first of in this cycle of thousand - Kakusandha had a lifespan of 40,000 years. And then Konagamana - 30 thousand years, he was the second in the cycle, 30 thousand. Kassapa the one just before the Buddha - 20,000 years, and our Buddha, Gautama, who volunteered to appear in our world at a time of spiritual degeneration, therefore only 80 years. For the clearest statement of this see the Digha nikaya and give the exact source. In stark contrast to all such Buddhist accounts, contemporary archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, let alone evolutionary biology and geology and so forth, give us a remarkably precise and accurate account of the history of humankind and human civilizations. And one conclusion we can draw from their investigations with near certainty is that there never were any advanced Buddhist civilizations in India preceding Gautama Buddha.
[45:50] There is certainly no scientific basis to support the hypothesis that humans in earlier civilizations had lifespans of up to 40,000 years. [laughter]. And that’s Pali canon. Theravadins really, they don’t interpret it much and for very good reason, there’s not much in the way of hermeneutics in Theravada Buddhism. What the Buddha said he meant. It’s kinda like creationists, I mean, God said what he meant. He chose his prophets to give, you know, be good scribes, write down what he wanted them to say, God said what he meant, he meant what he said and that’s what he said, it’s called The Bible. This is called the Pali canon. And the Buddha himself declared in the Pali canon - whatever the Thathagatha says is just so and not otherwise. And whatever is seen, heard, sensed and cognized, you’ve heard that one before, right, Bahiya Sutta, whatever is seen, heard, sensed and cognized, all that I know. All that I have directly known. This means that the Buddha’s saying - look I’m reporting, if I speak of Mt. Meru that’s because I’ve seen it. If I’m reporting on four continents, I’m reporting on the lifespans of earlier Buddhas, that’s because I’ve seen it. It’s not inference, it’s not conjecture, I’m relying on some authority - I saw it, I’m telling you what I saw, and I’m seeing worlds all over the place, Locas with Mt. Meru and four continents, that’s what I’m seeing. This means that when he made such statements about past Buddhas and their life times he was doing so on the basis of direct experience, his own direct experience in advance states of meditative consciousness.
So if we’re following and taking as the one story that has any credibility, that’s not just scientific or religious fable, superstition, hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo, claptrap, if we took as the one story, the story from Copernicus to Lameitre the Judeo -Christian story, nuanced and you know, accentuated with modern science and fantastic technology and mathematics of modern science then you’d look at that and you’d have to say - well, okay, either we just have to turn our back on that whole trajectory of astronomy from Copernicus to Lameitre, and say it’s all wrong. And the Buddha said exactly what he meant and that means also evolutionary biology and paleontology, archaeology, so it’s all wrong because there were Buddhas millions of years ago in India who had lifespans of 40,000 years, 30,000, 20,000. And that’s millions of years [ago]. So I think frankly, and I’m just speaking…all that I just read and I mean that’s just true, I’m not saying that’s true of reality, it’s true of the Pali canon and if you embrace the Pali canon as this is what the Buddha’s taught, which is widely accepted in Buddhist communities all over the world, then it makes, I think one very, if I were a Theravada Buddhist I’d be feeling very uncomfortable. Because Theravada Buddhism on the whole, and I’ve spoken with world experts on this, it embraces metaphysical realism. The five skandhas are real, the universe is real, it’s out there, it’s, you know, it’s empty of self, it’s impermanent, it’s dukkha, it’s not self, but it’s real! The five skandhas are real they’re just empty of a self, right. And Nirvana’s real, it’s all real and the Buddha saw what was real and he reported. But if you’re a metaphysical realist and embracing everything the Buddha just said as being true, and bear in mind that one of the three facets of metaphysical realism is there’s one correct description, remember? From Hilary Putnam, there’s one correct description of that one objectively real universe out there, so you can’t have incompatible, there can only be one, if you have nuances it has to be compatible with the one true story, you can’t have totally different stories that totally contradict each other and have them both true. You can’t have that. And so I believe the Theravadins in the 21st century are in a bind.
