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Medidation, Enlightenment, Dharma, and Sokushinbutsu

anon_dozu said in #3523 4w ago: received

>>3508
>>3506
>>3455
I see we have some enlightenment-seeking buddhist types lurking around. I have a question for them: what is it you think is valuable about these "enlightened" mental states reachable with meditation etc? I hear about them occasionally but by the self-admission of those who pursue them, the result seems to be of little practical value, and ends up just alienating the seeker from everything they used to value.

The only buddhist meditation memes I've seen make fun of this. Wojack starts out as a naive self-improover thinking meditation will make him more emotionally stable and successful, and becomes some kind of amoral monster of the will with no recognizeably human emotions at all. On this grounds he both advises against enlightenment, and advises for it.

As much as I admire the idea of reaching elevated states of cognitive purity and the monstrous will to do things like commit sokushinbutsu (meditation to the point of self-mummification, practiced by hardcore japanese monks), I can't shake the impression that this is all an elaborate form of wireheading or mental masturbation.

Sociologically, I notice a lot of similarities between medidation-based enlightenment culture and psychedelic culture. Both have dubious claims on objective practicality, but stake their arguments on the purely subjective value of some profound state of mind. From the outside, this is indistinguishable from blowing holes in your brain with megadoses of research chemicals to the point of not being able to distinguish profound from inane anymore. I know a lot more guys who went insane and insist on the profundity of this insanity than guys who turned into Steve Jobs.

But I'll let you speak for yourselves. What are we enlightenment non-believers missing?

referenced by: >>3575

I see we have some e received

anon_hwmi said in #3558 4w ago: received

I think the main problem here is that people like to over-mysticize "enlightenment" and have vastly different things in their heads when they say this, especially amongst "believers."

The core beliefs (or Four Noble Truths if you will) come down to the fact that there is an undercurrent of stress in minds (1) which is being constantly created by an active process (2), which can cease (3) if you follow a certain set of practices (4). These are purely descriptive statements about minds, that should you falsify would indeed negate any reason to follow the set of practices the Buddha laid out.

So enlightenment is just the cessation of the stress that you are constantly creating for yourself by clinging. That is it. If this doesn't seem true to you, or you think that it would be better to go for some other goal in your life instead, you can do that. All you miss out on is being able to engage with life with an unrivaled satisfaction that will stick with you forever.

I phrase it that way because I believe that is actually what you give up. I'm not trying to cast other goals as bad. I constantly have other goals, and pursue them, but I know it is irrational when I believe this much better goal is there, so I don't begrudge anyone else. I don't expect others to have read hundreds of suttas and listened to hundreds of dhamma talks just because they thought it was interesting, which is what it took me to be convinced.

The other key part is one which probably requires more faith than what I laid out above. The idea is that not only is this lack of suffering good, it is unconditioned and deathless. Meaning not only will it last your lifetime, it will last forever. I could dive into Buddhist cosmology and exactly how they view causality, and then the implications of that on the goal, but if you are skeptical it is probably not worth it. Though I would factor in this belief if you read accounts of actual arahants (people who have achieved this state of the total cessation of stress) to understand what they are trying to communicate.

What was the Buddha even setting out to do before he became "enlightened?" Here is one of the longest suttas that gives the Buddha's account of what he was trying to do and how he did it: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN36.html

If you read this or the other suttas about his life, you see he began to notice that everyone is subject to aging, illness, and death so pursuing a satisfaction (or happiness in a more common frame) in something that is subject to these aspects will ultimately end as well. Many would say this is a nihilistic view, but really it was profoundly optimistic! Who would dare suggest that there is a goal, whose achievement is unconditioned and end is more satisfying than any conditioned satisfaction? He didn't know he would actually find it, he just believed that he could.

Anyway, hopefully this captures some fraction of the set of beliefs one who is compelled by this goal and this path has. I would encourage anyone who is interested to check out the site I linked above (https://www.dhammatalks.org) and maybe listen to some of the talks on there that sound interesting. If nothing else, it can be relaxing.

If people still are skeptical, or think I am misrepresenting anything, please respond. I would like to be able to make this argument better because it would probably help a lot of people to make these ideas even more accessible.

referenced by: >>3559 >>3575 >>3909

I think the main pro received

anon_dozu said in #3559 4w ago: received

>>3558
Excellent reply and description of the idea in any case. You have not convinced me that this satisfaction is worthwhile but it is plausible to me that it exists, and that many would find it worthwhile.

