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  1. #1

    Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - IV (Random Universe?)

    A couple more 'BIG' questions ...

    [The] thought that the universe might be random and unintended makes me sad. I feel that if this were the case it would have implications for life, implications that I don’t feel I can ignore. Two areas that I feel would be affected by this are the nature of suffering, and the foundation of ethics, but I do not wish to open that Pandora’s Box here...
    Oh, I will open that Pandora's Box.

    Even if reality were random and unintended and utterly 'pointless' (I am not saying it is, by the way ... more about that in a second), there's still a firm foundation for ethical conduct. Namely, whatever the case, we still need to all live together on this planet, and in society, and that means we should act well toward each other. God or no, societies needs rules and laws, whereby peace and safety, kindness and compassion are to be preferred for all our mutual sake.

    Further to that, our Buddhist practice allows us to see that we are all connected, and are truly one. Doing violence to another being is much like your left hand punishing your right hand. It is no other than 'you' doing violence to 'you'.

    As well, people who do violence, steal, abuse themselves or others are not at peace. A murderer, terrorist, rapist, gambler or jewel thief must lack within, and be suffering within. A person who knows inner peace and contentment simply will not act in such fashion. In this way, I certainly believe that human beings make "hells" for themselves, at least in this world, and in their own lives, through their harmful conduct. Questions of an afterlife aside, people certainly can create "heavens" and "hells" for themselves, and for other people around them, by their actions in this life. Thus, God or not, people should choose the course that reduces their own suffering.

    I am not an atheist, but I happened to recently read a review of this book ...

    Title: Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, by Michael Martin.

    A professor emeritus of philosophy at Boston University, Martin [seeks to show] that morality is possible absent any assumption of the existence of any gods, to show that human life can have meaning and purpose absent those same assumptions, and to show moreover that traditional theistic beliefs don’t do a good job at grounding morality, meaning, or purpose — just what believers claim to be true about atheism.
    http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews ... rality.htm
    Now, on the question of 'random' 'unintended' and 'pointless', this was noted ...

    So it’s not so such much that I’m demanding that the universe be other than what an atheist might say it is. It’s that the thought that it might be leaves me feeling kind of empty and futile... and not empty in the positive Buddhist sense...
    Far from being "empty" and "futile", living life for the sake of living life, right in this moment, is the very essence of "full" and fulfilling".

    To borrow a mountain climbing example, nothing is more ridiculous than crawling up a great hunk of rock. Or running a marathon in cirles. Or making art or writing poetry that few will see. Yet most people would consider such activities far from "empty" or "futile", and instead, living life fully. Each step by step up that mountain is complete unto itself.

    When viewed as such, living life moment by moment is complete unto itself. One does so "because it is there", not because of any true destination.

    You wrote:

    So yeah, I kind of thought that Zazen might lead to knowing that the universe is ‘divine’ directly. Or rather, I thought Zen might help you to realise what the universe is NOT i.e. not random and not unintended! But perhaps it is true that these kind of questions simply have no answers, or that the answers given are just pretty stories, and that I have to give up this egotistical need for 'answers'. Perhaps the universe is really beyond all descriptions. Beyond the labels ‘intended’ and ‘unintended’, ‘divine’, or ‘random’. After all, if emptiness is anything, it’s surely empty of attributes. Or perhaps I’m really missing the point! I think that’s highly likely, and I thank you for your patience.
    Let me say again for the record, that I do not think our being born as sentient beings, on a strange spinning ball in the middle of time and space, was something "random" and "unintended". Too much seems to have been required for that to occur, an incredible string of a priori events ... and it simply seems to me very much more likely that we should not have been born at all if the universe were truly random (I am writing a book on the subject, the incredible chain of events over the billions of years that led to our being alive to read these words now). My deep sense is that we are serving as an organ for something that requires our services.

    To get back to the rowboat on the river ... I feel it is a wonder that I have awoken, alive, sitting in a rowboat in the middle of this river, oar in hand. The boat, the water and air and trees, the wood of the oar ... all seems too well matched to be mere happenstance. In a random world, I feel that I should not be sitting in this boat. In fact, I feel that I am supposed to be sitting in this boat because, quite frankly, I think that there being a boat and a river is too much a lovely outcome.

    I believe the River Tao has a direction, and that this boat is meant to be sailing upon ... and is not apart from ... the river.

    But when Suzuki Roshi or any religious figure of any creed says something like the following, well, they are either guessing or going on faith ... (In fact, the following from Suzuki Roshi is a very general statement, and he doesn't try to fill in the details. The Buddha also refused to fill in most of the details. Almost all religions start to go wrong when they try to fill in the details, usually based on human imagination alone):

    Here is a quote by Shunryu Suzuki from Zen Mind, Beginners Mind:
    ‘So it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. But I do not mean voidness. There is something, but that something is something that is always prepared for taking some particular form, and it has some rules, or theory, or truth in its activity. This is called Buddha nature, or Buddha himself.’

    I remember Suzuki saying in the same book that whatever is manifesting now is manifesting for some reason, though I can’t find the page right now...
    Suzuki Roshi is making a very nebulous statement, open to wide possibilities for what the driving force may be ... And that's how Zen folks like it: open and nebulous with all life's possibilities!

