Science: alien-like fossil, trees in space

Illustrative purposes only (J Duquette/stock.adobe.com/Chip Chick)

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Researchers discover fossils of alien-like tree with 6-ft. leaves extremely well-preserved due to earthquake 350 million years ago

Sanfordiacaulis densifolia (Wikipedia)

Below, Buddhism is wild enough to believe that there are trees and flowers that grow on other planets or in other dimensions. Buddhist cosmology speaks of these worlds, these planes of rebirth, as existing above and below the platform of this world, one of countless others within "the human plane." Sometimes those extraterrestrial plants make it to this world where, at least in India, sages recognize that those plants aren't from around here. But first, science has made discovery:

In New Brunswick, Canada, researchers discovered fossils of a prehistoric tree from the Early Carboniferous period. Evidence of the alien-like tree was first unearthed in a quarry in 2017.

Over the years, four more fossils were found. The tree was named Sanfordiacaulis densifolia. One of the specimens was so well-preserved that scientists were able to construct a three-dimensional model of what the tree once looked like.

Sanfordiacaulis densifolia had a long, spindly, narrow trunk and a crown of leaves that may have measured 18 feet in diameter. Its branches likely extended outward to intertwine with nearby trees so it could stay upright.

It grew underneath a bunch of taller trees, so it had to stretch wider to receive sunlight. “When my co-authors and I began to reconstruct the tree based on the specimens collected in Sanford Quarry, the only analog we could think of was an oversized toilet or bottle brush,” Robert Gastaldo, the lead author of the study, said.

• Dr. Seuss trees from "The Lorax" (Thneeds?)
• What were the humans like back then? Forbidden Archeologist Michael Cremo says modern humans are 300 million years old
• 3 reasons you keep waking up in the middle of the night (msn.com)

Why did the Lorax cut down the trees?

The researchers estimate that Sanfordiacaulis densifolia had more than 250 leaves. From the fossilized specimens they analyzed, they found that the leaves reached six feet long, but they most likely grew even longer.

Its appearance resembles a fern or palm tree, although the oldest tree fern fossil is younger, and palm trees wouldn’t show up in the fossil record for another 240 million years. More

• There are other literal trees in space, for example, the massive trees on Mars, according to photographic evidence presented by the Enterprise Mission's Richard C. Hoagland. They are frequently spotted on NASA downloads but blurred out by NASA when discovered by amateurs

Are there extraterrestrial trees and flowers?

Mandarava flower, flame tree, coral tree, Maui

According to Buddhist sources, there are plants on other worlds near Earth (Bhumi). One sutra that makes this clear is an incidental mention of a flower that grows in space. By "space" is meant another world above the platform of the Earth, because Buddhist cosmology describes 31 "planes of existence," with most of those worlds above the human plane in space (akasha deva loka, "celestial worlds of the shining ones"). "The Last Days of the Buddha" sutra (Maha Parinibbana Sutta, DN 16) mentions a special flower that grows in a tangible, physical, sensual heavenly world:

SUTRA: Part 5: At Kusinara

Translated by Sister Vajira and Francis Story (DN 16), edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

It is curious that Siddhartha was born under a sal tree, was enlightened under a pipal fig tree (Ficus religiosa), and purposely came to his final rest between two sal trees. This can hardly be a coincidence because all buddhas, in this world as in other worlds that are part of the human plane, have their own "enlightenment trees."

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1. Then the Buddha said, "Come, Ananda, let us cross to the farther shore of the Hiraññavati and go to the Mallas' Sal Tree Grove, near the town of Kusinara [modern Kushinagar, India, near the border of Nepal]." - "So be it, venerable sir."

2. And the Buddha, together with a large company of wandering ascetics, went to the farther shore of the river Hiraññavati, to the Sal Tree Grove of the Malla people near Kusinara. There he spoke to Ven. Ananda.

3. "Ananda, please prepare for me a couch between the twin sal trees with the head pointing north. I am weary, Ananda, and wish to lie down" [41]. "So be it, venerable sir." And Ananda did as the Blessed One asked. Then the Buddha reclined on his right side, in the lion's pose, resting one foot on the other, and rested mindfully and with clear comprehension.

