There's an interesting wrong view from the time of the Buddha. At that time, there were six sectarian teachers ("six heretical teachers") each teaching their own doctrine.
Two of these, Makkhali Gosala and Purana Kassapa, are very interesting because they taught a particularly pernicious wrong view (miccha ditthi) that deeds (karma) have no results, no effect on anything. We're just helpless pawns of Fate or Destiny, Kismet or Chance, Luck or some arbitrary God-being, but not to worry since rebirth (samsara) will run out by itself. There's nothing to do other than just live and suffer or try to have a good time as best one can.
The Buddha declared this wrong view (called the inefficacy of karma) as being very bad, very harmful, and very dangerous. Why? It can lead to inaction or a sense of helplessness, as if we are all just "victims" of the universe, suffering needlessly without recourse to any permanent relief.
In fact, we are suffering for a reason -- because of ignorance (wrong views/delusion/confusion), craving (lust/grasping/clinging), and aversion (hate/fear/frustration). These are the Three Poisons of the Mind/Heart. And something can be done about suffering because something can be done about them.
There is a way to liberation from samsara!
Samsara will NOT roll out like a ball of yarn that runs out; it will keep going and going like a hamster wheel, which never comes to an end so long as a hamster keeps treading it.
Things that happen to us due to causes, not without them. There are always causes. We may not like them or accept them, but things are not happening without them. Therefore, we can do something about it. It would be rare that nothing could be done.
We must do something about our circumstances or never expect disappointment (dukkha) to stop. There was a third teacher, Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta), the founder of Jainism, who understood many things and had a great deal of respect for karma; it's just that he had an imperfect understanding of it, which led to wrong views and conclusions. Worse perhaps than these six heresies is the popular Vedic/Hindu view that all rebirths are progress towards heaven or liberation (moksha).
The Buddha, often accused in modern times of being a "Hindu," rejected this completely, just as Edgar Cayce rejects it in this video. Not all rebirths improve us and send us on our way in an upward direction. Most are useless, often very harmful, a "downfall" (niraya) of needless suffering not conducive to growth.
It is much better to suffer a little here (as by restraining ourselves or delaying gratification) rather than always trying to gratify our ego and having to pay the high price for it later -- due to our ignorance (delusion), greed (craving), and aversion (hatred, anger, fear).
It is remarkable that the council or collective being channeled by Cayce understood this so well, even if they keep speaking of a "soul" as if that were a fixed and permanent reality when it is not. But it sure will seem that way to anyone who develops the third eye (dibba cakkhu) to see beings being reborn according to their actions, because psychic powers like telepathy or the "divine eye" do not impart enlightenment or liberating wisdom without the path-of-practice and purification the Buddha spent 45 years teaching to the world.
With those practices (the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment), one can see what gives rise to rebirth, the illusion that the gandhabba (the continuity of the impersonal consciousness process) is a "soul," that all things are impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal, which will naturally cause one to let go of clinging and thereby be freed of all further suffering.
Meg, stop. You're causing the wheel to go round.
As that is far from the path most beings are pursuing, there is no reason to think anyone is headed for enlightenment and nirvana anytime soon. However, in the meantime, one can be reborn in a better world, in a safer world, a heaven, far from the subhuman planes of rebirth, which are full of suffering that is far worse than we meet with here in this middling human world that has as much suffering as pleasure, as much opportunity for wisdom as oppression.
Edgar Cayce reveals: Which spiritual realm am I in based on my level of spiritual evolution?
Cycling through major 31 planes
(Soul In Reflection) Aug. 3, 2025: Edgar Cayce, America's greatest psychic, documented exactly which spiritual realm our soul will inhabit based on our current consciousness level through over 14,000 psychic readings.
This shocking revelation from the Akashic Records shows how souls [the consciousness stream assumed to be the same person life after life, which in fact is not ultimately the same being yet it is not another] get trapped in lower dimensions for centuries and the specific practices that can elevate our spiritual frequency instantly.
Discover the consciousness mirror technique that reveals our exact spiritual evolution level in under five minutes.
Learn why some Atlantean souls incarnated now to help humanity's massive evolutionary leap. Cayce's documented cases prove that REAL forgiveness is the master key unlocking higher spiritual realms.
Find out which of the seven spiritual planes you're destined for and how to accelerate your soul's evolution in this lifetime.
We've all been trying to tell you these things.
