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Thread: Observable Universe contains ten times more galaxies ...

  1. #1

    Observable Universe contains ten times more galaxies ...

    Thought the universe was crowded with 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies? Try one trillion or even two trillion galaxies and more.

    That’s the latest census, reported Thursday.

    An astrophysics professor at the University of Nottingham in England led the international team that came up with the mind-boggling estimate of 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. Professor Christopher Conselice said that represents a minimum tenfold increase.

    http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1620/
    ... and no matter how many there be, one or none, a trillion or bopabillion ...

    ... all is just you and you just that.

    And that is all.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday

    PS -

    Join together 100 billion neurons—with 100 trillion connections—and you have yourself a single human brain ...

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-connections/
    ... and no matter how many there be, one or none, a trillion or bopabillion ...

    ... all is just you and you just that.

    And that is all.
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-15-2016 at 03:08 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  2. #2
    Mp
    Guest
    Wow ... I knew I was just a bug and this just proves it! This truly is a vast universe we occupy ... =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Shingen View Post
    Wow ... I knew I was just a bug and this just proves it! This truly is a vast universe we occupy ... =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today
    Ah, what makes you think the bug is small?

    Gassho, J
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  4. #4
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    Ah, what makes you think the bug is small?

    Gassho, J
    Oohhh, good one Jundo ... big or small, the bug is both the universe and a grain of sand. Whole and complete in its perfectly imperfect bugness! =)

    Or maybe I head is just in the cosmos.

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today


    Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

  5. #5
    That is a trillion galaxies, by the way, and not merely a trillion stars. Our galaxy alone contains maybe a 100 billion stars, and that is but one galaxy alone. Further, scientists speak only of the visible universe, not what may exist beyond the visible horizons ...

    Nonetheless, One Bright Pearl (or Jewel) says Master Dogen ...

    The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl ... The point is that the whole uni-
    verse in ten directions is not vast and great, not meager and small, not square
    or round, not centered or straight, not in a state of vigorous activity, and not
    disclosed in perfect clarity. Because it is utterly beyond living-and-dying,
    going-and-coming, it is living-and-dying, going-and-coming. ...
    and from the Genjo ...

    the entire sky is reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. ... Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of ... the sky.
    The great Hua-Yen Buddhist master Fatsang compares the whole universe and all of reality to a golden lion, lions of lions ... think of each star and galaxy, and the entire cosmos, as lions in lions ...

    ... all the parts of the lion, down to the tip of each and every hair, take in the whole lion in so far as they are all gold. Each and every one of them permeates the eyes of the lion. The eyes are the ears, the ears are the nose, the nose is the tongue, the tongue is the body. They all exist in total freedom without obstruction or impediment. This is called the mutual identity of all dharmas [phenomena] in freedom. ... in each of the lion's eyes, in its ears, limbs, and so forth, down to each and every single hair, there is a golden-lion. All the lions embraced by each and every hair simultaneously and instantaneously enter into one single hair. Thus in each and every hair there are an infinite number of lions. Furthermore, each and every hair containing infinite lions returns again to a single hair. The progression is infinite, like the jewels of Celestial Lord lndra's Net; a realm-embracing-realm ad infinitum is thus established, and it is called the realm of lndra's Net. ....
    http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...lden_Lion.html
    And of course, Monty Python Bodhisattva ...



    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-16-2016 at 12:22 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  6. #6
    Thank you Jundo.

    This video... I have watched several times already. And after the articles you shared, I'll watch it even more times...



    Gassho,

    Kyonin
    Hondō Kyōnin
    奔道 協忍

  7. #7
    Hello,
    thank you for posting this.

    The attached pic is my favorite regarding 'wow, so many Galaxies in the Universe'.
    Info and Pics taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field (highres image to be found there)
    The diameter of the picture content, when looking at the night sky, is about a tenth of the diameter of the full moon. Smaller, than a 1mm*1mm piece of paper, held at one meter away. About a thirteen-millionth of the sky.
    Hubble was pointed at a quite dark place, in order to achieve long exposure times for imaging the distant Galaxies.
    Lightspeed is quite fast... but traveling a long way.
    So this is not 'now'. It is a view about 13 billion years back.

    Gassho,
    Kotei sattoday

    Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

  8. #8
    A little more ...

    Zen master Changsha Jingcen entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “... all worlds pervading the ten directions are the true monk’s eye. All worlds pervading the ten directions are the true monk’s complete body. Pervading all worlds in the ten directions is your own brilliant light. All worlds in the ten directions are within your own light. And throughout all worlds in the ten directions there is not a being that is not you. This is what I’ve taught you when I’ve said that all the buddhas, dharmas, and sentient beings of the three worlds are the great light of wisdom. But even before this light was propagated, what is the place where you existed? Before this light was propagated, before buddhas and before sentient beings, from where did the mountains, rivers, and the great earth come forth?”

    A monk asked, “What is the true monk’s eye?”

    Changsha said, “So vast and wide that you can’t leave it.”

    ...

    http://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/ChangshaJingcen.html
    Nishijima Roshi (from A Heart to Heart Chat on Buddhism with Old Master Gudo, translated by Jundo Cohen)

    If I were to speak of the ordinary reality of Zazen in concrete terms, I would say that, by the practice of Zazen, we place ourselves into a state of stable and quiet sitting, wherein we can discover our True Self. ... To do so is to expand this very limited world in which we live into the boundless world that is reality. Habitually, we view ourselves as living within various narrow worlds constructed by human beings. We live in finite physical bodies and finite mental perspectives of the mind, all as individual members of our families, our schools, our businesses, our clubs, our nations and so on. We are under the illusion that such a narrow state is the sole and necessary state, the way things must be for human beings. However, as we sit with posture in upright and balanced form, simply looking upon the things which come before our eyes as they are, we forget all about the limiting worlds of categories human beings have constructed for themselves, which we are always, always constructing for ourselves within our heads.

