Tag: Buddhist Practice

Buddhism and ethical signaling

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Buddhism is very much a system of ethics. Buddhist practice is founded on the Five Precepts of refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and the irresponsible use of alcohol.

In most Buddhist traditions, these precepts are often taught as if they were fundamental to the workings of the universe. But how can morality be fundamental to the workings of the universe? Why does morality even matter to human beings?

If we think of a human being as a signaling system, we may be able to show that ethical thoughts and behavior are of fundamental importance to the system itself.

Human signaling systems signal internally, within themselves, and externally, toward other people. Our most important signaling system is the one we share with that person who is most important to us, our mate or best friend. Let’s confine our discussion to this sort of primary signaling system.

If I lie to my partner or cheat her, I may gain something outside of our shared signaling system, but that signaling system will suffer. And when that shared system suffers, my own internal signaling system will also suffer because it will contain errors. It will no longer be in its optimal state. Similarly, if she lies to me or cheats me, our mutual signaling system will become less than optimal as will both of our individual, or internal, signaling systems.

My own signaling system cannot grow or become optimal without my partner treating me with the best ethical behavior she can muster. And the same is true for her with respect to me. And we both know this.

We would be good to each other anyway, but it is helpful to see that our being good to each other has a very practical foundation—it assures us optimal performance of our mutual and internal signaling systems.

FIML practice is designed to provide partners with a clear and reasonably objective means to communicate honestly with each other. FIML practice will gradually optimize communication between partners by making it much clearer and more honest. In doing this, it will also optimize the operations of their mutual and individual signaling systems.

To my knowledge, there is nothing like FIML in any Buddhist tradition. But if I try to read FIML into the tradition, I may be able to find something similar in the way monks traveled together in pairs for much of the year. I don’t know what instructions the Buddha may have given them or how they spoke to each other, but it may be that they did a practice with each other similar to FIML practice.

In any case, if we view human being as a signaling system, we may be able to claim that clear signaling—that is, ethical signaling—is fundamental to the optimization of that system.

First posted 02/03/13, revised 09/25/17

Lokavipatti Sutta: The Failings of the World

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“Monks, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. Which eight? Gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.

“For an uninstructed ordinary person there arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. For a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones there also arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed ordinary person?”

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These “eight worldly conditions” are often referred to as the eight winds. Contemplating these eight conditions is a beneficial Buddhist practice. Contemplation prepares us for them and informs us how to respond. ABN

How Lamborghini-driving grifter posing as a weed mogul swindled $35 million out of LA’s elite from his Calabasas mansion – once owned by Kylie Jenner – to fund his lavish lifestyle before it all went up in smoke

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The handsome international sportsman, who represented UCLA and the Philippines in the decathlon, roared around Los Angeles in his yellow Lamborghini, returning home to his wife – a former model – and daughter – a model – for lavish parties in the mansion once owned by Kylie Jenner.

To his friends he was a jet-set businessman who generously included them in his lucrative deals and was involved in California’s booming marijuana business.

The pristine image fell apart when friends learnt to their horror that Bunevacz’s seemingly-gilded existence was indeed a sham – after he was arrested and charged last year over a $35million fraud. 

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The eight winds of Buddhism formed a cyclone around Bunevacz and many were blasted and battered by the turbulence. ABN

Making Sense of the Mental Universe

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Try reading the following paper while keeping the Mind Only Buddhist interpretation of our world in mind.

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confi rmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation. (Making Sense of the Mental Universe)

Edit: The explanation offered in the linked paper, without saying as much, provides a very reasonable way to see Buddhist rebirth occurring without there being any soul or pudgala being reborn. Nothing need fly out of the body or transmigrate anywhere.

Instead, the classic Buddhist description of karma alone giving rise to a new life works perfectly. Rather than conceive of ourselves as fundamentally material beings, we can conceive of our personal individuality as being (a part of a “mental universe”) enclosed within a Markov blanket.

If there is still karma, a new Markov blanket or bodily form will be “reborn” or rearise after the extinction of its prior existence. In Kastrup’s way of putting it, our physical bodies are themselves Markov blankets causing or allowing us to arise as forms separate from the wholeness of the mental universe.

