Tag: Buddhist Practice

nostr – Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global “social” network once and for all.

It doesn’t rely on any trusted central server, hence it is resilient; it is based on cryptographic keys and signatures, so it is tamperproof; it does not rely on P2P techniques, therefore it works.

This is a work-in-progress. Join the Telegram group!

Very short summary of how it works, if you don’t plan to read anything else:

Everybody runs a client. It can be a native client, a web client, etc. To publish something, you write a post, sign it with your key and send it to multiple relays (servers hosted by someone else, or yourself). To get updates from other people, you ask multiple relays if they know anything about these other people. Anyone can run a relay. A relay is very simple and dumb. It does nothing besides accepting posts from some people and forwarding to others. Relays don’t have to be trusted. Signatures are verified on the client side.

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This was recommended by Jack Dorsey this morning. Something like this has to be done. We all have to support it. A communication system that cannot be controlled by governments or corporations or secret societies, once established, will be a major turning point in world history. There is no other path forward for free speech, individual rights, human rights, a flourishing world civilization than this one. This kind of system is also in perfect alignment with the American First Amendment and core Buddhist ethical teachings. ABN

VAERS is screaming safety signals but has no REACH because it is being deliberately ignored

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VAERS is an example of free speech with no reach. VAERS was made to be an early warning system. It is screaming vaccine injury but the-powers-that-be are entirely ignoring it. Elon, do you see the danger of using word games to limit free speech?

direct link

A note to the mentally challenged: yes, you can’t yell fire or threaten people. What needs to be free is topics. Science, virology, history, religion, culture, race, psychology, AGW, socialism, etc—no topic can be excluded from our God-given right, or natural right if you prefer, to speak our minds. And no opinion on any topic can be excluded. Wrong views and stupid ideas will fall away on their own. We saw that happen beautifully within the banned and censored covid-science community, which has been a million times better than the official pure shit pseudoscience spewed by CDC, FDA, NIAID, NIH, and all of MSM. Their “curated” garbage had all the reach in the world and produced an unmitigated disaster. ABN

Musk bans Ye, a Buddhist take

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11493895/Elon-Musk-sanctions-Kanye-West-tweeting-picture-swastika-inside-Star-David.html

Ultimately, these are just words, symbols, signs. They are not trafficked children, sex slaves, or Satanic sacrifices. In Buddhism, there are prominent stories of prominent monks spitting on a statue of the Buddha or destroying one, illustrating the emptiness of even the most revered figure of the Buddhist tradition. In America today, you can do whatever you want in public with such symbols as the flag, the cross, the Constitution, statues of historical or religious figures, the Buddha, Jesus and Mary, but not Nazis or the Star of David. “Who made you the judge?” Ye asks Musk. Musk says Ye is “inciting violence.” Ye is definitely bringing that on himself. I see him as an artist like Alex Jones. Both say things or display things others do not like. At the same time we have Satanic displays and laws allowing infanticide. I make these comments not to defend or condemn either Musk or Ye but to illustrate the extremely strong bondage of words and symbols. We can find similar bondage in terms like “The Science” or “Follow The Science”; “vaccinations” or “antivax”; “Anthropogenic Global Warming” or “Climate Change” soon to become “Climate Restoration”; “Democracy,” “equity,” “diversity,” “communism.” Words, concepts, and stories are all interrelated on many levels and always fascinating both in their beauty and foolishness. The Buddha was best known as an analyst. Analysis is basic to Buddhist practice.

In Buddhism, everything is empty including the Dharma. Before he died, the Buddha himself explicitly asked that statues not be made of him. He said that to avoid turning his teachings into dogma and his memory into a sacrosanct anti-empty doctrine that must be worshiped rather than understood, revered rather than loved and learned from. The Buddha asked to be remembered only by the symbols of a lotus branch, a Dharma Wheel, and a footprint. Obviously, most Buddhists did not obey and most of us own and cherish images of the Buddha. Oh well, no one is perfect and that transgression does not seem too bad. I was a bit proud of the world Buddhist community for not becoming too upset when the Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban. None of us liked it but all of us knew that becoming angry or violent over it is not at all what the Buddha taught or would have wanted or, stated more plainly, that would not have been the right thing to do. ABN

Perfect communication is not possible (but greatly improved communication is)

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

Human beings cannot possibly expect to communicate with each other perfectly. Perfect communication would require complete transfers of information with no ambiguity.

