/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23504425]

When I was a teenager, I had a Buddhism phase for 2-3 years. One day at the mall, it seemed to "click" and I believed Buddhism had solved all of humanity's problems. Unfortunately due to disagreements with many Buddhists and their dogma, I lost interest in the religion for many years.

But recently, I came back at this from another angle, and I think again Buddhism is probably correct. I'll probably explain this poorly, but I want to communicate my thoughts.

[Anonymous No.23504426]

To begin with, I believe the best analogy for the human brain is an extremely complex set of filters placed on consciousness itself, which is in turn an inherent property of the universe, similar to Schopenhauer's "Will". Every human genuinely does enter the world as a Lockean blank slate, and from here their reactions to external stimuli form tiny notches like grooves in a vinyl record. Over time these notches effectively seal into place and define what is considered their personality. You can attempt to change your mindset or actions as an adult, and therapy makes use of this, but generally this has a minute effect at large. Some mental illnesses are labeled "personality disorders", but I would argue the vast majority of them are actually "filter disorders" -- someone has a powerfully adverse reaction to some external stimulus, and a sort of scratch goes across the record that forms his perception. Something the current model of mental illness fails to account for is that most mental illnesses are technically psychotic, because they create literal distortion in how you perceive the world e.g. BPD and hysteric people see brighter colors while depressed people see desaturated colors. These are as much "perceptual disorders" as they are emotional.

Luckily, we have many ways of tinkering with these filters. Psychedelics, meditation, trance states, and lucid dreaming to name a few. You can experience direct regression to how you perceived the world 10+ years ago through these methods, and it's very easy. Think of it as editing the configuration of your brain. Typically any changes these tools cause to your experience are temporary, but with skillful use, you can make many of their effects permanent and ingrain them into your every day experience.

That is exactly what Buddhism figured out. If love is the greatest human emotion, and we can alter our experience of the world to take any perspective we like, making ourselves into beings of pure love is the obvious best answer. You can also fixate on the Jhanas and pure bliss if you like which many do, but it seems anybody who experiences that state of pure love realizes it's far and away the greatest experience possible. And they dedicate their entire life to obtaining it.

[Anonymous No.23504432]

If the "filter theory" still confuses you, this is a good explanation.

It's pretty well understood in both buddhist and neuroscience circles AFAIK

[Anonymous No.23504433]

There are some useful concepts for mental discipline in Buddhism buried underneath 1000s of years of a completely alien belief structure that is just as not real as any other religion.

[Anonymous No.23504437]

>>23504433
>mental discipline
I want you to think deeper than that, anon. I think this stuff can really help people.

For example: Have you ever heard of how psychosis/hallucinations in Western countries tend to be viewed as evil, while those in 3rd world countries are perceived as friendly, and typically benefit the lives of whoever has them? Doesn't that seem to indicate something very important about how our perception mingles with our reality?

Psychedelics (and meditation etc etc) can only act on what's there inside you. An amplifier for your psyche, it's in the name. The point is that you play an active role in constructing the reality you perceive on a daily basis. Your life is a constant set of feedback loops on a very fundamental level. And you have 99% control over how this thing operates.

[Anonymous No.23504447]

>>23504425
Ok but doesn't matter since even if you can reprogram your brain it's not going to happen by meditating. Since meditating is an unnatural act you have to have a desire or idea to do it, the idea of getting rid of suffering. But suffering itself is already only a delusion, so by meditating and therefore by holding the idea of suffering in your head, you are just perpetuating suffering further by believing that the idea is real. (Even if you are meditating on it and telling yourself that it is unreal, the fact that you think it is real enough that you need to convince yourself it isn't real just tells your brain that it is real).

