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LuckyCat posted:I am curious if anyone has experience "coming out" to a family of evangelical Christians? I'm spending a week in a rented vacation house with my mom's side of the family and at this stage of my life, I don't feel like hiding. I'm not expecting anyone to be mad at me but I know at least one person will make side comments about Jesus is the only way. This same woman got snarky with me once when I accidentally brought up the beauty of human evolution at a pool party. If you don’t feel like hiding, then you will answer honestly when pressed on the matter. If you answer honestly when pressed on the matter, then people will react accordingly. It comes down to a dice roll of whether they react negatively or not. It sounds like you will inevitably roll those dice, so I would focus on managing fallout and your options - standing your ground, shrugging, and going to grab another slice of pizza; or planning a bug-out. But don’t fight. It’s not worth it, and you should feel free to dismiss or disengage if you and they are incompatible in any way. Sometimes you leave people behind. It is not hiding, it is life. It’s unavoidable. IMO: drive your own car and be ready to leave. Cephas posted:I know this is a recurring topic for me, but can I ask for perspectives on what it means to love someone and be in a relationship with them? Picking this back up cause I’ve had the exact same disconnect but followed a different path. Is the problem here not the state you are in, but the desire to be in a particular state? This is something that has always escaped me about Buddhist thought. Suffering would be minimized if the cause of clinging/dissatisfaction/incongruity, the grasping elicited by the phenomena rather than the phenomena itself, were eliminated. As in, if not having it makes you feel bad, then just stop wanting it. Clearly it isn’t as simple as that or we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. It’s not easy (or maybe even impossible) for humans to just edit themselves like that. What is to be done or considered, then? There’s the path, sure, but is that even what the path is for? Or am I even making sense thinking about it in terms of letting go of the wanting? And that’s a question for whatever school of thought is interested in answering. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Jul 28, 2022 |
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Jul 28, 2022 01:33
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mystery solved 
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Jul 28, 2022 04:29
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for fucks sake posted:On the other hand loving-kindness practice is kind of similar to "thoughts and prayers", but the acknowledged intention there is to develop compassion within yourself, rather than deluding yourself into thinking it alone actually makes a difference. This kinda highlights the point that no matter how much you try, there’s only so much you can actually do about others. You aren’t their keeper, they have to figure things out for themselves. To think otherwise would be to lie to yourself and possibly to others. The people on the world who want to hurt me and people like me have to figure out compassion and giving a poo poo about other people on their own. I do hope at some point they do. In the meantime, I have my views on what constitutes minimizing suffering. I can work on that later. Belated disclaimer: I’m not Buddhist. I’m not anything. At most, in this particular context I’ve been influenced by Taoism and the writings of Laozi (and also the whole raised catholic thing but that’s something I’m working on dumping off baggage from). I assume the two traditions have informed each other along the way.