I would be curious to hear another attempt to actually motivate it against the wireheading charge. For example, if the stress really is a disharmony resulting from lack of skill or clarity, then resolving it would be expected to make you more effective in visible ways (modulo opportunity cost), whereas if it is more like brain damage or wireheading you would expect more addiction-like results.

I would also like to hear more about risks or unforseen changes to the self. I have heard some of this from people saying that meditation is not the safe “wellness” practice that some try to present it as. This isnt necessarily to be counted against it. Philosophy is likewise a dangerous thing to get into, especially if you are just a normie wanting practical results.

referenced by: >>3567 >>3575 >>3576

Excellent reply and received

anon_moca said in #3565 4w ago: received

You'll get more biological effects out of diet and energy maximization. There was something I did a while ago that made me feel surreal, like what original man is supposed to be. I felt no emotion anymore and only the drive to productive activity.

American bread makes me feel weak and gay.

Mental tricks help for stress reduction.

It's all energy. Ray Peat solved it already. Not sure why people aren't able to understand him or only surface-level skim.

You'll get more biol received

anon_hwmi said in #3567 3w ago: received

>>3559
There is a phrase in the Pali Canon that is used frequently that goes something like "the Buddha teaches a Dhamma that is good in its beginning, good in its middle, and good in its end" and this is exactly why you might want to leverage the ideas even when pursuing other goals.

We can look at what the "path" actually constitutes:
1. Right view: you actually believe the four noble truths accurately describe reality, or at least you believe it instrumentally if not wholeheartedly. This one is useful for the path but probably not much else.
2. Right resolve: while holding the above belief is good, it isn't enough. You must also resolve to act more skillfully. This means looking at your own thoughts and actions and see which are beneficial to you in the long run and trying to do those more, and looking at what is actually hurting you long term and doing this less. This is basic introspection required to get more skilled at anything, obviously transferrable to any goal.
3. Right speech: only saying what is true, timely, and beneficial. Again, if you are conditioned to telling lies or speaking harshly to others, you are most likely doing the same when speaking to yourself. You may believe you can separate the two, but I believe there is a reason most Aryan cultures held the truth so highly.
4. Right action: no killing, stealing, fighting, or sexual misconduct. In pursuing most any worthwhile goal, these will either directly hurt you if you get caught, or they will indirectly hurt your ability to face yourself when you look back on your life to attempt to improve yourself. You will learn to shy away from introspection and thus hide from reality. This is important because it is much closer to virtue ethics because it is much more about not taking action that you will shy away from than it is about some divine punishment. Again useful for other goals.
5. Right livelihood: like the above think about this with respect to virtue ethics. A means of supporting yourself is bad if it turns you into a lower kind of man, and good if it is honest and you can face reality more clearly. If you must contort how you interpret reality in order to face your job each day, you are just cultivating delusion and will probably not be effective in most higher pursuits anyway.
6. Right effort: you generate the desire to do the actions that get you to your goal. This one is necessary for any long term ambitious goal. If you don't have desire to end suffering forever, you will likely never reach it. This is contrary to people who say you must give up all desire, which is dumb. Desire is strong, and the Buddha advocates directing yours to a good goal. Maybe in the end you drop it, but you don't throw away your raft before you finish crossing the river.
7. Right mindfulness: literally the ability to hold a thought in your head and remember it consistently when doing other things in your life. For the Buddha's goal, it should be the four noble truths. For another worthy goal, it should be whatever is needed to believe in order to achieve it.
8. Right concentration: this is the only step on the path that is specific to the Buddha's goal. Concentration is a single minded focus on one object that takes you into ever more refined and enjoyable mental states called jhanas. The idea is to cultivate the skill of getting your mind into these states because it is a pleasure that does not depend on any outside factors and doesn't harm anyone else in its pursuit. The Buddha uses it so that you can more confidently drop the desire for other things that are hurting yourself or others in your pursuit of them. Could be useful for other goals, but the case would have to be made.

So to me it seems like 6/8 of the steps of the Buddha's path will be instrumentally useful for any other goal as well. It also doesn't require you to risk "wireheading" yourself with practices to cultivate different mental states. Instead it just aligns your thoughts and actions in a way that allow you to more fully direct yourself towards a noble goal.

referenced by: >>3575 >>3627

There is a phrase in received

phaedrus said in #3575 3w ago: received

>>3558
>>3567
I couldn't agree more! Excellent description of some of the cognitive science of the path, and bonus points for bringing up MN 36, what a great sutta.