The real problem is that the YOU don't exist when there is no situation to exist in. Concepts, ideas, words, and the "self" are all tools constructed to help us react to situations. But when there is no situation, you constantly internal monologue and think about the past and future as if there is a situation. Situations only occur in the past or in the future, NOW there is never any situation and hence there should be no self, no ideas, no concepts, or anything except your body. But you constantly project an "other" out into the world so that you can define yourself, whether this other is whoever your internal monologue is talking to or an idea (like dukkha) or a mantra against which you can define yourself. Meditating is probably the worst thing you can do, because there isn't actually any sangha or anyone there who is expecting you to meditate, you have to project them, as if someone is watching you to judge your posture and the quality of your mindfulness, because otherwise your self would evaporate and there would be no reason to put the effort required to meditate into it, as meditating is unnatural. So all meditation does is perpetuate the problem.

In fact, ANYTHING you do just perpetuates the problem. The problem only ends when it burns itself out and you stop asking. You could just stop asking NOW but instead you feel that the problem needs an answer so you will keep going until it burns itself out (or you will die before). You see you need to FORGET but you also cannot set up FORGETTING as an ideal. So either you just STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW or you go on for years and years forgetting everything until you finally forget forgetting (unintentionally, since it is impossible to forget forgetting intentionally as it's the same scenario with suffering where you are accepting the idea as real by trying to avoid it).

[Anonymous No.23504452]

>>23504426
Fear and spite are both far greater than "love". This is just another delusion, you will try to cultivate "love" for two weeks and then realize it doesn't exist. All phenomenal states are not the goal of buddhism.

[Anonymous No.23504453]

>>23504447
Your post is modeled after the traditional Buddhist layout of the path, which differs from mine considerably. I honestly don't find any value in that framework, it just seems to confuse people, and 2500 years later it's still making people run around in circles trying to logically decipher it.

Just read my posts and imagine it from that angle instead.

[Anonymous No.23504466]

>>23504453
Yeah, I figured you were just explaining how you reconcile buddhism with naive modernist physicalism inside your own little head so I didn't read your post. Now that I see you think "love" is the answer I realize you don't understand anything.

You "love" is a complete fake. Mahayana buddhist who sit in the mountains cultivating "compassion" are literally doing nothing, it's actually the most selfish way of living. They only convince themselves they are actually doing something because they have a metaphysical worldview where they will become a god after death and then will be able to actually help people rather than just taking their alms and meditating on compassion. Your "love" is just a mental state you want to cultivate in yourself and therefore completely selfish, nothing to actually do with other people.

As soon as a situation occurs where you will have to exercise real love, you will immediately realize all that time you spent meditating on compassion was totally pointless as YOU fundamentally are still a selfish entity and will instantly choose fear, spite, hate, disgust, etc over "love."

And besides, you will not even BEGIN to spend hours meditating on compassion, because this is all just an idea for you. The idea of "love" itself is something you are just using to perpetuate your self, and you don't even care about actually making contact with "love." Perhaps you will try it and experience compassion once, but once you are out of that state you will become disillusioned and not see the point of trying to get into it anymore, because the idea will have burned itself out and realities can never motivate us to do anything. You will not do anything but continue harping on this fictional idea of "love" in order to avoid disintegration.

[Anonymous No.23504477]

>>23504466
Mm, I never said I'm a Mahayana buddhist, and I don't entertain the notion of having any metaphysical or supernatural knowledge or pretensions to godhood. I see cultivating love as an end in itself, as the most enjoyable way to spend life.

[Anonymous No.23504484]

>>23504477
Right, again this has nothing do with helping anyone and as soon as practicing love is inconvenient you will revert to fear, hate, spite, and disgust. You just want to attain the permanent state of happiness that appears in all religions. The idea of attaining this state (which doesn't exist) is just something that is perpetuating suffering.

[Anonymous No.23504488]

>>23504484
What makes you think it doesn't exist?

There's plenty of evidence pointing in the direction that it does. Mental illness and psychedelics both seem to hint strongly that our cognitive filters or perception biases are extremely malleable and open to adjustment. Why would our brains be so open to dysfunction and impairment, but they are not open to working in the opposite direction?

Haven't you ever seen some men that are always jolly and immune to pessimism? If we cannot attain to a state of permanent love and peace, surely we could adjust ourselves that far, no?

