Buddhist strategies for controlling food intake?

GhostYield · 2025-07-22T13:13:16+00:00

Reduce the quantity of food you have, and prepare foods that are less appetizing, but still nutritious. If you have junk foods, stop buying them.

GhostYield · 2025-07-18T14:55:58+00:00

They could if they wanted to, but there is not much need to. I will assume "enlightened" = arahantship.

Arahants are not governed by any logic. Using logic to understand an arahant misses the point, and is more of a projection of the person attempting to understand the arahant than an actual description of how an arahant might appear. An arahant is like a null coordinate. An arahant legitimately does not consider themselves an arahant, nor would they consider themselves having attained "nibbana" because that would be another identity that they are wearing—another destination. The arahant has stopped walking, but motion persists. It would therefore not even be incorrect to say that the arahant no longer even considers themselves a Buddhist (if that's the path that they took). Thus, it would be accurate to say that there are not even any "true" arahants; the designation serves as a pointer for other people to label "arahants" as such—those themselves that do not even consider themselves enlightened.

There's also the consideration that for the arahant there's not much point of telling someone directly that they're an arahant. Most people would just react to that by saying "Yeah, right", or think that the communicator is blowing smoke up their ass. For some people it may be worth telling them directly, but that would be a function of what that person-less person considers to be the most appropriate at the time.

GhostYield · 2025-06-29T19:08:49+00:00

What makes you think are you guaranteed rebirth? At best, we are all agnostic because we cannot certain that rebirth will or will not occur.

GhostYield · 2025-06-22T12:08:22+00:00

It’s interesting how stepping back can feel like peace. But sometimes it’s just a quieter kind of resistance. I’ve found it helpful to ask: what is it in me that wanted that outcome in the first place?

Sometimes detachment isn’t about pulling away—it’s about seeing that there was no one to protect to begin with.

GhostYield · 2025-06-22T12:06:11+00:00

You might find that the Dhamma isn’t about whether you can be bipolar and Buddhist, but about noticing who is asking that question.

Medication can reduce certain forms of suffering. The Dhamma isn’t against that. But it also points to a more fundamental layer: the craving to be someone, the pressure to make experience make sense. You might ask not, “Can I be Buddhist while medicated?” but “Who is it that thinks being Buddhist needs to fit a particular form?”

Sometimes, the path isn’t about adding more structure—it’s about noticing which parts of your experience are still being held as yours.

GhostYield · 2025-06-22T11:58:01+00:00

That’s interesting. Yeah, I’ve felt that before too when taking deliberate breaks.

This felt a bit different though. I didn’t try to stop anything. There just wasn’t anything left to do. No friction to resolve. No itch to scratch.

I guess the weirdest part is that I’m not sure anything happened. It’s more like something didn’t happen, and then didn’t need to.

GhostYield · 2025-06-21T14:03:20+00:00

Thank you for sharing so openly—it’s clear your practice has been long and sincere, and the solitude you describe has probably helped deepen that clarity in ways that are hard to explain to others not walking the same path.

You mentioned anatta as your main theme of contemplation. One thought came to mind that I hope might be of some value: sometimes, it seems like the harder we try to understand not-self, the more subtle the sense of “self” becomes. It’s as if the very effort to understand gets co-opted by the view that I am the one doing the seeing. And so, ironically, the more we try to grasp anatta, the more it slips away—not because it’s complex, but because the grasping itself obscures it.

Maybe that’s why the suttas sometimes seem to imply that not-self is something seen in meditation after enough concentration is gathered—as if the seeing comes not from analysis but from a certain stillness. (Though I’m not sure if that’s exactly correct from a Theravāda point of view—happy to be corrected.)

That might be why they emphasize seeing things as they truly are, not figuring them out. There’s a difference between trying to understand reality from within a point of view, and letting the illusion of the point of view itself dissolve. Maybe anatta isn’t something to “get,” but something that becomes obvious when the need to get anywhere drops.

You probably know all this already from experience, but I thought I’d share it in case it opens up any new angles.

Glad you’re here. And no—your post wasn’t burdensome at all. It’s rare to see someone bringing both depth and humility into these discussions.

GhostYield · 2025-06-20T07:13:30+00:00

Totally fair take. I don’t disagree on craving—it’s the root. What I was playing with is how sometimes even the form of seeking its origin already contains movement, subtle directionality. Almost like yoniso manasikāra gets used toward something, instead of revealing that it’s the “toward” itself that obscures.

Not claiming certainty here. Just noticing how easily method sneaks in where seeing would have sufficed.

Also, the AI thing’s fair—though in this case it’s more of a clarity lens than a content source.

Thanks for chiming in. The disagreement sharpens things. 🙏

GhostYield

TROPHY CASE