KHTK Factor # 20

Reference: A Course on the Factors

KHTK Factor # 20: All viewpoints and dimension points are dependent on each other because of the constraint of oneness.

The postulates are there to approximate the Unknowable. Reasoning expands upon the postulates to bring the approximation closer to the Unknowable. This requires a consistency (oneness) to be maintained among all postulates. All viewpoints and dimension points are connected that way.

This makes all the viewpoints and the forms of the universe dependent on each other. This is just another way of describing the Specific conditionality and Dependent origination of Buddha.

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Scientology

Compare the above to the following factor in Scientology.

Scientology Factor # 20. And the many viewpoints, interacting, become dependent upon one another’s forms and do not choose to distinguish completely the ownership of dimension points and so comes about a dependency upon the dimension points and upon the other viewpoints. 

Hubbard could never bring himself to accept the principle of oneness as it conflicted with his idea of eternal human beingness. Buddha denied the possibility of eternal beingness.

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Logic

The prime principle is that all postulates is ONE because the postulates, together, approximate the Unknowable.

This oneness is expressed as the continuity, consistency and harmony of reality. Any violation of such reality appears as an anomaly. 

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June 2, 2023 – 4:46 AM Categories: KHTK | Post a comment

MN 36 The Longer Discourse to Saccaka

Reference: Exploring the Words of the Buddha

This is a summary of MN 36: The Longer Discourse to Saccaka (Mahasaccaka Sutta)

The Buddha meets again with Saccaka and in the course of a discussion on “development of body” and “development of mind” he relates a detailed narrative on his own spiritual quest.

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MN 36 Summary

(1 – 3) Introduction

(4 – 9) Bodily painful feelings overwhelm the mind. Mental painful feelings overwhelm the body. Should one pursue development of the mind over the development of the body? Isn’t self-mortification necessary for the development of the body and mind? Before this question can be answered one should understand what it means for the body and mind to be developed. Arisen pleasant feeling invades the mind and remains because body is not developed; and arisen painful feeling invades the mind and remains because mind is not developed. The body is developed when the arisen pleasant feeling does not invade the mind and remain. This is accomplished through Vipassana meditation. The mind is developed when the arisen painful feeling does not invade the mind and remain. This is accomplished through development of concentration through Samadhi meditation.

(10 – 16) Buddha started on his quest because neither pleasant nor painful feelings invaded his mind and remained. He found household life to be crowded and dusty and saw that life gone forth is wide open. It was an easy decision for him to make to go forth from the home life into homelessness and strive for the utterly perfect and pure holy life. 

(17 – 19) It occurred to Buddha that one is incapable of knowledge and vision and supreme enlightenment as long as one does not live bodily and mentally withdrawn from sensual pleasures. Not only that, one should fully abandon and suppress internally all sensual desire, affection, infatuation, thirst, and fever for sensual pleasures. Without fulfilling these prerequisites, no amount of self-mortification is going to make one capable of knowledge and vision and supreme enlightenment. But once these prerequisites are fulfilled, self-mortification does not make one any more capable of knowledge and vision and supreme enlightenment.

(20 – 30) Buddha had discovered the futility of the practice of self-mortification by direct experience. He tried to crush his mind with mind by applying extreme effort. He tried doing breathingless meditation and took it to extreme, such that there were violent pains in his head and violent burning in his body. He tried taking very little food until he became so emaciated that his belly skin adhered to his backbone, and he nearly died. He went farther in the practice of self-mortification than anybody alive, but he only ended up exhausting himself and making his body overwrought and uncalm. Though the painful feelings were extreme, Buddha did not allow them to invade his mind and remain. He realized that he had not attained any superhuman states, any distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. He wondered if there were another path to enlightenment.

(31 – 33) Buddha then recalled a time when he was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states, he had entered upon and abided in the first jhana. He suddenly realized that to be the path to enlightenment. Here was a wholesome pleasure that had nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states. There was no reason to not follow that path. But he could not pursue that path with a body so excessively emaciated. So Buddha started to eat solid food to regain his strength. Buddha went against the conventional belief that self-mortification  was the right way; and he was criticized for that.