    Please understand my conclusion:

    I think Suzuki Roshi was right, but Suzuki Roshi would also teach you that he does not need to be right ... In other words, whether we were placed in the boat with an oar, or just happened to pop up there, no matter ... get on with the trip!

    I think that, since I have an oar in my hand, I was meant to row. If you were to press me, I would say that it is no accident, not in the least, that I am in a boat, alive, self-aware, with an oar in hand. In other words, since we are alive, I think that we were placed here to live, we were meant to live. I feel that in my heart. So, I row and row.

    But, if it is all random and meaningless ... still, I row and row. No difference. Each stroke of the oar, like a step up the mountain, is reason enough. Beautiful enough, all on its own. So, I row and row, complete and fulfilled. Thus:

    A - If there is a God, and if she had wanted us to know the details, she could have told us much more clearly (but she did not) ... so, I row row row.
    B - If there is a God, but the details are too hard for a human mind to grasp ... I row row row.
    C- If there is a God, and he did tell us the details (in the Koran, Bible, Upanishads or other old book), but I am just too closed minded to see it ... still, I row row row ... trying to live as best I can.
    D - If there is no "God", but some other mechanism at work that uses us for purposes all its own ... I row row row
    E - If there is no God or mechanism, and no details ... I row row row.
    F - Whatever ... I row row row

    Everything is "manifesting for a reason" (to borrow what you think Suzuki Roshi said) ... whether or not there is a "reason" apart from the manifesting itself.

    If you were asking me to tell you what I think I sense, it is something like A,B or D ... not C or E. But, also I sense that it just does not matter, and I do not care.

    In each case, all is fulfilled and complete.

    Am I saying too much?

    Gassho, Jundo

    PS - You asked ...

    It seems to me that what is manifesting now is manifesting for some reason. And this question has occurred to me: How could Karma exist in an unintended / random universe?
    More about Karma maybe next time.

  2. #2
    I dimly perceive that the only "meaning" of life is the whole thing, every last bit, and therefore can never be reduced to a few lines. I wouldn't want it to be reduced to a few lines, actually. The universe "means" what it is.
    I think that, since I have an oar in my hand, I was meant to row.


    Gassho
    Lisa
    sat today

  3. #3
    Millions of people play and only one wins the lottery. This person might feel special, but he was probably just lucky. Maybe it is the same with our lives. Out of the infinite number of planets, galaxies, and maybe universes, we won a lottery ticket. Doesn't make me feel special, but I do feel lucky and grateful. Regardless of what is true, I row row row. Thanks!

    Gassho,
    Sat

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Tomás Sard View Post
    Millions of people play and only one wins the lottery. This person might feel special, but he was probably just lucky. Maybe it is the same with our lives. Out of the infinite number of planets, galaxies, and maybe universes, we won a lottery ticket. Doesn't make me feel special, but I do feel lucky and grateful. Regardless of what is true, I row row row. Thanks!

    Gassho,
    Sat
    My new book talks about this a bit, and I argue against it with this example: Yes, what you say is true for someone to win one lottery, or even three times.

    https://turnto10.com/news/local/mass...mes-in-5-years

    But we might be have said to have won 13.7 billion years of lotteries without a miss, in perfect sequence. At what point does one begin to consider that, just perhaps, there is a fix in with a corrupt official or a loaded computer at the State lottery office?

    I won't bore you with all of this, and it is still a rough draft ...

    Seemingly, for you and I to be here now, subjectively considering the outcome, we have been the winners ... not of a single lottery where some seemingly unlikely happening happened because something had to happen (although it is not clear why anything had to happen, and why there had to be a lottery in the first place) ... but of a string of back to back lotteries, stretching 14 Billion years to the first expansion of this universe. One might consider the string of events as a new roll of the wheel in every second and fraction of a second within which any one (1) single factor of physics, chemistry, stellar, solar or planetary development, biology, evolution and history had to hit a certain finite number, all to continue to roll our way in order for us to be here now pondering the string of events. No exceptions, not one, can be tolerated, as shown by the fact that we are here to look back and ponder all the a priori steps and stage necessary to our being here to ponder.

    One left turn of a space rock whose right turn would have put our planet out of the game, one needed atom out of place, one star the was not quite hot enough, our world a little too close to our sun, one microbial, piscine or mammalian forefather who fell prey to a predator before having had time to breed, a drought, flood or infection that wiped out an ancestral village, any two grandparents who never met or never loved on just the right night, one sperm that missed its egg, and seemingly ... according to how science now seems to consider cause and effect ... we would have been out of luck. Just one.

    Oh, there might have been more than one chain of events that could have wound around to our front door (the dinosaurs would have been just as wiped out by a different meteor hitting in that moment in place of the one that did, thus clearing the way for the age of us mammals), but it seems in hindsight that the chains leading away from our door are so very very many more.