4. The twin sal trees spontaneously burst into full bloom even out of season. The blossoms rained down on the body of the Buddha, showering him with petals. And celestial mandarava flowers and heavenly sandalwood tree powder from the sky (space, akasha) rained down on the body of the Buddha, showering him. And the sound of heavenly voices and heavenly instruments made music in the air in reverence.

5. The Buddha said, "Ananda, these twin sal trees are in full bloom even though this is not the flowering season. And blossoms down on the body of the Tathagata [the Wayfarer, the Buddha] and drop and scatter and are strewn upon this body in reverence. And celestial coral tree flowers and heavenly sandalwood tree powder from the sky rain down on this body and drop and scatter and are strewn upon it in reverence. And the sound of heavenly voices and heavenly instruments fill the air with music out of reverence for the Tathagata.

6. "But, Ananda, it is not in this way that the Tathagata (the Buddha) is revered, respected, venerated, esteemed, and honored in the highest degree. Rather, Ananda, whatever male of female monastic, whatever layman or laywoman abides by the Dharma (Teaching), lives upright in the Dharma, walks in the way of the Dharma, it is by such a person that the Tathagata is revered, respected, venerated, esteemed, and honored in the highest degree. Therefore, Ananda, train yourselves: 'We shall abide by the Dharma, live upright in the Dharma, walk in the way of the Dharma.'"

The Grief of the Devas (Space Beings)

7. At that time Ven. Upavana was standing in front of the Buddha, fanning him. The Buddha rebuked him, saying: "Move aside, monk, rather than standing in front of me."

8. Ven. Ananda thought: "Ven. Upavana has attended on the Blessed One for a long time, closely associating with him and serving him. Yet now, right at the end, the Blessed One rebukes him. What could be the reason, the cause for the Blessed One to rebuke Ven. Upavana, 'Move aside, monk, rather than standing in front of me.'"

9-10. Ven. Ananda asked, and the Buddha answered, "Throughout this tenfold world-system, Ananda, there are hardly any of the devas (space beings) who have not gathered together to look at the Wayfarer. For a distance of 12 yojanas (approximately 84 miles) around the Sal Tree Grove of the Mallas in the vicinity of Kusinara there is not a spot that could be pricked with the tip of a hair that is not filled with powerful devas.

These devas, Ananda, are complaining: 'From afar have we come to look upon the Wayfarer. For rare in the world is the arising of wayfarers, arhats, fully enlightened ones. And this day, in the last watch of the night, the Wayfarer's final nirvana will come about. But this monk of great power has placed himself right in front of the Blessed One, concealing him, so that now, at the very end, we are prevented from looking upon him.' In this way, Ananda, the devas complain."

11. "Of what kind of devas (space beings), venerable sir, is the Blessed One aware?"

12-13. "There are devas, Ananda, in space and on earth, who are earthly-minded; with disheveled hair and uplifted arms they weep; flinging themselves to the ground, they roll from side to side, lamenting: 'Too soon has the Blessed One come to his final nirvana! Too soon has the Happy One come to his final nirvana! Too soon will the Eye of the World vanish from sight!'

14. "But those devas who are free from passion, mindful and clearly comprehending, reflect in this way: 'Impermanent are all compounded things, so how could this [the Buddha release] be otherwise?'" More

• Emily Chan, Chip Chick via MSN.com, 4/28/24 edited by Pat Macpherson; Maha-Parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha (accesstoinsight.org) by Sister Vajira and Francis Story edited Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Scientists film PLANTS talking (video)

Anton Petrov, Jan. 20, 2024; Dhr. Seven, Kelly Ani, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mindblowing video of plants talking to each other in real time

(Anton Petrov) Plants communicate with each other. It's not just a suspicion or metaphor. Scientists have figured out how to make it visual with fluorescence. #plant #communication #biology

• 0:00 Plants talking to each other
• 0:45 Types of plants communications
• 1:30 Volatile compounds released by plants
• 2:20 What these compounds do
• 3:20 Nicotine example
• 3:45 Volatiles used in communication
• 4:15 How this was achieved
• 5:25 What proteins were used
• 5:50 How leaves react
• 6:30 Why are leaves doing this?
• 7:30 Conclusions

Links:

• nature.com/articles/s4146...
• cell.com/current-biology...
• Screaming plants: Scientists heard plants produce loud...
• Talking to a whale: • SETI just talked to a whale to test a...

Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

With the vine of the dead and two other MAOI inhibitory plants allow me to see the unseen.

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"Be more empathetic," Canny the cannabis says

Plants can "scream" and can ooze scents when their leaves are munched. But what good does it do? It is communicating with other plants and with helpful predators (like birds) to come eat the offending caterpillars or bugs eating them.

When plants hear a fellow plant in distress, they respond by producing terpenes, alkaloids, and bitter chemicals to dissuade creatures from eating them.

What's in ayahuasca? Just plants and their DMT

Who knows, as with frog venom (Bufo), perhaps the stress leads plants to produce cannabinoids (like THC and CBD, which have been shown to significantly increase empathy in people*) and DMT ("the spirit molecule") to exhibit more empathy from predators to stop eating them.

How about you tell your dad not to slaughter me, and I'll give your family milk in return?

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My daughter says we're going vegan.

Why do cows moo and scream before slaughter if not to let killers know not to kill them because they are experiencing great fear and pain?

Similarly, the stress chemicals that go into their tissue as they die in great stress are consumed by meat eaters and have an addictive stimulant action.

This is almost certainly why in Voodoo and Santeria and the "dark arts" of French New Orleans, priests and priestesses in scary rituals dance around provoking chickens before slaughtering them (to the delight of invisible and inimical ghouls) and then drinking their blood. 

Poppy flowers pack a surprise when injured.

That blood is now full of distress compounds like adrenaline (and adrenochrome, which Q fans will know also comes from scared children), cortisol (hormone), and near-death experience compounds (possibly endogenous DMT) from the animal's pineal gland. What a way to trip, intoxicated in the ancient world.

So it serves an obvious purpose to communicate and sense the forest and field of a changing environment.

Plants surround themselves with a "fog" of scents (plant volatile compounds) to communicate with each other all of the time by odor.

"Consciousness"?

Of course I'm sensate! Y'all are deaf and blind!

This means plants can

1. hear (the humming of bees, to which they respond by increasing the sweetness of their nectar),
2. smell,
3. experience tactile sensations (like being torn apart by bugs),
4. evaluate (think/calculate/figure -- respond to their environment),
5. see light in different waves (attracting and reflecting waves to their advantage; e.g., when flowers do not seem bright to us due to our eyesight and sensitivity, they are florescent and throbbing to insects and their eyesight and range because the plants are trying to attract useful pollinators), and when they are the different shades of green, as is seen in lush Ireland with all its deva plant helpers (the fae, sidhe, and wee folk), and some oddly colored varieties of seaweed, which are not all bright green but vary according to depth and surroundings to maximize the wavelengths of sunlight they absorb.

The jungle is alive, literally alive

Plants have all the rudimentary forms of consciousness. Why? The ability to sense and respond to one's environment is a kind of "consciousness." And plants possess it, as Dr. J. C. Bose proved long ago, which led to the book The Secret Lives of Plants.

That book does not limit this kind of basic consciousness to plants but to microscopic creatures -- some of them blending plant and animal features, like bodies with purposeful motility and the presence of chlorophyll. Look at algae through a microscope. They are little green bugs. Spirulina, chlorella, blue-green algae, plankton, it's all alive. Mats and sheets on water, all alive, and "vegetal," which like the word "vegetarian" means not coming from or subsisting on vegetables but "growing."

In the studies cited in The Secret Life of Plants, someone tossed a hot drink down the sink. The scalded bacteria, biofilm, algae, or whatever it was growing in the sink "screamed." The plants heard it and reacted to it on the Bose instruments. The researchers realized the implications: it wasn't just big green plants in the room who could sense. It was the microscopic green world, too. What about fungi?

The effects of mushrooms, the fruiting bodies of the almighty mycelia, are legendary. What are these plants communicating to each other and as the original web and internet of plants? The forest utterly depends on the mycelium growing among the roots of trees, transporting nutrients, moisture, and sugars between species of trees, making what we see as stands of trees possible. Interspecies communication exists. (Even some humans can do it, animal psychics and shamans connecting to animal and plant spirits).

