Very unpopular opinions

[Salvijus]

3 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Why are they not seeing reality if we have established they are both mindful? 

 

Not mindful of their own conditioning tho. That's the main difference. A human being has a potential to become aware of their own conditioning through the practice of meditation and that enables them to see reality without these filters/conditionings. 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[snowymountains]

4 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Why are they not seeing reality if we have established they are both mindful? 

Because the gazelle is not a Buddhist 😂

[Maddie]

44 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

In my (admittedly limited) experience, hard-core traditional Buddhist teachers are very clear that Buddhism isn´t therapy.  It´s the Buddhist hobbyists that push that equivalence.

 

I initially approached Buddhism as therapy partially because I could not afford therapy, and in retrospect probably because I had come out of a cult that thought spirituality was the only therapy that was needed. This is not a good way to think. 

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

 

Not mindful of their own conditioning tho. That's the main difference. A human being has a potential to become aware of their own conditioning through the practice of meditation and that enables them to see reality without these filters/conditionings. 

 

Do you not understand how hypothetical thought experiments work? 

[Salvijus]

1 minute ago, Maddie said:

 

Do you not understand how hypothetical thought experiments work? 

 

Mmm. What do you mean? What was wrong with my answer? 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[Maddie]

Just now, Salvijus said:

 

Mmm. What do you mean? 

 

Never mind lol

[Salvijus]

I mean what was wrong with my answer? I answered your question why animals don't see reality as it is even if we have established that they are mindful. What more do you want. 

Edited June 15 by Salvijus

[Maddie]

Just now, Salvijus said:

I mean what was wrong with my answer? I answered your question why animals don't see realistas it is even if we have established that they are mindful. What more do you want. 

 

You're completely missing the point. It's ok don't worry about it. 

[Salvijus]

Just now, Maddie said:

 

You're completely missing the point. It's ok don't worry about it. 

 

Just because my answers fly over your head, doesn't mean they missed the point. 

[Maddie]

Just now, Salvijus said:

 

Just because my answers fly over your head, doesn't mean they missed the point. 

 

Maybe one day I will ascend to your level of comprehension :-) 

[Salvijus]

Just now, Maddie said:

 

Maybe one day I will ascend to your level of comprehension :-) 

 

Cool

[snowymountains]

19 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I initially approached Buddhism as therapy partially because I could not afford therapy, and in retrospect probably because I had come out of a cult that thought spirituality was the only therapy that was needed. This is not a good way to think. 

 

This is common.

 

Many of these meditation practices are actually great ( some are dangerous ) and it's great to have a spiritual practice and spiritual goals.

 

Entering Jhanas is not a therapeutic goal nor is experiencing the various stages of insight ( first levels make therapy more effective though ) nor are spiritual experiences ( though it's important not to confuse these with symptoms and psychoeducation can help a lot here ).

 

All these are out of scope for therapy and it's wonderful to work on these things.

 

Imo the line is crossed for techniques on so-called negative emotions, interpreting and acting on bodily sensations, behavioural adjustments, cognitive restructurings etc, therapy/counselling is the right place for these. And when someone faces a crisis, again, therapy/counselling.

 

Each to their own.

 

Psychoeducation is also very important, the problem with statements like "without an ego one sees the truth" is that this statement ignores that the only known condition under which there is no organised ego ( in the psychodynamic sense ) is ... psychosis, so likely unknowingly these statements are actually horrible advice. So ego-psychology too is better explored in therapy/counselling.

[Maddie]

4 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

This is common.

 

Many of these meditation practices are actually great ( some are dangerous ) and it's great to have a spiritual practice and spiritual goals.

 

Entering Jhanas is not a therapeutic goal nor is experiencing the various stages of insight ( first levels make therapy more effective though ) nor are spiritual experiences ( though it's important not to confuse these with symptoms and psychoeducation can help a lot here ).

 

All these are out of scope for therapy and it's wonderful to work on these things.

 

Imo the line is crossed for techniques on so-called negative emotions, interpreting and acting on bodily sensations, behavioural adjustments, cognitive restructurings etc, therapy/counselling is the right place for these. And when someone faces a crisis, again, therapy/counselling.

 

Each to their own.