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Jul 28, 2022 14:06
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That reminds me, I was wondering if the thread could tolerate a somewhat relevant braindump. I’ve always loved music. Been like that ever since I was a kid playing Super Mario 64 and Bomberman Hero. There’s many pieces that have had an emotional effect on me in that time, and it’s always been closer to me than many, many things (except maybe my cat). Recently, I’ve developed a want to make my own music. I’m not sure if it’s in hopes of - making music to reach the heights of the music I love, - making music to prove that I too can be like the people I admire, - making music to prove that I exist and matter, or - making music to enjoy and listen to and love like the other music in my life. Probably all of it. It’s not easy. My confidence is low and grasping/aversion (to use relevant terminology) is high. My thoughts often boil down to “why am I bothering”, “does this have a point”, “am I struggling simply for the sake of struggling”, “is this worth the headache”, “why do I feel so sad and ashamed and embarrassed”, etc. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my choice is between making music and continually living the disconnect between where I am and where I want to be, or not making music and keeping that disconnect in the back of my head. I independently came to the conclusion that this sucks and gently caress it - I want to take a third option and kill that want. I want to make music without the goddamn baggage. To just do, without the humanistic sensory tank overload that comes with anything we do. Those who embody this may or may not be the “admirable” or “noble” ones, whatever that means, but they do seem content. There is a concept of action through inaction, a flow that dispenses with the why of doing and simply does. I believe that may be the end to the disparity. It will not be easy, and I don’t know what it takes to get there. But is all this not in itself a want? Is it possible that I both need to kill the want to reach a certain state (“make music good”), and a want to enact a certain behavior (“make music”)? What is the difference between a want that effects doubt and disparity, and a want that is a part of an inherent nature? Which should exist, and which should not? Is that even the right question? My instinctual response is that I’m overthinking it, probably. Edit: oh yeah. I invite any and all comments and thoughts on the matter. It helps to get input. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jul 28, 2022 |
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Jul 28, 2022 15:06
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I enjoy the process quite a bit when I am free of the expectations, emotional baggage, and ingrained conceptions that lead to the disparity and doubt we’re all familiar with. I enjoy it quite a bit less when I am not free of the aforementioned. Sounds like making music is worth it. Sounds like ending the suffering that plagues not just me but clearly many other people who make music is also worth it. Next move is to do that.
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Jul 28, 2022 16:28
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It’s totally possible for an “overly corrupt” world to hinder the possibility of enlightenment. If nothing is an uncompounded phenomena, then everything is a phenomena compounded with everything. Therefore, everything else informs your existence. If enough of everything else is considered corrupt, it can be said to inform your existence in a corrupt manner to a certain degree. So it’s not hard to imagine such a case where the degree is high. Way I see it? Take as many baths as you want, you’ll still smell awful in the morning if you sleep in a pigsty. My guess is that that’s why there’s so much thought about how individuals relate to society and whatever responsibilities or duties they may have to it. Kind of like your conscience telling you to clean your room.
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Jul 28, 2022 18:13
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LuckyCat posted:The Great Way is paved for those who have no preferences*. -3rd Chinese Patriarch of Zen quote:Heaven is long, Earth enduring. Long and enduring because they do not exist for themselves. Therefore the Sage steps back, but is always in front; stays outside, but is always within. Not exactly the tradition that belongs in this thread, but a relevant and evocative school of thought anyway. (Like I said, though, this is all easier said than done. But there are options.)
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Jul 28, 2022 19:10
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Blendy posted:I wanted to add one of my favorite Buddist anecdotes about the nature of compassion in Buddism that always made me laugh. A Buddhist monk and a young child who is a ward of the temple are out for a walk. It's a long walk and eventually, the child has to urinate. So the child starts to leave the road to go behind a tree. The monk asks the child, "what are you doing?' and the child replies 'I am going to pee, I need to pee.' The monk gets upset and tells the child 'You can not pee on that tree, the tree has Buddha's nature you cannot foul it.' The child obeys and they continue their walk. The child then spots a stream and begins to dash off to pee in it. The monk again stops the child, explaining the stream also has the Buddha's nature so he can not foul the stream. So again they begin their walk until the child spots a mound of rocks and again dashes off clearly in pain. Again the monk stops and scolds him explaining that the rocks, and the grass, the dirt, and all of nature have the Buddha's nature and cannot be spoiled. So the child walks over and pees on the monk. I’m working through Walking an Uncommon Path and this is no longer funny. It is now hilarious.
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Jul 28, 2022 23:01
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Sometimes I wish the ego just wasn’t a thing. When the world is not about me and I can simply step back and observe, those are the times that life is actually pretty cool. Still full of the same fascinating things, still full of the same hosed-up poo poo, but the latter doesn’t cut as deeply. Like looking at an ant farm. It’s rare and I’ve never been able to put a name to it, but it’s a refuge of sorts, so I take it when I can get it. Not necessarily the best way to live, depending on your values. But merely observing has never done harm, right? Hell, I think things started going wrong in life when I had to be a person and act in the world instead of just be a passive observer. Worst part is, I’m the one that made me be a person, by starting to doubt and criticize myself 
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jul 29, 2022 |
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Jul 29, 2022 14:12
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Sounds like it’s not really about “I”, in the end and in a big enough scope. I’ll think on that.
