Non-self is not to lose oneself to emptiness or nothingness. This is to gain a different kind of self that is utterly full and truly something.
Category: buddhism
This category is about everything Buddha and Buddhism, which teaches that:
1) everything is marked by impermanence, to believe in any permanence is to suffer, and the the ultimate cause of suffering is the rejection of the non-permanent self.
2) Enlightenment (contentment) can be found through the understanding of the true nature of existence (trilaksana) as stated here, and by living in accordance to such an understanding.
An outline of Buddhism
ChatGPT: Buddhism is a spiritual tradition, philosophy, and practice founded by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, in the 5th–4th century BCE in ancient India. It is centered around understanding the nature of suffering, the path to liberation, and achieving enlightenment or awakening.
The core teachings of Buddhism are summarized in the Four Noble Truths. The first is that life involves suffering, dissatisfaction, and impermanence (dukkha). The second is that suffering arises from craving, attachment, and ignorance (samudaya). The third is that it is possible to overcome and end suffering (nirodha). The fourth is that the way to end suffering is through the Noble Eightfold Path (magga).
The Noble Eightfold Path provides a practical guide for ethical living, mental discipline, and wisdom. It includes right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Buddhism emphasizes key concepts such as karma, the law of cause and effect where actions have consequences; rebirth, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) driven by karma; and nirvana, liberation from samsara and the cessation of suffering. Other important ideas include impermanence (anicca), non-self (anatta), and the acknowledgment of pervasive dissatisfaction in life (dukkha).
Buddhism has three main schools. Theravāda focuses on individual liberation through meditation and the Pali Canon. Mahāyāna emphasizes compassion and the bodhisattva path to help all beings achieve enlightenment. Vajrayāna incorporates rituals, esoteric practices, and tantric elements to achieve enlightenment quickly.
Buddhist practices include meditation, mindfulness, and ethical conduct. Meditation involves mindfulness (vipassana) and concentration (samatha) practices. Ethical conduct includes following precepts, such as refraining from harming living beings and stealing. Mindfulness cultivates present-moment awareness in daily life, while compassion emphasizes kindness to all beings.
Buddhism spread from India to other parts of Asia, including Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan, adapting to local cultures and traditions. Today, it is practiced worldwide and continues to inspire people seeking a practical path to inner peace and understanding.
Buddhism’s emphasis on mindfulness, meditation, and ethical living has made it particularly influential in contemporary fields such as psychology, neuroscience, and wellness. Secular adaptations of Buddhist practices, such as mindfulness meditation, are widely used for stress reduction and mental health.
Lex Fridman and right speech
Lex Fridman, whether he knows it or not, understands Buddhist right speech (17 minutes in). This conversation with Richard Haier about the book The Bell Curve is an example of how something can be misinterpreted.
But sometimes, no matter what you do, people can twist your words to fit their agenda. Nietzsche is one such philosopher who had been the victim of misappropriation.
Speech as an action can be used (another action) against you. In other words, truth is not about what is there, but what people think is true, or rather, how people make you think something is true when it is not.
Interdependence
All conditioned things are interdependent.
Non-self, bundles, non-ownership, selflessness
Buddhism rejects the self and accepts a notion of non-self. It preceded bundle theory and no-ownership theory, which is in some way a formulation of this.
Hume pushed the bundle theory but could not understand what is there if it were only experiences. What he seem to left out is memory.
The self is just a collection of this matter-related memories. In this way, it does not go against the principles of one being “created” by the environment. A person is not independent of the place and time he or she is at or in. She or he is a product of it.
Property is theft, said Proudhon. Self-property is to steal and rob from the world of what you could contribute to it. That could be rightly called selfishness. To act without being the owner of the spirit is selflessness.
Pramāna
There are six pramāna (knowledge or valid cognition) in Indian philosophy.
Pratyakṣa (perception) is the sense data, essentially your intuition (Hume’s term) or experience. In Buddhism there are six senses – visual, aural, scent, pallet, tactile, and mind. Each have their corresponding “objects” – sight, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, and mind-object. Perception may correspond to sensation in psychology and not processed content.
Anumāna (inference) is similar to logic. One thing causes another by being inferred.
Upamāna (comparison and analogy) is to link two different unrelated situations or objects through similarity. This may include simile and metaphor.
Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances) is implication by knowing the consequences of one action to another. Unlike anumāna it is long term and not immediate.
Anupalabdi (non-perception; negative cognitive proof) is the affirmation of the absence of the positive situation.
Śabda (reliance on past reliable testimony) is the reliance on past evidence given by others.
Buddhism, under Tibetan Buddhism system, recognizes that only perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) as valid. All else are denied. This is interesting considering that the Buddhist sutras are taken to be sacred texts. On this count we must wonder how the rejection of śabda works here.
The misconception of Buddhist suffering
The Buddha said life is suffering (dukkha). Suffering is the condition of unsatisfactoriness. Immediate pain and sadness is of course suffering. But in happiness, in avoidance of pain and sadness, we are still in the condition of suffering.
To understand this and to change one’s mindset one can end suffering or end the illusion of suffering. True “happiness” is not temporal happiness but a seemingly transcends time and space. By extension even this true happiness is illusionary. Nonetheless we must pursue it as if it is there even though it is not there.
Existence and observation
The observation of an object does not change anything of its existence. Observation neither makes something more nor less existent. Quantum mechanics may say something different but in pragmatic terms it does not change or affect how we face life and death. It is about experience and not about existence.
I think …
I think therefore I seem to be.
Objective reality
An abandoned house has a fridge with food in it. It has been there for at least six months. And it has spoilt. Flies are having a good time feasting upon the rotting organic matter. What or who observes it? The flies? The fungi? God? Are we arguing that a perception-less universe cannot exist?
The subject is never necessary in my opinion. There are only objects. The subject is accidental.
Truths are a process of a subject (a thing), and not a thing-in-itself.
A clear understanding of what exists and what are processes of existent things is necessary. From observation we can judge this. While this judgement is not perfect or complete it is the only method with which we have to judge. To chase any other method would be to deny the fact of this impossibly and be inauthentic to the reality.
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