    Thereby, as we transcend and go past the narrow worlds human beings have created, we become aware through and through that we are living in a world of vast scope, a boundless world, the widest world. It is not the small world of our body or our mind, nor our family, nor the restricted world of our workplace or other organizations, nor the bordered world of our nation, nor even this whole planet Earth, nor confined by the far reaches of our solar system, or galaxies upon galaxies. Rather, by sitting with posture in correct and balanced form, simply looking upon the things which come before our eyes as they are, we move beyond each and every one of these spheres of limit, and experience that we are living right at the very heart of the universe, each as one aspect of this magnificent, boundless, wholeness of the universe. This is the very meaning of No Self. This is the very meaning of to forget our self. Zazen is the state of our experience of being a facet of a magnificent, boundless universe of scope beyond mere thought, seeing as they are the things that may come before our eyes. Accordingly, we may perceive the existence of some conflict and contradiction between Return to Original Self and No Self when we ponder those concepts in our mind, but through the actual practice of Zazen, each is unified into a single whole, and each is included harmoniously within Zazen.
    https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Chat-Bu.../dp/B00SQQUWBC
    A Tibetan perspective
    “The primary element in the buddha-fields cosmology is the
    infinity of space and light ... [This] cosmology encompasses an infinite number of worlds in
    space, whose arrangement lies beyond the reach of rational
    thought. These worlds appear in all conceivable, as well as
    inconceivable, dimensions and shapes ...These worlds suffuse the ten directions;
    millions of worlds interpenetrate one another, and each
    world contains billions of others. Billions more are
    contained within each atom of each world. This is a
    cosmology whose monumental scope serves to open the mind
    to the unlimited, unfathomable, nonrational aspects of the
    universe. As a result, the mind breaks out of the cage of fixed
    concepts of definite space and existence and enters the open
    space of myriad worlds without beginning or end, beyond all
    fixed dimensions of size and shape. This cosmology also
    conveys the bodhisattva conception of enlightenment, which
    is the spiritual development of all living beings throughout
    the universe as the primary path of one’s own search for
    awakening. ...
    All that is described is contained within the “sphere of
    reality” (dharmadhātu), the ultimate realm that contains
    everything that exists. This sphere never changes, never
    becomes anything other than itself. It always remains empty
    of true existence. The countless realms that appear
    throughout the universe all manifest within this single realm:
    they exist within it and are destroyed within it. From the
    point of view of their ultimate nature, no realms have ever
    appeared, have ever been inhabited, have ever been
    destroyed. Nevertheless, in relative terms, infinite worldsystems
    arise as phantom appearances based on
    interdependent connections, and these worlds serve the
    purposes of enlightened beings who act as spiritual guides,
    realizing that these realms have no ultimate reality. The
    unenlightened beings who inhabit these realms also have no
    ultimate reality; they cling, however, to the idea that they,
    their worlds, and their experiences are ultimately real. The
    sphere of reality and the interdependent manifestations
    within it can be perceived simultaneously only by the eye of
    a buddha.
    [Myriad Worlds, Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye.]
    http://promienie.net/images/dharma/b...iad-worlds.pdf
    Yamada Koun Roshi ...

    Lining up words in their entirety, he fashions one phrase.
    Gathering up the myriad worlds, he produces a grain of dust. These lines
    are a reference to the world of satori. ... [W]hen we bring together everything in the universe it is contained in a
    grain of dust. For those who don't understand, this can only sound like nonsense, but seen
    from the standpoint of the world of satori it makes perfect sense. There is the line in the
    Shinjinmei: "One is everything, everything is one." This is just another way of expressing
    the world of satori. When I hold up a single finger this is the entire universe. If you do not
    understand this, you cannot be said to be truly enlightened. When I hold up a finger, you
    may think it is just that single finger but it is actually the entire universe appearing. If I
    put down my finger, the entire universe disappears. Zen is always like this
    http://www.sanbo-zen.org/kyosho_332_e.pdf
    Buddhism is filled with galaxies of like perspective on the myriad worlds in the ten directions ...

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  9. #9
    How is all just you?
    I understand how I make the universe by opening my mouth.
    I struggle to understand how all is me.

    SatToday
    Last edited by Diarmuid1; 10-16-2016 at 07:48 PM.

  10. #10
    Diarmuid1,

    There is no true separation between "you" and the atoms that make up the space, people, and things around you.

    At the same time, atoms never truly touch, so there's no "you" to begin with.

    This has been a cool thread. Fun to read and listen to this morning.

    Gassho, sat today
    求道芸化 Kyūdō Geika
    I am just a priest-in-training, please do not take anything I say as a teaching.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Diarmuid1 View Post
    How is all just you?
    I understand how I make the universe by opening my mouth.
    I struggle to understand how all is me.

    SatToday
    Where did "you" come from? You are part of each of your parents.... who are made of their ancestors, who at some point in history arose as a species from another species, who arose from species that millenia ago came out of the ocean, who arose from the first life in the primordial stew, which arose from the elements of the Earth, which arose from the Big Bang.

    Additionally, the air we breathe is made up of elements that make up the entire universe, as is the food we eat and the water we drink. And beyond matter, we are also made of photons and energy which derive from the sun and the energy of the Universe. We are the Universe and the Universe is us.

    Gassho,
    Jakuden
    SatToday

  12. #12
    That's strange, just when I was convinced the universe is infinite

    gassho,

    sat Today
    合掌,生開
    gassho, Shokai

    仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

    "Open to life in a benevolent way"

    https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Diarmuid1 View Post
    How is all just you?
    I understand how I make the universe by opening my mouth.
    I struggle to understand how all is me.

    SatToday
    This is a very very easy answer.

    Don't know...

    Don't know?

    Don't know.

    What is the name of this?

    Don't know.

    What is my real name, not my corpses name?

    Don't know.

    How about your real name?

    Don't know.

    Who is dragging your copse around?

    Don't know.

    What is don't know's name?

    Don't know.

    Does don't know have a brother?

    Don't know.

    What is your true age?

    Don't know.

    What is.....?

    Don't know.

    Questions?



    Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_
    Last edited by Jishin; 10-17-2016 at 01:35 AM.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Kotei View Post
    Hello,
    thank you for posting this.