Buddhism on evolution: Agganna Sutta

It's alive, all alive, all around us is life like the sweet fungus-like substance earthling humans originally fed on in the Agganna Sutra, on Buddhist beginning or the genesis of life on this planet before the devolution we are experiencing now began. We did not evolve from simplicity to complexity the way science teaches. We began with complexity alighting on this platform or earth and devolving ever since. But it's a cyclical process, so evolutionary times are coming back.

That's five senses. Do they possess the sixth, which would give them self-reflection and awareness of things beyond their immediate environment. Are they capable of abstract thoughts? That will become the question now that we know and slowly begin to accept that consciousness is imminent.

And if plants can, can AI? Why not? Clearly, Jagadish Bose demonstrated empirically, it wasn't only plants that had a secret life going, inanimate objects like metals did, too. Wow. Animists were right, it seems. Consciousness is everywhere, even if objects themselves are not the source of it. After all, we are not little self-contained computers walking about. We are more like little transistor radios walking around, talking (or making sounds out of our speakers), but it isn't us. There's a radio station somewhere high above, a Source radio emitter station sending out the sounds and information we are accessing.

• *Pichersky, Eran; Gershenzon, Jonathan (2002). "The formation and function of plant volatiles: Perfumes for pollinator attraction and defense." Current Opinion in Plant Biology. 5 (3): 237–243. doi:10.1016/S1369-5266(02)00251-0. PMID 11960742.
• *Kessler, A.; Baldwin, I. T. (2001). "Defensive Function of Herbivore-Induced Plant Volatile Emissions in Nature." Science. 291 (5511): 2141–2144. Bibcode:2001Sci...291.2141K. doi:10.1126/science.291.5511.2141. PMID 11251117.

ANTON PETROV (video)

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Vegetarian spider discovered (video)

Bizarre Beasts, 2/5/21; Ananda (Dharma B Meditation), CC Liu, Sheldon S., Wisdom Quarterly

How one spider became (mostly) vegetarian

I want it plant-based or else!

(Bizarre Beasts) Bagheera kiplingi, a type of Mexican jumping spider from a world of 45,000 known species of spiders, has a most un-spider like adaptation: a vegetarian taste for plants.

Huge thanks goes out to the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium for allowing the filming of their fantastic spiders. Find out all about them (missoulabutterflyhouse.org). Sources...

Host: Sarah Suta (she/her). Follow Bizarre Beasts: twitter.com/bizarrebeasts, instagram.com/bizarrebeasts, facebook.com/BizarreBeasts #BizarreBeasts #spiders #ants. Subscribe to the pin club (store.dftba.com) This month's pin is designed by Maggie Chiang. Find out more about her and her work here: hellomaggiec.com. Cancel any time by emailing hello@dftba.com.

When we see the Dharma, we can let go

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

I'm thinking of completely letting go because my heart hurts and I'm clinging to the pain.

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The Struggle of Letting Go (S. Karunaratna, BL 147)

The most important point is that while we have life, we should train the mind to be even in regard to things.

We should be able to share wealth and possessions. When the time comes we should give a portion to those in need, just as if we were giving things to our own children.

Sharing things like this, we will feel happy. And if we can give away all our wealth, then whenever our breath may stop, there will be no attachment or anxiety because everything is gone.

The Buddha taught, "Die before you die." That is to say, be finished with things before they are finished. Then we can be at ease.

Let things break before they are broken, let them finish before they are finished. This is the Buddha’s intention in teaching the Dharma.

Even if we listen to teachings for a hundred or a thousand aeons, if we do not understand these points, we won’t be able to undo our suffering and we will not find peace. We will not see the Dharma [the Truth, directly for ourselves].

But understanding these things according to the Buddha’s intention and being able to resolve things is called seeing the Dharma. This view of things can make an end of suffering.

Mindfulness is nonreactive observing. -S.B.

It can relieve all discomfort and distress. Whoever strives sincerely and is diligent in practicing, who can endure, who trains and develops him/herself to full measure, such persons will attain to peace and cessation of all suffering.

