#buddhist-practice — Public Fediverse posts

The Buddha said that the most important thing in our life is our mind because ...

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NYC woman declined to press charges against subway shover ‘because she didn’t want to put another black man in jail’… weeks later he allegedly killed retired teacher, 76, at station

A young woman in New York City said she declined pressing charges against a violent suspect because she didn’t want to put ‘another black man in jail,’ weeks before he allegedly killed a 76-year-old retired teacher. 

The 23-year-old woman anonymously detailed how she and a friend narrowly escaped Rhamell Burke, 32, after he allegedly attacked them while riding the subway on April 2.

The straphanger told the New York Post she now completely regrets her decision not to work with prosecutors after Burke was charged with murder on Friday for allegedly shoving 76-year-old Ross Falzone down a flight of stairs to his death at a subway station Thursday night.

‘Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy,’ the unidentified woman told the outlet.

Police say Rhamell Burke was released from Bellevue Hospital roughly five hours before the deadly subway attack on Ross Falzone (Pictured) on Thursday

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Unwise compassion — Buddhism warns against this. The highest virtue in Buddhism is wisdom, not unwise anything. ABN

Alan Wallace on consciousness

https://youtu.be/BewiManklzY?t=1981

Dharmadhatu (Buddhist Concept)

Dharmadhatu (Sanskrit: धर्मधातु, “realm of phenomena” or “realm of ultimate reality”) is a central concept in Mahayana Buddhism denoting the ultimate, all-encompassing nature of reality. It represents the infinite, empty, and interdependent expanse in which all phenomena—both samsaric and nirvanic—arise, abide, and dissolve. Often equated with emptiness (śūnyatā), suchness (tathatā), and the Dharmakāya (the body of ultimate truth), the Dharmadhatu is the fundamental ground of existence and consciousness. 

In Tibetan Buddhism, it is associated with the primordial purity of mind and is accessible through the mindstream. When fully realized, it is inseparable from buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha). The Dharmadhatu is also linked to Vairocana, the cosmic Buddha, and is one of the Five Wisdoms—specifically Dharmadhatu wisdom, which perceives the equality and interconnectedness of all things. 

The Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism developed the concept into the “Fourfold Dharmadhatu,” describing increasingly profound levels of reality, culminating in the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena. 

Alan Wallace

B. Alan Wallace (born 1950) is an American Buddhist scholar, author, and meditation teacher renowned for his work in Tibetan Buddhism and the dialogue between contemplative practices and Western science. Ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama in 1975, he trained for 14 years in India and Switzerland before earning a B.A. in physics and philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University. 

Wallace is a prominent advocate for integrating first-person contemplative inquiry into scientific study, critiquing materialist reductionism in science. He founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and the Centers for Contemplative Research in Colorado, Italy, and New Zealand. He led the landmark Shamatha Project, a scientific study on the effects of long-term meditation. 

A prolific writer and translator, his works include The Attention Revolution, Dreaming Yourself Awake, and Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic. He has served as a translator for the Dalai Lama in Mind and Life dialogues with scientists since 1987. 

"The Buddha taught that the greatest gift is the gift of Dhamma. For it is the Dhamma that 'turns upright what has been upside-down, reveals what has been hidden, shows the way to those who are lost, raises a lamp in the darkness for those with eyes to see forms.'"
~Ajahn Jayasāro

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Making puñña (merit) and dāna (giving) is a way of letting go of ...

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During one of the first years, that we were establishing Wat Pah Nanachat, the forest monastery Ajahn Chah set up for foreigners, the villagers would come and ...

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NASA scientist who ‘died three times’ saw the same thing every time… and it wasn’t the pearly gates of Heaven

A NASA scientist has claimed she did not just die once, but three times, and saw the exact same thing each time.

Ingrid Honkala, 55, an oceanographer who has worked with NASA, said she had near-death experiences at the ages of two, 25 and 52.

While each incident unfolded differently, she said the outcome was identical: she entered a strange state of complete calm, with no fear, no sense of time, and a feeling of separating from her physical body.

