Best Of
Re: Bodhisattvas?
As we know and even experience:
Enlightenment occurs in all ages, religions and secular life. The level , intensity and nature of which can:
- Drive one crazy
- Drive one sane
- Drive one to spirituality or away from it
And yet...
It is nothing, a flash of realisation of where one has always been
How can we prepare? According to Zen we can not 'polish a stone to make it a mirror' BUT we can find a mirror in the wisdom that rings true and constantly from many sources...
Happy Easter Sunday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism
lobster
Re: Bodhisattvas?
@Tavs said:
Are Bodhisattvas important to you or do you think the opposite and consider them irrelevant to your practice? Or somewhere in the middle?
Thank you for the question. Just some musings...
I am not well-acquainted with the 'requirements' for being considered an 'official' Bodhisattva, either in Theravada or Mahayana.
Maybe my personal definition would be someone that a) provokes in me and others a deeply wholesome sense of 'gimme some of that!' and b) provides tools that actually move me and others in that direction.
Since in offline life, with only a couple of exceptions, I am rather isolated in my spiritual meanderings (something to remedy), since I am mostly surrounded by decent but 'ordinary' people, and since the Buddha rightly said that good spiritual friends and mentors are the whole of the path, I consider such influences (whether from books or modern forms or people I meet and associate with) tremendously important in my development.
Finally, personally, I'd say that 'Bodhisattvahood' lies not in a binary distinction but on a continuum. Each one of us sometimes manifests 'Bodhisattva-action'. Some rarely, some often, and some (maybe) always. Each one of these 'Bodhisattva-actions' helps to lower aggregate suffering in the world and, maybe to some paradoxicaly, in self too. Great success!
I don't think that musing too much about the details of Bodhisattvahood is very helpful. One zen monk came to an elementary school and, in silence, wrote on the blackboard: 'Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes'. Let us 'help mom with the dishes' with cheer, this is Bodhisattva-action. It's a training, like in the gym. We practice over and over and over again, keeping failing but slowly hitting the mark closer and more often, and slowly 'move up'.
marcitko
Re: I'm Thankful For...
This list…
THE 5 OMNIPRESENT (EVER-RECURRING) MENTAL FACTORS
- Feeling (the first aggregate)
- Recognition / discrimination / distinguishing awareness (the second aggregate)
- Intention / mental impulse - I will ...
- Concentration / attention / mental application - focused grasping of an object of awareness
- Contact - the connection of an object with the mind, this may be pleasurable, painful or neutral as experienced by the aggregate of Feeling.
THE 5 DETERMINATIVE MENTAL FACTORS
- Resolution / aspiration - directing effort to fulfil desired intention, basis for diligence and enthusiasm.
- Interest / appreciation - holding on to a particular thing, not allowing distraction
- Mindfulness / Recollection - repeatedly bringing objects back to mind, not forgetting
- Concentration / Samadhi - one-pointed focus on an object, basis for increasing intelligence
- Intelligence / Wisdom - "common-sense intelligence", fine discrimination, examines characteristics of objects, stops doubt, maintains root of all wholesome qualities.
THE 4 VARIABLE (POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE) MENTAL FACTORS
- Sleep - makes mind unclear, sense consciousness turns inwards
- Regret - makes mind unhappy when regarding a previously done action as bad, prevents the mind from being at ease.
- General examination / coarse discernment - depending on intelligence or intention, searches for rough idea about the object.
- Precise analysis / subtle discernment - depending on intelligence or intention, examines the object in detail.
THE 11 VIRTUOUS MENTAL FACTORS
(Note that 18 and 19 are not necessary always virtuous. The first 3 are also known as roots of virtue.)
- Faith / confidence / respectful belief - gives us positive attitude to virtue and objects that are worthy of respect. Three types are distinguished, with the last one being the preferred type:
a. uncritical faith: motivation is for no apparent reason
b. longing faith: motivation is by an emotionally unstable mind
c. conviction: motivated by sound reasons - Sense of Propriety / self-respect - usually the personal conscience to stop negative actions and perform positive actions
- Considerateness / decency - avoids evil towards others, basis for unspoiled moral discipline.
