What is Buddhism?

"'Dukkha should be known. The cause by which dukkha comes into play should be known. The diversity in dukkha should be known. The result of dukkha should be known. The cessation of dukkha should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of dukkha should be known.' Thus it has been said. In reference to what was it said?

"Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are dukkha; association with what is not loved is dukkha, separation from what is loved is dukkha, not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.

(Definitions of sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, despair, association with the ubeloved, separation from the loved, not getting what is wanted)

"And what is the cause by which dukkha comes into play? Craving is the cause by which dukkha comes into play.

"And what is the diversity in dukkha? There is major dukkha & minor, slowly fading & quickly fading. This is called the diversity in dukkha.

"And what is the result of dukkha? There are some cases in which a person overcome with pain, his mind exhausted, grieves, mourns, laments, beats his breast, & becomes bewildered. Or one overcome with pain, his mind exhausted, comes to search outside, 'Who knows a way or two to stop this pain?' I tell you, monks, that dukkha results either in bewilderment or in search. This is called the result of dukkha.

"And what is the cessation of dukkha? From the cessation of craving is the cessation of dukkha; and just this noble eightfold path — right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration — is the path of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha.

"Now when a disciple of the noble ones discerns dukkha in this way, the cause by which dukkha comes into play in this way, the diversity of dukkha in this way, the result of dukkha in this way, the cessation of dukkha in this way, & the path of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha in this way, then he discerns this penetrative holy life as the cessation of dukkha."

— AN 6.63

"The First Noble Truth: The Noble Truth of dukkha", edited by John T. Bullitt. Access to Insight, May 26, 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/index.html

Pema Chodron

Island

Through effort, attention,
Restraint and self-control,
The wise person can become an island
No flood will overwhelm.

-Dhammapada 25

Wishes and Actions

No matter how I might wish things to be otherwise, things are as they are.

Although I wish only the best for you, I also know that your happiness and unhappiness depends upon your actions, not my wishes for you.

Denial

The best-adjusted person in our society is the person who is not dead and not alive, just numb, a zombie. When you are dead you’re not able to do the work of society. When you are fully alive you are constantly saying "No" to many of the processes of society, the racism, the sexism, the polluted environment, the nuclear threat, the arms race, drinking unsafe water and eating carcinogenic foods. Thus it is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly number out and zombie-like. In this way our modern consumer society itself functions as an addict.

-A.W. Schaef - When Society Becomes an Addict

Monkey Mind

How hard it is to control the mind!

Well has it been compared to the maddened monkey. There was a monkey, restless by his own nature, as all monkeys are. As if that were not enough some one made him drink freely of wine, so that he became still more restless. Then a scorpion stung him. When a man is stung by a scorpion, he jumps about for a whole day; so the poor monkey found his condition worse than ever. To complete his misery a demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable restlessness of that monkey?

The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance. How hard to control such a mind!

-Swami Vivekananda

Toddler Altruism

Warneken and Tomasello study

Freedom to be Happy

"What we frequently think about and ponder upon becomes the inclination of the mind." - The Buddha

The Second Arrow

Bringing awareness to our emotions helps us to have straightforward or uncomplicated emotions. No emotion is inappropriate within the field of our mindfulness practice. We are trying to allow them to exist as they arise, without reactivity, without the additional complications of judgment, evaluation, preferences, aversion, desires, clinging or resistance.

The Buddha once asked a student, “If a person is struck by an arrow is it painful?” The student replied, “It is.” The Buddha then asked, “If the person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student replied again, “It is.” The Buddha then explained, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional.”

As long as we are alive we can expect painful experiences – the first arrow. To condemn, judge, criticize, hate, or deny the first arrow is like being struck by a second arrow. Many times the first arrow is out of our control but the arrow of reactivity is not.

Often the significant suffering associated with an emotion is not the emotion itself but the way we relate to it. Do we feel it to be unacceptable? Justified? Do we hate it? Feel pride in it? Are we ashamed of it? Do we tense around it? Are we afraid of how we are feeling?

Mindfulness itself does not condemn our reactions. Rather it is honestly aware of what happens to us and how we react to it. The more cognizant and familiar we are with our reactivity the more easily we can feel, for example, uncomplicated grief or straightforward joy, not mixed up with guilt, anger, remorse, embarrassment, judgment or other reactions. Freedom in Buddhism is not freedom from emotions; it is freedom from complicating them.

From the IMC website

Wait Without Hope

I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope of the wrong thing.

-T.S. Eliot

Usually when we wait, we charge the experience with hope or dread. We are living in the future. If instead, we could not shape the waiting with any expectation, but simply be open to what arises, we are not struggling with the way things are in the present. There is nothing to fix. What arises includes feeling the emotions of hope and fear. This time however, they are also witnessed by awareness. "Oh! here's hope, welcome, oh, and this too! welcome!".

