The Zen in Modern Cosmology

The Zen in Modern Cosmology PDF Author: Harry C. S. Lam
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812771875
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
According to Modern Cosmology, our Universe came from a primordial state 13.7 billion years ago, with no matter and very little energy. In other words, it was almost empty. Where do the stars and galaxies, and everything else in the present universe come from then?. This captivating book provides an answer to this question, and explains the observations and evidence behind the assertion of an almost empty primordial universe. Aimed at a general audience, it assumes no prior knowledge of astronomy or physics. The emptiness of the primordial universe is reminiscent of the emptiness in Zen Buddhism. The similarities and differences of these two forms of emptiness are explored. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Out of Emptiness (578 KB). Contents: Out of Emptiness; Sakyamuni Buddha; A Flower and a Smile; Hui Neng; The Platform Sutra; Prologue to Our Universe; Does the Universe Have a Beginning; Size and Shape of the Universe; Scale Factor and Redshift; The Constituents of the Universe; What is Matter; Different Kinds of Energy; Heat and Temperature; The Noisy Universe; A Short History of the Universe; Inflation; Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation; Emergence of Matter; Syntheses of Chemical Elements; Epilogue. Readership: General readers and practicing scientists.

The Zen in Modern Cosmology

The Zen in Modern Cosmology PDF Author: Harry C. S. Lam
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812771875
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book Here

Book Description
According to Modern Cosmology, our Universe came from a primordial state 13.7 billion years ago, with no matter and very little energy. In other words, it was almost empty. Where do the stars and galaxies, and everything else in the present universe come from then?. This captivating book provides an answer to this question, and explains the observations and evidence behind the assertion of an almost empty primordial universe. Aimed at a general audience, it assumes no prior knowledge of astronomy or physics. The emptiness of the primordial universe is reminiscent of the emptiness in Zen Buddhism. The similarities and differences of these two forms of emptiness are explored. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Out of Emptiness (578 KB). Contents: Out of Emptiness; Sakyamuni Buddha; A Flower and a Smile; Hui Neng; The Platform Sutra; Prologue to Our Universe; Does the Universe Have a Beginning; Size and Shape of the Universe; Scale Factor and Redshift; The Constituents of the Universe; What is Matter; Different Kinds of Energy; Heat and Temperature; The Noisy Universe; A Short History of the Universe; Inflation; Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation; Emergence of Matter; Syntheses of Chemical Elements; Epilogue. Readership: General readers and practicing scientists.

Cosmological Koans: A Journey to the Heart of Physical Reality

Cosmological Koans: A Journey to the Heart of Physical Reality PDF Author: Anthony Aguirre
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393609227
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
“Playful and enchanting.” —Priyamvada Natarajan, Wall Street Journal Could there be a civilization on a mote of dust? How much of your fate have you made? Using pleasingly paradoxical vignettes, known as Koans, that follow the ancient Zen tradition and have a flair for explaining complex science, physicist Anthony Aguirre tackles cosmic questions from the meaning of quantum theory and the nature of time to the origin of multiple universes.

Each Moment Is the Universe

Each Moment Is the Universe PDF Author: Dainin Katagiri
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834822105
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A Japanese master offers a Zen perspective on the nature of time and being, further exploring the concepts of impermanence, living in the present moment, and more It’s easy to regard time as a commodity—we even speak of “saving” or “spending” it. We often regard it as an enemy, when we feel it slipping away before we’re ready for time to be up. The Zen view of time is radically different than that: time is not something separate from our life; rather, our life is time. Understand this, says Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and you can live fully and freely right where you are in each moment. Katagiri bases his teaching on Being Time, a text by the most famous of all Zen masters, Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), to show that time is a creative, dynamic process that continuously produces the universe and everything in it—and that to understand this is to discover a gateway to freedom from the dissatisfactions of everyday life. He guides us in contemplating impermanence, the present moment, and the ungraspable nature of past and future. He discusses time as part of our inner being, made manifest through constant change in ourselves and our surroundings. And these ideas are by no means metaphysical abstractions: they can be directly perceived by any of us through meditation.

Sufi Cosmology

Sufi Cosmology PDF Author: Christian Lange
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004392610
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
This volume discusses origin, structure and levels of existence of the created world and the place of human beings in it, according to the major Sufi thinkers of all times.

The New Physics and Cosmology

The New Physics and Cosmology PDF Author: Arthur Zajonc
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195347821
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
What happens when the Dalai Lama meets with leading physicists and a historian? This book is the carefully edited record of the fascinating discussions at a Mind and Life conference in which five leading physicists and a historian (David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Arthur Zajonc, Anton Zeilinger, and Tu Weiming) discussed with the Dalai Lama current thought in theoretical quantum physics, in the context of Buddhist philosophy. A contribution to the science-religion interface, and a useful explanation of our basic understanding of quantum reality, couched at a level that intelligent readers without a deep involvement in science can grasp. In the tradition of other popular books on resonances between modern quantum physics and Zen or Buddhist mystical traditions--notably The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Tao of Physics, this book gives a clear and useful update of the genuine correspondences between these two rather disparate approaches to understanding the nature of reality.