[Anonymous No.23504500]

>>23504488
Yes there are men who are "always jolly" but you will not become like them through practice because as I said in setting up the idea of joy you are causing suffering. The people who are naturally joyous do not have joy as an idea, that is just how they are. You do not understand that what you are dealing with here is not joy but only the IDEA of joy. The conscious mind is extremely weak and always overpowered by the body, whatever your body thinks is best is what will happen. This means that you will give up on trying to cultivate joy because constantly trying to reach it is just straining the body. The point is that the effort to attain joy is contradictory to actually being joyful. You only ever have the idea of joy, and when you are trying to attain joy what you are really doing is perpetuating the idea of it, which would evaporate if joy were actually achieved and therefore will never achieve joy.

You probably will never realize any of this because I don't think you have the energy to actually try, all this will remain theoretical to you.

[Anonymous No.23504504]

>>23504500
I'm not sure what you mean. Personally, I've found substantial improvements to my life through meditation because it removes harmful mental filters and biases which I accidentally created in the past. People have achieved similar results through shrooms, LSD, etc.

Your logical framework doesn't seem important here because I have a counterexample which says your conclusion is probably wrong. I have gotten closer to joy through this exact method.

[Anonymous No.23504527]

https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=62070
>guy gets very deep into DMT, hypnosis, altered mind state exploration
>encounters entities
>believes they're planning to betray him
>they do betray him
>entities harass him both during his dreams and IRL
People later in the thread pointed it out, but this whole phenomenon was a manifestation of his psyche. He had a certain amount of innate fear and paranoia toward tripping and this produced a ricochet effect manifesting in a feedback loop where demons appeared to chase him.

This is the basic feedback loop of human experience. Everyone -- including 100% sober people -- are constantly in the middle of feedback loops like this, which will bring them closer to either heaven or hell, depending on how they are interacted with.

[Anonymous No.23504591]

Buddhism can be good or bad. Ego annihilation is dangerous. There is risk of malevolent entities attaching in rebirth states.

Meditation and philosophy is dry path. Slow and safe. Psychedelics and tantras are wet path. Fast and risky.

Love is indeed correct answer. Mahayana are wise in that. Esp if householder

I like yr thread, OP, thank you.

[Anonymous No.23504774]

>>23504425
>Unfortunately due to disagreements with many Buddhists and their dogma, I lost interest in the religion for many years.
Not being able to separate an idea, practice, or ideology from it's disparate adherence (as I think you perhaps should have done in this case) is a sign of unskillful application of mind.

>But recently, I came back at this from another angle, and I think again Buddhism is probably correct.
I think so too. Stay away from Mahayana though. It's mostly science fiction with buddha(s), bodhisattvas and gods and demons as characters imo.

Here'a sutta that's nice: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_59.html

[Anonymous No.23504792]

>>23504425
You're not a Buddhist just a materialist trying to extract something useful out of it. Samsara isn't real

[Anonymous No.23504856]

>>23504774
>Not being able to separate an idea, practice, or ideology from it's disparate adherence (as I think you perhaps should have done in this case) is a sign of unskillful application of mind.
But who am I to say that *I* have the correct understanding of the ancient teachers or prophets?

My epistemic bias is that I only know what I've seen firsthand (Seeing is believing). This is why I had to construct my own parallel framework to understand what Buddhism may be getting at. Otherwise you suffer from a sort of "entry bias" where the first teacher you discover is the one who sets the frame through which you view everything.

This is also why I wouldnt consider myself a Buddhist. You are not a Buddhist without kamma and rebirth and the Path as >>23504792 points out. I'm just allergic to dogma and if something cannot be proven through experience I just won't trust it. To me all sects of Buddhism feel like they have sci fi elements in there really but there's also bits of ancient wisdom as well.