    The attached pic is my favorite regarding 'wow, so many Galaxies in the Universe'.
    Info and Pics taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field (highres image to be found there)
    The diameter of the picture content, when looking at the night sky, is about a tenth of the diameter of the full moon. Smaller, than a 1mm*1mm piece of paper, held at one meter away. About a thirteen-millionth of the sky.
    Hubble was pointed at a quite dark place, in order to achieve long exposure times for imaging the distant Galaxies.
    Lightspeed is quite fast... but traveling a long way.
    So this is not 'now'. It is a view about 13 billion years back.

    Gassho,
    Kotei sattoday

    Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg
    Hi Kotei,

    The Ultra-Deep field is definitely a lovely shot! There's a certain video I like to go back to from time to time, which goes on to include a 3D view of it.



    And that is definitely something I have found amazing, that anything we see from space is from the past. The light takes all that time to reach us, and so telescopes are kind of like time machines in that sense.

    Overall, a lovely thread here.


    Gassho,
    Stacy

    #SatToday

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Jishin View Post
    This is a very very easy answer.

    Don't know...

    Don't know?

    Don't know.

    What is the name of this?

    Don't know.
    This I understand. But Jundo -and many others in zen- say that the universe is us and we are it. These claims suggest that somebody does know.

  16. #16
    I think my difficulty arises from the "We" or the "I". To me, it implies the existence of something that is bounded. The same may be true for the word "universe". I am not the universe because the universe points to galactic nurseries, red dwarves, black holes, suns, stars and comets. Me? I get sunburned if I don't apply Factor 50+!

    The universe isn't me because there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than can be found in my skinbag. At the very most I may be part of the universe, but I am not the whole thing. This is why I have always assumed that the concept that I am the universe is me must be pointing to a different teaching. One that I just don't get.

  17. #17
    It is not so hard to understand really. More than an intellectual understanding, however, is to penetrate this to the marrow of the bones, to feel and be and breathe this.

    Suppose the most distant galaxy and each star and every atom and you and are just ultimately X in reality. As much as your head and heart and skin and bones are just you, and you just each and all that.

    Then you are X and I am X, every star and atom, all galaxies are just X ... likewise your head and heart, skin and bones all X. It is much as any hair on your head, should it awaken to consciousness somehow, might see itself as "I am a hair, yet I am this head ... I am Tom's head, I am Tom" ... all before falling to the oblivion of the barber of time.

    As well, as you are X and so is every star and all the galaxies just X through and through ... I am you and every star and galaxy, and they each and all contain me. If I am X and every cloud is X, then I am every cloud in the most radical sense. Since the hair is Tom's head, and all the hairs of Tom's head are just Tom's head, all the hairs merge and interpenetrate in that True Nature of Tomness.

    Thich Nhat Hanh expresses things this way:

    If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

    "Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter" with the verb "to be", we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

    If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
    Now expand this out to our whole world, the moon and planets, the sun which allows our world to be ... the stars which allow our sun and world ... the galaxies and whole universe which allows suns ... whatever allows all that. (I actually think that TNH does not go far enough in this example, because in the heart of the mystic the paper -is- the logger -is- the sun as much as every drop is the ocean, the entire ocean flowing into every drop. The great Indian mystic Kabir ...

    “All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”

    Even the most hard-materialist physicists these days realize that there is some intimate connection here (regular guest on the talk shows, Neil Degrasse Tyson)



    Now what is "X"? Shall we call such "reality" or "the universe" or "cosmos" or "Buddha" or "God" or "Emptiness" or "Wholeness" or "The Totality" or "Stanley" or whatever? Zen Masters since of old sometimes affix a name ... Buddha or Dharmadhātu or the like. Better to answer in silence to truly understand ... Our Book of Serenity Koan for this week ...

    “When I hear someone asking what Buddha is, I feel like my ears have been dirtied”

    In such case "not knowing, not saying" actually meaning Knowing such beyond and right at the heart of all words! It is not "not knowing" in ignorance, but rather "Knowing" beyond all need to say. Saying just limits the grandeur.

    Don't you wish to know who you are? You are all this, and every blade of grass and grain of dust ... and all just you. Saying that you are merely "part of the whole" misses the whole big picture. Yes, you are "part" but also precisely the "whole big picture" too. (I know it is hard to wrap one's head around, thus we are here sitting our days away).

    You are also Jiken and Jundo and Bob and Mary, so just get on with it, chopping wood and fetching water and putting all the big questions aside. You are the whole shabang in most intimate sense and the whole enchilada in every hair on your head ... yet you are also just you standing in the sun on that beach with all the grains of sand, so best to put on sunscreen so as not to get burned.

    Why is this important? Realizing that one is not merely one's limited 'little self' with all its suffering and complaints and feeling of smallness and mortality is what out Way is all about.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday

    - The Dustin Hoffman Bodhisattva (in an otherwise mediocre movie) did a pretty good job with this ...



    You are not merely a part of the blanket ... you are the blanket.

    Now throw away the blanket! Or toss it over your shoulders, as it is cold outside.
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-18-2016 at 01:49 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    I know it is hard to wrap one's head around, thus we are here sitting our days away).
    These are words of wisdom!
    Thank you, Jundo.
    I hope (y)our cold is better.

  19. #19
    Time to repost this too.

    Why you are standing at the center of a universe (but so is everybody and everything) ... a universe that is truly not "big" nor "small" when human measure and relative self-comparisons are taken out of the equation ...

    =======================================

    One Buddhist perspective to experience is that the whole of reality, all time and space ... is manifested in a grain of sand ... and all of the universe is held on the tip of each blade of grass.

    So. do not be so quick to judge either a grain as "big" or "small" ... a blade as "tall" or "short" or finite ... or the universe as vast and distant ... for to do so is perhaps each a relative value judgment, and saying how "small and insignificant" we must be is not much different from ancient man's subjective judgment in asserting how "grand" we are and that we are at the heart of it all, the universe spinning around us, the "center of creation".

