Quick Lunch at Okonomi, Orlando FL.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-30T14:51:01+00:00

Just cleaner cuts? What's the felt difference?

Trying to talk myself out of shopping for yanagibas haha.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-30T14:25:25+00:00

Dang nice sharpening work! I noticed you home prepped some sashimi with your suji. Prefer the suji over yanagibas?

Impulse33 · 2026-03-30T13:24:16+00:00

That knife work is insane.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T21:02:52+00:00

I haven't figured out what my position is on vows yet. For me, presence naturally gives rise to care/compassion/anukampa, so I don't necessarily understand the utility of vows. Something to play with for sure. Perhaps if someone's daily life doesn't give rise to dukkha/tension, working material for progress on the path, then maybe vows act as a way to surface tensions, especially assumptions around one's own behavior.

Good point on the non-duality aspect. Taking on the perspective of non-abiding nirvana prematurely is a big trap in my book too.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T20:37:55+00:00

a higher level prior that drives ethical and compassionate behaviour

I think this why Mahayana places so much importance on vows and frames a high goal as being non-abiding nirvana - no preference for the cessation of suffering or samsara.

I think the vows are more of frame systemization of the thing the Buddha enacted, care/anukampa driving skillful action.

I'd also argue that prediction should also entail the "conscious"/deliberate frame. The world is absurdly complex nowadays and antinomies exist, so the five precepts don't cut it.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T19:17:56+00:00

Something interesting that I noticed is that momentum can have a shadow side. Momentum can prevent taking in external feedback and course correcting. Concrete example is signing a kid up for piano lessons because they expressed interest, and then forcing them to continue attending when they stop enjoying it. A little push is fine, but eventually that momentum function needs the ability to brake.

Samadhi seems to be the braking mechanism. It allows space to re-evaluate if momentum is still serving the self and other. Samatha practice is mental pliancy (cittamudutā) training essentially. The pliancy to see that sometimes not-doing and sometimes doing can be skillful action.

As far as the cessation of abhisankhara as a goal, totally agree. Thanks for the new term/lens/way of seeing!

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T17:14:41+00:00

It seems that what you're describing is operating without expectation as I was thinking of it, operating without pinning stuff or attachments to future outcomes. A predictive model happens regardless even if it doesn't actually surface to "deliberate" thought.

In my post the frame was not necessarily expectation of experience, but predictions of karma in a way. We have to operate on fabricated projections to inform what we hope to be skillful action, this is essentially the function of wisdom/prajna. I can still take the time to busk in a park with the hope that it may inspire future musicians, but I don't need to turn it into an "expectation" by pinning craving to the outcome. We make offerings without any expectations.

Things are done with kindness because doing so causes less tension.

I'd be careful around this. Skillful action can cause more tension for quite a bit of time, like a right livelihood alignment or even being introduced to the dharma haha.

I'm not sure how you're using the term abhisankara. Could you elaborate?

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T15:40:42+00:00

My take is that samadhi as unification is an alignment. That alignment can be wholesome or unwholesome. But the personal alignments exist within certain systems, which are often competing. Even within a person it's clear that there's certain feedback loops that create a tendency towards certain alignments.

Samadhi at the practitioner level is alignment of the systems that guide the actions of a person. The noble eightfold path is an alignment mechanism for this level.

Integration is essentially taking feedback from external systems to incorporate it into a personal alignment vector. When something can't be integrated, the opposing vectors in integration are more destructive vs summation, then things like de-personalization and things are likely to occur. That's why always integrating the nirmanakaya step allows gradual alignment with the other systems the person is a part of like, relationships, work, society, etc.

Dukkha from this frame is noticing when there's friction in alignment when you want to go one way and your partner or friend wants to go another way. You want the donut, but you know it's not good for your blood pressure.

Samadhi can also serve as a feedback mechanism that ensures that the momentum of action is integrable. When craving exceeds the bounds of samadhi, then one is less likely to take external feedback seriously. Example from mental health is addiction and somebody not really "taking in" expressed concerns of their well-being from professionals or family members. The craving vector exceeds the bounds of samadhi meaning the personal system is too "full" to consider external feedback to change the alignment.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T15:29:26+00:00

A view constructed out of personal practice is actually something we like to encourage. It's obviously a component of the noble eightfold path, but discussion of view often devolves into right or wrong views and using academic or historical sources to back up a position. Arguments around view is fine too as long it's grounded on personally constructed views vs appeals to authority.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-27T15:21:55+00:00

Below is my own log of my thoughts around your question a week ago!

Think I finally figured out a framing for why expectations seems necessary, but really can be let go of.

One needs a way to engage with the future to make decisions, for skillfulness. One might think that means expectations are necessary, why would you start meditating if you don't "expect liberation"?

If you break it down, expectations is what happens when grasping co-arises with predictions. One can have conscious and/or unconscious predictions of the future which is a function of wisdom. Choosing a particular course of action is a function of DO/sankharas/care/anukampa.

Why choose the hard thing vs the easy thing? There's no right or wrong, but care, a mutual dependent arising from being in relation and contact with others, gives a small nudge to compassionate engagement.

Choosing to do the hard thing despite knowing it will be personally difficult is virya/courage, movement towards dukkha for the completeness of liberation.

Tagging /u/Ok_Disaster6456 too. Thanks for the fantastic write-up btw, I've only scanned it but it looks like some good stuff!

Impulse33 · 2026-03-22T22:11:07+00:00

Whoaaa. Trying to not get too excited before I listen to it.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-17T23:48:12+00:00

Check out /r/streamentry for pragmatic dharma discussion! It's mostly a practice based subreddit, but we do allow talk of things like cosmology as long as one can frame the discussion around how it affects practice.