Wherever they stay, they will be free of all suffering. Whether they are young or old, they will be free of all suffering.

Whatever their situation, whatever work they have to perform, they will be free of all suffering because their minds (hearts) have reached the place where suffering is exhausted, where there is peace. It is like this. It is a matter of nature.

The First Day of Spring: Tree Leaves (sutra)

Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Simsapa Sutra, "The Simsapa Tree Leaves" (SN 56.31), Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly partial Wiki edit

At one time the Blessed One [a name for the Buddha] was staying at Kosambi in the Simsapa Tree Grove.

• Siṃsapā, a tall and beautiful tree, is the Dalbergia sissoo, also known as the "[Buddhist Indian Emperor] Asoka tree."

Trees are sacred in Buddhism, e.g., the pipal

Then the Blessed One, taking a few simsapa leaves in his hand, said to the meditators: "What do you think, meditators? Which are the more numerous, the few leaves I have here in my hand, or those up in the trees of the grove?"
 
"Venerable sir, the Blessed One is holding only a few leaves: those up in the trees are far more numerous."
 
"In the same way, meditators, there are many more things that I have found out but not revealed to you.*

  

The Buddha was first represented as a bo tree

"What I have revealed to you is only a little. And why, meditators, have I not revealed it?
 
"Meditators, it is because it is not related to the goal [of awakening and complete liberation], it is not fundamental to the pure life [leading directly to the goal], does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana. That is why I have not revealed it. But, meditators, what have I revealed?

"What I have revealed is:

1. 'This is suffering (disappointment, woe, ill, pain)
2. This is the arising of suffering
3. This is the cessation of suffering
4. This is the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.'

The "Tree of Life" in Kabbalah

"'And why, meditators, have I revealed it?

"It is because this [set of teachings called the Four Ennobling Truths] is related to the goal, fundamental to the pure life; it conduces to disenchantment, dispassion (letting go), cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana, so I have revealed it.
 
"Therefore, meditators, your task is to learn [the deep and profound meaning of]: 'This is suffering, this is the arising (origin) of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the PATH leading to the cessation of suffering.' This is your task."

How many leaves are there in a grove of trees? Many, many more than fit in a hand.

In Buddhism's Pali canon there is a sutra titled "The Simsapa Grove" (SN 56.31). This discourse is described as having been delivered by the Buddha to monastics while dwelling beneath a grove of simsapa trees in the city of Kosambi. In this discourse, the Buddha compares the few simsapa leaves he picks up in his hand with the number of simsapa leaves overhead in the grove to illustrate what he teaches (in particular, the Four Noble Truths) and what he does not teach (things unrelated to the achieving enlightenment). Elsewhere in the Pali canon, simsapa groves are mentioned in the Payasi Sutra (DN 23) and in the Hatthaka Sutra (AN 3.34). See also Ashoka tree.

• NOTES: For example, Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 708, entry for siŋsapā (dsal.uchicago.edu) associates the simsapa tree with Dalbergia sisu. The Pali canon is the main scriptural source for Theravada Buddhism and is at least nominally incorporated in the canons of other branches [Mahayana and Vajrayana] of Buddhism as well. Bhikkhu Bodhi (2000), pp. 1857-58; Thanissaro (1997); and, Walshe (1985), Sutra 68. Note that in an endnote to this sutra (n. 313), Walshe states that this tree is "also known as the Asoka tree" (Walshe, 1987, p. 351). This discourse is said to have been given in Kosala. In Thanissaro (1999) this discourse is said to have been given near Alavi. For both canonical and post-canonical references, see Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 708, entry for siŋsapā.

COMMENTARY

Translator Maurice O'Connell Walshe edited by Wisdom Quarterly

 

This famous saying has been taken to justify the [post-Buddhist] doctrines of various Mahayana schools, Theosophy, and so on. While it may do so in many cases, the real meaning is somewhat different:

The Buddha was naturally aware of many things, things unknown to others, which he did not deem necessary to teach for the gaining of enlightenment.

We can accept, even without interpreting full enlightenment vulgarly as "omniscience," that the Buddha was at least potentially aware of whatever he wished or needed to know. [In Buddhism, the Buddha is considered "omniscient" not because he knows everything at once but because he can know anything he wishes by contemplating it.]