This point is fundamental to understanding why we need a method to frequently correct or adjust interpersonal communication in real-time.

If we do not have a method to do that, mistakes will inevitably cause problems, some of which will inevitably snowball.

TBH, I don’t understand why no one before me has figured the method out. Many have seen the problem in one way or another, but none has provided a way to fix it as far as I know.

To simplify the problem a bit, let’s just stick with language.

Language is ambiguous in and of itself. And when it is used for interpersonal communication it is fraught with ongoing and very significant ambiguities.

These ambiguities are so serious, I believe I can safely maintain that they account for a major component of our personalities. They may even be the major component.

Why does this seem so obvious to me but not to many others I speak with? I really do not know. Why didn’t Plato or Buddha or Laozi or Kant or Dostoevsky deal with this? I don’t know.

It’s possible the Buddha did privately or that’s what the Pythagorean’s secret was. Buddhist monks traveled in pairs and may have had a method to deal with interpersonal ambiguity.

If they did, I doubt it would be very different from my method, which you can find fully explained, free of charge here: FIML.

Please consider the problem of ambiguity before you undertake FIML.

Give ambiguity some real thought. Contemplate how it has affected your life in many ways you already know about. Then consider how many more ways you do not know about.

How many mistakes in communication—just due to ambiguity and consequent misunderstandings alone—have affected your life?

Watch for it and you will see ambiguity happening very often. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes insignificant, sometimes it’s tragic. The more there is, the worse it is.

When just two humans clear up almost all ambiguity between them (a process that must be constant like any other maintenance chore), amazing things begin to happen to their psychologies.

For each pair, what happens will be different because FIML is only a method. It has no content itself. What could be better than that?

first posted JULY 10, 2019

The swastika in Buddhism and other religions; Asian faiths try to save the symbol corrupted by Hitler

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The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune, and was also used widely by Indigenous people worldwide in a similar vein.

The word “swastika” has Sanskrit roots and means “the mark of well being.” It has been used in prayers of the Rig Veda, the oldest of Hindu scriptures. In Buddhism, the symbol is known as “manji” and signifies the Buddha’s footsteps. It is used to mark the location of Buddhist temples. In China it’s called Wàn, and denotes the universe or the manifestation and creativity of God. The swastika is carved into the Jains’ emblem representing the four types of birth an embodied soul might attain until it is eventually liberated from the cycle of birth and death. In the Zoroastrian faith, it represents the four elements – water, fire, air and earth.

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This is a fairly long article about saving the swastika from associations with Nazi symbolism and legal proscriptions against displaying it. In many Buddhist uses of this symbol today and in the past, it is turned the other way like this:

Years ago I frequented a Buddhist temple in California and was friends with the people who worked in the small book store that also sold Buddhist stuff. A few times customers complained or become upset over seeing a Buddha statue with the symbol as in the image here. Usually, they would calm down after receiving an explanation. I never witnessed those exchanges myself but my friends told me about them. I personally hope the Nazi associations can be wiped away. The swastika is an ancient symbol with deep meaning in many traditions. What if Stalin had used a cross or some other religious symbol. Would we ban them or be upset by them today? ABN

Two threads analyze Balenciaga

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Both of these threads are admittedly speculative. It must be that the people controlling artistic expression are promoting these designers and encouraging them. Some of the photos are very good but most depend entirely on disturbing dark themes. Add these to Satanic themes in CERN opening ceremonies and elsewhere and we cannot turn from the suspicion that so much of the evil we see in our world today is inspired by and supportive of demonic arts, beliefs, and practices. In Buddhism, this world is a mix of light and dark, good and bad, moving toward the Tathagata or away from. Christianity emphasizes the power of Satan. In the West we are more deeply influenced by Christian thought and thus express it more in artwork. But the underlying conflict between good and bad is also prominent in Eastern thought and traditions. ABN