[50:05] If they’re still adhering to metaphysical realism, they have to turn their back on the whole of evolutionary biology, geology, paleontology, astronomy and physics and say bah humbug and start some ‘amish buddhist’ communities, you know, and just turn away from the, from all of science for the last 400 years. And there are those who do. That wasn’t hard to do a hundred years ago, that was very easy seventy years ago in Tibet, they didn’t know anything about us, they didn’t care. But now the Tibetans and the Thais and Chinese and the Indians and the Sri Lankans and forth, all of them have been exposed to modernity. If you’re a metaphysical realist you’re in a really tough spot. Because either then you say well look - as stated there, the scientific evidence is enormously compelling, I mean it’s brilliant work, but does this mean that the Buddha was delusional? Or that other problem makers, you know, vandals got in there and added all this claptrap in the midst of the brilliant teachings of the Buddha and we have to do an apologetic kind of thing that some modern secular Buddhists are very happy to do? They take the meat cleaver our and just chop out anything out of the Pali canon that is incompatible with modern science. Because they’re metaphysical realists. And most of them have hardly any training in science at all. So that’s one way, be a secular buddhist - just take a meat cleaver out and come to the Pali canon and say - the Buddha never said this because that’s not true, whack! And whack! And then after you’ve dealt with Mount Meru, and the earlier Buddhas, you just keep on going, like in a mad frenzy - whack out karma, whack out reincarnation, whack out the Four Noble Truths, whack out enlightenment and what you have is Buddhist inspired Psychotherapy and you call that secular Buddhism. Now that’s completely whacked Buddhism. I mean whacked as in a beef carcass that you’ve chopped up in a hamburger, to call that a secular cow [laughter] it’s not a secular cow, it’s hamburger. It’s not cow at all, you threw out all the vital organs, this is fat, and if you eat modern hamburger it’s included with pink slime. [laughter] That’s a very special kind of hamburger, it sounds really yummy. [laughter]. So what to do?
[52:21] Well let’s pay attention to all of that whole trajectory. Take serious, and I give, if I found sound whacko weirdo fringe physicist who were coming up with these kooky ideas , and I’m trying to save Buddhism on the basis of that, I’d say oh give us a break. But John Wheeler was not wacky, kooky and Anton Zeilinger and Paul Davies and Andrei Linde and Stephen Hawking, and Thomas Hertog, I’m not saying they’re infallible, I’m not saying we need them to say Buddhism, but I’m saying these are really first rate scientists, and they’re telling us that that whole story of metaphysical realism, of there being one truth and that human beings are totally irrelevant - is false. Never been true. It’s only one story and it’s a story that is true relative to us and we are important because we created the story, it’s based on our observations and that universe came into existence basically because we invoked it. By our questions, which are physical questions about a physical universe, our measurements which were physical measurements about a physical universe, surprise surprise we come out with a physical universe. If you add God it’s okay, take out God and you have this meaningless purposeless bleak sterile universe in which we are irrelevant chemical scum, and that is what scientific materialism gets us today.
So when Yangthang Rinpoche, after giving some Dzogchen teachings, incredibly brilliant, we are basically finished with them, and then he sat back and I paraphrase here, Amy will correct me if I say something wrong because she’s doing transcribing - he said - Well we’ve dealt with the important stuff now let’s just have some fun. Right, and then he took us on a tour. This great Vidyadhara who has demonstrated his siddhis on multiple occasions, he’s the real deal, realized rigpa, my own teacher Gyatrul Rinpoche said he’s achieved shamatha, achieved vipassana, he’s realized rigpa, he’s the real deal, you know. So, I’m just saying what I’ve heard, but I certainly believe what I’ve heard. So he said, well, and then he took us on a tour of Mount Meru and the four continents and then multiple world systems and he also commented that Longchen Rabjampa, you know, he liked that Tsongkhapa for systematizing all of Dzogchen, that Longchenpa himself had visited Mt. Meru, and was doing measurements. [laughter] Right, doing measurements - how big is the base, how high is it and so forth and going and the four continents and the concentric rings of oceans and so forth, he was observing all of this and taking, he was like the Lewis and Clark expedition of Mt Meru, you know he was exploring and drawing up what he saw and he had as an escort Saraswati, I thought that