Category: Buddhism

The Diamond Sutra section 6: The Rarity of True Belief

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Section Six of the Diamond Sutra has been added. A link to the sutra can be found at the top of this page.

This section starts with Subhuti’s direct question: “World-honored One, can sentient beings, upon hearing these words, really be expected to believe them?”

In his answer, the Buddha emphasizes morality and goodness: “Even after I have been gone for five hundred years there will still be people who are moral and who cultivate goodness.”

Morality or “goodness” (without modern semiotic baggage) is the foundation of the “three trainings” which are essential to attaining enlightenment. The three trainings are morality, meditation, and wisdom.

Morality is the foundation because only when we are behaving morally and have a clear conscience can we meditate properly. Meditation can also be understood as concentration or mindfulness. An impure or immoral mind is confused and distracted by lies and harmful behaviors. The Buddha emphasizes this point when he says just below the line quoted above that “…if someone has so much as a single pure moment of belief concerning this teaching… they will be intimately known and seen by the Tathagata.”

Buddhist teachings often stress the importance of “belief,” “faith,” or simply having “confidence” in the Dharma. Belief alone or blind faith is not what is called for. But having enough belief or faith in the teachings to pursue them and continue learning from them is.

If you enroll in a school to learn some skill, it is important to believe that the school will teach you that skill and it is important to have faith in your teachers and confidence in the course material. It is also very helpful if you really want to learn that skill. It is in this sense, that “belief” and “faith” are stressed. In different times and places, this sort of faith or confidence will manifest in different ways. In some cultures, a scientific “coolness” will seem right. In others, reverence and warm acceptance will seem better.

“…if someone has so much as a single pure moment of belief concerning this teaching… they will be intimately known and seen by the Tathagata.”

To be “intimately known and seen by the Tathagata” is to awaken the Buddha mind in yourself, to sense your Buddha nature.

The Buddha then says: “And what is the reason that these sentient beings will attain so much infinite goodness? These sentient beings will not return to the laksana of self, the laksana of human beings, the laksana of sentient beings, the laksana of souls, the laksana of laws, or the laksana of non-laws.”

Laksana means “mental dharma” or “mental thing.” It is often translated as mark or characteristic. Readers of this site might appreciate that laksana are quite similar to semiotics. Semiotics are communicative signs that operate in the mind both internally (when alone) and externally (when communicating with others). If we do good deeds while dwelling on the semiotics of our selves, our actions are less pure than if we have no semiotics that reify the inauthentic “self.”

In section three of the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha said: “Subhuti, if a bodhisattva has laksana of self, laksana of human beings, laksana of sentient beings, or laksana of a soul, then he is not a bodhisattva.”

In this section, the Buddha says that the goodness attained by “a single pure moment of belief” will keep a sentient being “from returning to the laksana of self…” The purity and clarity of insight will be great enough to turn the sentient being away from confused and false semiotics toward enlightened Buddhahood.

The Buddha adds “laksana of laws, or the laksana of non-laws” to his statements on laksana. In this case, “laws” means the Buddha’s basic teachings on the five skandhas, the eighteen realms, the twelve nidanas, and so forth. “Non-laws” mean his teachings on emptiness.

To be clear as a bell, the Buddha repeats his point saying that a Bodhisattva “…must not cling to laws or non-laws, and this is why I have often said to you monks that even my teachings should be understood to be like a raft; if even the Dharma must be let go of, then how much more must everything else be let go of?”

We can see that the Buddha is not asking for belief alone or blind faith, but rather clear comprehension that the enlightened mind cannot be found among laksana/semiotics. At the same time, he also recognizes that laksana/semiotics are necessary at many stages of our development. This is what the raft metaphor means—you use a raft to cross a river, then you leave the raft and keep going. Similarly, you use laksana/semiotics/ideas/concepts/beliefs/confidence to get you further along and then you leave these “mental things” once they have served their purpose.

first posted NOVEMBER 22, 2014

The Diamond Sutra section 5: Seeing the Truth That Lies Beneath Perception

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The fifth section of the Diamond Sutra has been added. A link to the sutra can be found at the top of this page or here.

In this section, the Buddha continues his discussion of laksana (marks, characteristics) by asking, “Subhuti, what do you say, can you see the Tathagata in his bodily laksana?”

