Chaos vs. Peace

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paxamo
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Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:27 pm
Location: New York, USA

Chaos vs. Peace

Post by paxamo »

What is the Buddhist view,and this community's view, of Chaos vs. Peace? My belief is that Chaos is the opposite of Peace, and that Nature (humans included) are always fighting against Chaos, and bringing their environment, their world, towards Peace or equilibrium. (For example: creating medicine to combat disease, creating shelter to combat the elements, creating religion to combat confusion, the psychological tendency of humans to always categorize things.) I also hold the belief that the cosmos, our environment, our world, is inherently Chaotic. I feel like no matter what we will never discover the smallest atomic particle, nor will we ever learn all that there is to know (intelligence-wise, not wisdom-wise), nor will we ever stop discovering things, nor will we ever be able to completely control Nature.

I love philosophy, and I also enjoy intellectual discussion about it. If this is the wrong forum to discuss things like this, please tell me. I do not wish to overstep my bounds and change this forum into something that it isn't. I just thought that the Buddhists on this forum, with their great wisdom, might give me more insightful answers than others whom with I could discuss these things.

Thanks again,

Paxamo
:sage:
"To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice" - Confucius
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Ben
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Chaos vs. Peace

Post by Ben »

Hi Paxamo

You might find 'Karma and Chaos' by Dr Paul Fleishmann, interesting: http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Chaos-Colle ... 765&sr=1-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The best forum for this type of discussion is the lounge, which I will move this thread to. The vast majority of our members are Buddhist and despite the thread being relocated in the lounge, they will still provide you with a Buddhist perspective on intellectual discussions on general philosophical issues. The Discovering Theravada forum is more specifically a place for those new to the path to ask questions relating to the Theravada and for our more knowledgeable members to answer them.
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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pink_trike
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Re: Chaos vs. Peace

Post by pink_trike »

It might be valuable to explore how they are fundamentally just different manifestations of the same thing, and that its the conditioning of mind that determines which manifestation we experience in any given situation. The mind's particular conditioned figure/ground configuration of self/other determines the quality of vision. The more we assert a delusional primacy of "self", the more chaotic the "other" (world) manifests to us...we project "chaos" or "peace" onto a world that is just appearing as world, neither peaceful nor chaotic. Either way, we fool ourselves yet again and suffer the consequences.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

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Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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