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Christopher P. Brown edited this page Jan 25, 2022 · 3 revisions

buddhism

The teachings of the Buddha, in which there is no self and nothing really exists, and isn't that just groovy?

Three trainings

A framework for reasoning about the Eightfold Path

  1. Morality (8fold 3, 4, 5) - Everything concerning how to live with yourself and with others in the world: conduct, kindness, compassion, self-improvement, living a good and useful life.

  2. Concentration (8fold 6, 7, 8) - "access concentration", meditation.

  3. Wisdom (8fold 1, 2) - Insight, vipassana

Three Marks of Existence

  1. Impermanence, anicca

    • The thought exercise The Ship of Theseus or Grandfather's Axe is related to the idea of non-permanence. The idea is that grandfather had an axe. And at some point, the axe head was replaced. And at some point, the handle was replaced. Is it still the same axe?

  2. Suffering/Unsatisfactoriness, or dukkha

  3. No-self, anatta

    • https://www.budsas.org/ebud/mahasi-anat/anat00.htm
    • An apparent paradox of no-self--the assertion that once you rid yourself of desires then you will be enlightend is in opposition to the assertion that there is no "you"--might be dismissed as a mere limitation/quirk of language. It might also be resolved by the fact that there is a "you" which is a special kind of consciousness called awareness, separate from "consciousness" and akin to the Hindu/yogic distinction between consciousness and awareness.

Three Poisons

  1. Greed: desire, thirst, tanha. You can only desire something if you acknowledge a self that can benefit from adding to or taking away from, a distance between the self and that which is desired.

  2. Hatred: Suffering, unsatisfactoriness, negative feelings, dukkha

  3. Delusion: ignorance

    • the delusion of self, in opposition to the truth of no-self
    • the delusion of essence, atman, (soul?); in opposition to the truth of emptiness

If you remove greed and hatred from yourself, then delusions will fall away.

Five spiritual faculties

Faith and wisdom, and energy and concentration are opposites of each other

  1. Faith and wisdom

  2. Energy and concentration

  3. Mindfulness

Five aggregates that are not self (Skandha):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha

  1. rupa: form, matter, body

  2. vedana: sensations, feelings, received from form

  3. samjna: perceptions

  4. sankhara: mental activity or formations

  5. vijnana: consciousness, discernment, discrimination

Seven Factors of Enlightenment

  1. Mindfulness

  2. Investigation of truth

  3. Energy

  4. Rapture

  5. Tranquility

  6. Concentration

  7. Equanimity

Four Noble Truths

  1. There is suffering

  2. It is caused by desire

  3. There is an end to suffering

  4. It is achieved through the Eightfold Path

Eightfold path

  1. Right view

  2. Right resolve

  3. Right speech

  4. Right conduct

  5. Right livelihood

  6. Right effort

  7. Right mindfulness

  8. Right samadhi

Schools

  1. Theravada

  2. Mahayana: larger of the schools.

    • Zen

Two Kinds of Meditation

  1. Concentration

    • zazen: breath or mantra

  2. Mindfulness

    • Insight: Vipassanā
    • zazen: (koan introspection)

Where does Loving Kindness meditation fit into this?

Feelings

Feelings are judgments that we have toward something. Every thought has an associated feeling, subtly or not. They exist to drive evolutionary or biologically beneficial behavior. That is, behavior that will allow us to pass genetic code to our offspring. Which is what evolution and natural selection has created us to do.

Feelings are of two flavors:

Positive/Good Negative/Bad
Attraction Aversion
Approach Avoid
Acquire Refuse

Humans desire good feelings and hate bad feelings, and this is the origin of dukkha, of suffering.

How feelings can be false

When a feeling draws you toward that which is bad for you, it can be considered to be a false feeling.

Consider road rage (not useful, harmful to yourself and to others) and the desire to eat lots of sweets or drink lots of alcohol (not useful, harmful to self and to others). These are false feelings.

Senses

People have six senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and thought.

src needed? People have tons of senses.

Resources

Books

  1. Mindfulness in Plain English

  2. Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Daniel Ingram

  3. Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright

  4. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

  5. Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Aitken

  6. Evolving Dharma, Jay Michaelson

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