Instead, Honkala described becoming ‘pure awareness,’ immersed in what she calls a vast, interconnected consciousness filled with light, clarity and peace.

She claimed this was not a fleeting hallucination, but a consistent experience she returned to every time she came close to death.

The scientist now believes these moments offered a glimpse into what lies beyond human life, challenging the idea that consciousness ends when the body shuts down.

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The highlighted paragraphs above describe a samadhi state, which the Buddha said is available to virtually all human beings. Samadhi, or the training for it, is the Eighth Path of the Noble Eightfold Path. To use Honkala’s words, the fourth and highest samadhi state in Buddhism is an experience which transforms human consciousness by ‘immersing‘ us in ‘a vast, interconnected consciousness filled with light, clarity and peace.’ ABN

For every time you pay respects to the Buddha, it will remind you of ...

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Intent is the attitude or inclination on which we base our actions, and in a life that is full of ...

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Gödel’s logic and Buddhism

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems demonstrate that any sufficiently powerful formal system contains truths that cannot be proven from within the system, implying that complete understanding requires a perspective outside the system.

In philosophical and theological interpretations, this limitation is often mapped to the distinction between immanent knowledge (within the system) and transcendent awareness (outside the system).

1. The Structural Limitation

• Internal Incompleteness: Gödel proved that a system cannot prove its own consistency or grasp all its own truths; there are always statements that are true but unprovable within the system’s axioms.
• The “Outside” Perspective: To comprehend the complete picture or verify the system’s consistency, one must step outside the logical framework, accessing a higher order of intelligibility or a “super axiom.”

2. Application to Buddhist Epistemology

• Samsara vs. Nibbāna: In this analogy, the “system” represents Samsara (the cycle of existence and conventional logic), while the “outside” represents Nibbāna (the unconditioned state).
• Transcendent Awareness: A being within the system (a sentient being) cannot cognize the ultimate truth of the system from within. Only by transcending the system—achieving Arahanthood or Buddhahood—can one “see things as they are” from the outside.
• Greater vs. Lesser: Consequently, the “lesser” cognition (bound by internal logical limits and dualistic perception) cannot fully comprehend the “greater” transcendent awareness (which encompasses the total system from a non-dual, external vantage point).

3. Philosophical Implications

• Limits of Human Reason: This aligns with the view that human reason and formal logic are inherently limited and cannot grasp ultimate reality without intuitive or transcendent insight.
• God and the Super Axiom: Similarly, in theological interpretations, Gödel’s work suggests the existence of a higher intelligence (God) or “super axiom” that exists outside the created system, sustaining it from a position of complete knowledge that finite beings cannot access internally.

Thus, Gödel’s logic provides a formal mathematical basis for the idea that ultimate truth is inaccessible to the system itself, requiring a transcendent standpoint for full comprehension.

link

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I would add that FIML practice allows us to step outside of the psycholinguistic system we use to communicate with our partner, and others. There is some chance FIML partners could become lost in a folie à deux, or shared psychosis, but odds of this are very low, imo, especially if partners frequently refer to philosophies, thoughts, ideas, and evidence outside of their world as a couple. FIML provides a kind of parallax for both partners psycholinguistic systems as well as the two systems working together as one. FIML cannot completely solve the inherent ambiguousness of interpersonal communication but it can improve our understanding (or resolution1) of our communications by at least one order of magnitude, or more. ABN

1. the process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object ↩︎

FIML and cerebral efficiency

This article argues that the human brain saves energy by predicting or imagining “reality” more than actually perceiving it: Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds? The article argues that this way of using our brains allows us to work more efficiently with complex data or in complex situations.

I think this general premise is pretty well known and agreed on, but the linked article puts it in a new way. The following sentence caught my eye: This… underlines the surprising extent to which the structure of our expectations (both conscious and non-conscious) may quite literally be determining much of what we see, hear and feel.

The article uses visual perception as an example, but the idea applies just as well, and maybe more so, to what we hear in the speech of others. FIML practice works by inserting a new mental skill between the first arising of a (stored) interpretation and its full-blown acceptance as “reality”.

