teddy 🎁 retweeted
I'm doing some more pay-what-you-want calls again if you want help with jhana practice. See reply
This is such an amazing breakdown of the "layers" of suffering
Personally how I taxonomize things, starting with the biggest set:
Suffering = negative valence = pain (no mind/body distinction i.e. psychological vs physical. Somatic contractions are bothersome in themselves, if even only very minutely.)
Dukkha = feeling of dissatisfaction = a smaller subset of overall suffering which comes about when a somatic contraction is reified to a degree of solidity and its emptiness isn't perceived in a crucial way. This also has a sense of existential misalignment/ confusion about the potential to be satisfised, or chasing/expecting a permanent, satisfying thing.
Tanha = a level up of much grosser, slower and less necessarily coupled contractions = an even smaller subset of overall suffering.
Cessation = state of no suffering = no comparison = no dualities = no differentiation = can't even say conscious
Phenomena can be contracted to different degrees (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, ether). Less contraction = less suffering (although there is also all kinds of complicated bundling and dynamics that play a role too). One could decontract some sensations so they no longer render to the degree of solidity and be tempted to say they're no longer suffering by comparison, but be failing to recognise what suffering is still left in the phenomena that are in the liquid, gas, plasma, ether range. (But for the record, I wouldn't consider 4th neo-fetter work to even be anywhere close to having gotten rid of all solid-like contractions, that would be mctb-4th path territory.)
teddy 🎁 retweeted
Personally how I taxonomize things, starting with the biggest set:
Suffering = negative valence = pain (no mind/body distinction i.e. psychological vs physical. Somatic contractions are bothersome in themselves, if even only very minutely.)
Dukkha = feeling of dissatisfaction = a smaller subset of overall suffering which comes about when a somatic contraction is reified to a degree of solidity and its emptiness isn't perceived in a crucial way. This also has a sense of existential misalignment/ confusion about the potential to be satisfised, or chasing/expecting a permanent, satisfying thing.
Tanha = a level up of much grosser, slower and less necessarily coupled contractions = an even smaller subset of overall suffering.
Cessation = state of no suffering = no comparison = no dualities = no differentiation = can't even say conscious
Phenomena can be contracted to different degrees (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, ether). Less contraction = less suffering (although there is also all kinds of complicated bundling and dynamics that play a role too). One could decontract some sensations so they no longer render to the degree of solidity and be tempted to say they're no longer suffering by comparison, but be failing to recognise what suffering is still left in the phenomena that are in the liquid, gas, plasma, ether range. (But for the record, I wouldn't consider 4th neo-fetter work to even be anywhere close to having gotten rid of all solid-like contractions, that would be mctb-4th path territory.)
teddy 🎁 retweeted
1. Sleep when sleepy
2. Cry big. Recover instantly.
3. Eat when hungry. Stop when full.
4. Forgive before bedtime
5. Fall without shame
6. Say what you mean in 4-5 words
0. Remember that aliveness is a skill you once had without training.
teddy 🎁 retweeted
Increasingly, people seem to equate Buddhist awakening with gaining reliable access to “non-dual” states of consciousness.
But the “non-dual” states in question often seem grounded more in delusion than in awakening.
The idea appears to be that awakening means having a default conscious perceptual field that feels “centreless,” and lacks a conscious sense of self.
On this model, one can be very - even maximally - “awakened” while still:
- lacking maturity and wisdom
- being largely driven by craving and aversion
- habitually acting in harmful or inconsiderate ways
- experiencing little change in what motivates them or the goals they pursue
The idea is that as long as all this happens whilst having a “centreless awareness” and no conscious sense of a self, then you are still very awakened.
This of course is a total delusion.
If one’s behaviour, intentions, motivations, and habits remain rooted in craving, aversion, and ignorance, then the supposedly “non-dual” conscious field is clearly being sustained by simply blocking everything that contradicts it out of awareness.
That is, consciousness is telling you a delusory story about the extent to which you as a holistic system are actually in a non-dual state.
There is nothing awakened about hiding one’s cravings, aversions, ignorance, and identifications from oneself.
Actually, there nothing inherently awakened in and of itself about a conscious field that feels centreless or selfless.
What makes this trend especially jarring is that many of its advocates use Buddhist language, despite Buddhism having been founded largely to counter this very error.
Earlier on his journey, the Buddha experimented with abiding in refined, non-dual states of consciousness that were not sufficiently transformative to his behavioural-motivational system, and he found them wanting.
