A simple and basic way to use FIML

June 29, 2023June 29, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Consider one of your fears, hang-ups, neuroses, emotional problems. Notice how it is affecting your relationship with your partner and yourself.

If you are honest and observant, it should be obvious that your assessment of the above is ambiguous at best, possibly entirely wrong. Maybe some of it is true, who knows?

Since you and your partner have already agreed to do FIML, keep your hang-up or emotional problem in the back of your mind. During any ordinary interaction with your partner, assuming there is enough time, initiate a FIML query the moment you notice your hang-up is acting up because of something your partner said or did.

Maybe your agreed signal is simply to say, ‘FIML’. Your partner will then divulge the contents of their working memory. In Buddhist thinking, these are the subtle and very subtle states of mind present in that moment. Keep in mind your own subtle and very subtle states of mind as they just arose in approximately that same moment.

Compare your partner’s answer with what was in your mind. This should be very revealing to you.

When your hang-up began acting up, in Buddhist terms a form (or percept) arose in your mind. It produced a sensation which you perceived as the onset of your hang-up. By initiating FIML at about this point, you have interrupted the normal course of your hang-up. Your activity (both mental and physical) veered away from reconsolidating your hang-up to questioning it.*

After you have done this a few times with the same hang-up, it will change. Eventually it will be extinguished because your mind will have been shown there are better ways to think. In psychological terms, you will have stopped reconsolidating your hang-up and gained perfect insight into it. In Buddhist terms, you will have become enlightened to the emptiness of your delusion and that karma will have ended. ABN

*The italicized words in this paragraph are four of the five skandhas.

Hard to believe this links to a real photo

June 27, 2023June 27, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

copy-paste: https://twitter.com/Steveadams76/status/1673658748471001092

Either Twitter or WP is not allowing this Tweet to link or embed. It is purportedly a photo of Hunter with his niece. From a Buddhist point of view, this should be contemplated as either: 1) the uncleanness of our cultural & political reality or 2) a possible deep fake, though I doubt it’s fake. Either way, important levels of this delusive human realm and its excesses are revealed by it. ABN

‘My daughter was murdered by a gender ideology’: LA mom slams CPS after it took away her daughter and let her transition into a man – before she killed herself three years later aged just 19

June 22, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

‘My daughter was murdered by a gender ideology,’ she said at the hearing. ‘CPS took my daughter when she was 16 years old. It was helped by her public school counselor and LGBTQ group and another trans-identified girl.

‘My daughter was taken from her loving home because the state of California claims I was abusive for not affirming her trans identity. I lost my daughter over a name and pronouns.’

She went on to say that her daughter had ‘mental health issues’ and was ‘not a boy trapped in a girl’s body.’

‘Why are there so many transgender in foster care? Because this state take them from their families, tell them to run, then steals them. Parents are given one option to treat their distressed child: Affirm drugs and remove their healthy body part or else lose your child,’ she told the Judiciary Senate.

‘The abuse claim against me was finally dropped, but it was too late. The damage was done. By then, my daughter was in horrible mental and physical pain. My daughter knelt down in front of a train. She was murdered by gender ideology.’
link w video

I cannot think of any way a Buddhist can countenance what was done to Yaeli by adults. Encouraging and then enforcing a delusional ‘identity’ is the opposite of everything Buddhism stands for. To do that to a child is as bad as it gets. Buddhism is largely a gentle teaching but it is very firm on the ethics of not encouraging delusion in anyone and especially in children. To my knowledge, there is no other religion that is more squarely against what happened to Yaeli than Buddhism. Enticing, encouraging a child in their delusions and then taking her from her home and mother—this is the opposite of all Buddhist teaching. There is no way Buddhists can condone this or not speak against it. This is deeply wrong. I hope more Buddhists will join me in speaking very strongly against these laws and this kind of behavior. It is the adults who are to blame for this. ABN

Buddhism and poetic consilience

June 22, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Poetic justice is a small slice of poetic consilience. Buddhist practice is luminous, light and light-filled, consilient. It receives poetic and spiritual resonance in unexpected places and at unexpected moments.

Trains of thought, tributaries of the mind-stream, encounter other trains of thought from somewhere else and a magnificent blending or realization occurs. Sometimes we can barely hold it because it is so much brighter and realer than anything else; it becomes a glimpse, an inkling, a part of our deepest and most important memory.

Buddhism is a subjective science we do on ourselves. It has principles and rules we would do well to follow. Much of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way; much of it should be bent and interpreted in our own way; the Buddha even said that. That is good Buddhism.

But not all of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way. At its core Buddhism is a moral existential philosophy that is practiced as a subjective science. Karma is what we do well or badly in this respect.

Wholesome thoughts and behavior lead away from delusion toward enlightenment or purity of mind. Unwholesome thoughts and behaviors lead away from enlightenment or purity of mind toward delusion, toward clinging to a false self which will lead to suffering.

Wholesome and unwholesome can be defined in those terms. Pursuing wholesome thoughts and behaviors yields spiritual victory. Failing to pursue them or, worse, pursuing their opposite, yields spiritual defeat.

That is what Buddhism is. That is how you do it.

‘Don’t do bad. Do good always. Purify your mind. These are the teachings of all Buddhas.’

