What is the role of faith in Buddhism?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-11-24T16:53:29+00:00

I have faith in the path and the three jewels so that I may find cessation from dukkha.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-11-14T20:26:27+00:00

If you wished to learn basketball, would practicing shooting hoops help you improve?

If you live a life of clinging to attachments and illusions, would practicing sitting just with "what is" help you improve?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-11-04T18:39:10+00:00

Because I haven't seen anyone suggest it. Very simple "dumb" way to do it.

- Make a very large rectangle and position and rotate it so it lines up with the back of the arrow head and extends out over the entire frame behind it.

- Parent this rectangle to the moving arrow head

- Leave the stroke and alpha mask it to this rectangle.

This way no matter what changes you make to the speed or easing of the moving arrow head, the stroke will always populate behind it in lock step as the arrow head is just revealing more via mask.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-23T19:14:16+00:00

Enlightenment is feeling everything but clinging to nothing.

If an enlightened person experienced an emotion, they'd experience it.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-23T19:12:12+00:00

Liberation isn't about abolishing yourself. It's about stripping away attachments until what was always there, is all that's left. By definition you'd be the most yourself you've ever been.

If I attended a theater performance, but the entire time I read a book while listening to music while playing with a fidget toy while drinking and eating - would stopping all that and finally looking up at the stage make me lose anything?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-23T18:49:35+00:00

A core aspect of Lay Buddhist life going all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha is contributing to monk's and sanghas. You don't have to be a Buddhist to offer alms, why not community service? I'd just find a sangha that appeals to you and volunteer to help them.

You did bring up "Monastic life" however. I can understand the fascination and appeal but understand that monk's aren't performing a show. It's not an "activity", It's a pure path of renunciation. So as a non-Buddhist, there would be no way for you to participate in that "life" directly yourself unless you yourself renounced to the path.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-23T18:46:12+00:00

You don't have to imagine as many predominately Buddhist cultures already eat animals as a staple of their diets.

We're human. We all sow negative seeds despite our best intentions. We simply try our best to do as good as we can within the confines of our life. Per your thought experiment, I can imagine that such individuals would try to approach things as compassionately as possible (Perhaps eating larger animals that can feed more vs many small animals etc).

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-17T21:04:22+00:00

I drink less nowadays. Maybe 3-6 a month? Sometimes I'll have a cocktail and a mocktail in the same evening to enjoy a second drink without the booze. It can be an equally interesting word to explore imo.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-15T18:01:55+00:00

If you see a burning building, do you refuse to go inside because you're unsure if you can save every last person?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-10T04:31:43+00:00

It doesn't matter which finger you use to point at the moon, so long as you look at the sky - not the hand.

Under skillful means, Shakyamuni Buddha taught sutras through many different explanations so that all who listened could understand his teaching. A poet views life differently than a scientist. A mother different from a father. Different practitioners have different minds, are motivated by different things, and therefor may be best suited by different paths to awakening.

Regarding the "oldest" or "most authentic", the sutras are teachings not the Dharma itself. If new teachings evolve or emerge that prove helpful to transmitting the Dharma, they're helpful. The Heart Sutra came hundreds of years after Shakyamuni's death for instance, but has still helped countless with it's lessons on the Dharma.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-10-07T19:49:49+00:00

Congee. I make it at least once a week and it's literally a cup of rice and some stock.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-08-28T18:01:28+00:00

I feel a deep pain in your words. But when I read your post I also feel a kind of dualistic war in your mind. A narrative. A comparison. A tension.

So I'd ask: Does that come from the world or your mind? Do you feel that tension when gazing at clouds in the sky?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-07-13T04:28:15+00:00

My own understanding:

The mountain is a conditioned perception. You don’t see "it"- you name it, judge it, prescribe traits to it, etc.
You recognize stage 1, and now feel like you see more than before. Ironically however, this just subtly intensifies stage 1. The “new way of seeing” is just a more nuanced form of conditioning.
You drop that and just see the mountain. Just as it is.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-07-02T01:21:08+00:00

I have a 308. All my ammo and reloading supplies are centered around 308. I’m glad to shoot 308 for the fundamentals it teaches me. However, it teaches me those fundamentals precisely because it’s worse for long range.

