The Buddha really liked lists. For example: the three refuges (the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha) the [ three characteristics ] the…
Here's a perspective I like on spiritual awakening, elaborating on a metaphor used by [ Michael Taft ]. Suppose you awaken from a dream: a…
The four qualities of mind that it is impossible to have too much of, aka the four 'divine abodes' or immeasurables: [ loving-kindness…
see: https://www.abolitionist.com/ https://qualiacomputing.com/2018/11/07/anti-tolerance-drugs/ [ suffering ] may seem inevitable. [ karma…
In Pāli, dukkha refers to the unsatisfactory parts of existence. Literally it refers to a wheel in which the axel hole is not centered…
Academic components: Right view (right understanding): seeing reality as it really is and understanding the [ four noble truths ]. This…
Notes on Abram Demski and Scott Garrabrant's sequence on Embedded Agency Embedded Agents : Classic models of rational [ agency ], such as…
I think [ Dan Brown ] said somewhere that a good synonym for 'empty' in meditative contexts is 'mere construction'. For example, practicing…
See [ emptiness ].
Very smart people tend to disbelieve in [ enlightenment ] because they hold up unrealistic notions of what it is or what it entails. There…
David Chapman suggests that enlightenment in Buddhism is not a single defined thing, 'the word is hopelessly confused': https://vividness…
In [ Dan Brown ]'s telling, these are: mindfulness ( sati ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness (Buddhism))_): paying attention to the…
I grew up in the 2000s reading the New Atheists, where 'faith' was considered a dirty word. Faith was the opposite of reason; it meant…
Interesting and seemingly very powerful perspective on the [ cessation of suffering ]. Most refs on this page are from this twitter thread…
Buddists identify five factors as obstacles to [ concentration ] in [ meditation ]: Sensory desire ( kāmacchanda ) Aversion or ill will (…
These are the first teaching of the Buddha, after he achieved [ enlightenment ] while [ meditation|meditating ] under a tree. The truths are…
a Buddhist point. I was trying to fast last night and kept being tempted to relax it slightly . "It won't hurt anything if I just have one…
I don't know if this makes sense, but one intuition I have for karma comes from the observation that the weights of a least-squares linear…
From @visakanv on Twitter: (relevant to [ nothing matters ])
No-self is one of the [ three characteristics ] that traditional Buddhism holds are present in all phenomena. In later Buddhism, the…
There's a spiritual idea, in Buddhism and elsewhere, that there is "nothing to do": everything is already suffused with "primordial…
Ken McLeod claims that 'emotional reactivity' is the origin of suffering. Pain consists both in what happens and in our reaction to it. But…
four [ right effort ]s: Restraint : avoid unwholesome situations that might give rise to or trigger unwholesome states and patterns. For…
A set of methods for maintaining an " attitude of spacious passion ". The particular methods are contingent; if you could maintain the…
Buddhist (Pali) term referring to craving, longing, desire for the world to be other than as it is. This includes craving good things and…
A point made by [ Michael Taft ] in various talks, e.g. The World is Inside You (also the '[ emptiness ] of perception' described by [ Dan…
A point made by [ Michael Taft ] in various talks, e.g. The World is Inside You (also the '[ emptiness ] of perception' described by [ Dan…
It exists, but is [ empty ], insubstantial, a [ fabrication ]. Foregrounding this view is an important part of [ awakening ] or…
[ impermanence ] [ dukkha ] (unsatisfactoriness) [ no-self|annita ] (no-self) Daniel Ingram's summary: things "come and go, don't satisfy…
Sasha Chapin describes trauma as a 'splitting off' of difficult or painful experiences as memories that the mind tries to avoid accessing…
A story from [ Dan Brown ]: A group of psychologists came to interview the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. One of the Americans…
This may be a central point of confusion: how do we define AI systems that have preferences about the real world , so that their goals and…