In this context, Tathagata means an “enlightened Buddha,” with an emphasis on enlightened. This question could reasonably be interpreted to mean, “…can you perceive the enlightened state of a Buddha through mundane (bodily) characteristics or marks?”

Subhuti answers, “No.” He then explains himself by negating “bodily laksana,” which are essentially delusive and thus not profoundly real.

The Buddha confirms his answer and emphasizes its import by saying, “All laksana are delusive. If you can see that all laksana are not laksana, then you will see the Tathagata.”

Thus, enlightenment and the generosity and wisdom upon which it is based or of which it is a manifestation cannot be perceived by mundane (bodily) laksana. In fact, the Buddha says, to become enlightened you must be able to see that “all laksana are delusive.”

A common interpretation of this section is that that the word laksana refers to the thirty-two marks of a Buddha. Since these thirty-two marks are discussed later in the sutra, it probably makes more sense to interpret them straightforwardly as “bodily laksana,” indicating mundane perception of the enlightened state.

The thirty-two marks or signs are also know as the thirty-two marks of a great man.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry on the thirty-two marks says the twenty-ninth mark is “Eyes dark brown or deep blue.” A few other pages I checked on Google claim the eyes are are “clear” and the pupils dark. Traditionally, this laksana has been translated as “blue” or “very blue.”

The Dhammawiki page linked above has this:

He has very blue eyes (Pali: abhi nila netto). Note 1: “very (abhi) blue (nila) eyes (netto)” is the literal translation. Nila is the word used to describe a sapphire and the color of the sea, but also the color of a rain cloud. It also defines the color of the Hindu God Krishna. Note 2: “His lashes are like a cow’s; his eyes are blue./ Those who know such things declare/ ‘A child which such fine eyes/ will be one who’s looked upon with joy./ If a layman, thus he’ll be/ Pleasing to the sight of all./ If ascetic he becomes,/ Then loved as healer of folk’s woes.'” (Lakkhana Sutta)

In Chinese, the Buddha’s eyes are described as “blue” or “jade-like.” Some years ago, I had a discussion with a very capable Pali translator on this point. He wanted to know what I thought (as someone who knows the Chinese) about describing the Buddha’s eyes as “clear.” I said I did not think that that was what the Chinese was saying and that, furthermore, that would be a strange meaning for ancient Chinese, as “clear eyes” is not the kind of thing they would have written. He agreed with what I said, and being an intelligent man, was amused by the whole controversy.

Whatever the case, I suppose it’s inevitable that PC sensibilities will enter even the history of Buddhism. It does seem likely that the Buddha, who is frequently referred to as an “Aryan,” was born into an actual Aryan family. We know he spoke an Indo-European language (Magahi) and that he could easily have had blue eyes. Alexander the Great had blue eyes as did many other people in those days.

A major interpretation of the thirty-two marks is that they are mystical and only an enlightened being can see them anyway. They are not a very important part of Buddhism. As the Diamond Sutra itself says, “All laksana are delusive.”

Still, it is fascinating to observe how people react to imagining a blue-eyed Buddha. In my experience, most Westerners who have not studied much Buddhism, imagine the Buddha to have looked Chinese. Some imagine he looked Indian. Just as Christ gained blond hair and blue eyes in some European portrayals of him, so possibly, a blond-haired blue-eyed Buddha gradually morphed into having a Chinese visage in the northern tradition and a darker Indian one in the southern tradition.

first posted OCTOBER 1, 2014

Karma is ignorance

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A Buddha has no karma because there is no ignorance.

Karma is the “work” ignorance does, the effects it generates in the mind-stream.

Karma disappears the moment it is fully understood; that is, the moment the ignorance underlying it is ended.

Some ignorance comes from people around us, our communities, how they define us. If this sort of ignorance is figured out, its karma disappears, the effects disappear. This is why people who have suffered serious psychological trauma and/or profoundly unjust social recrimination sometimes end up saying they are better off for all of it.

