Expect nothing. You’ll never be disappointed. Buddhism 101
Language, one the tools we use for thinking, is an interesting subject. For study!
Whenever there are two different words referring to something not exactly different, there’s a huge opportunity. For us to understand how our minds work.
Buddha said nothing about wishing. As far as I know, and I’m not an expert in Buddhism… But since all those who bother themselves to help us becoming the better – read happier – version of us quote Buddha as speaking exclusively about ‘expecting’ and nothing about ‘wishing’ … I’ll just consider it yet another fact of life.
When speaking about expectations, Buddha starts by saying that “attachment to desire causes suffering“. Which brings us back to the minute differences between words! Wishes, desires… expectations…
Buddha’s first Noble Truth is stated as “Life is Suffering“. Very interesting formulation but today’s subject is somewhat different. Life, as we experience it, needs a living organism. Which living organism, in order to remain alive, has to meet some of its own ‘needs’. Subsistence, shelter… For us to experience something – including life – we need to become and remain conscious. We need to build and preserve self-esteem… For our living organism to inform our conscience about its needs, the body sends sensations to the higher echelons of the mind. Where sensation is transformed into perception. And becomes desire.
‘Pangs’ become perceptions of hunger. And our mind discovers that it – or ‘we’, as in ‘body and mind’?!? – desires to eat. Is there any reasonable way in which we – any of us – may give up trying to fulfill this desire? This need, actually…
‘I wish I had eggs for breakfast!’ Nothing unreasonable about that, right? Nothing likely to make us suffer…
Well, maybe for us. For me, writing this on a computer, and for you reading my thoughts over the internet. Highly unlikely for any of us to be unable to fulfill such a ‘dream’. Those allergic to eggs are excepted, of course.
This being the moment when I draw your attention to what other people may think. Feel… Parents who can feed their children nothing but stale bread. If at all. And not for lack of trying! Hungry teenagers who expect their parents to be able to feed them. Decently…
“Fifteen-year-old Cyril Jose was a tin-miner’s son from Cornwall. With the region suffering from heavy unemployment, the boy with a strong sense of adventure joined up.”https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29934965
At least one of his classmates perceived him as ‘an outcast’ while another – and his high-school counselor – perceived him as being ‘bright’. Neither ‘saw it coming’.
So why would a very young adult attempt to assassinate a very well known, and very well guarded, public figure?
Let me rephrase the question. Why would a 20 years old male with a steady job, who had graduated from high school two years ago “with a $500 prize for maths and science“, attempt to shoot somebody out, from a distance, given the fact that he wasn’t trained for it. Nor exactly talented in this domain…
Are we sure this was Crooks’ main target? To assassinate a former, and possibly future, President of the USA? Or was he trying to end it all? Once and for all?
What were the odds for him to get away with it? To survive after shooting the first bullet? He was unanimously described as being ‘smart’…
What drove Thomas Mathew Crooks to the conclusion that his life was no longer worth living?
I’m acquainted with a relatively large number of people. From all walks of life. My experience suggests that it’s not the ignorance which is the problem but our (collective) unwillingness to accept/assume it. After all, we are ignorant. All of us, albeit in various degrees. Even the smartest amongst us ‘controls’ more ignorance than knowledge.
The real problem stems from us being cock-sure about things. Across the board!
Some of the smart ones are fully aware about the fact that they don’t know everything. But only some.
Some of the ‘ignorant’ are aware of their ignorance. Not all of them, but way many more than the smart ones. Simply because it’s easier to notice how much more you have to learn when you are at the start of the process.
And the problem is compounded by the fact that some of the smart ones who have chosen to ignore their ignorance team up – or more exactly organize – the ignorant who refuse to learn. This being the reason for so many actual human beings behaving as if they were some faintly intelligent ‘bots’.
De ce mănâncă elefantul iarbă și crenguțe? Pentru că îi este foame? Cei mai mulți elefanți mor de foame. Cei care nu sunt împușcați…
Elefanții mor de foame pentru că rămân fără măsele. Mor de inaniție, fiindu-le foame până în ultima clipă, pentru că nu mai pot mesteca.
De ce cad bețivii pe stradă? Pentru că au băut? Sau pentru că Newton?
Nu mai e chiar atât de simplu ca atunci când vorbeam despre elefant?
E natural pentru elefanți să moară de foame dar nu e firesc ca oamenii să umble beți pe stradă? Perfect de acord! Și totuși. De ce cad bețivii pe stradă?