[Anonymous No.23505060]

>>23504426
>You can also fixate on the Jhanas and pure bliss if you like which many do, but it seems anybody who experiences that state of pure love realizes it's far and away the greatest experience possible. And they dedicate their entire life to obtaining it.
the jhanas are the peak : best rapture and best equanimity

>>23504426
>To begin with, I believe the best analogy for the human brain
? what matters is the citta, the brain is irrlevant

>>23504432
for the picture, the practice of the jhana doesn't depend on where and when it is practice. it's the same today as i was 200 years ago and it will be the same in 1000 years. that's the whole point
and the jhanas factors are just what they are, there's no need for a brain interpretation of this stuff lol

what is missing from the guy's practice after he got all the luminous sutff and the pleasant stuff is what was missing to all the ascetics before the buddha: the insights.
People are not born with insights, which is what's required above all.

And Thich is a mahayanist so his understand of meditation is very poor and his understanding of buddhism is non existent.

And the deep non-rem sleep is irrelevant. Only the brahmins due to their lack of inclination to spirituality, and instead on venation to gods and their obsession over sanskrit and rituals, believe that what's to be known about consciousness is sleep, dream and awake lol.


And the jhanas are conditioned, so they happen when the condition for samadhi is met. This has nothing to do with the cortex or whatever. The buddha has always been clear about the condition for the arising of samadhi

"Thus, monks, ignorance is the supporting condition for kamma formations, kamma formations are the supporting condition for consciousness, consciousness is the supporting condition for mentality-materiality, mentality-materiality is the supporting condition for the sixfold sense base, the sixfold sense base is the supporting condition for contact, contact is the supporting condition for feeling, feeling is the supporting condition for craving, craving is the supporting condition for clinging, clinging is the supporting condition for existence, existence is the supporting condition for birth, birth is the supporting condition for suffering, suffering is the supporting condition for faith, faith is the supporting condition for joy, joy is the supporting condition for rapture, rapture is the supporting condition for tranquillity, tranquillity is the supporting condition for happiness, happiness is the supporting condition for concentration, concentration is the supporting condition for the knowledge and vision of things as they really are, the knowledge and vision of things as they really are is the supporting condition for disenchantment, disenchantment is the supporting condition for dispassion, dispassion is the supporting condition for emancipation, and emancipation is the supporting condition for the knowledge of the destruction (of the cankers).

[Anonymous No.23505112]

>>23504856
mediators are like the atheists who take drugs >>23504527 they deeply believe what they see is super duper important and can't stop themselves form plastering a story on whatever experience they had.

The whole point of the buddha is that what matters is what is experienced as gauged in terms of suffering. So when you experience ABC, you don't start building a story about ABC means some aliens is contacting me or God is talking to me. That's the worst that can happen.

When you experience ABC, you stick to facts and you say ''there was ABC"", then you trace you steps, ''before ABC there was XYZ"" , then you trace the step again and if suffering is alleviating in all this process then it's improvement on the quest to end suffering, so you keep cultivating those state until you reach perfect stillness forever no matter what it takes.

[Anonymous No.23505257]

>>23504856
>But who am I to say that *I* have the correct understanding of the ancient teachers or prophets?
The buddha said that a stream enterer is independent of a teacher, so you should focus on that by developing the factors for stream entry. That's what every buddhist should do.
So this stuff
https://ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Texts-and-Translations/Dhammatthavinicchaya/03-Stream-Enterer.htm

and there are plenty of secondary texts
https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2018/180410-factors-for-stream-entry.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/IntoTheStream/Section0004.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/into_the_stream.html

[Anonymous No.23505281]

>>23505060
This suffers the same issue I described here >>23504856

>And Thich is a mahayanist so his understand of meditation is very poor and his understanding of buddhism is non existent.
This is irrelevant to me. And to everyone else reading this. I stopped discussing things with so-called Buddhists for exactly this reason -- like most religious people, they borrow an entire system of beliefs and treat it as fact despite lacking evidence for it. By debating with them on these terms, you are either on that same framework in which case there's nothing to argue over, or you're on entirely different frameworks in which case mutual comprehension is impossible.