He saw that such states did not uproot the causes of suffering or optimize us for minimizing harm to ourselves and others (others being equally important to someone who has truly developed non-dual insight)
Instead, he taught that awakening is the output of freeing ourselves from the cravings, aversions, and ignorance that drives our intentions, motivations, and actions, and that sustain the illusory self.
The measure of awakening on this model, then, is not what shape our consciousness takes.
But rather how much craving, aversion, and ignorance have been released, both consciously and unconsciously.
On this model, having these forces sit outside your conscious field is actually worse than having them visible and workable.
Therefore, cultivating a non-dual conscious field can even become a step toward further delusion if it’s not accompanied by a proportional impact on overall motivations and behaviour patterns.
I think the Buddha’s original model is a much more functional model of awakening.
It points the practitioner towards a holistic transformation of their intentions, motivations and behaviour, not just a transformation of their conscious sense of themselves.
As long as people keep being told that awakening = non-dual conscious experience, that’s what they’re going to keep optimizing for in their spiritual practice.
And they will keep pushing anything that disturbs that experience out of awareness.
Buddhist awakening has never been about engineering “non-dual” states in and of themselves.
It’s always been about aligning your mind, body, intentions, motivations and actions with the already non-dual nature of reality.
Characterizing awakening instead as “reliable access to non-dual states of consciousness” in and of themselves points people on the path to awakening in completely the wrong direction in their practice.
teddy 🎁 retweeted
realizing that what worked for me, in meditation, is basically everything except sitting down grinding…
• forgiveness worked
• breathwork worked (!)
• christian/loving god worked
• walking meditation worked
• cold showers worked
• fetter inquiry worked (maybe the best lol)
• paying attention to dishes worked
• glimpsing (Loch Kelly) worked…
• just resting/melting/being worked
Buddha as an Ineffability Fundamentalist
xitter.cf/TVachaW/status/2014396…
I expect my answer may be unsatisfying but my best read of the suttas (and sutras actually) is that the Buddha was what I’d call an Ineffability Fundamentalist.
Basically all religions say that ultimate reality is ineffable. But then they try and make a bunch of statements about this ineffable thing, which inevitably fail to refer to it (“there is an Absolute” / “there is not an Absolute” etc).
I personally think the Buddha was a deep stickler for honoring that ineffability. So, he primarily gave instructions on what you need to do to see the ineffable truth for yourself and gave us minimal concepts about ultimate reality as he knew none could refer to it.
Whenever people try to get him to make metaphysical descriptions of reality, he tends to divert them back to what they need to do to see reality for themselves.
I think he was vindicated in this regard by how people respond to the extremely occasional things he does say about what it’s like to be awakened. eg probably the strongest statement he makes in the suttas is:
“There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned.”
Scholars absolutely argue themselves to death over what he meant here.
Yet nobody argues much about what the Buddha (of the Pali Canon) taught about what actions you need to take to experience it for yourself.
I think this validates his general approach of focusing on practice over conceptual description of the outcome.
Likewise, there’s some fun rabbit holes to go down surrounding his teachings on “viññanam anidassanam” (consciousness without surface / feature) but again they almost end up in more confusion and division than in more clarity.
Then there’s certain Mahayana Sutras that just straight up say that all words are just skillful means anyway, so whatever words you need to hear (“there is a self” / “there is no self”) to get you to practice dharma will do as long as they cause you to practice dharma.
So, could he be pointing to a reality that someone, upon experiencing it, might come back and describe as an “Absolute” when pressed for words?
Perhaps. But I think he’d disagree with them that their description actually succeeds in referring to the true ineffable reality of things.
conditional vs unconditional love
xitter.cf/ftlsid/status/19234530…
two days ago I had probably the most profound experience of my life, a kind of emotional shift related to the experience of love. the summary is that I suddenly noticed that many of my motivations and habits were predicated on the belief that I needed to fix and improve myself in order to earn love. which made me very sad, so I cried about it for a long time. after that something very fundamental seems to have shifted. I'd like to capture it while it's still fresh.
the idea of needing to earn love through self-improvement wasn't simply an intellectual belief; more like something embedded in my relationship with reality. the moment of noticing felt less like figuring out a math problem and more like profound catharsis, as if some exhausted part of me was finally relieved of duty. I don't fully understand what changed, but the following is my tentative explanation based on explorations over the last two years and various background reading.