Based on authentic readings from the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E. at edgarcayce.org) archives in Virginia Beach. Our spiritual evolution determines our eternal destiny.
(Historidame) Creepy clowns, weird Sideshow attractions, a midway, and rides that were actively dangerous -- early amusement parks were terrifying, and I want to visit them so badly. So join me today, dear viewers, as we take a trip into the past and explore the golden age of amusement parks.
Music:
Merry Go - Silent Film Light by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses... Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Breaktime - Silent Film Light by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Fig Leaf Times Two by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 - Slavonic Dance - Merry-Go-Round #60fps
#amusementpark #rollercoaster #coneyisland #history
The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Persian بت های باميان – Bothā-ye Bāmiyān) are or were monumental statues of the Buddha standing.
They were carved into the side of a cliff in ancient Gandhara, in Bamiyan Valley in the Hazaras'Hazaristan region of central Afghanistan, 140 miles (230 kms) northwest of Kabul [another seasonal capital of ancient Kapilavastu(Kapil, Kapila, Kapila-pura, Kapila-vatthu), where Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, grew up] at an elevation of 8,200 feet (2,500 meters).
Modern archeologists believe they were built around 550 CE, although Madame H. P. Blavatsky claims they are remnants of "the Initiates of the Fourth Race" [1].
They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban [which was created and inspired by the CIA and ISI, intelligence agencies for the USA and Pakistan, respectively] after they declared that they were idols, carrying out an extreme Islamic religious iconoclasm.
According to Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, these statues are witnesses to earlier civilizations. She rejected the fact that the statues [previously] represented the Buddha, claiming they come from the ancestors of the Miao people, and were "the work of the Cyclopes, the true and actual Giants of old" [2].
[This would make sense. There are still redheaded, six-fingered giants in the area, Nephilim, Asuras, Nagas, Yakkhas, dwelling in caves and reported by US servicemen at war in the area for 20 years. They were likely repurposed to represent the historical Buddha, the scion of the region who became a great religious figure in neighboring proto-India then returned to the region to save everyone with his teachings on bringing about the end of all suffering. The Indo-Scythians or Shakyas/Sakas of the area then expanded and took over what is now Bihar/Vihar, India, the site of the Buddha's Great Awakening or Mahabodhi. This was before India came into being, 200 years after the life of the Buddha, what the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka conquered and unified many independent states or mahajanapadas into one empire, leaving behind many Ashokan pillars.]
Psychic Madame Blavatsky
Being built long before the birth of Prince Siddhartha Gautama (2,600 years before the present), they were made to look like him in modern times, in other words repurposed.
As archeologists discovered, the main bodies were hewn directly into the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. They are the site of the world's oldest oil paintings, as the entire cliffside is riddled with caves used by Buddhist monastics in the past and modern Hazari and/or Pashtun people today.
Madame Blavatsky explains:
The Buddhist Arhats [enlightened ones] and Ascetics [monastics] found the five statues, and many more, now crumbled down to dust, and as the three were found by them in colossal niches at the entrance of their future abode, they covered the figures with plaster, and, over the old, modelled new statues made to represent Lord Tathagata [the Buddha]. The interior walls of the niches are covered to this day with bright paintings of human figures, and the sacred image of Buddha is repeated in every group. These frescoes and ornaments—which remind one of the Byzantine style of painting—are all due to the piety of the monk-ascetics, like some other minor figures and rock-cut ornamentations. But the five statues belong to the handiwork of the Initiates of the Fourth Race, who sought refuge, after the submersion of their continent [Atlantis], in the fastnesses and on the summits of the Central Asian mountain chains [3].
Trifecta: Mes Aynak, Kabul, Bamiyan
Blavatsky states that the sizes of the statues had an esoteric meaning:
Moreover, the five statues are an imperishable record of the esoteric teaching about the gradual evolution of the races.
What is left of Kabul after the US War?
The largest is made to represent the First Race of mankind, its ethereal body being commemorated in hard, everlasting stone, for the instruction of future generations, as its remembrance would otherwise never have survived the Atlantean Deluge.
The second—120 feet high—represents the sweat-born; and the third—measuring 60 feet—immortalizes the race that fell, and thereby inaugurated the first physical race, born of father and mother, the last descendants of which are represented in the Statues found on Easter Isle; but they were only from 20 to 25 feet in stature at the epoch when Lemuria was submerged, after it had been nearly destroyed by volcanic fires.