I am attempting to build an argument for (some of) Buddhism on a separate line of logic, based purely off what we can experience and deduce from experience ourselves.
>the jhanas are the peak : best rapture and best equanimity
Let me clarify. The jhanas are defined as the best experience overall, but they occur on the cushion. When I suggest that love is the ideal state, I mean in terms of daily operation. There are many practitioners who have cultivated a state of universal love, and this becomes their default in day to day living. Based purely off intuition, it seems this is the highest practical state mankind is capable of -- the best one we have real evidence of. Perhaps you have examples of someone in a stage beyond that, but all the so-called liberated people I've seen are basically at a stage like this. Many of them believe they're enlightened but personally I don't think so. Anyway, there are plenty of those people around. Plenty of stream enterers. Etc.

So yeah, if you have non-scriptural examples or proof in that direction I'd be very curious.

[Anonymous No.23505299]

>>23505281
You might want to check out the writings and videos of Nyanamoli. Hillside Hermitage on YT.

[Anonymous No.23505327]

>>23505112
>The whole point of the buddha is that what matters is what is experienced as gauged in terms of suffering. So when you experience ABC, you don't start building a story about ABC means some aliens is contacting me or God is talking to me. That's the worst that can happen.
Yeah, agreed. Pursuing patterns/aliens/entities/demons is idiotic and it doesn't really go anywhere. As that story & many like it demonstrates, you're just getting high off your own supply & entrenching yourself even deeper into more bullshit. Buddhists learned a very long time ago not to entertain any interactions with 'higher entities' etc.

>When you experience ABC, you stick to facts and you say ''there was ABC"", then you trace you steps, ''before ABC there was XYZ"" , then you trace the step again and if suffering is alleviating in all this process then it's improvement on the quest to end suffering, so you keep cultivating those state until you reach perfect stillness forever no matter what it takes.
Sure but there is something odd about that. Most revelations we receive early on are direct cause-and-effect mistakes we are making where often we're pulling the wool over our own eyes, and these tools help us realize the mistake. But at some point this style of revelation disappears, and a separate style of revelation occurs where the Four Noble Truths come in. Maybe someone more experienced can chime in, but it seems the knowledge/revelations alone are not enough to take you there. Something fundamental happens to your brain (apparently from meditation) which makes this knowledge seem to click in and reshape your world. And I'm trying to understand how that happens.

>>23505257
>>23505299
I'll look at these

[Anonymous No.23505369]

Also
>>23505060
Re: the cortex stuff. I've seen it stated elsewhere that the cortex is the normative part of the brain. From what I understand, most Buddhists realize this normative part of the brain exists and is responsible for naming, patterns, etc. and it can be tweaked or scaled down. But it does not seem this action has any significance to Buddhists beyond what you can accomplish with it. Hindus have apparently doing this for 5000 years, just meditating to get high basically. I don't believe it contains any spiritual significance in itself

[Anonymous No.23506387]

>>23504856
>But who am I to say that *I* have the correct understanding of the ancient teachers or prophets?
Slavish humility is unskillful (and really viscerally off-putting).

[Anonymous No.23507232]

>>23504425
Buddhism is false like all religions but it's the least false of all

[Anonymous No.23507297]

Vandanā, Meditation & Intro: Gratitude Meditation Retreat by Bhante Dr. G. Chandima (6-15, 2024)

https://youtu.be/bHUerIj4WdQ

[Anonymous No.23507674]

>>23504426
>Buddhist Romanticism (What westerners mistake Buddhism to be)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhistRomanticism/Section0005.html

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SublimeAttitudes/Section0003.html#sigil_toc_id_4

Misunderstanding # 1: Mettā means love or lovingkindness.
The Pali word for love is not mettā. It’s pema. As the Buddha points out, pema is partial by nature. When you love people, you tend to love anyone who treats them well, and to hate anyone who mistreats them. And there are cases where you love anyone who mistreats the people you hate (§1.1). For this reason,
>love is not a good basis for an attitude that is universally skillful toward all.