was awfully nice of her, she was his tour guide, right. Yeah, just speaking modern, tour guide, very nice, I’d love to have her as my tour guide, because she’s musician as well, get musical accompaniment. [laughter] And so I asked him, so I’ve heard this story but he gave it in real precise detail, real precise, in how this is true of multiple world systems all over the universe you know, with as it’s said right there in the Diginakya, I think it was, one of the nakayas, that this is true of all these world systems - there’s a sun, a moon, Mt. Meru, four continents, that’s the standard template and then each one is populated by multiple types of sentient beings, in which case there are human beings all over the universe, not just here, you know, human beings all over the place. So I asked Yangthang Rinpoche who was not speaking about this like it’s poetry or like it’s allegory or let alone like it’s superstition, and he said, and I asked him - who sees this, who sees this? I mean the Buddha himself said he saw it, he said I reported what I saw and that’s what he said he saw. And I said - what degree of realization do you have to have to see this? And his answer was - remember? You remember? You remember? Geez. The most important question! Shame shame shame. [laughter] Claudio - Shamatha. First yana. He said first yana, this is what you see if you’re viewing from the form realm. Different set of questions, different measurement system, different reality that rises to meet you from that different set of questions and the different measurement system. Purely mental consciousness, but you’re seeing form, it’s called form realm because there are forms. In the form realm there’s the sun and the moon. In the form realm he said you can see Mt. Meru and you can see it’s different stratus, it starts in the desire realm and it goes up to the form realm up to the realm of Indra and beyond that, realm of Brahma, and you know, up in Indra to the desire realm, the peak of the desire realm, beyond that above Mt. Meru goes the form realm and you can see all of that and all of these levels, all these stages and you can see all of the four continents and you can see all of this. But that’s what you see from the perspective of the form realm. The Buddha never said - oh by the way if you hop on a, in a boat, you know from Goa and head West you’ll bump into the Northern Continent. He never said that. Karma Charme Rinpoche never said - if you hope in a spaceship and travel 93 million miles you could reach out and touch the sun. He never said that. This from the form realm. This is the sun and the moon as they appear to you from the form realm. The four continents, the Mt. Meru from the form realm. And apparently Nagarjuna witnessed this as well, Nagarjuna I think went to the Northern continent and so forth and so on. Descriptions are just totally different than anything we have you know from satellite photos and so forth and so on.
[58:21] If this is just make believe, if somebody’s made up a story and then said - God said it, and I have no comment on the Genesis, it’s not my business, so I just remain you know, a bit quiet, I don’t know, but if somebody were just to make up a story like a novel or science fiction, that doesn’t count. Because that’s just making up a story. No, this is the Buddha who achieved all of the Janas, and viewed all the multiple dimensions within the Janas and he said - this is what I saw. But he saw that from that perspective. Not by hopping in boat, traveling west and bumping into the northern continent. Or traveling far north and then bumping into Mt Meru. He never said that you could see this from the desire realm. Or from an ordinary perspective of untrained consciousness. He never said you could see it through a telescope, through, and so forth and so on. He never said there would be fossil remains, you know, of Buddhas living millions of years ago, he never said. So this is what you see from the form realm. And other people can also replicate the same measurement system by achieving jana and then you can check this out for yourself. That is what Yangthang Rinpoche said and this was like, less than a year ago, yeah, less than a year ago. You want to check out Mt. Meru? Okay, achieve the first jana. Then you can put this to the test of experience, right. So it’s not a matter of belief system or I have faith in the Buddha therefore I’m going to see something, or I’m going to have a divine revelation - the Buddha’s going to show me something - it’s just, shift your perspective, shift your system of measurement and you see a different reality. And there can be multiple, there can and there are multiple realities that coexist simultaneously and they can be incompatible, right. So from the form realm you can reach out and touch the sun and moon, no big deal, because they’re not 93 million miles away, or 237 thousand miles away, they’re not, not from that perspective.
