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A reason to hope that suffering is not meaningless


Rick Staggenborg, MD
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James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam Image of the .Cosmic Cliffs. in Carina Nebula
James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam Image of the .Cosmic Cliffs. in Carina Nebula
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If you've been starved for good news lately, here's some.

The apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe suggested that it will definitely die heat death. That means that at some point, there would be nothing left but frozen "particles" at absolute zero.

The "discovery" of dark energy seemed to explain why this seemed to be happening. The existence of dark matter would mean that there would no longer be any change in the universe (other than random fluctuations of energy patterns at a subatomic level).

If you're like me, that is a profoundly depressing prospect. After all, what is the purpose of all the senseless suffering that has been endured by humans, mostly at the hands of other humans? Some people seem to be fine with the idea that random suffering is just the luck of the draw in a universe that arose by chance and where sentient life defines for itself its purpose for being, but I am not one of them. I have a strong preference for believing that life has an inherent purpose and that suffering makes sense in the bigger picture, even if I don't know how.

It's bad enough to think that all life on earth may be snuffed out by global warming. At least we could hope that more intelligent life could go on if the universe were cyclical (expanding and collapsing). What is the incentive to fight against the dying of the light if the universe itself is destined to be snuffed out?

The reason some scientists now challenge the dark matter model is that the acceleration in the observed expansion of the universe may not actually be happening. There is a critical assumption of the model predicting dark energy is that the distribution of stars in the universe is uniform.

Fortunately, a group of astrophysicists has found evidence that the apparent acceleration of the universe may not actually be occurring. They take the data used to argue for acceleration and propose an alternate interpretation. According to their calculations, their model produces a closer fit with the data than the one that predicts dark-matter.

That means that dark energy, which is postulated to be equivalent to a, well, astronomical amount of mass, may not be a factor in deciding the fate of the universe after all. That matters because it is the total mass of the universe that will determine its ultimate fate.

Don't you feel better now?

Carry on..,...

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(Article changed on Jan 19, 2025 at 10:34 PM EST)

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Rick Staggenborg, MD Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter Page       Linked In Page       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

I am a former Army and VA psychiatrist who ran for the US Senate in 2010 on a campaign based on a pledge to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood and regulate campaign finance. A constitutional amendment banning (more...)
 

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Rick Staggenborg, MD

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Not that I like comparing myself to Woody Allen, but one of his throwaway scenes in Annie Hall really hit home for me. It's the one where Allen, playing Annie's love interest Alvie, has a flashback to his boyhood in which he obsesses about the fate of the universe to the extent that he was depressed thinking about the ultimate meaningless of life.

While it doesn't keep me up at night, I have held onto the hope that the universe will not end leaving nothing behind. While all material "objects" are transitory, it is the changing patterns that not only produces everything we love, but gives rise to the possibility that at some point in some iteration of spacetime, somewhere in the multiverse, a planet may exist populated by a species so advanced that it does not destroy itself.

I like to think this implies a level of cooperation that enables such a species to travel the universe or better yet, to keep evolving until it can experience all its wonders without the need for bodies that came and go in a mere instant in time relative to eternity.

If you want to explore these ideas further, check out Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, the movie Contact with Jodie Foster, and any reference that explains the significance of the dance of Shiva...

Submitted on Sunday, Jan 19, 2025 at 5:00:33 PM

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Blair Gelbond

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Reply to Rick Staggenborg, MD:   New Content

* Woody Allen *

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

**

Re- this post: your thoughts are resonant with my own.

Submitted on Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 4:35:00 PM

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Blair Gelbond

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In the Hindu system there is the in and out-breath of God; the Day and Night of Brahma. The existence and disappearance of universes.

Cutting-edge physics suggests that the universe is created and destroyed moment to moment.

I would invite the consideration that, if we wish to perceive reality clearly, we need to radically expand 1) our consciousness/wisdom and 2) our intellectual understanding of the experience of suffering. The idea being that our usual take on suffering is profoundly parochial and insular.

