I put these doctrines aside and I keep looking for more creative questions and more creative answers. This is where Buddhism becomes a dead end for me. One has “arrived” at the ultimate answer to everything and therefore all that one has to do is to understand Buddhist doctrine more exactly. It’s when Buddhist doctrine is presented as the ultimate answer to everything-and that it will therefore save you from suffering-that it becomes a petrified dead end because no more questions can be asked, and therefore, no more creative exploration can be pursued. All answers are temporary and provisional. It does not present answers-whether philosophical or scientific-as ultimate answers to anything. What drives me to do this work is that it presents an unfolding universe of creativity and ideas. Other branchings of this web will include resources, studies and discussions about the nature of human consciousness, networks, social systems and their relation to dharma. I will be reviewing ecological systems theories, including David Loy’s Ecodharma, his interpretation of Brian Swimme’s and Thomas Berry’s Evoutionary theory, which is also the foundation for the JOTU paradigm. properties constituting a self-contained entity apart from all other entities thus all entities in the universe are empty of self.Īs I go forward, I will also be reviewing Systems Theory, in particular, Joanna Macy’s Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory. To my surprise, it is a great explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of Emptiness from Nagarjuna’s point of view: that entities are empty of self-emergent properties, i.e. It is the interaction of objects that gives rise to particular properties as a function of the interaction between those two objects and all other objects in the universe. ![]() Rovelli’s theory for explaining the quantum world is that entities have properties only in relation to other entities. I just came across a great new book by the theoretical physicist, Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution (Riverhead Books, 2021). I’m beginning with JOTU, but the field of inquiry is far greater than that one paradigm. ![]() I’m forging ahead with putting together a library of ideas and resources for 21st Century Dharma. Then jump on the JOTU discussion subreddit. There are two version of JOTU: The Universe Story by Brian Swimme with Thomas Berry, and a later, shorter version, The Journey of Universe by Brian Swimme with Mary Evelyn Tucker, designed as a companion for the JOTU course. Please get involved by getting a copy of Journey of the Universe book, which you can buy as a used book from discount booksellers like Abe Books, Thrift Books, Better World Books, and others. ![]() I searched for a JOTU discussion group on Reddit, but found none. The Journey of the Universe program, featuring the work of Brian Swimme and organized by Mary Evelyn Tucker, has YouTube videos, websites, a documentary film, courses and such, but no promised “forum” for discussion that I could find. I am pursuing Journey of the Universe as a vehicle for exploring new cosmologies, as dharma for the 21st Century.
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