BUDDHISM: The Three Signs, or Trilakṣaṇa — All things are anitya ‘impermanent’…. All things are duḥkha ‘unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable’…. All things are anātman ‘without an innate self-identity’

Three Signs, or Trilakṣaṇa: All dharmas are anitya ‘impermanent’…. All dharmas are duḥkha ‘unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable’…. All dharmas are anātman ‘without an innate self-identity. (dharmas means ‘things’)

By basing meditation practice on the Three Signs, we can achieve nirvana.

This is the simplest or shortest way to describe Buddhism. It appears to also be the most ancient way to describe Buddhism. This basic description is historically attested to within approximately 100 years of the Buddha’s passing.

The Noble Eightfold Path is also an excellent way to describe and understand Buddhist practice. It is not historically attested until several centuries after the Buddha’s passing.

Buddhism is a living tradition which develops and responds to new information and societal differences. Something that is true and helpful, like the Noble Eightfold Path, is good Buddhism. Buddhism is not based on sacred texts but on mind-to-mind teaching and insight, both philosophical (the Three Signs) and experiential (samadhi/ nirvana)_

The Three Signs include duhkha, which is often misleadingly translated as ‘suffering’ or worse, ‘lifelong suffering’. The much better translation of duhkha is ‘badly standing’ or ‘unstable’. With this in mind, the Four Noble Truths may be considered slightly misleading since the First Noble Truth is often called the Truth of Suffering.

Nirvana and deep meditative states are something we experience.. There is no substitute for this experience. All of Buddhist practice is aimed at experiencing nirvana. Nirvana can be attained in this life. ABN

A profound connective insight sent by an alert reader

An opinionated observation:

Bayesian belief or perspective in some respects possibly co-relates with FIML as both are able to update expectation based on accumulating data insight, particularly as a kind of Thomas Kuhnian or Zen insight.  The more reductive method of scientific expectation cognizes realization, reality, as statistical summaries across repeated events.  These two types correlate, in degrees, to Kantian Noumenon and phenomenon, and to his notion of categorical decisions.

Beginning with Cantor’s Uncountability and Power Set Theorems, then Godel’s two Incompleteness Theorems, and Tarski’s Undefinability of Truth Theorem, it is presently accepted proof in logic-mathematics circles that there is no earth-touching mudra Truth gesture within “Human, All too Human” ratiocination.  Cf Wittgenstein’s “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Both Gautama’s mudra and Jesus’ comparable “mudra” of Silence standing in the “What is truth?” Biblical scene witness to a Truth-claim of Mind re which human inquiry thereat Cantor, Godel, Tarski, et al. have satisfactorily shown to be  coincidentally incomplete and therefore indefinite.

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I completely agree with paragraph one above. That is precisely what FIML does and it is in line with both ancient and modern philosophy and modern mathematics and science. As for paragraph two, I also agree with it but want to add that Buddhist practice provides a fundamental experience, which is typically lacking in Western philosophy. That experience is the experience of the samadhi states, including nirvana which is the purest of the samadhi states. If we use words to describe nirvana, we might say it is the experience of pure awareness of pure consciousness. It is the knowable and observable ‘going out’ of delusion, leaving the experiencer with nothing but pure awareness. This is an attainable state in this life, achievable through meditation. ABN

Interoception, proprioception, and perception of dynamic mental states

Interoception means our “perception or sense of internal body states,” including the states of our cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, and thermoregulatory systems among others.

Proprioception means “one’s own” or “ones’ individual” (Latin proprius) “perception.” We normally use this word to refer to our physical position in the world—whether we are standing or sitting, how we are moving, and how much energy we are using.

Both interoception and proprioception generally refer to physical states of the body though, of course, how we interpret those states may involve much more than immediate physical considerations.

Erroneous interoception or the misinterpretation of internal states is is generally thought to be an important contributing factor to many psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, panic disorder, and more.

Consider some other levels of interoception—our states of mind; our mental impressions of other people and of ourselves; our senses of our own psychologies.

These levels of psychological reality are normally accessed through introspection, meditation, mindfulness, and psychotherapy. All of these methods are good, but each of them lacks ongoing, real-time input from another human being, thus missing the dynamic functioning of the human mind in real-life situations.

