muon

This is interesting. What branch of Buddhism teaches this? I've never heard this teaching in the tradition I know best (Theravadin).

Seraphim

by andy_d

The goal of Buddhism is to try and gain a more and more direct experience of this true mind, and thus have a much better perspective on reality. It's not considered good enough to suffer from the misconception that objects in a mirror are real in themselves. They have value, but only in relation to the mirror.

Basically, what it all boils down to is that the brain (and everything else) exists because of the mind, not the other way around.

Hope that makes at least a little sense.


A man came to a small river with a spear one morning where the water was crystal clear to catch some juicy fish. He went into the middle of the river (which was only up to his knees).

Standing very firm without moving, he stare at the water below, hoping to spear some passing fish by his feet. When the water become clear once again, he saw his own reflection and instead of looking for the fish in the water, he was more interested in the face he saw on the reflection on the water itself.

Hmm ... I wonder how many of us busy admiring our SELF like that

Answerer

Wow, I'm too late in offering a response. Anyway, hope you don't mind. I wish that I had seen this thread earlier.

I believe that everything changes and does not have a permanent self. And that implies to the laws of physics and Nirvana, themselves. I do think most people here know that all laws of physics broke down at the point of singluarity, so its evident that the laws of nature is not permanent as we will like to believe, laws of nature begin and end with the rise and fall of our universe, they are not absolute and eternal laws.

The law of change may and may not imply depends on how you decide to state a case. Laws of gravity certainly does not change if you choose to examine it within a short period of decades or centuries but it will eventually. Generally speaking, only Change is Constant.

Nirvana is just a mental construction that differ in the minds of people, thats why it is not excluded. In Truth, Nirvana is not some kind of realm or reality, its just a state of mind which one experience after enlightenment. So, its pointless to cling too much on the concept of Nirvana and liberation. And only by knowing this, will one's mind become more liberated.



I think your problem started because you try to solve a spiritual question with a material scienitifc law. To solve your problem, you may think of rebirth as a superluminal effect rather than some kind of information-sending. Seriously, I don't think consciousness is deeply associated with the photons, perhaps on surface but certainly not on the sublime level. And there is not true that all rebirth is instantaneous, its depends on one's own attachments and delusion, some consciousness stays in their own bodies after death for some time before moving on.

In the case of rebirth, I don't think anyone here seriously experience feeling of being reborn since this world is some sorts of "illusion". It is odd to say that one is reborn into the world of "illusion", I always think rebirth is more correct towards the concept of hinduism.

Anyway, hopes that I answer your questions.

TheSerpentLord

I think we have a good discussion going on. So many replies and I don't know who to answer first.

This is another one of my rpoblems: What exactly is Nirvana? The scriptures are reluctant to give an exact definition to it. The usual explanation is that its an unconditioned element, hence not bounded by time and space, therefore not being subjected to death, decay, change, suffering etc. Therefore it is peaceful, tranquil etc.

And also, I have noted that some people who write about Buddhism are reluctant to describe it as a mental state [sorry, can't give any reference from the top of my head]. I think that the reasoning is something along the lines of nirvana being the ultimate reality and that its indescribable.

When you say that nirvana is a mental state, does this mean its a particular pattern of neural activity? In that case, would we eventually able to simulate nirvana artificially, for example, a computer simulation of nirvana.

This is again my [bad? ] habit of trying to solve a spiritual question with a material scienitifc law but let me explain a bit: I am a materialist, and I personally don't believe that the world can/should be divided into the material and spiritual. One reason for this is that I just don't know where to draw the line between a material world and a spiritual world. If something exists, there should be some way of detecting it or interacting with it. I also believe that all phenomena should have natural explanations. Since I was a former Buddhist, and I still believe some parts of Buddhism, its important for me to subject all of my beliefs to critical scientific scrutiny. Of course, all of this is assuming that all phenomena have natural causes/explanations.

