How to Chill?

lobster

From another thread ...

I think evolutionary science can offer an insight into suffering. Our brains have evolved to be geared up for survival, not for happiness. Mother Nature want's us on our toes, anxious, keeping an eye out for predators. She wants us out of our caves, grasping for stuff, like status, food and sex.

Mother Nature isn't keen on chilled peaceful animals who just sit about all day. They generally end up extinct.

Obviously a lot of our software is out of date; we usually don't need to keep an eye out for predators anymore (for example).

So how does the dharma reboot work?

We are all I feel, a mixture of unique circumstance, similar programming needing a break ... and potential Buddhas. I am keen on the chilled, peaceful, post animal being ... That would be the wake up plan ...

Like in The Matrix, we have to see the code to break and rewrite it. Initially the negative programmed loops are replaced with helpful meritorious patterns.

Which parts of our natural code is useful and what needs discarding? For me the Buddha model or template and its premier tools are essential.

“The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.” – Milarepa
https://personalexcellence.co/blog/reasons-to-meditate/

techie

Nature has conditioned us in a certain manner - fearful, anxious, etc. (because the environment at that time required us to be so).

We now need to recondition ourselves, which is what the noble path is all about.

Bunks

The Buddhist path is the next step in the evolution of our species.....

Jeroen

I think some things are very hard to decondition, like the fight-flight-or-freeze reflex, or the instinct to sometimes respond with violence. These things come from very primitive, survivalist places and to truly become sufficiently mindful that they don’t take over is hard for many people.

Snakeskin

I respect that the synthesis of evolutionary biology and Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices constitutes a new branch of Buddhism. Personally, though, I find no need to remold the Dhamma. It already accounts for evolutionary biology in terms of the impermanent, unsatisfactory and impersonal nature of conditionality.

For me the bigger picture of evolution is more "chilling." It’s an indifferent process of mutation and extinction. The value of any form of life is its suitability to the environment. When the conditions supporting humans inevitably change, humans will go extinct. No depth of ethical and mental discipline can advert this. It can only see it.

“Seeing this, a learned noble disciple becomes disillusioned... Being disillusioned, they become dispassionate. Being dispassionate, they’re freed. When freed, they know ‘it is freed’.”

-- SN 22.59

seeker242

Mother Nature isn't keen on chilled peaceful animals who just sit about all day.

My cat would disagree.

lobster

Thanks everyone,

One of the great misunderstandings is that biological evolution is about improvement. It is not. Biological evolution is about adapting to the environment. The coming Technological Singularity may be the end of us meat balls ...

I Think; Therefore, I Yam
Cogito ergo spud.

I think, therefore I evolve ...

Does only the spiritual path, Dharma, wizarding, alchemy, Sufism, Kabbala, yoga and such like, attempt individual life evolution. Do weleave it to the more sinister/sincere/ignorant dabblers geneticists etc ... ?
https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/12/british-eugenics-disabled

Onward and upward. Sideways and inward. Eh ... which way we going again? ?