Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University
Explore the role of creativity, cognition, and embodiment in contemporary sciences and Tibetan Buddhist tantric practice with presenters Vesna Wallace (Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara), William Bushell (Surgery, Columbia), Neil Theise (Pathology & Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine), Ted Arnold (Namgyal Monastery), and Kavita Bala (Computer
Science, Cornell).
Free and Open
Organized by the Namgyal Monastery
These sessions will focus on the divergent understanding of the body in contemporary biology and medicine and in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Wallace will present an amazing analysis of esoteric Buddhist theory and practice in which the body and mind are considered innately capable of radical transformation at their most subtle level. Bushell and Theise, collaborators on groundbreaking studies of the relationship between yoga and meditation and bodily self-regeneration, will present evidence from contemporary medicine that the body is capable of just such radical transformation through an array of psychophysical interventions. As Buddhist esoteric practice is also a highly creative, embodied process based on fundamental cognitive restructuring, Arnold will introduce these three speakers with an overview of these relationships and a focus on Indo-Tibetan cognitive theory. Bala will present the results of a unique collaboration between her and the Namgyal monks: a computer-generated, three-dimensional mandala of the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) system. Since Buddhist esoteric practice aims at restructuring cognitive processes (seeing) whereby one finally transforms completely, mentally and physically (being), into a fully enlightened deity such as Kalachakra, this is the perfect symbol of the panel.
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Cathy Rosa Klimaszewski
Associate Director/Ames Curator of Education
Johnson Museum of Art
607 254-4627
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3 comments:
Numbers keep catching my eye now that I am being exposed to their importance. Specifically, 3, 4 and 8. During the day when Dani let us explore the world and find beauty and math I discovered that the number 3 is incredibly pleasing to humans, as well as one of the great symbols we use to represent life as a whole. I researched my friend's theory of pyramids in Egypt being related to the three stars on Orion's belt, and I discovered it to be true. The three major Egyptian pyramids at Giza are positioned mirroring the three stars in the belt of Orion. This was executed according to "Dwat," the art of placement practiced by Egyptians in order to imitate the structure of the Heavens. I learned a lot of other interesting facts while learning about this topic, such as that 5 of the 7 brightest stars have Pyramid equivalents on Earth. In these pyramids are shafts or holes that come from the inside of the pyramid and point towards the sky. Each is pointing towards important stars or constellations. And this as well as the entire structure of the pyramid clearly helps understand the meaning of it's name PIRA (fire, light, visible) and MIDOS (measures) The existance of these pyramids shows man discovering and imitating life literally "around it," as well as the means to go about creating it productively.
I noticed the number 4 right before I started writing this blog. I have never noticed it before, but when looking at a light from far away, it's glow is sepatated into four beams of light around it, distributed evenly like the petals of a flower. As I said before, this is only something that I have noticed since the beginning of the course, a fact that I merely took as the truth of life and never asked, Why? I am very interested in this topic, and realize over and over again that answers so often are explained with math.
The number 8. I do not think it a coincidence that Dani has posted some information about Tibetan monks and the number 8. Interestingly the scene that I will be performing for this semester's acting review is related to the idea of only owning 8 items, as those monks do. The play is about a woman who hears about this and decides that she must get rid of all her junk and falsified needs. What is it about the number 8 that makes it so wholesome? So content and final, yet unselfish? I do not know, but I enjoy practicing many of the exercies that the monks partake in, and learning about the reason of 8's greatness would help me understand the character's reasoning much better.
By the way--thanks for the inspiration this morning Dani, it helped me get through this particularly troubling day of the year.
In class on Monday, Nikki introduced the concept of brinetics, which is a shortcut in multiplication involving any number ending in 5. This related to our breaking down numbers into groups and finding out which numbers are "friends." It is about learning to do math mentally and breaking down equations to make them easier.
Also, something called the "law of truly large numbers" has interested me. This law states that with a large enough sample set, many odd coincidences are likely to happen. This reminded me of Chuck and his discussion of the presence of the number 23-if you look hard enough and can look at anything in the world, you will find what you are looking for. This has been done repeatedly with the number 23 in our group in class.
Some people have tried to figure out, using mere numbers, how the tragedy of 9/11 happened. Some have tried to use the law of truly large numbers to somehow explain the tragic occurrences because of preordained patterns. An example is claimed psychic Uri Geller, who tried to find an eerie significance in the number 11. He tried to use the following points to prove his point:
September 11th is the 254th day of the year, and 2+5+4=11
After 9/11, there are 111 days left in the year
The Towers standing together looked like the number 11.
He even went through words related to the incident that have 11 letters, such as "The Pentagon" and names such as "George W. Bush" and "Ramzi Yousef." Sure, when standing in isolation, there can seem to be significance in the number 11. But if you search hard enough, you can find as much significance in the number 12, 13 or 23. Geller's claims and wanting to send out a "warning" frustrate me. With the law of truly large numbers, it is easy to find significance in anything if your goal is to do so. I have found numerology to be interesting and I would like to learn more about it, but nothing should be considered the "end all" and everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
Tamar wins the prize for being the first person to see eye to eye with me thus far! Her explanation of the Law of Truly Large Numbers perfectly explains what I was trying to relate with my ponderings on the number 23.
I really think it's important that people realize that everything will have meaning if you give it to it. Finding the deeper meanings is more difficult, so you should question things and make conclusions accordingly. It's such an important idea that I think we should declare a holiday to ponder the idea.
I propose that we celebrate Truly Large Number day on November 23rd, of each even numbered year. so the 23rd is obvious, but can anybody figure out why I picked november of every even numbered year? Lemme know what you got!
That's about all I've got for this entry. I've been swamped with work such that I haven't had time to take a breath, let alone ponder math meaningfully.
I did however manage to come up with one more interesting fact. While wishing that there were more hours in a day, I found out exactly how many hours (discarding the remainder) are in a day. 24, right?
Wrong. There are only 23. We round it to 24 because the remainder is 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds. This is why we have leap year. So yeah, every day does have about 24 hours, but on a strictly technical level, there are only 23 hours with some left overs. Yet another fascinating 23 for your personal enjoyment!
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