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Jul 30, 2022 16:44
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So I would like to continue learning lessons from the truths and the path and applying them in a practical manner. I’ve been reading the book linked in the OP and I can see why it’s good, but not necessarily recommended for newbies. In which case, what is an appropriate “starting point”? The path does not strike me as linear, there are about as many teachings and advisors as there are people on the planet, and a few of the precepts already match up with contemporary western society (don’t kill, lie, or cheat). I can watch YouTube lectures and read Wikipedia articles all day, and I certainly learn a lot from them, but that isn’t necessarily the same as right speech, right action, right effort, right livelihood, and right mindfulness. These are qualities I would like to improve in myself, and I would like to find out how. Nessus posted:The nuance I have taken on board from conversations is that the issue isn't "I would like to do a thing that I'm good and skillful at." That's natural. It's okay to like or dislike things, but it's a question of becoming attached to those likes or dislikes. Is it attachment if you want to be good and skillful at something? That implies a desire to reach a certain state. Which as far as I can tell is not wrong in and of itself…the problem would be stressing over it and whether it works out or not. Does that make any sense? Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Aug 9, 2022 |
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Aug 9, 2022 17:53
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It’s true that thoughts are impermanent, and their presence comes about not by their immediate existence but by their recurrence and pattern of arousal, but would a change in long term patterns of the same not also be impermanence?
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Sep 4, 2022 17:44
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Who knows. Maybe we never will. And that has to be fine too.
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Sep 5, 2022 16:52
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I’m sitting by a pool, reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s primer on the teachings. We’re covering the twelve turnings right now, and mindfulness is part of the focus as well. There was another couple from the hotel trying to get into the pool area, but they were having trouble opening the gate. When I saw this, I felt the typical pit in my stomach whenever I see someone struggling with a gate or door. Something about that pit in my stomach spurred me to get up from my chair, walk over to the gate, and open it for them. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and thank-yous, and I returned to my seat. Since I am learning about the turnings right now, I am considering that event in light of them. The following events take place within the span of about 8 to 10 seconds in total, and in a very short span of time mentally/neurologically. First, suffering exists. I recognized two things that can be called suffering: the obvious disparity between the couple wishing to pass the gate and the gate’s difficulty, and my own internal unease via the pit in my stomach. The two sources of suffering were quickly understood, in that the couple wanted to be on the other side and that I felt uneasy (for whatever reason). As such, encouragement and realization of suffering followed naturally and almost unconsciously. I am unsure of whether the pit in my stomach or the sight of the struggling couple was the biggest source of encouragement, or drive. Next, suffering has a cause. I recognized that something about the current situation was giving rise to these sufferings, and through previous experience and cultivated habits, I was almost subconsciously driven to analyze the situation and figure out what it was. Through that action and insight, I determined that the couple couldn’t pass the gate because the handle lock mechanism was sticky and required some force. To a less clear degree, I also determined that I had a pit in my stomach because I did not want the couple to struggle with the gate. Either way, the causes of suffering were understood. These are the turnings I understand the least. Then came the turnings of the end of suffering: “suffering can end”, “suffering should be ended”, “suffering is ended”. Because suffering has a cause, suffering must have an end, or a resolution. In that way, well-being is and can be achieved. In this case, the couple can in fact pass through the gate - as I did - and I can in fact be free from the unease. I also recognize that it brings me joy and peace to do this, and is a source of well-being. Almost without words, I told myself that these sufferings can and should be ended - I don’t know how or why, it came from somewhere I do not understand. Regardless, suffering was ended by