Fractals and Buddhism

[pewtergod]

When I look at the world, I see a planet with at least 5 billion more people than it can support. Oceans where the number of fish have decreased by about 90 percent just since the seventies. Water supplies disappearing and the climate changing in ways that will be catastrophic. People in Haiti that are living without hope. And a huge unwillingness to face any of these facts because they are inconvenient. Also I see great beauty in people at times, and a great deal of beauty in the world. Faced with this, what is one's response? Will you rely on the answers of another, which are second-hand, and therefore just words? Will you avoid the challenge, saying it is beyond you? Or will you look at it and see if perhaps you are the problem at some level. Is consciousness a whole that we are part of? If the individual changes, does it have some effect on the whole? I am just asking. If the process of the individual conditioning becomes quiet, what happens?
I don't know what you mean by the entire field of phenomenology, All phenomenology is known only through the senses. I am saying that a certain type of knowledge is necessary, or we could not function. But perception of reality can never be old, it is always new, and cannot be grasped by logic, which always seeks a point, and cannot perceive the whole.

 

[yougeekay]

Once you start noticing patterns in things while sober or even tripping it's easier to see them all the time or way more frequently.

like literal patterns or something more metaphorical?

 

[IamMe90]

Oh come now, sweetheart... dont say "people need to stop, etc etc" Discussion forums are ALL ABOUT people throwing out subjective value-based assertions, they're places for people to air their thoughts, feelings and opinions... this is not some formal philosophical journal/treatise or whatever. I think you might want to scale back your presumptions about what is going here. I don't think people feel what they are saying are "hardcore axiomatic assertions"... just on ongoing chat, OK? No one is trying to beat you over the head, I don't think, just have a friendly little hobnob, right? Or as Joker said in "Dark Knight", perhaps my favorite moment... "Why So Serious?" haha!

hey, i would usually agree 100%, seriously.. it was just in this case that post sounded very pedantic and "self assured" if you know what i mean. it also felt like the very type of discussion you just described that is not normal here.

anyway, i won't continue on, just give you my justification for why i responded that way. i'll leave this thread to resume about buddhism, which i don't really care for anyway

 

[.Lucid.]

lol.. isnt this the psychedelic forum?

 

[pewtergod]

Yes, come to think of it. I'm still trying to figure out what fractals have to do with Buddhism. BTW, never meant to imply that knowledge, like the correct solution to loop quantum gravity, or how to solve global warming wasn't important. Only that thought can never encompass reality. I just stumbled into a conversation about whether Buddhists were really some monsters that the maoists freed the long-suffering Tibetans from. And I thought it was important to distinguish what the Buddha said from the Mahayana Buddhism practiced in much of the east today. Then, I admittedly veered a bit from the original subject matter, into the nature of reality (but you can't really get much more psychedelic than that!) and whether that can be experienced and what is required to do so. I am a fan of the Dali Lama. I especially like how often he says, "I don't know", and is ready to alter any Tibetan Buddhist belief that can be scientifically be disproved. Shows a very open mind. But Tibetan buddhism shows the dangers of following any doctrine blindly and accepting it as the truth. As time passed, and Buddhism moved to other areas where it was tainted by local beliefs, and carried forward by people who did not really share the original experience, of course it became something less than what it started out to be. As for the Maoists "freeing" the serfs, anyone who has studied modern Tibet should know what crap that is. And sorry for being so 'pedantic', but I was a bit altered at the time and I tend to do that a bit then.

 

[nearjat]

I don't think fractals really have anything to do with practiced Buddhism on any level. However they do relate to the many accounts of "new spirituality" after psychedelic use, which happens to have a LOT of parallels with eastern philosophy. Especially the ideas of infinity being inside of everything etc..

I used to literally believe that the "infinite" was inside of everything, but now my understanding is that this type of perception was pretty much a psychedelic short circuiting/feedback loop. It takes nothing away from it in my opinion though, it's like I experienced a profound metaphor for "we're all the same, it's all the same" and I haven't been able to shake that message since.

 

[Ismene]

This statement implies all Lamas went out of their way to be cruel and despotic, that's not any more the case than all Catholic priests secretly being child molesters.