The Fourth Race was still smaller, though gigantic in comparison with our present Fifth Race, and the series culminated finally in the latter [4].
On Dec. 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Kabul [Kapil] was heavily occupied by Soviet Armed Forces.
In Pakistan, Director-General of the ISI [Pakistan's CIA] Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for the idea of a covert operation in Afghanistan by arming Islamic extremists who formed the Mujahideen [85]. Gen. Rahman was heard loudly saying, "Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!" [86] and masterminded the idea of a proxy war in Afghanistan [85].
Pakistani Pres. Zia-ul-Haq authorized this operation under Gen. Rahman, which was later merged with Operation Cyclone, a program funded by the United States and carried out by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). More
Theosophy Wiki edited and expanded by Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
(Unworthy History) Aug. 3, 2024: In this video we read from Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Their Claimsby Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, published in 1883. It tells of the Pyramid Lake War that broke out in 1860 between the Paiutes and the white settlers near Genoa, Nevada. It also tells the Paiute legend of the red-haired cannibalistic people exterminated by the Paiutes several hundred years before the book was written.
There were Spaniards who came to what is now the USA in post-Columbian times. One such Conquistador or scout was the captain of a ship who produced written documentation (ship's log) of sighting an interacting with these red-haired giants. In on curious incident, a massive young girl was spotted and tracked with the intention of abducting her and kidnapping her back to Europe. Armed men followed her from shore to her house, where they had a run in with her father, who was much bigger. They abandoned the plan, ran back to the ship, and observed the parents angry on the shore as they departed. These written documents must still exist for review.
Wonderhussy investigates Lovelock Cave
(Wonderhussy Adventures) Oct. 25, 2023: Welcome to Wonderhussy Adventure #756. Date of adventure: Oct. 11, 2023. If you get arrested at Burning Man, they'll bring you to jail in Lovelock. It's better to explore this remote cave in northern Nevada without cops. Here, back in 1911, a couple of bat guano (fertilizer) miners discovered the mummified body of a 6'6" red headed man. The local Paiutes were not red headed, nor were they that tall. So who was this mummy, and where did he come from? Could he have been a descendant of Viking [or Irish or Nordic or Extraterrestrial] explorers?
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (4.3 out of 5 stars with 25 ratings). This 1883 book by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins is an autobiographical account of the Paiute people during their first 40 years of interaction with European-American invaders/settlers. The author was the daughter of the Paiute Chief Winnemucca and was raised in the area that is now western Nevada.
Born about 1841 into a tribe that -- at that time -- had only limited contact with settlers, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins would go on to spend the majority of her adult life apart from the Paiutes.
Mrs. Hopkins came to the East from the Pacific coast with the courageous purpose of telling in detail to the mass of our people, "extenuating nothing and setting down naught in malice," the story of her people's trials.
Finding that in extemporaneous speech she could only speak at one time of a few points, she determined to write out the most important part of what she wished to say.
In fighting with her literary deficiencies, she loses some of the fervid eloquence which her extraordinary colloquial command of the English language enables her to utter, but I am confident that no one would desire that her own original words should be altered.
It is the first outbreak of the American Indian in human literature.
Sarah Winnemucca (1844–1891) was a prominent female Paiute activist and educator; she helped gain release of her people from the Yakima Reservation following the Bannock War of 1878, lectured widely in the East in 1883 on injustices against Native Americans in the West, established a private school for Indian students in Nevada, and was an influential figure in development of United States' 19th-century Indian policies.
Giant red-haired cannibals of Lovelock, Nevada
The mysterious red-headed mummy giant of Lovelock Cave
(Let Us Try That) March 20, 2024: The Northern Paiute people have an oral tradition that tells of a barbarous tribe of [tall, redheaded] people. These barbarians were cannibals who would kill and eat the Northern Paiute people and even eat their own dead. At war for three years, the Paiutes eventually killed many of the cannibals. The rest fled to a deep cave. The mouth of the cave was stuffed full of brush and set ablaze, killing the last of those people. There have been archeological expeditions at this site, and there have been a lot of claims made about what was found there. Today, we're trying to get to the truth and find out what really happened at Lovelock Cave.
Nevada Historical Society Quarterly - Fall 1975 John Reid's Redheaded "Giants of Central Nevada: Fact or Fiction? SHEILAGH BROOKS, CAROLYN STARK AND RICHARD H. BROOKS https://www.onlinenevada.org/sites/de...