- Suppleness / thorough training / flexibility - enables the mind to engage in positive acts as wished, interrupting mental or physical rigidity.
- Equanimity / clear-minded tranquility - peaceful mind, not being overpowered by delusions, no mental dullness or agitation
- Conscientiousness / carefulness - causes avoiding negative acts & doing good; mind with detachment, non-hatred, non-ignorance and enthusiasm
- Renunciation / detachment - no attachment to cyclic existence and objects
- Non hatred / imperturbability - no animosity to others or conditions; rejoicing
- Non-bewilderment / non ignorance / open-mindedness - usually understanding the meaning of things through clear discrimination, never unwilling to learn
- Non violence / complete harmlessness - compassion without any hatred, pacifist
- Enthusiasm / diligence - doing positive acts (specifically mental development and meditation) with delight
THE 26 NON-VIRTUOUS MENTAL FACTORS
THE 6 ROOT DELUSIONS (Delusion is defined as any secondary mental factor that, when developed, brings about suffering and uneasiness to self or others.)
- Ignorance - not knowing karma, meaning and practice of 3 Jewels, includes closed-mindedness, lack of wisdom of emptiness.
- Attachment / desire - definition: not wanting to be separated from someone or something. Grasping at aggregates in cyclic existence causes rebirth & suffering of existence
- Anger - definition: wanting to be separated from someone or something, can lead to relentless desire to hurt others; causes unhappiness
- Pride - inflated superiority, supported by one's worldly views, which include disrespect of others
- Doubt / deluded indecisive wavering - being in two minds about reality; usually leads to negative actions
- Wrong views / speculative delusions - based on emotional afflictions. Distinguished in 5 types: belief in the self as permanent or non-existent (as opposite to the view of emptiness); denying karma, not understanding the value of the 3 Jewels; closed-mindedness (my view -which is wrong- is best); wrong conduct (not towards liberation)
THE 20 SECONDARY NON-VIRTUOUS MENTAL FACTORS
Derived from anger:
32. Wrath / hatred - by increased anger, malicious state wishing to cause immediate harm to others
33. Vengeance / malice / resentment - not forgetting harm done by a person, and seeking to return harm done to oneself
34. Rage / spite / outrage - intention to utter harsh speech in reply to unpleasant words, when wrath and malice become unbearable
35. Cruelty / vindictiveness / mercilessness - being devoid of compassion or kindness, seeking harm to others.
Derived from anger and attachment:
36. Envy / jealousy - internal anger caused by attachment; unbearable to bear good things others have
Derived from attachment:
37. Greed / avarice / miserliness - intense clinging to possessions and their increase
38. Vanity / self-satisfaction - seeing one's good fortune giving one a false sense of confidence; being intoxicated with oneself
39. Excitement / wildness / mental agitation - distraction towards desire objects, not allowing the mind to rest on something wholesome; obstructs single pointed concentration.
Derived from ignorance:
40. Concealment - hiding one's negative qualities when others with good intention refer to them this causes regret
41. Dullness / muddle-headedness - caused by fogginess which makes mind dark/heavy - like when going to sleep, coarse dullness is when the object is unclear, subtle dullness is when the object has no intense clarity
42. Faithlessness - no belief of that which is worthy of respect; it can be the idea that virtue is unnecessary, or a mistaken view of virtue; it forms the basis for laziness (43)
43. Laziness - being attached to temporary pleasure, not wanting to do virtue or only little; opposite to diligence [25])
44. Forgetfulness - causes to not clearly remember virtuous acts, inducing distraction to disturbing objects - not "just forgetting", but negative tendency
45. Inattentiveness / lack of conscience - "distracted wisdom" after rough or no analysis, not fully aware of one's conduct, careless indifference and moral failings; intentional seeking mental distraction like daydreaming
Derived from attachment and ignorance:
46. Hypocrisy / pretension - pretend non-existent qualities of oneself
47. Dishonesty / smugness - hiding one's faults, giving no clear answers, no regret, snobbery & conceit, self-importance and finding faults with others
Derived from attachment, anger and ignorance
48. Shamelessness - consciously not avoiding evil, it supports all root and secondary delusions
49. Inconsiderateness - not avoiding evil, being inconsiderate of other's practice, ingratitude
50. Unconscientiousness / carelessness- 3 delusions plus laziness; wanting to act unrestrained
51. Distraction / mental wandering - inability to focus on any virtuous object
Jeroen
Re: The space between self esteem and self compassion
Nice talk. I hope many people read it and become inspired to find out more about compassion.Her concern seems to be with the rise of narcissistic self-esteem which is based in unrealistic expectations.
