Category: Hypotheses

Arhats Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas – Hagiography

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have a pet theory that the hagiography of all religions exaggerates and glosses. From knowledge of human behaviour and Chinese whispers, things passed down get embellished so as to confer kudos on the teller, the raconteur. Rarely are things made greyer and more boring. This means that taking things with a pinch of salt might offer some balance.

To the faithful there is nothing quite like a miracle to prove truth and religious figures are given, in narrative, super-human abilities and qualities. These days they would be told with enhanced computer CGI and special effects on a big budget. Bigging up martyrs and buddhas is good PR for the various churches. Who in the past had control of the proles as a raison d’être. The Sacerdotes have always had ritual magic and theatre in their playbook. Simplifying the message to an all fire-consuming hell and blissful pearly-gated paradise could be writ large on the side of big red double decker “Brexit” bus. Nobody could come back to provide a TripAdvisor rating for either holiday destination.

What if all that exaggeration has gotten completely out of hand?

Christianity, depending on flavour has a host of saints. Jesus’ crew, his disciples, are sanctified and portrayed. That depiction has taken place over two millennia. They are represented as holy. When if you think about it, they were learners, disciples, in the act of being taught and trained. Similarly, Buddha’s sixteen {18} arhats are seen as holy, saintly. When they were hanging out listening to Buddha and learning his ideas. It is said they achieved enlightenment. Lessening of burden is enlightenment, full liberation may not be the same as the partial enlightenment.

People pray to the saints and the arhats.

The canon’s of both Buddhism and Christianity were/are written by human beings and therefore by logic are coloured with bias and wishful thinking. There may well be some idealising.

Mahayana promotes the bodhisattva ideal where enlightened or near enlightened beings come back to teach out of the kindness of their hearts for the benefit of all sentient beings. This is seen by some as more worthy. Whereas the haughty arhats are too arrogant to teach, the pratyekabuddhas who do it all by themselves are not sufficiently omniscient to teach. They leave no legacy. They shun the sangha; they are not one of the gang. They are too arrogant, snobby, aloof, to be with normal people. The arhats, perhaps at one with the awesome and austere nature of reality and universe, lack the cosy human compassion are biased against and not as “nice” and the smiling friendly bodhisattva. They cannot be arsed to come back time and time again, the bastards.

People who do not know what these states of consciousness are like, make judgments thereupon. This {scholarly?} interpretation gets incorporated into the ongoing cannon, the creed, the gospel. People like definitions and will roll out comparison between, all knowing, earning bragging rights about something which they do not know. One could look it up in “Buddhism for Dummies”.

Religious thinking likes its “signs”. A rainbow appearing when someone achieves Parinirvana.

What if all these processes are entirely natural, relatively low key and nothing to shout about?

The hagiography diverges from reality…what is natural becomes miraculous. Which may inhibit application. The idea of a miracle is out of reach; the idea of continuous improvement and stepwise attainment is less daunting. Toning it down might increase genuine uptake of practice.,

Status pissing contests are a common human practice and are to be found in religion and science. People like to bullshit each other and pretend to know shed loads.

I have a pet theory that the hagiography of all religions exaggerates and glosses.

Blundering About – Backstory and Context

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In the academic year 2014-15 I did some science tutorials in Chemistry and Physics. Most of these were 1:1 AS and A2 tutorials. Given that I had a colectomy for a T3N0M0 tumour on 2nd July 2015 I was going through the two week referral processes together with sigmoidoscopies, biopsy and two colonoscopies during the exam run-in and exam period. The biopsy came back negative but on the basis of imagery they went for the knife.

In order to manage this, I was mega-organised and prepared for each tutorial. I had to cut some work pieces out and be more selective in choice. Hopefully nobody noticed I was ill / stressed and my efforts were of their usual impeccable standard. I had a backstory and a context which no one knew. I did not want to have hand wringing, victim minded, people around me and was perhaps terse with them. I may have been short with others. My main focus was to ensure that the operation happened as fast as possible. I applied some pressure.

In academic year 2015-16 I once again did tutorials. In two family houses the atmosphere was palpably tense. The mother in one said that she was being treated for breast cancer. I said snap, me too. The ice was broken, everyone relaxed. In the other it was kept secret until the chemo made it more obvious. The lad was tense and when he finally spilled the beans, I was able to assist him on other levels than science.

 In some cases, bringing the backstory to the fore makes things a whole lot easier.

Human beings tend to blunder about like bulls on amphetamines in china shops. Even the so-called intelligent can be very blinkered and myopic. The self-diagnosed omniscient have perhaps the greatest lack of sensitivity and situational awareness.