Dropping expectations, waiting becomes simply being.

ID Please!

Taxonomy - the orderly classification of plants and animals.

Yesterday, I attended a conference given by a pastor/botanist. When asked "what could be done for the general public - and especially the youth - to be more responsible about protecting biodiversity?" he replied the following :

"I would tell them to associate taxonomy and observation of nature. People must learn to identify and recognize what is out there. Identifying plants, birds. If a name cannot be given to an object, no relationship can establish itself between the observer and the observed. To identify a plant makes a big difference. If a person walks past a stranger, he will not respond the same way as if he walks past a person that has been introduced and whose name is known. There is an emotional response that stems from recognizing the person."

Identification and naming can have a powerful effect. It might be the royal road to a stronger sense of connection with nature. Memory and the intellect could be the first step to being more fully cognizant, i.e. emotionally and spiritually.

Layers

There once was a princess – Ar – who lived with her parents, the king and queen. The king and queen had overextended themselves, and had for some time relied on loans they obtained from a dragon who lived in the area, dragons having lots of gold and such.

The time came for the king and queen to pay the dragon back, but they didn’t have the money to do it. So they met with the dragon to see what could be worked out. As was the way in those days, they told the dragon that the only thing they had left was their daughter, Ar. The dragon thought about it for a few minutes, and said that he’d accept their offer, would take the princess as his wife, and would become a part of their family.

The daughter was as distressed as you might imagine, but showed more wisdom than her parents. She fled the city to a village on the outskirts of the forest, to a hovel where an old, wise woman lived. She told the old woman of her plight. When she was done with her story, the woman said, “Don’t worry so much. Here’s what you should do…”

Ar listened carefully, and when the old woman finished her instructions, Ar thanked her, and returned home.

Soon enough the wedding day came, with lots of celebrations and toasts and talk and ceremony. Ar was nervous, but dressed for the wedding, as the old woman had instructed her. Ar and the dragon were married. After the dinners and toasts and talk were all done, Ar and the dragon withdrew to their wedding chamber, and Ar said to the dragon, as the old woman had instructed, “Would you like me to undress, so we can consummate our marriage?” The dragon, responded, “Yes!” Ar then said, “One more thing – it would be fitting for you to remove as much as I do. Do you agree?” The dragon, highly motivated, agreed quickly.

Ar then began removing her wedding gown, and the dragon removed such trappings as he’d put on in honor of the occasion. But as Ar removed her gown, there was another gown beneath it. She looked to the dragon, and began to remove her second gown. The dragon, having only put on one layer of clothing for the event, began to peel off its skin. Dragons, like snakes and lizards, sometimes shed their skins, so it wasn’t too painful to do so. But as Ar removed her second gown, there was a third beneath it. The dragon, seeing this, used its claws to carve away its scales. Beneath Ar’s third gown was a fourth, and a fifth, and more – she had followed the old woman’s instructions to put on ten gowns. As she removed each gown, the dragon clawed off more and more.

As she took off her gowns, and as the dragon carved away more and more, Ar saw that his shape began to change. By the time that Ar had removed her tenth gown and stood before the dragon uncovered, the dragon carved away his tenth layer and stood before Ar, now a beautiful young man.

-As told by Jack Kornfield

Combattre, Fuire ou Inhiber

1ère partie



2ème partie

The Essence of PU

This flow chart summarizes it all.

Field tested two days ago. B Target compliance, A2 cleared, receptive to screening, close in sight ~ it's all about kino.

I've felt like writing this in a while, finding it cool that the gibberish actually means something.

Beauty

I think you've all noticed that I have a bit of a soft spot for pretty girls... Only god knows how many actresses I've crushed on (I don't mean famous ones, I mean ones I've actually met in person). Wouldn't life be easier if we could just appreciation women for their personalities alone? I know it would rid me of about 60% of my ridiculously high standards - though it would not solve the problem (80% for most men) .

So what do you think the evolutionary purpose of physical attraction is?

We all know about the evolutionary attraction to physical attributes. Breasts, will feed the young; a high waste to hip ratio will make birth easier; good skin is synonymous with health; etc, etc. It improves our chances of procreation. But what about beauty? A perfectly shaped face. A slender figure? Most of these standards are at least partially created by our modern society. Merely flying to another continent, we see other cultures worshiping roundness and a different face and what do we do? We stimulate bulimia and anorexia. And the worst part of it is... I love slender (I'm part of the problem). This is not only irrational, but also unhealthy from a descendance point of view.

My question is: What possible genetical improvements would our descendants benefit from if we procreated with a beautiful woman? What is the evolutionary purpose of attraction to beauty if beauty is primarily cultural?

Omission - A Cry for Action

Is withholding the truth as bad as lying?

In my first post, I presented two classic social biases: the outgroup homogeneity bias and the trait ascription bias.