I don't think the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is any worse than any other Buddhist tradition. And I'm sure the monks believed they were completely justified in cutting their slaves hands off and keeping all the gold to themselves. Does that make them "bad" people? I dunno - I'dve probably kept all the gold myself too but I'm not claiming the roadmap to enlightenment.

I think the key thing is that studying Buddhist is no route to "enlightenment" and it's best not to try and link Buddhist automatically with psychedelics.

Say your piece, then step away, hope to provoke thought.

But we are only posting messages on a drug board. If I was at a debating college then fair enough. Incidentally I read a ton about Buddhism when I was younger and had the same thinking most people have. It was only when I read about how they actually lived that I changed my thinking.

 

[Ismene]

No, the argument is not to forget anything bad Buddhists have done. The point is to condemn those actions themselves, and the people who committed them, without cultivating prejudice in the present.

Nah, it's not that simple mate. I don't think they're "bad buddhists". I think they're perfectly good buddhists. They spent their lives studying Buddhism from childhood onwards at the feet of Buddhist masters with 700 years of experience behind them. To me, that implies they knew a bit about Buddhism - probably quite a bit more than you and Dwayne.

I think the point is they were good buddhists and still chopped off their slaves hands for pinching a goat. That tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about Buddhism.

 

[nopipesdfw]

Nah, it's not that simple mate. I don't think they're "bad buddhists". I think they're perfectly good buddhists. They spent their lives studying Buddhism from childhood onwards at the feet of Buddhist masters with 700 years of experience behind them. To me, that implies they knew a bit about Buddhism - probably quite a bit more than you and Dwayne.

I think the point is they were good buddhists and still chopped off their slaves hands for pinching a goat. That tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about Buddhism.

Err, sitting around all day studying a portion of what you find of this Earth to be sacred does not make you right no matter who you are. Being a dogma spitter for anybody is capable and will happen where success has been seen by humans. Even though I have grown up in the Catholic Church I would not say that the Christian equivalent of the masters of their hierarchy, who spend their humanistic lives following other peoples rituals are anybody that you need to talk about the core of the religion with.

I really don't get the last part of your post. Welcome to reality, I am sorry about the goat that the tragic man of the past lost to his supposed superior brothers, I don't have any loyalty towards any religious monikers or figures.

I have learned some astoundingly practical and personal things about myself from various teachings from all parts of the eastern world, again, I am so sorry about the poor man's hands, but I can only defend something that is relevant to myself.

I don't know too much about Dwayne himself, but I have a feeling that I have a better rounded worldly history of the religions than a localized Buddhist monk from long ago, who knows what the hell whichever "wise one" from wherever would have done with extra strings of relevant information though.

 

[Ismene]

Err, sitting around all day studying a portion of what you find of this Earth to be sacred does not make you right no matter who you are.

Teaches you a lot about the subject you're studying tho.

Even though I have grown up in the Catholic Church I would not say that the Christian equivalent of the masters of their hierarchy, who spend their humanistic lives following other peoples rituals are anybody that you need to talk about the core of the religion with.

But what is the core of the religion? Is it the alleged "words of Jesus/God" contained in the Bible? Presumably that was written by some geezer long after Jesus died.


I have learned some astoundingly practical and personal things about myself from various teachings from all parts of the eastern world

Did you learn as much from psychedelics? How much do you link psychedelics and eastern religions? I've always felt there's a big push from people to try and link psychedelics to eastern religions to try and make psychedelics "respectable". I think psychedelics stand alone - they don't need ideas like "satori" to make them valid.

I don't know too much about Dwayne himself

I believe he flicked through "Buddhism for Dummies" once while he was sitting on the toilet.

 

[nearjat]

I think the point is they were good buddhists and still chopped off their slaves hands for pinching a goat. That tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about Buddhism.

Not really.

Tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about peoples tendency to "power trip" is more like it. I don't think most people that practice buddhism believe it's an ok practice to take karma into your own hands.

Did you learn as much from psychedelics? How much do you link psychedelics and eastern religions? I've always felt there's a big push from people to try and link psychedelics to eastern religions to try and make psychedelics "respectable". I think psychedelics stand alone - they don't need ideas like "satori" to make them valid.

Eh..I wouldn't say people are consciously trying to intertwine the two. Maybe some people are, but before I ever found like minded people (PD/bluelight) I had already found many real, obvious parallels between eastern philosophy and psychedelic "realizations". It's pretty obvious and definitely doesn't take any kind of agenda to make the connection.