Păi întrebarea este manipulatorie. ‘De ce cad unii dintre oamenii beți care se întâmplă să meargă pe stradă…’ ar fi o întrebare mult mai firească! Nu toți oamenii care cad beți pe stradă sunt bețivi și nu toți bețivii cad pe stradă… Cei mai mulți dintre ei ajung bine mersi acasă!
Da’ hotarăște-te odată! Postarea asta este despre relațiile de cauzalitate sau despre imprecizia limbajului?
Relațiile de cauzalitate sunt un subiect de gândire iar noi gândim cu ajutorul limbajului. Asta în timp ce limbajul este doar o sculă! O unealtă! Consecințele utilizării limbajului depind mai degrabă de priceperea și intențiile utilizatorului decât de natura lui. Și de natura lui, bineînțeles, dar mai ales de intențiile și priceperea utilizatorului. Și asta este valabil pentru orice relație de tip unealtă-utilizator!
Life needs ‘thickness’. As suggested in the drawing above, if animals had only two dimensions they would have had to make do without any digestive systems.
Hence we live in a 3 dimensional environment. But we, the only fully conscious beings on Earth, live ‘on a surface’. We’ve learned to fly rather late in our evolution. Most of us behave as if able to fully process only two and a half dimensions. We make good use of height and length, the things we ‘face’, but depth is rather tricky for most of us. OK, we’ve climbed up and down trees and mountains since only ‘god’ knows when but we’re basically runners. And runners run on a surface. Runners run along a mostly linear trajectory which happens mostly on a surface. This whole thing takes place in a three dimensional environment, true, but our ‘running’ nature has left some influences on the way we think.
The most obvious one being the discursive nature of our reasoning. We start from ‘premises’, go along a logical path and end up with conclusions. We very much like the things which fit into a narrative. And we hate going back to reconsider our ways.
Since Einstein has noticed that things were ‘relative’ – to the manner in which we measured them – we have started to add dimensions. To the previously 3 dimensional environment into which we used to live. The first dimension which had been added was time. Nowadays, many scientists believe that ‘the universe operates with 10 dimensions but 6 of them are very tiny‘.
I’m not going to contradict them. For the very simple reason that I don’t know – and don’t care – about the other 6. Dimensions. I’m sure that they are out there, somewhere, and that those who have discovered those dimensions knew what they were doing.
What I’m going to do is to propose a new manner of counting. ‘Dimensions’. Redefine them, first, and only then (re)count.
What do you think about mass? Is is a dimension? How about energy? ‘White’ (aka ‘visible’), ‘dark‘ … whatever…
Since the ‘jury is still out’…
I’m going to pause the narrative here to make a point.
‘The jury is still out’ means two things. The obvious and the one which stops us from sleeping at night. The fact that the jury – us – hasn’t (yet) been able to fulfill the task.
Back to our main thread.
How about we return to our good old 3 dimensional Universe?
Where space is what separates ‘things’, time is what separates ‘events’ and opportunity is what sets the stage for ‘things’ to evolve into ‘events’?
Easier said than done? In the sense that it’s very easy to put it into words but there’s no mathematics available to describe in ‘absolute’ terms what I’ve just narrated? They key word hasn’t been mentioned in the phrase above. There’s no mathematics available yet… The mathematics used by Einstein to demonstrate his theories wasn’t available to Newton… Mathematics – a form of artificial language – is invented by those capable to do that as soon as the opportunity arises. As soon as there’s a need for new ways to express new perceptions of reality.
And no, don’t expect me to come up with new mathematical expressions of anything. I’m no artist. I have enough trouble expressing my using with mere words.
Since this post is about dimensions, not about my limitations, I’ll end up remembering the three (meta?) dimensions. In a more ‘natural’ order.
Opportunity.
Anything which makes things possible. Mass – visible and/or dark, energy – visible and/or dark – and anything else which ‘works’ in this sense. I’m going to make a second – and a lot shorter – ‘transgression’ here and remind you how ‘relative’ things are. How right Einstein was. We speak about visible matter being “normal” and about “dark” (invisible to us) energy/matter having to exist in order for us to be able to make sense of the Universe as we are able to perceive.
Space
Whatever it is that separates, and also harbours, ‘islands of concentrated opportunity’. Mainly ‘mass’ but who knows (yet) what else might be ‘separated/harboured’ by space. Energy – as we know it, is somewhat distributed ‘along’ space rather than ‘separated’ by space.