 

Psychoeducation is also very important, the problem with statements like "without an ego one sees the truth" is that this statement ignores that the only known condition under which there is no organised ego ( in the psychodynamic sense ) is ... psychosis, so likely unknowingly these statements are actually horrible advice. So ego-psychology too is better explored in therapy/counselling.

 

I think its also important to differentiate theory and practice. While the Buddha did supposedly say that ultimate peace come from transcending the ego, he also said to not just take his word for things on face value but rather  to see if the things he said are actually true.

 

I have never seen anyone that I know of that has completely transcended ego. That being the case I can't be completely sure that in reality this is even actually possible. Maybe the Buddha had a "shoot for the stars and maybe at least you'll hit the moon" type of approach, but I don't think it is reasonable to put 100% confidence in something if we are not even sure if it is obtainable. I'd rather have the humble cottage that I do have than chase the mirage of a mansion potentially forever. 

[snowymountains]

Just now, Maddie said:

 

I think its also important to differentiate theory and practice. While the Buddha did supposedly say that ultimate peace come from transcending the ego, he also said to not just take his word for things on face value but rather  to see if the things he said are actually true.

 

I have never seen anyone that I know of that has completely transcended ego. That being the case I can't be completely sure that in reality this is even actually possible. Maybe the Buddha had a "shoot for the stars and maybe at least you'll hit the moon" type of approach, but I don't think it is reasonable to put 100% confidence in something if we are not even sure if it is obtainable. I'd rather have the humble cottage that I do have than chase the mirage of a mansion potentially forever. 

 

Transcending the ego needs a definition, eg why isn't empathy transcending the ego?

Empathy doesn't mean that someone doesn't have a self or ego ( the terminology becomes a bit of salad because each theory of personality structure uses a different term for this and have slightly different definitions )

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

 

I don't believe you can even ordain as a monk if you have mental health problems. I think this is one of the questions they ask you to see if you qualify. 

“I wish to enter the temple, master.’

”Are you mad!?!”

”No master.”

”Then you must walk the earth.”

Five years later.

”Master May I enter now, the world has driven me mad.”

”No fuck off grasshopper!”

 

Sometimes you just can’t win.

[Maddie]

Just now, snowymountains said:

 

Transcending the ego needs a definition, eg why isn't empathy transcending the ego?

Empathy doesn't mean that someone doesn't have a self or ego ( the terminology becomes a bit of salad because each theory of personality structure uses a different term for this and have slightly different definitions )

 

I believe that the technical term from a Buddhist point of view would be to realize that none of the five aggregates are the self. 

[snowymountains]

5 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I believe that the technical term from a Buddhist point of view would be to realize that none of the five aggregates are the self. 

 

Yes but they also rely on the existence of past lives to account for differences in level of talent/skill ( eg if there's no self in thoughts, why did only Bohr envision quantum mechanics).

These are not explained away by insight and they put them under the carpet via past lives.

 

The task at hand is actually to bring the talents of the organism into consciousness and align the self/ego with these. Doing otherwise will damage the person and at a very minimum they'll experience existential anxiety.

Edited June 15 by snowymountains

[Apech]

5 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

Yes but they also rely on the existence of past lives to account for differences in level of talent/skill ( eg if there's no self in thoughts, why did only Bohr envision quantum mechanics).

These are not explained away by insight and they put them under the carpet via past lives.

 

The task at hand is actually to bring the talents of the organism into consciousness and align the self/ego with these. Doing otherwise will damage the person and at a very minimum they'll experience existential anxiety.

And why did Max plank?

[snowymountains]

6 minutes ago, Apech said:

And why did Max plank?

 

He didn't, he worked on black body radiation which was an important step, a prerequisite. The first model of quantum mechanics was by Bohr and Bohr only.

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, snowymountains said:

 

He didn't, he worked on black body radiation which was an important step, a prerequisite. The first model of quantum mechanics was by Bohr and Bohr only.

 

When he gave a lecture one could say it was very Bohr-ing 🤭

Edited June 15 by Maddie

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

 

When he gave a lecture one could say it was very Bohr-ing 🤭

 

But Schrodinger was a hum dinger.

[Maddie]

2 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

But Schrodinger was a hum dinger.

 

Wait are you THE cat?!  Simultaneously dead and alive?

Edited June 15 by Maddie

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, Salvijus said:

 

Mindfulness is the means to truth in other words. But not the only means. 
 