Nevada Historical Society Quarterly - Winter 1984 John T. Reid's Case for the Redheaded Giants by Dorothy P. Dansie epubs.nsla.nv.gov/statepubs/e...
Impersonal organic broth or 'primordial soup' fed by stars needed energy to move. Lightning!
A human can develop ESP?
In the beginning, which repeats in an endless cycle of inconceivable duration, there were the great elements or maha-dhatus. These are not things but characteristic of materiality. The things they are characteristics of are minute particles, kalapas.
Physical, material, tangible things are conglomerates of these particles, which amazingly are discernible to minds purified by profound stillness and attention in meditation. It is within the capacity of human minds. By the time physical beings came into being on this human plane and this planet in particular, the world was already very old.
The third eye can see molecules and particles?
And something preexisted it, a more subtle plane of the immaterial, the energetic, the abstract. These two domains are interdependent and not found apart except in the immaterial sphere (arupa loka). Between the extremes of that immaterial sphere (a set of four rarefied worlds somewhat like places of Platonic forms) and our sensual sphere (kama loka), there is a third sphere of subtle form (rupa loka).
The 31 Planes of Existence (and more)
From the sensual to the fine-material to the immaterial (formless) there are planes of rebirth. All 31 Planes of Existence within these three spheres are reached by karma, in particular the tremendously weighty karma of meditative absorption (the jhanas). It is because one gained, developed, and mastered the four formless attainments that rebirth is possible in those worlds in accordance with that attainment.
Because of gaining, developing, and mastering the four form attainments, rebirth is possible in the fine-material sphere or "heavens" (sagga).
Otherwise, skillful karma (good, profitable, beneficial action of mind, speech, and body) leads to welcome states in our sensual sphere, which is replete with sensual heavens far superior to the pleasures possible for humans experiencing bliss on the human plane. But here within this lowest and densest of the three spheres, we have worlds of great suffering of seemingly interminable duration.
Science says earth's organic life began with impersonal amino acids (star dust) and energy.
If a kalapa is an "atom," does it look like one? No. It is fast and resembles a dying ember.
The IVC had nuclear bombs long before the USA
It might be alright, tolerable, and sufferable to do a misdeed here, expressing some harmful intention in an ill-done deed, and as a result be reborn as an animal and then come back to the human plane. That might be alright. It might seem horribly disproportionate to what we did -- let's say steal a bunch of food and hog it down like a certain kind of animal. But this is not what happen. The results are far worse because once someone falls in the "great waste" or "downfall" (niraya), it is not clear when one will emerge from those worlds.
Instead, one revolves and turns, going from worse to worse to worse in accordance with our karma (our "just desserts"). The Buddha made this point particularly clear in one sutra where he speaks of going from bright to bright worlds, bright to dark worlds, or dark to dark worlds. Imagine one is born in poverty in the human world on account of past greed and an unwillingness to share.
Ancient IVC = Indus Valley Civilization
Then, still suffering form that active form of greed, one gets in trouble in the human world, engages in unskillful karma, and as a result is reborn in a subhuman world. From there, with the possibility of doing any skillful karma but instead feeling a necessity to engage in more and more unskillful karma to "survive" or get by, one inherits the result of new misdeeds and plunges into more trouble and misery.
This having happened, what is the chance of turning it around and emerging out of this abyss or downfall? It is not likely, and when it eventually happens (as it will because these worlds are not eternal), it will be because of some past skillful deed finally fortuitously coming to fruit and providing an opportunity.
Having come out and being reborn a human again? What is most likely to happen? Habit is likely to draw one back into the entire morass of all that previous suffering. We don't learn very well, and the universe is not trying to "teach" us anymore than a branch reaches out to scratch us or a fire leaps to burn us. Thorn and flame are there; we bump them. They do not attack back for our bump. The bump merely bears a result.
I like sex, so I married a rich 16-year-old and took her from the UK to US to start a cult.
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Who needs wisdom? You got crazy
This is quoted beautifully in The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Sixties sex guru Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche a beloved former lama (shyster, fraud, and sex abuser) caught up in the delights of our Western world. I bought the whole crumby book thinking there would be more gems in it like this, presented as if Rinpoche had come up with this brilliance. But it is the poetic product of Portia Nelson that, if memory serves (and it does not), runs something like this in the book:
"There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: Autobiography in Five Short Chapters" (Portia Nelson).