Time
Whatever it is that separates, and also sequences, events. Happenings. ‘Notable’ ‘intersections’ between matter and energy. Here, again, we have a difference between matter and energy. While matter seems to ‘survive’ better ‘in time’, energy seems to be more ‘vulnerable’ to the passage of time. Entropy….
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100.
Religion is the metaphusical ‘thing’ inside which people who hold a set of tenets to be true are able to build a community.
Religion is sociological phenomenon. Something belonging to the realm studied by those who try to understand how large number of people work together.
Religions – on the other hand – are ‘sets of tenets’ put in practice by various groups of people. Sets of tenets which survive for as long as they continue to help the people who uphold them in their quest to survive as a group. As a community.
Religion cannot be ‘changed’. Religion can be studied. May be better understood. Like physics. You can’t ‘change’ physics! With what? With chemistry? Things don’t work like this. The only thing you may do about physics is to ‘deepen’ your knowledge about it.
Religions can, and sometimes have to, be changed. By the very people who ‘use’ them to survive.
Since nobody can survive on their own, each and everyone of us needs to belong. To a community. To a religion, actually!
And what do people do when they realize survival is impossible in certain conditions? Die or do something about it, right?
Now, which community can survive based on hate? It doesn’t matter whether you are asked to hate somebody inside or outside your community. Whether you hate individually or collectively. Hating – or despising – somebody blinds you and exhausts you. Puts a huge burden on your back. Focuses your attention so tight that you are no longer able to notice the real dangers. Those which actually make you less likely to survive.
And this is valid both for you as an individual and for you as a hating community.
Time, like everything else human, has two sides. Like a coin.
A ‘base’ and an interpretation.
There’s no interpretation without a base – even hallucinations are based on ‘something’ – and there’s nothing which has penetrated human conscience and ever managed to evade interpretation. In fact, human conscience needs to interpret, to assign meaning to, everything it ‘sees’. Everything it perceives. Anything which is uninterpretable, which has no meaning, cannot be controlled.It is, hence, dangerous. If you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you can assume anything. And since assuming the worst – and preparing for it – is far more useful towards survival than sleeping over it, we are biased towards erring on the side of caution. And towards relentlessly searching for meaning.
Time, like everything else human, is both a phenomenon – it happens – and a concept. The difference between the ‘time’ of a star and the human time being that ours has a name – given by us – and that the star cannot do anything about it. While we do!
We can do things to and about time!
We named it, we measure it, we attempt to interpret it…. and we try to do the best of it! We try to do, while alive, what we consider to be ‘the best’.
The best (?!?) for whom?
Tao.
The ‘road’. If everything flows, it has to flow ‘somewhere’. Not only from the start/spring to the ‘end’ (?!?)/never tranquil sea. Everything flowing needs a ‘riverbed’ to flow ‘through’. A plant needs soil to sprout, grow, bear fruit and ‘return to nature’. Even a star needs an Universe in order to shine… besides enough ‘fuel’, of course! I have started this post by saying that there’s no interpretation without a ‘base’ and that we, conscious human beings, need to attach meaning (a.k.a. interpretations) to everything of which we become aware. Same thing here. For anything to happen, a venue is needed. Some wise people in our past have used ‘Tao’ as a name for THE venue. For the venue where everything takes place.
Karma.
At first, when conscience had dawned on us, we were alone in the ‘dark’. And afraid about what was going to happen to us. To assuage that fear, we have identified God. As the ‘the meaning’ of the world. At first, when both the world and time seemed to be endless – to us, consequences came from God. We had to behave. Or else… God was there to punish each and every transgression. Sometimes using one of us as his proxy. After a while, some of our ancestors have learned to write. To reliably transfer information over generations. Very soon, those ancestors of ours have learned the link between cause and effect. Between behavior and consequence. Very soon God had become an outside observer. Or was out-rightly forgotten. But Karma survived.
Future.
I keep hearing that ‘evolution has no purpose’. Like many other human utterances, this one conveys far more information about the utterer than about the phenomenon described by the utterer.
‘This wooden table has 4 legs’. We learn about the table that it is in front of us, that it is made of wood and ‘has’ 4 legs. We learn about the utterer that: It was conscious when uttering those words. Only conscious agents are capable of ‘speaking like a human’. It has, at some point, learned to speak. English, and possibly other languages. It has, at some point, learned to count. At least up to four. And it had conserved that ability up the moment when it uttered those words. It was capable of identifying ‘wood’ as a material. When uttering that phrase, it was in a ‘casual’ state of mind. A ‘scientifically minded person’, a ‘grammar nazy’, for example – when in that mood, would not attribute human ‘abilities’ to a table. Which table is a mere object and objects cannot posses other objects. Tables cannot ‘have’, hence that person was speaking colloquially. Or, given the current ‘technological’ developments, those words might have very well been uttered by a statistically ‘minded’ AI application…. A man made ‘parrot’!