 

[Ismene]

I think you're looking at Buddhism as filtered through 21st century western ideas. Living in the west we know it's not right to cut off slaves hands for pinching goats. The question is whether Buddhism teaches that.

Your version of buddhism is filtered through western ideas to make it palatable.

It's pretty obvious and definitely doesn't take any kind of agenda to make the connection.

Nah, it's only "obvious" if you're looking to make a connection. I'm sure if you went up to a Tibetan Buddhist and tried telling him the "similarities" between tripping and buddhism he'd laugh in your face.

 

[DwayneHoover]

That tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about Buddhism.

No it doesnt, it tells you a truth about humans and the errors of their behavior. What about all those Buddhists who do NOT chop off peoples' hands? I know quite a few.

And why do you keep trying to force the focus onto the specific strain of TIBETAN Buddhism, implemented in one specific country, with its own extensive history and culture and system of temples and ruling power hierarchies and NOT on the actual pure philosophical principles?

It's quite obvious you are just trolling and trying to aggravate people to get your jollies.

 

[nearjat]

Nah, it's only "obvious" if you're looking to make a connection. I'm sure if you went up to a Tibetan Buddhist and tried telling him the "similarities" between tripping and buddhism he'd laugh in your face.

Probably not though haha. I wish I still had the source but I read about a monk that was given LSD and he admitted it was profoundly interesting but said it could never be a full way to enlightenment.

I was never looking to make a connection, I never really gave a fuck about any kind of eastern religion or philosophy before taking LSD. Not everyone is as naive and starving for acceptance as you so condescendingly imply.

 

[Ismene]

No it doesnt, it tells you a truth about humans and the errors of their behavior.

And you know more about Buddhism than the all Dala Lama's in Tibetan history don't you. Lama Dwayne - he flicked through Buddhism for dummies on the toilet once, listen to his wisdom.

What about all those Buddhists who do NOT chop off peoples' hands?

So there were Tibetan Buddhists throughout those hundreds of years who refused to implement the feudal system?

Of course they don't chop hands off nowadays - but that's because they've absorbed western ideas of morality. It didn't come through 700 years of buddhism. Think about it you tiresome troll.

 

[Ismene]

I was never looking to make a connection, I never really gave a fuck about any kind of eastern religion or philosophy before taking LSD. Not everyone is as naive and starving for acceptance as you so condescendingly imply.

You must be the odd one out then nearjet. I became aware of the connection because every psychedelic book that's been written in the last 50 years makes the connection.

 

[Ismene]

And why do you keep trying to force the focus onto the specific strain of TIBETAN Buddhism, implemented in one specific country, with its own extensive history and culture and system of temples and ruling power hierarchies and NOT on the actual pure philosophical principles?

So can you get purer Buddhist philosophy than being in a 700 year old Buddhist monastery? Where?

Where do you want us to go for our Buddhist wisdom? Some 20 year old bloke with a ponytail wearing sandals living in San Francisco? Is he closer to the pure Buddha wisdom than the Dala Lama was 300 years ago?

 

[DwayneHoover]

So can you get purer Buddhist philosophy than being in a 700 year old Buddhist monastery? Where?

Where do you want us to go for our Buddhist wisdom? Some 20 year old bloke with a ponytail wearing sandals living in San Francisco? Is he closer to the pure Buddha wisdom than the Dala Lama was 300 years ago?

By READING books containing the original teachings or by those who are known to be effective teachers who are good are summarizing and clarifying them. Perhaps Pewtergod can indicate a few, or even some YouTube lectures by them.

And also INSIDE YOUR OWN MIND by actually sitting and PRACTICING meditation meant to clear the mind of thought for 10-20 minutes a day. That's really all there is to it, nothing more nothing less. Everything else is just elaboration and discussion of what people feel they find when they do that. But I guess that's too much trouble for you. Too bad.

What do sandals and pony-tails and San-Francisco have to do with anything? ZILCH, except your apparent need to poke for emotional reactions. Your provocative trolling tone is rather lame.

 

[nopipesdfw]

Did you learn as much from psychedelics? How much do you link psychedelics and eastern religions? I've always felt there's a big push from people to try and link psychedelics to eastern religions to try and make psychedelics "respectable". I think psychedelics stand alone - they don't need ideas like "satori" to make them valid.

