The Buddha bucket had a figure making the joint of the bucket handle. That figure was practising the meditation position. He sat on the lotus position (“Padmāsana”). His head flat. Eyes closed and facial expression sank. The decorations on the chests were in the yellow, red, and blue colours. It was the swastika illustrating the front of the Buddha’s cloak. The swastika in Buddism meant luck, good fortune, and blessing.
The Vikings must have met the Buddhists from other regions during their voyages or the newcomers came to Scandinavian countries to trade.
The link provides a reasonable overview of some of the salacious photos and people involved. The real heart of the Epstein files, however, is not the prurient stuff, but the recordings made for blackmail, the money laundering and Israel’s ever-present footprint all over everything. This is not to diminish the suffering of victims but to point out the deep reason they were victimized and recorded. Also of great importance is the total blackout of files before, during and after 9/11; this casts great suspicion on Israel and probably CIA. The Epstein file revelations, which deeply affect public opinion, are not a ‘distraction’ from the impending war with Iran or anything else. Rather, they expose the reason USA is constantly being led around by the nose by Jewish Supremists in Israel and USA. It does seem that in most societies historically and throughout the world, people who rise to the top are morally among the lowest of all sentient beings. ABN
A very small decision I make on many mornings is which coffee cup is going to be mine and which goes to my partner.
The two cups we normally use are the same and I cannot tell one from the other. If I thought one was better than the other, I would give it to her.
What happens is at some point while I take the cups from the cupboard and set them on the counter, I incline toward deciding that one of them will be for me and one for her. This “decision” is so small I describe it as “incline toward deciding.”
As I continue preparing morning coffee, my very small decision about which cup is mine spends more time in my mind. By the time I pour the coffee, I am generally always mildly set on which one is going to be mine for the morning and which hers.
My initial “inclining toward deciding” has changed into my being “mildly set on” which cup is mine. I might even feel a bit possessive toward “my” cup as I pour the coffee.
The main point is that once we make even a very weak decision or incline toward a weak decision it requires energy to change that.
Of course, I do not really care which cup I get and yet I have inclined toward one or decided on one of them. At some point in this process you have to do that.
If I try to change my decision once the coffee is poured and give “my” cup to my partner, I am aware of expending a bit of energy.
The energy required to change which cup is mine is greater than the energy required to decide which cup is mine. I only fell into my initial decision but must climb out of it if I want to change it.
I bet you do this or something like it, too. Just watch yourself and observe it happening. Once you see it, try changing to the other cup or whatever it is you have chosen.
It’s not hard to change your decision but it decidedly requires a little bit of energy. That may be some of the smallest mental energy you will ever exert, but you will have to exert it.
I find I feel a bit awkward when I change my initial decision. It seems my mind is already set at some lower level so the meta-level that changes that does not have the right networking or connections for the transition to be completely smooth. This is the opposite of the initial decision which seems to have required little or no energy. And has managed to grow bigger all on its own, outside of my awareness.
Notice also, if you are like me, you will happily give your partner the better cup if one of them is better. That decision, too, will require energy to change, maybe even more energy than if the cups are the same. This probably happens because if you change your decision to the better cup (for yourself), you will also feel a bit selfish in addition to the above considerations. This will happen even if your partner wants you to change cups.
So either way—changing between two cups that are the same or changing from the worse cup to the better one—you will need to expend a bit of energy, even though your initial decision probably required none at all.
Is consciousness a continuous flow of awareness without intervals or is it something that emerges continually at discrete points in a cascade of micro bits?
The Buddhist answer has always been the latter.
The Buddha’s five skandha explanation of perception and consciousness says that there are four discrete steps that are the basis of consciousness.
Thefive skandhas are form, sensation, perception, activity, consciousness. A form can arise in the mind or outside of the mind. This form gives rise to a sensation, which gives rise to perception, followed by activity (mental or physical), and lastly consciousness. In the Buddha’s explanation, the five skandhas occur one after the other, very rapidly. They are not a continuous stream but rather a series of discrete or discernible moments. A form arises or appears, then there is a sensation, then perception, then activity, then consciousness. (The five skandhas and modern science)
The first four skandhas are normally unconscious. Buddhist mindfulness and meditation training are importantly designed to help us become conscious of each of the five skandhas as they actually function in real-time.
The findings demonstrate that the amygdala can be influenced by even high-level facial information before that information is consciously perceived, suggesting that the amygdala’s processing of social cues in the absence of awareness may be more extensive than previously described. (emphasis added)
Some time ago, a new model of how consciousness arises was proposed. This model is being called a “two-stage” model, but it is based on research and conclusions derived from that research that support the Buddha’s five skandha explanation of consciousness.
The study abstract:
We experience the world as a seamless stream of percepts. However, intriguing illusions and recent experiments suggest that the world is not continuously translated into conscious perception. Instead, perception seems to operate in a discrete manner, just like movies appear continuous although they consist of discrete images. To explain how the temporal resolution of human vision can be fast compared to sluggish conscious perception, we propose a novel conceptual framework in which features of objects, such as their color, are quasi-continuously and unconsciously analyzed with high temporal resolution. Like other features, temporal features, such as duration, are coded as quantitative labels. When unconscious processing is “completed,” all features are simultaneously rendered conscious at discrete moments in time, sometimes even hundreds of milliseconds after stimuli were presented. (Time Slices: What Is the Duration of a Percept?) (emphasis added)
I support science going where the evidence leads and am not trying to shoehorn these findings into a Buddhist package. Nonetheless, that does sound a lot like a slimmed-down version of the five skandhas. Considering these and other recent findings in a Buddhist light may help science resolve more clearly what is actually happening in the brain/mind.