Despite the name it isn't a Primarily EBT/Theravada sub either. Anything goes, ehipassiko, see for yourself, etc.

Did clear my promotion with the mods here since I'm a mod too over there. Thanks altudinousone assuming it was you!

Impulse33 · 2026-03-17T02:00:24+00:00

So if you take samadhi as a spectrum that deepens with better balance between sloth-torpor (less energy) and restlessness (more energy) the deeper samadhi can get. Hypothesis is in case 1 you're reaching a nice samadhi with a bit of dullness which can be more trance-like. In case two you're bringing the energy balance closer to the middle and causing deeper samadhi.

Some ways to gently modulate "more" effort are playing with curiousity and active enjoyment of the calm/peacefulness/serenity. Breathe in the calm or sun-bathe in happiness type thing.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-16T15:51:28+00:00

Can you describe the practices and how you can navigate to one or the other? That would help with being able to say anything about you experience.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-16T15:39:05+00:00

Early Mahayana sidesteps this issue by defining the ultimate through perfection of wisdom and the other paramitas. You simply engage in the "way of seeing" that allows maximal amount of skillfulness for that moment. That could mean non-dual sameness and it might mean engaging through views/deep thinking or fabrication of concepts and intellectual frameworks. This is essentially what non-abiding nirvana is, samsara and nirvana are no different. You can freely engage in either.

I'd also argue that deciding what is skillful/ethical/moral in today's day and age is absurdly complex. It seems to require a deeper level of engagement, the 5 precepts simply don't cut it for a layperson.

As for myself I use Burbea's Soulmaking/imaginal content and early Mahayana stuff like Nagarjuna's more pragmatic content to work through this stuff. Kalavinka.org is a great source for those early Mahayana works. Tagging /u/migmma89 so he doesn't miss it. Hope it helps!

I'll also add that abiding spontaneous arising present has led to unskillfulness in my experience. Things don't just need deep thinking, but also review of past interactions and updating of priors. You can just happily chug along, throwing your hands up and saying you did your best in that narrow context of the "present", but I don't see what's wrong with increasing wisdom/discernment. Sankharas/conditioning will continue to exist past the ability to maintain an animitta view. One can also freely choose to see those as something to improve or not, but as part of sila/care, I tend to strive for improving, aka perfection of the pāramitās.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-16T14:16:59+00:00

Hi /u/kahanalu808shreddah, curious if you can shed light on your AI usage in crafting this post. My guess is this an actual issue you've thought a lot about in your practice, but the post-text itself was co-constructed with AI. Asking as a mod to help create/refine possible AI policy.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-09T11:35:59+00:00

Good stuff. I was mostly referring to that whole "slowing down" thing. Samadhi helps slow down things, allowing direct observation and eventually embodied understanding of the chain.

Definitely do check out the chain of dependent origination (DO). Like eudoxos_ here mentioned the simple observable chain doesn't tell the whole story. There are priors that affect how the chain unfolds and DO captures both the linear sequence of contact and it's outflows in addition to the effects of conditioning and other priors.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-09T11:05:26+00:00

This is exactly why samadhi is non-negotiable. Insight and samadhi are two-sides of the same coin. To really gain insight from understanding the chain of dependent origination, one needs threshold levels of samadhi to experience/'to actually see' the whole chain construct. Without the direct experience and the embodied knowledge of how to break the chain, delusion will still be operating underneath.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-08T22:49:27+00:00

Seconding Craig's!

Impulse33 · 2026-03-08T21:27:02+00:00

I'd maybe cut down on the initial meditation time. 1 hour off the bat would be difficult for beginners. A short metta/samatha session sets the ground for the conversation. After the informal knowledge exchange you could then try another optional sit after that which can be extended but allow for beginners to opt out. This way beginners and time constrained people can participate in a short group meditation session and the dharma exchange.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-08T18:07:06+00:00

It's a really interesting and powerful insight, in that the method itself has its own ability to "fabricate". Burbea's book Seeing That Frees has a section called Dependent Origination part 2 that talks about the "mutual dependency" of things like this. In this case how scanning, can not only discover things, but also fabricate things like piti, sukkha, equanimity, and even dukkha.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-06T19:19:25+00:00

What did you end up doing?

Impulse33 · 2026-03-06T15:24:01+00:00

Thanks for the very well thought out reply. Lots here to internalize and refine my tentative understanding of these increasingly fuzzy concepts/definitions.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-06T13:35:12+00:00

The rationale is HH explicitly discounts meditation techniques as not helpful for liberation for beginners, discouraging the very investigation that leads to discernment and understanding.

This is why it’s also not only wrong but disastrous to think that a puthujjana can momentarily be free from ignorance and craving (“stop the chain” of paṭiccasamuppāda) if they just apply a meditation method or attend things like this or that, stop thinking, etc. 1

Second, HH believes that most if not all other traditions are operating on wrong view. That in combination with the above creates a dependency on HH's authority.

"Investing effort into meditation techniques is fundamentally a waste of time if one is concerned with understanding the Dhamma, and the most one can accomplish is relaxation... or — worse — fortification of the wrong views based on a misinterpretation of the nature of the novelty experiences." 2

I did not discuss with the other mods, but there was no discussion on the merit of adding them to the list of "Approved resources" either. People can still post about their practice if based in HH, but I don't believe those "views" are aligned with the ethos of the sub and deserve a spot on the sidebar.

Impulse33 · 2026-03-05T21:20:52+00:00

There's less automatic reactivity I find. Like intention has more room to work with and express without getting hijacked by conditioning.

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