Here is the thing Mr. Ismene, I have had somewhere in the ~200+ solid trips and combos at this point, about 80 percent of them were done starting as an extremely intolerant and staunch atheist.

I did not like the Catholic Church at all and did not consider there to be any chance of a "God" (anything beyond us, especially the Abrahamic god crap for an experienced reason) or an existence past or continued in this one, going to Catholic school in an extremely rich environment always weirded me out. The adults were all front row Catholics and alcohol was always available to the adults at any non-mass service event at my primary school lolz. The main Father there for years got busted for CP and he allegedly got away with some other shit possibly. The children there were more ignorant (even about their own religion) and materialistic, but less witty than normal state classes certainly.

So, I spent most of my time on the internet and reading about religion and politics pretty constantly starting from middle school. I spent a lot of my own time learning about science and history when I had the time and doing so made me absolutely certain that there was no Christian sort of God. That fellow in the sky still seems pretty unlikely, but at the time I studied religions of the east and picked out some things I agreed on but many teachings I just did not agree with at the time, they sounded counter-intuitive. (and I think some Buddhist teachings are slightly outdated, can detail somewhere else) I left it here and went about my life trying to be successful whilst nit-picking people that said obviously stupid shit about science or Christianity. Fast forward to nearing the end of high school and I am shocked by jumping into psychedelics with a hard 3rd plateau DXM experience and from that point to years forward I quickly spread into trying all kinds of doses and combos of every major dissociative and psychedelic, plus bits of TIHKAL, PIHKAL, and other "research chemicals".

What was strange is that as I grew up and experienced more, my trips were invariably having just hysterically complex and synchronized effects that were clearly knowledge based and wrapped around what I was focusing on the time and it's relative significance to me. Having studied the brain and psychology quite a bit, I was getting stumped by how physically and sensually realistic these events could happen on top of real-time, because I have always been amazed by the product of existence in its balancing acts of entropy from the very start. During some of my later trips as a still proclaimed atheist who was ready to experience nothingness soon enough after some chaotic accident that "I" was involved in somehow,I kept on having thoughts and experiences that felt like they absolutely could not be mine or make sense to be stored somewhere inside of the brain. It was like thoughts and clear images of dualistic and entropic concepts to an original mysterious string kept on getting forced immediately at once in clarity into my thoughtsphere, it was like seemingly getting hit by a train of impossible and intangible wisdom soaked in goofy stuff, but some of the things that felt presented were just feeling so beyond or at the base of my perception. After a few very, long bizarre experiences, some involving meditation and others high doses of dissociatives, I felt like I had made sense of a few things that I still hold and expand today to live a better life. I recall believing at a much younger age that every person who looks to the mystic or beyond and thought they "truly knew" (I don't, I have just been changed by time and what is veiled and is me sitting around or sitting around on drugs) was just coping because of the natural emptiness of the universe, but some strange shit really does seem to work here. But as William James said, the thoughts have to be chosen by you and the relevance must be there for a "spiritual experience", but it is still all a complex perception trick like living supposedly is in the opinions of some. (Which is why I don't get the drug induced preachers clearly to the wrong crowd, it looks plain disturbing in most contexts.)

I believe psychedelics are awesome catalysts of thought, and some eastern thoughts are synergistic, but only because they are relevant. (But that's because I am me and I know it!)

So yes, because of my background, some things made much better sense after I took psychedelics and looked into some concepts I happened to keep on thinking about on different occasions. I don't like being the loud mouth "enlightened guy" in RL, I now strive to perform in whatever in a rounded balance like a Greek with as close to a new perfection as I can.... being realistic is still how it goes. (Lol @ "I AM THE INDIGO ENLIGHTENED GOD KING I COULD TELEPORT A BRIEFCASE WITH A MILLION DOLLARS TO MY DOORSTEP RIGHT NOW IF IT FELT LIKE IT, BUT I DONT BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND!!!)

Again who the hell knows, I could have had it right at thirteen and now I have unraveled that into some deluded chain of thought, but having a belief system that was made by me over time definitely has improved the quality of my life.

