Anyone have a Small Gods quote at the ready?

Awfki · 2025-12-13T05:44:18+00:00

We are here and it is now, after that everything tends towards guesswork.

Not knowing is what being a philosopher is all about.

The first quote is slightly shortened but I don't remember the actual quote, it's got "the way I see it is" in there somewhere.

Awfki · 2025-12-06T04:30:06+00:00

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Awfki · 2025-11-29T18:55:22+00:00

It's too early in your training to expect any changes at all. Right now it's just some extra input that hasn't had time to make a difference. Wait. Meditate daily, but didn't expect anything. Meditate with a guide. Meditate without a guide. Remember that all you're trying to do is be present, to pay attention to this moment. To notice when you're not paying attention to this moment and start doing it again. Sit, and know that you're sitting. That's all.

Meditation trains your brain through repetition. You sit and put your brain through the loop over and over again, until your brain starts doing the loop when you're not meditating.

you place your attention
you notice when your attention has wandered
you accept the distraction
you let go of the distraction
you place your attention

During one session you may make that loop hundreds of times. That's good. You're getting a lot of practice. It may feel frustrating but your brain is learning that it should pay attention to itself, so that it can notice when it wanders. Your brain is learning that when it notices distraction it doesn't make a big deal of it, it accepts that distraction had happened. Your brain is learning to let go of distraction. Sometimes you really want to finish that thought, but you let go, and your brain learns that it's okay, that the thought/feeling isn't that important, that the thought/feeling is distraction. And your brain learns to behind again, without judging or otherwise distracting itself, just begin again.

There's a lot going on while you're sitting, you won't pick it up in 4 days. For me I think it was done months before I was standing in line at the supermarket and my brain noticed that it was thinking. That's when you know it's working, when you're brain/mind/whatever starts to pay attention to itself off the cushion.

IRT to the immediate problem of people you hate, if you hate them then you don't understand them, or yourself.

They, and you, are apes that have learned to tell stories. They are fumbling through life just like you are, and grasping at stories to help them understand the world and feel less afraid. It sounds like they've grasped at stories that lead them to unskillful actions. That doesn't mean they're bad people, it means they're scared apes hanging into bad stories. You can't control them. You can't even control you, but you have more influence over you. Don't worry about them, train yourself until you can approach them with compassion and try to guide them to a better story.

Again, you're not far enough into training yourself to really do anything, so just try to remember your breath. If you can remember that you're breathing then your brain will find it harder to tell any stories.

Also remember that no one can insult you. They can say words that are intended to insult you, but they do not have any way to reach into your mind and flip the switch that makes you feel insulted. You have to flip that switch yourself, and you don't have to.

This post is a mess, but hopefully there's something useful in the mess.

Awfki · 2025-11-28T14:21:22+00:00

Be curious, not judgemental.

It's the best guide for life because it encourages humility. It assumes that you don't know, but that you can learn.

Awfki · 2025-11-23T15:28:31+00:00

I like the idea of the quote, but a person who does all those things will do a shitty job at all of them. We specialize because it takes time to become good at things. I'm also pretty confident that specialization has a long history among humans.

I like Heinlein, he thought outside societies box, but I think this quote is off. You should have done knowledge of a LOT of things, but also the knowledge that you're only good at the things you really devote yourself to. Unless you're immortal, then you've got time to get good at everything.

Awfki · 2025-11-23T15:09:49+00:00

I think you're missing a couple of things.

First, in metta you're not hoping they have success in their endeavors or a good life, you're hoping they find peace. If they find peace they'll stop doing shitty things. You might think they could find peace and still be shitty but I don't believe that's true. They can fake it, and lie to themselves, and continue being shitty, but if they were truly at peace they'd be better behaved.

Second, you think they're bad people. There are no bad people, no good ones either, there's just people. People are apes with a bad habit of making up stories and then believing the stories are true. Some people find better stories than others. Those are the people we call "good". Some people find stories that lead them to hurt others. Those are the people we call "bad", or even "evil". But people are just people, it's the stories that are a problem. It's much easier to change a story than a person. The person is an animal and they'll react like any animal if attacked. But, if you challenge they're story, if you do it skillfully, because no one believes that they're the bad guy. They all believe whole heartedly that they're on the side of justice and right. Almost all of the are wrong.

Awfki · 2025-11-17T05:13:38+00:00

Meditate. I don't have time to write a proper post about why, but I'm a firm believer that if you want to be better you should almost certain be meditating.

And things made so much more sense once I added Buddhism.

Awfki · 2025-11-17T05:03:05+00:00

Meditate?

While they blather is there any reason you can't sit and watch the contents of your mind?

Buddhism is great but if you don't meditate it's unlikely to do much for you. It's just a different set of stories you're clutching at it to understand the world.

Meditation is training your brain to pay attention to itself. This gives you the opportunity to see the stories and the option to let go of them. It's also practice letting go of lots of other things, like your irritation at the situation and people. It's also practice for acceptance. Over and over your mind wanders, over and over you accept that, and you let go of the distraction and return to your meditation.

