A simple attempt to explain Dharma Structure

This is an ongoing attempt to provide a simple overview of Dharma.

Why isn’t this one of the most amazing thing’s ever? (Updated)

Please note, I have changed my mind on the below and summarised this at the end of the post:

Introduction

Suppose I found a theorem that pertained to Euclidean geometry; the kind of geometry which we did at school. I would be the first person to discover such a theorem in over two millennia. I might well win a cash prize and maybe a couple Nobel's. It would be pretty big news...

"Hey are you that guy who found the first new Theorem applicable to the Euclidian 2 space in over twenty five centuries?"

"Sure am."

"You like the maths version of Bono."

"Thanks."

But allow this day dream of maths geniuses (I'm bad at maths) and suppose that I then showed you three new theorems that, like the first,  were also utterly new to human mathematics. At that point, I think we might both agree, my discoveries would be pretty huge; I would probably be up there with Alan Turing or or maybe even Carol Vauderman.

But I could go higher!

Suppose I tell you, and many other mathematicians, that there is a fifth theorem. I explain that this fifth theorem is related to the other four theorems and then, with this big head start, I ask you all to find it. For the sake of overkill, suppose I arrange have a competition in a maths magazine  and I give the world a year to try to find this Theorem.
Time passes...

A year later nobody has found the fifth theorem that I claim to have found. When you all give up, and I make sure your fingers weren't crossed behind your backs, I let loose with the big gun, the  Fifth Theorem.(Actually it’s not actually the big gun, that comes next, but you wouldn't know this yet...)

You look at the Fifth Theorem and say something like,  "OMFG Doh! That's so obvious...," as do all your other maths buddies.

But...

Just when y'all all think I can't go any higher, I lay down the cherry-on-top-big-gun-guitar-solo... Very simply I point out how the ratios in the theorems’ elements are all perfect diatonic notes;  they correspond to each other as do keys on a piano. Naturally you appreciate that not on is this pretty nifty in its own right it’s also the first time in history that such a geometrical relationship has been discovered.

I think, at this point, the beers would be on you....

While Euclid wept, Jimmy played guitar.

The above really happened.

In the mid 1990's an Astronomy Professor at Boston university called Gerald Hawkins discovered these five new geometry Theorems and, in addition, he discovered the musical relations within them. None of this is in any dispute (as I currently understand it).

It is monumental, but I suspect that the reason it is so unknown is that Professor Hawkins demonstrably discovered all of this new human knowledge within fifteen crop circles dotted around southern England in the early nineties

I have been a huge crop circle skeptic since a friend’s dad was into them twenty years ago. He had loads of books on them and I, like most, thought it was all hogwash. These thoughts remained so until last week when I heard about Hawkin's theorems. They do seem to me to be pretty special evidence that some cropcircles really are not made by any known intelligence.

What should we think?

Should we, like the Guardian’s Obituary of Hawkin’s or the media at large, just ignore this strange revelation or should we at least try to see what it could possibly be and mean?
Here is how I see it...

What is special about this case is not the fact that the messages were in crop circles it is the fact there seems to be in existence items of  anachronous foundational information.

The information is foundational because these theorems do belong to an ancient set of mathematical information that hasn’t been faulted  and is consistent with the corps of mathematics. The information is anachronous because it doesn’t seem to belong in this time, or, unexpectedly, Euclid’s time.

Let’s get even finer grained and forget about the geometry and images and claims and focus on one theorem, say, the first. Hawkin’s First theorem states that:

The ratio of the diameter of the triangle's circumscribed circle to the diameter of the circles at each corner is 4:3.

Let’s label this statement H. It doesn't matter what H says, the point is that H is true and it has been true for all points in human history.

So the unexplained core of this issue can be reduced to down to the path of humanity’s knowledge of H throughout history.

I can see three reasonable possibilities:

1. H was discovered by Euclid but lost or for some reason suppressed until for some reason, possibly hoaxing,  it was publicized in cropcircles in the early 1990's
2. H was discovered at some point since Euclid but lost or for some reason suppressed until for some reason, possibly hoaxing,  it was publicized in cropcircles in the early 1990's
3. H was never discovered (in human history) until Gerald Hawkins discovered it 1995.

As you can see, even if you want to dismiss H’s revelation as part of a long term complex and very unusual hoax that for at least twenty years hasn’t had any whistle blowers or debunking (The hoax would have had to have started before 1990) you still have an awful lot of explaining to do.

The “planks and string” response doest work here because what’s important and really mysterious is the existence of H not its medium of conveyance. We would have the same essential anomalies if Hawkins had been emailed the diagrams rather than stumbling upon them by chance.

So trying to explain 1 and 2 isn’t an easy task that you can glibly shrug off, there is a real mystery here whatever way you look at it.