    Mahayana Buddhists point out that "big and small" and "far and near" and "center and periphery" and the like are, more than we realize, measures of the human brain that are not the only way to experience reality. For example, the "center of the universe" and "place where the Big Bang is still happening" (even physicists will point out) is not some place far from here and long ago ... but here and here and here and everywhere in the Cosmos ... and now and now and now and all times ... and all is "the center". You want to know "where the Big Bang happened/is still happening?" Well, open your eyes, look around and in the mirror too! Space is expanding outward right from every particle in your body!

    As well, who is to say that an ant is "less important" than an elephant because one is smaller, or an atom is less than a star, in the whole scheme of things because of relative size? These are value judgments we make.

    In fact, we are at the heart of all, the center, for where in the universe is the heart, the center of all? Better said, where in the center of reality, all emerging, is not the center? Where in the heart is not found the heart? Every point in the universe spins around every point in the universe.

    ...

    A frequently cited expression of this vision of reality is the simile of Indra’s Net from the Avatamsaka Sutra, which was further elaborated by the Huayan teachers. The whole universe is seen as a multidimensional net. At every point where the strands of the net meet, jewels are set. Each jewel reflects the light reflected in the jewels around it, and each of those jewels in turn reflects the light from all the jewels around them, and so on, forever. In this way, each jewel, or each particular entity or event, including each person, ultimately reflects and expresses the radiance of the entire universe. All of totality can be seen in each of its parts.

    Another time, Fazang illustrated the Huayan teachings for Empress Wu by constructing a hall of mirrors, placing mirrors on the ceiling, floor, four walls, and four corners of a room. In the center he placed a Buddha image with a lamp next to it. Standing in this room, the empress could see that the reflection in any one mirror clearly reflected the reflections from all of the other mirrors, including the specific reflection of the Buddha image in each one. This fully demonstrated the unobstructed interpenetration of the particular and the totality, with each one contained in all, and with all contained in each one. Moreover, it showed the nonobstructed interpenetration of each particular mirror with each of the others.

    ...

    A frequently cited expression of this vision of reality is the simile of Indra’s Net from the Avatamsaka Sutra, which was further elaborated by the Huayan teachers. The whole universe is seen as a multidimensional net. At every point where the strands of the net meet, jewels are set. Each jewel reflects the light reflected in the jewels around it, and each of those jewels in turn reflects the light from all the jewels around them, and so on, forever. In this way, each jewel, or each particular entity or event, including each person, ultimately reflects and expresses the radiance of the entire universe. All of totality can be seen in each of its parts.
    http://archive.thebuddhadharma.com/i...henomenal.html

    You see, it used to be thought that mankind was the center of the cosmos, thus very important. Then, Copernicus, Hubble and others showed that we are just fleas on a speck of dust in one galaxy among countless galaxies ... so apparently unimportant in our relative smallness. However we Mahayana Buddhists (and many modern physicists!) tend to see the cosmos as more like the surface of a sphere, like the surface of this ball or balloon ...



    For the surface of a sphere, no matter the size of the sphere, EVERY point on the surface is as much the center of the surface as every other point. In a sense. every point is just as important or unimportant as any other ... and is as much the ball or balloon as any other. We are all the ball, and playing ball, in the most radical sense. In our universe, every point can also lay claim to being a center around which all spins as much as any other too. In fact, each point of the ball's surface supports all the rest of the surface ... ala Indra's Net.

    Remove one atom from the surface, and one changes the whole ... maybe "pops" the whole balloon.

    Since all was a singularity that held the makings of everything and all possibility, the Big Bang happened not just far away and long ago ... but right here where you stand, and as every atom that makes you too. A little more here, when we were talking about Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot ...

    The universe only seems big or small to human beings who makes comparisons, often to their own self. Just stop it. What is "big" or "small" then?

    Gassho, A Grain of Sand

    PS - This was also recently posted ...

    http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...GR/centre.html

    [Physics FAQ] - [Copyright]

    Original by Philip Gibbs 1997.



    Where is the centre of the universe?

    There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a "Big Bang" about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualised as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

    In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced that he had measured the speed of galaxies at different distances from us, and had discovered that the farther they were, the faster they were receding. This might suggest that we are at the centre of the expanding universe, but in fact if the universe is expanding uniformly according to Hubble's law, then it will appear to do so from any vantage point.

    If we see a galaxy B receding from us at 10,000 km/s, an alien in galaxy B will see our galaxy A receding from it at 10,000 km/s in the opposite direction. Another galaxy C twice as far away in the same direction as B will be seen by us as receding at 20,000 km/s. The alien will see it receding at 10,000 km/s: ...

    So from the point of view of the alien at B, everything is expanding away from it, whichever direction it looks in, just the same as it does for us.

    The Famous Balloon Analogy

    A good way to help visualise the expanding universe is to compare space with the surface of an expanding balloon. This analogy was used by Arthur Eddington as early as 1933 in his book The Expanding Universe. It was also used by Fred Hoyle in the 1960 edition of his popular book The Nature of the Universe. Hoyle wrote "My non-mathematical friends often tell me that they find it difficult to picture this expansion. Short of using a lot of mathematics I cannot do better than use the analogy of a balloon with a large number of dots marked on its surface. If the balloon is blown up the distances between the dots increase in the same way as the distances between the galaxies." ...
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-18-2016 at 01:54 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Diarmuid1 View Post
    These are words of wisdom!
    Thank you, Jundo.
    I hope (y)our cold is better.
    Another famous Zen Koan that expresses all this ...

    When Jundo catches cold, Diarmuid1 sneezes!

    Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki wrote this on Zen Koans many decades ago, discussing the approach to Koans in a traditional Rinzai way ...

    The realm which is revealed to us once we see into our own true nature is none other than that known in Sanskrit as the Dharmakaya, and, in Japanese, the hosshin . ... In Rinzai roku, the Zen Master Rinzai speaks about the Dhannakaya this way: "The pure light in each instant of thought is the Dharmakaya Buddha within your own house."

    With the aid of our first koan we attain our first glimpse into the undifferentiated realm of the Dharmakaya. To deepen our insight into this realm, to become acquainted intimately with this, our original home, and to make it our constant dwelling place, we study many koans known as Dharmakaya koans, or, in Japanese, hosshin koans. Let me give you a few examples:

    A monk asked Kassan Osho: "What is the Dharmakaya?" "The Dharmakaya is without form," Kassan replied.

