Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

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Ben
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by Ben »

I'm interested if and how people observe rupa, or the vibrational quality of rupa, in their meditative practice.
Thanks in advance.

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.”
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Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

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alan wrote:You're nothing if not dogged, tilt. I"ll give you that. And I admire it.
Just wondering if you get the joke. Sometimes, you seem too serious.
What laughing matter is the matter with you?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by tiltbillings »

Ben wrote:I'm interested if and how people observe rupa, or the vibrational quality of rupa, in their meditative practice.
Thanks in advance.

Ben
Which i think would be an interesting matter to look at.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Freawaru
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by Freawaru »

Ben wrote:I'm interested if and how people observe rupa, or the vibrational quality of rupa, in their meditative practice.
Thanks in advance.

Ben
Usually, when I start to observe the vibrations of my body, they seem to be located at the area of the heart. I recall, when I first became aware of them, I worried that it might BE the heart and that I had some problems with it. The vibrations are too fast for a healthy pulse. But whenever I checked my pulse by usual means it was much slower. Also, I noticed that when I relaxed to it that the vibrations spread all through the body - a nice feeling. And, finally, when I contemplated the body vibrations in this way I became aware of the real beating of the heart, quite different than the vibrations. So I spend some time discerning: these are vibrations, this is the beating of the heart.

Since then I notice a difference of the vibrations of my body when I am ill or very tired. They are more unpleasant then.

There is another interesting phenomenon: some places, buildings, caves, objects, seem to have their own vibrations. I "sense" them when I am in those places or touch the objects. From a scientific point of view I don't yet know what is going on, what I sense, it might be just a difference of my own body vibrations due to some characteristic of these places or things. Has anyone else experienced this effect?
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by kirk5a »

VictoryInTruth wrote:Does all matter (rupa) have a denser vibrational form of energy? When reading about the aggregates of which matter is the first aggregate it states that matter consists of solidity, fluidity, heat or temperature and motion or vibration.

Is this vibrational quality of matter a denser form of energy? Does everything in the universe(s) consist of this vibrational energy...even an object such as a rock but on a denser level?

Thank you for your patience with my beginner questions.

:anjali:
If we are keeping this on the level of meditative experience, which is where I believe the analysis of the aggregates in this way is meant to be applied, then of course we should set aside questions about "everything in the universe." But it would still be possible to see how everything in the "universe" of experience is. That is - everything seen, heard, sensed, and cognized. Then the question - "does "everything" (in this sense) consist of vibrational energy?" could be realistically examined.

So in that respect, personally, I would say that the notions of solidity, fluidity, heat and vibration - but not just vibration alone - do a pretty good job of pointing out the aspects of what is known as "a cup of coffee" :coffee:
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Ben wrote:I'm interested if and how people observe rupa, or the vibrational quality of rupa, in their meditative practice.
As vayo-dhatu (air element).

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Retro, I think Ben is asking for some more details about vayo-dhatu.

As I understand it vayo-dhatu, "air element" includes properties of motion, vibration, and support/distension (e.g. the stiffness required to sit upright). So vibration is part of it, but not the whole thing. I imagine the model is that winds in the body cause the motion and stiffness.

E.g. http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Bud ... dh%C4%81tu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,

Personally I think that's over-engineering it.

The four great elements were a pre-existing scheme that the Buddha utilised simply as another means of classifying the concomitant aspects of experience. As with all the Buddha's classificatory schemes, they merely point to components of experience which possess the three characteristics.

How any given experience is perceived/classified is the dhamma to be analysed and understood - it matters not whether the perception/classification is objectively or ontologically correct. For example, someone with synaesthesia might "see" sounds, but there's no good trying to tell them that their perception is somehow false and incorrect because it doesn't adhere to pre-defined classificatory boundaries. Whether one files an experience in this box or that box doesn't matter so long as what is filed away is known to be dukkha, anicca and anatta.
MN 1 wrote:"A monk who is a Worthy One, devoid of mental fermentations... directly knows the experience of air as air. Directly knowing the experience of air as air, he does not conceive things about air, does not conceive things in air, does not conceive things coming out of air, does not conceive air as 'mine,' does not delight in air. Why is that? Because, with the ending of delusion, he is devoid of delusion, I tell you.
Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Ben
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by Ben »

mikenz66 wrote:Hi Retro, I think Ben is asking for some more details about vayo-dhatu.

As I understand it vayo-dhatu, "air element" includes properties of motion, vibration, and support/distension (e.g. the stiffness required to sit upright). So vibration is part of it, but not the whole thing. I imagine the model is that winds in the body cause the motion and stiffness.

E.g. http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Bud ... dh%C4%81tu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Mike
Thanks Mike.
Yes. I wish to keep this thread focused on how it relates to one's meditative practice. If one has rupa (or the qualities of rupa) as meditation object, how one does that and what are your observations.
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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mikenz66
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Mike,
Personally I think that's over-engineering it.
Hardly, I'm just explaining what I understand the words to mean in the context the Buddha was teaching in: Hardness, heat, etc... I don't see any evidence that he was redefining them.

