Developing Usable Experiences

The Universe in a Single Atom

May 24th, 2007 7:50 am —  153 views

mushrooming

I’m reading a book by the Dalai Lama called, “The Universe in a Single Atom – The Convergence of Science and Spirituality”. It’s pretty fascinating to read the thoughts of a highly respected spiritual leader embracing scientific inquiry in an attempt to find the parallels between the two. And there are parallels. Science can’t explain everything and spirituality devoid of science tends toward dogmatism. The Zen of Everything? Very much so.

In this book, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, talks about his experience and discussions with great scientific minds around the world. As it turns out, the scientific view of the world is very consistent with the Buddhist view of the world. No thing exists independently. All things are related and connected. Science does a good job helping us understand the physical world but it doesn’t do a very good job explaining the deep emotional connection humans can share. How can physics explain compassion?

Okay…enough of the philosophy and spiritual blather.

This picture is from a couple weeks ago. I get a kick out of taking self portraits. But I try to capture interesting things going on at the same time. In the background is the Wife and her father looking for mushrooms. After finding some mushrooms in her Dad’s backyard, we took a walk through the woods behind his house to try and find more. We didn’t find any but enjoyed being in the woods with the old man. He has a few acres of pine trees behind his house and a path winding through them to a deer blind. Atypical Kalkaska woodlands, at their best.

Today is golf league day. I subbed for a co-worker last night on another golf league and shot a 48. My average is 51 so I was feeling pretty good. The mosquitoes were out in force and my legs are all bit up, but it was a beautiful night. Need to remember my bug spray.

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