I am Brian. You can learn more about me here @ http://dharmaseed.org/ , http://www.cimc.info/ & http://www.dharma.org/ This is my way of life.There has been a lot of discussion about the nirvanic experience. Whole books have been written about it. I'm sure you think as others do, that nirvanic happiness refers to a special kind of physical or mental state. Some believe that it exists in ones body. Others say that when mind and matter are extinguished, what remains behind is the essence of eternal bliss.You may be filled with doubt. Some say, "If nirvana is the extinguishing of mind and matter, how can there be anything left to experience?" It is hard to think of happiness that is not experienced through the senses. This entire message might be Greek to you since you have no meditation experience.Only a person who has experience nirvana for herself/himself will be able to speak of it with conviction. Nonetheless, there are also inferential ways to speak of it, which will seem quite familiar to anyone whose practice has deepened to the extent of having had the nirvanic experience.Some people think that nirvana is some special kind of mind or matter, but this is not so. There are four kinds of what are called in Pali the paramattha dhammas, the realities that can be experienced directly without any conceptualization or thinking. These four are: material phenomena; two kinds of mental phenomena(consciousness itself, plus the other mental factors that occur with each moment of consciousness); and nirvana. Thus nirvana is defined as being different from matter and also from mind.A second mistaken notion is that nirvana is what is left behind when mind and matter are extinguished. Nirvana is the source of ultimate reality, and it is classified as an external phenomenon rather than an internal one. As such, it has nothing to do with anything that might remain in one's body after the mind and body process has been extinguished.Nirvana can't be experienced in the same way that, say, visual objects or sounds can be experienced, through the senses. It is not sensual object. Therefore it can not be included in any catergory of sensate(or sense based) pleasures, no matter how extraordinary. It is non-sensate happiness, not based on the senses.Arguments about the nature of nirvana have been going on since the Buddha's time. It seems there was an abbot of a monastery who was discussing nirvanic bliss before an audience of bhikkhus(male monks). One of the bhikkhus stood up and said, "If there is no sensation in nirvana, how can there be bliss?"The elder answered, "My friend, it is precisely because there is no sensation in nirvana that it is so blissful. " This answer is almost like a riddle. I wonder what you think the answer is. - Sayadaw U Pandita
This here is a representation of a Calabi-Yau manifold. A six-dimensional compact space, defined by its particular mathematical properties, that plays an important role in string theory.Supermassive black holes, like the one hidden by a girdle of dust in this artist's impression, have the mass of up to a billion suns. They may lie at the heart of most, if not all, large galaxies. Keep in mind these HUGE yet tiny objects with billions of solar mass (our sun is equivalent to one solar mass) crush down to the size many orders of magnitude smaller than a proton. They collapse into what we know as a singularity. Black hole research is the true passion of mine. They lose their spatial volume while the gravitational force and their density grows exponentially. Space/time stops relative to our reality. Known physics is completely broken down inside these great objects. The matter pulled and lost within truly leaves the known universe. Within the equations characterizing these rips of space/time lies insight to many of the universes deepest questions. To probe deeper, we need new math to achieve these esoteric keys unlocking the hidden realms that are so close yet so far away.ANYWAYS.... Let me now introduce myself. My name is Brian and I don't have a special gift, I'm just passionately curious ;-) I read A LOT but I should be more specific. I read and study to pursue a deeper understanding in cosmology, theoretical/particle physics and Buddhism (the super glue which seems to hold it altogether so nicely). I try to stay as positive as I can while avoiding the bickering that plagues the majority of American society. Whether its local, state, or national you can count on me not supporting the wasted time and energy. Its all characterized by mindlessness. It's boredom (which has such deep underlying value), stress, lack of respect, and ignorance. It's basically the sum total of a lack of education. I'm trying to isolate myself from this negative trend being carried out all around us. I've seen what American conditioning does to not only the body and mind but also the spirit. Aristocrats governing and constantly spewing their rhetoric trying to brand the minds of the misinformed. This is the land of the P.R. machine. Land of the free, home of the brave. heh heh RRRIIIGGGHHHTTT. Thats why they instill fear in the public while they chip away at civil rights. The lack of moral and ethical value discourages me. Theres so much of it and it only creates downfall. What it all stems from is another great sadness. It all stems from our national leaders. Its rooted right into politics. People who we should look up to the most can not be trusted. I pray that my readers choose to devote their time to a good cause. Devote time to international organizations that are focusing on achievments for the whole planet. In time borders and countries will break and we will look after each other in the way every being needs to be guided. We are all brothers and sisters from the same family. We are all unified. Be the positive change you want to see in this world. You have to awaken your senses to the beauty and elegance of EVERYTHING within the cosmic symphony (as it is so rightly called) to achieve a deep understanding for what we participate in. Along this journey we realize that our universe is much stranger than science fiction. Our first observations based on what we see is a complexed and rich world filled with chaos. When we probe deeper we find order in the shadows of this chaos through so many observable symmetries. Everything happens for a reason and everything can be explained. Ok maybe not everything but we are heading in the right direction. I think =) This scares some people. Many of you are stuck in the daily grind (the rat race) and forget the actual gift of higher intelligence that we've been blessed with. We are the gifted observers of reason. The rewards to be gained in a fundamental knowledge of our reality is priceless. Its the ultimate piece of mind. Once you appreciate mind and matter you can never view the world in the same light. When the mystic eyes open, the person is forever changed. You can reach me on A.I.M. with s/n fuzzyfizzix. Think Big my friends and always remember to challenge your mind.Auroras form when a "solar wind" of charged particles from the Sun enters Earth's magnetic field, accelerating electrically charged particles trapped within. The high-speed particles then crash into Earth's upper atmosphere over the polar regions, causing the atmosphere to emit a ghostly, multicolored glow.Detailed analyses of mankind's deepest optical view of the universe, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), by several expert teams have at last identified what may turn out to be some of the earliest star-forming galaxies. These faint sources, circled in the image above, illustrate how astronomers can begin to explore when the first galaxies formed and what their properties might be.The sensitivity of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), combined with the penetrating power of the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), finally revealed these long sough faint galaxies. The HUDF shows that close to a billion years after the Big Bang the early universe was filled with dwarf galaxies, but no fully formed galaxies like our Milky Way. After careful analysis, they have been sorted out as between 54 and 108 dim, red smudges sprinkled across the HUDF image. From a hierarchical point of view, this means the universe started out as a bunch of "mom & pop" stores, which merged into businesses, and then into giant corporations -- the majestic galaxies we see today. -------------------a, a:link, a:visited, a.navbar, a.navbar:link, a.navbar:visited, a.man, a.man:link, a.man:visited, a.redlink, a.. Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | Blog | Favorites | Forum | Groups | Events | Videos | Music | Comedy | Classifieds
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