Living impulses
January 17th, 2024
Quote
I give nothing as duties;
What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
Walt Whitman
Was perusing a deep book by logician Raymond Smullyan and came upon this quote in a dialogue about the nature of ethical action that I keep coming back to. The basic idea is this: the most enduring adherence to ethical principle springs forth spontaneously from the Tao (also known as Dharmakaya, the Ground of Being etc.) , and a moral education that comes from proscription, guilt, punishment etc is not sustainable. The self can burn out on doing good, but the goodness that springs from the source has no limitations.
Links
Fascinating essay by an academic philosopher about life with schizophrenia. Worth reading in full, but the key quote is this:
For me, living relatively free from debilitating anxiety is incompatible with relentless pursuit of truth. Instead, I need clear beliefs and a willingness to change them when circumstances and evidence demand, without worrying about, or getting upset about, being wrong.
In many instances (e.g. for most metaphysical or spiritual questions), I’m not sure we even need clear beliefs - but for every day living, this seems like a good attitude to cultivate. Overall I’d say my trajectory has been toward recognizing I have fewer beliefs than I took myself to have.
A wonderful essay on different how taking different religious stances can be a relief, taking a Christian perspective. This is deeply connected to the notion of different Views within Vajrayana Buddhism, a topic I’m going to come back to in a lot more detail hopefully soon. For now, I just want to note this as an example of a top-down perspective shifting one’s experience.
An interesting perspective from a therapist on how one can use ChatGPT for therapy. It seems like these open ended motivational interviews work quite well.
Quick practice tip - you don’t need to check every box!
Stages / maps of progress can be very useful for understanding where you are at - for instance I’ve found the 10-stage Elephant Path model useful in the development of concentration. However, one failure mode I’ve seen in using various phenomenological guideposts is a tendency to want to have every listed experience before one is willing to declare one is at some particular stage. Don’t do this! The better approach is to try and match aspects of your experience to aspects of the stage. Not everyone has every experience. For example, I’ve seen people doubt whether they are in rigpa because they don’t experience non-local (centerless) perception, but they do experience freshness, or love, or clarity. Don’t worry if not everything (or even nothing) is happening - confidence in the view is the most important thing.