This caught my eye this morning:

…I feel that as Western societies we generally tend to label and marginalise mental illness instead of seeing it as a rather normal reaction to extreme and abnormal circumstances,” said Selen Atasoy, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Brain and Cognition at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

“This, in my opinion, makes the recovery of a patient from trauma even more difficult, as this perspective of the society may further deepen the ‘dissociation’ – the withdrawal of the person, who experienced the traumatic event, from that painful experience.” (LSD produces a new type of ‘harmonic’ order in the brain, according to neuroimaging study)

Ignorance is less a moral factor in consciousness and much more a functional one. Good morals—that is, proper spiritual methods—lead us out of ignorance, but ignorance itself is by definition blameless.

The societal ignorance described in the above quotation is a crude response, the reasoning of a crowd. If you remove it, some other crudity will take its place.

Buddhism, as do most of the world’s spiritual traditions, honors reclusion, getting away from the crowd, going into the mind-stream unburdened by communal ignorance.

To get anywhere with karma, you have to be an individual and directly face individual realities.

first posted FEBRUARY 28, 2018

A deep philosophical flaw of the West is the root cause of our downfall

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The West has failed to analyze and understand metalevels of interpersonal communication. Our philosophies employ metalevel concepts and vocabularies but have never delved into or properly understood metalevels of interpersonal communication.

This failure to properly understand metalevels of interpersonal communication has very large downstream effects. It has retarded our religious understanding and psychologies, our group formation, our understanding of other groups, and our ability to form profound interpersonal relationships.

The basis of this claim is that when interpersonal language is deeply restricted—as ours is by this massive hole in Western philosophy—all other forms of language use are negatively affected. When metalevels of interpersonal communication are limited, so is almost everything else.

I believe our philosophers never went there for the same reason no one elsewhere has either—analysis of interpersonal metacognitive language and thought goes against a primitive human instinct to not question others too closely, especially in real-time and about usage and meaning.

The few areas of Western endeavor that have not been hobbled in this way are science, technology, and to some extent economics and politics. This is because these areas by definition must deal with metalevel concepts and thus are very capable of understanding and manipulating them, but only in their own self-described contexts. They are successful because they are practically engaged with the real-world.

In contrast, Western religions, psychologies, group formations, and intergroup communication are so severely hobbled by limited metacognitive understanding, they are all but forced to use rigid definitions of what their metacognitive levels are. Thus Western psychologies are theoretical, religions are dogmatic, group formations are formal at best or ideologically tribal, indicating the need to enforce metacognitive language and concepts rather than analyze or discuss them.

Wittgenstein came close to understanding the problem but did not provide a solution or seem to see that there is one. I hope readers of this site understand that FIML is both the solution to this problem and the best way to personally experience and come to grips with how very serious it is. ABN

How we perceive and what to do about it

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Human perception is massively based on human memory, expectations, and schemas already formed and present in the brain.

A recent study on visual perception came to this conclusion:

Altogether, these results show that many neurons in the medial temporal lobe signal the subjects’ perceptual decisions rather than the visual features of the stimulus. (Source)

This study is about visual perception and it focuses on neurons in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, but it’s conclusions have been discovered in many other studies—that is, we very often perceive what we already know or expect to perceive visually, aurally, verbally, semiotically.

Humans are capable of seeing new things and forming new conclusions and perceptions, but our default brain state is that most of the time we react to what we already think we know, consciously or unconsciously.

And how could it be otherwise? We could not function if we had to reassemble every pixel in a photo or our visual field every time we looked at anything. Same for sounds, sentences, concepts, and semiotics in general. If we are unable to quickly generalize and categorize something as something we already know about, we will find ourselves utterly lost in a maze of astounding complexity every second of our lives.

We cannot live without that default state, but when we use it during interpersonal communication we frequently run the risk of applying an erroneous “perceptual decision” about what someone is saying or about how we think they have heard us.

If you make erroneous perceptual decisions at a normal pace, which can be several times per hour, you will almost certainly begin to build up bigger and bigger wrong perceptions of the person you are doing it to. If that person is a spouse or close friend, you will have problems.

How do we usually deal with or work around problems of that type?

  1. We ignore them.
  2. We spend time away from the person.
  3. We get mad openly or seethe quietly.
  4. We resort to the simple generalities of basic friendship—shared activities, safe topics, declarations of loyalty or friendship.
  5. We believe or hope that mistakes will average out and not matter much.