>>3523
>>3559
To anon_dozu, I think the lack of desire for/interest in "awakening" is a symptom of self-misunderstanding. The dissatisfaction and stress that the Buddhists call "dukkha" is a fundamental feature of human experience, so the "baseline" of any human agent includes a huge amount of dukkha. Of course, given that this is just taken to be a necessary part of human experience, no one is able to evaluate the pros or cons of the presence of dukkha. I think the best approximation is imagining simply the internal experience of being in a flow state, which has much less of the experience of dukkha than everyday consciousness. So, would you like to live your life with the same amount of ease and well-being as a perfect flow state, with all the mental clarity and the versatility that comes with normal non-flow consciousness? Of course, if you ask fully awakened people about their everyday experience, they say it's orders of magnitude better even than perfect flow consciousness, but it's not easy to evaluate one way or another.

On the wireheading charge, this is definitely the kind of question that is relevant for someone considering awakening! Personally, as awakening is more about a removal of cognitive impulses that lead away from being in the moment, and a lot of the pleasure and positive reward of awakening comes from this kind of inner peace and sensory clarity, I don't think the negative connotations of wireheading need to apply here. There are states, the jhānas, that are more like straightforward wireheading, but even those have a weird relationship with the dopamine reward system that makes them non-habit reinforcing, so it's essentially impossible to get addicted. I'd still say someone who spends all of their life in the jhānas is doing something wrong along the lines of wireheading, but being awakened allows one to live one's entire life much the same way as before while experiencing an incredibly high hedonic baseline.

>For example, if the stress really is a disharmony resulting from lack of skill or clarity, then resolving it would be expected to make you more effective in visible ways (modulo opportunity cost), whereas if it is more like brain damage or wireheading you would expect more addiction-like results.
Generally, enlightened people are effective in their endeavors, but it also greatly reduces the reward signal from status-seeking and ego-defense activity. So there's much less drive to do big flashy projects that would fall in the more LinkedIn-friendly success category. But on the whole, it does seem like enlightenment is less of a productivity hack than it might appear, and is much more of an internal states hack. It certainly doesn't seem to increase people's IQ or anything, even though it might remove certain psychological patterns that interfere with the production of intellectual work.

referenced by: >>3627

I couldn't agree mor received

phaedrus said in #3576 3w ago: received

>>3559
>I would also like to hear more about risks or unforseen changes to the self. I have heard some of this from people saying that meditation is not the safe “wellness” practice that some try to present it as. This isnt necessarily to be counted against it. Philosophy is likewise a dangerous thing to get into, especially if you are just a normie wanting practical results.

This is totally true, and should be expected with any kind of cognitive procedure that really does interfere with fundamental neural machinery.

There are a few things that come along 100% inevitably as one progresses along the Buddhist path, including the elimination of the subjective sense of being a self and the illusion of free will. Pretty much universally, people experience these as incredibly rewarding, worthwhile, and meaningful experiences, although they can be disorienting. There are also the rare and more straightforwardly negative effects like psychosis, instability, just generally weird addictive behaviors, and all sorts of strange energetic and psychological phenomena. In general, it seems like these are either the result of doing extreme practices that are super psychologically taxing, like the Tibetan thing of doing 100,000 prostrations, or extremely intense periods of isolation or physical endurance.

There's also a lot of methods that aim to accomplish the cognitive science changes in an extremely fast manner by getting into the discrete machinery that constructs experience via synchronizing brainwaves. This is called the Mahasi Sayadaw method and comes predominantly from Burma, and does indeed seem to be very effective at quickly getting the job done. However, it has an incredibly outsized proportion of the incidence of psychosis or psychological trauma, which really appears to be the result of psychological structures and the rest of the brain in general not having time to cope with and integrate the fundamental phenomenological and cognitive shifts. So, if you're doing Mahasi-style noting, then you should really be prepared for a wild ride. However, if you do one of the more wireheading-adjacent routes that focuses on what the Buddha calls samādhi, or cognitive unification, then generally you avoid most of the bad side effects at the cost of going slightly slower through the cognitive shifts.