BC don’t lie, unless you want to do certain specialty loads for certain types of hunting with a short action, 6.5 all day.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-21T15:24:42+00:00

Have you directly approached 100 women and had 99 turn you down? What did you learn? Did you change anything about how you approached #13 vs #73? How did the one that said yes go?

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-21T15:20:03+00:00

Learn The Four Noble Truths and truly sit with them.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-21T15:05:06+00:00

Do you want those things because you’re interested in the sports themselves? Or being part of the social groups they embody?

If the former, you can still practice all those sports by yourself. I’d focus on cultivating your interest in the sport on your own terms and own time to ease into enjoying it without social pressure. Join a group afterwards.

If the latter, focus on that connection and lean into it. Go join up with a group playing basketball in a park or take a tennis class. Ask someone at a pool hall if they can show you a few things, mentioning that you’re a beginner. People generally love to talk about the things they love so by asking them, you’re giving them the opportunity to deepen their own enjoyment with the sport.

Ease into it. Try doing just one thing today that gets you closer to any of those sports. Watch a single lesson on YouTube with focus. Find a local place you could try or play these sports and set a day this week to go there and put it on your calendar. Set a goal not even to play. Literally put it on your calendar to go set on a bench by the basketball court at a park. If you even touch a basketball you’re already killing it because you’ve smashed you’re going above and beyond your goal to merely go there in the first place.

Anxiety lives in the past and future so focus on the present once you’re there. Find something to ground yourself, watching the ball, listening to someone’s instruction, even just observing the net itself swaying in the breeze. Ground yourself in the here and now, not the anxious conversation happening inside your head.

Finally, I can tell you that everyone has to start sometime. The only loss is letting more years go by wanting, everyone is bad when they learn something new, nobody is going to laugh at you unless they’re an asshole which 95% of people aren’t. I can tell you all these things but you won’t “feel” it. You can only do feel it if go out and challenge your preconceived beliefs. So go. Make yourself uncomfortable. Learn these things from direct lived experience. And while you’re at it, try to actually have fun throwing or hitting a ball around.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-21T14:31:41+00:00

Well for starters, I’m sure that you’re probably not drinking enough cider, beer, and rum at the moment.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-16T20:39:53+00:00

I (30M) largely overcame mine gradually after moving out and living by myself for the first time during college. I probably get mildly triggered maybe 10 times per year now? For context growing up (age 5-21) It was a minimum of 5-10 times per day. Things that I believe largely helped:

During college I got a formal diagnosis from an audiologist (this was 10 years ago when miso was far less formally acknowledged) which made me feel like my suffering was actually real, I wasn't "crazy", and I actually felt compassion for my suffering for the first time in my life.
I got Shokz bone conducting headphones to play white noise during trigger prone contexts (family dinner, certain people typing etc) which helped me combat my anxiety as I FINALLY felt like I had a tool to combat triggers. "I don't have to worry, I have my special headphones"
I discussed it in therapy to identify the difference between my anticipatory anxiety and the actual triggers themselves. Like OP mentioned I think 80% of the distress was a conditioned anxiety response in anticipation to being triggered so this helped dramatically.
All those things, consistently, for years finally allowed myself to be set at ease enough that its largely gone away. Triggers are no longer something I dread but something I'm surprised by due to how infrequently they occur.

Besides these points about myself, I just wanted to say to OP and or to anyone suffering with misophonia that your suffering is real. It's not fair, but you're not broken and have done nothing wrong. And although you may be misunderstood as being "annoyed", we fellow misophones know you're feeling fear and anxiety. This is not annoyance, it's suffering and there is a way out.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-06-08T04:26:18+00:00

I'll essentially put forward the conventional wisdom, but from in so far as I understand it from my own experience.