Does this mean that the entire universe is the mind? or that the enitre reality is the mind?

oser, are you very good at physics? Can I ask you a side question? (this has nothing to do with rebirth, just out of curiosity). Is there any way in which the speed of light barrier can be broken? How about at the quantum level of things? Can subatomic particles travel faster than light? I am just reading the ins and outs of quantum mechanics, from a lay person's perspective of course, and it seems pretty cool so far. The actual physics/mathematics behind quantum mechanics seems beyond me at this stage.

Well, any takers? Any Abbhidhamma experts here? Come on, there has to be someone.

Precisely, there is nothing/noone thats reborn. One thought conditions another thought. Thats all there is to it. So, there is no one that sees. There is only a process of seeing. There is no one who walks. Only a process of walking. There is no one that realizes nirvana. Only the process of realization. There is no thinker behind the thought. Only thinking - its the thought itself that thinks. So, its realization itself that realizes nirvana. At least, I think this is the Theravada position.

Volker.Doormann

Well, one can measure and perceive that there are constants in nature, which are permanent, independent of time and do not change with time. If things do change, they always do change because of physical forces, and only physical forces show effects, which do change things, which process we have defined as time. But there is not time as physical constant. There are only energy quants.

I think a belief is not an adequate tool to perceive physical constants in nature.
Nirvana has no relation to time, as a number or a truth has no relation to time.
I never have heard, that the laws of nature break down ever. The laws of nature are permanent, independent of time and eternal. They are absolute. Laws itself have no physical properties, and from this there is no time process involved, which could change these laws. The order of nature itself is free from contradictions and there is no hint, that this order was created. The permeability and the permittivity of a free space p.e. is independent of space and time in universe.
? I do not think that that, what is a natural law depends on persons ('you' 'dicide'). That, what is a dynamic process in nature, is the process of physical life. This process implies change as the order of harmony in time and energy.
If some constants in nature are independent of time, then they are ever independent of time. A seven ist not a six in some centuries.
This is valid for the physical life only. Not for immaterial dimensions or spiritual laws.
Nirvana is a state of the soul consciousness, which is of immaterial charactrer. Mentality is of physical base, structured in the brain.
I think it doesn’t help to teach the people to take their reality of sorrow, violence or pain as illusion. The effects from karma are very real and the causes generated by personal Self’s of Buddhist’s to other humans has to be responded by the personal Self’s. If Buddhists reject their actions, which they do as a personal Self, they reject the law of Karma. It is irrelevant whether there is a memory of karmic actions in prior lives, because most of all people have no memory prior to their first years as person. If there is a law of causality, then this implies justice to a soul. Justice is only possible through causality.

As no part in the physical universe will lost or can be created out of nothing, no soul - that lives in a physical body - can be created out of nothing. While the physical body is impermanent build out of eternal existing physical parts in nature, a soul cannot created and cannot die; it is permanent, because it is loaded with karma, that itself is also immaterial as all spiritual dimensions, like truth, logic, math, harmony and love.

If there would not be an eternal soul in each being, but only some strange changing atoms from food should be a human body, no effect of karmic causes in prior life could be taken place. But it is to be recognize as reality, that each being is loaded with a different karma, and it is not an illusion, it can be perceived as a reality from the own soul, which is the only (impermanent) reality we have.

Volker

muon

Some clarification here ... it is not correct to say that the laws of physics "broke down" at the point of singularity, as you say. Rather, the laws of physics that we have simply don't give a meaningful description of the world at the point of singularity. No physicist I know would claim that this means that the laws of physics have "changed"----rather, we'd say that the laws of physics that we use are incomplete, and need to be modified in order to explain singularities. (It might be apropos for me to mention that I'm a professor of physics, by the way.) There is nothing in the laws of physics themselves that suggests that they aren't eternal. They could be, but that's just an assertion at this point.