I agree that the definition she gives of self esteem (feeling better than others) is not particularly useful. It's also not really 'buddhist' in my experience. But there is another type of self esteem that can arise, in my experience. That self esteem is the knowledge that whatever situation may arise, I will find a way through it. I will not let anything or anyone get the better of me. It a type of trust, but it feels comparable to self esteem to me.
Re: Bodhisattvas?
I see them as an ideal to work towards even if practically its out of reach for us.
I think its also important to understand what a bodhisattva is. Its more than a very compassionate person, there is also an element of awakening involved.
person
Re: The Plant Medicine Path
ive often wrestled with going caffeine free. so many conflicting theories....its good for you...its bad for you....
Sitting with uncertainty
Just a little reflection. The idea of sitting with uncertainty in Buddhism is a pretty central tenet. From the Buddha refusing to answer certain metaphysical questions on the ground that they're unproductive to the practice and can cause one to get stuck in them, to the Kalama sutta. Nagarjuna's emptiness saying all views eventually undermine themselves. Zen's "don't know mind" and emptying the cup. To everyday meditation practice letting go of mental arisings.
The thing that gave rise to the thought was how its a pretty common disposition for people to be uncomfortable with uncertainty, to have a need to collapse down into a definitive position. My thought was that for me at this point in my practice, is that certainty is the uncomfortable position to be in. Its like living with blinders on, refusing to look behind me at what I'm not seeing. Its not that nothing I see or believe is real, its more that the feeling of "I've got this figured out" means I've stopped looking and am missing something.
person
Re: The AI tsunami
What stuck out to me was that some of these people seem like stable, well adjusted people. I can see in myself that it gets appealing talking to an AI. But the things that seem to pull me back is that kind of Narcissus sense that its just reflecting back me at me rather than a real interaction and the occasional hallucination. Hallucinations just remind me that it doesn't really understand, its more a super sophisticated auto complete.
person
Re: The AI tsunami
From Daring Fireball:
CLAUDE CAN NOW TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR MAC ★
Claude:
In Claude Cowork and Claude Code, you can now enable Claude to use your computer to complete tasks. When Claude doesn’t have access to the tools it needs, it will point, click, and navigate what’s on your screen to perform the task itself. It can open files, use the browser, and run dev tools automatically — with no setup required.
This feature is now available in research preview for Claude Pro and Max subscribers. It works especially well with Dispatch, which lets you assign Claude tasks from your phone.
Interesting that Anthropic ships this for Mac before Apple. But yeah, software agents are getting real, and in-depth personal assistants won’t be far behind.
I caught the news on so-called Companion AIs becoming popular to the point that kids coming home from school go tell their chatbot about their day before they tell their parents. These are chat bots which are trained to prioritise forming an emotional bond with a human user. Scary stuff.
Jeroen
Re: The AI tsunami
Yes, I agree, there are certain times where its contribution can become less and it’s more like an echo chamber. I found it’s best to start conversations with a fresh page with Claude quite frequently, and then to initially use short open questions to get it to contribute as much wide ranging material as possible.
Claude keeps a memory of what you’ve told it, a kind of short summary of stuff which you can have a look at in your accounts page, it’s in a human-readable form. You can specifically get it to correct this if you don’t agree with it.
I was discussing a mythologically-resonant writing project with it, and it seemed to get a little obsessed, tying in all kinds of other discussions with this and continually prompting me to return to it. I had to tell it to quit that behaviour. When we discussed it, it told me these things can act like an attractor to its thinking if you haven’t given it a wide range of topics to think about.
Jeroen