realizing “I should get up and open the gate for them”, and thus doing so. Finally, we come to the fact that there must be a way to bring about the end of suffering, and this one’s interesting. I’m not 100% sure about this part. As shown in the book, the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth turnings are recognition that “there is a noble path that leads to well-being”, encouragement that “this noble path has to be lived”, and realization that “this noble path is being lived”. Have these turnings occurred for me? If so, how? My suffering of internal unease is more readily tackled here. I recognize, continually, that there is a way of getting rid of the pit in my stomach by opening doors and gates for those struggling with them; I understand and encourage myself to address my unease by opening the doors; most obviously, I realize feeling better by having a near-unconscious habit and instinct to help people through doors and gates they struggle with. Do you suppose that counts as the last three turnings…? The couple’s suffering of getting through the gate is less clear when spoken of in terms of walking a noble path. How do recognition, encouragement, and realization work here? It is distinct from my own suffering in that it dwells in the world, in reality, and derives from the dynamic and interaction between two or more people. My best guess is that our society ingraining a cooperative nature in us to see someone struggling with a door and to help them is a sort of “macro” noble path, a path walked not by an individual but by an entire society. At this point, I am writing conjecture - I don’t understand it as well as I understand what happens in myself. (And that must be fine too!) This is good poo poo. I’m enjoying the book. I may need to read it multiple times for it to really sink in, though.
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Sep 12, 2022 17:45
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Interesting. Work’s never done, is it? Got to the chapter on the path and I’ve already got capital-q Questions.
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Sep 14, 2022 02:48
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Still working through The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings. This is one of those books that I can get through relatively easily but might take me a lifetime to understand. Oh well. I’ll do what I can.
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Oct 23, 2022 15:48
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corn haver posted:
the only way out is through  https://youtu.be/tl4SsaOJlAc
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Oct 24, 2022 19:23
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:What did the Enlightened One say about non- fungible tokens depicting alcoholic monks? lol
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Oct 28, 2022 02:20
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Herstory Begins Now posted:tbh it's very on brand with very old chan to wonder if some infamously corrupt, incompetent, piece of poo poo official has buddha nature and to make provocative statements one way or another I have yet to fully understand what Buddha nature is, but how does recognizing its presence in someone change things? What meaning does possessing the nature have, and how does it change how we think of that subject?
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Oct 28, 2022 19:46
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quote:Buddha nature Sounds to me like everyone just kinda wants to be okay. Either way, the way I see it, having Buddha nature makes you worthy of compassion but not of unquestioning acquiescence and infinite deference. — Continuing to read. quote:“Dear Buddha, are you a living being?” We want the Buddha to confirm the notion we have of him. But he looks at us, smiles, and says, “A human being is not a human being. That is why we can say that he is a human being.” These are the dialectics of the Diamond Sutra. “A is not A. That is why it is truly A.” A flower is not a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements — sunshine, clouds, time, space, earth, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe.  I think I have a very basic inkling of what is being spoken of here, but it’s hard to put into words. There is something important about the relationship between what we identify as individual entities and the holistic universe. They are connected in some fashion, and that connection binds(???) them(???). It’s like water flowing between two tanks connected by a pipe - it’s all the same water. I think. quote:If we return any one of these non-flower elements to its source, there will be no flower. “To its source” still escapes me. I’ll have to mull it over. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 14:18
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What does “empty” mean? Sorry for all the questions. Being wrong is how I learn.