Continue reading “Two threads analyze Balenciaga” →
~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

In some cases involving arrogant public figures and really bad people harsh language is called for, mockery is called for. Some examples of this are health officials who banned early treatments for covid and who mandated bad treatments for covid. These are the two factors that needlessly and cruelly killed the most people during covid. ABN

The Injection Rejection — People turning down vaccination

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In numerous countries, despite vaccination remaining available, people are no longer cooperating with the programme. There has been no official end to the programme but people have opted out. The government has not told them to stop, the media have not told them to stop. Somehow, people have made a conscious or, perhaps for many a subconscious decision to decline. 

In Europe, these countries include Denmark, Ireland, Moldova, Cyprus, Georgia, Spain and North Macedonia. Others have seen a marked reduction but have not recently recorded data including Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Montenegro and Iceland.  

link to text and more graphs

On this issue, mind-control has largely broken down, for now. This may mean that the ongoing adverse effects, including death, of the vaxxes will be honestly reported. My guess, though, is more psyops will overshadow and overwhelm what has happened. Some percentage of us will remember and know but most will be fooled yet again. From a Buddhist point of view, this is the First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering and unsatisfactoriness which arises out of delusion. ABN

Motivated reasoning, speaking to effect

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Motivated reasoning means reasoning to gain. Speaking to effect means speaking to cause something.

Both are the most common forms of thought and speech for all people with few exceptions.

Speaking to effect and motivated reasoning maintain personas.

Because it is difficult to tell truths and because trying to do so brings calamity, we don’t. We narrow thought instead; our voices dull faceless muffled sounds with no meaning.

This is the tone and timbre of samsara, the feeling of group delusion, the Suffering of the First Noble Truth.

Is morality a fundamental part of nature?

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Viewing nature as a signaling network shows its advantage with this question.

Instead of asking where our moral sense comes from, we ask instead what makes for a good signaling network?

The answer is “good organization.”

By “good,” I mean efficient, well-made, good use of resources, easy to maintain, rational, etc.

You are a signaling network.

A well-organized you will probably tend to be morally pretty good and wanting to get better at it, depending on your conditions.

Of course some people view “morality” as whatever is in their best interests. And that is a type of moral thinking. When it is found out, though, most other people, very reasonably, do not like it.

If we view nature as the evolution of signals and signaling networks rather than as the evolution of matter, we will see that changes in signal organization are fundamental to the evolutionary process.

In this sense, it is the most ordinary thing in the world that you, a complex signaling system that is conscious, would consciously seek good organization and/or want to adapt your organizing principles, both objective and subjective, to conditions that impact you.

Conditions that impact you are signals being perceived by the signaling network you think of as yourself.

Your adaptations, both small and large, will encompass many moral considerations and choices.

Morality can be viewed as a kind of organization. The networks that make up your being must organize their relations with the world around them and other sentient beings. We make many moral decisions when we do this. These decisions are an integral part of how we are organized.

Last night I heard a drunk swearing at his friend from the street. “You fucking bastard…” etc. Not well-organized, but still he was yelling a local version of morality and this was fundamental to his networks and behavior.

first posted MARCH 4, 2017

UPDATE 11/09/22: The above shows that what we scientifically think of today as evolution does not contradict what might be called spiritual evolution, or Buddhist evolution that happens in three ways combined: through 1) morality/ethics; 2) concentration/mindfulness; and 3) wisdom/understanding. Karma is the path of our mind as it wends through its various and numerous realities, sometimes tending toward goodness or the Tathagata, sometimes tending away. By consciously contemplating our signaling networks and describing them to ourselves and close friends we can make our signals clearer and more ethical and thus become wiser, have better understanding. The act of doing this is a kind of concentration or mindfulness. It really doesn’t matter what your religion is, including atheism or even oblivionism, honestly analyzing your signaling will change you probably for the better. ABN

Court Orders CDC to Release Data Showing 18 Million Vaccine Injuries in America

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

More than 18 million people were injured so badly by their first COVID shot from Pfizer or Moderna that they had to go to the hospital. That’s according to the CDC’s own internal data, which a court just ordered the federal agency to release to a watchdog group.