 

 

 

Gautama said that the mindfulness he recommended was his way of living, when he was “as yet the bodhisattva” (before his enlightenment).  He identified the same mindfulness as “the Tathagatha’s way of living” (his way of living after enlightenment).  Such a mindfulness was, he said, something “peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too” (Pali Text Society SN V p 285).

 

Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice.  I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern.  Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism.

 

(A Way of Living)

 

 

Edited June 15 by Mark Foote

[liminal_luke]

I coulda been a famous physicist but when I was supposed to plank I plonked.

Edited June 15 by liminal_luke

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

What you are describing is mindfulness. You said that mindfulness was the means to the end, not the end. You said the end was "the truth". You keep telling me what the means to the truth is, and not what the truth is. 

 

I'm asking about the destination (which you claim to know), not the vehicle. 
 

 

 

The means:

 

…And again, Ananda, [an individual], not attending to the perception of the plane of no-thing, not attending to the perception of the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, attends to the solitude of mind that is signless. [Their] mind is satisfied with, pleased with, set on and freed in the concentration of mind that is signless. [They] comprehends thus, ‘This concentration of mind that is signless is effected and thought out. But whatever is effected and thought out, that is impermanent, it is liable to stopping.’ When [the individual] knows this thus, sees this thus, [their] mind is freed from the canker of sense-pleasures and [their] mind is freed from the canker of becoming and [their] mind is freed from the canker of ignorance. In freedom is the knowledge that [one] is freed and [one] comprehends: “Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the (holy)-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more of being such or so’. [They] comprehend thus: “The disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of sense-pleasures do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of becoming do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of ignorance do not exist here. And there is only this degree of disturbance, that is to say the six sensory fields that, conditioned by life, are grounded on this body itself. [One] regards that which is not there as empty of it. But in regard to what remains [one] comprehends:  'That being, this is.' Thus, Ananda, this comes to be for [such a one] s true, not mistaken, utterly purified and incomparably highest realisation of emptiness.

 

("Lesser Discourse on Emptiness", Culasunnatasutta, Pali Text Society MN III 121 vol III p 151-2)

 

 

The truth:
 

When [one] has seen a material shape through the eye, [one] does not feel attraction for agreeable material shapes, [one] does not feel repugnance for disagreeable material shapes; and (one] dwells with mindfulness aroused as to the body… [One] who has thus got rid of compliance and antipathy, whatever feeling [that person] feels-pleasant or painful or neither painful nor pleasant [one] does not delight in that feeling, does not welcome it or persist in cleaving to it. From not delighting in that feeling … , from not welcoming it, from not persisting in cleaving to it, whatever was delight in those feelings is stopped. From the stopping of [one’s] delight is the stopping of grasping; from the stopping of grasping is the stopping of becoming; from the stopping of becoming is the stopping of birth; from the stopping of birth, old age and dying, grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation and despair are stopped. Such is the stopping of this entire mass of anguish [similarly for sound/the ear, scent/the nose, savor/the tongue, touch/the body, mental object/the mind].

 

(Pali Text Society MN Vol I p 323-324)

 

 

Here the stopping of one condition is the stopping of all subsequent conditions, including the condition of anguish.

The first condition in the chain above is delight in a feeling. Elsewhere in the Sutta, “feeling” appears as the sixth condition of a larger chain; the enlarged set is referred to as “conditioned genesis” (Pali Text Society MN III 63-64, Vol III p 107), or “the causal law” (Pali Text Society SN II 2, Vol II p 2):

 

Conditioned by ignorance activities come to pass; conditioned by activities consciousness, conditioned by consciousness name-and-shape, conditioned by name-and-shape sense, conditioned by sense contact, conditioned by contact feeling, conditioned by feeling craving, conditioned by craving grasping, conditioned by grasping becoming, conditioned by becoming birth, conditioned by birth old-age-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, despair come to pass. Such is the uprising of this entire mass of ill.

 

(Pali Text Society SN II 2, Vol II p 2)

 

 

(Making Sense of the Pali Canon:  the Wheel of the Sayings)

 

 

"The activities" are the habitual or volitive actions of speech, deed, or thought.  "birth, old-age-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair" Gautama referred to as "in short, the five groups of grasping."

 

 

Edited June 15 by Mark Foote