"prompting the “self” to seek satisfaction through actions driven by “craving” " - this struck a chord. The optimiser is usually miserable as he is changng things to consistently re-align with his world view.
"Living in proliferation means living amid rigid concepts, suffering when categories clash with experience or are overgeneralized." - so the alternative "against the grain" is to notice, understand and endure instead of notice, feel dis-satisfaction, optimise?
So you view things as a person in a boat experiencing waves rather than a person in a car correcting course constantly? Did I interpert that right?
So glad it resonated! Against the grain indeed begins with noticing sensations, especially positive or negative ones, and with enough practice, seeing that there are multiple links which arise before the self, and on which the self depends.
The car vs boat metaphor is an interesting question. I think that the wave metaphor is a better description of the Buddhist approach. But I think there is actually a way to do course correction without craving and clinging arising. Would love to discuss further...
Nice. Did not know those two terms. They contrast as metaphor with our "go with the flow" and "against the current", where "go with the flow" equates with less suffering, greater ease. Yet with the direction of hair in the original here, stroking to raise the hair can feel better, or at least as good, as stroking in the direction it lies.
I really enjoyed this! I finished and published my Substack on the self yesterday. I wanted to write more about the self in Buddhism and Anattā. but I think this needs to be a whole other post. And I don’t know that much about it yet, so reading this was helpful.
Would love to discuss sometime! Anatta, in my view, is the methodological claim that a stable self cannot be found in any experience, rather than a philosophical claim that the self (or atman) does not exist
Thanks for this. It seems to me that the “against the grain” approach is actually much more rational - of course we can’t control things and of course things arise due to the interaction of multiple factors. Perhaps it’s a sort of bigger picture rationality, but one that can be obscured by the more immediate type of rationalising?
Agreed! And this actually lines up with the Buddhist description of suffering, which says that it begins in ignorance (avidya, not seeing) rather than mindfulness (sati) or "seeing the way things are" (vidya) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidy%C4%81_(Buddhism)
"prompting the “self” to seek satisfaction through actions driven by “craving” " - this struck a chord. The optimiser is usually miserable as he is changng things to consistently re-align with his world view.
"Living in proliferation means living amid rigid concepts, suffering when categories clash with experience or are overgeneralized." - so the alternative "against the grain" is to notice, understand and endure instead of notice, feel dis-satisfaction, optimise?
So you view things as a person in a boat experiencing waves rather than a person in a car correcting course constantly? Did I interpert that right?
So glad it resonated! Against the grain indeed begins with noticing sensations, especially positive or negative ones, and with enough practice, seeing that there are multiple links which arise before the self, and on which the self depends.
The car vs boat metaphor is an interesting question. I think that the wave metaphor is a better description of the Buddhist approach. But I think there is actually a way to do course correction without craving and clinging arising. Would love to discuss further...
Nice. Did not know those two terms. They contrast as metaphor with our "go with the flow" and "against the current", where "go with the flow" equates with less suffering, greater ease. Yet with the direction of hair in the original here, stroking to raise the hair can feel better, or at least as good, as stroking in the direction it lies.
I really enjoyed this! I finished and published my Substack on the self yesterday. I wanted to write more about the self in Buddhism and Anattā. but I think this needs to be a whole other post. And I don’t know that much about it yet, so reading this was helpful.
So glad the time in Canada has been successful!
Would love to discuss sometime! Anatta, in my view, is the methodological claim that a stable self cannot be found in any experience, rather than a philosophical claim that the self (or atman) does not exist
Thanks for this. It seems to me that the “against the grain” approach is actually much more rational - of course we can’t control things and of course things arise due to the interaction of multiple factors. Perhaps it’s a sort of bigger picture rationality, but one that can be obscured by the more immediate type of rationalising?
Agreed! And this actually lines up with the Buddhist description of suffering, which says that it begins in ignorance (avidya, not seeing) rather than mindfulness (sati) or "seeing the way things are" (vidya) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidy%C4%81_(Buddhism)