He knew precisely which religious and philosophical doctrines that had been or might be propounded were (a) true and/or (b) conducive to enlightenment. He borrowed nothing, as such, from previous religious systems because he did not need to. But he gave his approval to whatever conformed to these criteria.

 

It has occasionally been urged that if the Buddha were really all-enlightened, he must have been able to foresee modern scientific discoveries. In fact, he probably could have done so, but that was not his task. And he will certainly have been more aware than such critics of the dangers inherent in modern discoveries, with their power not only to destroy but also to corrupt.

Dryads/devas live in/as trees.

As a matter of fact, he did not even utilize a very basic technical device that was already known by his time -- the art of writing. He clearly preferred that his teachings, the Buddha Dharma, should be preserved orally by those attempting to train them and indeed the ancient Indian oral tradition has continued to this day (Cf. T.W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, London 1903, pp. 107ff.)

There is, however, one "modern science" which the Buddha not only anticipated but far surpassed: psychology. The superiority of Buddhist psychological insights to the findings of the modern West can be readily verified. (Some examples can be found in this Anthology). Compare to Ven. Nyanaponika Thera's Abhidhamma Studies (BPS.lk 1965), and Douglas M. Burns' Buddhist Meditation and Depth Psychology (BPS Wheel #88-89).

 

We may compare the saying quoted here with another no less famous one occurring at SN 47.9 as well as in the Maha Parinibbana Sutra, Dialogues of the Buddha 16, II, 25 (= D ii, 100 [DN 16, Part Two, v. 32]): Desito Aananda mayaa dhammo anantaram abaahiram katvaa. natth'Aananda Tathaagatassa dhammesu aacariyamutthi.

[This translates from the Pali as] "I have taught Dharma, Ananda, making no 'inner' and 'outer' [esoteric and exoteric]: the Tathagata [the Buddha] has no 'teacher's fist' [secrets hidden in a tightfisted palm that is only opened to some students] in respect of the doctrines."

There is, of course, no contradiction between the two statements, which in fact point once again to the Middle Way between the extremes. Both equally imply that whatever else the Buddha may have been aware of about the world, he taught only what was needed for the gaining of enlightenment, holding back nothing, but refraining from imparting irrelevant information. As the life of the monastics was pared down to essentials, so was the Teaching.

 

It is fair to suggest that here, in the Pali canon, we have the Buddha's Dharma (Teaching) presented in its purest and simplest form, in the words of the Awakened Teacher himself. This statement is not meant to be in any way polemical, or to claim that doctrines developed later in the so-called "Mahayana schools" are necessarily wrong. Recent research, indeed, has conclusively shown that the essence of many such [Mahayana] doctrines can be traced back to the Pali canon.

For instance, there is little real conflict between the ideas expressed by Nagarjuna, the founder of the Madhyamika school, and the Theravada (a school with which he was almost certainly entirely unacquainted).

Likewise, while the proposition recently put forward that Zen is the "Theravada of Japan" can scarcely be literally maintained, the idea nevertheless contains a strong element of truth because Zen visibly represents an effort to rid later Buddhism of some of the accretions that had tended to obscure the original message.

Zen, too, inclines more to something like the Arhat Ideal [enlightenment for all in this very life] of Theravada than to that of the Bodhisattva Ideal [martyrdom of never attaining enlightenment until everyone else goes first though they also vow to never attain until everyone else has been saved. You first. No, you. No, you, all Heckle & Jeckle style. No, really, you go first, for I am holier than thou. But I am holier and less selfish and must therefore go second, for the first shall be the last as Saint Issa/Jesus Christ is said to have taught].

On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that the bodhisattva career [the vow and commitment to develop the ten paramis or "perfections" to their utmost and thereby become a buddha far in the future] is one that is open to followers of the Theravada school [cf. SN 12.10, n. 3 and the work of Bhikkhu Bodhi there mentioned; also Ven. W. Rahula's Zen and the Taming of the Bull (Bedford 1978)].