[1:00:16] So this is where metaphysical realism really strikes home vehemently, because for all of our education in the West, we’re just told, hey - this is the sun and I think it’s 93 million miles away and this is what’s happening there, and we have an enormous amount of data to back up - we’re saying this is not speculation, these solar flares, this this this, this is the temperature of the core, this is temperature on the surface, these are the type of nuclear reactions taking place, it’s made of helium, it’s made of hydrogen, I mean they’ve really nailed it you know. My brother in law’s a, an astrophysicist and he worked on the sun, which leads to a story. And that is - back in about 1973, you have no idea what’s coming. When I was living in Dharamsala, I was about, soon to become a monk, enter the Buddhist school of Dialectics, but I moved out of the Dalai Lama’s doctor’s home and moved into the Tibetan Medical Center, just for a while, just before I became a monk and moved into the monastery. And my teacher for about a year was one of the two chief astronomers astrologers for the Tibetan Astro Medical Center. They had two and they would write up the ephemeris for each year, enormous amount of arithmetic that went into it. And describing each day, it’s an ephemeris, each day the positions of the planets and so forth and so on, great, great detail. And of course it’s rooted in the notion that the earth’s in the center and sun and moon go around, of course. That’s the Abhidharma vision, that’s what it looks like from the form realm, you know. The laws of physics are different in the form realm. People can fly. And they may be able to manifest that by using the nimittas in the desire realm. But what’s it like there? Different set of law physics that’s for sure. So my brother in law was working on his PHD in 1973 I think it was at UCLA in solar physics, astrophysics, and he wrote to me, my sister wrote to me that they were heading out to the east coast, east coast Connecticut because there’s going to be, you can check the date but it had to be right around 1973, they wrote to me and said well - my sister and her husband were heading off to the east coast because a full solar eclipse was predicted, and of course with tremendous precision, they’re down to the second when it’s going to start, and my brother in law went out there to observe as a scientist, it’s a nice opportunity, to observe a full solar eclipse. So I mentioned that to my teacher, he was my, he wasn’t teaching me astronomy much, or astrology, he was teaching me language, I taught him English, he taught me Tibetan. We had a buddy system. So I just mentioned to him that on such and such a date my brother in law, solar physicist was going to be observing a full solar eclipse. Well my language teacher was a Tibetan astronomer astrologer, no telescopes, but they you know like medieval astrologers, they had very good mathematics and they could predict European, medieval astrologers could predict solar and lunar eclipses to the day. They were good. And they had no telescopes, that’s really not bad at all. And so it was analogous to that, not the same but analogous. Well it is true statement turned out to be true - that these, they would spend all year, he and a colleague of his would work independently writing up the ephemeris from each year, from year to year to year. they’d do it independently because you could always make a mistake, they would then compare, and if there were any discrepancies then they’d work it out and they’d make sure that they had, you know, the right one. So that was his full time job all year was just to do all these mathematical calculations about the relative movements of the sun and moon and the planets, and so when I told him that at such and such a date my brother in law was going to be watching the solar eclipse, so he checked his books - said - oh that’s interesting we’ve predicted that too, in our books, we’ve also predicted a full solar eclipse. But he said you won’t see it from here, of course he’s speaking in Dharamsala in India, he said you won’t see it from here, it won’t be visible from where we are when it actually occurs, it will be night time here so we won’t see it. But you’ll see it [laughter] from the northern continent. One of the four continents on the opposite side of India. India is the southern continent, the northern continent, you can observe it then and there, but we won’t be able to see it. That was I thought was intriguing. So it would seem spatially, and then that’s just true, what I just told you was a true story. No reason to make up a silly story like that if it’s not true. But I found it interesting and low and behold of course the solar eclipse took place. But I got thinking about that, and it seems quite, well, based on that, it seems quite plausible that in the spatial location of North America, in that space, that’s co existent, there’s the Northern continent as described in Buddhist suttas, and you want to read about it, it’s very different from North America. Maybe it’s with, maybe one point debatable, it’s said that the, in the Buddhist classical scriptures, it’s said - remember? That the inhabitants of the northern continents are really egoless and have no sense of personal possession. [laughter] And I kind of find the Americans like that don’t you? [laughter] No? Okay, I tried. No it’s said they had no sense of personal possession. I’ve learned of one Indian native american tribe, apparently that was true of them, but not of the European settlers of which I am descended. But it occurred to me, maybe, it’s very clear that India is in the space of the Southern continent because it’s called the Southern Continent. That is the plan of India is not equivalent to, but it’s in the Southern continent, Jambudvipa - southern continent. So we know where the southern continent is, where India is, and then the northern continent would have to be on the opposite side and that would be where North America would be in the space of North America, and then you’d have the Eastern Continent - that would be where Europe is and then you’d have the Western Continent, Lemuria or the Pacific Basin, space. No real correspondence with even soil, even a continent because a lot of it is just ocean. And no correspondence in the shape, the Buddha gives precise