What about the symbolism on Buddhist temple walls? This is an oversimplified version of the 31 Planes of Existence as Six Worlds (devas, asuras, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hellions)
.
Not only do those subtle physical heavens exist, but there are also lower subhuman states -- the planes of animals, ghosts, shapeshifting spirits, monsters (ogres, ghouls), demons (demigods), and hellions.
These may seem unbelievable to us, just as for many the idea of any kind of "heaven" is silly. But as American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has pointed out (As It Is), does it not make sense that there would be worlds for experiencing the results of deeds good and ill?
What are the Four Elements?
All of these things and places pre-existed the "beginning." Why? The beginning we speak of is the one we can see, the one that would have taken place in this world. But this world is just one of countless similar worlds all within the human plane (manussya loka). So to speak of the beginning is a flaw pursuit. We are already on shaky boards. There was already warmth, sky, ground, and the deep. There were already the Four Elements or the 14 specific characteristics of our tangible materiality.
When we imagine the theory of the Four Elements (earth, wind, fire, water) is an antiquated notion easily replaced by our modern Periodic Table of Elements, it is only because we do not understand the former, and we assume the latter is stable when it is actually fluctuating and hurtling toward replacement all the time.
Earth Element: solidity, heaviness (teeth, bones, hair, flesh in the body)
Water Element: liquidity, cohesion (mucus, blood, spit, sweat)
Fire Element: temperature (heat, warmth, cool, cold)
The Buddha did not come along and say, "Oh, yes, this old theory of there being Four Elements, that's correct." People by then did not understand the theory in detail, so he either restored it to what it originally meant or refined it to give an accurate explanation using the archaic terms.
For example, let is look at "fire." As a mahadhuta or great element, it does not mean the symbol 🔥 representing a burning flame. A burning flame is a symbol representing it, and what is it? It is temperature. What is temperature (tejo)?
Unique flow of info IDed in the human brain
It is cold as well as heat and includes chemical fire such as we see in digestion (dissolving, dissolution, breaking apart). This need not stay at an abstract level of belief and categorization; in the practice of Four Elements Meditation (💩🔥💧💨), we see it directly and know it intimately. All of the characteristics of matter are brought into consciousness and made very noticeable, just as the breath grows more and more subtle and is known more and more clearly with practice of stillness and attention (samma-samadhi, which is part of the Noble Eightfold Path).
A successful meditator can SEE a kalapa? Yes. How? These particles are fast, very fast, arising, turning, and falling away in a finger snap. They are too fast to see. However, and this is a big however, human perception is such that it is recorded in the seat of consciousness near the heart.
If a successful meditator looks down, there's a greenish mirror of sorts. This reflects what has been perceived. While the active kalapa is far too rapid to discern, the "tape" or trace of it recorded by perception can be review. In the review, the particle can be slowed down, making it discernible. This is one secret why a knowledgeable and experienced guide is necessary. One would not stumble on this problem and find a solution by chance.
We are humans and rely on culture, and culture means handing down knowledge. The Buddha is the best friend we have (utilizing the idea of Buddhist "noble friendship," kalyāṇa-mittatā, because he made known how he awoke, and others awoke, and all of those awakened in any of the four major phases of awakening became the Noble Sangha, the community of enlightened practitioners). Learning the Dharma (Dhamma) from these individuals.
THEREFORE, none of the aforementioned is a "theory" for science to decide on. It is an outline of what happens already, what works already, what others have done already. There are awakened people in the world, not all of them Buddhist monastics, all of them practitioners of these sorts of things. The Buddha was like a candle, giving rise to countless other candles in the world. THESE THINGS ARE ALL PERSONALLY VERIFIABLE.
But that would take individual initiative and effort, first finding a teacher who can actually teach these things just as the historical Buddha did. (They exist in the Year 2024. Contact us, and we will point some out).
How did life begin?
All of these things can be known-and-seen
If all the inanimate elements were present, and if the immaterial energies or the formless intelligence, structure, or "software" were present, all that had to happen was the merging of the two. They are, after all, interdependent. One does not exist without the other.
When DOES it all begin? This might be a better question. This weekend we were out in the woodlands above Los Angeles learning survival skills with the School of Self-Reliance. It is revelation to have the wisdom of the Native Americans handed down to us and our urban-suburban mindsets. The ancients were very clever and efficient.
