Rough Outline

• Personal Reason for Starting Mentorship (particularly on Buddhism)
• Give some details regarding Buddhism --> What is the point of practicing Buddhism?
• Mindfulness -- How that has played a major role in not only my understanding of Buddhism, but also my understanding of the way we should approach understanding everything.
• Relationship between Buddhism and Physics - We cannot see the world as it is. (why?)
• Buddhism: The practice of seeing the world as it is
• The one obstacle that we face is that of suffering
• The Noble Eightfold Path is the way in which we can access this "true"/"real" world
• Not really a path, but rather a pattern. Each individual component is what we could call a phenomenon. 
• We can observe phenomenon (in other words: an actually defined event)
• A phenomenon is one piece of the large puzzle of reality --a drop in the ocean
• Physics: The study of the way things are 
• Humans have issues studying quantum mechanics because we have very little access on the quantum level. 
• Once again, what we observe are phenomenon (patterns) that are manifested.
• These phenomenon are only a piece of the puzzle, however they help us understand the larger context.
• We are not limited by only our perception, but our perception is a limitation (an idea I still need to work on) -- that's not a great explanation. 
• Explain double slit experiment in detail
• The Big Bang is just one phenomenon that we could observe, but it is just one event in the scheme of reality.
• Although it might seem like a paradox (science and religion) this paradox is only a phenomena, not the entire picture. As physics and buddhism shows, both relating to the nature of reality, that reality involves science and religion to work together. 
• Ideas to work with:
• Observations create phenomenon, which play a part in the grand scheme of reality
• Are observations limitations (meaning that there is more we can see, but choose not to see) or are we limited by observations (meaning that were are only one small part of the universe, and there is no way for us to truly understand the nature of reality because we ourselves are just a phenomenon)?
• There is nothing outside of the universe because the universe is expanding into empty space -- therefore we have to be a part of the universe -- observation from the inside
• "We are the universes way of experiencing itself..."

Mapping out a Presentation

It has been much since long since I have posted anything on here, and that is completely my fault. However, that is not the source of my worries as the source of my worries lies with the impending presentation which I have to make in about 3 weeks, to present the finding of my research for this project. Needless to say, there is still so much for me to explore and I believe that I have fragments of the big picture, but I need to string these fragments together somehow in order to coherently present it. The aim is not to come to a conclusion of the nature of reality, which I can assure you, that I do not know. 

Let's start with how this project came about. Completely independent of the relationship between science and religion, I simply wanted to learn more about the religious tradition which I have been brought up in. I recently learned that the Buddhist traditions that I have grown up with is heavily, heavily influenced by Hinduism, and does not mirror the Buddhism that directly relates to Physics. Yet, I find that I gravitate towards the more classical version of Buddhism that I have been investigating since the beginning of the year. There is much more simplicity in this Buddhist tradition, and simplicity is something that we has functioning members of society today can use much more of. One useful piece of information that I have learned from this experience is that of the concept of mindfulness. I now understand that in life, there will always be sources of suffering and that source could be something massive that is hard to control such as desire, but on a more applicable scale, I have learned to weed out unnecessary hardship. There are times when I consciously decide not to worry about something knowing that it will significantly reduce my stress level-- a very valuable lesson in my opinion.

Now, to the heart of this project. There is most definitely a connection between Buddhism and Physics, a connection unlike the constant opposition that seems to accompany the idea of religion and science. This connection comes about because Buddhism and Physics have the same goal, and both are focused on the same thing. Buddhism is the practice of seeing the way things truly are, and physics is the study of the way things truly are. They both attempt to get to the heart of the nature of reality (so, so vague). I should mention that the reality that we are so familiar with is all perception. In physics, the only thing we know about reality are the models that us humans have created. No one has actually seen an electron, and likewise, very few have experienced Nirvana. We somehow need to accept that we are part of the Universe... the way that we are approaching observation is by taking ourselves out of the Universe in order to observe it. Is it possible to observe our universe from the inside, and is that how we can come to the understanding of the nature of reality?

I definitely want to reference paradoxes in my presentation.