I think it is very reasonable to assume that 3 is true, that H and its kin were put in those circles for a reason by an intelligence civilization is not aware of. For sure this view deserves ridicule and sceptical denial, but so do the alternatives and moreover the alternatives involve complities and conspiracies that the simple “some unknown intelligence” doesn’t.

Conclusion

Perhaps someone will drop me a mail saying “Dude, there are thousands of theorems like this found every year” or “Hey, you know these five theorems were known about by Islamic/Chinese/Indian mathematician for millennia?” And that would be great, one of the good things about a sceptical outlook is that there is reward in your convictions either way.

But there is no clear way to be convinced here, unlike, as far as I am aware, all other mysterious phenomenon and information.

I look forwards to your debunking and shall leave with a thing to ponder...

Imagine you were some other, higher, intelligence (God, Alien, Time-traveller, intradimensional funk being...). Imagine for whatever reason you were trying to communicate with Humanity en mass, the planet as a whole. After trying books, patterns on toast, voices in the heads of madmen and all that jazz you decide to use your powers (technology or magic) to message humanity using big symbolic displays that all can see. The best method for this you determine to be flattening huge areas of plant life in intricate advanced patterns that convey your message.

Annoyingly for your divinity we “stoopid  humans” can’t seem to get past the conclusion that as some cropcircles were hoaxes, therefore all must be, and so we humans never reay get your message. Rather than give up on us just yet you decide to do something... irrefutable ( As opposed to "IRRESPRESSIBLE!").

You decide to send messages that contain information that we humans do not have and that when we get we cannot doubt as being true and external to our knowledge sphere. This way you know that we just won’t be able to rationally conclude your messages are hoaxes.

What information would you send?

Relevant Links

• This is a detailed and reputable essay from the Mathematical Association of America on the Theorums.
• This is a transcript of a 1992 Share International Magazine  interview with professor Hawkin's about these Theorums.
• This is maths heavy but has some nice photos of the actual crop circles Hawkin's used.
• For a final puzzle ask yourself what's strange about Hawkins obituaries in The Independent,  The Guardian, The NY Times, The Telegraph - they either don't mention the Theorems or misquote him from this interview. Perculiar!
• This PDF looks super maths heavy. It is a proof of the theorems and more...

Update

letting go

It is going to be hard to let go an idea we have wanted to be true since the womb. An idea that that builds pyamids and cathedrals and comforts us when were gaze into the abyss.

But this idea is delusional; there is no reason to belive it, and a vast array of reasons to disbelieve it.

I step out of the comforting space and ask myself, does this delusion distract me, does it decieve me, does it waste time in this short life of mine?

What is this idea?

It is the idea that when I die I will not really die; that it won't really be the end. The idea that throws a scrap of hope to the begging question, there must be more to life than this?

There is no hope, all is impermanent, especially, most especially, these short, lucky, pointless lives of ours.

There is a path between the hopeless and the delusional...

ego

The ego is illusion.

The ego is the very realisation of mental events in the moment.

The illusionary ego projected into imaginary situations.

The imaginary past,

Future,

The thoughts of others

The thoughts of self.

It is the perspective of arising of experience.

Nothing more.

There is nothing to be reborn.

There is no thinker, only thoughts.

Mind is empty.

All is interconnected.

There is no thing to be reborn.

Kingmaker Online

Hi

I am publishing the first of my Kingmaker books on-line and for free. You can start reading it here.

Enjoy!

Mat

A New Online Defilement?

I have been thinking lots about how things can get in terms of online communities like forums. They are funny places because they are like amplified societies, where peoples beliefs and efforts to defend their beliefs are much more exercised than in this mundane real world with its physical and temporal restrictions.

There was a show on telly recently where someone killed someone else after an ongoing feud in a Buddhist chartroom, actually, It might have been "World of Warcraft" rather than Buddhism But the point is, how can it get to that point?  From an online chat? Bonkers.

From a Buddhist perspective I think it is it is quite easy to see why. Egos become entwined in some issue/conflict and the more they struggle against each other the more the conflict, the Dukkha, grows. This feedback cycle continues without end, until something external ends it.

In the real world where we have real lives with vastly more important issues than the beliefs of people we will probably never even say hello to, let alone meet. It just doesn’t matter what Francis33 believes about  Cornish Independence in the real world.  But online, with raw and unrestricted egos out,  it all seems different, as if a few words of ASCII text can represent someone’s entire illusionary ego. And once the egos sees itself in action  it attracts more mental attention, it grows because now it is out there, in public, in the primal gladiator pit of self versus others.

Why is this?

As Buddhists we try to break negative mental and moral states into their causes and principles so we can better eradicate  them; this is a part of the dharmic practice.  Since on-line communities have arisen there is at least one new, emergent, mental defilement with a Karmic payload. It is  like greed, sloth, conceit  or jealousy, but only available online.  I am not sure of the Pali Translation but in English it comes out as something like "taking oneself way too seriously online."