Big post tl;dr and all, but just some background on who I am if you wanted to know. I know I have the avatar, but I feel that I'm transient enough to not bind myself to rotting words and sheets of paper, I can be interested in giving all kinds of sacred, taboo, or supposedly useless shit a read because I know value to me when I feel it.

Where do you want us to go for our Buddhist wisdom? Some 20 year old bloke with a ponytail wearing sandals living in San Francisco? Is he closer to the pure Buddha wisdom than the Dala Lama was 300 years ago?

That Alan Watts fellow you don't seem to like very much picked up a lot of what I feel is "The Truth", most of which is hilariously simple but transient in structure but really does seem to be to me now.

Where should you go for wisdom if you were to seek imo? Try chilling in your own thoughtsphere for a while or look away from the clock and experience. You have been floating in information as long as you have known, for some big important connections and to be more certain in them it has to be done right, which no human holds the bar for.

 

[IamMe90]

Nah, it's not that simple mate. I don't think they're "bad buddhists". I think they're perfectly good buddhists. They spent their lives studying Buddhism from childhood onwards at the feet of Buddhist masters with 700 years of experience behind them. To me, that implies they knew a bit about Buddhism - probably quite a bit more than you and Dwayne.

I think the point is they were good buddhists and still chopped off their slaves hands for pinching a goat. That tells you a powerful and fundamental truth about Buddhism.

No it doesn't. You don't understand basic logic. You don't understand how to avoid such a basic and glaring fallacy that it actually can be seen by a layman.

You're creating a basic tautological argument here which is pointless and unresolvable. You're saying that the essence of "Buddhism" is defined by its followers, whereas we are saying that the essence of "Buddhism" is defined by the teachings of Buddhism. One is rather obviously more sensible than the other. If you can't see the difference and appreciate the invalidity of the one you have chosen, then you're sort of retarded or something.

Look, the teachings and ideas come first, the people that practice them come second. The latter has no logical bearing on the first.

It IS akin to saying that "well, so many Christians back in the medieval ages committed atrocities under the feudal system, thus there is something basic to all Christianity that is evil..."

But there's a problem with this logic, which is that not all Christians commit these acts anymore, which means the actions are not fundamental to Christianity if those who practice do not commit them. We already utilized this argument in an attempt to explain to you that the actions of the Tibetan Buddhists were not fundamental to Buddhism... you then countered by telling us that we're viewing modern Buddhism through the lenses of Western philosophy, which has infected modern Buddhism.

But there's a problem with that, which is that we have an analogous example of a Western group committing similar atrocities in the same feudal system, practicing Western religion. Where do you think modern "Western morality" derived from? As grudgingly as even I would like to admit, there is no doubt that current Western morality evolved in large part from Western religion. This creates a circular regress with your logic; the crusaders' actions say something fundamental about Western religion, and the only reason we do not realize this is because we view Western religion through the lens of Western morality... contradictions, my friend.

Teaches you a lot about the subject you're studying tho.

Even though I have grown up in the Catholic Church I would not say that the Christian equivalent of the masters of their hierarchy, who spend their humanistic lives following other peoples rituals are anybody that you need to talk about the core of the religion with.

But what is the core of the religion? Is it the alleged "words of Jesus/God" contained in the Bible? Presumably that was written by some geezer long after Jesus died.

Wrong, what is at the core of religion (if you had done any scientific research into the origins of religion, which I doubt) is more likely a basic cognitive imperative which furnished many fundamental metaphysical questions about life and death, and meaning therein; the solution to these questions was "God," a concept, not words of the Bible. You're only demonstrating my point, that is people who take the original concepts of religions of both Eastern and Western philosophies and warp them to suit their own, flawed needs.

Can you really not see that you are making an observation on people in general rather than the religions they follow? You can't infer that from the fact the trend you've pointed out in Buddhism occurs in all religions, Western and Eastern alike? I have no problem with you asserting that Buddhism is a load of crock, but only on the basis that its followers will never correctly follow the ideals it contains, and only if you are willing to admit that Western philosophy is subject to the very same fundamental problems.

I don't know too much about Dwayne himself

I believe he flicked through "Buddhism for Dummies" once while he was sitting on the toilet.

Actually, I think he consulted documented proof of the original teachings of the Buddha. Which are abundant and publicized. We are talking about "Buddhism," after all, not "Tibetan monks." You're making a basic factual mistake.