[Buddha-l] The course of Nature

[John Willemsens]

> John,
>
> Nature with a capital N is largely an invention of the German Romantics
> around the turn from the 18th to the 19th century.
>
> Ancient Chinese thought (pre-Buddhist) had an idea of dynamic patterns
> (reversions, progressions, etc.). Patterns were specific and intrinsic to
> distinct things (e.g., Heaven, Earth, Man; earth, water, fire, wood, 
> metal;
> etc.), but each influenced the other. Interference could block or disrupt
> these patterns. So, in a casual way, we might say there are "natural"
> patterns which can be "artificially" disturbed. But they did not entertain
> the idea of natural law that dominated in the west.
>
> Buddhists devote little to no attention to such things, though in China,
> eventually, some of the Chinese cosmological thinking did get adopted
> particularly in more vernacular expressions of Chan (Zen). But generally 
> for
> Buddhists the ghost in the machine is karma, not natural laws put in place
> by God.
>
> Dan

Thank you, Dan.
So the Vedic(?) concept of rta (as an overall dharma) all but disappeared in 
Buddhism?
John.