    Imagine the universe as a mysterious casino. We are not sure of the origins of this casino, but here it is, complete with a very special roulette wheel, That wheel is a matter of life and death. Anyone spinning, truly, is playing with their life because, apparently, only a relative handful of slots will leave the spinner breathing, while a vastly greater number of outcomes result in instant death. The ball is rolled, the player remains alive, signifying that she has been very, very lucky … but that is just how the ball rolls. Good for her.

    But imagine further that the game is changed such that, instead of one roll, her life depends on successfully hitting a handful of slots, again and again without fail, in an incredibly long series of spins stretching back through time. Minute by minute, second by second, continuing on for billions of years, the wheel is spun and the ball rolls with her life in the balance. One single miss, one single fall anywhere amid the greater sweep of deadly outcomes, and game over. Each roll, in each instant through the eons, is a crossroad between being and not. Nonetheless, low and behold, in spin following spin without fail, we have a winner. No matter where she places her bet on the table, it is that number which is called.

    Now, again, if someone goes into a casino, spins the roulette wheel and hits the jackpot 10, 1000 or 10,000 times in a row, well, it could be dumb luck. No less, if someone hits their number 100 times a minute for 14 Billion years, it could be dumb luck too ... although billions of trillions of times more luck. That is just how the wheel turns. But at what point would someone in an actual casino begin to entertain doubts, think about a rat, call the gaming commission, consider that things are not what they seem, that there may be magnets in the wheel and a shady character named “Rocko” with his foot on a pedal? Perhaps the table is weighted, or slants, or the ball is somehow loaded? Perhaps there is some as yet unknown fix or cheat that is in. In fact, to common sense, such a rigging of the table seems much more plausible by Occam’s razor, especially given how seedy this casino is.

    Something is very strange about our being here, and I will bet that there is something more going on than meets the eye. Science just does not know what that “something” is yet, because science is always one generation away from realizing how wrong it has been all along. Oh, I don’t mean that our present understanding of how the world works is totally wrong, because it is not and I have great faith in scientists and the scientific method to overturn centuries of supposition and ignorance. I simply mean that our understanding is bound to be incomplete, just as scientists of the past though that time is constant until Einstein showed them it is not, or until Quantum Mechanics demonstrated the Newtonian physics may only be true above the subatomic world. I will place a wager that what we know about the history of the universe, including the seeming randomness of evolution, is true ... yet not complete ... as a description of what is actually going on.

    Before I go any further with this topic, I just want to note my protest regarding how folks from that other religion use similar arguments to stuff their Jehovah or Creationism into the cracks of this mystery. That is not what I am talking about at all. It could be that there is some “intelligent designer” who has rigged a game or simulation of some sort, with amazing technology or power, by which it only appears in the game that there is random evolution, but actually there are hidden parameters in the programming that limit or channel outcomes. That would not be unlike the multi-player fantasy quest game my teenage plays which depicts a world of seemingly endless variety, with choices, surprises and doorways to pass through all along, yet the outcomes are actually finite and the world far from as free as it seems. That is a possibility. Some respected scientists and philosophers today believe that the odds of our world (including your reading this book right now) actually being part of a simulation you are experiencing being run by some advanced species could be 50% in their eyes. Certainly, the graphics on my son’s newest fantasy game are so realistic that I sometimes feel that I am looking at wizards standing right outside my window rather than on a screen. The latest virtual reality equipment adds movement, dimension and actual physical sensation to the experience. A physicist friend of mind tells me that it might not actually take that much computing power to create the experience of being in a whole universe if we merely create at any one time the room or horizons and sky that we can see at any one time (in other words, no reason to animate the world beyond a door or over horizon until we wish to go there, whereupon the world we leave behind can be easily erased). It is a possibility.

    Or, there may just be some principle, force to other factor that is perfectly natural, with no intent or intelligence behind it at all, but which shapes outcomes. How miraculous it must have seemed to our ancestors that “magic” acorns always produce oak trees, and not apple trees, until they had some early understanding of genetics. How strange that cannon balls fall to earth, and do not continue on indefinitely unless shot into space, until we had some basic understanding of gravity. Are they pushed down by some god’s invisible hands? How mysterious the chromosome, until we understood the double helix. In other words, our knowledge now is not wrong, but there are likely additional forces and principles at work that await discovery. It is the best explanation for our being here to think about it all: I think, therefore I wonder.
    Gassho, J

    STLah
    Last edited by Jundo; 08-18-2020 at 07:56 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  5. #5
    Thank you for sharing Jundo. It is interesting to compare your modern outlook with that of the historical Buddha, that for better or for worse, we are stuck in a cycle of Samsara. Funny enough, despite the suffering, I am grateful for this life. Looking forward to reading your book!

    Gassho,
    Sat

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Tomás Sard View Post
    Thank you for sharing Jundo. It is interesting to compare your modern outlook with that of the historical Buddha, that for better or for worse, we are stuck in a cycle of Samsara. Funny enough, despite the suffering, I am grateful for this life. Looking forward to reading your book!

    Gassho,
    Sat
    The passage actually appears in a section of the book in which I am trying to "resuscitate" (pun intended) rebirth in modern terms.

    Gassho, J

    STLah
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

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