Rodney Smith, the founder of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society, joins us today to discuss several fascinating topics. We start with an exploration of how the Big Bang and the origin of life on Earth (some 3.8 billion years ago) and spiritually significant events. We also discuss the overall compatibility between Buddhist teachings and these new found scientific findings. Finally, Rodney shares with us a powerful mathematical analogy for understanding the spiritual path, that of fractions. The numerator of the fraction represents the appearances of things, and the denominator represents the undifferentiated wholeness underlying appearances. Rodney shares how spiritual practice, and the process of dying, can both help us cross the fraction line. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, Turning Your Back to the Buddha. Episode Links: Dharma Talks by Rodney Smith ( http://bit.ly/1TOJ5LH ) Seattle Insight ( http://www.seattleinsight.org ) Lessons From the Dying ( http://bit.ly/40F0Gh ) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.