    A monk once said to Dairyo Osho: "The physical body decomposes. What is the indestructible Dharmakaya?" Dairyn answered with this verse:
    "Blooming mountain flowers
    Are like golden brocade;
    Brimming mountain waters
    Are blue as indigo."

    When Ummon was asked, "What is the pure Dharmakaya?" he replied: "The flowering hedge [surrounding the privy)."

    To Jun Osho's verse on the Dharmakaya was this:

    When the cows of Eshu are well fed with grain,
    The horses of Ekisha have full stomachs.

    This is like saying that, when an American sneezes, an Englishman catches cold.

    ...

    If, on coming upon expressions such as these, you feel as if you were meeting a close relative face to face at a busy crossroad and recognizing him beyond a question of a doubt, then you can be said to understand the Dharmakaya. But, if you use common sense to conjecture about it, or run hither and thither trying to follow the words of others, you will never know the Dharmakaya. An old master has said: "There are many intelligent men, but few who have attained insight into their own real nature." Truly this one thing - seeing into one's own real nature - is the eternal eye of Zen.

    http://www.huuu.org/learn/zen-koan.html
    (Maybe it is the cold medicine that has me writing all this today).

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-17-2016 at 05:34 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Stacy View Post
    Hi Kotei,

    The Ultra-Deep field is definitely a lovely shot! There's a certain video I like to go back to from time to time, which goes on to include a 3D view of it.
    ...
    Thank you, Stacy.
    Didn't know about this video... Wow!
    Escaping light-pollution, I was at a dark place some 100km away from my home, last week.
    Got very silent, thinking about photons that started their journey some billion years ago, hitting my retina right now.
    Me, sitting on the surface of a spinning ball, circling around our star, that itself is circling around the center of our Milky way galaxy, circling around.....
    Even in the dualistic recognized part of all this, we're all made of stardust ;-)

    Gassho,
    Kotei sattoday.

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

  22. #22
    By the way, it is such a comment on who we are that this amazing story ...

    http://www.nature.com/news/universe-...hought-1.20809

    ... got almost zero news coverage this week as we focus instead on the 'black hole' of Donald Trump's ugly beauty pageant and the latest pork prices the result of Brexit. Oh well. Somewhere in this vast cosmos there truly must be intelligent life ...



    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-17-2016 at 01:41 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  23. #23
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    By the way, it is such a comment on who we are that this amazing story ...

    http://www.nature.com/news/universe-...hought-1.20809

    ... got almost zero news coverage this week as we focus instead on the 'black hole' of Donald Trump's ugly beauty pageant and the latest pork prices the result of Brexit. Oh well. Somewhere in this vast cosmos there truly must be intelligent life ...



    Gassho, J

    SatToday


    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today

  24. #24
    If 2 trillion galaxies seems like a big number, turn the light to shine ... look within yourself. This announcement this week:

    Human Cell Atlas project aims to map the human body's 35 trillion cells

    Labs around the world will create the most comprehensive map of the 35 trillion cells that make up the human body under plans put forward by researchers on Friday.

    The international effort aims to decipher the types and properties of every cell a person contains, whether healthy or diseased, in a bid to speed up discoveries in medical science.

    ... The first pilot studies to feed into the atlas have already begun. The work draws on recent technological advances that can perform detailed genetic analyses on thousands of cells a day. While most cells in the body carry the same genetic code, their fate is ruled by is the pattern of genes that is activated inside them. Switch on one group of genes and a cell becomes a neuron; activate another and it forms a beating heart cell.

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/...trillion-cells
    I guess that includes the 100 billion neurons with their 100 trillion connections!

    Each cell of your body is you. You are each cell of your body. In turn, without the cells there is no you. Take away each cell one by one, and what of you is there? You are your each cell's true self. If a cell dies, but you keep on living, we might say that there has been no death for the cell's true self.

    You are the cosmos. Each star in the sky is you. Without you and all things and beings, there is no cosmos. Take away each thing and being one by one, and what of the cosmos is there? The whole is your own true self. If you die, but the stars keep burning, we might say that there has been no death of your true self.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday on a rump of cells
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-18-2016 at 01:59 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  25. #25
    The model of "self" in the human brain is transcended in Buddhism. It is really not so hard to explain in modern terms.

    The human brain receives data through the senses, next processes, organizes and interprets the same, and creates within its lobes a model of reality. As part of that simulation, the human mind creates a conscious awareness of self identity (the feeling of "I am me"), and a pretty good division between your "myself" and all the rest of the world which it judges to be "not my self". For example, the brain tends to draw a border at the surface of the skin, inside which is "you" and beyond which is "the world out there". Much of the border drawing of "you" vs. "not you" occurs in the pre-frontal cortex, but it is actually a wide range of complex processes involving many portions of the brain:

    http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog...e-of-self.html

    In fact, this sense of individuality and separateness is a perfectly good way to define your "self", and you are not the the "stuff outside you". You are not the chair you sit in, the house you sit in, the mountains or stars, and everything else beyond the skin. In fact, without this view of things we could not live and function!

    However, that is not the only way to look at, or define, who "you" are and your relationship to the rest of the world. It is possible to muck around with that "holo-deck" model to create an alternative experience of reality in which the walls between the "self" and "the world out there" drop away. The result is an alternative, but equally valid and useful, way to experience identity.

    For example, in our normal way of experiencing life, light (which is not you) comes from the sun (also not you) bounces off of outside objects and other people (not you) into your eye to be reprocessed in the brain into that model I mentioned that divides "me myself" from "everything and everyone not me". Likewise trees (not you) produce oxygen (not you) which is inhaled into the lungs (you) and incorporated into you cells (thus becoming part of you). You are made of elements (now you) that were "once not you" when they were created in distant suns (not you)

    When the "alternative model" kicks in by dropping the hard division between "self" and "not self", one might then find that one's self identity can come to include everything ... the light, the sun, the objects, the eye, the brain, the trees, the oxygen, the lungs, the cells ... as one single whole. It is not strictly necessary to only define yourself at the skin line. You can, for example, perceive the sun and trees and other people as being as much "aspects of you" as your nails or nose or kidneys or eyes are aspects of you. The "new model" simply redraws the border to include all that.