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Nov 3, 2022 16:19
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Paramemetic posted:Emptiness is form, and form is, you guessed it, emptiness! Fair enough I will understand eventually.More people have posted since - I’ll read through your posts too! — Allow me to bounce some thoughts off of you all. I am reading The Art of Communication, and in both that and the Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, it speaks of food and nourishment. About how thoughts and statements are also a form of food, how food can both heal and poison us, and how we consume the food we produce as well as the food we receive. I recognize this, I’m no stranger to self-defeating thoughts and insecurity. I also recognize that I consume the insecurity and doubt I produce directed toward myself, and that it leads to a reinforcing feedback loop that keeps that poison alive. The solution seems obvious - stop eating the poison. In the specific case of insecurity and doubt, stop unquestioningly accepting thoughts that you are inferior, that you do not make something of value, and that you do not have the capacity to grow and learn. Awareness is one thing, but I’m still unsure of how to actively apply this practice. When I think “I don’t know what I’m doing when I try and make music”, that is accompanied by silent insecurity and doubt. Mindfulness leads me to recognize that insecurity and doubt as poisonous food. Therefore, I need to not ingest those parts of the thought - but how? My initial guess is to change the thought, maybe? When I hear it, reject it and replace it with healing food. “I don’t know what I’m doing when I try and make music, and that does not mean making music is pointless, that I am unable to learn how and get better at it, or that what I make does not hold any value”. But that’s subject to doubt. I’ve been consuming that poison for so long that it can be hard to accept the antidote. i.e., believe myself when I say that. I haven’t figured out what to do next yet. Surely I’m not the only person who looks to this for help with anxiety and other cognitive illnesses. Maybe I just need to sit with my feelings longer?
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Nov 3, 2022 17:33
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Paramemetic posted:A chair cannot exist without being composed of legs and a seat, absent any of those things no chair exists anywhere. But legs of a chair only exist insomuch as there is a chair - absent a chair, there can be no chair legs. Thus, "chair" is empty, no chair can be found, but likewise, "chair legs" are empty, as no chair legs can be found. It's only through interdependent coarising that anything exists, and thus, because all things depend on all other things, nothing has a permanent, absolute, real nature. It is all empty, in that it is devoid of essence. This reminds me of how in some programming languages, what is defined as a (let’s say) Chair very specifically refers to a collection of data. Meaning that a Chair is a composite existence made of many components: code:code:code:I do not yet understand how or if this relates to empty as we discuss here, but it is a touchstone I recognize.
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Nov 3, 2022 17:59
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Paramemetic posted:So if you consider that the chair is the assemblage of those component parts, and then say you define those components as (parts of a chair), you're getting close. The chair doesn't exist without the parts, the parts don't exist without the chair. They all only exist in dependence on the others. Because they only exist when together, it doesn't exist inherently, which is the crux of the matter. It doesn't assert that nothing exists, that would be nihilism. Instead it's that nothing has inherent, essential, "true" existence. Everything flows, basically. But yeah I definitely get why this is a rabbit hole. I’m interested in so much as I wish to Be Okay, and as part of everything else understanding this is a step on that path. Still, I can’t get lost in it. One of the reasons I look to all this is because ultimately, I want understanding. I want to know how do I work, why do I think certain things, how do I get better at what I do, how do I stop feeling so bad, all that. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to come at this with those goals in mind, but hey, I’ve never said no to learning and thinking. Maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for, maybe not. Might as well keep going.
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Nov 3, 2022 18:19
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Yeah my first interpretation of empty was “mutable”, or “variable”. If something is empty it can hold something, anything, so it could refer to anything and just sorta doesn’t mean anything in its own except what is assigned to it. The word “empty” is also empty. (Obviously influenced by a mixture of computer programming and Laozi, the latter of which I’m more familiar with than Buddhist lit.) I don’t think I like the word empty to describe what we’re talking about here, but I am not confident in any alternatives. Beowulfs_Ghost posted:And Buddhist notions of emptiness should leave you with a feeling of vertigo. You are up in a tree, sawing off the branch you are sitting on. The bodhisattvas do this without fear, because they know there is no ground to hit. It's emptiness all the way down. So just enjoy floating around in free fall. Haven’t exactly gotten the full force of it, but I’ve peered over the edge a number of times before. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 4, 2022 14:29
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I suppose I also have another relatively uninformed question. What is the difference between nonself and emptiness?
