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Non-conceptual Space - Coggle Diagram
Non-conceptual Space
The Joy of Living -- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Intro
Rinpoche = title appended to the name of a great master, similar to the way the title "Ph.D."
Buddhists: Brain area for maternal love and empathy more activated (fMRI + EEG)
“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.” -Einstein
Buddhist training
More like a science than a religion
method of exploring your own experience through techniques that enable you to examine your actions and reactions in a nonjudgmental. way
Conceptual knowledge is not enough ... you must have the conviction that comes from personal experience. -THE NINTH GYALWANG l<ARMAPA,
For real transformation to occur, theory has to be applied through practice.
The Buddhist method like the scientific method
“Ground” = present theoretical basis of examination
“Path” = modes of practice
‘Fruit” = analysis of results of personal expt, sugg further study
Because when we hear the words of the Buddha and of the masters who followed him arid achieved the same freedom, we have to think about their meaning and apply that meaning to our own lives.
while the Buddhist approach was able to teach people an introspective or subjective method for realizing their full capacity for happiness, the Western perspective explained in a more objective fashion why and how the teachings worked.
No matter what, you are “good, whole, complete”
Dualism: distinct and inherently real "self' that is separate from an apparently distinct and inherently real "other."
to whatever degree a person commits himself or herself to the welfare of others, he or she is repaid a thousandfold by opportunities for learning and advancement.
On Anxiety
that the basis of my anxiety lay in the fact that I hadn't truly recognized the real nature of my mind.
whatever terror or discomfort I felt was a product of my own mind,
“Nervous breakthrough” rather than breakdown
whatever problems I was experiencing were habits of thought and perception ingrained in my own mind.
How feeble and transitory the thoughts and emotions that had troubled me for years actually were, and how fixating on small problems had turned them into big ones.
Eric Lander
while Buddhist practices emphasize attaining increased levels of mental awareness, the focus of modem science has rested on refining ways to restore mentally ill patients to a state of normalcy.
"Why are we satisfied with saying we're not mentally ill? Why not focus on getting better and better?"
collaboration between Western and Buddhist scientists is poised to offer all humanity the possibility of achieving a level of well-being that defies imagination!
The Quantum and the Lotus --
Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan
Life
Life should “inspire us with a sense of universal responsibility”
"Knowledge should teach us about both the nature of the world around us and about our own minds."
Compartmentalize → diminished POV
IDEA of solid reality dominates Western thought
Quantum mechanics → seriously undermined the idea that the basic ingredients of matter have such a definite existence,
Buddhism
As a complement to science, therefore, we must also cultivate a “science of the mind,” or what we can call spirituality.
Science of enlightenment
Buddhist philosophy = study nature of reality
bridge the gap between the way things really are and the way they seem to be.
Good and evil exist only in terms of the happiness or suffering they create in ourselves or in other people.
for therapeutic purposes; free ourselves de suffering caused by attachment to reality of ext world and servitude to egos
egoism derives from a deep ignorance of the true nature of ourselves and of the world.
The distinction between “self” and “others” is purely illusory.
“Consequently the wise abide neither in being nor in nonbeing.”
perceive their own interdependence with the world, they are filled with an irresistible compassion toward every living being
dev altruism
Khyentse Rinpoche: ““If you amass intellectual learning just so that you will be influential and famous, your state of mind is no different from that of a beggar sponging off the rich. Such knowledge will bring no advantage either to yourself or to others. As the proverb goes: ‘Much knowledge, much pride.’ How can you be of help to others unless you subjugate the negative tendencies that are anchored in your very being? To think that you can is just a joke—like a penniless beggar inviting the whole village to a feast.”
Not dogmatic; ready to revise
The teachings of Buddhism are based entirely on experience.
Buddhists use thought expts = hypothetical experiments conducted in the mind, but which lead to irrefutable conclusions,
making theory and experience coincide
Teachers tell students to examine teachers’ words, do not accept until know them to be true
Feeds on contradictions
“nondogmatic,” I mean an approach that doesn’t condemn progress and naively call for a return to an outmoded way of life, and yet doesn’t blindly agree that progress, in terms of annual economic growth and technological developments, is indispensable for human happiness.
Science
As science has developed, many people have become disillusioned with the teachings of the world’s religions,
Buddhism has always been interested in questions that are also basic to modern physics. Might science therefore also help Buddhism in its exploration of reality?
science is silent when it comes to providing wisdom about how we should live.
HTL disagrees :(
The correct view of science is as an instrument, intrinsically neither good nor bad.
dark side of science show that science has no inherent ethics.
WMD, eugenics, Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Glaxo and AIDS medication in LMICs
Adlai Stevenson, 1952: “Nature is neutral. Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make the deserts bloom. There is no evil in the atom—only in men’s souls.”
Science does not produce wisdom.
since scientific knowledge has no connection with goodness or altruism, it cannot create moral values.
knowing the brightness of stars or the distance between them may have a certain utility, but it cannot teach us how to become better people.
HTL: what is the definition of "better people"????
I naively thought that their brilliance and creativity made them superior beings in terms of life in general and human relationships in particular. (TXT)
HTL: but these scientists are excused for their personality bc of their brilliance; other things to offer to the world
Scientific research provides us with information, but brings about no spiritual growth or transformation.
On science: “I felt as though I was just adding a tiny dot of color to a pointillist canvas without knowing what the final composition would be like.”
authenticity of a science doesn’t necessarily depend on physical measurements and complex equations (MR)
Close rel entre science, power, and economics
Political opportunism and, even more, the sacrosanct laws of the free market dominate.