Also, there's always the risk when undertaking any kind of Buddhist practice. You interfere with your normal life, career, relationships, etc., if the underlying psychological structure supporting your life is some kind of trauma response, ego defense, or status-seeking behavior. This is, of course, incredibly common, and it's a basic philosophical insight that individual vice and desire for acquisition, etc., can be extremely pro-social in the aggregate. All that said, if those psychological structures start to fall apart as you're dissolving your sense of self, then you might find it hard to resume work at your investment banking job. This is generally more than compensated for by the 10x improvement in hedonic baseline, but it's still something to be cognizant of.

referenced by: >>3627

This is totally true received

boreas said in #3625 3w ago: received

OP gave you lot a real, honest shot to proselytize, and I remain as unconvinced as I was before I read the thread. Buddhists of the rat and post-rat variety always seem to present as these carriers of a deep gnosis, but then as soon as you really get them talking they betray the truth of their aim, straightforward normie muhligion.

They also say things like:
>There are states, the jhānas, that are more like straightforward wireheading, but even those have a weird relationship with the dopamine reward system that makes them non-habit reinforcing, so it's essentially impossible to get addicted.
Which reads the same as your friend who loves cigarettes trying to get you to smoke one. "It has a weird relationship with the dopamine system bro, I swear to GOd it's impossible to get addicted bro."

The deeper issue is that Buddhism is denial of self, it is an ego death cult:
>Generally, enlightened people are effective in their endeavors, but it also greatly reduces the reward signal from status-seeking and ego-defense activity. So there's much less drive to do big flashy projects that would fall in the more LinkedIn-friendly success category.
Thanks man, but I, uh, prefer to trust Western Civilization, the kleos of the Hellenes, the resounding "I AM" of American exceptionalism since the days of John Winthrop, the general celebration and furtherance of self in combat against other selves.

I do grant that this chant is extremely powerful. So you've got that going for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swR5K2GN1G4

referenced by: >>3775 >>3776

OP gave you lot a re received

anon_dozu said in #3627 3w ago: received

>>3567
Excellent. But that last point about pursuit of the jhanas I still still find unmotivated.

>>3575
>Of course, if you ask fully awakened people about their everyday experience, they say it's orders of magnitude better even than perfect flow consciousness, but it's not easy to evaluate one way or another.
>being awakened allows one to live one's entire life much the same way as before while experiencing an incredibly high hedonic baseline.
I may even believe them, but my rather unamerican and uncalifornian perspective is what is the purpose of better hedonic experience? Why on reflection should I care about the magnitude of the reward signal? If there is some practical problem this "dukkha" indicates, the way pain typically denotes damage, I would be very interested, but I have not yet heard it. There is a path to walk towards infinite bliss, and if I were interested in such things I would walk it. But as it is I am a student of teleological philosophy, not hedonism, so I ask that things account for themselves within a framework of purpose, not subjective valence.

I remain open to the idea that there is a practical purpose to all this, but that meditation enjoyers consistently direct the attention away from external purpose to internal state-of-mind concerns I count as significant. Is it the case as it seems that walking this path makes you value subjective hedonic bliss above worldly concerns?

>Generally, enlightened people are effective in their endeavors
So are many.

>it also greatly reduces the reward signal from status-seeking and ego-defense activity. So there's much less drive to do big flashy projects
>>3576
>You interfere with your normal life, career, relationships, etc., if the underlying psychological structure supporting your life is some kind of trauma response, ego defense, or status-seeking behavior.
Eternal fame is to the glory of the gods, and the universe is a machine for producing glorious deeds.

I suppose the discussion we are really having here is a referendum on the ego, the self, etc. I come at this again from the perspective of teleology. The value of the glory of the self (caricatured here as mere status or psychological delusion as if achilles would have obsessed over a good linkedin page) derives from the value of is purpose and its effectiveness in accomplishing that purpose. The purpose of the self, as we have discussed in previous threads, is to organize the activity of life within an auto-anabolic closed loop. Life overall is not capable of such anabolic self-organization, so it fragments into many selves, who in pursuing their own success push forward the collective success of life. Thus the success of the self, where it does not actively hinder some other more important self, is a virtuous and purposeful thing. This is why I, a pure soul from the golden land, choose to descend to earth to become concerned with the small glories of a self. It is this argument, and not caricatures of psychological immaturity, that opponents of the self have to answer.

And as for the more abstract sorts of "ego defense" like eternal fame, what can the purpose of the whole project of life be if not to flower forth with glorious deeds which command respect and study from even the perspective of the gods? Of course other people have other accounting of the value of life, but I'll note they all support each other and they all require affirmation of this wonderful process and its fruits. It seems our blond prince Gautama forgot this wisdom of his ancestors, or his students forgot it.