See comment below for a nuanced interpretation

June 21, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

If anyone sincerely and fully apologizes, I think we should accept their apologies and let it go. The burden of guilt is bigger on celebrities and even bigger on medical professionals and government officials. A full Buddhist apology includes making amends with no excuses, though an honest explanation is good. How we scale this can be objective to a point. Depending on the person’s reach and what they said or did, their corrective statements and behaviors should be commensurate. I am not going to chase it down but I remember a weak apology from Arnold, saying something like I am sorry for my words. No, Arnie, much more than that is necessary especially when we consider how many were medically harmed by your words. Not only were these people wrong and stupid, they were totalitarian slave boys doing the bidding of their masters for their own profit at the expense of others. ABN

The Diamond Sutra Section Seven: Nothing Has Been Attained and Nothing Has Been Said

June 17, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Section Seven of the Diamond Sutra has been added. A link to the sutra can be found at the top of this page. Discussions of previous sections of the Diamond Sutra can be found here or by clicking on the Diamond Sutra tag on the right margin of this page.

__________________

In this section the Buddha follows up on his statement in the previous section “…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?”

He does this by asking Subhuti “…what do you say? Has the Tathagata really attained anuttara-samyak-sambodhi? Has the Tathagata really spoken a Dharma?”

Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi means “complete, unsurpassed enlightenment,” which is the ultimate goal of all Buddhist practice.

Subhuti answers correctly by saying, “As far as I understand what the Buddha has said, there is no definite dharma that can be called anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, and there is no definite Dharma that could be spoken about by the Tathagata.”

When spelled with a small d, dharma means “thing,” or in this case “anything that can be thought of or named.”

Subhuti’s saying “…there is no definite Dharma that could be spoken about by the Tathagata” means that the teachings of the Buddha have no definite form. They are methods for purifying the mind in an infinite variety of circumstances, not strict codes to be followed blindly. Like a raft, the teachings are used when and where they are needed and not where they are not needed.

Subhuti continues: “And why is this? The Dharma of which the Tathagata speaks cannot be held onto, it cannot be spoken, it is not a law, and it is not a non-law.”

The true Dharma is the Dharma that is understood, the Dharma that alters consciousness for the better, the Dharma that ultimately brings anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

“And that is why all bodhisattvas understand the unconditioned dharmas differently.”

The “unconditioned dharmas” are the eight unchanging attributes of the Tathagata or the enlightened state. Since these attributes are qualities of the Tathagata, this line might be interpreted to mean “All bodhisattvas understand the Tathagata differently.” The truth is one, but the angles from which we perceive it are many.

Buddhist sutras generally agree that the unconditioned state of enlightenment is: 1) timeless, 2) without delusion, 3) ageless, 4) deathless, 5) pure, 6) universal, 7) motionless, 8) joyful.

first posted MARCH 12, 2016

How to understand why Buddhist rebirth does not require a self or soul

June 16, 2023 ~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The basic reason no self or soul is reborn is neither exists independently of the mental universe that gave rise to our illusion of selfhood.

The mental universe within which we all exist is dynamic and so are we. In Buddhist terms, this dynamism is action or karma.

Buddhism does not say we do not exists. It only says that our selves are empty, that they do not ultimately exist. When we die our karma, the mental activity of this life, reconstitutes as a new being ensconced within the larger mental universe.

No one explains this better in modern terms than Bernardo Kastrup. In his essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe, he does not write about rebirth but rather about the conditions of our existence within the mental universe.

Nonetheless, his explanation of a “mental universe” shows precisely how rebirth can occur without there being any soul or pudgala or anything else that flies from the body upon death to transmigrate to another one.

I highly recommend reading the essay linked above. I have no idea if Kastrup is a Buddhist thinker. It’s even better if he is not, if his thinking arrived independently at a place consonant with original Buddhist thought.

Most Buddhists know that even Buddhists have trouble understanding how someone can be reborn without having a soul, self, or pudgala. What did the Buddha even mean by that? I know more than one university professor of Buddhist studies who explains Buddhist rebirth by saying, there is no such thing and neither is there such a thing as karma.

Those professors explain away karma and rebirth by claiming those fundamentals of Buddhist thought are nothing more than the Buddha “using the concepts of his day” to teach his moral doctrines and what amounts to his “atheistic Stoic” philosophy.

I mean no disrespect for the professors. It is hard to understand how something can be reborn and yet be empty of any perduring self or soul.

The essay linked above provides an excellent explanation of how that happens. I strongly encourage Buddhists or people who teach Buddhism or are interested in it to read Kastrup’s essay when you are in a good mood and want to learn something new and really interesting.

This essay can give you another angle on Kastrup’s thinking: Matter is nothing more than the extrinsic appearance of inner experience.

And here are some of my comments on Kastrup’s essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe.

first posted APRIL 2, 2020

The Diamond Sutra section 6: The Rarity of True Belief

June 15, 2023 ~ 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

June 13, 2023 ~ 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

June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 ~ 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

June 1, 2023March 10, 2026 ~ 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

Department of Education Investigates Schools for Not Sexualizing Kids

May 26, 2023 ~ 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

May 26, 2023 ~ 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