See what I mean?
Let’s go back to the presumably purposeless evolution.
Evolution is a phenomenon. Like a thunder. It takes a lot more time to unfold than a thunder, it’s about as hard as a thunder to predict the exact point where it will ‘strike’ but we know enough about both to be able to point out, quite reliably, a few ‘rules’ about how both phenomena take place. About where, when and how they will unfold. What’s the purpose of thunder? To ‘close the circuit’? To discharge the energy pent up in the cloud? I’m afraid that attributing purpose to thunder is akin to allowing tables to ‘have’ legs. What we have here is a ‘figure of speech’. An ‘implicit’ figure of speech… so implicit that it’s not even considered as such… Same thing when it comes to evolution.
Which evolution is paramount to survival. Just as no cloud can accumulate ad infinitum electric energy – hence thunder – no living thing ever – no species, more exactly – has yet been able to survive ‘everything’. Everything mother nature has thrown at it. Hence ‘evolution’! Which is a mere process which makes life possible. In certain conditions – in a certain Tao – after it had sprung up. And, again, attributing purpose to evolution is akin to allowing a table to own legs.
Then what about ‘future’? If God no longer decides for us – the God we have identified – and if evolution is ‘pointless’… then ‘future is blind’?!?
Not so fast!
Question: Where was God at Auschwitz? Answer: Where was man at Auschwitz?
Could any of those present at Auschwitz have done anything to fundamentally change the outcome? Probably not. Could we, as a species, have done – have behaved, actually – in such a manner as to avoid Auschwitz altogether? Specially after the Armenian Genocide had already taken place? Should we, as a species, have done differently when so many Tutsi had been killed in Rwanda? When 8000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys had been murdered in Srebrenica?
See what I mean? About the future? About our future?
What do we have here? “Eternity and endless return?” Or past mistakes haunting us through time? Until we figure out the way forward? Or else…
Un tip, cel din imaginea de mai sus, s-a apucat și el să facă influencing pe Tic-Tok. Și cică i-a ieșit! Nu stiu câte milioane de vizualizări… Drept pentru care s-au repezit tot felul de ‘invidioși’ să-l înjure. Că-i prost, ca are burtă, că ‘halatul’…, că ‘asta-i țara’…
Măi oameni buni… chill că dați în alte alea! Omul ăsta face misto! Voi ați urmărit clipul? Click pe poză și ne vedem după…
“An old Jewish Rabbi dies and goes to heaven. He stands in line for a while for his chance to meet God in person. His turn comes and he steps forward. God says “Welcome. Do you have any questions for me?” Rabbi: “No, I just want to tell you a joke about my time in that concentration camp.” God: “How can you joke about such a thing?” Rabbi: “I guess you had to be there.” “
‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic in order to be True. It also needs to be epistemologically correct.’ Oscar Hoffman, 1930-2017
This morning (February 22, 2013, thanks FB) I had a very interesting discussion with my son.
Trying to ‘soften’ him up to my arguments I said: “I don’t understand how a person with such a command of logic as yourself is unwilling to accept that…”
I should have seen this coming: “If you have such an admiration for MY logic why don’t YOU accept that…” That very moment I recalled a lecture by Professor Oscar Hoffman: ‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic…’
How do you translate that to a 13 years old?
“Look here. Being Logical is only the beginning. You cannot do anything without it but it isn’t enough just by itself. It’s only the formal side of Things”. And that was the very moment when inspiration hit me: “Let me give you an example. You have a lot of wooden pieces: spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones..etc. and two boards with holes in them: circles, squares, triangles. Your task is to put each wooden piece through the corresponding hole but you must also follow a second rule: half the wooden pieces are made of red oak and they belong to the red board while the other half are made of birch and they belong to the blue board”.
“Let’s presume you have no idea about either geometry or kinds of wood. Using logic you might separate red oak from fir using the grain and then learn to thread various shapes each through the corresponding hole. But no amount of logic will ever enable you to associate the correct pile of wooden pieces to which colored board unless somebody tells you which pile is made of red oak and which pile is made of fir. Savvy?”
I’m proud to report that he got the point!
Present day edit. He remembers the discussion but neither of us can recall where it started!
nicichiarasa 