    Both the "self/not self" model and the "new wide border" model are alternative ways of defining and experiencing self identity. (The Zen experience known as "Satori" is largely tricking the mind into experiencing the "wide border" model. This "wide border" version of "self" becomes an experience as real and tangible as your experience right now that you are "you". For example, "you" would experience that "you" are as much "the planet mars" as that "you" is your own left foot! The new model just changes its own mental self-definition and border drawing, and the sense of connection and interflowing.

    In this way, the border of self-hood could be expanded to included the world and all its features and creatures and other people, the most distant galaxies and all grains of sand on the shore. All that needs to be done is to tinker with the model which defines "selfhood" in our own brains. Many drugs, electro-magnetic impulses to the brain, brain injuries and meditation techniques can muck around with the borders of "self/not self" in the manner I describe.



    Gassho, J

    SatToday inside every atom and star

    PS - By the way, when one transcends the self/other divide in Buddhism, the result is not what philosophers call "solipsism", the view for example that 'I' am the only thing that exists in reality and everybody and everything else is my dream. Rather, it is something which transcends all "I/Not I" to something much more encompassing and wonderful. It would be terrible if the universe were just fat old me or my personal strange dream!
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-18-2016 at 02:00 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  26. #26
    I probably should mention that I have a fever today and I have had a little cold medicine. But please know that I mean every word here.
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-17-2016 at 06:12 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  27. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    Many drugs, electro-magnetic impulses to the brain, brain injuries and meditation techniques can muck around with the borders of "self/not self" in the manner I describe.
    I also want to point folks again to these two radio interviews with Jill Bolte Taylor, the noted neurologist who suffered a massive stroke which resulted in the parts of her brain connected to thoughts, judgments, time and such shutting down.

    Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard-trained and published neuroanatomist who experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain in 1996. On the afternoon of this rare form of stroke (AVM), she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. It took eight years for Dr. Jill to completely recover all of her physical function and thinking ability. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (published in 2008 by Viking Penguin).

    JILL BOLTE TAYLOR: ... You know, I think that what I bring to this story that hasn’t been brought before is, through the eyes of a scientist, who specializes in the brain, we do have two very separate hemispheres and I think it’s a matter of recognizing we are biologically designed to have this experience of feeling at one with all that is and to be able to say, oh, all I’m doing is quieting a certain group of cells inside of my brain ...

    http://ttbook.org/book/transcript/tr...taylor-insight

    ...

    ROBERT KRULWICH: And, and the other thing that she told us is that lying in that bed without words, she says she felt connected to things, to everything, in a way that she never had before.



    JILL BOLTE TAYLOR: Oh yeah I lost all definition of myself in relationship to everything in the external world.



    JAD ABUMRAD: You mean like he couldn't figure out where you ended.



    ROBERT KRULWICH: How much of that was about language. A little part? A lot? I mean.



    JILL BOLTE TAYLOR: Oh I would say it was huge. Language is an ongoing information processing it's that constant reminder. I am, this is my name, this is all the data related to me, these are my likes and my dislikes, these are my beliefs, I am an individual, I'm a single, I am a solid, I'm separate from you. This is my name…

    http://www.radiolab.org/story/91725-words/
    Gassho, Nameless

    SatToday
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  28. #28
    Thank you Jundo.

    Thinking about all this makes me feel important and totally small and unimportant at the same time.
    It makes all this 'striving for being recognized and successful and important' look so totally absurd.

    The human body: 30 trillion cells and 39 trillion bacteria. (As I read in an (unfortunately german) article).
    This 'I' is already a 'we', a place with more aliens than residents.
    Of course, the majority can change after going to the toilet. ;-)

    Gassho,
    Kotei sattoday.

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

  29. #29
    And thus the old joke ...

    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  30. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Kotei View Post
    Thank you Jundo.

    Thinking about all this makes me feel important and totally small and unimportant at the same time.
    It makes all this 'striving for being recognized and successful and important' look so totally absurd.
    Well, another way to look at yourself is also to see that, as stuff made from the stars which formed your hands and legs and eyes and heart and mind, you are in that sense the universe come into a form to walk and see and hug and punch and build and destroy and all the rest. As another great modern neurologist, V.S. Ramachandran puts it ...

    ... Especially awe inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate- your brain- that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all.”


    ― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human


    Alan Watts said it 70 years ago ... the universe is whirlpooling each one of us ...



    Gassho, the whirlpool

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-18-2016 at 02:17 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  31. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    I probably should mention that I have a fever today and I have had a little cold medicine. But please know that I mean every word here.
    You sound cray cray.

    Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

  32. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    ...
    Gassho, the whirlpool

    SatToday
    M51, the Whirlpool:
    http://www.astrobin.com/full/2140/0/


    Kotei sattoday.

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

  33. #33
    This thread is great. It really opens my eyes and mind. I had come across the line in "One Bright Pearl" (in Tanahashi's edition of Treasury of the True Dharma Eye
    But when you clarify the body and mind as the bright pearl through the dharma words of Xuansha, you understand that the mind is not the self
    and I realized that I really identify with my mind. My body may be complicated and support my mind, all things may influence my mind, and my mind may influence what is around me, but I still feel that my mind is me. I'm sitting every day, but this perspective is tenacious, even when contemplating that my body is made up of the same things as the rest of the universe, "star dust," which is amazing. I hope this isn't going too far off topic.

    Gassho,
    Onkai
    SatToday

  34. #34
    Hi guys,

    I must say that this thread has become one of my favorites ever. So much to grasp and to think about...

    Just today I had one of those cosmic zazen sessions where you just forget you are you and begin feeling you are the bird, the driver, the lady in the street, the earth itself... and then it all goes away when the bell rigs

    We are cells, but we are one. I am a billions of stars, but I still like to have a cup of coffee.

    I was sad and worried. Now I am whole.

    Gassho,

    Kyonin
    #SatToday
    Hondō Kyōnin
    奔道 協忍

  35. #35
    Can I earmark my donation for more cold medicine for Jundo?