I have for example been having a “discussion” with someone. They have been professing and proclaiming from their soap box, letting fall their precious pearls of wisdom for my benefit. Whilst I have been looking at the bridge of their nose and debating quietly to my self if I should headbutt them to make them shut up. My assessment is/was that they were unaware of how close they were to peril. Enamoured by the sound of their own voice they were blundering about.

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People can assume shared context when none exists. Without participating in self-percussion, it is likely that my background context and experience here differs markedly from the locals. There is no way that I can make them aware of the implications of that context. Yet from time to time is does manifest, often to their surprise. I doubt anyone I have met here has been offered a job at the European Space Agency or negotiated at ASML headquarters. That kind of thing changes you a bit.

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Context is important it changes how we perceive things markedly.

I now have a working hypothesis. Everyone who is a British expatriate here has a backstory of some kind which differs from the UK white picket fence and 2.2 children norm. How it differs I don’t know. There is a need for resourcefulness in a place where the willingness to speak English is low. People find ways.

There is no easy way to make people aware of some aspects of backstory or context. Contact can be too fleeting to warrant it. But this lack of awareness that such a thing might exist can cause problems. Being self-centred like a medieval pope, people imagine that the world revolves around them, to say otherwise if heresy and heresy has high often flammable stakes.

The problem with blundering about on a mission, lacking sensitivity is that you can make some truly whoppers of faux pas. It can be very difficult to extract from the socio-political embarrassment. Losing face is not an option so the awkwardness must pervade and maybe fade. People find it really hard to admit that they fucked up. This lack of social adroitness is another form of blundering about.

“I don’t have to apologise for the BYOB parties at Downing Street…”

Is an example of someone unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions.

If you have a backstory then it stands to reason others do too. Perhaps we need to be a little more sensitive about context and implications.

On the other hand, you could slash overseas aid to appease a domestic audience and allow hundreds of thousands {foreigners} to die because you have pulled the carpet out from under their feet. They do not matter after all.

People blundering about can have marked long terms impacts on and in the lives of others…

The Proliferation of Syndromes and Deterioration in Mental Health

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In my life time I have seen a marked proliferation in so-called mental health or developmental syndromes and those diagnosed therewith. They are quite trendy. Unsurprisingly the number of people qualified to make said diagnoses has also increased. There is a demand for diagnoses hence a growing supply of those qualified to diagnose. There is money in it, several grand per diagnosis.

Is this a real phenomenon or a market created one?

I heard the other day that some people were giving fluoxetine to pet dogs, FFS.

Anything which strays from the peer defined normal is at risk of being labelled a syndrome conferring fame upon the person who “discovered” it.

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We can lock up the weird and abnormal. Give ‘em loads of drugs and excuse them from the workplace in case they disturb the humdrum predictable mediocrity of petty power struggles and cock waving. Give them some unemployment benefits and teach them how to weave baskets and package wellness products that do not work but smell nice.

Is ADHD real or are people just bored fucking rigid with the way school is taught, controlled and examined?

Discuss…

I have tutored quite a few people diagnosed with ADHD, 1:1. I had no problem keeping their sharp attention for an hour or more. One just has to invent and teach better, to stimulate instead or bore.

I have a hypothesis. It says:

The apparent mental health crisis is simply tens of thousands of minds rejecting the way “normal” society is and the societal compulsion to conform therewith. It is not a mental health crisis rather an increasing failure of society.

It is not going to get better. There are no fairy godmothers.

The average, normal fearfully compliant people, don’t like this.

What percentage of people need to be treated for mental health “problems” until it is the so-called normal who are diagnosed as having a syndrome?

The human mundane-obligatory-compliance syndrome, FOMO for short. There are hordes who already suffer and can be diagnosed therewith. It is a social media pandemic.

There will come a time when those with so-called mental health problems are the majority. This will flip the entire notion of sanity, whether polite or otherwise.

I’ll wager that if I had to sit “A” level physics and chemistry as they are currently examined in the UK, I would not do well. I would get frustrated at the intransigence and tick box, mark by template mentality. I would not be happy having to adhere to verbatim parrot dogma.

I have an honours degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in chemical physics.

I would probably join the Royal Marines instead of going to university if I was 18 now. I would certainly not have written ~60 science based publications.

People don’t like to face reality; they tend to prefer increasing the number of exceptions and justifying new extensions to rules and theories. They tend to keep ideas and notions, long after their sell by and use by dates.

If it does not fit, make it a syndrome, a special case, an exception. Write several theses about why it errs or strays from the norm. Refer to multiple other authors who are doing the same things. Make a career out of it…

But whatever you do, you must not question the societal norms… that is heresy.