Metacognitive rift posited in silly story about Usha’s wedding ring

The Second Lady was ringless during her visit to Camp Lejeune military base in Richlands, North Carolina on Wednesday with First Lady Melania Trump.  

Photos show Usha, 39, getting off a plane with her left hand in full view – and the wedding band nowhere to be seen. 

Second Lady Usha Vance was seen traveling to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on Wednesday with her wedding finger noticeably bare 

Additional images from Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River confirm the ring remained off throughout the visit.

The Vice President, meanwhile, was photographed wearing his wedding band during a speaking event in Washington on Thursday.  

The image comes after weeks of nasty trolls whispering about the state of the Vance marriage, which began in October with the Vice President’s tight hug he gave to Erika Kirk during a memorial for her husband, the right wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The speculation about a possible rift between the Second Couple was fueled by the VP admitting that he has pleaded with his wife to convert from Hinduism: he is a Roman Catholic.

link

The Buddha is the world’s first still famous skeptic.

Pyrrho of Elis, a Greek philosopher in the 4th century BCE is the world’s first still famous Greek skeptic.

Pyrrho learned his skepticism from Buddhist monks in Bactria where Pyrrho stayed for ten years with Alexander the Great.

Skepticism in Buddhism can also be called ‘Buddhism without beliefs’.

The Buddha never answered questions about who and what we are, where we go or do not go after death, the existence of God and so on.

These, and more, are known as the ‘unanswerable questions‘.

‘Therefore, O monks, do not brood over [any of these views]. Such brooding, O monks, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine pure conduct (s. ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla), does not lead to aversion, detachment, extinction, nor to peace, to full comprehension, enlightenment and Nibbāna.^[17]

This means that the Buddha did not have a rigid, verbalizable view of human metacognition.

The story above is silly for obvious reasons.

But it is a culturally clickbait-worthy story because both Christians and most Hindus hold rigid metacognitive ‘beliefs’ about their religions.

From a Buddhist point of view, rigid metacognitive beliefs or ‘views’ are:

‘Accompanied by suffering, distress, despair, & fever, and do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening, Unbinding…

‘Whoever speculates about these things will go mad & experience vexation’.

In like manner so it is with all rigid meta-cognitive views on the self, our analyses of ourselves, our understanding of others, our political views, our scientific views, our religious and spiritual views.

In Buddhism, all metacognitive views should be open, pliable, moveable, viewed as impermanent, viewed with a healthy skepticism that allows us to focus on what is of greatest importance — the attainment of liberation through wholesome practice.

Buddhism must be experienced to be understood.

A battle between opposing metacognitive views, such as the one being implied in the story above, is a waste of Usha’s time, Vance’s time, and everyone’s time, except insofar as this example may help others understand the futility and unwholesomeness of being rigid in any metacognitive view about ultimate matters. ABN