Buddhist writings seem to specify that anicca applies to "concocted things". That statement seems straightforward enough, and would not apply to laws of nature. Certainly, in some scriptures the Dhamma and nibbana are explicitly exempted from being subject to anicca. Nibbana is particular is always specified to be "unconcocted".

It is possible to maintain that nibbana is a temporary state, and perhaps a physicalist interpretation of it should maintain that. But such a viewpoint is definitely heterodox in most Buddhist traditions-----not that I'll turn you in!

Answerer

Its not that the scriptures are not willing to define Nirvana. Its rather that there is no exact definitions of Nirvana. Different people think of it as differently, ranging from a realm to a pure mental state. Simply put, its just a state of experience during one's enlightenment and nothing more. There is no need to cling to the concept too much, so as to prevent false views.


I don't think so since the person doing those jobs are mostly unenlightened.


Well, while it may be likely that spiritual and material are just the same entity, our current science does indeed have difficulty in explaining or determine the mere definitions of karma, consciousness and life. Until that day come, I prefer to think that to some degree that our material science is still regarded as separated from the spiritual aspect of Buddhism.

Answerer

Wow, such a long post, I do hope it will be shorter. You meant to say that the laws of nature is independent of time, so its eternal. But thats too much a simplified view of our much complicated world. Laws of nature are based largely on the symmetry of dimensional spacetime in our universe. But scientist have not ruled out the possibility of a region where our symmetry may be breach. One such example will be singluarity.


I'm refering to the mental construction of one's view on Nirvana. And I don't think a person's view of Nirvana had never changed for once in his/her entire existence

I'm very certain I had seen a dozen of times in scientific books that the laws of physics break down at the point of event horizon. If you still declined to believe, why not try to apply the laws of physics of gravity, electromagnetic to the black hole and then tell me the total energy that a black hole might have?

And for your information, the permeability and permittivity of free space do change and are not independent of time. This is due to the fact that in the distant past(close to the big bang), the speed of light is much faster than the present recorded speed of light.


Errrr, I'm refering to the law of change, not the law of nature.

And as you claimed, 'if', we will never be certain if those constant are really independent of time or undiscovered.

I'm curious to what you define as 'spiritual laws'.

The word 'soul' is not a term used in Buddhism. Therefore, your definition of Nirvana is a bit flawed.

The law of causality seem to fail to work in QM, there has been lots of discussion about it in the philo and science forums and I think you do know about it, don't you?

As to whether my suggestion could help others, it really depends on the inidividual and neither you nor me could tell the consequences.

It seems we share very different opinions. Nevertheless, I don't intend to debate with you on the impermanence of soul. You have the right to your own beliefs.

Answerer

Well, that something, you and I will never know, aren't we? You said that the laws of physics will be modified according to the need to explain a singluarity. But have you taken into account that such a attempt might failed or even if it succeed, faces the chance of another 'break down' in the future discoveries.

Well, Mr professor, while most of us hope that the laws of physics are eternal, in reality that might as well be not the case. Seriously, do you think(for example) the law of gravity still existed before the birth of our universe or after the end of our universe? This is certainly something that you and I will never know.


Actually, come to think of it, the so-called laws of physics like the laws of gravity and electromagentic is nothing more than the mere exchange of field quantized virtual particle. And I do think that particles of any sort is being regarded as some sorts of 'form' in Buddhism. And since such particles appear and disappear within a varying period of time, I don't think its right to say that such phenomeon are permanent.

As for Nirvana, I had already mentioned, for most of us (except those enlighten) its just a mental concept, nothing more. And perception I believe is still under anicca.


No enlightened person will cling to Dharma or Nirvana as soon as they completed or realized it. I think this had been mentioned in some sutras(sorry, I don't recall which are the ones but I will find out). So, in this case, I'm not so sure whether you guys still want to call it a "permanent state" or not.