And, as indicated in SN 55.24, n. 7, even the apparently extremist Pure Land [devotional Buddhist] schools with their emphasis on faith receive rather more support from the Pali canon than is sometimes thought [if only because their foundational idea of a "pure land" is based on the Pali canon's teaching of the suddhavasa worlds called the "pure abodes."] In this context K. Mizuno, Primitive Buddhism, tranl. K. Yamamoto (Oyama 1969) is of interest.

 

Finally, in connection with the relation of "Buddhism and Science," the wise words of an American astronaut, Ed Mitchell, in a recent TV program may be quoted. He said: "Science is a methodology. As a belief system, it is disastrous." Buddhism, it may be urged, is a spiritual methodology analogous to that of physical science, which makes the acceptance of any pure "belief system" superfluous.

Science: Humans CAN photosynthesize!

Xu C¹, Zhang J, Mihai DM, Washington I. (J Cell Sci. 2014 Jan 15;127(Pt 2):388-99. doi: 10.1242/jcs.134262. Epub 2013 Nov 6.) Columbia U. Medical Center, NY, NY (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov); Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly via Carla Golden (carlagoldenwellness.com)

 

Light-harvesting chlorophyll pigments enable mammalian mitochondria to capture photonic energy and produce ATP.
 

ABSTRACT

Human/animal cells power miracles.

Sunlight is the most abundant energy source on this planet. However, the ability to convert sunlight into biological energy in the form of adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) is thought to be limited to chlorophyll-containing chloroplasts in photosynthetic organisms. Here we show that mammalian mitochondria can also capture light and synthesize ATP when mixed with a light-capturing metabolite of chlorophyll.

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The same metabolite fed to the worm Caenorhabditis elegans leads to increase in ATP synthesis upon light exposure, along with an increase in life span. We further demonstrate the same potential to convert light into energy exists in mammals, as chlorophyll metabolites accumulate in mice, rats and swine when fed a chlorophyll-rich diet.

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Results suggest chlorophyll type molecules modulate mitochondrial ATP by catalyzing the reduction of coenzyme Q, a slow step in mitochondrial ATP synthesis. We propose that through consumption of plant chlorophyll pigments, animals, too, are able to derive energy directly from sunlight.

 

INTRODUCTION

Determining how organisms obtain energy from the environment is fundamental to our understanding of life. In nearly all organisms, energy is stored and transported as adenosine-5′-triphosphate (ATP).

In animals, the vast majority of ATP is synthesized in the mitochondria through respiration, a catabolic process. However, plants have co-evolved endosymbiotically to produce chloroplasts, which synthesize light-absorbing chlorophyll molecules that can capture light to use as energy for ATP synthesis.

Light (photons) is the substrate of matter.

Many animals consume this light-absorbing chlorophyll through their diet. Inside the body, chlorophyll is converted into a variety of metabolites (Ferruzzi and Blakeslee, 2007; Ma and Dolphin, 1999) that retain the ability to absorb light in the visible spectrum at wavelengths that can penetrate into animal tissues.

We sought to elucidate the consequences of light absorption by these potential dietary metabolites. We show that dietary metabolites of chlorophyll can enter the circulation, are present in tissues, and can be enriched in the mitochondria.

The bottom line? Maybe we are what we eat.

When incubated with a light-capturing metabolite of chlorophyll, isolated mammalian mitochondria and animal-derived tissues, have higher concentrations of ATP when exposed to light, compared with animal tissues not mixed with the metabolite.

We demonstrate that the same metabolite increases ATP concentrations and extends the median life span of Caenorhabditis elegans, upon light exposure -- supporting the hypothesis that photonic energy capture through dietary-derived metabolites may be an important means of energy regulation in animals.

The presented data are consistent with the hypothesis that metabolites of dietary chlorophyll modulate mitochondrial ATP stores by catalyzing the reduction of coenzyme Q. These findings have implications for our understanding of aging, normal cell function, and life on earth.
 

RESULTS

Light-driven ATP synthesis in isolated mammalian mitochondria To demonstrate that dietary chlorophyll metabolites can modulate ATP levels, we examined the effects of the chlorophyll metabolite pyropheophorbide-a (P-a) on ATP synthesis in isolated mouse liver mitochondria in the presence of red light... More

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