(34 – 44) Quite secluded from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states, Buddha then entered upon and abided in the first jhana. Thus, he went up to fourth Jhana. Then he applied his purified concentration to  recollect his manifold past lives with their aspects and particulars; to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings; and to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. Buddha says, “When I knew and saw thus, my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance. “When it was liberated there came the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.’ I directly knew: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’” Any pleasant feelings that arose, Buddha didn’t let those feelings invade his mind and remain. Subsequent to his enlightenment, Buddha taught the Dhamma to others only to give them knowledge. 

(45 – 48) Another prevalent belief of those times was that accomplished and fully enlightened ones didn’t sleep in the day because sleeping in the day was abiding in delusion. Buddha knew that people had no understanding of what it meant to be deluded or undeluded. Buddha then explains: Deluded is one who has not abandoned the taints that defile. Undeluded is one who has abandoned the taints that defile. The Tathagata has abandoned the taints that defile…done away with them so that they are no longer subject to future arising.

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May 31, 2023 – 8:42 PM Categories: Buddhism | Post a comment

Physics II: Chapter 13

Reference: Beginning Physics II

Chapter 13: LIGHT AND OPTICAL PHENOMENA

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KEY WORD LIST

Physical Optics, Geometrical Optics, Refraction, Reflection, Snell’s Law, Critical Angle, Total Reflection, Angle Of Deviation, Dispersion, Rainbow.

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GLOSSARY

For details on the following concepts, please consult Chapter 13.

PHYSICAL OPTICS
In physical optics we treat the phenomena that arise due to the wave nature of the light, as well as interference phenomena.

GEOMETRICAL OPTICS
The phenomena that arise when light can be considered to be adequately described by rays traveling in straight lines (perpendicular to the wave fronts) that change speed in moving from one medium to another. This is the case as long as the objects through which the light travels have dimensions that are much larger than the wavelength of the wave.

REFRACTION
The change of direction of a ray of light in passing obliquely from one medium into another in which its wave velocity is different. We define a quantity called the “index of refraction,” n, in terms of the velocity of light in the material, v, relative to its velocity, c, in a vacuum:

n = c/v

The frequencies of the transmitted and reflected waves are the same as that of the incident waves since the rate of oscillation in the disturbance is precisely what is propagated from one location to the next. Since T = l/f is constant we can calculate the new wavelength as the distance traveled during one period, or

λ’ = vT = vλ/c = λ/n

REFLECTION
The act of casting back the light, mirroring, or giving back or showing an image; the state of being reflected in this way. The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence, i.e.

θr = θ1

SNELL’S LAW
The angle of refraction is given by

n1 sin θ1 = n2 sin θ2

It is important to note, as can be seen from the geometry in the figure, that the angle of incidence, reflection and refraction also represent the angles that the wave fronts of the incident, reflected and refracted waves respectively make with the surface.

CRITICAL ANGLE
When light travels from a dense (n2) to less dense (n1) medium, the angle of refraction is greater than the angle of incidence. The critical angle is defined as the angle of incidence that provides an angle of refraction of 90-degrees. 

sin θc = n1 / n2

TOTAL REFLECTION
When light is incident from a dense (n2) to less dense (n1) medium, at an angle greater than the critical angle, no light is refracted so all the light must be reflected. We call this case one of “total reflection“. Total reflection is very useful for bending light at a surface without losing any of the energy to transmission through the surface.

ANGLE OF DEVIATION
When the light leaves the prism its direction of motion is at an angle δ from the incident direction. This is the “angle of deviation“.

DISPERSION
For materials there is a small dependence of the velocity of light, and therefore n, on the wavelength. This property is called “dispersion” since it can be used to disperse the various wavelengths that are included in a beam of light into different refractive paths, creating a “spectrum”. As a result of the dispersion, white light refracted in a prism will be separated into its constituent wavelengths after passing through the prism

RAINBOW
A rainbow is another case in which the variation of index of refraction with wavelength leads to a spectrum.

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May 30, 2023 – 1:21 PM Categories: Physics | Post a comment

KHTK Factor # 19

Reference: A Course on the Factors

KHTK Factor # 19: Neither the forms nor the viewpoints are imperishable. 