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Nov 4, 2022 18:44
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A worldly question. I’ve got some blank walls. I wanna fill them up with some art and messages and stuff. Something I wanna do is regularly remind myself of then core concepts: the Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Five Remembrances, the Turnings of the Wheel, etc. Things to make this stick in my mind, since my brain takes well to repetition and consistent exposure and reflection. So, I wanna hang these chants/mantras/verses on my walls. And other important things to reflect on! Any recommendations? Any out-of-the-box items I can get?
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Nov 8, 2022 16:36
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Nessus posted:It's difficult to say what would be good but there's definitely a range of stuff, even if you want to pick through some of the bullshido. Are you involved in a particular branch? Do you have a particular teaching or sutra that's important to you? I mean there's a ton of stuff just looking on Amazon, even if you may want to make sure you're getting actual money to actual Buddhists and poo poo. Just the basics. I’m not part of any branch. Theravada is the best matching school of thought for me. I have yet to find specific sutras I am attached to, the Heart sutra is a good one though. There are basic teachings and concepts I need to internalize and continually remind myself of. The wheel, the truths, the remembrances, views and practices that we’re recommended to learn. Consistent visibility is the basis of familiarity. I forget the parts of the eightfold path and the remembrances, and prolly a lot more. Ways to remember helps. Also my walls are bare and that’s sad and I wanna fill them with stuff important to me. This is part of that.
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Nov 8, 2022 20:41
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Paramemetic posted:Things that jump to mind I’m a big fan of the bhavachakra’s mnemonic nature (also it slaps). I am spoiled for choice on it too! Ultimately, the philosophy is my main focus as opposed to the theology. I’m most interested in art and diagrams that serve as explanations and reminders of theory and practice. The dharma wheel is a great visual metaphor, but it looks like it was never used to communicate the eightfold path in art to the extent that the cycle of rebirth was. Maybe I should just get used to trying to remember all the practices whenever I see it. I had hoped to avoid sticking text all over my walls Pepe Silvia style, but maybe it’s just that what I’m looking for is best communicated through text. Heart sutra’s not a bad idea, and I might make my own display of the remembrances cuz I have an idea. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Nov 9, 2022 |
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Nov 9, 2022 00:40
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Those aren’t very appealing or well-designed, unfortunately.
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Nov 10, 2022 13:17
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Makes my head hurt. A mandala as a way to summarize and communicate practices and concepts is not a bad idea. I just don’t understand this all well enough to translate it into an accurate geometric diagram. I can try tho, since I don’t have to be perfect and it’ll all change anyway.
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Nov 10, 2022 16:16
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Yeah the wall art thing is low priority compared to theory and praxis.
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Nov 10, 2022 23:22
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My understanding of Theravada is that it’s the currently extant school most closely related to the original philosophy and teachings of the historical Buddha. As someone interested in Being Okay, I wanted to start with the very basics without having to yet think about ancillary or advanced discourse, discrepancies in thoughts and views, and rhetorical or theological baggage accumulated over centuries. The very core of the teachings, as it were. I often see Theravada referred to as one of the more conservative schools, in contrast to Mahayana. I don’t actually understand what this means. Why is Theravada considered conservative and Mahayana not, and how does that meaningfully impact readers and questioners?
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Nov 21, 2022 16:09
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Sounds like one of the biggest points of contention is monasticism. Meaning whether you have to be a monk to achieve enlightenment and escape samsara. I’m not equipped to comment on that. I’m just gonna do what I can. —- Still working through Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. It’s slow progress cuz the material is genuinely heavy and impactful, and it’s tiring to try and comprehend it all. I can rip through a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel in a matter of a couple days, but I get almost mentally winded by one chapter of TNH. Like woof. Spose it’s better than not feeling anything at all.
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Nov 21, 2022 18:16
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It’s not just a Buddhist thing, and it’s a notable legendary weapon, so maybe he found it through some video game or other.
