There is a connection between the concept of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) in Buddhism and the mathematical concept of Markov chains. Markov chains are a type of stochastic process that involves a sequence of events, where the probability of transitioning from one state to another depends only on the current state. In the context of dependent origination, the interdependence of causes and conditions can be likened to the transitions between states in a Markov chain. Each state represents a particular set of circumstances or conditions, and the transition probabilities reflect how l ..read more

Yes, in Buddhism, the concept of suffering and its origins are central to the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha taught that suffering (dukkha) arises from various causes, and one of the primary causes is craving (tanha). Craving can be understood as a strong desire or attachment to conditioned phenomena, which are things that arise and exist due to causes and conditions. Conditioned phenomena refer to all things in the world that are impermanent and subject to change. This includes material objects, relationships, experiences, and even mental states. The Buddha observed that our attachment a ..read more

I have decided to do my posting for a while on Twitter. I have managed to post a few gems now and then.  Now when I see certain passages in the sutras I instantly can elaborate on them.  Here is just one example. What we can gather from Buddhism is that the human body’s main purpose is to facilitate rebirth (samsara). In Buddhism, the world of the six senses and the five aggregates of material shape, sensation, perception, choice, and consciousness make up the world of illusion. Suffering occurs when the real attaches to the illusory. Right now I am leaning toward the view that Wes ..read more

In Buddhism, our consciousness (vijñāna) with the body’s death doesn't die.  It can adapt itself, if fertilization is successful, to a new embryo and with it a new carnal existence.  Science teaches us that DNA is a fractal antenna.  In this regard, it is certainly something for the after-death consciousness “signal” to latch onto and download itself into another embryo. This process also necessitates an intervening period called antara or in Tibetan bardo by which the adaptation can take place.  This is where karma comes into the picture.  It is a latent tendency to f ..read more

The typical human being interfaces with an illusory world through an illusory body.  In other words, the primary has become more or less attached to the secondary (i.e., illusion) so that it never seems fulfilled.  Yet, the mere fact of illusion signals it's very transcendence which in our ignorance we are unaware of. This unawareness leads to suffering.  The pursuit of life then begins to be a kind of unconscious wish to be free from illusion yet being, at the same time, mesmerized by illusions like children in a toy store.  This is because appearance, i.e., illusions seem ..read more

Buddhism teaches a place where the power of our human imagination (G., Einbildungskraft) can’t go:  a clear light that reveals itself and what it transcends.  This imagination, I hasten to add, includes our intellect with all of its speculations.  Whatever we say about Buddhism it can only point in the direction of this ‘place’ it cannot reveal it or show it to us.  We must uncover it our self.  At the same time it is always revealing itself to itself which is what the ātman or Buddha nature is about; perhaps more importantly, it also reveals what it transcends.  ..read more

In recent times the world has been taken over by a search for cosmic justice and the Higgs Boson particle, the so-called God particle.  Both groups have found neither cosmic justice nor the Higgs Boson particle but seem to have managed to gain the world's attention at the possibility of finding both. At this time, the depth of Buddhism is too much for the bulk of humanity.  They prefer a Quixotic quest for some artifact of their imagination; at least to reify it enough so they can publish academic papers about it. While it is true that mankind has not set foot in reality for a long t ..read more

We carry around many brain filters. They are capable of letting in certain ideas more freely than others.  In the digital world filters can block access to certain online materials. Seeing the world without filters is almost impossible. This might be the reason why LSD-25 was so popular during the 1960s.  We hoped to see the world without filters maybe to see it with child-like eyes.  But there were still filters left in our brain.  And we could even add more filters later on in life. In Buddhism and especially Zen, the filter problem is a big deal because when we enter the ..read more

Our human birth is immersion into illusion and with it samsara.  Still we have the potential or capacity to transcend this illusion.  Ultimately, we can transcend the subject-object relationship or the same, the perceiver-percept duality and forgo samsara.  By the way, this dual knowing (vijñāna) is what is necessary to produce an embryo that will leave its mother's birth canal in approximately nine months.  But most of don't negate the subject-object relationship.  We don't because we are still deeply tied to our previous memories.  These memories have their own ..read more

We could call the Buddha the conqueror of appearances or the same, illusion.  His triumph was to overcome the human belief that our world is real when in fact it is unreal and painful.  We might even call our world a high definition illusion.  Maybe the pixels in our illusory world that make it appear are, precisely, the smallest composition or combination possible which is a dyad (a unit = “as if” one).  This in Buddhism is vijñāna. While the ‘I’ conceit is the first to arise in the mind of the seeker it is already combined into a unit.  There is an implicit dyad-ness ..read more