FIML corrects this problem by providing objective, dynamic access to real-time psychological functioning. FIML is a method or tool for optimizing human psychology by honing our perceptions of our mental states as they actually function in real-world situations.

In early Buddhism, Buddhists believed that nirvana is achievable in this life

It has been shown conclusively that in the earliest sutras Buddha is shown as having attained nirvana in this lifetime, and did not lose it during the decades before his death. Hundreds of years later, in Normative Buddhism, the early picture of Buddha’s enlightenment as nirvana had become increasingly modified, to the point that many came to consider it impossible to attain nirvana in one lifetime. Nevertheless, this must not mislead us into thinking that such was the view of the Buddha’s followers in his lifetime, or soon after his death. It is logically necessary for the Buddha to have achieved nirvana and for his followers to have believed that they could do the same thing if they imitated him, in order for such later ideas to have developed in reaction to it. If the Buddha had not achieved his remarkable, heroic breakthrough, there would have been no Buddhism.

Beckwith, Christopher I.. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (pp. 42-43). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

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In early Buddhism, it is also true that no one thought of the Buddha as a god. The Buddha himself, even in ‘Normative Buddhist’ texts claims that he is ‘just a man’ and that anyone can achieve nirvana if they do the work (karma). It would probably be a good thing for Buddhists today to emphasize these points; and by so doing, remind Buddhism of its deepest roots — Nirvana is a real state that anyone can achieve if they do the work; and all dharmas (things) are characterized by the Three Signs, or Trilakṣaṇa: “All dharmas are anitya ‘impermanent’…. All dharmas are duḥkha ‘unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable’…. All dharmas are anātman ‘without an innate self-identity’.” ABN

Pyrrho’s thought and practice was a form of Early Buddhism which he learned during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra

The conclusion to be drawn from the evidence about Pyrrho’s thought and practice is that he adopted a form of Early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, including its philosophical-religious and pragmatic elements, but he stripped it of its alien garb and reconstituted it as a new ‘Greek Buddhism’ for the Hellenistic world, which he presented in his own words to Timon and his other students.

Beckwith, Christopher I.. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (pp. 54-55). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

The earliest attested philosophical-religious system that is both historically datable and clearly recognizable as a form of Buddhism is Early Pyrrhonism, the teachings and practices of Pyrrho of Elis and Timon of Phlius, as shown in Chapter One. Its central features correspond exactly to some of the central features of the traditional putatively “early” form of Buddhism presented in Pali canonical texts.

However, the latter tradition of Buddhism also contains many elements—beliefs, institutions, devotional practices, and so on—which developed at the earliest in the Saka-Kushan period, three centuries after Pyrrho. They spread throughout the ancestors of the attested forms of Buddhism, creating Normative Buddhism. The elements that are attested only from approximately the Saka-Kushan period on—the exact time remains to be established—are far from trivial. They include the Saṃgha, the community of monks; the idea of the bhikṣu ‘monk’ per se, as well as of the bhikṣunī ‘nun’; the vihāra or monastery; the Vinaya, or Buddhist monastic code; worship of the Buddha;4 development of the idea of reincarnations of the Buddha, both human and godlike; abhidharma or “Buddhist scholasticism”; and many others. They are now considered to be essential elements of traditional Buddhism, yet there is no historically sound evidence that they existed at all5 (and some evidence that they did not yet exist) until long after the visit of Pyrrho in 330–325 BC and that of Megasthenes in 305–304 BC. The lateness of the development of devotion for the Buddha and Buddha incarnations, as well as reverence for the Buddha’s teachings (the Dharma) and the community of monks (the Saṃgha), means that the invention of the Triratna (‘Three Jewels’) formula is even later (perhaps as a “popular” substitute for the difficult Trilakṣaṇa1 ‘Three Characteristics’ formula, which is phonetically similar.

Beckwith, Christopher I.. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (pp. 61-62). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

1. The Buddha says, “All dharmas are anitya ‘impermanent’…. All dharmas are duḥkha ‘unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable’…. All dharmas are anātman ‘without an innate self-identity’.”
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