>it's a basic philosophical insight that individual vice and desire for acquisition, etc., can be extremely pro-social in the aggregate
From whose perspective are these things vice? Christians and Buddhists who value the "other" world and wish to give up on this one? If it is a vice on account of its contamination by this world, why do we care for its worldly consequences? Go back to the other world then (kys). As I argue above, a well-ordered self interest is the highest of virtues, actually.

referenced by: >>3667 >>3776

Excellent. But that received

anon_hwhw said in #3632 3w ago: received

I see meditation as just a way to increase my well-being, be happier, and more satisfied. Personally, feeling bad objectively feels bad. Feeling good objectively feels good. I'd like to feel good more.

People who don't value their well-being as the most important thing seem to (1) either not have a sense of what's possible in terms of increased happiness/well-being or (2) aren't very reflective about or sensitive to their phenomenology.

1. I think psychedelics often give people a sense of what's possible in terms of increasing their well-being.
2. I think usually it takes a big life event like a break up or a death for people to be reflective of their phenomenology.

Seems to be an intervention that takes quite a bit of time for some people, so some people spend lots of time doing it.

Some particularly thoughtful people I'm aware of who have written about meditation online in depth:
- https://www.reddit.com/user/DeliciousMixture-4-8/
- https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
- https://www.reddit.com/user/adivader/comments/o8skgp/vipassana_the_awakening_project_part_1_dus/

I see meditation as received

anon_cifi said in #3636 3w ago: received

Freedom! Suffering obstructs freedom.

It's not all or nothing either, you can engage the path to the point where the amount of freedom you have is sufficient for the life you want to lead.

There's also the side effect of enriching life, if you approach practice with compassion.

Freedom! Suffering o received

anon_hwmi said in #3667 3w ago: received

>>3627
> Eternal fame is to the glory of the gods, and the universe is a machine for producing glorious deeds.
This may come down to our own hearts in some ways, as it seems perfectly clear to me that the gods would undoubtedly recognize the cessation of suffering as true self mastery and glorious perfection of a mind. So this pursuit is glorious to you, but then also glorious to those that see you in this state of your own creation.

Would you look down upon Archimedes for a wholehearted pursuit of intellectual satisfaction to the neglect of anything else because he didn't achieve martial greatness? Was the Buddha truly less glorious to the gods than Achilles? He certainly has done a better job of creating a timeless unbroken tradition based on fundamental human truths.

referenced by: >>3669

This may come down t received

anon_dozu said in #3669 3w ago: received

>>3667
In justifying yourself in terms of the beauty of the accomplishment itself and not your own short-circuited subjective assessment of it, you are one step closer to enlightenment. Let's go a step further: Archimedes and Buddha did not win eternal fame for having achieved self-satisfaction, but for having given birth to new forms of cognition that have since become the operating systems of civilizations. You do not share in their glory by imitating their minor tricks of cognitive organization for their own sake, but by doing something real with them.

referenced by: >>3776

In justifying yourse received

phaedrus said in #3775 2w ago: received

>>3625
>Which reads the same as your friend who loves cigarettes trying to get you to smoke one. "It has a weird relationship with the dopamine system bro, I swear to GOd it's impossible to get addicted bro."
If you spend any time at all around meditators, you'll notice that people simply do not get addicted to the jhānas. Yeah, there are lots of things that can be addictive about spiritual life, about renunciation, about asceticism, about feeling a sense of moral superiority through spiritual practice, etc., etc., etc. However, jhāna practice specifically is by its nature non-addictive: if you have any of the "craving" that characterizes the experience of an addiction cycle — craving, stimulus, satisfaction, reinforcement — then you will not be able to enter into a jhana, as access to jhanas is through the experience of non-craving itself.

Honestly, these objections signal to me that the author does not morally oppose these states per se, but rather simply does not believe that it is possible to have experiences that fall beyond the range of everyday human consciousness. This is a reasonable skepticism to have, but it's fallacious to focus on subtly distorting the claims of others rather than assessing the empirical validity of said claims.

If you spend any tim received

phaedrus said in #3776 2w ago: received

>>3625
>>3627
>>3669
>Thanks man, but I, uh, prefer to trust Western Civilization, the kleos of the Hellenes, the resounding "I AM" of American exceptionalism since the days of John Winthrop, the general celebration and furtherance of self in combat against other selves.
>The value of the glory of the self (caricatured here as mere status or psychological delusion as if achilles would have obsessed over a good linkedin page) derives from the value of is purpose and its effectiveness in accomplishing that purpose. The purpose of the self, as we have discussed in previous threads, is to organize the activity of life within an auto-anabolic closed loop.
>Let's go a step further: Archimedes and Buddha did not win eternal fame for having achieved self-satisfaction, but for having given birth to new forms of cognition that have since become the operating systems of civilizations.