    Gassho, Dudley
    #sat

  36. #36
    Eureka! A glorious thread, much of it spoken in my language (Science). Whatever you're having for your cold, Jundo, please share. And feel better!
    Gassho
    Jakuden
    SatToday


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  37. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    And thus the old joke ...

    and when the hotdog vendor neglected to give him back his change and the zen guy said, " hey, where's my change."
    the vendor replied, "Change comes from within!"

    deep bows

    sat Today
    合掌,生開
    gassho, Shokai

    仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

    "Open to life in a benevolent way"

    https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

  38. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Shokai View Post
    and when the hotdog vendor neglected to give him back his change and the zen guy said, " hey, where's my change."
    the vendor replied, "Change comes from within!"

    deep bows

    sat Today
    You just couldn't resist could you.

    Deep bows
    Daizan

    Sat today

  39. #39
    Hey, it's a classic; what can I say

    gassho,

    sat Today
    合掌,生開
    gassho, Shokai

    仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

    "Open to life in a benevolent way"

    https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

  40. #40
    I love looking at the high definition images from space, it's truly awe inspiring.

    I think the expansion of the "known universe" is like the Overview effect.
    Which was "first described by author Frank White in 1987, is the sudden recognition that we live on a planet. The experience transforms a person's perspective of Earth and mankind's place upon it, and he or she begins to think of Earth as more of a "shared home" and have a strong feeling of awe." (http://www.businessinsider.com/astro...-effect-2013-1).
    If more people have had the opportunity to reflect on our conceitedness, and fragility, maybe we could overcome more of our difference and work together to make the world a better place.

    Also, if I am one with everything, and everything just got bigger, did I just get fatter?

    Gassho,
    Seido
    SatToday
    The strength and beneficence of the soft and yielding.
    Water achieves clarity through stillness.

  41. #41
    Treeleaf Unsui Shugen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Redding California USA


    Gassho,

    Shugen

    sattoday

    Quote Originally Posted by Seido View Post
    I love looking at the high definition images from space, it's truly awe inspiring.

    I think the expansion of the "known universe" is like the Overview effect.

    If more people have had the opportunity to reflect on our conceitedness, and fragility, maybe we could overcome more of our difference and work together to make the world a better place.

    Also, if I am one with everything, and everything just got bigger, did I just get fatter?

    Gassho,
    Seido
    SatToday
    Meido Shugen
    明道 修眼

  42. #42
    Wow, a trillion galaxies.
    And they all fit in the mind. 😂

    Sat today

    Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
    _/_
    Rich
    MUHYO
    無 (MU, Emptiness) and 氷 (HYO, Ice) ... Emptiness Ice ...

    https://instagram.com/notmovingmind

  43. #43
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich View Post
    Wow, a trillion galaxies.
    And they all fit in the mind. 😂

    Sat today

    Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
    Nice, you too eh! =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today

  44. #44
    A good place to remind all ...

    Most Zen teachers of all flavors will emphasize how vital and important is some insight and piercing of the "self/other" divide, and a realization and experiencing of the intimate wholeness, oneness (beyond even the word "oneness") and interflowing all is one/one is allness of who we are. We call this "Satori" or "Kensho", seeing True Nature ... as important in our Soto Zen way as in the Rinzai and most other Mahayana Buddhist schools, although perhaps the approaches and roadless roads to there (just here) can vary a bit from school to school.

    That being said, most Zen and other Buddhist teachers of all suits say that such is not enough, just a reference point, just the startless start to the rest of life. Rising from the cushion, back into the world of "me" and "you" and war and peace and birth and death and a trillion trillion galaxies , what do we do with this insight and knowledge? How do we bring it all together?

    That is what Dogen called "Practice-Enlightenment", not just a seeing or realizing of some great Whole-Empty One Beyond One (realizing = seeing and understanding in the bones) ... but also "realizing" by "making it real" in actually living life in this complex messy world.

    Both realization (1) and realization (2) are precious aspects of our Way ... a 1 and 2 that is one beyond one, not just one not just two. Tricky? Yes, but also simple beyond simple. Anyway, that is what this path of Practice-Enlightenment is about.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday ... then got up and got on with it.

    -------------------------------

    P/S: Added Comment on Kensho in Soto Zen:

    A good time to repost this reMINDer that momentary and passing "enlightenment experiences", no matter how wondrous, are not the point or end of the Roadless Road ... nor even really necessary to get us where we are 'Non-Going'. Nice place (or placeless place), but wouldn't want and couldn't live there (even though always there whether we realize such fact or not ... a "here" even beyond words like "here vs. there", yet here and there and everywhere).

    [Seeing this boundless grandeur] is a bit like experiencing the wonders of the Grand Canyon [during the long bus trip of Buddhist Practice]. One cannot stay there, as lovely as it is. Nice and educational place to visit ... would not, should not, could not truly live there. One can even live perfectly well never having visited the vast Canyon at all. The most important thing is to get on the bus, get on with the trip, get on with life from there.In our Soto Way, the WHOLE TRIP is Enlightenment when realized as such (that is the True "Kensho"!) ... not some momentary stop or passing scene or some final destination. For Soto Folks, when we realize such ... every moment of the Buddha-Bus trip, the scenery out the windows (both what we encounter as beautiful and what appears ugly), the moments of good health and moments of passing illness, the highway, the seats and windows, all the other passengers on the Bus who appear to be riding with us, when we board and someday when we are let off ... the whole Trip ... is all the Buddha-Bus, all Enlightenment and Kensho, all the "destination" beyond "coming" or "going" or "getting there", when realized as such (Kensho). This ride is what we make it.
    More here:

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...l=1#post134787

    It is also possible for Wisdom and Compassion to sink into the bones without such experiences, just as well and even in a more lasting way. One can be drenched to the bone in a sudden downpour that eventually dries up, or soaked thoroughly to the bone walking steadily threw the mist.