Whereas, in the real world, the root of suffering is ignorance, online it is not so much ignorance but "taking oneself way too seriously online." One might be the world’s biggest expert on something, yet still find that online they are  afflicted by "taking oneself way too seriously online."

Typically we can see the dependent origination of this online defilement in Karmic sequences such as:

• You believe x
• Someone online believes y.
• Online, you discuss x and y, because you are interested in the discussion.
• As you argue for x against their arguing for y, your viewpoint, from which you argue, starts to become your current Ego.
• It becomes important to you, and more to your Ego, that they at least understand why you believe x and at least acknowledge your criticisms of y.
• Ideally, if all goes well, you hope that they will end up believing x not y.
• Charged by the debate, invested in the debate, you find yourself afflicted  by "taking oneself way oo seriously online"
• All is Dukka:)

Incidentally, I have never suffered from this online defilement, I suffer from the karmically equivalent  "not taking anyone else seriously online." That's a joke. I love you all!

Stephen Fry is reputed to have once taken himself way too seriously online.

Peace! +:)=:):):)

What is Dogma?

We encounter dogma lots all over our lives.

Many of us, some without knowing, some with, will also propagate dogma in our interactions.

But what is dogma? And is it really as good as it seems?

A dogma is a doctrine that is professed with certainty when, in fact, there is no such certainty available to profess.

A belief is dogmatic if is is stated and used as a fact, when in fact it is just a belief.

We shouldn't really care about what people belief but rather how they use their beliefs to effect changes outside of their own minds.

Most people are a little dogmatic about some things, some of them mundane, some of them preposterous.

There is always a little bit of uncertainty in all contingent truths.

It is hard to be dogmatic about maths and logic, but even science, at the base, needs a little bit of faith.

But this gap between faith and fact is a leash between reason and dogma, the longer it is, the bigger the dogma.

We should keep our dogmas on the shortest possible leash.

Woof.

What is a Masculine Hegemony? (Takin’ it to the Hedge’)

I have found in various writing and discussions on Buddhism and politics  I often find myself using the term “masculine hegemony”. I use the term lots, eg, when I am facing the yawing void of mean-hearted corporate vacuousity, I am,  “battling the masculine hegemony”.

When I  realise how my liberties to act without harming anyone else are compromised, it’s the same.

Frankly, I think my wife, who is a big feminist and taught me most about hegemonies  is  pretty  bored of it! "Here we go again.. Mat is ranting on about Masculine hegemonies... Babylon... yawn:)"

I never promised her a rose garden... but I think that hegemonies are important to see around us, they are a problematic. They, by definition, will only tend to make more laws and fewer freedoms.

So this little essay is about these masculine hegemomnies.

The Hegemony

A hegemony is a social relationship  where one party dominates the other by enforcing a compromise.

It is a very broad term. A totally totalitarian state is hegemony. It dominates by enforcing a compromise between concession and violence.

An organised religion is a hegemony. It dominates its followers  by enforcing a compromise between salvation and damnation.

Corporate Fast Food is a hegemony, and often a very tasty one.

My belief is that to be an informed citizen one needs to be aware of the hegemonic relationships one partakes  in.  Some hegemonic systems seem absolutely inevitable. Death and Taxes and all that. Others seem trivial and there may be others one doesnt even know exists. Again it is important to see that  there is not one hegemony above us but a vast interwoven complex of hegemonic relationships and some of these may be much more unfair than initially thought.

For example, when you look at the hegemonic equation between the state and the person taxed  I think it appears that  there is an awful disparity between ones wishes as an individual and the emergent wishes of the Taxing society.

As a general rule of thumb, with any such relationship I believe an informed analysis is to ask oneself :

• What am I giving up?
• What am I getting in return?
• What are my options?

These kind of questions will start to highlight that the dominating complexes consists of Hegemonies with particular traits and conditions.

The Masculine Hegemony

A masculine hegemony is a type of hegemony that has a masculine psyche – importantly, I think, this doesn’t mean it would be run by men necessarily, but more like that it, as a whole, behaves like a man would. This is important because we can see how this masculine personality becomes embodied in the laws of our nations and institutions.  If we swapped all the men for women we would stull be dominated by masculine institutions.

The Masculine Psyche isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is certainly distinct from the feminine. For example, in the following list of pairs, it seems clear which are male and which are female traits.

• Competition over cooperation.
• Epic over acute.
• Now over later.
• Profound over specific.
• Big over small.
• Global over local.
• Velour over Chintz.