dimensions and the shape of each of these continents, you know. Nothing would be remotely like the shapes of the continents, the world we are familiar with. But if that’s the case, this is now speculation, it’s about dinner time so we’re on our way, but southern continent here, northern continent here, North America over here, east continent, western continent, and then....Mt. Meru would be right in the center, it would be rising up above the axis, up above the North Pole. Spatially in that region, where all of the four continents would be around about it, but of course all of that is invisible if you are looking from the desire realm. But if you look at the same places, having achieved jhana, and viewing it from the view, from the form realm, then there’s a hypothesis. But in short, in summing up, this account that I gave of the history and the influence of devas and the, you know, all of that and the geography and all of that, is absolutely incompatible with the Copernicus Lemaitre trajectory, all rooted in metaphysical realism. Something’s wrong. Something’s completely false, and it’s either four hundred years of magnificent science or the accounts of the Buddha, which he says are based upon his own observations, that’s caught between a rock and a hard place, if you’re a Theravadin Buddhist, you’re having a problem. I think you’ve got a real problem. And the ones that I know, they stopped thinking about it. The ones that really have faith, really have, they really truly take refuge, and of course there are many of them. I know at least one - I just stopped thinking about it. Because he’s not ready to stop being Theravada Buddhist, not ready to start questioning metaphysical realism which saturates Theravada Buddhist interpretation of the Pali canon. But we’ve seen that yin- yang symbol in the story of Vajira, Vajira the chariot, nagasena the dot, maybe it’s not just person who’s empty, maybe all phenomena are empty and come into existence only by the power of conceptual designation. It’s just a dot of madhyamika, of Perfection of Wisdom. That expands into the full scale of the Perfection of Wisdom the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Madhyamika, and Dzogchen and Mahamudra, right. But this is now no longer implausible. You can reach out and touch the sun and moon if you’re in the form realm viewing them from the form realm. If you’ve achieved Jhana. Maybe actually see, you’ll maybe have a different history.
[1:09:01] It’s not one true history, it’s one of many. And if the questions you’re posing, the system of measurement is a mind superbly refined, dwelling in the form realm, that’s the history you see. But that’s not the true history, that’s not a God’s eye perspective, that’s not the absolute perspective, no that’s just anybody who gets access to the form realm. He happened to be a Buddha, but others have witnessed this and all you have to do is access the form realm and that’s what you see from that perspective. They’re incompatible totally and on a final note - one thing cannot possibly be a wave and a particle. Basic, basic physics. You look at what are wave properties? They’re extended out through space, they displace wave characteristics, wave appearance pattern and so forth, they are waves, and then there are particles. And particles are totally different. They’re not spread out over space, they do not display, they’re just not waves at all, so it’s like a Giraffe and a tomato. You can be a giraffe or a tomato. You just can’t be a giraffamato. [laughter] They call it wavicle, you just can’t be a wavicle, you cannot possibly be a particle and a wave. Not possible. Every scientist knows that, any physicist knows that. But if you measure light using one type of apparatus, it’s perfectly clear that photons do exist, overwhelming evidence, and you know a lot about them. My mentor in physics - Arthur Ziez, that was his whole field, quantum optics, he studied photons that was his field. You know, there’s enormous evidence there. But then of course the whole wave theory of light, that light consists of electromagnetic fields traveling through space at the speed of light, there’s enormous evidence there. Use one system of measurement and life is clearly, unequivocally, objectively a wave. Displaying all the properties of wave, interference patterns and so forth. Use another system of measurement life is unequivocally, definitively, objectively - particle. And one thing cannot be a particle and a wave. So then we can ask, if you’re a metaphysical realist, well that’s all very well but what is light when nobody’s looking? What is light when you’re not using any measurement system? What’s light, really, objectively, from God’s perspective? And the answer is - resounding silence. That is a meaningless question, for which there is no meaningful answer that can in way be corroborated or refuted and that was, who was it, Anton Zeilinger. It’s a meaningless question, it will take you nowhere. And Heisenberg says - do not attribute existence to that which is unknowable in principle. The nature of light independent of any system of measurement is unknowable in principle, therefore no reason to call it existent. So what’s the true history, what’s really going on? Was it a big bang and all of that story or was it this story? What’s really going on from nobody’s perspective? And it’s the same answer. The one invariant across all cognitive frame of reference is - they are all empty of inherent nature. That story in the Pali canon, the story of Copernicus to Lemaitre, all empty of inherent nature, they do not exist out there, they arise in an illusory fashion, relative to your system of measurement. And they may be true, objectively true, that’s why Prasangika says - yes there is an objective physical universe, but not just one. Which one is arising relative to your system? And you as an observer are empty, your process of observing is empty and that which you are observing is empty. All equally empty. So now you can be happy. [laughter] Achieve jhana. And if you feel like caressing the sun and the moon, feel free. Okay?
Now we can move on in the text. [laughter]
Enjoy your day. Tootle-loo.
Transcribed by Cheri Langston
Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti
Final Edition by Kriss Sprinkle
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