(Untold the Legacy of Bruce Lee) Female Karate Master Maki Uehara, Okinawa
Showing posts with label form is emptiness (literally). Show all posts
Showing posts with label form is emptiness (literally). Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Monday, March 18, 2024
What happened? LA Mushroom Club (3/18)
LAMS Resident Mycologist Rudy Diaz (lamushrooms.org); Jen B, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
WHAT HAPPENED?
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| Read this, Rudy. You'll like it. |
Suffice it to say, biological organisms are different, and they're different partly because of their genome (nature) and partly because of their environment (nurture), but as there is no organism without an environment, we'll just have to see what we find. And what we find are mushrooms that are so (phenotypically) different that one would never guess they're related (genotypically). But they are.
- One great moment in science further proved the secret lives of plants. They're "conscious" insofar as they know and respond to their environment. There's a kind of tree with jagged pointed edges and little pokers along the perimeter of its ovate leaf. Some leaves are perfectly smooth. These leaves are on the same tree, even the same branch. The only ones that deploy (manifest, form) their genetic potential for thorniness are the ones subjected to grazing. The epigenetics of the plant tell it to bring forward this dormant potential for thistle-like pokers.
- MORPHOLOGY OF FLOWERING PLANTS PowerPoint Presentation, ID:1143949 (slideserve.com)
Take one common gilled mushroom as an example. It has the typical phallic shape with gills under the umbrella head. Now raise that genetically exact mushroom in a cold temperature and it becomes a coral type mushroom without gills, almost a polypore (many tiny holes that release spores rather than papery flaps). This can be done in the lab, and it can happen in nature when it's cold. This is due to its epigenetics ("above genetics"), that part of the genome that tells the rest of the genome what to express of its many genetic potentials. You know, whether you get sick with some genetic illness that runs in your family has more to do with epigenetics then genetics, for it does not matter what's in their; it matters what gets expressed. How does the epi decide what to tell the genetics?
The environment (circumstances it meets in life) decides. The environment informs, and the epi decides, and the genes are just the coded instructions of which proteins to build once they are pulled and selected by the epi to express.
The much more interesting Buddhist philosophical question was never answered. Nor was the equally Buddhist question about, How does emptiness become form? That is, how does what has no form suddenly take a form? Biological organisms begin as soup with Brownian motion then they self-segregate into parts, and no one knows how or why. I wanted to ask if a kind of "spirit," because we no better name for it yet, isn't the cause, and what I would have meant to say was: When Kirlian photography is done, which is a kind of objective measure, one can take a living leaf, subject it to the photographical process and see all these energy patterns around the leaf like it's electrified. That's nice, because it's alive and were seeing its sort of "aura" or surrounding energy field. Now, cut that leaf. If the electrified field were just following the perimeter, we should see half the leaf now. But we do not. We still see the whole leaf. It's like there's a magnet behind a sheet of white paper upon which are strewn iron filings. What shape will those filings take? Just random? Not on your life. They will take the shape of the magnet's magnetic field. Cut those filings in two, separating half from the other half in a line. Will they stay that way? Not on your life. All of the remaining filings will keep the shape of the magnet exerting its invisible influence, its spirit, its ghost, its unseen cause of the visible manifestation. It's not magic though it can appear magical until we nail down the mechanism, at which point it becomes "common sense."
Here's the interesting Buddhist philosophical question at the root of the talk: Imagine a photograph of an axe. It is composed of two main parts, a wood handle and a metal cutting part. Now further imagine that this is my grandfather's old, trusty, beloved heirloom axe handed down to me. I whack a long and the handle breaks. IF I get a new handle for it, is it the same axe? Of course. I mean, it's the spirit of what my grandfather handed down to me with changeable wooden handles.
Okay, then I become a grandfather and hand that same axe to my grandson. He whacks it and the metal part breaks. He replaces it. Is it the same axe? Ugh, yes? Sure, it's the same, except with one problem: nothing of it, not one molecule of what my grandfather handed down remains, so how could it be the same axe? We still call it by the same name, "Grandpa's axe," but there isn't an atom of the original remaining. And say time is not a factor. Say, I break it the day I get it and replace the broken piece and then whack again and break the other piece and replace it. Is it the same axe? Of course not. It's two new/foreign pieces coming together in place of the original; it is in no way the original. Funny how time gave the illusion that it transitioned slowly into the same axe as the foreign part got assimilated, isn't it?