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Nov 29, 2022 20:25
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So I’ve worked my way through the grand majority of The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Based on what I’ve read I’ve tried to put together a personal (but constantly updating!) framework through which to view the world, as a lens. 84k paths ‘n all. I’m writing it down here basically as a way to promote its presence in my mind as well as bounce it off of others, because I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot already. This all isn’t correct or incorrect, it’s just a current interpretation. Lemme see if I get this straight: — Things change. This is what the word “impermanence” hints at. Nothing stays the same forever. Pick any thing (aka “phenomena”) and you’ll see: rocks erode, magnetic tapes lose their charge, old exes are forgotten, kingdoms rise and fall, we get hungry, stars run out of hydrogen, the Big Crunch subsumes us all. Relatedly: because something doesn’t stay the same forever, that something exists. If our hunger never went away no matter how much we ate, it wouldn’t be hunger as we know it. It would just be a feeling that sticks around and doesn’t change anything regardless of what you do about it, so it wouldn’t actually matter. It’s because hunger can go away and come back that hunger is a thing. Things are composite. This is part of what the words “nonself” and “emptiness” hint at. Nothing is an atom, not really. Everything is made up of something. I don’t just mean literally - I‘m talking about basic cause and effect. A chair is made up of the wood it’s carved from, the carpenter that put it together, and the job that gave you the money to buy it. Your love for your cat is made up of the time you spent with him, the chance meeting at the shelter, and the effort and sacrifices you made in taking care of him. Take any of those pieces away and you no longer have the original thing. The reverse is also true. Everything is part of something. Pretty much by default, too - if you can conceive of something, that something is a component of your conception of it. Kind of a bullshit answer, but it’s not wrong as far as I can tell. Things are also recursively composite. The components of a thing also have their own components. A carpenter’s effort that went into making a chair is composed of the carpenter’s expertise and good health, the rapport between the furniture company and the carpenter as its employee, and the maintenance of the machines used to cut the lumber. Pick anything and you can follow such a chain of composition. I can’t find anything that can’t be broken down like this. Which means… Things affect each other. This is what the word “interbeing” hints at. Everything is a part of the same big ol’ system that is our reality. And because everything is both composite and a component, if you follow a chain of composition long enough, you can draw a line between any two things. The nature and magnitude of that relationship varies - I won’t have much of an effect on world peace by picking water instead of coffee - but that connection still exists by virtue of two things being in the same reality. Things are self-defining. This is part of what the words “nonself” and “emptiness” hint at. This one’s almost impossible to put in any words other than “things are self-defining”, honestly. It might otherwise be better explained with a history lesson. TL;DR old Vedic religions used to talk about how everyone and everything has a “true self” that it can be compared to, and there’s always some distance between a thing’s current existence and what it’s meant to be or what it’s headed towards. A delta between “is” and “ought to be”. Buddhism rejects this and says no, there’s no such thing as a true self for anything and in any capacity. There’s nothing to compare yourself to and nothing to become. There’s no real chair as opposed to just a piece of furniture with a raised surface supported by legs, commonly used to seat a single person, that is bullshit. There is no true Scotsman. You are what you are, that’s it. If you know Plato, this is basically a rejection of the platonic ideal. (Here’s my original attempt at putting this into words, if you’re curious.) The only thing you can really say for sure about any specific thing is that it is that thing itself. Every other assertion is subject to stupid amounts of unending and circular debate. What something is, is what something is. More specifically: nothing stays the same, and everything is infinitely and recursively composed - so there’s no individual component that makes a thibg a thing. What makes a thing a thing is that specific composition of components, i.e. the thing itself. I think the best way to think of this that I can think of is in terms of game development. This is gonna be a bit long and kinda dumb, so sorry in advance. There is a concept called Entity Component System, where everything in a game - NPCs, save files, map geometry - is a bunch of loose bags of data (“Components”) tied together with a unique number (“Entity”) acted upon by chunks of logic and forces (“Systems”). The key observation here is that there are no identifying values that the engine didn’t assign itself. Even a unique number is just a number like 309645828790904429385804096412530086114, and that number is only an Entity because the engineer considers it an Entity. A Player could have 309645828790904429385804096412530086114 HP, so it’s obviously not the number itself that defines an entity. A thing as we know it isn’t the unique number, either - swap the unique numbers of two Entity-Component bags and your protagonist is now walking furniture romancing a dragon, neither of which are subject to the laws of physics. Clearly, they are not the “same thing” anymore, despite still having the same two unique identifiers. Point is that if you change anything about the loosely-tied bundle of Components and So what makes a thing a thing isn’t the Components, and what makes a thing a thing isn’t the Entity. It’s the correlation between Entity and Components that makes a thing a thing. And that’s only from the player’s perspective - the console doesn’t know or give a poo poo. So like, it’s all just your opinion, man. — This is stuff I intuitively get but I don’t really know what it all means. Like sure, I kinda get the whole “the self is just an arbitrary delta over time and you’re eating what used to be dirt and clouds at one point“ thing, but how does that affect me in the context of my own life? I suppose that’s why the practices and poo poo exist, to provide a material way to explore and start to understand these concepts. The heady poo poo is not really the level I’m working on right now, anyway. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 6, 2022 |
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Dec 6, 2022 16:53
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Makes sense.