Instead of alerting the public to the incredible dangers of these shots and completely shutting down Joe Biden’s mass vaccination mandates, the CDC covered up the info until it was forced to release. Everyone in a position of authority at the CDC should be fired for this. What good is a “public health” agency if it fails to alert the public that 8% of vaccine recipients are being hospitalized?

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According to these data, you are far more likely to be hospitalized due to the vaxxes than covid itself. I am greatly in favor of forgiving ordinary people who innocently fell for the scam. If they were somewhat obnoxious and apologize for that, I am in favor of forgiving them too. For those in charge, those who lied and were cruel, they need to do much more. ABN

Another Big CBDC Flop… Here’s What Really Comes Next (Hint: It’s Not What the Elites Hoped For)

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Last year, Nigeria launched its much-ballyhooed eNaira, Africa’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Central bankers, academics, politicians, and an assortment of elites from over 100 countries hoping to launch their own CBDCs have closely followed the eNaira.

They used Nigeria—Africa’s largest country by population and size of its economy—as a Petri dish to test their nefarious plans to use CBDCs to enslave the people of North America, Europe, and beyond.

The jury is now in.

The eNaira has been a massive failure.

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I hope we see similar outcomes in the West should digital currencies launch here, but believe Western peoples are much more trusting of their governments than Nigerians are of theirs and thus we are more likely to lose this battle. We are seeing widespread shifts away from the absurd left (sometimes absurdly called shifts toward the “far right”) in the West but how could we have gone this far woke in the first place? The Buddhist understanding of our current civilizational plight is that’s how this human realm is; that’s the First Noble Truth of suffering or “unsatisfactoriness.” Recognizing the First Noble Truth does not mean succumbing to its manifestations. It does imply, however, that our moral obligations may take longer than expected to bear good fruits and will in many ways impact the moral doer(s) more than this realm overall. Overcoming this realm entails rising above it as much as improving it in what ways we are able. How and where you draw the line between those two is up to you and also explains several major themes in Buddhist history. At its core, Buddhism is an ethical/moral practice that is deeply involved with this human realm and also ultimately transcends this human realm. ABN

Yeah, Emily, except you weren’t in the dark. You put your own eyes out

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I am 100% willing to forgive and forget following honest apologies. And that should start with those most responsible. So far, I do not know of even one. Fauci, Collins, and Birx unsurprisingly have all run away. Only Walesnky soldiers on. If she is oblivious to her enormous mistakes, she needs to apologize for being ignorant of everything required of a Director of the CDC. I also want to hear from the academics who piled on and bandied bogus credentials to prove nonsense. I have some sympathy for the merely weak and fearful, for who knows what pressures they were facing. As Buddhists, we should graciously accept all well-meaning apologies and allow them and us to move on. ABN

UPDATE: To prevent misunderstanding concerning the above. A fuller and better comment would be as below, which comes from here:

The Buddhist way out of this terrible karma you have incurred is: 1) publicly admit your mistakes; 2) apologize for your mistakes; 3) make amends for your mistakes as you are able and as are proportionate to the harm caused; 4) vow never to do anything like that again. Take your lumps, suffer for having violated your own conscience. Then, when all of this has been completed and you have done your best and your vow is strong, put it behind you and dwell on it no more. For many for whom the above is necessary, this period of remorse and self-examination should last at least a year or more. ABN

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Or brains. Being wrong is not good but also common. Being wrong and also harsh about it is a deeper level of bad. All Buddhist practice falls into one or more of the following Three Trainings: 1) morality/ethics; 2) concentration/mindfulness; 3) wisdom. We all remember those days and the harshness of even some family members. Notice that the worst of them went against each of the Three Trainings, essentially going against every major focal point of Buddhism. Notice also how few of them have apologized. From top public figures to old friends, how many have said they were wrong and are sorry about it? I am not trying to be holier-than-thou. Just trying to point out a deep, pernicious aspect of what is happening in USA. ABN