LESSWRONG
LW

All of Mascal's Pugging's Comments + Replies

Awakening
Mascal's Pugging30

For what it is worth, the later parts of the book discuss the things you might be more intersted in, like meditative/path models. The scientific research is quite interesting, in particular, I find the brain scans of monks to be incredible. 

Reply
Awakening
Mascal's Pugging132

I agree with a lot of what you have said, and I am largely on board with the thrust of your message. The later parts of the book discuss some of the things more relevant to what we have been talking about, like meditation and "awakening," and these are also the more interesting bits, in my opinion. It also shouldn't be surprising that the Pali Canon contains 2,500 year old texts that we find odd! -- but if you enjoy history/mythology/sociology then it can be quite interesting.

I think what is missing is that a proper takeaway, for you, should be to update f... (read more)

Reply1
7Kaj_Sotala
Ah. Yeah, I agree with your point that if someone is claiming that the secular interpretation of Buddhism is The True Interpretation and you can see that even in the original sources, that's a reason to be doubtful of them. They are, as you say, laundering their own ideas with the reputation of Buddhism. I think the difference is that I don't think I ever put sources like MCTB in the category of writers who make claims about the original meaning of the suttas. Though it's certainly possible that those claims were there and I just glossed over them. (And okay, admittedly the whole name of the book is reasonable to read as making a claim about what the original meaning of the teachings was.) But I read you to be saying something like "treat these modern secular writers as people who might be drawing inspiration from some Buddhist sources but are fundamentally doing their own new thing", and I think that I was already reading many of them as doing exactly that.  With regard to MCTB specifically, this felt especially clear with Ingram including a chapter trashing the whole traditional Theravada conception of enlightenment and then following it up with a chapter presenting his own revised model as a replacement. That felt like him basically saying "yeah fuck those original religious guys, let's do something different, here's a model based on my own personal experience instead".  Anyway I agree that it's good to point that out for anyone who missed that, or who interpreted books like MCTB differently.
Just admit that you’ve zoned out
Mascal's Pugging*137

I don't say, "I just zoned out," but I do often say, "sorry, could you repeat that?" I think people are less likely to take offense to this.

Reply
2joec
Yeah, this sounds very reasonable. However, in a situation where the speaker won't take offense, I think specifying the reason for why you requested to repeat something could be nice. Sometimes people take "could you repeat this" to mean "could you summarize the last few minutes" or "I didn't understand, could you explain in more detail". Of course, this is a pretty minor cost, and it's better to ask someone to repeat things without saying why than to not ask at all.
Awakening
Mascal's Pugging84

Right, I don't blame you for referencing those books to communicate, because they are what a lot of readers on a forum like this would be familiar with. TMI is also important in my personal chronology, but I wouldn't recommend it either. What I would want to popularize among crowds like this is the recent scholarly study and practice of "Early Buddhism." 

I started typing out more of a reply, but I think I should maybe just make a post.

By the way, I started going to a local Zendo within the past 12 months, and it is actually in the lineage of Philip Ka... (read more)

Reply
3lsusr
Thanks for the recommendation!
Awakening
Mascal's Pugging*24-4

The books you mention, The Mind Illuminated (TMI), and Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (MCTB), are quite popular among Western atheists, secular people, rationalists, and technically-minded intelligent individuals who spend a lot of time reading on the internet. I don't mean that pejoratively -- I count myself among these groups. However, if you have read these books, there is still much more to learn (and unlearn). 

They are appealing because they promise to offer Buddhist meditation, insights, and strategies while jettisoning what they con... (read more)

Reply
5lsusr
Something I found amusing about reading the Bible is that the book is undeniably religious, but the religion in it isn't Christianity. God doesn't promise Abraham eternal life in Heaven. He promises inclusive genetic fitness.
Kaj_Sotala172

I've now read about one-third of "In the Words of the Buddha". I personally appreciated getting the additional sociological and historical background so I'm happy that you recommended it and that I got it. However, its talk about reincarnation and realms of divine beings and so on doesn't really do much to convince me differently about this:

monks in robes teaching Buddhism, who accept religious and supernatural elements, are dismissed as religious men.

I think the book is, if anything, dissuading me from the idea that modern Western practitioners would ... (read more)

Reply
3Kaj_Sotala
Interesting. I've generally had the position that while the Buddha was no doubt a great innovator, he was still just one guy who lived thousands of years ago. And that it'd probably be a better use of time to read all the more recent meditation teachers who can draw on the thousands of years of progress since then, and can synthesize the most valuable pieces of Buddha's teaching with the things that have been learned since then. Nevertheless, your challenge made me interested and I got a copy of "In the Words of the Buddha" now. It does seem interesting.
4lsusr
Great comment! TMI is important in my personal chronology because of how it got me into this stuff. I don't actually recommend it. There are other books I prefer to TMI. MCTB isn't core to my practice, either. I would be surprised if Daniel Ingram's approach didn't produce more psychotic breaks than traditional systems. It's dry, fast and hard. When I tried out Ingram-style vipassana, I felt like something was going wrong and went looking for a different technique instead. MCTB is more like a reference book for me—a common language to communicate with Western secularists. I'd prefer to explain things in weeb (Daoist and Zen) terms, but that just confuses people. I never got into the Pali Canon. I tried reading a translation of the Visuddhimagga, but my translation contained claims that are provably wrong. (The book said you can light fires with your mind.) My personal practice comes from traditional Zen sources like The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment by Philip Kapleau Roshi, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps, and the poems of Ryukan.
2Michael Roe
I've lost count of how many gurus have been involved in some sort of sex scandal...   (Seriously, care would seem to be advisable when choosing a yoga sex cult.)
Is suffering like shit?
Mascal's Pugging152

Did people seem to find shit getting on everything deep? Did serious writings explore the experiences of all manner of shit, and the nuances of the feces and piss involved?

It doesn’t seem like it? Maybe read Gargantua and Pantagruel for ideas…

Reply
Pascal's Mugging and the Order of Quantification
Mascal's Pugging11

Yeah, that's the question. Saying that  means that . So if  doubles, then it's required that  is at least cut in half. I doubt there is a proof of this per se, but in a situation as strange as this it seems reasonable to me that if you claim you can do 10 times as much of something, then that is at least 10 times less likely. 

I guess the main point I wanted to make is that in the usual phrasings of Pascal's Mugging the choice of  is oftentimes taken after the choice of . But... (read more)

Reply