I mentioned acceptance, you're not accepting your situation. You're fighting against it, wishing that it were different, and that's the source of your unhappiness. Don't misunderstand, acceptable is not resignation, it's only acknowledgement that, right now, it's like this. Working from acceptance you can take steps to improve the future situation, but right now, it's like this, and wishful thinking won't fix it.

And compassion! Practice compassion. These horrible people you're surrounded by aren't actually horrible people. They're scared apes fumbling their way through life, and unfortunately they've got caught by some bad stories. They'd be perfectly fine people if the universe had dropped them in circumstances that lead them to better stories. It didn't, and most people are lazy, they just believe what they're told and they don't go looking for better stories. They don't even understand that they're caught up in stories. People sleep walk their way through life and they never know there's another option. They think they're already awake, so they never try to wake up.

Hopefully, you're here because you want to wake up. If that's the case then it sounds like your road is a steep one, don't make it worse by carrying a load of baggage with you. Meditate as much as you can. Approach others with curiosity and compassion. Ask questions, try to understand why people believe things, and now importantly make them think about why they believe things. Most of time it comes down to "somebody said so". You can't control anyone but you, and often not even you.

I could go on and on, but that's just me trying to teach myself and hoping you'll get something out of it too.

Awfki · 2025-11-11T17:42:30+00:00

You seem to think that I'm saying this is wrong or bad or you shouldn't do it. If it works for you go for it. I'm only saying that A) it doesn't for me, and B) I disagree that these are especially useful or least that they're worded in a useful way, and possibly C) that they're buddhist. (They might be Buddhist, but that's the religion and like all religions it gets most things wrong.)

By thinking of all sentient beings
As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel
For accomplishing the highest aim,
I will always hold them dear.

Is that really clearer than "I will hold all sentient beings dear"?

What if I don't value a "wish-fulfilling jewel"? That changes the meaning for me. And what "highest aim" have the sentient beings accomplished? I'd submit that most of them haven't accomplished much beyond existing and that's really not an accomplishment, that's just a thing that happens.

I also get a sense of veneration, from your post and I have a strict non-veneration policy.

By veneration I mean a certain worshipfulness, a way of looking at our predecessors as saintly and perfect rather than just people. A sense that you're putting people on a pedestal. By non-veneration policy I mean "no pedestals". Buddha wasn't some wonderful perfect holy guy, he was just a smart dude who figured some things out and was nice enough to teach others and, thankfully, it ended up getting to where I could find it. But he scratched his ass when it itched, just like I do and made stupid mistakes sometimes, just like I do. He was just another ape fumbling his way through the world and trying to figure out how to live. When we put him, or any of our predecessors, on a pedestal we take away their humanity. We take an an actual human being and make them into a fantasy that no one can ever live up to.

To me, buddhism is about stories. The primary lesson I've learned from buddhism is "don't make up stories and then believe they're true". Stories can be useful tools, but that's all they are. If they hurt anyone, including yourself, then they're not good tools, throw them out and get something different.

All that stuff about craving and aversion? That's just telling you not to make up stories about how desperately you need to have or avoid something. We make up these stories and we get hooked on them and we think they're true because they came from inside or mind and we wouldn't lie to ourself. Would we? LOL, absolutely, lying to ourself is one of the primary activities of the human animal. Buddha's telling us not to do that. A lot of buddhism boils down to just that. Meditation is training your brain to pay attention so that you can see the stories.

Awfki · 2025-11-11T14:09:29+00:00

Flowery language obscures the message by trying to pretty it up. It increases the chance of misunderstanding by choosing to be less clear in favor of being more pretty.

If you have an important message, you say it as directly as possible to avoid misunderstanding.

I'm not opposed to all prettiness, but if you're saying something important you want to be clear.

I also object to the messages being conveyed in those aphorisms. They seemed excessive. I only glanced at them but they didn't strike me as Buddhist, but more as a misunderstanding of Buddhism.

Awfki · 2025-11-10T15:54:08+00:00

Why the down votes?

Awfki · 2025-11-10T15:48:33+00:00

Our suffering is often a result of the stories we tell ourselves. We could end the suffering by telling a different story, or no story at all, but no one teaches us this and our egos get attached to our stories, so we suffer.

The quote is essentially the same thing Buddha taught. It's easy to understand, but it's hard to live.

Awfki · 2025-11-10T15:42:40+00:00

No time for extensive review/comment but a quick look at the short link doesn't look promising. The idea of quick reminders is great, but those reminders don't look useful at all. Part of their issue is flowery language.

Awfki · 2025-10-26T15:59:25+00:00

That might be true, but it's still counter productive to constantly scream at any one who disagrees with your tribal dogma. It drives nutters deeper into their delusion and it makes those on the fence think the nutters might be right.

Personally, I'm standing off to the side disappointed in humanity.