The surprise came when we tried figuring out how to make a net out of simple cordage, yarn, fibrous strings rolled up in a spindle. Well, there's no way to do. It's like trying to connect some points within in box without lifting the pencil. (The secret is always to "think outside the box"). If one does, one suddenly sees a way, has an aha moment.
Abhidhamma (Sayalay Susila, Dhr. Seven)
The instructor and nature guide Christopher took a length of string and cut it. That was the first aha. We're making a net, yet we cut the string? Yes. He tied both ends to two twin coastal live oak trees (which are going extinct after thousands of years because of chemtrail corruption and artificial drought but being blamed on the cleanup crew, the oak beetle, that takes out sick trees).
Then he cut more lengths. That was the second aha. (We had been trying to imagine a way of weaving the one string into itself to form a basket of loops like a bunch of fancy Celtic knots). Then he had us tie lengths of string to the line tied to the tree. This can also be done with a circle armature by taking a supple branch and making a basketball hoop then tying down from there, which is good for skirt making and anything requiring a closed basket like pattern.
Does the West have any idea?
The final aha came when we began tying simple knots into the hanging strings, taking one side and tying it to the next. That's when the big AHA hit us. Once a netmaker starts doing this, there suddenly is no beginning and no end. But there is a beginning! That first knot! But that "knot" didn't come from nowhere and nothing. It came from all the non-knot things (string and structure, pattern and pulpy material). There is actually no "knot" (in an ultimate or philosophical sense) because there, when we analyze it, are actually only two things -- the material and the metaphysical, neither of which are the "knot."
See the new bear knot for a demonstration of this magic trick, this very useful camping, survival, and construction technique in rope use and knotting, recently released on TikTok.
This wise Western monk can explain in detail.
But when we combine the two, usher them into interdependence, suddenly we see "knot." That is to say, the illusion of "knot" arises. The knot is unreal, but it has form and function. It is easily returned to the unreal when undone. Nothing new actually comes into being. Nothing is born. What was there is still there.
What was there? In the beginning, there was the material (Four Elements or characteristics of matter in varying degrees to make every other physical things). And there was the metaphysical, the pattern, the design, the intelligence, the immaterial, the software, the idea, the "name" if you will. In ancient times these two were known as nama-rupa, "name and form." Name is mind, and form is body (or the physical inanimate thing that becomes animated by the formless thing, in a manner of speaking).
How does any "thing" (dhamma) come to be? The Buddha had a very, very profound explanation of this. All things are Dependently Originated. (They may be no thing, but they are not nothing). And if we say to anyone that there is no "knot," or no "self," or no "ego," they will necessarily misunderstand what this means.
For those with a greedy (lobha-type) nature, it will seem that there must be a merging with the eternal and clinging to it;
For those with a hate (dosa-type) nature, it will seem that there must be an annihilation or separation from the eternal and rejecting it;
For those with a deluded (moha-type) nature, it will seem uncertain, unknowable, doubtful, confusing.
All explained in detail (Sayalay Susila)
But it's actually knowable and answerable. IF a "knot" indeed comes into actual existence when tied, then where does "it" go when untied? Does it go into the eternal, the world of Platonic forms, that is, the immaterial world of ideas, names, software, the mystical Judeo-Christian logos? (In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was good, God, Good god, gawdammit? What was the first word? Om (🕉️). Why?
Because this whole universe, the world we see and the unseen world behind what we see, is vibrating at varying frequencies. So all that is seen and experienced is a sort of binary of on-off (1-0) in endlessly varying degrees and quantities, magnitudes and tones, and if one listens very carefully, one can hear or at least imagine that one hears the hum of the universe. This mechanism, vast and spread out, is revolving and doing something, and that is making a low hum sound. What does it sound like? Listen. It sounds like aummmmmmmm. (To Catholic and Christian ears, it may sound like this, A'mennnnnnnnnn).
Is this the logos (word) Judeo-Christians mean?
Or does "it" go to nothingness, the abyss, emptiness, annihilation, the dark?
It doesn't "go" anywhere. What was there before is still there (name and form); what was never there (the thing, in this case the knot) is still not there. So it does not go away and it does not return, but it sure seems like it does.
Are we light like devas (shining ones)?
