Animations Of Unseeable Biology
January 15, 2012
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I’ve written a little bit before on what life actually is… On how ‘we’, as human beings, are beginning to figure out how life, as we know it, arose from a sea of seemingly non-living molecules… And we’ve even seen how the fine line between everyday non-living bio-chemistry mimics and resembles – with amazing analogy – the living systems that we call ecosystems… That we call our “selves”. I’ve even shown – with the help of a lecture given by Dr Bruce Lipton – how the complex interaction of molecules (all of which are made up from the numerous atomic elements, which are really nothing more than star dust) gives rise an orchestration of consciousness that allows all of us i.e. each and every type of living organism alive here on Earth today, to perceive the world around us, in some manner or another… To interact with the ever changing environment that continually shifts around our bodies and beings, so that we can survive and slowly modify ourselves and our habits – through the process of Natural Selection – to its ever changing rhythms and challenges, thus ensuring our survival.
Well… If you got all of that, then your laughing and you’re well on your way to finding out what the notion of your ‘self‘ i.e. the mind/brain/body/environmental continuum, is really all about, as well as how these supposed ‘selves’ are all entangled into a long chainmail of causes and effects, a process that, ultimately, relates all of us to one another (no matter how far away everyone might seem at any given moment to our own self centred points of view), so that we come together as ‘One.’ As Kalu Rinpoche pointed out before in “Karma, Interdependence and Emptiness“, “When you hear the sound of a bell, ask yourself, ‘What makes the sound?’” And so, just as with the notion of your “self”, perhaps we should ask, “When I am conscious… What makes me conscious?” When we start to see all the details compiled into the totality of the whole picture (if we ever truly can do so in one lifetime, simply due to the sheer magnitude of parts), along with how interdependent they all are on one another, then the notion of “self” blurs into the surrounding environmental events that gave rise to everything around us, as well as us. As we are a part it all, reliant on every detail being exactly the way it was – and presently is – then perhaps we really are a part of “Nature” itself? Perhaps this is what Spinoza wrote about when he discussed the notion of “God, or Nature”?
Either way, I’d like to add one more TED Talk – to the many that have already found their way onto the many pages of this website – so as to enhance the scientific facts and findings that are slowly illuminating part of the essence of what we all really are – complex organic molecular environments that have become “self” aware… And, thus, I would like to present this talk given by the eminent biomedical animator (I know, what a kewl job title) Drew Berry, who’s scientifically accurate and aesthetically rich visualizations are elucidating cellular and molecular processes for a wide range of audiences, both in the scientific community and outside it.
But just before hand… I’d like you to ask your “self”… “Am I really a “living” being? One that is undeniably distinct and truly separate from all the other animals who reside here on planet Earth with us? Or am “I” just a complex orchestration of inter-reactive organic molecules/chemicals/’star dust’ that has evolved over time into ever increasingly complex manifestations, so as to eventually become “self” aware?”
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Drew Berry: Animations Of Unseeable Biology
We have no ways to directly observe molecules and what they do — Drew Berry wants to change that. At TEDxSydney he shows his scientifically accurate (and entertaining!) animations that help researchers see unseeable processes within our own cells.
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To find out where I sourced this video from, please click here.
And to find out more about Drew Berry, please click here.
OR to learn more about TED, please visit their website by clicking here.
Karma, Interdependence and Emptiness
April 5, 2011
This explanation of “Karma, Interdependence and Emptiness” by the previous Kalu Rinpoche precedes the coming blog about the negation of my ‘self’. I feel it pertinently and precisely points out several very important concepts that need to be addressed before one can look at why the idea of a ‘self’ might actually be a delusion of conceptualisation.
Karma, Interdependence and Emptiness
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Within the concept of karma, there is no notion of destiny or fatalism; we only reap what we sow. We experience the results of our own actions. The notion of karma is closely connected with that of dependent arising, or tendrel in Tibetan. The chain of karma is also the interaction of tendrel, or interdependent factors whose causes and results mutually give rise to one another.
The Tibetan word tendrel means interaction, interconnection, interrelation, interdependence, or interdependent factors. All things, all our experiences, are tendrel, which is to say that they are events that exist because of the relationship between interrelated factors. This idea is essential to the understanding of Dharma in general and, in particular, how the mind transmigrates in cyclic existence.
To understand what tendrel or dependent arising is, let’s take an example. When you hear the sound of a bell, ask yourself, “What make the sound?” Is it the body of the bell, the clapper, the hand that moves the bell to and fro, or the ears that hear the sound? None of these elements alone produces the sound; it results from the interaction of all these factors. All the elements are necessary for the sound of a bell to be perceived, and they are necessary not in succession, but simultaneously. The sound is an event whose existence depends on the interaction of those elements; that is tendrel.
Similarly, all conditioned lives, all samsaric phenomena, result from a multiplicity of interactions which belong to the twelve links of dependent origination. These twelve factors give rise to each other mutually. It is not that each factor causes the one that occurs next in time; as with the bell example, they are simultaneous, coexistent. It is necessary that the twelve factors be present at the same moment in order to produce a conditioned existence. The bondage of causes and results of these interdependent factors that generate illusion is the action of samsara. Everything within samsara is karmically conditioned interrelationship; all our experiences are tendrel. The truth of appearances created by the bondage of dependent arisings is conventional or dualistic truth. This is how we ordinarily live. It is ruled by karma. The empty nature of what exists at the relative level is what we call ultimate truth. Truly understanding dependent arising allows us to go beyond the conditioning of the relative or conventional level and to attain the peace and freedom of unconditionality. When you completely understand dependent arising, you also understand emptiness. And that is freedom.
Therefore wisdom, or knowledge, is not fundamentally separate from illusion. That is why it is often said that samsara and nirvana are not different and that a form of wisdom is latent in ignorance. Logic and reasoning ultimately lead to such statements, which appear to be contradictory and illogical. Logic and reasoning can go on ad infinitum. They are part of the samsaric process and ultimately lead to contradictions. Even so, since they are tools that can bring about realisation of the truth, they are useful and should not be rejected, even if they are eventually released at the time of realising emptiness.
But be careful. The correct understanding of emptiness is in no way nihilistic. If we decide that everything is empty and without reality, that the state of buddhahood has no real existence, that karmic causality is empty, and that therefore there is no reason to bother, this would be a nihilistic view, even worse than the view that takes relative things to be truly existent. Nihilistic conceptions are a more serious mistake than the realist conceptions that take phenomena to exist as they appear.
The correct understanding of emptiness lies between the two extremes of eternalism (believing things to be inherently or truly existent) and nihilism (believing them not to exist at all). This middle way view eliminates wrong ideas and ultimately allows us to go beyond conceptualised notions about reality. But beware: to conceive of emptiness closes the door to liberation.
The great lineage holder of Saraha said:
“To consider the world as real is a brutish attitude.
To consider it as empty is even more savage.”And Nāgārjuna said:
“Those who conceive of emptiness are incurable.”
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by Kalu Rinpoche
To learn more about the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche, please visit Karmapa’s website by clicking here.
And to find out where I sourced this quote from, please click here.