If humans could gain much by becoming aware of their cognitive mechanisms, certain behavioral patterns should be brought to awareness at all costs to avoid repeating mistakes from the past. Errare humanum est, sed perservare diabolicum.

We have all heard about the sometimes irrational tendency to protect the status quo; I would like to cast light on a variant: the omission bias.

"We tend to judge harmful actions as worse than harmful inactions (omissions)."

Many people believe that withholding the truth is better than lying although the outcome is the same.

This is an experiment led by Spraca, Minsk and Baron:

A story is read by a group of subjects.
"John, a tennis player, is about to play against a tough opponent in a decisive tournament match. He knows that the opponent is lactose intolerant."
The subjects are then presented with two conditions:

1. John recommends food he knows contains dairy.
2. The opponent orders the food and John does not warn him about the danger despite knowing about it.

As the omission bias predicts, a majority of people found recommending the food more immoral than not informing the opponent.

Most of us have disdain for those who collaborate with repressive police states or accuse innocents. Are we really much better when we witness it and do not react? By knowing something terrible is going to happen and then letting it happen, we are criminals.

You might not like the direction I'm heading in with this post. Although this might be outside the scope of the omission bias, mere knowledge makes us all responsible. We know about future catastrophes to come, injustices happening today, and we let everything happen. I myself so far have not had enough intelligence, maturity, courage and perspective to shake myself into action. I will fall sleep soundly and it should provoke disgust. Guilt, whining and transferring blame is worthless, we are all responsible, and if we want things to change we must act. The simple principle "do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have not done to thyself" is an example of a great place to start.

Soul Mate

To create room for others in your life, start by creating room for yourself.

I have never given enough respect to mushy articles and relationship help columns from psychologists in women's magazines. The rare times I did read them was for lack of other reading material available - thanks mom for leaving those magazines in the bathroom - and usually with a sarcastic frame of mind. The same old banalities seemed to emerge: "men have a harder time expressing feelings, give him some time", "try finding activities you both enjoy", etc.

I felt these instant gratification columns or reader's mail expert answers only tried to patch up a failure-bound relationship rather than reveal the true nature of the situation. People entered relationships for reasons that were never going to provide emotional satisfaction in the long run.

Granted, nobody has a right to judge others' motives - after all we're all in the same boat: self-confidence issues, the appeal of social status, beauty, the promise of stability, the cure for loneliness, the biological clock - but giving false hope is unethical.

I cannot stand the hypocrisy of the "experts" when they try catering to fragile people's idealized conception of love by promising that an unrealistic level of happiness is within reach after a couple adjustments.

However, when I serendipitously stumbled upon a mature, intelligent, yet simple article about relationships in a women's magazine (Yoga Journal - well, it's for men too, but not really), I felt that the theme provided potential for deep inquiries around the themes of existentialism and personal maturation.

The article gently explains how the illusion of finding a soul mate is never going to be a prolific approach. The focus should be within first, facing our problems rather than running away from them. If we escape our unhappiness by rushing into the arms of a partner, the unaddressed issues will eventually surface.

"If we can figure out how to solve our own problems and to love ourselves, we’re not so needy. And that’s when we can enjoy a great relationship for what it is, rather than because our partner appears to fill some need we think we have.

[...]

Our culture and traditions school us to believe the opposite: that someday our prince (or princess) will come, that a relationship has the potential to solve problems like loneliness, that the right partner will make us feel whole. Popular romantic movies propagate the myth of another person completing us.

[...]

On the face of it, the idea of being “completed” by another seems deeply romantic. But it’s a fantasy that can weigh down a relationship with impossible expectations. The truth is that while your partner can offer many things, he or she can’t “complete” you. The only person who can give you a sense of security and an unshakable love of you is you. And though you may “know” this with your mind, sometimes feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, and incompleteness are so deeply buried that you aren’t even aware of them or of how they influence your behavior.

[...]

In relationships, these grooves keep you choosing partners for the same, often misguided, reasons. Maybe you look for somebody just like you (a mirror); maybe you choose partners who have some quality you wish you had (someone who is outgoing if you’re shy, or someone with a big, happy family if yours suffered through a messy divorce); or maybe you unconsciously try to recreate or correct the dynamics of your parents’ relationship.

[...]

“The definition of one of these patterns is that you’re not aware of it when you’re in it,” says psychotherapist Mark Epstein, author of Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught. “Usually you don’t recognize it until it’s ruined some part of your life.”

[...]

Forbes says: “If we come into a relationship from a place of lacking contentment, we end up looking for someone to fill us up to make those feelings go away.” It’s important to try to address our missing pieces on our own.

[...]

If we examine our romantic desires and suspect that they take the form of unhealthy longing for completion, we need to create our ideal life so we aren’t looking for someone else to do it for us. Nourishing the unsatisfied parts of ourselves, as Jenni did, is the key to becoming whole."