Strassman's careful research into the DMT experience suggests that there are "dark matter beings" just waiting for us to discover them.

I see all of this as good news.

Submitted on Sunday, Jan 19, 2025 at 5:40:12 PM

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Rick Staggenborg, MD

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It is this cyclical model of continuous creating and destruction of universes found in Hinduism that made me start wondering if there might be "revealed wisdom, " or inexplicable knowledge of the universe, to be found in all faiths, even western ones that contain a lot of illogical nonsense.

However, I disagree with the idea that science has proven that the universe is created and destroyed every moment. It is being recreated at every moment at the subatomic level, it is true, but at the atomic level and beyond it is evolving in a way that is mostly explainable within the limits of the models that exist so far. This is a consequence of the averaging out of the probabilities of the various outcomes of random processes going on at the subatomic level every moment. To say that this act of recreation means that the universe dies every second is no different than saying that you are dying every day as cells die and are (mostly) replaced.

I would be interested in knowing more about your intellectual understanding of suffering. I am aware that the Buddha said that we cause our own suffering, but that does not seem to me to explain the reason for the suffering of innocents. What of children who have never had the opportunity to become enlightened? Even if reincarnation was a fact, the numbers of children living tortured lives seems to be far out of proportion of the number of souls that have every lived on earth who had to endure what they are going through to balance their karmic debt. After all, the population doubles every 12 years or so. That means that most of the population is only in their first few cycles of incarnation.

But perhaps that is too simplistic. Please enlighten me if I am wrong.

I am not familiar with Strassman's work. Can you tell me a little more?

Submitted on Sunday, Jan 19, 2025 at 10:57:17 PM

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Blair Gelbond

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Hi Rick,

Much to unpack...yet I would guess I will fall short of providing adequate enlightenment, simply due to the fact that I don't possess it!

Rick Strassman, M.D. DMT - The Spirit Molecule. He is a research psychiatrist, whose careful, precise work with patients who were administered DMT impressed me a great deal. One of his conclusions was that DMT has the capacity to open us to other dimensions which exist adjacent to our own. And one of his hypotheses is that patients often encountered "dark matter beings."

There is much to say about suffering. (Of course. People have pondered this subject since humans could think about it).

I believe that a beginning consideration re- this topic involves a transformation of our usually unquestioned assumptions about concepts such as "innocents." Also, the attempt to calculate equitability.

Meditation, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and many other doorways to Being may be able to help us with these issues. My experience is that both reading and really contemplating the words of beings who may be deeply enlightened is a very useful method. Ditto to spending time with individuals who we intuit are both authentic and a bit further down the road of liberation than we have travelled. I have attempted to use both of these methods.

Elgin in Awakening Earth argues that both planetary wisdom traditions and cutting-edge physics converge in presenting a cosmos that is being continuously created: appearing and disappearing in each moment out of a "meta-universe."

Submitted on Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 4:27:42 PM

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Blair Gelbond

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I would say that to begin to intuit the nature of our varied experiences of "suffering," we must take into account three fundamental facets of the universe:

* That is: the simple reality of reincarnation;

* the law - (on par with the physical law of gravity) - of karma...cause and effect;

* and finally, the existence of Grace (which can be thought of as interpenetrating and yet transcending karmic law).

Like a painting seen within a new frame - suffering will appear differently when viewed through these frameworks. It may be "re-framed."

We may then begin to discard outworn assumptions about suffering that no longer serve us.

Submitted on Thursday, Feb 6, 2025 at 1:05:05 AM

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Rick Staggenborg, MD

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Reply to Blair Gelbond:   New Content

We should talk about this, Blair. Obviously, you have a deeper knowledge of these principles and how they interact to produce a deeper understanding of suffering.

Submitted on Thursday, Feb 6, 2025 at 2:12:13 PM

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Blair Gelbond

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To begin, can recommend Lifecycles by Chris Bache.

Submitted on Thursday, Feb 6, 2025 at 2:51:11 PM

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