The Copenhagen Conference on global warming has just opened. Let’s hope they can put aside short term interests and do the right thing. And if they can’t I suggest you start taking swimming lessons. In the Anguttara Nikaya the Buddha talked about the end of the world which he says will be brought about by dramatically increased heat. In the early stages of this process ‘all the seed-bearing plants, herbs, grasses and trees will wilt, dry up and disappear’. Next all the streams and creeks will evaporate, then the great rivers, and finally the great lakes and even the ocean will dry up. According to the Buddha, all this will occur as more and more suns appear in the sky, which may be another way of saying that the sun’s increasing radiation will bring about our end, an interesting, plausible and scary prediction (A.IV, 100-1). Tuesday, December 8, 2009
It's Getting Hot!
The Copenhagen Conference on global warming has just opened. Let’s hope they can put aside short term interests and do the right thing. And if they can’t I suggest you start taking swimming lessons. In the Anguttara Nikaya the Buddha talked about the end of the world which he says will be brought about by dramatically increased heat. In the early stages of this process ‘all the seed-bearing plants, herbs, grasses and trees will wilt, dry up and disappear’. Next all the streams and creeks will evaporate, then the great rivers, and finally the great lakes and even the ocean will dry up. According to the Buddha, all this will occur as more and more suns appear in the sky, which may be another way of saying that the sun’s increasing radiation will bring about our end, an interesting, plausible and scary prediction (A.IV, 100-1).
Whether it happens in the next few centuries or in a few billion of years when our sun goes nova, eventually the heats going to get us all. May I recommend SPF 6 gagillion.
ReplyDeleteMany suns in the sky... This could be about the collision of our Milky Way with Andromeda Galaxy. We are on the collision course, but this is still too far away in time. Another scenario is the final contraction of the universe, returning to preBigBang state. Somewhere I read about the Buddha's reference to the current expansion of the Universe and the following contraction of it. So far no signs of it, except that galaxies have started to collide. But when and if the signs appear it might be a very fast process. And maybe it's time to hurry and reach the safe haven of Nibbana! :)))
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the 7 suns Chinese legend. The Suttas described it like it will only happen in a long long time...but somehow it feels like the earth will be destroyed in few thousand years at the rate of change we are doing to the earth.
ReplyDeletehere's another scenario: deadly cosmic radiation from colliding neutron stars. 5 were knon to exist in our galaxy during the time this was written in 1998. Like yuri says, no time like now to try for the "home-run"! http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980614033848data_trunc_sys.shtml
ReplyDeleteTime or no time, it's just a matter of time before the Sun stops shinning or implode. Either way, whether the world comes to an end by tomorrow, 2012 or 100,000 years later, humans will continue to live as though there is no tomorrow. With population explosion, there will be more consumption, more pollution, wanton waste, all caused by greed, craving, selfishness and materialism. The natural resources which took millions of year to accumulate and which could sustain life would be depleted if not destroyed. I don’t see the coming of the end of the world as frightening. It is a good thing and if it comes, I wish it would be quick and instantaneous like a big bang!
ReplyDeleteOnly Jamie seems to know the normal career of a sun, you don't have to postulate something more fantastical than what is the normal course of a sun's ending phase.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a prophesy of Shariputra, can't remember where it is Pali Canon, in it he describes the future when gradually the four elements change and disappear, do you know it?
it could also reference to the new big sun eruption expecting for 2012. i dont think that all oceans will evaporate, but it is for sure a big nature spectacle that shows the humans who really is the only god...
ReplyDelete