a basic ability of the mind is to infer causality from experiences. with causal inference it becomes possible to draw a trajectory from proximate conditions to distant and uncertain future outcomes. this interacts closely with desire; the mind prioritizes understanding the causes of desired outcomes, and over time, the inferred precursors of the desired outcome themselves become objects of desire. in fact, it seems to be possible to forget the original desire entirely and just pursue these proxy objects blindly.
people intrinsically want love, affection, and attention. you can see where this is going. if one learns early on that love is conditional on something else, then the causal inference engine kicks in and starts figuring out how to act in order to obtain love. so there are, roughly speaking, two orientations: love is conditional, and love is unconditional. the first makes love a problem to be solved, and the second doesn't worry about it too much. this is the difference between insecure and secure attachment.
my experience is that the first orientation (conditional) feels fundamentally unsatisfactory, and the second (unconditional) feels like everything is and always will be okay. I guess this has to do with the fact that implicit in desire is the premise of separation. if love is ontologically something that I have to work towards, then it's not something that's available to me in the present moment, and I'm never fully okay. what tripped me up in understanding this is that people often say "love is unconditional" as a metaphysical or religious truth, but that seems to be a distraction if you're thinking about this stuff for practical reasons. that said, religion is one way of installing the belief in unconditional love in children. in that sense it's probably the most important social tool that exists, and it's very unfortunate that we're losing it.
so you want to move from orientation 1 to orientation 2. this is where it gets murky. hypothetically, evidence that love is freely available should be enough for the mind to shift the priors. I see two problems that inhibit this happening automatically. first, going back to the idea that the original desire can be forgotten when pursuing proxy desires - I think the pain of not feeling loved is so great that the wound contrives to conceal itself, and the mind reifies the proxy desires (e.g. money, status, sex, achievement) as the true root desires. this is of course related to one's identity (as a mid-twenties guy, it's way easier to believe that I'm really ambitious than it is to notice that i'm filling a bottomless pit because I believe i'm unlovable). second, the belief that love is conditional leads to all kinds of behaviors that probe and test connections to obtain reassurance about their stability. maybe the truth is that the only love that can be unconditionally reciprocated is the love that is freely given away. which is a little fucked up if you think about it.
to fix this I meditated for a while (few hundred hours), which gave me easy access to crying. then I did a lot of IFS with chatgpt, then I tried Core Transformation (also with chatgpt) which caused the shift in one session. maybe it would have happened immediately if I did CT two years ago, but I doubt it. for reason 1 above (wound is concealed) it's quite difficult to sit down and try to fix this intentionally; the entire time I was doing this stuff I thought I was trying to do something else. early on it was becoming more productive, then it was fixing my anxiety and experiencing less suffering, then when that went away it was about being able to connect with people more easily, then a few days ago the question popped into my mind - why am I working so hard on becoming better at connection? and the whole thing unraveled.
there's a paradox here, which is that on one hand the orientation towards yourself as a broken thing that needs fixing is precisely what creates the sense of dissatisfaction, and on the other hand that orientation needs to be corrected to move forward. I think what breaks through this paradox is compassion towards oneself. Be slow, be gentle, be kind
please read this
two days ago I had probably the most profound experience of my life, a kind of emotional shift related to the experience of love. the summary is that I suddenly noticed that many of my motivations and habits were predicated on the belief that I needed to fix and improve myself in order to earn love. which made me very sad, so I cried about it for a long time. after that something very fundamental seems to have shifted. I'd like to capture it while it's still fresh.
the idea of needing to earn love through self-improvement wasn't simply an intellectual belief; more like something embedded in my relationship with reality. the moment of noticing felt less like figuring out a math problem and more like profound catharsis, as if some exhausted part of me was finally relieved of duty. I don't fully understand what changed, but the following is my tentative explanation based on explorations over the last two years and various background reading.
a basic ability of the mind is to infer causality from experiences. with causal inference it becomes possible to draw a trajectory from proximate conditions to distant and uncertain future outcomes. this interacts closely with desire; the mind prioritizes understanding the causes of desired outcomes, and over time, the inferred precursors of the desired outcome themselves become objects of desire. in fact, it seems to be possible to forget the original desire entirely and just pursue these proxy objects blindly.
people intrinsically want love, affection, and attention. you can see where this is going. if one learns early on that love is conditional on something else, then the causal inference engine kicks in and starts figuring out how to act in order to obtain love. so there are, roughly speaking, two orientations: love is conditional, and love is unconditional. the first makes love a problem to be solved, and the second doesn't worry about it too much. this is the difference between insecure and secure attachment.