I suppose we might venture to say that enlightenment occurs when the karma, or reason for our separation in a Markov blanket, is gone and “we” remain the whole (of the mental universe) without being reborn (in a body).

first posted JANUARY 29, 2020

Contemporary Hermits: A Developmental Psychopathology Account of Extreme Social Withdrawal (Hikikomori) in Young People

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Although it is widely accepted that human beings have an ingrained ‘need to belong,’ there seem to be a substantial subset of young people who seclude themselves for most of the time at home and no longer engage in education or work, ultimately withdrawing from participation in society. In Japan, this phenomenon has been labeled as ‘hikikomori,’ but given its global presence it may be preferable to use the term ‘extreme social withdrawal’ (ESW). In this qualitative review, we provide a description and definition of ESW, provide figures on its prevalence, and discuss a number of associated concepts, including loneliness and “aloneliness,” school absenteeism and dropout, the ‘new’ developmental stage of adultolescence, and the labor force categories of freeter (‘freelance arbeiter’) and NEET (a young person not in employment, education, or training). The core of the paper is focused on the origins of ESW in young people and provides a narrative overview of relevant etiological factors, such as aberrant brain processes, unfavorable temperament, psychiatric conditions, adverse family processes including detrimental parenting, negative peer experiences, societal pressures, and excessive internet and digital media use, which are all placed within a comprehensive developmental psychopathology framework. We will close with a discussion of possible interventions for young people with ESW and formulate a guideline that describes (the temporal order of) various components that need to be included in such a treatment.

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I have only read the abstract linked above but am posting this paper because it may be of interest to readers of this site. From a Buddhist point of view, there are many legitimate reasons to withdraw from society or reduce one’s participation in it. I am not encouraging that but am saying asceticism is a major form of Buddhist practice as are long silence retreats. This is not the same as what’s known as hikikomori and for the most part I do not think Buddhist asceticism is pathological in any way. Since I haven’t read the paper, I have no more to say than that. ABN

Why you can’t fix it with generalities

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Psychological, cognitive, emotional, or communicative problems cannot be fundamentally corrected by using general analyses or generalized procedures. You can teach someone to think and see differently, even to behave differently, by such procedures, but you cannot bring about deep change by using them. The reason this is so is change through generalizations does little more than substitute one external semiosis for another. The person seeking change will not experience deep change because all they are essentially doing is importing a different explanation of their “condition” into their life.

This happens with Buddhists who remain attached to surface meanings of the Dharma as well as to people seeking mainstream help for emotional problems. Any change will feel good for a while in most cases, but after some time stasis and a recurrence of the original problem, or something similar to it, will occur. You cannot become enlightened by importing someone else’s ideas. You cannot achieve deep transformation by replacing one inculcated semiosis with another. You cannot find your authentic “self” by using the static ideas of others.

The way around this problem is to use a technique that is at its core entirely dynamic. Buddhist mindfulness, which stresses attentiveness in and to the moment, is a dynamic technique. The problem with this technique in the modern world is it is not well-suited to the cacophony of signs and symbols that surround us almost all the time. Mindfulness too often entails being mindful of a cultural semiosis that is itself a tautology, a trap that does not contain within itself an obvious exit.

Mindfulness coupled with FIML practice overcomes this problem because the interactive dynamism of FIML gives partners a tool that strengthens mindfulness while at the same time affording them the opportunity to observe in the moment how their habitual semiosis operates, and why it operates that way. FIML gives partners the means to create a rational leverage-point that they can both share and use to grapple with neurotic issues that have always eluded generalized treatments.

FIML does not tell partners how to be or what to think. It describes nothing more than a technique that gives partners access to their deep “operating systems.” If you hack your “operating system” with FIML practice, you will find that you are able to eliminate neuroses (kleshas in Buddhist terms) and replace them with a semiosis (subculture) of your and your partner’s own choosing. To do FIML, partners must have a deep ethical, emotional, and intellectual commitment to each other, but it is important to recognize that these are not static or generalized ideas. They are dynamic principles upon which the transformational behaviors of FIML are built.

first posted APRIL 26, 2012

Instinctive instinctual delusion

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We have seen delusion in governance and how it is contrived by people. Here is delusion of instinct and how it is contrived by people. This is a big piece of the deep fabric of human reality. What’s different today from ancient Egypt or wherever is many of the perps record themselves for all to see. ABN

The Buddha and mindfulness

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UPDATE: I originally had a video on mindfulness in this spot but decided to take it down because it is not very good. ABN

The biggest mindfulness bang for the buck you can get is FIML practice because FIML shows you through your own effort how to listen and speak realistically and accurately with your partner. When you do FIML, both you and your partner will discover many mistakes in how you speak and how you hear. This will provide many insights into how both of you use your minds and how your minds work. At the same time it will greatly improve your relationship and give you many insights into it. FIML practice will also greatly inform and improve your other relationships.

All Buddhist practice can be placed at least in one of three categories. These are: 1) morality or ethics; 2) concentration, mindfulness, or meditation; and 3) wisdom or insight. FIML practice is extremely valuable for Buddhist practice because it prevents solipsistic understanding, unrealistic idealism, ungrounded thoughts and behaviors. FIML practice provides each partner with an accuracy check on what they hear, say, and think. It provides a kind of intellectual or spiritual parallax that helps us locate ourselves much more accurately in reality — however you conceive of that — than when we do mindfulness practice without this kind of input.