As for form-sensation-perception-activity-consciousness, you might suddenly think of your mother, or the history of China, or the spider that just climbed onto your shoulder.
In Buddhist terms, initially, each of those items is a form which leads to a sensation which leads to perception which leads to activity which leads to consciousness.
Obviously, the form of a spider on your shoulder differs from the form of the history of China. Yet both forms can be understood to produce positive, negative, or neutral sensations, after which we begin to perceive the form and then react to it with activity (either mental or physical or both) before becoming fully conscious of it.
In the case of the spider, the first four skandhas may happen so quickly, we will have reacted (activity) to it (the spider) before being conscious of what we are doing. The skandha of activity is deeply physical in this case, though once consciousness of the event arises our sense of what the first four skandhas were and are will change.
If we slapped the spider and think we killed it, our eyes will monitor it for movement. If it moves and we are sensitive in that way, we might shudder again and relive the minor panic that just occurred.
If we are sorry that we reacted without thinking and notice the spider is moving, we might feel relief that it is alive or sadness that it has been wounded.
In all cases, our consciousness of the original event, will constellate around the spider through monitoring it, our own reactions, and whatever else arises. Maybe our sudden movements brought someone else into the room.
The constellation of skandhas and angles of awareness can become very complex, but the skandhas will still operate in unique and/or feedback loops that can often be analyzed.
The word skandha means “aggregate” or “heap” indicating that the linear first-fifth explanation of how they operate is greatly simplified.
The above explanation of the spider can also be applied to the form skandhas of the history of China or your mother when they suddenly arise in your mind, or anything else.
We can also perceive the skandhas when our minds bring in new information from memory or wander. As we read, for example, it is normal for other forms to enter our minds from our memories. Some of these forms will enhance our reading and some of them will cause our minds to wander.
Either way, our consciousness is always slightly jumpy because it emerges continually at discrete points in a cascade of micro bits, be they called skandhas or something else.
The above explanation of consciousness is a good way to understand how and why FIMLpractice works so well. Ideally, the intention to make a FIML query will begin to arise at the sensation skandha or soon thereafter. A FIML query is based on wondering if the consciousness that has arisen from the form is correct or not.
This also shows why FIML does not presuppose theories on personality, mental illness, or psychotherapy. In this sense, FIML has no content; it is “just” a method, a way to rationally engage and analyze our minds as they function in real-time in the real-world. How you analyze the data you acquire is up to you and your partner.
…Three lone voices of sanity, Justices Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito, issued a blistering dissent, warning that this decision creates a “mess” of biblical proportions for the U.S. Treasury and leaves our national security vulnerable to foreign threats.
These justices called out the decision as a dangerous power grab by the judiciary, ignoring historical precedents and the clear intent of Congress to empower the President in times of emergency.
President Trump, shortly after reclaiming the White House in 2025, declared national emergencies over the “public health crisis” caused by illegal drugs pouring in from Canada, Mexico, and China, and the “hollowing out” of American manufacturing due to massive trade deficits.
Using IEEPA, a law passed in 1977 to give presidents tools to fight foreign threats, he slapped tariffs on imports: 25% on most Canadian and Mexican goods, 10% on Chinese products for the drug war, and at least 10% on ALL imports from trading partners to fix the trade imbalance.
Small businesses and deep-state allies sued, and today the Court sided with them, claiming IEEPA’s language to “regulate… importation” doesn’t include tariffs because it’s not “clear congressional authorization.”
This interpretation is the result of Jewish Supremacy’s infiltration of USA and the West. Its ‘intellectual’ basis is a made-up oldish text, purported to be ancient and originating from ‘God’. Its ‘spiritual’ basis is money and lust for power. Jewish Supremacy was born out of a centuries-long Jewish inferiority complex, which has lasted well into the modern era. Freud suffered from it and based his bogus theories on it. Claiming you are superior to the people who released you from your medieval conditions and taught you everything good you now know, is a diabolical psychological reversal which only a people steeped in self-delusion could manage or even conceive of. ABN
If interpersonal communication were anything else, we would demand much better accuracy.
Almost everything else used or made by humans is better: clocks, speedometers, carpentry, all engineering, all computers, Amazon customer service, shoe sizes, medical devices. You name it, almost everything we use or make conforms to standards far more exacting than psychologically rich interpersonal communication.
This is because until recently, we have not had a good way to measure or verify psychological richness in real-time real-world situations.
Think about that. Isn’t it amazing?
Our bank measures our balance to the penny. If we input a phone number correctly, we get the right phone.
But if you say something rich with psychological import, how can you be sure your partner understood you? Or if you believe they have just said something like that to you, how do you know what it was? How do you make sure?
Normally, we answer the above questions by guessing, figuring probabilities based on past experiences. That’s like using an odometer and a watch in place of a speedometer; we can get a general view based on averages from where we think we have been, but often entirely miss the scenery where we are.
FIMLprovides a method to calibrate, verify, and correct psychologically rich interpersonal communication in real-time real-world situations. Don’t do important relationships without it.
American Buddhist Net 