[Anonymous No.23507687]

>>23504425
>Intro to Buddhism (Suffering/stress[Dukkha] and the cessation/release of it [Nibbana])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Refuge/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section0000.html

>Meditation (To attain a pleasure removed from sensuality [jhana] & to gain insight into how stress/suffering arises so that one can be released from it [nibbana])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RightMindfulness/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MindfulBody/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MeditatorsTools/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html

>Kamma/Karma & Rebirth (Intents/Actions [skillful/unskillful] lead to certain results)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaQ&A/Section0009.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/TruthOfRebirth/Section0003.html

>The Four Noble Truths
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/FourNobleTruths/Section0003.html
1 - Dukkha (suffering/stress)
2 - the Origination [of dukkha] (craving)
3 - the Cessation [of dukkha] (nibbana)
4 - the Path [to the cessation of dukkha] (eightfold path)

>[1] Aging, Illness, Death (There is Suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Undaunted/Contents.html

>[2] Dependent Origination (The Origination of suffering [craving])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ShapeOfSuffering/Contents.html
1 - Ignorance (of the four noble truths)
2 - Fabrication (the process of intentionally shaping states of body and mind)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Discernment/Section0003.html
3 - Consciousness (at the six senses)
4 - Name-and-Form (mental and physical phenomena)
5 - Six Senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind)
6 - Contact (at the six senses)
7 - Feeling (based on contact at the six senses)
8 --- CRAVING (for sensuality, becoming, non-becoming)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Desires/Section0003.html
9 - Clinging (to sensuality, views, habits/practices, self)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BurdenOffMind/Section0003.html
10 - Becoming (on the level of sensuality, form, formlessness)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ParadoxOfBecoming/Section0005.html
11 - Birth (the assumption of an identity on any three levels of Becoming)
12 - Aging-and-Death (of that identity, with the suffering that it entails)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BeyondCoping/Contents.html

>[3] Nibbana/Nirvana (Unbinding — The Cessation of suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MindLikeFire/Section0007.html
>Stream-entry (1st stage of awakening)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/IntoTheStream/Contents.html

[Anonymous No.23507690]

>>23507687
>[4] The Noble Eightfold Path (The Path to the cessation of suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html
- Right View - Seeing experience in terms of the noble truths
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SkillInQuestions/Contents.html
- Right Resolve - Being resolved on abandoning thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harm
- Right Speech - Refraining from lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, idle chatter
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleConversation/Contents.html
- Right Action - Refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, recreational drugs
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Non-violence/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Merit/Contents.html
- Right Livelihood - Living in a way that minimizes harm to yourself and others
- Right Effort - Abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful qualities
- Right Mindfulness - Being aware and keeping skillful qualities in mind
- Right Concentration - Being secluded from sensuality and unskillful qualities which leads to a state of absorption [jhana]

>Ten Perfections (How to practice in daily life)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/TenPerfections/Section0004.html

>Brahmaviharas (goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SublimeAttitudes/Section0003.html

>Recognizing the Dhamma
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RecognizingTheDhamma/Contents.html

>The Wings to Awakening (The Buddha's Summary of his teachings)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Wings/Section0000.html

>Biography of the Buddha
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleWarrior/Section0003.html

------------

>just give me a few books
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ShapeOfSuffering/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

[Anonymous No.23507691]

>>23504426
>Every human genuinely does enter the world as a Lockean blank slate
Vague memories are transferred genetically between generations
Not to mention everything else that's known to be heritable

I like buddhism too but I take issue with this framing. I don't believe in blank slates

[Anonymous No.23507698]

>>23504426
I read the rest and don't disagree with most of it.
What I liked most about buddhism, was its emphasis on total, and simple, self control. Buddha framed life in a way where you really have no reason for thinking you can't intervene in your minds patterns at all times, to control your response to things. For anyone with an overactive mind, or with poor behavioral patterns, or both, it's an excellent and clarifying view of life.

[Anonymous No.23507701]

>>23505369
I look at meditation like the process of sleep. Dreams are sort of a "disk cleanup" operation your mind runs while in sleep mode. Meditation is like running a cleanup while you're awake.

[Anonymous No.23507703]

>>23504426
>Every human genuinely does enter the world as a Lockean blank slate

Not true according to Buddhism. We have past kamma.