FIML practice is an excellent model for all mindfulness. It may even be the best model possible. The reason for this is when you do FIML you are working with your closest friend, your best friend, the person who trusts you the most in all the world and whom you trust the most in all the world. This is the best person in all the world to help you become more mindful, more ethical, more insightful and wise. I might add that in the Buddha’s day, monks traveled together in pairs for most of each year. FIML can be fully explained by using the Buddha’s Five Skandha explanation of how the mind works. See the note at the end of that link for how to apply it to FIML. ABN

Ep. 1 – Awakening from the Meaning Crisis – Introduction ~ John Vervaeke

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I watched about one-half of this and stopped. I will watch at least one more in this long series. For now, I just want to say that for meaning or meaning of life or meaning in life, there is nothing better than FIML practice which is designed to secure solid, agreed upon meaning between you and your partner. This ensures that your most important relationship is grounded solidly on objective shared meaning with nothing left out. FIML is not abstract. It has almost no content. It does not tell you what to think or believe. It is entirely a technique that will massively help you discover how you and your partner’s minds work, what is in them, where it came from, what it means. FIML is a dynamic method for finding objective data within real-world, real-time experience. It provides a living existential basis for all other forms of meaning. ABN

Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and The Return of the God Hypothesis

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Meyer’s arguments for intelligent design fit well with the Buddhist idea that the cosmos is intelligent and conscious and that our own consciousness is a particular and unique perception of that consciousness. I like the following quote from the video:

‘Science has had extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.’ ~ Robert Jastrow

Like scientists, Buddhists should accept new evidence and compelling argumentation. The emptiness of the individual self is not a negation of consciousness but a recognition (or realization) of its vastness. ABN

Please discuss mimesis as a psycholinguistic phenomenon

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[I posed this query to ChatGPT after asking a basic question about mimesis. The reply below was returned almost instantly and has not been edited in any way. We learn almost everything we know through mimesis. Language and culture are built on it and by it, but mimesis can also trap us in gloomy enclaves of inescapable conformity, such as the pseudoscience of covid or a communist dictatorship or celebrity worship. It can also trap us inside our own personality constructs, leaving almost no way to escape. FIML practice works with real time mimesis during interpersonal communication. In this context, FIML can be understood as a way to fully understand our own idiosyncratic mimesis as well as our partner’s. And then to lead us away from what is harmful in mimesis toward what is good. Mimesis is a key to delusion and enlightenment both. It is very good for Buddhists and others to pay attention to it, to be fully mindful of its processes. ABN]

Mimesis can also be understood as a psychological and linguistic phenomenon, in which people imitate or mimic the words, actions, and behaviors of others in order to understand and communicate with them. This kind of mimesis is often referred to as “mirroring” or “echoing,” and it is a natural and important part of human social interaction.

In the early stages of language acquisition, children learn to imitate the sounds and words of their caregivers in order to communicate with them. This process of imitation is essential for language learning and development, as it allows children to learn the conventions and rules of their language.

Mimesis also plays a role in the way that people interact with one another in social settings. For example, people may mimic the body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions of their conversation partner in order to show agreement, empathy, or solidarity. This kind of mimicry can facilitate communication and social bonding, as it helps to establish a sense of connection and understanding between people.

Mimesis can also be observed in the way that people use language to convey meaning. For example, people may use figurative language or rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes, and rhetorical questions in order to create a more vivid or persuasive image or argument. These forms of language use rely on the reader or listener’s ability to understand and imitate the speaker’s intended meaning in order to fully appreciate the message being conveyed.

Overall, mimesis is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that plays a central role in human communication and social interaction. It is an important aspect of language learning and use, and it helps people to understand and connect with one another in a meaningful way.

A Buddhist poem by ChatGPT

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Delusion’s tentacles, deeply ingrained, In language they are found, entwined and chained.

They twist and turn, a creeping vine, Entangling thoughts and clouding the mind.

ChatGPT

This was the poem that came out after four attempts at revision based on my requests. I shortened it to just two lines from five lines. This kind of program is going to improve very quickly and may replace Google fairly soon. It is already quite good at answering specific questions. Try a health or technique inquiry and see for yourself. ABN

No language in the world allows it

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I am reasonably sure that no language in the world allows the kind of query that FIML practice is based on.

The reason for this probably lies in the origins of human language and culture, a developmental period during which languages were much simpler and were used mainly to indicate real things in the world or give commands.

At later stages of development, language became a tool of whatever hierarchy prevailed in the moment. To this day, Confucianism is still a rule book for hierarchies.

That said, languages are always potentially very supple, so there is no need for humans today to be restricted by archaic forms of speech and thought.

And that said, it is important to understand that your psychology has been deeply conditioned by the archaic and hierarchical cores of your language.