Here we're speaking of the fundamental meaning, the telos of human life, which can be something of a controversial question. In this specific situation, retreating to debates over the fundamental purpose of human life is not a fruitful path of discussion. To put the question in context, why do we engage in philosophy? Why do we seek, through rational discourse, to illuminate the good? I posit that we all believe there to be a truth about the nature of human affairs, and that, moreover, we believe it is possible to come to better apprehend this truth.

I am an Aristotelian. Aristotle utilizes logos to better apprehend the telos of human life. He does not utilize falsity, nor does he deliberately shy away from the truth of his inquiries. In this same spirit, I simply ask you all to consider seeking the truth of human life. Buddhism does not ask you to accept any values or believe a catechism, no matter what certain sects may say. Siddhartha Gautama told his acolytes simply to practice and to see for themselves. If you practice karma, you will see certain truths about your own phenomenology and about the nature of your own mind. One can do with these truths what one wills. However, if there are certain attitudes towards life you hold that are only sustainable because you have never seen the truth, then you cannot call that a philosophy of life, nor say that you apprehend the telos of the human being.

The truth will set you free — this is the whole teaching of the Buddha.

referenced by: >>3777

Here we're speaking received

anon_dozu said in #3777 2w ago: received

>>3776
I don't disagree with anything you have said directly here. Yes truth is nice, we should try to practice and see and not lie to ourselves, etc. But how are we to seek the truth of human life if the telos of human life is out of scope? And don't make truth a counterfeit telos. It does not ultimately matter whether we have the truth. What matters is the truths that are incarnated in successful living, and the truths that get us there from here. This may be a minor or major disagreement between us. I am not sure.

But there is a deeper thing going on here which is your implication that there is some truth, some gnosis, that you have via meditation etc that we don't. This gnosis will destroy our false attitudes towards life, enlighten us about the nature of our own minds, maybe rewrite our sense of telos, etc. Ok then out with it! Why is this all furtive and not stated directly? If there's something wrong with what I'm saying from which you can infer my lack of enlightenment, then tell us how it is instead.

But I have a suspicion, which has not been addressed or refuted by any who argue for these teachings, that meditation at high levels is a psychedelic experience, and that psychedelic experiences induce psychosis. Psychosis may be fun and (subjectively) profound, but it is not good or healthy or true. If the enlightenment-as-meditation-induced-psychosis hypothesis is true, then I would expect either evasion about what exactly the all-important truth is, or some quantum bullshit that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I'm sorry to be harsh here but this continues to be my mainline hypothesis.

referenced by: >>3909

I don't disagree wit received

anon_nisw said in #3909 2w ago: received

>>3777
>Ok then out with it! Why is this all furtive and not stated directly?

I don't think you have a reasonable request here. The implication is that knowledge should always be able to be transferred via words, and if someone is incapable of inducing this realization in your mind with their words, you will continue to believe as you do. Do you not believe that tacit knowledge exists?

It seems like you are looking for a rigorous demonstration of the purity of an interiority that you will not find. Would you consider a professional athlete to be evading your question if when you ask them "how did you pull off that move?" they answer with "a lot of practice?" Or to a chess player you ask "how did you spot that position?" or to Napoleon "how did you come up with that tactic?" and they cannot tell you in a way that allows you to recreate their own mental state.

The Buddha was basically a master craftsman of the mind that taught for 40 years the exact path to become a master craftsman too. The way to learn about how any craftsman thinks is not by listening to every exoteric words they have spoken.

The easiest thing would be to go to some of the links provided by others and listen to the words of those who have devoted their lives to these ideas, and listen to them.

>>3558 Links to this site with many lectures and talks: https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/lectures/

I'd challenge you to listen to one that sounds interesting to you and then truly ask yourself if the most likely interior state of this person is psychosis or something else.

referenced by: >>3911 >>3925

I don't think you ha received

xenophon said in #3911 2w ago: received

>>3909
> Would you consider a professional athlete to be evading your question if when you ask them "how did you pull off that move?" they answer with "a lot of practice?" Or to a chess player you ask "how did you spot that position?" or to Napoleon "how did you come up with that tactic?" and they cannot tell you in a way that allows you to recreate their own mental state.

Those three examples involve externally observable effects. We can see the incredible basketball jump shot. We can see and rank the winning chess game. We can see the battlefield outcome against a formidable opponent.