Note that there are no slights there,I am not saying one gender is more honest or greedy or what have you than the other. These are just natural distinctions of gender that will have their roots in evolutionary advantages between the male and female species... err... I mean genders. The key point is that they are also traits of social systems.

So in and of themselves I don't think masculine hegemonies are necessarily bad. One needs just look to the Space Program to see that, with men in charge and masculine agendas, we certainly seem to get the job done. I am not at all saying that had women been in charge over history we would still not  have  discovered metallurgy but would all have many lovely and neatly arranged  bunches of coconuts in our mud-huts( with the badly parked Ox cart outside). I am not saying that at all!

But the problem is, whereas you do want a man doing the stuff men are good at, like hunting and engineering and fighting  you wouldn’t want them doing the stuff they are bad at, like looking after children, tidying up the house or running a just and fair nation where citizens are protected and conflicts resolved without violence by fair laws and just courts and where personal rights are balanced with social duty, where  petty laws avoided and truth, beauty, love and compassion are prized above an imaginary money that buys empty status as an offerings to an imaginary Phallus god. If ya gets ma drift;)

The Great Later On Con

Some food for thought...

The Good

The Buddha was an ancient Indian prince who gave up his life of luxury to find the cause of human suffering and conflict. Seven years of mystical exploration later he found it, it wasn't mystical but metaphysical, philosophical and scientific. From his understanding of this  discovery he determined the  mental, moral and philosophical path of practice which, when followed, would lead to a reduction of suffering and an increase in truth, peace and happiness.

The Bad

Sadly, like all religious messages, The Buddha's teaching became changed. In part this is due to to the lack of written Buddhist scriptures, translation issues and human errors but also, I believe,  it became corrupted by the dominant masculine hegemony of Asia. This is not a rare thing for religions, it seems all extant world religions have twisted their original doctrine to suit these masculine social conditionings. The engine of this domination are the doctrines that  control people by forcing a compromise between behaviour (think,act, worship, want...) in this life in return for a benefit in some future life. Rebirth, Heaven, Valhalla... every religion relies on this absurd trade off, on this  immeasurable compromise that I call,  "The Great Later On Con."

These are merely my beliefs.

I think The Buddha saw The Great Later On Con and the Middle Path was his suggestion as how to avoid it, but don't take my word for this, as The Buddha says, "Doubt everything, be your own light..."

Babylonian Case Study: BT Broadband

This morning I got a quarterly ISP/Phone bill for £400. Of that, £310 was for “Broadband Usage” as deemed by BT Broadband’s fair use policy. This is an immense and totally unexpected bill for three months’ landline internet usage.

I was sure I was unlimited, apparently not. I made a mistake in that. But that is not my issue.

The issue is that BT Broadband hadn’t tried to contact me at my phone, home or Gmail even though the latter two were regularly spammed with all kinds of offers from them. Surely they should have “warned me” that, after ten years, for the first time, they were going to slap a £300+ charge on me completely out of the blue?

I was shocked and shaking at this corporate  audacity.

I rang BT Broadband up and spoke to someone in India who gave me the first line of fob-off; she told me that it was their “fair use” policy and there was nothing, really, I could do.  She assured me me she thought it was fair. I mentioned  Ofcom and she told me right away that Ofcom was aware of their “fair use” policy – ie don’t bother contacting them. For every protestation and question she had an answer until, in the end, she performed a typical “Babylonian Buck Pass” by giving me another number to call.

I called and spoke to Linda in England.

Linda was in the Fair Use department and seemed almost caring. She told me that she was sorry I was so shocked and upset by the charges but she did insist that they were fair. I explained that I had absolutely no warning about the imminent charges which would have prompted an immediate change of account by me. She insisted that BT sent emails to my BT email address and thus it was fair that I was charged.

In made it very clear to her that I didn’t check that account, nor had I, nor should I.

We agreed that:

• I demonstrably hadn’t checked that email address for years, if at all.
• They had my Gmail account.

But then Linda seemed to make up from nowhere the idea that they could only send warnings to my BT account and not my Gmail account. This fact was not compatible with the fact that BT Broadband regularly send me promotional and other emails to my Gmail account, as I mentioned above.

Linda knew and I knew that there was something unfair here, it was inescapable, but she absolutely refused to acknowledge that as a possibility. It was pretty bizarre, Linda seemed scared of admitting that there was even such a possibility of unfairness, so much so that she reiterated more than once that she thought the BT policy was fair.

As with all things, the truth doesn’t lie and Linda, cornered and seeming  scared, had no rational, reasonable response. She had no options and reached into herself to pull out, and drop on me another Babylonian Buck Pass. Linda told me her manager would call me back at some point that day.

Soon after, Mark rang up.  He seemed very nice. The first thing I asked was, “is this call recorded?”

“No it’s not recorded,” said Mark.

“Can you record it, please?” I asked.  I felt th