30 May. Buddha, aliens, Big Bang and Big Crunch.

I listen to Zen Studies Podcast. Domyo Burk – the author – is a wonderful teacher. I very much appreciate that Domyo – even though she is a Soto Zen Priest – has a deep knowledge of Pali Kanon sutras. In one of the episodes, Domyo quoted words of Buddha from “Maha-Saccaka Sutta”:

I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two…five, ten…fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction & expansion: ‘There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance.

Cosmic contraction? Cosmic expansion? Am I misreading this? How could anyone over 2,500 years ago know about cosmic expansion? I also thought a few days ago that rebirth could only work if there were countless living beings outside Earth.

Also… thanks to my practice each unskilful thought and action I commit cause me a lot of pain, simply because I now recognise them as unskillful. It really hurts. Small things. Complaining, bitching, judging, idle chatter. Thanks, Buddha.