![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteorology and buddhism
Jun. 20th, 2018 08:21 pmTonight I was thinking of similarities between meteorology and Buddhist practice.
In meteorology, we have various models for understanding weather. Rossby waves, Kelvin waves, quasi-geostrophic and semi-geostrophic approximations, shallow-layer models, RKW theory...they are clear, precise, and expressed unambiguously in mathematical language. But the actual weather is messy. These models help us understand the weather, but they can rarely be exactly applied. For forecasting, the theory is helpful, but intuition and experience are also required.
Similarly, the scholastic side of Buddhism is full of concepts that range from the fairly accessible to the highly technical. There are the four establishments of mindfulness, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold path, the jhanas, the khandas, the cetasikas, and so on. Nice, neat categories that can go into incredible detail. But actual practice of the Dharma is messy. Sometimes experience fits nicely into one of the lists, but more often it does not. The theory is nice to help us along with our practice, to help us towards the goal of learning, on a concrete, experiential level, how our minds work and the ways in which they make our lives more difficult, but ultimately nothing is perfect except the knowledge that we develop for ourselves.
In meteorology, we have various models for understanding weather. Rossby waves, Kelvin waves, quasi-geostrophic and semi-geostrophic approximations, shallow-layer models, RKW theory...they are clear, precise, and expressed unambiguously in mathematical language. But the actual weather is messy. These models help us understand the weather, but they can rarely be exactly applied. For forecasting, the theory is helpful, but intuition and experience are also required.
Similarly, the scholastic side of Buddhism is full of concepts that range from the fairly accessible to the highly technical. There are the four establishments of mindfulness, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold path, the jhanas, the khandas, the cetasikas, and so on. Nice, neat categories that can go into incredible detail. But actual practice of the Dharma is messy. Sometimes experience fits nicely into one of the lists, but more often it does not. The theory is nice to help us along with our practice, to help us towards the goal of learning, on a concrete, experiential level, how our minds work and the ways in which they make our lives more difficult, but ultimately nothing is perfect except the knowledge that we develop for ourselves.