So what does it do? It manifests or does not. It is seen or remains unseen. The software works its magic on the hardware, and the hardware reflects the magic and limitations of the software. This happens interdependently so that the limitations and magic of the hardware are also revealed by the software. (E.g., if we want to run up a rocky hill, we might be able to, given the will and a body that does not wear out or crash. All the wanting won't make it so if the body gives out, and all the perfection of the body will not make it so if the will is not present, obviously).
Help, Alan Watts!
Everything's a verb; nothing's a noun.
Each thing, every thing, arises dependent on other things. What other things? Its constituents. Therefore, in this way, paradoxically, it (the actual thing) does not arise; there is just what there was before (the constituents and the pattern), but now they are functionally integrated and so give the illusion of something new coming into being. This is what there is: an illusion (maya) has come into being. What will go out of being at death? The illusion will go out. Where will it go? It will go back to potential rather than manifested. One can go into physics and sound all too metaphysical. But this is actually quite simple and self-evident and can be proven in an instant. Alan Watts pointed this out: Take your hand, open it wide, and look at your palm. Now make a fist. Where did the hand go?
It's right there, same as before.
Yes, but now there's a "fist." ✊
(Open the hand). No, there isn't. 🤚
(Ball the hand). Yes, there is. Look! ✊
Ah, yes, that thing.
Yes, it's a fist. ✊
So a "fist" came into existence just now?
Yes, obviously.
It looks like a hand (palm-hub, radiating fingers, wrist, muscles, skin, blood, bones...), the same as before.
Yeah, but now it's a "fist."
But when you open it, it's a "wave."
(Open it). It's a wave!
(Ball it). It's a fist!
What's going on?
A "fist" is just what we call the functional integration of these elements (palm, fingers, etc.) in this way (pattern). In another way, it's a "wave."
What defines it?
Interestingly, Watts had the genius to realize long ago, it's NOT a thing but rather a process.
Huh?
When it's waving, we call it a wave. When it's fisting (balling up into a fist), we call it a "fist." When it's handing, we call it a hand....
But isn't it?
Sure, conventionally speaking, but ultimately of course it's not. It's always just a hand (handing) -- a hand being defined by what it's doing.
But what is a "hand"?
It's a thing (constituent amalgam)` that is handing, that is all these mudras (hand poses)
So what are we? I'm a "being," you're a "being," right?
We're always in flux, transforming, decaying, perishing, hurtling toward destruction, even when we're birthing, surviving, growing...like this wave, falling away, becoming a fist, falling away, becoming a wave (waving goodbye), just a hand, handing, falling away.
Oh yeah. I guess maybe that's what the Buddha meant when he emphasized impermanence (anicca)?
Yes! There's no static "being" here, but what there is (the Five Aggregates clung to as self) is always becoming, turning, morphing, changing, falling away, rearising, endlessly. This is samsara, the endless cycling. We're usually too busy to ever notice. But a little stillness, or even an attempt at stillness (samadhi) reveals it.
But isn't a "fist" real? Say yes, or I'll punch you. 👊
Yes. Of course, it's real on a certain level, the day to day, in the conventional way of speaking.
What else is there but the conventional way of speaking?
Unclench your fist and I'll tell you.
Oh, sorry. 🙇♂️
There's the ultimate (paramatha), of course, as in what is it really?
But it's not really a "fist"?
No, it's just a hand fisting. And when it's chopping, we call it a "chopper" (thing that chops), or a slapper (slapping), or a clapper (clapping), or a wiper (wiping), or a poker (poking)... 👃
Oh yeah, huh?
Yeah.
Help, Thich Nhat Hanh!
The simpler one makes it, the better (Thay).
The late great Thich Nhat Hanh said this in a much prettier way when he observed one day on tour, coming through Pasadena, California, and stopping at the Convention Center. Jeff and I were there to see what greatness he would evince, what pearl of wisdom he would utter. He didn't say much of anything. But he did say this. He pulled out a bag of rocks being sold or given to kids to meditate with at Plum Village in France. We have Deer Park here in Southern California, and I didn't see this bag of pebbles for sale, though I imagine they must have been available somewhere. And taking out a pebble at a time, there was a word on it to reflect on. As I pulled my eyes back down because they were rolling too much and someone might see, Thay (Ven. Hanh) said something profound. It caught me by surprise.