my experience is that the first orientation (conditional) feels fundamentally unsatisfactory, and the second (unconditional) feels like everything is and always will be okay. I guess this has to do with the fact that implicit in desire is the premise of separation. if love is ontologically something that I have to work towards, then it's not something that's available to me in the present moment, and I'm never fully okay. what tripped me up in understanding this is that people often say "love is unconditional" as a metaphysical or religious truth, but that seems to be a distraction if you're thinking about this stuff for practical reasons. that said, religion is one way of installing the belief in unconditional love in children. in that sense it's probably the most important social tool that exists, and it's very unfortunate that we're losing it.
so you want to move from orientation 1 to orientation 2. this is where it gets murky. hypothetically, evidence that love is freely available should be enough for the mind to shift the priors. I see two problems that inhibit this happening automatically. first, going back to the idea that the original desire can be forgotten when pursuing proxy desires - I think the pain of not feeling loved is so great that the wound contrives to conceal itself, and the mind reifies the proxy desires (e.g. money, status, sex, achievement) as the true root desires. this is of course related to one's identity (as a mid-twenties guy, it's way easier to believe that I'm really ambitious than it is to notice that i'm filling a bottomless pit because I believe i'm unlovable). second, the belief that love is conditional leads to all kinds of behaviors that probe and test connections to obtain reassurance about their stability. maybe the truth is that the only love that can be unconditionally reciprocated is the love that is freely given away. which is a little fucked up if you think about it.
to fix this I meditated for a while (few hundred hours), which gave me easy access to crying. then I did a lot of IFS with chatgpt, then I tried Core Transformation (also with chatgpt) which caused the shift in one session. maybe it would have happened immediately if I did CT two years ago, but I doubt it. for reason 1 above (wound is concealed) it's quite difficult to sit down and try to fix this intentionally; the entire time I was doing this stuff I thought I was trying to do something else. early on it was becoming more productive, then it was fixing my anxiety and experiencing less suffering, then when that went away it was about being able to connect with people more easily, then a few days ago the question popped into my mind - why am I working so hard on becoming better at connection? and the whole thing unraveled.
there's a paradox here, which is that on one hand the orientation towards yourself as a broken thing that needs fixing is precisely what creates the sense of dissatisfaction, and on the other hand that orientation needs to be corrected to move forward. I think what breaks through this paradox is compassion towards oneself. Be slow, be gentle, be kind
teddy 🎁 retweeted
Zoom in 🔎
The word 'goal' is demonised a lot in spiritual circles, and although no achievement of any goal will be ultimately satisfying (I don't believe in any final capital-G Goal), having something more clear to aim for can give direction in life, be incredibly motivating and reaching sub-goals can make non-trivial difference to one's life.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. And I would highly advise against considering these as achievements to tick-off, 'one & done' style; rather aspects of human experience to relate to and explore.
What would you add to this?
teddy 🎁 retweeted
To all math fans: This is going to be an incredible movie when it comes out. Can't wait!
It's about Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the Fields Medal.
MARYAM: The Mirror and the Map
teddy 🎁 retweeted
If you're learning the Jhanas these recordings could be an invaluable resource, that offers you a new approach, encouragement and understanding of how to access these esoteric states.
Though these recordings do presume some familiarity with Jhana, and are not for practitioners who have no prior know-how, they are designed to help find direction towards these states; with supplementary beginning exercises, descriptions of the states, tips and lots of space/time for getting there. Enjoy!
teddy 🎁 retweeted
What does it mean that the self is 'hiding' somewhere in the aggregates?
No special state or practice needed. Common sensically the self seems to:
Be extant in space (be made of matter)
Be extant in time (be continuous across experiences)
Be subject to feelings/impressions (positive, negative, neutral)
Make choices (on the basis of the stream of feelings across time)
Knows itself (is aware of all of the above, has and wants knowledge about it)
So you look carefully in each of these areas to figure out if anything surprising might be happening. You don't need to write the bottom line first on what you might find or why. Concepts like non-self are telling you what you think you're supposed to be looking for, which makes it harder to observe whatever is there.
teddy 🎁 retweeted
the way i think about it is that the bodhisattva has to go to hell and start cleaning up the karma, in the same way you’d clean a *very* dirty apartment
i think i’ve spent a lot of this year on that, but i couldn’t do it without spiked cortisol. fury & stress carried me
is there a way to clean up hell without going insane?