(This was pointed out by the Buddha with much more grave and alarming consequences when he realized that the "soul," the "self," the "personality," the "individual," the "ego," the "spirit," the "essence" of a person was a composite of five parts, all of them changing at every moment, unsatisfactory, and impersonal. These five categories (with piles of elements) are this body (my form, which is composed of the four great elements called materiality or the characteristics of physical particles called kalapas); and this "mind," composed of four elements or categories: feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness (a stream of mind-moments or cittas and therefore more a process than a noun, so that when science asks, "What is consciousness?" it has already erred in assuming it's a thing when it's actually an empty process of ever-moving, ever-altering, dying parts coming to cessation at every moment). So where's the self? So if I'm this self at this moment, what am "I" the next moment? The Buddha goes into much more intricate detail in the Abhidharma, and The Heart Sutra does a much more succinct job of condensing 100,000 lines of explanation in the Perfection of Wisdom literature or Prajna Paramita. Mind you, this is not a belief, not an article of faith as some might be inclined to treat it because the Buddha said it. It is an ultimate truth to be tested and verified. It does one very little good to know it as a concept, and has the potential for much harm if grasped incorrectly, because it is meant to be penetrated, known-and-seen, realized by insight).
The speaker, Rudy Diaz, brought up the paradox of the axe, but he just amused himself in doing so, nervously laughing and moving on. It is not the same axe but, more surprising than that, it was never the axe to begin with, given that it was in every iteration composed of miniscule impermanent parts arising, turning, and passing away, exchanging ions, spinning, decaying. In Buddhism this general awareness is called namarupa, "name-and-form," mind and body, or idea and substance. A substance is seen and given a name, an ideation.
A mushroom is spotted, it's described and categorized, written up, and later reclassified with a new name, and this is going on all the time. It will never end because it is really begging questions that the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein tackled in Philosophical Investigations. Diaz didn't mention any of this, but my cognitive and Buddhist psychology professor at UC Berkeley sure did. She would never shut up about Wittgenstein (Vit-ken-sshstein) this, Wittgenstein that, for he understood that the real question was: Are there natural categories or arbitrary one, real ones or just the ones we make up? Our intuition is that there are natural ones, and we're just discovering them. But humans categorize things differently and, in any society, reasonable people will disagree as to what is in or belongs in a category and what does not.
We are not seeing objective reality, and we never have been seeing it. When we become fully enlightened, will we? We can hope, but that's not at all clear. One may just use the categories people already believe in to try to teach them something, knowing that it's all arbitrary, or perhaps natural categories do exist but change over time. Maybe something was like that then and is like this now? It's not impossible. So all of biology is just a p*ssing contest among mostly men pursuing their pet theories and advocating for them with their power of persuasion until they die or some upstart comes along and pushes a new view. What's all this got to do with mushrooms? There are no universally agreed upon objective measures by which to categorize.
Goodness knows, perhaps an edible mushroom in a different environment becomes inedible or poisonous or foul tasting, and maybe a poisonous one becomes innocuous. Surely, over time, things change. They change, we change, the science (methods or standards of investigation) change, and all of this causes an interaction effect. None of it is stable. So do mycology, that is, study mushrooms, but don't expect hard and fast rules. And come to the next general meeting, which looks more interesting.
Visit a Los Angeles Mycological Society (LAMS) general meeting after February's very successful annual Wild Mushroom Fair at the LA Arboretum.
Meeting details
PROGRAM: "Mushroom Abnormalities and Metaphysics of Identity" with guest speaker LAMS Resident Mycologist Rudy Diaz. FREE. RSVP:
- Disclosure Project (LA) (Mushroom Club General Meeting), Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 7:30 PM | Meetup
- Nature Center (Valley) (Mushroom Club General Meeting), Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 7:30 PM | Meetup
- PasaDharma (Foothills) (Mushroom Club General Meeting), Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 7:30 PM | Meetup
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| What do we know about mushrooms? |
Although they give the appearance of direction, these functions are fulfilled through the random motions of molecules.