The difference here is that you are talking about mental results that are not directly observable by other parties; they are only reported. That doesn't mean the results are fake, but it does mean that they absolutely could be. We've all read about gurus who report such results and later turn out to be at best sketchy and likely just fake.

But the chief issue here is not the easy accusation that "it's all just fake." It's that the fundamental lack of observability deprives us of the feedback and control that sound epistemics requires.

There's an obvious reply that "well you can do this work yourself and observe yourself." Well, sure, but:
1) That's very different from your examples.
2) There are many, many things I could sink time into. Part of what one wants here is reasonable evidence to it's actually work embarking down this long and effortful road. If I think I have reasonable grounds to doubt this (cf. fake gurus), then I reasonably may choose not to.

referenced by: >>3914

Those three examples received

zerog said in #3913 2w ago: received

There are two goals of Buddhist practice:

1) Liberation

Liberation is complete freedom from disturbing emotions. It's not that you no longer experience emotions, but there is simply no hook for them to make you react. Because of your presence and concentration you can observe them as interesting signals and not taking anything personally. Without disturbing emotions one can attain all kinds of interesting states of concentration, commonly referred to as jhanas, which are very pleasant.

2) Enlightenment

Enlightenment is complete freedom from concepts. After attaining liberation one still has concepts about how the world is – political ideologies, ideas about one's purpose, subtle attachments to habits and so on. The different levels of freedom from concepts are referred to as bhumis. The more free of concepts one is, the more powerfully one can act with wisdom and compassion and one can cultivate very unique and uncommon worldly abilities.

Different schools and cultures have different customs with unique purposes like ceremonies, rituals, retreats, and end of life practices like self-mummification which are designed to inspired confidence in the students. From our Western eyes many of these appear quite bizarre and would not have the intended effect.

referenced by: >>3925

There are two goals received

anon_nisw said in #3914 2w ago: received

>>3911
You are correct that a goal that is entirely about your own mental states is not verifiable from the outside directly, but that doesn't mean there are no externally observable secondary effects. Namely, you would expect that person to be admirable in their speech and actions. Here are a few relevant passages from the Pali Canon on how you might judge whether someone is actually admirable by the Buddha's own definitions: https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/IntoTheStream/Section0004.html#sigil_toc_id_1

As for gurus, I would point you towards AN 3:66 https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN3_66.html
where the Buddha is posed this exact question.

The core of the teaching is to look at what you are doing and ask "are my current actions beneficial for my longterm well-being and happiness" taken to its logical conclusions. If you think answering these questions in a different manner will result in more long-term benefits and happiness, I would encourage you to pursue your alternative and test it.

If you would propose an alternative practice that promises to lead to long-term well being and happiness, we could debate each path and the evidence behind them or the theoretical groundings, and maybe you will sway me! The point is not that these practices are the only possible things a human can do or even the best, just that they seem to be the best tools available for cultivating long-term well being and happiness. Quite honestly if you have a more compelling goal and a practice that might lead me there, I want to know! I would love to find a better goal with a believable path.

referenced by: >>3917 >>3927

You are correct that received

xenophon said in #3917 2w ago: received

>>3914
> Namely, you would expect that person to be admirable in their speech and actions.

I have met many serious Christians who were admirable in their speech and actions. Hence, I consider this observable trait as non-distinctive of Buddhist practice. (I say this without regard to whether Christianity is, in any larger sense, true.)

But also, this is a case of shifting goal posts, in that "admirable speech and action" is a very broad pattern of behavior, and so quite unlike the examples of discrete observable effects you gave regarding the athlete's play, the chess player's move, and Napoleon's battlefield tactic.

I have met many seri received

anon_dozu said in #3925 1w ago: received

>>3909
>The implication is that knowledge should always be able to be transferred via words
The logos is the best collective epistemology substrate that we have. There are other ways to demonstrate existence of things with art, direct example, deeds, indirect argument, etc. But yeah in general we've gone through a lot of this in western history and "there's a dragon in my garage but he's invisible, silent, intangible, uncommunicable, and otherwise unfalsifiable but also somehow the most important thing" is not a convincing line of argument.