He asked, "Did you ever notice that clouds are made completely out of non-cloud elements?" Huh? Well, ground water is not a "cloud," and heat is not a "cloud," and the mysterious process of condensation is not a "cloud," and altitude is not a "cloud," and "white" or "blue" or "fluff" is not a cloud. BUT when these merge, what arises but a "cloud"? Or the illusion "cloud" seems to come into being, arise, appear. It's just the name given by the mind to the functional integration of all these constituent factors, the elements. I wasn't sure he knew what he had just said.
No Mud, No Lotus (Thay)
Fortunately, he immediately gave another example to prove he had. He asked, "Did you ever notice that flowers are made completely of non-flower elements?" There's mud and fertilizer (very anti-flowery dung and watery dirt), the seed, the sun, the heat, the season, all this and more. Then they all come together when the conditions are "right" (and we'll call them "right" after the fact then try to assemble them again for it to happen again). For what to happen again? Flower(ing). Look at the flower, its beautifully scented, delicately structured transience. Is it mud? There's no trace of mud that was so important to its birth. Is it dung? Doesn't smell like it. Is it water? It's not water but there must be water in it, wet yet dry to the touch...it's clearly not water. Is it air? It's airy or must have air in it, but it's not air. Is it color? It has color but clearly is not the color itself. Is it any of these things of which it is made? No, not as such, yet there's nothing else here but the immaterial stuff, the structure, the pattern, the math, the sort of invisible parts. Did Thay think up this example? It was almost worth waiting around in there looking at "now" watches to hear just this one example.
Back to the point, the final and biggest aha: When one gets to the stage of making the first knot (assuming the previous things were not knots when they probably were, tying to the tree and hanging the strands of string down from the first line), one grabs any strand and ties it to the strand next to it.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a "net" starts to emerge. It starts to arise. It starts to appear.
Because there has been a net existing before (somewhere in the netmaker's past or mind or schooling), the net is actually reemerging, rearising, reappearing, and for this reason all birth is rebirth, patisandhi, not a first birth.
Where is the beginning? It cannot be found, and it doesn't matter. It is not apparent in the net. It is not "right" to say it began with this knot (even though we marked it so we would be able to say with certainty that it was this one) because it is very unsatisfying. There is a net of many identical knots all strung together, and that's the beginning? Why, how, who says so? The point is, it is not obvious in the data, in the tangible, observable, sensible field of perception. There's no reason why that one is or should be the first, but it is, and the real question is not "What was the beginning?" but, What preceded the beginning? What gave rise to that? As we have seen, there were many beginnings, many things setting up before a net came into illusory being, but once it started, there it is rolling along.
SOLUTION: A better simile might be the convective power of water drawn through a hose. Cause low pressure in the hose by blowing or sucking on it, and water starts to come through all on its own. Now place the other end of the hose into the tank being sucked out, and when will it end? When did it begin? As soon as the loop completes, the question doesn't make sense. That is to say, it becomes meaningless. What we want is not a first point but a better explanation to, Why? What for? To what end? What is the purpose of life. And for that, Buddhism has an answer. But people aren't going to like it. It doesn't satisfy. What if all this were just for its own sake, just impersonal phenomena rolling along, things clinging to themselves as the fundamental attachment causing all of this strife, worry, dread, and longing for eternal life or endless anything? If ending is the problem, then not-ending must be the solution. This sounds logical, perfect, but it is incorrect. The real solution would be not to start. Bringing the process to an end, if it does not rearise then there's no problem. We dread this solution because what about all the aspects of the illusion we like? Are we to lose those? You propose to take away our illusion(s)? Told ya you wouldn't like it. Awaken to the Truth; it's much better.
Buddhism likes science because both attempt to explain the world. Ask the Dalai Lama.
And having been born (not really), it will die (not really). It will not do these things, because it itself in an ultimate sense did not exist, does not exist, and will not exist, but the illusion that arose, that did come into being, that does carry on for awhile, and that does "die" or come to an end until it is arises again.
This is how life began. For details on how life began in this world (on this planet if this is a spinning planet and not a stationary platform much bigger than what we are shown with a hollow center of other levels as described in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain cosmologies since ancient times) this time around, see the Agganna Suttaor "A Buddhist Genesis" a discourse on "Knowledgeof Beginnings."
The Buddha leaves out what was stated here and begins with a preexisting world and the subtle light beings (or, according to at least one sagacious scholar, Dr. Sugunasiri, Ph.D., light beams) that alighted on it, became coarse, and lost their subtle abilities, becoming denser and denser, in accordance with karma (habits) of the past reemerging again in a new cycle.
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