4. How long do the results of kamma last?
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaQ&A/Section0004.html
This depends on the original action and on the actions surrounding it. Sometimes they last only for a moment, sometimes for a period in this lifetime, after which they end.
>Sometimes they last until the next lifetime, and other times—if they’re really strong—they can last for many lifetimes

[Anonymous No.23507714]

>>23507701
kinda related
https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2022/03/meditator-or-not-everyone-who-sleeps.html

[Anonymous No.23507743]

>>23507297
>>23507674
>>23507687
>>23507690
>>23507703
This isnt helping anyone

[Anonymous No.23507755]

>>23506387
>Slavish humility is unskillful (and really viscerally off-putting).
It's not humility, but intellectual rigor.

I would almost bet money that all of you offhandedly making comments like "Mahayana is not real Buddhism" have genuinely no basis in experience to make these claims. You're simply deferring to something else which is unverifiable, like some baseless claim on a website you read a long time ago. Buddhism is allegedly experiential, but people like you have turned it into dogma and ruined what should be a deeply beneficial, logical, and verifiable thing for everyone.

This is why I'm attempting to dig back up the experiential core of the religion. There is no Theravada, Mahayana, etc. for me. There's simply what we can see for ourselves and what we can't.

[Anonymous No.23507759]

>>23507755
>There is no Theravada, Mahayana, etc. for me. There's simply what we can see for ourselves and what we can't.
Sectarianism within something like Buddhism has always seemed like a Kafkaesque joke to me. It flies in the face of Buddhism itself. Even the name "buddhism" kind of goes against the spirit of Buddhism.
So I agree with you.

[Anonymous No.23507879]

>>23507743
It's helped many including myself.

[Anonymous No.23507883]

>>23507759
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhistRomanticism/Section0005.html

1) Of all the various sources of the Buddha’s teachings, the Pāli suttas—together with the Pāli Vinaya, or monastic rules—seem by far to be the closest record we have of the Buddha’s teachings.

1) No evidence contemporary with the Buddha contradicts anything found in the Pāli Canon.

2) Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna texts presuppose the teachings found in the Pāli Canon, but the Pāli Canon doesn’t presuppose the teachings found in them.

3) Where the Pāli Canon can be compared with fragments of other early canons, we find that many elements included in those other canons were often kept out of the Pāli Canon and placed instead in the commentaries that grew up around it. This suggests that the people who maintained the Pāli Canon, beginning at least at some point in time, tried to be scrupulous in drawing a clear line between what they had received from tradition and what was novel in their day and age.

So it seems reasonable to take the Pāli Canon as the best available primary source for learning what the Buddha taught.

[Anonymous No.23508088]

>>23504426
>Every human genuinely does enter the world as a Lockean blank slate, and from here their reactions to external stimuli form tiny notches like grooves in a vinyl record.
>what is evolutionary physoclogy
Stopped reading there since you obviously dont understand human nature.
factually wrong.

[Anonymous No.23508095]

>>23507690
These books look to be of great interest. Have you ordered them in print? It looks like he offers them for free. Reading deep material like this online is just too challenging for me.

[Anonymous No.23508229]

>>23507703
>>23508088
Was going to point this out as well... seems OP is very eager to have an opinion more than anything else. Marrying Buddhism to modern ideas is a 200 year-old discussion, and there's of lot of background you would need to do it convincingly. No branch of Buddhism teaches that birth is tabula rasa, that would be considered nonsensical because it would eliminate all notion of cause and effect or cyclical existence for beings to spontaneously occur for no reason without any conditioning. It would not even be true in a narrow sense of newborns not having consciousness, will, impulses, senses etc., since babies have instinctual behaviors they did not need to learn or be taught; a truly blank baby would ignore its mother and refuse to latch. In the Tattvasangraha and its commentary Kamalasila suggests that infant behavior is due to remembering of past lives, which is an orthodox opinion held by Buddhists on the issue for which modern science is yet to identify a chemical or physical explanation.