    By the way, is s Canyon little "e" "empty" (only a big hole in the ground), thus a canyon? Or is the Emptiness of the Canyon fullness (a Big Whole in the Buddha Ground)? (A little Koan to toss in)

    When seeing the canyon, are you seeing the canyon or does the canyon see you? Perhaps the canyon sees the canyon? An old Koan on truly seeing, Who is the donkey? Who is the true-body? Who is the well or the canyon? Who is the sky and the water? (Book of Serenity 52) ...

    Sôzan asked Elder Toku, “'The true Dharma-body of Buddha is like the
    empty sky. It manifests its form corresponding to things – just like the moon on
    the water.'1 How do you explain the principle of this corresponding?” Toku said,
    “It is like a donkey looking into a well.” Sôzan said, “You put it in a nice way, but
    you were able to say only eighty percent.” Toku said, “How about you, Master?”
    Sôzan said, “It is like a well looking at a donkey.”
    Jundo comments: After her drink, the donkey goes back to hauling wood.
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-20-2016 at 12:54 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  45. #45
    Great thread. Thanks! Always fascinated by this type of stuff.


    ...sat2day合掌

  46. #46
    In Taikyo Morgan's simply astonishing Talk yesterday on Master Dogen's Shobogenzo-Inmo, "IT" ....

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...Taikyo-Morgans

    Taikyo mentioned passages right on this point [Nishijima Cross Translation] ...

    The situation of this supreme truth of bodhi [Awakening] is such that even the whole universe in ten directions is just a small part of the supreme truth of bodhi: it may be that the truth of bodhi abounds beyond the universe. We ourselves are tools that it possesses within this universe in ten directions. How do we know that it exists? We know it is so because the body and the mind both appear in the universe, yet neither is ourself.

    http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...genzo_2_NC.pdf
    Alternative translation [Shasta Abbey] ...

    This condition of supreme enlightenment is such that even the whole universe in all the ten quarters is but a trifling bit of supreme enlightenment, and that enlightenment is far beyond the whole universe. Even we are all merely accessories within this whole universe in all the ten quarters. And by what means are we to know that That Which Is exists? In a word, we know that it is so because both our body and mind together make their appearance within the whole universe, yet neither is ours to possess.
    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-25-2016 at 01:47 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  47. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    In Taikyo Morgan's simply astonishing Talk yesterday on Master Dogen's Shobogenzo-Inmo, "IT" ....

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...Taikyo-Morgans

    Taikyo mentioned passages right on this point [Nishijima Cross Translation] ...



    Alternative translation [Shast Abbey] ...



    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Beautiful passages. Thank you


    ...sat2day合掌

  48. #48
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    In Taikyo Morgan's simply astonishing Talk yesterday on Master Dogen's Shobogenzo-Inmo, "IT" ....

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...Taikyo-Morgans

    Taikyo mentioned passages right on this point [Nishijima Cross Translation] ...



    Alternative translation [Shast Abbey] ...



    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    This is great Jundo, thank you. =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today


    Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

  49. #49
    I heard a physicist this week on tv (and, unfortunately, I can't find the quote) say that the universe is neither big nor small. Being the whole universe, there is nothing outside itself to compare it to. We only think it "big" by our judgment of our own seeming relative size based on how our mind interprets things. The space in which the universe rests in not something, but rather an absence of anything, so also not useful for compare. In a sense, one cannot say that, for example, "the planet mars is far from the earth" or "galaxy X is far from the milky way" because the space is really not something to count. Yes, it takes a long time to get from point A to point B, but that has more to do with how the whole is folded than our usual definition of "far", much like your neighbors property might be right next to your house, but if there is a huge wall between it is not so easy to get there.

    Something like that.

    So, a question: If a single ant floating in space were the only thing remaining in the whole cosmos after some great calamity resulting in all else in the cosmos vanishing, how big or small would we say it is? We could not then call it "big" or "small" for nothing else to compare, and it is now the whole universe. In fact, one might now look at the whole universe that resulted from the Big Bang as simply that, one ant which emerged from ant singularity, seemingly expanding and spreading on and on into nothingness but still the single ant no matter how you measure it. Our galaxy is then perhaps a molecule of one hair on the ant's back leg, yet still embodies its whole antness. The most seemingly distant galaxies on face or belly, actually only apparently distant, also each and all embody its whole antness. You are the ant, I am the ant. The whole ant flows into the ant singularity which is you, you flow into the ant singularity which is any grain of sand or most apparently far galaxy, singularity is just singularity, the one ant just the ant. You are ant anting, I am ant anting, all is ant just anting. When I say "hello" to you, all is ant greeting ant.

    The Mahayana Buddhist vision of the cosmos is often not unlike that. Master Dogen from his Shobogenzo-Uji (Being Time), the expression he uses for "the entire world" or "whole earth" could also be translated as "whole universe" ...

    The way the self arrays itself is the form of the entire world. See each thing in this entire world as a moment of time. ... Know that in this way there are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth, and yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth. The study of this is the beginning of practice. When you are at this place, there is just one grass, there is just one form; there is understanding of form and no-understanding of form; there is understanding of grass and no-understanding of grass. Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. Grass-being, form-being are both time. Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.
    http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin.../Uji_Welch.htm
    ... an alternative translation:

    Know that in the entire universe there are myriad forms, and hundreds of blades of grass, and that each of these forms and each blade of grass is, one by one, the entire universe.With this view of life, our practice begins.
    Gassho, J

    Antsattoday
    Last edited by Jundo; 11-03-2016 at 05:54 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  50. #50
    Thank you.
    "neither big nor small', neither short nor long.
    It's incredible relative, time and space.
    Creating a new 'room' in the garden. Removing all plants and material, 'dragging black', like the gardeners say.
    The space looks quite small, when there is nothing for the eye to rest on.
    Adding stepping stones, shrubs and trees, the eyes walking around, resting here and there; suddenly I recognize, how large this space is.
    Sitting Zazen, having lots of thoughts, the time is creeping endless long. Sitting still and calm, mind at rest; suddenly the bell rings. Was that all?
    My mind is not very good at recognizing empty space and time... Just recognizing the things and thoughts, floating in it.
    It gets better with sitting ;-)

    Gassho,
    Kotei, shaping the emptiness.

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

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