The central questions in biology, "the study of life," derive from a strange phenomenon, the emergence of “form” from “non-form.” It's like Buddhism's Heart Sutra says, "Form is emptiness just as emptiness is form..."
Fungi, displaying remarkable tolerance for aberrations in form, serve as a window into basic properties of complex traits and their evolution.
In order to make sense of these “traits” in a genetic context, it is necessary to reevaluate assumptions made about how life operates in general.
The common answer claims that genes encode a “program” for the construction of forms. By sharing the “same” genes, two individuals follow the same program.
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| Inky cap about to go black |
In mushroom (fruiting body)-forming fungi, loose-enough constraints on development seem to have allowed many instances of repeated evolution in reproductive forms.
More info about LAMS events, including a biography of this month's speaker, is available on the LAMS Calendar page. Directions to location at the community center: LAMS Locations
Thursday, November 2, 2017
BBC: Heart of the Great Pyramid is VOID
(BBC.com); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Form is emptiness (impersonal), and emptiness is form...in the heart of the void. |
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"Big void" identified in Great Pyramid
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| Maybe "Great Pyramid" should be used for Cholula in Mexico rather than Cheops in Giza. |
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| The old view of interior of Kheops, Giza |
New muon scanning technology suggests there is a large, previously unknown cavity in the ancient monument.
The mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids have deepened with the discovery of what appears to be a giant void within the Khufu, or Cheops, monument in Egypt.
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| Muography machine scanning inside pyramid |
It is not known why the cavity exists or indeed if it holds anything of value because it is not obviously accessible.
Japanese and French scientists made the announcement after two years of study at the famous pyramid complex.
They have been using a technique called muography, which can sense density changes inside large rock structures.
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| Pyramids found on other heavenly bodies |
The Great Pyramid, or Khufu's Pyramid [which is not as big as the world's largest, the Mexican Cholula Pyramid, or perhaps others in Bosnia, California, other places on Earth and on other planets like Mars], was constructed [long before] the reign of Pharaoh Khufu between 2509 and 2483 BCE.
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| The giant pyramid recently found in California |
At 460 feet (140 meters) in height, it is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids located on the Giza plateau on the outskirts of the modern Egyptian capital of Cairo [a word which inexplicably means "Mars"].
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| Massive Bosnian pyramid in Bosnia |
- ScanPyramids has already detected a smaller void on the northern face.
- The new cavity is perhaps 30 meters long and several meters in height.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Skeptic.com lectures and signings at Caltech's Baxter Hall; Wisdom Quarterly
WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM? What was it before? Why is there something rather than nothing?
Such questions have been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of "God," but in recent years science has been closing in on answers.
In a cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss explains groundbreaking scientific advances that turn these basic philosophical questions on their heads.
One of the few prominent scientists today to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture [while ignoring mysticism?], Krauss reveals that modern science is addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing with surprising and fascinating results.
With characteristically wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations, Krauss takes us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved -- and the implications for how it is going to end.
As Richard Dawkins writes: "This could potentially be the most important scientific book with implications for supernaturalism since Darwin."
EMPTINESS:
"Form is impersonal,
And the impersonal is form;
Form does not differ from the impersonal;
The impersonal does not differ from form;
Whatever is form, that is impersonal."
A Universe from Nothing:
Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing
Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing
WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM? What was it before? Why is there something rather than nothing?Such questions have been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of "God," but in recent years science has been closing in on answers.
In a cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss explains groundbreaking scientific advances that turn these basic philosophical questions on their heads.
One of the few prominent scientists today to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture [while ignoring mysticism?], Krauss reveals that modern science is addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing with surprising and fascinating results.
With characteristically wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations, Krauss takes us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved -- and the implications for how it is going to end.
As Richard Dawkins writes: "This could potentially be the most important scientific book with implications for supernaturalism since Darwin."
EMPTINESS:
"Form is impersonal,
And the impersonal is form;
Form does not differ from the impersonal;
The impersonal does not differ from form;
Whatever is form, that is impersonal."
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The Zen Zero (ensō)
Wisdom Quarterly edit of Ensō Wikipedia entry
Ensō is a Japanese word meaning "circle" and a concept strongly associated with Zen Buddhism. It is one of the most common subjects of Japanese calligraphy even though it is a symbol and not a character. 