In order:

1) If we ignore problems that arise from erroneous “perceptual decisions,” we are merely pushing them aside where they will continue to fester. Some people are truly able to completely ignore or forget, but do you really want to do that to your memory? And what replaces what you have forgotten? Isn’t it just another false “perceptual decision?”

2) This works to dilute feeling and perception, but not to improve or upgrade it. In most cases, this is a losing strategy with close friends.

3) Getting mad is better than most responses if you have the tools to fix the problem. Seething silently is a horrible way to go, though unfortunately a very common one. The worst of all is “not getting mad but getting even.” People who do this with friends are universally idiots.

4) Sad way to go but probably the most common halfway-decent thing people do. This describes most friendships and marriages. They become  sort of lifeless card games that go on and on because no one knows what else to do. And the longer they go on, the less likely there will be change.

5) I think this is an unrealistic belief because false perceptions can go off at many different angles. They don’t cancel out. At best, this belief may produce an outcome similar to item four above.

There is a way to handle these problems and that way is FIML. With practice, FIML partners will find that they have no festering false perceptions about each other and that they have not been forced to compromise the integrity and complexity of their relationship by resorting to any of the above strategies.

If you read about morality in books and essays, it is all usually very philosophical. What is it? What are the foundations of it? How does fairness contribute? Is it emotional? Cognitive? Non-cognitive? Etc.

But how do you do it? Not how do you do it in the big sense of politics or global warming or philosophy, but how do you do it with just one other person? Can you do that? Have you ever done that? Can you conduct a complex and moral relationship with even one other person?

I don’t mean just sex, though that’s in there. I mean everything. Can you get very, very clear about all of the complexities of your relationship with just one other person? How can you be psychologically healthy if you cannot? I think most people are stuck, at best, on level four above. The reason is not that they want that but that they do not see another way.

You absolutely have to do something like FIML. If you don’t, false perceptions will accumulate and lead to one of the five things mentioned above.

first posted SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Bill To Legalize Psychedelic Mushrooms Advances In California Senate

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A bill to decriminalize hallucinogenic mushrooms cleared the California Senate May 24, reaching the halfway point in the state’s effort to legalize the drug, despite increasing opposition by law enforcement and many citizens.

“We shouldn’t be criminalizing people for personal use of these non-addictive substances,” Wiener said in a May 24 statement.

If passed, the bill would allow the cultivation, transfer, and transportation of fungi or other plant-based materials that can be used as ingredients for the drugs, according to the bill text.

Psilocybin is found in a variety of mushrooms and can be produced synthetically. The bill would only allow plant-based psychedelic drugs for use by people 21 years old and older.

link

Department of Education Investigates Schools for Not Sexualizing Kids

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Coordinated lawsuits are targeting schools and parents across the country

Biden launched his 2024 presidential campaign with an ad attacking Republicans for keeping a book featuring a 10-year-old performing sex acts out of schools.

“’Lawn Boy‘, one of the books shown in the Biden ad, includes lines like, “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d___ in my mouth.”

According to Biden, whose administration had previously colluded to investigate parents rallying against sexualizing schoolchildren with graphic materials like these as domestic terrorists, anyone opposed to having ‘Lawn Boy’ in schools is a “MAGA extremist”. While that assault on parents was stifled, under Biden, the Department of Education is launching a new attack.

link

Canada’s euthanasia free-for-all gets wilder: A quarter of people now back lethal injections for the POOR and homeless — critic slams ‘shameful’ attitude in world’s most permissive program

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Canada is under fire once again as host of the world’s most permissive assisted suicide program, where millions of people now say the homeless and poor should be eligible for state-sanctioned deaths.

A survey released this month found that more than a quarter of Canadians say being impoverished or unhoused is a good enough reason for a doctor to inject somebody with a deadly cocktail of drugs.

Even larger numbers of respondents said assisted suicide — or Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), as it is known — should be available to those with disabilities, mental illnesses or who cannot receive medical treatment.

link

What is the Buddhist position on suicide?

Continue reading “Canada’s euthanasia free-for-all gets wilder: A quarter of people now back lethal injections for the POOR and homeless — critic slams ‘shameful’ attitude in world’s most permissive program” →

Psycholinguistics defined

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Definition one: Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes that make it possible for humans to master and use language.