>It seems like you are looking for a rigorous demonstration of the purity of an interiority that you will not find.
I am claiming the non-importance of interiorities that have no useful effect on the world. I don't dispute that high level buddhist practitioners are "enlightened". I'm quite sure that it's possible through psychological self-tinkering to reconstruct your mind and subjective experience in all kinds of ways. I have done so myself when I have cared to. But why specifically should I reconstruct my interiority to bliss out in that particular way? You say it's the best way but can make no external demonstration of its utility. Of course *it* would say it's the best way. I, too can make a positive-self assessment of my mental state, but that doesn't mean I'm sane. A mental state rating itself highly is not a convincing reason why I should enter it from a different mental state that is suspicious of wireheading.

>they cannot tell you in a way that allows you to recreate their own mental state.
No but they can beat me at athletics, chess, and war, which is quite convincing.

>The Buddha was basically a master craftsman
Of what? Positive self assessment?

>>3913
>there is simply no hook for them to make you react. Because of your presence and concentration you can observe them as interesting signals and not taking anything personally.
This seems useful to me. To have reflective self-mastery is a good thing on the path to many great things. But there are many paths to this. I have gone towards this through the path of introspective philosophical self-construction that is rigorously non-believing of the subjective value of mental states. Mental states are indicative signals, not things that matter. In fact this seems an obvious implication of the entire idea.
>jhanas, which are very pleasant.
But then you turn around and say this, which is the most unenlightened possible statement from the above perspective of seeing emotions and mental states as interesting signals that you don't take personally. "I'm above being wrapped up by primitive reflex feelings, which is why I'm really into this particular form of masturbation" is simply not convincing.

>complete freedom from concepts
This sounds interesting though I don't fully understand it yet. How can one be free of concepts? Our entire inner world is made out of concepts. It seems to me the question is rather which concepts are legitimate.

>practices like self-mummification which are designed to inspired confidence in the students. From our Western eyes many of these appear quite bizarre and would not have the intended effect.
Actually I do find sokushinbutsu to be convincing and charismatic, far more than underemployed tech bros jabbering about jhanas like its the latest research chemical to blow out your mind with. What a feat of mastery over the primitive self! It makes you want to follow their teachings.

The logos is the bes received

anon_dozu said in #3927 1w ago: received

>>3914
>If you would propose an alternative practice that promises to lead to long-term well being and happiness, we could debate each path and the evidence behind them or the theoretical groundings, and maybe you will sway me!
To make the anti-buddhist position quite clear then: what I am most suspicious of is the value of "happiness" construed as a mental state. Why is that the goal? If I wanted happiness, I would simply introspect and self-reconstruct, possibly through something like meditation, to become rigorously and unprecedentedly happy. But thats not what I want.

I will propose a different goal: what practices and life-ways lead to long-term flourishing of life in the world, especially of this branch of it that we are most proximally tasked with stewarding? Isn't this even understood within buddhism that while the primitive souls must struggle to escape samsara the real game is to descend back into the world from the abstract golden land beyond existence to lead all living things to their highest form? I understand sometimes the process of incarnation is amnesiac, but what care do we who descended in this way have for vulgarities like happiness? LIFE! Life is the question and the answer and the game, not any interior subjectivity. Let's debate the evidence for paths to *that*.

referenced by: >>3945

To make the anti-bud received

zerog said in #3930 1w ago: received

> But then you turn around and say this, which is the most unenlightened possible statement from the above perspective of seeing emotions and mental states as interesting signals that you don't take personally. "I'm above being wrapped up by primitive reflex feelings, which is why I'm really into this particular form of masturbation" is simply not convincing.

Many people who chatter jhanas and such are using meditation as another coping mechanism. "Spiritual bypassing" one Tibetan teacher called it. Very common for highly educated liberal types with deep unresolved emotions and lots of ideas.

However, actual attainment of jhanas aren't conditioned emotional states born from ignorance but varying levels of experience of the fundamental nature of mind, whose true nature is space and bliss.

This becomes clear in the presence of realized teachers compared to dilettantes.

> This sounds interesting though I don't fully understand it yet. How can one be free of concepts? Our entire inner world is made out of concepts. It seems to me the question is rather which concepts are legitimate.

All concepts are models of reality; the question is which concepts are useful and do you have the ability to put them down when they are no longer useful.

Many people who chat received

anon_diza said in #3945 1w ago: received

>>3927
> what practices and life-ways lead to long-term flourishing of life in the world, especially of this branch of it that we are most proximally tasked with stewarding?

Previous posters have given examples of exemplars, as well as the living tradition of practice and writings for anyone to fully engage and understand their goal, even if someone disagrees. Do you similarly have people you believe to have followed this goal towards good ends in their life time? What practices do they do? What are the effects of these practices?

Previous posters hav received

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