[Anonymous No.23508289]

>>23508229
The past lives are the references of the ancestors. It is how turtles return to their place of birth to lay eggs, salmon when spawning or cats' strong reactions to snake like objects. Genetic memory mapping.

[Anonymous No.23508351]

Yeah, it seems this wasnt worth making a thread for
People in general -- not just /lit/izens -- cannot take a theoretical framework and entertain it hypothetically for a little while, just to take it for a test drive and see if it holds up or explains anything
No, they can only adopt somebody else's framework & view wholesale and interpret everything through that lens. When the obvious and unavoidable issues arise from trying to reconcile ideas arrived at from a separate framework, they just take it as proof that everyone else is wrong rather than realizing it was their own fault for not considering it from a separate angle
There is nothing to communicate with you if you believe this is a Buddhist thread per se.

If you can only see everything through the lens of a single (1) ideology, why are you even on /lit/? Go on dharmatalks or something. Go to some buddhist forum. This is exactly why i stopped talking to buddhists

[Anonymous No.23508373]

>>23508351
>People in general -- not just /lit/izens -- cannot take a theoretical framework and entertain it hypothetically for a little while, just to take it for a test drive and see if it holds up or explains anything
Sure but OP's framework is as fragile as a cardhouse, where the slightest gust of logic makes it topple down tho. Im all for new metaphysics and takes but im not gonna entertain delusions

[Anonymous No.23508399]

>>23504425
Remember anon, all religions have truth and lie, gnosis and superstitions. Buddhism is, sadly like all religions, organized and when this happens those on top of the pyramid corrupt what the teachers, like Krishna, Gautama and Jesus, taught. Look for truth not just in the Dhammapada but also on the Zen texts, the Hindu Upanisads, the Gnostic Texts of Christianity, the Bible, Plato's works and others.
Don't focus on one gnosis, focus on all for God is in them all.
Good journey hope to find you there.

[Anonymous No.23508444]

>>23508373
Theories are a work in progress, they take time. You can disagree with the tabula rasa stuff and it doesnt make the whole thing topple down. If it appears that way to you, either you failed to understand it or something wasn't communicated properly.

either way it is obvious people want "thought systems" prepackaged so they can have something to believe in, rather than accepting nothing is air-tight and all human ideas are a work in progress. i am really fed up with it honestly. everyone in """""intellectual"""" circles is like this. nobody is exploring. you're just shopping for pre-made thought systems and thinkers to consume like shoppers at a walmart. one view is "right" and all others are "debunked". it's such a sad and reductive way to approach this. even if e.g. freud was 90% bullshit there are probably still things we can learn from him. it's that approach. no one can fucking accomplish that and it drives me nuts. I feel like I'm going insane with this stuff

[Anonymous No.23508446]

>>23508399
buddhism is not a religion
and the theory of the jew god is farcical

[Anonymous No.23508476]

>>23508399
>I don't need anyone to help me, it's all me, I can figure it out on my own, teachers are for the weak, blablabla

Let me guess, American?

[Anonymous No.23508617]

>>23508444
>Projecting
Also
>I feel like I'm going insane with this stuff
Stop and take a chill pill. If you understood the Truth you would realize it transcends words and everything written is just for a fun and pleasant exercise.

[Anonymous No.23508756]

>>23508095
I read the ebooks on a phone/tablet

[Anonymous No.23508760]

>>23508351
How much of Buddhism have you read?
How much have you practiced?

[Anonymous No.23510023]

>>23504426
I mean, it's pretty decent psycho/philosophical speculation, but you're implying that personality is completely "nurture" in a nature vs. nurture debate which can't be the case.

There's definitely wisdom in the idea that the more times an action is taken the more likely it is to be repeated.

[Anonymous No.23510029]

>>23508444
Sigh..anyone arguing that Freud's thought isn't fertile ground for further explanation and exploration obviously has some kind of emotional bias they are stuck on. Why is he so bothersome to some? Maybe because he was right.

[Anonymous No.23510036]

>>23510029
Psychology is a fake science