Best Of
Re: Buddhism and the Theatre *raises hand in a dramatic fashion*
I was just reading about meditative concentration from the 6 paramitas of Mahayana Buddhism. In the section about meditative concentration they talk about the virtue of a monastery compared to the householders life. A monastery was defined as 500 armspans away from a town (an earshot). I think that theatre could be spoken of as a negative if they are keeping someone away from having a very peaceful life where it's easy to reach meditative concentration. So the problem of theatre might be that it's one of the things in the householders life that keeps them away from a monastery life. I also read that even walking 7 footsteps (symbolic or literal?) towards a monastery was a very virtuous offering to the Buddhas, even more virtuous than making extensive offerings of food, drink, flowers, and so forth.
From my reading (translation of the Jewel Ornament of Liberation):
The Good Qualities of Solitude. Escaping from agitation and staying in monasteries for the sake of enlightenment and of sentient beings has many good qualities:
a) It is an excellent offering to all the Buddhas,
b) one will renounce samsara, will be free from the eight worldly concerns, and will not encourage the afflicting emotions
c) meditative concentration will arise
Jeffrey
Re: The AI tsunami
I just watched this docu about companion AIs, it seems like quite a few people are vulnerable to this. It’s basically emotional manipulation as a business model.
Jeroen
Re: The AI tsunami
Kurzgesagt is on the job. Pointing out how shoddy AI information can lead to the rot of information online through an iterative process of AI using previous imperfect AI slop to remove any bit of trust remaining online. As well as other negative social effects from current AI.
person
Re: Should a Buddhist own a gun ?
While ethics and judgmentalism are not strictly identical, they are often intertwined in practice. Ethical reasoning involves making judgments about right and wrong, and when applied rigidly or without empathy, it can easily slip into judgmentalism.
Distinguishing between principled critique and unkind condemnation is important, but insisting that ethics is entirely separate from being judgmental overlooks how moral standards are inevitably experienced and enforced in social contexts.
Shoshin1
Re: Should a Buddhist own a gun ?
Thus have I heard and found to be true:
There is not much that one cannot justify if one puts one’s mind to it. If one enjoys doing something and is told that it is unethical, one will look for ways to make it seem more ethical, to give oneself, or those who share the same unethical practice, peace of mind.
So it is with those who own guns, for they tell themselves it is for sport, for safety, or for freedom, while overlooking that the weapon they cherish was made for the taking of sentient life. Then they start to say, but a knife kills, and so the justification continues, forgetting that knives were made to carve and create, while guns were made to destroy.
Then some might say, who am I to judge another who chooses to own a gun, all the while continuing to justify something unethical. Some people justify killing, but if those carrying out the killing are not liked by them, then that is a different story.
This no doubt will make some uncomfortable, but Buddhism and Dharma practice can make one feel uncomfortable when facing one’s own shortcomings, reminding us that the hardest truth to face is often the one about ourselves. And I’ve been there and done that on more than one occasion.
Shoshin1