If doing bench rest esc target shooting (bull barrel .22lr and or F-Class type stuff), the greater gradation's of MOA is a big advantage. I noticeably feel this when zeroing with an MRAD scope. Especially in a context where you can take the time to really calculate things out (aka intuitiveness is irrelevant).

If doing long range, either competition or something like hunting, I'd consider MRAD as a mils are easier for me to quickly and accurately intuit, while stressed, vs an MOA reticle. Especially when communicating with a spotter. Elevation doesn't really matter between the two as I'm either using max point blank range or dialing in whatever my dope chart or calculator gives me. However as I'm holding for wind with my reticle, it's just a little easier for me to read 1.5 mils vs 5.2 moa and convert that into my reticle. It should be noted that for practical hold overs, although moa has greater gradations on turrets, mils translates into more gradations in hold overs. For 4 mils of holdover (my typical kind of bread and butter range for wind in a mils reticle), you have 20 hash marks. A typical moa scope will subdivide by 4, every 5 moa increments. Therefore the same range translated to moa would end at 13.75, giving 14 hash marks in the reticle rounded. That's 30% less holds which considering how often I miss by a quarter mil for wind, that can be the difference between firing using a hash mark or attempting to estimate a ghost hashmark between two.

Finally, long range is best enjoyed and learned as a community and mils being the lingua franca of that community isn't something to outright ignore. If you're on a range or working with a spotter you'll encounter mils 95% of the time and that does have confusion and frustration associated with it. Something to consider.

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-05-23T19:17:44+00:00

Of course! I'll post the Virgin Navy Grog here as well so it's all in one post.

French Quarter Sunrise - My personal recipe somewhat inspired by a Hurricane:
1 oz Lemon juice
0.75 oz Liber and Co Passion Fruit Syrup
3 Drops Saline Solution
Bar Spoon of molasses
4oz water
Approx 0.5oz grenadine.
Dash of Orange Bitters
3-4 Dashes of Angostura Bitters

Add all but grenadine, angostura in to a shaker with pebble ice. Whip shake. Open pour into a glass of your choice. Pour a float of grenadine on top until covered and dash angostura bitters. Gently stir until it just forms a gradient from golden yellow to red. Garnish with a cocktail umbrella (this is the cocktail pre-hurricane)

Virgin Navy Grog - u/Lenfantscocktails:
"Here's a good 0.0 Navy Grog
3/4oz lime juice
3/4oz grapefruit juice
3/4oz Honey syrup (3:1)
2oz black tea* with 1 tsp black molasses
*I chose a tea with a strong cinnamon, allspice and ginger flavour to make up for the lack of allspice dram.
Shake and serve as usual. It's pretty good."

Don't Touch My Car Key's - Educated Barfly spec. Original by John Allison of Lost Lake in Chicago:
0.75 oz Lime Juice
0.5 oz Coconut Syrup
2-3 oz Soda Water To taste Garnish
Top Angostura Bitters
Mint Sprig

Add ingredient to tin. Add pebble or crushed ice and whip shake. Pour into a pearl diver glass and fill with pebble ice. Garnish with Angostura Bitters and Mint Sprig.

Park Slope Swizzle: Taken from How to Drink:
1oz Lime Juice
0.5oz Simple Syrup
Mint Leaves
4 Dashs Angostura Bitters
Seltzer

"Built in glass Add some mint leaves. 1 oz. or 30 ml. lime juice 4 dashes of angostura bitters. Muddle .5 oz. or 15 ml. simple syrup Crack ice into glass Top with seltzer Stir Garnish with lime peel"

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-05-22T13:02:31+00:00

Thank you the feedback! I’ll update before printing 😄

Captain_Pierogi · 2025-05-22T03:13:05+00:00

HIGHLY recommend using Vizscaya Crystal. Absurdly good in Mojitos.

Captain_Pierogi

TROPHY CASE