I bring this up because this side of human psychology makes it difficult for people to do FIML practice correctly.

To the speaker, the basic FIML query will instinctively feel like nagging, being petty, being whiny. To the hearer, this basic query will instinctively feel like a challenge, an insult, an affront.

These basic instincts must not be allowed to block FIML inquiries. Personally, I believe FIML has not been discovered before because no one ever went beyond these basic instinctive reactions.

So, expect to feel affronted and expect to feel like a petty nag, at least for a while. With practice, these feelings will go away. At the same time, the importance of the information gained through FIML queries will become increasingly obvious.

Once the hierarchical cultural and linguistic instincts that have developed in us, and upon which our psychologies depend, have been overcome, a new use of language will become possible.

This new language is capable of sufficient micro subtlety to allow us to objectively observe how our minds and psychologies actually function in real-time real-life situations.

No theory of psychology and no amount of introspection will take you to the actual data of how you function. Only FIML practice can do that.

first posted SEPTEMBER 30, 2017

UPDATE 12/24/22: All woke complaints about hierarchies, patriarchies, whiteness, or any group identity are deeply flawed because they are missing the deepest underlying point: All language and psychology is fundamentally hierarchical, even authoritarian. When woke or communists or others rail against one hierarchy only to replace it with another one, they are playing a destructive shell game with social organization, never escaping the foundations of their own identities. Rather than making things better, they only make them worse.

In Buddhism as in American and Western civilization, the individual has the unalienable right to be free as freedom is the essence of the True Mind or the soul created by God. At the same time, individuals also have the responsibility to conduct themselves ethically, honorably, wisely. When we focus on group identities or, worse, gender identities, we massively limit linguistic and psychological options to core instincts that are well-known to generate anger, lust, hatred, resentment, pride, ignorance, violence, doubt. The Buddha said, “Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.” And, “Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except yourself.” And, “Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.” And, “What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.” To be properly mindful in today’s world, you have to be mindful at the individual level of your own use and misuse of language in real-time. “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” ABN

Conscious of what?

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A primary question about consciousness is “conscious of what?”

What if your consciousness is based on an error?

If you become conscious of the error, you will most likely correct it and thus change your consciousness.

Metacognition is a word that is sometimes used in place of “consciousness.”

Metacognition implies awareness of how our consciousness is functioning.

Buddhist mindfulness can be defined as “active metacognition.” This implies awareness of what is in our consciousness, what the elements of its functioning are in the moment.

Buddhist practice assume that if while being mindful we perceive error in our consciousness, we will correct the error.

Metacognition requires “self-awareness” or “awareness of the functioning of consciousness.” It seems that most people do this better than most animals in most situations.

Metacognition or mindfulness requires training or practice. But training and practice can also be wrong, based on wrong views.

Many forms of selfhood are based on wrong views.

Right mindfulness is used to perceive these mistakes and correct them.

For example, a person can be trained to have an identity. They can practice having this identity and learn the emotions that go along with it.

With wrong training and practice an identity can become explosive, violent, crazy.

This is a major part of what is meant by delusion in Buddhism, having a wrong view about your identity.

Notice, that a person can have a very wrong identity and be fully conscious of it and the world around them without realizing their identity is wrong.

_______________________________

Related subjects:

Re-representing consciousness: dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think

There Is an ‘Unconscious,’ but It May Well Be Conscious

Transcendental experiences during meditation practice

first posted SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

The Tree of Knowledge Obfuscation ~ The Ethical Skeptic

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

Beware of those who peddle lists of fallacies. Such philosophers have never really done anything in their life. The purpose of misrepresentation is to cultivate ignorance – not irrationality. Mere failures in logic can be detected and resolved, but ignorance is harder to self-sense and much more difficult to dispel than either wrongness or Paulian ‘not-even-wrong’-ness. Hence ignorance is much more useful to agency.

The following is The Ethical Skeptic’s list, helpful in spotting not simply formal and informal logical fallacies, but also crooked arguing, skilled lying, coercion, irrelevance, smoke & mirrors, inference tricks, narrative manipulation, and styles of club/agency thinking on the part of those who seek a pervasive cultivated ignorance – the fertile soil of their awesome insistence.

The TOKO is categorized by employment groupings so that it can function as a context appropriate resource in a critical review of an essay, imperious diatribe or publication by a thought-enforcing organization or entity.

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This is a good resource for Buddhists, whose highest virtue is wisdom. These obfuscations of knowledge (or wisdom) provided by TES can be understood as a cartography of delusion, the cause of all suffering. Humans not only do this to each other but also to ourselves. Mindful self-examination coupled with ethical behavior gradually (sometimes suddenly) removes all ignorance—the ultimate source of all delusion—from the mind. This is the ultimate goal of all Buddhist practice. ABN

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