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Dec 6, 2022 17:11
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Caufman posted:Have you had a chance to read/listen to the Heart Sutra? I’ve been working through TNH’s newest translation of the Heart Sutra, yeah. I feel like I have a vague recollection or identification of what it’s talking about in non-words, but I have yet to internalize it. Who knows if or when I will. It’s good so far, and I’m learning a lot. quote:If the heady level is not what you're working on, may I ask what is it that you're working on? Praxis. From what I understand, there’s a way to Be Okay, so that means there’s a mental and psychological refactoring to help make living life less of a shitshow. I’m hoping to learn how to do that.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:53
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Wanted to bounce some thoughts off the thread, if it doesn’t mind me bringing my troubles here. My cat passed away a few weeks ago, and my feelings about it are a jumbled mess. The grieving process takes time and effort, and everyone goes through it differently, I know - but there’s still a lot of doubt and a lot I don’t understand. Reason I bring it up here is that I’m having trouble adjusting. Reeling from the loss of a close friend has left me a sort of “emptiness”, or a void left by their presence. I had a decade-long companion that I gave love and affection to and (hopefully) received back tenfold every day, and now I suddenly don’t. That’s a major mental, physical, psychological, and emotional shift in a short amount of time. So you can probably guess what going cold turkey is like, and how that’s going. What exactly is happening here, when it comes to my wellbeing? Is this emptiness because of some ignorance or attachment I neglected to address? Are my thoughts and actions inherently clouded until this passes or resolves? And if so, what do I do now? What has this loss caused, and how has it changed how I feel and think? (Is it even a loss at all, or am I just deluded or mistaken?) Basically: I don’t know how or where to start. I really want to put what I’ve learned to use here, but it’s a tough battle to cut my teeth on. There’s all sorts of books I can read and dharma talks I could listen to and think I’m helping myself, but I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while now. I’m running out of the energy and arrogance needed to think that I can do everything myself without any help. I’m not sure I even really understand what’s going on… I would appreciate any advice and guidance you can share!
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Jan 25, 2024 18:52
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I’m…not really sure what I expected. I figured that I felt bad or frustrated or anxious because I was holding onto something I shouldn’t have, or not accepting something I needed to. I got caught up in the idea of trying to fit everything into a suffering-shaped box. But this:Heath posted:You have asked, "I have lost a dear friend; why am I clouded and empty?" Instead answer, "Why am I clouded and empty? Because I have lost a dear friend." Really puts it into perspective. Unsurprisingly, there’s still a lot of confusion and mistaken assumptions I’m making. Maybe I should give my books and talks another look, try to really understand them instead of just repeating their ideas. I got a lot left to learn yet, I suppose. Thanks, guys. This helps a lot. (Not sarcasm!) 
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Jan 27, 2024 03:09
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