The Golden Yoke

The Golden Yoke PDF Author: Rebecca Redwood French
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501735349
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
The Golden Yoke is a remarkable achievement. It is the first elaboration of the legal, cultural, and ideological dimensions of precommunist Tibetan jurisprudence, a unique legal system that maintains its secularism within a thoroughly Buddhist setting. Layer by layer, Rebecca Redwood French reconstructs the daily operation of law in Tibet before the Chinese invasion in 1959. In the Tibetans' own words, French identifies their courts, symbols, and personnel and traces the procedures for petitioning and filing documents. There are stories here from judges, legal conciliators, and lay people about murder, property disputes, and divorce. French shows that Tibetan law is deeply embedded in its Buddhist culture and that the system evolved not from the rules and judgments but from what people actually do and say. In what amounts to a fully developed cosmology, she describes the cultural foundation that informs the system: myths, notions of time and conflux, inner morality, language patterns, rituals, use of space, symbols, and concepts. Based on extensive readings of Tibetan legal documents and codes, interviews with Tibetan scholars, and the reminiscences of Tibetans at home and in exile, this generously illustrated, elegantly written work is a model of outstanding research. French combines the talents of a legal anthropologist with those of a former law practitioner to develop a new field of study that has implications for other judicial systems, including our own.

Cosmology and Buddhist Thought

Cosmology and Buddhist Thought PDF Author: Jerome Freedman
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781492766766
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cosmology and Buddhist Thought is the result of a conversation with astrophysicist and television celebrity, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, that took place in New York at the end of May, 2011. While cosmologists look at the outer space with massive instruments and difficult calculations using mathematics, Buddhists look at inner space with mindfulness and concentration. Both paths lead to insights about fundamental questions about why and how we got here, what we are doing here, what are our connections and interactions with the universe, and what is our destiny. Cosmologists study life on earth from an objective point of view and examine its causes. Buddhists study life on earth with regard to understanding its challenges and how to resolve them. Both Buddhism and cosmology recognize that we live in an emerging, evolving, and impermanent universe - everything is changing. Dr. Tyson's insights into the origins of life on earth, time scales, ecology, and religion are inspiring, to say the least, and extremely wise to read and contemplate. His responsiveness to Buddhist ideas of co-dependent arising, interbeing (interconnectedness), impermanence, the self, nirvana, and consciousness demonstrates much more than a "Reader's Digest knowledge of Buddhism." A close reading of the conversation reveals that Buddhist thought does not have much to contribute to cosmology. Cosmology, on the other hand, has a lot to contribute to Buddhism. Excerpts from Cosmology and Buddhist Thought recently appeared on the Lion's Roar Blog.

The Joyous Cosmology

The Joyous Cosmology PDF Author: Alan W. Watts
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1608682056
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
In describing the effects of mescaline, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception opened a proverbial door for a generation of seekers. Watts walked through it with this classic account of the levels of insight that consciousness-changing drugs can facilitate “when accompanied with sustained philosophical reflection by a person who is in search, not of kicks, but of understanding.” Watts and peers including foreword authors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (then Harvard professors) anticipated physicists’ recognizing the individual’s “inseparability from the rest of the world,” the work of New Age thinkers who combine scientific findings and spiritual experiences, and federally funded clinical trials utilizing psilocybin to treat a variety of conditions. More than an artifact, The Joyous Cosmology is both a riveting memoir of Watts’s personal experiments and a profound meditation on our perennial questions about the nature of existence and the existence of the sacred.

Buddhist Cosmology

Buddhist Cosmology PDF Author: W. Randolph Kloetzli
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788120804630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Disagreements concerning the nature and extent of the universe constitute a focus of theological debate which permeates buddhism at every level. While there have been numerous attempts to catalogue the details of the Buddhist cosmologies, none has attempted a general interpretation of their underlying intention. This work attempts to begin the process of interpreting the major phases of Buddhist Cosmological speculation by seeing in them various dramas of salvation tailored to the philosophical and theological predilections of their respective traditions. To a large extent, this interpretation relies on an examination of continuities between the Buddhist cosmologies and those of the hellenistic world as a whole. In the course of this study, two major cosmological traditions emerge; those which rely on metaphors of time and those which rely on metaphors of time and those which rely on metaphors of space. The former are associated with the Hinayana and the latter with the Mahayana forms of Buddhism. Each draws on images of motion and light to articulate its vision of the drama of salvation.

The Age of Addiction

The Age of Addiction PDF Author: David T. Courtwright
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674737377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
“A mind-blowing tour de force that unwraps the myriad objects of addiction that surround us...Intelligent, incisive, and sometimes grimly entertaining.” —Rod Phillips, author of Alcohol: A History “A fascinating history of corporate America’s efforts to shape our habits and desires.” —Vox We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are deliberately hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously rewire our brains? A renowned expert on addiction, David Courtwright reveals how global enterprises have both created and catered to our addictions. The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of what he calls “limbic capitalism,” the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for feeling, motivation, and long-term memory. “Compulsively readable...In crisp and playful prose and with plenty of needed humor, Courtwright has written a fascinating history of what we like and why we like it, from the first taste of beer in the ancient Middle East to opioids in West Virginia.” —American Conservative “A sweeping, ambitious account of the evolution of addiction...This bold, thought-provoking synthesis will appeal to fans of ‘big history’ in the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel.” —Publishers Weekly