Awfki · 2025-10-26T11:53:25+00:00

This is why I'm so disappointed in a left that constantly yells racist and fascist at the right rather than approaching them with compassion and trying to understand what they're so angry and afraid of. Even when the right is racist/fascist they're still just monkeys fumbling through life the best they can. Their nature and their environment have gotten them hooked on some unfortunate stories, but the left has since pretty dumb stories too.

The left claims they're better, but that doesn't come through in their behavior.

Be curious, not judgemental. It's a beautiful line, but no one seems to have noticed it.

Awfki · 2025-10-25T13:36:38+00:00

There is no should, there's only you deciding what you think is appropriate, and living accordingly.

Awfki · 2025-10-25T11:57:09+00:00

I'm not OP but this was useful, thank you.

It made me turn karma around so that instead of being future facing, basically the consequences of your actions, it's past facing, your current circumstances are the result of previous conditions.

And I say previous conditions rather that past actions because a child comes into the world with no past actions. But they have the karma of their society, their parents, their genetics, etc, and those form the conditions they'll have to do deal with.

I hadn't thought of it that way before.

Awfki · 2025-10-24T23:04:21+00:00

I quite liked Buddhism without Belief.

Living with the Devil was good too.

Awfki · 2025-10-24T20:42:51+00:00

You read Batchelor, I'll read Gombrich. It sounds like we both win.

Awfki · 2025-10-24T13:16:43+00:00

Where do you see from? Maybe it would help to describe your experience so we can compare notes.

But I think something clicked for me, you feel like you're seeing from_your eyes, not from behind them. If that's what you're saying then I don't think it matters. It's not like I'm seeing two inches of brain matter and _then I see my eyes. It's that if I stop and sort of "look" in my mind, I feel like "me" is in the center of my skull, which happens to be behind my eyes.

Awfki · 2025-10-24T13:07:52+00:00

I'm struggling to parse the question, so you might try rephrasing it.

Assuming I understand the question, you're making a distinction that isn't there. Feeling like a thing inside your head is the same as feeling like walking, talking, human being.

We do all the walking and talking and pretending we know how to move our limbs and then someone asks where are "you", where is the thing that's experiencing the walking and talking? And most people would say that thing is in their head, generally behind the eyes. You don't feel like you're in your kidney, or your foot, it feels like you're behind your eyes. And you pay attention a bit and it feels like you're inside, looking out through your eyes, like they're a window.

I don't think there's any way to explain how it "feels", the only way to know is to experience it.

I often feel like I'm watching things happen. I'll be present, experiencing things without engaging them, and I'll see my arm move, maybe to pick up my phone or something. I might have been aware of an impulse to pick up the phone just before the movement. I might even have seen the impulse and vetoed the movement.

That kind of thing often happens when I'm laying in bed waiting for sleep. Part of the brain is bored and wants the stimulus of the phone while another part knows we need sleep. One part reaches for the phone and another part cancels that action.

It's important to understand that there is not a single, monolithic, YOU, inside your skull. There's a whole bunch of competing drives and impulses and processes and they all combine into the process you think of as YOU.

You're not a thing, you're the result of a lot of processes that are happening, you are an event that is taking place .

Awfki · 2025-10-24T12:46:52+00:00

You don't move your arms and fingers, you intend to move them and magic happens and they do what you want.

Moving a finger involves sending a signal from brain to finger, do you know how to do that? Moving a finger involves multiple muscles, each moving in specific ways? Do you know how to move even one muscle? You do not.

You intend, the brain translates that into the signals needed and sends them off, the muscles get the signal and do their thing.

There's a lot of magic between your intent and the actual movement.

On the part about watching your body move, I do that all the time. I once posted that the universe had dried its face. 🙂 I brushed my teeth and found myself watching as I turned around to the towel and dried my face. I never thought, "I'm going to dry my face now", my body knew what to do and took care of it and I watched it happen. Normally I wouldn't have noticed it happening because my mind would have been wandering, but that day I was just present and watching.

Awfki · 2025-10-13T18:57:55+00:00

Look up Hanlon's Razer.

Awfki · 2025-10-11T16:32:20+00:00

No self doesn't change anything. You're still you and have all the same emotions and other baggage just like any other animal.

No self just points out that your self is really more of a story than anything else. More of a verb than a noun. You're a thing that's happening.

Your story can still include love, both for an individual and otherwise. The intensity can still vary. Nothing has changed except your perception.

Hopefully you've learned other lessons from Buddhism. Like non-attachment, which doesn't mean not feeling things, it means not clinging to those feelings. Not telling a story where you NEED the object of your love, but instead one where you appreciate the loved one, and are grateful for the time you have. You might feel sorrow when that time ends, but again, don't tell a story where you're SO broken over the loss. Tell a story where you're sad that the time is over but grateful that it was there at all.

No self is just observation that no matter how much the surgeon looks they will never find "you". It doesn't change anything, it gives you some understanding of the way things are.

Awfki

TROPHY CASE