Definition two: Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes controlled by language.

I generally use the word in the sense of definition two. FIML focuses on words and phrases and how we react to them and understand them. When we learn how to analyze real-time, real-world communication we learn to speak in a way that deeply resonates with our psychologies. Then everything improves. ABN

What people fear most about AI proves Buddhism

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

What people fear most about AI is: 1) it will lie to us and 2) it will tell us the truth.

The most basic teaching of all Buddhas is: Don’t do bad. Do good always. Purify your mind.

This is worth thinking about deeply because AI has revealed a profound philosophical consilience with Buddhism and Buddhist practice.

If more of us were Buddhists more of us would be prepared for the next stage of AI and human morality/ethics. ABN

‘We are at an impasse. I love you. I am committed to you’ — the Crowders

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The exchange between Steven Crowder and his wife, Hilary, is not unusual. Rules, commitments, roles, I love you. I don’t love you.

The exchange is an example of a common form of communication that is normal throughout the world. It is based on a deep failure to understand how interpersonal language does not work. And how it can and should work.

It does not work through vows, declarations of loyalty or love, roles, or ‘respect’.

Interpersonal communication between couples only works when they have a consciously shared method that allows them to understand themselves in real-world, real-time situations.

If the Crowders had been doing FIML, which is precisely the method they need, none of this would have happened.

Consider how simple-minded their conversation is. How stupid it is. Two full-grown, intelligent, successful adults who at some point must have cared for each other talk themselves into box like a couple of babies.

Their voices creak with anger as they battle for peace and contentment while destroying any chance of getting it with every word they say. Neither is to blame because neither one knows any other way to speak.

FIML is described in the links above. It is easy to do if you start before you get to where the Crowders are.

The hardest part about FIML is observing and controlling the first split-second of the formation of any significant impression or interpretation of your partner. FIML can only be learned when partners are at peace with each other. Then, small impressions with only small importance can be explored. This lays the foundation for deeper impressions later on.

For Buddhists, FIML requires observing and controlling your reactions during the first skandhas, before consciousness has fully developed. The fourth skandha of mental activity should be engaged in doing a FIML query rather than consolidating what is probably a mistaken impression of your partner. ABN

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

There is deep meaning underlying this cartoon. The metacognition of intense identities and ecstatic politics, psycholinguistically, resides in the mind at the same place as religion. All religions are metacognitive categories or top-level rules for the cognitive categories that lie below them—values, intentions, behaviors, etc. Religious anything does not have to be rooted in something from the deep past though most of the traditions we have from the deep past have much to offer. Religion is a way to understand the world and align yourself with it. An important basis of religion is morality. A religion with weak, contradictory, or even absurd, morality must be abandoned or improved. Buddhism is a good religion because it has a strong moral foundation, an excellent philosophy, an accurate description of the human condition, and it is dynamic and open to new information. Putting religious weight on transient identities or political causes is a bad idea because it replaces your best metacognitive categories with lower thoughts. ABN

As a woman who once truly believed I was born in the wrong body and should have been male, you need to understand you can’t reason with crazy

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

I was actually crazy.

It's not individual trans people you should be arguing with – it's the institutions pandering to their insanity.

I literally convinced myself that I had a male brain in and female body.

I hand on my heart believed my dysphoria came from too much testosterone in the womb.

You cannot reason with people that lost. Not until they wake up themselves.

I was delusional.

Originally tweeted by Watson (@ImWatson91) on April 27, 2023.

Recognizing your own delusions is the beginning of true freedom. ABN

Young Americans turn to religion in post-covid era

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The story of religious trends in America has been one of increasing disaffiliation among younger generations. But a new study reveals an unexpected resurgence of faith among youngsters in a post-Covid era. 

Some young adults had an awakening during Covid as the entire world crumbled around them. They were in search of a higher power to get through the government-forced lockdowns and controlled demolition of the economy, as well as watching loved ones and friends contract Covid-19 that some federal government agencies believe leaked from a Chinese lab.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a new study commissioned by Springtide Research Institute found about one-third of 18-to-25-year-olds believe in a higher power, up from one-quarter in 2021. The findings were based on polling data from December. 

link

The essence of religion is insight. The rest is mainly vocabulary. ABN