Ensō is a Japanese word meaning "circle" and a concept strongly associated with Zen Buddhism. It is one of the most common subjects of Japanese calligraphy even though it is a symbol and not a character.It symbolizes absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and the void. It can also symbolize the Japanese aesthetic itself. As an "expression of the moment" it is often considered a form of minimalist expressionist art.
In Zen Buddhist painting, ensō symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply let the body/spirit create. The brushed ink of the circle is usually done on rice paper or silk in one movement. But the great Bankei used two strokes sometimes. And there is no possibility of modification: It shows the expressive movement of the spirit at that time.
Zen Buddhists "believe that the character of the artist is fully exposed in how s/he draws an ensō. Only a person who is mentally and spiritually complete can draw a true ensō. Some artists will practice drawing it daily, as a kind of spiritual practice."[Ref. 1]
Some artists paint ensō with an opening in the circle, while others complete the circle. For the former, the opening may express various ideas -- for example that the ensō is not separate, but is part of something greater, or that imperfection is an essential and inherent aspect of existence. (See also the idea of broken symmetry).
The principle of controlling the balance of composition through asymmetry and irregularity is an important aspect of the Japanese aesthetic: Fukinsei (不均斉), the denial of perfection.
The ensō is also a sacred symbol in the Zen school of Buddhism. It is often used by Zen masters as a form of signature in their religious artwork. More on the philosophy see The Way of the Brush or Zen Calligraphy (Hitsuzendo).
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
New Kinds of Matter, Fairies, Brain Research
Doctors fix Roger Frisch's tremors by having him play his violin during brain surgery. Essential tremors - Redefining chronic pain
- Top Science News
Fastest way up hills: Zigzag
Amazingly sensitive rat whiskers explained
Secrets of success for Super Bowl ads
Cheating in sports: Oh, the Inequity!
Massive self-destructive palm found on Madagascar
Secrets behind Oscar nominations revealed
Why people fake illness
This tree's a lady!
Creepy case: Tarantula shoots hairs into owner's eye
Body Part Theft: Truth vs. Myth
What's crawling on your skin
Man-eating lions: Body count revised
Amazingly sensitive rat whiskers explained
Secrets of success for Super Bowl ads
Cheating in sports: Oh, the Inequity!
Massive self-destructive palm found on Madagascar
Secrets behind Oscar nominations revealed
Why people fake illness
This tree's a lady!
Creepy case: Tarantula shoots hairs into owner's eye
Body Part Theft: Truth vs. Myth
What's crawling on your skin
Man-eating lions: Body count revised
Monday, October 12, 2009
Where science and Buddhism meet
(Gerald P.) Science and Buddhism meet in terms of emptiness, interconnectivity, and the true nature of reality (the three marks of existence). The positive intention and approach of the video's creator is evident. As he shares a meaningful message, he is discerning the profound convergence of two disparate fields of endeavor, which only seem like opposing ways of perceiving and understanding reality. They in fact have many commonalities. (This video is available as a free download directly from Vimeo).
Partial list of Sources
Wave/Particle Duality
- Tao of Physics (pp. 67, 69)
- Quantum Enigma (p. 10)
- The Fabric of the Cosmos (p. 206)
The Emptiness of Atoms
The Quantum Field
- The Tao of Physics (p. 210)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Vibration Creates Form
Clip from the David Icke documentary Freedom Road
Tiny particles of sand are strewn on a smooth disk and subjected to vibrations being passed onto its surface. The grains immediately begin to take form and arrange themselves into a multitude of geometrically perfect designs. Some sound vibrations create known geometric patterns such as hexagons (honeycombs), pentagrams, crosses, spirals, and other permutations.
The amazing complexity seen in nature -- for example, the patterns found on animals and insect wings -- are easily explained with this simple experiment. Sound vibrations give birth to form. In one particular vibratory sequence, opposite oscillations were resonated though a disk. The sand particles are then condensed upon one another, rolling into spheres. The smaller spheres begin to revolve around the larger ones, much like orbiting planets. This is the portrait of our universe.
Zoom into organic cellular structures and its atomic foundations, and there it is as well. Why should this be so? "Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form" (Heart Sutra). This is a short clip from David Icke's "Freedom Road." Download the complete video at:
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