Link

The article explains how yoga can help in the process of looking within. The idea is not that yoga is a nostrum which will improve your relationships. It is just another tool for doing the soul searching work - remember it is a Yoga magazine.

Comfort building - quick thoughts

kinda related to Tim's previous post

*Disclaimer:
This is by no means the way one ought to consciously behave with friends or acquaintances. They are simply tools for interaction with strangers you wish to influence and persuade.*

The capacity to build and maintain comfort, especially with "strangers", is in my opinion the single most powerful social skill to possess. Humor and wit are key components. Destroy a taboo shield and you strike at the heart and the mind. An immediate sense of intimacy builds.

Cold reading knowledge, fine-tuned intuition (which can be acquired by experience), adaptability, adjusted body language such as mirroring, displaying equal status, social psychology knowledge (the bit where intuition is not very useful), not being self-conscious nor taking anything seriously are other elements.

If a person can combine this with the capacity to control the frame of the interaction, i.e. to undetectably pull the strings, the social game in any context is won.

Epiphany 1

I think that by starting the previous immaturely-inspired thread, I may have finally stumbled upon the answer to a question that has been blissfully preoccupying my mind for the most of the past 6 years. What is the significance and evolutionary purpose of laughter and thusly humor?

Let’s begin…

After reading Daniel’s comment I felt the inescapable urge to add a little of me although I vastly agreed with him (I can’t help it – and neither can you, o’ reader). I was going to state that toddlers merely had less self-restraint than adults. Paired with the inescapable nature of the phenomenon (Daniel), this made children interpret a taboo as a humorous superficial idea rather than a deeply ingrained psychological restraint (of which we are so casually unaware of). But why laughter, of all the emotions we posses? Why not anger? Why not fear?

Because laughter is our way of accepting and rewarding wit and creativity, specifically triggering feelings.

Have you ever noticed that jokes get old? That the best jokes are the ones that are most unexpected? That the sense of humor changes with time (I mean on the large scale – think decades)?

As long as it is new, within our intellectual grasp and not overly taboo, we laugh. Children, specifically, laugh the most because they discover more, because to them, the world is new. The anal stage, in particular, exists because it is an inescapable occurrence that is only amplified by the society’s enduring strive to hide it; and to children, it feels like an ongoing discovery.

Whether the last statement is true or a misguided explanation for the “anal stage”, don’t let my definition of laughter and humor lose its value.

Humor, in my opinion is evolution’s way of forcing us to stay creative and rewarding those who are quick with their wit. This is nature’s way of ensuring that when we need something done quickly, our brains are active and ready. The joy of laughter comes from the bond created with the humorous individual – it is safer and more productive to stay close to one who can provide quick decisions.

Of course, in our day, with the social distribution of work, humor has become more of a means of entertainment (a way of wasting time and relaxing one might add). Wit, being a requirement for a large fraction of our jobs, no longer necessitates humor for rehearsal. Nevertheless, this instinct still serves a mildly important purpose, although it has been demoted from its original glory of a survival instinct.

(Daniel, thank you for inspiring this thread.)

Ps: I'm sorry for all the photos I posted, but I just think they're very pleasant to look at...

Warming up - Outgroup Homogeneity Bias

Can a sense of identity only develop at the cost of believing that others are less complex and therefore more predictable?

After all, isn't reduction of complexity paramount as a strategy to operate properly in the social world?

____________________________________

In Star Trek, humans are almost always the only species with multiple cultures; alien species are almost universally depicted as having a single culture.

A pretty intuitively obvious pair of cognitive biases would argue in favor of this argument: the outgroup homogeneity bias and the trait ascription bias. The main difference between the two is that the first relates to the group and the second to the individual.

I know, I am not kicking this off in a particularly merry spirit or allowing a smooth inception, but hey! ... ok, here's your smile ;) Don't worry, there will be lots of room devoted to fluff and idle palaver later on!

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article:

"According to the outgroup homogeneity bias, individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.

This bias was found to be unrelated to the number of group and non-group members individuals knew. You might think that people thought members of their own groups were more varied and different simply because they knew them better, but this is actually not the case. The outgroup homogeneity bias was found between groups such as "men" and "women" who obviously interact frequently.

The implications of this effect to stereotyping is obvious, and it may be related to confirmation bias"

I'll devote a post to the confirmation bias later

Trait ascription bias Wikipedia article:
"Trait ascription bias is the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable in their personal traits across different situations. This may be because our own internal states are much more observable and available to us than those of others (more on the availability heuristic and other heuristics in a later post).

This attributional bias has an obvious role in the formation and maintenance of stereotypes and prejudice, combined with the negativity effect."

Trying to give order to a mind which is by nature a "disorganized mind", is probably inevitable and a source of violence.