Our viewpoints are made of postulates and our dimension points are made of our considerations. Both can change. They are not imperishable.

Considerations depend on reasoning. Throughout our life our considerations are changing and so are the forms that appear before us.

Postulates also disperse upon death and recombine in a new life. So, the viewpoint definitely changes from one life to the next. But it can change during one’s life too.

So, neither the form nor the viewpoint is eternal in the sense that it is unchanging. 

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Scientology

Compare the above to the following factor in Scientology.

Scientology Factor # 19. And the viewpoint can never perish; but the form can perish. 

For a viewpoint to never perish is to have a viewpoint that is unchanging and eternal. A viewpoint is an expression of person’s individuality or beingness. The beingness is a system of postulates. A system can always have postulates changing within it.  

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Logic

There is nothing in this universe that is unchanging and eternal.

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May 30, 2023 – 4:18 AM Categories: KHTK | Post a comment

MN 4 Fear and Dread

Reference: Exploring the Words of the Buddha

This is a summary of MN 4: Fear and Dread (Bhayabherava Sutta)

The Buddha describes to a brahmin the qualities required of a monk who wishes to live alone in the forest. He then relates an account of his own attempts to conquer fear when striving for enlightenment.

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MN 4 Summary

(1 – 3) When clansmen have gone forth from the home life into homelessness out of faith in Buddha, they have Buddha for their leader, their helper, and their guide; and they follow the example of Buddha. Remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest are hard to endure, seclusion is hard to practice, and it is hard to enjoy solitude. One would think the jungles must rob a bhikkhu of his mind, if he has no concentration.

(4 – 19) It is true that unwholesome fear and dread comes under those conditions of homelessness in remote jungle-thickets. However, one finds great solace in dwelling in the forest, as one develops the following qualities:

  1. One is purified in bodily, verbal and mental conduct and livelihood (not unpurified)
  2. One is uncovetous (not covetous and full of lust).
  3. One has a mind of loving-kindness (not with a mind of ill will and intentions of hate)
  4. One is without sloth and torpor (not overcome by sloth and torpor)
  5. One has a peaceful mind (not overcome with restless and unpeaceful mind)
  6. One has gone beyond doubt (not uncertain and doubting)
  7. One is not given to self-praise and disparagement of others
  8. One is free from trepidation (not subject to alarm and terror)
  9. One has few wishes (not desirous of gain, honour, and renown)
  10. One is energetic (not lazy and wanting in energy)
  11. One is established in mindfulness (not unmindful and fully aware)
  12. One is possessed of concentration (not unconcentrated and with straying minds)
  13. One is possessed of practical wisdom (not devoid of wisdom or be a driveller)

(20 – 26) The way to subdue that fear and dread in haunted spaces is to keep the same posture that one is in (walking, standing, sitting, and lying down) until the fear and dread gradually dissipates. Secluded from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states, one enters upon the first jhana and abides in it. He uses mindfulness of breathing as his meditation subject. The applied and sustained thought is present, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second jhana. There is self-confidence and singleness of mind with rapture and pleasure born of concentration. With the fading away as well of rapture, one enters upon and abides in the third jhana. He is now mindful and fully aware, and has equanimity; though he still feels pleasure with the body. With no fixation on pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth jhana. Now there is only the purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. There is neither-pain-nor-pleasure. 

(27 – 33) Having gone through the four jhanas, Buddha directed his attention to the recollection of past lives. He recollected many aeons of world-contraction and expansion, and hundred thousand births with their aspects and particulars. This was the first true knowledge that Buddha attained. He then directed his attention to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. He saw beings inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate passing away and reappearing. He understood how beings pass on according to their actions. This was the second true knowledge that Buddha attained. Next, He directed his attention to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. He came to know very directly, the nature of suffering and taints , their origin, their cessation, and the way leading to their cessation. With this direct knowledge, Buddha’s mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance. He directly knew: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’ This was the third true knowledge that Buddha attained. 

(34 – 35) Buddha was enlightened but he still preferred to resort to remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest. This was because he saw a pleasant abiding for himself there, and also because he had compassion for future generations (to be an example for them).

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May 29, 2023 – 3:25 PM Categories: Buddhism | Post a comment