In order to answer Ben's question about meditative experience we have to have some idea of what the words mean. If we're talking about wind element, then, as I said, one perceives it in motion and vibration of moving limbs, in the force one uses to stay upright, and so on...

:anjali:
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:understand the words to mean in the context the Buddha was teaching in
MN 28 wrote:"And what is the wind property? The wind property may be either internal or external. What is the internal wind property? Whatever internal, belonging to oneself, is wind, windy, & sustained: up-going winds, down-going winds, winds in the stomach, winds in the intestines, winds that course through the body, in-&-out breathing, or whatever else internal, within oneself, is wind, windy, & sustained: This is called the internal wind property. Now both the internal wind property and the external wind property are simply wind property. And that should be seen as it actually is present with right discernment: 'This is not mine, this is not me, this is not my self.' When one sees it thus as it actually is present with right discernment, one becomes disenchanted with the wind property and makes the mind dispassionate toward the wind property.

"Now there comes a time, friends, when the external wind property is provoked and blows away village, town, city, district, & country. There comes a time when, in the last month of the hot season, people try to start a breeze with a fan or bellows, and even the grass at the fringe of a thatch roof doesn't stir.

"So when even in the external wind property — so vast — inconstancy will be discerned, destructibility will be discerned, a tendency to decay will be discerned, changeability will be discerned, then what in this short-lasting body, sustained by clinging, is 'I' or 'mine' or 'what I am'? It has here only a 'no.'
Interestingly, he doesn't classify vibration (movement) as vayo, which leads me to wonder whether the concept of movement etc. as vayo is even what he meant.
mikenz66 wrote:...meditative experience...
MN 28 wrote: 'This is not mine, this is not me, this is not my self.' When one sees it thus as it actually is present with right discernment...

...inconstancy will be discerned, destructibility will be discerned, a tendency to decay will be discerned, changeability will be discerned..
Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by mikenz66 »

Sorry, Retro, I read that sutta as simply talking about motion, whether in the body or externally. And so on with the other properties. I really can't figure out your angle here...

:anjali:
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:Sorry, Retro, I read that sutta as simply talking about motion, whether in the body or externally. And so on with the other properties. I really can't figure out your angle here...
It's a sutta explaining how vayo is experienced and to be discerned... isn't that what's being talked about?

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:Sorry, Retro, I read that sutta as simply talking about motion, whether in the body or externally. And so on with the other properties. I really can't figure out your angle here...
It's a sutta explaining how vayo is experienced and to be discerned... isn't that what's being talked about?

Metta,
Retro. :)
Sure. Which is why I don't understand what you are trying to argue exactly. Ben asked how one does these contemplations. As I understand it, wind property is about motion and distension. That's simply what definition of the wind property is. Similarly, the earth property is hardness. And so on.... So that's what one looks for in one's experience. One discerns hardness/softness, motion, heat/cold, etc in one's experience, and, as you say, with luck, discerns that they are inconstant, unsatisfactory, and not-self.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Furthermore...just as a skilled butcher or his apprentice, having killed a cow, would sit at a crossroads cutting it up into pieces, the monk contemplates this very body — however it stands, however it is disposed — in terms of properties: 'In this body there is the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, & the wind property.'

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or focused externally... unsustained by anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.
From an earlier post:
retrofuturist wrote: Interestingly, he doesn't classify vibration (movement) as vayo, which leads me to wonder whether the concept of movement etc. as vayo is even what he meant.
He doesn't have to classify wind element as motion, or earth element as hardness, etc. Those are simply the accepted meanings (as I understand it).

:anjali:
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Re: Is matter (rupa) a denser vibrational form of energy?

Post by Viscid »

What's the point of even classifying objects in terms of the four dhatus? It's an archaic, outdated system used by the Greeks, Japanese and everyone-in-between which has been replaced by far less vague ideas about the composition of our physical reality.

Saying that the four dhatus are merely descriptions of experience; stickiness, hotness or whathaveyou is a silly rationalization people make when they need to reconcile the words of The Buddha with modern physics. Early Buddhists thought that Fire, Water, Earth and Wind were the primary components of matter, each expressed in different magnitudes in the things which they compose.

'It's hard because the earth element predominates.'
No. We can do away with idea this now. It's useless.
"Furthermore...just as a skilled butcher or his apprentice, having killed a cow, would sit at a crossroads cutting it up into pieces, the monk contemplates this very body — however it stands, however it is disposed — in terms of properties: 'In this body there is the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, & the wind property.'

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or focused externally... unsustained by anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.
Why not think today, instead of terms of the four dhatus, that the body is composed of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen? It accomplishes the same thing, with far less factual inaccuracy.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
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