Volker.Doormann

No. A seven is a seven. This is a truth. Just because some people do not understand Nirvana using a brain, this does not mean that in some centuries in the future a seven grows to an eight or will decrease to a six. Talking such nonsense is an illusioric creation of the mind of the self, which is mentioned by the Buddha.

Scientists have no knowledge about immaterial ‘things’. They do not know, what time is, they do not now what math is, the do not know what truth is, they do not know what logic is, they know nothing else the natural physical forces and their relations to the physical world. Not mentioned harmony or love.

Knowledge is a state of consciousness, where the consciousness is in communion with the truth of nature. This can be the physical nature or the immaterial - speak - spiritual nature. Energy never can be lost in universe, and an truth never can be an untruth.

From this one can be learn, that arguing with abstract terms, as ‘spacetime’ or ‘singularity’, which should be the base of the laws of nature, is without any base or prove. It does help only to increase the disorder in mind instead to increase the order. Background ever for this claiming is the personal self, which do reject the reality of nature for a personal importance of the self. Not the nature has to align to the words of holy books; the consciousness of the mind has to align to the truth of the laws of nature.
I do not see, that this make any sense. Mentality is based on physical functions. But Nirvana is not a physical existence.
I you very certain, I have no intention to change this. Who cares about the energy in black holes? The argument, that some unknown values shell proves, that the truth, that there is no contradiction in the laws of physics, is senseless. Not the unknown is the reference of truth; it is the recognized knowledge, which is the reference. And this knowledge is not to find in remote black holes, it is only to be found in the own inner self. No results from logic have any meaning, if there is no soul consciousness, which is recognizing and acknowledge the result for true. And it has a special meaning, that it is called re_cognition.
Yes, but only if you do not change the values of time too. Why do you believe that time is constant?

My point was, that the order of nature is an order and not a disorder. A truth is ever a truth and an untruth is ever an untruth. A seven is ever greater as a six and a cause has ever an effect. If one teaches, that the principles of nature do change, then this can be misunderstood, that there is no order in nature. But this order is not to change into a disorder.
Never mind. Spiritual laws cannot be thought, they can only be recognized. Some people respect holiness, some not. Some people respect woman’s, some not. Some people respect a being, some not. It is only a difference in the consciousness, not a point of definition. BTW. Definition is not to be need in nature. Nature must to be recognized as it is in its material parts and it’s immaterial (spiritual) parts; spiritual parts cannot be defined, because there is nothing to define. All definitions are results of a busy brain, and have no spiritual worth. The world is not to be defined from a personal Self, the world is to be understood in it’s meaning of it’s physical part and its spiritual part from each individual itself. No one other can do this for him.
Buddhism is not a part of nature. It is an idea of the personal self. Terms are senseless and an illusion of the mind. The Buddha has rejected all teachers and terms in his mind and has spoken from knowledge and from an insight. There is no need to press Buddhism in the mind, if one would understand the truth of nature.

To understand the spiritual nature beyond the personal self and the reason, why and who this person is, one must understand the causality law, known as law of Karma. Nirvana is to be transliterated to: “Where the winds of Karma do not blow”. This means, that there is a state of existence, where no karmic stress exist. It is not the Nirvana, which is important to deal with; it is the insight and knowledge about the spiritual laws and the permanent awareness about the quality of actions of the personal self. Hardly one can be free from karmic load, if he - as soul - rejects recognition, knowledge and insight about spiritual laws. The mind itself cannot recognize; it is only a processor of old things of a physical memory.
The law of causality does not fail in QM, the law of causality does not interfere with QM, like the state of Nirvana has no time, no space and is not interfered by the law of Karma. This is known as acausality, also in physics.
If you argue, that you say “ I (don’t i … ) “, but cannot say and not prove what kind of existence this ‘I’ is, you do claim to be something. As this something is not intended to debate on his own reality of existence, but on dead Buddhist terms and claims of old books, I think there is a personal self, that is not intended to debate. OK.

Volker