He closes by saying that western ways of life are not necessarily bad, but that people should look deeply into other traditions to find solutions to problems of the modern industrialized world. Buddhism in particular has a lot to offer.

Spiritual advisors to the king were educated abroad and no longer understood the message of Buddhism. Eg some claimed that Buddhism was the cause of economic stagnation and mental illness. Had these so-called experts not been educated abroad, no one would have taken them seriously.

Buddhism had been Thailand’s source of education and culture, but when western science and education methods came in, they pushed Buddhism out of these aspects of public life. Buddhism became more formalized into a state religion.

This market opening meant that influences from many western countries were able to flood in. In a sense, Thailand has been culturally influenced by a greater number of western powers than the colonized countries who were mainly influenced by a single country.

Ch1: The Religion of Consumerism. Sivaraksa is Thai. Discusses the history of Thailand’s encounters with the West. Siam (his preferred name for the country) managed to avoid colonization by other western countries in part by fully opening their borders for trade and cultural exchange. However, …

Currently reading Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision For Renewing Society by Sulak Sivaraksa from 1992. Hoping to learn more about the giants of Engaged Buddhism. I’m thinking I might live-skeet the book. Do people do that? Live-skeet books? I’m gonna do it.

Too many people argue that anattā (not-self) is a critique of ātman. Whether true or not, talking about how the Buddha might have been responding to Brahmanism 2500 years ago is not a fruitful line of thought if we fail to grasp that anattā is directly applicable to our lives in the present moment.

So about this fresh horror, I wanted to explain a little bit about the "ordination" of trees and the like, given that they're now "ordaining" AI agents. Speaking as someone who both is ordained and has ordained trees.

It’s important to not know how things will turn out. If you think things will go well, you may get complacent and not provide enough effort. If you think things will go poorly, you may get demotivated and give up. To achieve success, some uncertainty is best.

Damn dude. I just tell cursor what I want and let’r rip!

Frog on the pow. Where’d he ski from? Nobody knows,where he’ll go.

Equanimity, accepting things as they are and being unmoved by them, is the final thing that the Buddha recommends be developed. First, we have to put in lots of active effort to find what works. If you start off by just accepting things as they are, that’s unhealthy. #Buddhism #Mindfulness

Join me on my journey as I explore Buddhist approaches to technology, society, and government. I will tend to focus on early Buddhism, since that aligns with my practice, and will frequently discuss issues related to space technology and exploration, since that aligns with my profession.

So maybe I’ll start posting here just to gain some momentum. The ball starts rolling now …

I’ve been mulling the idea of a Substack or podcast for two years now. Have some posts written and others in progress. I work in the space sector and do analysis and write big reports, so I figured writing “for fun” would be easy. Frankly, writing for fun is harder than writing professionally.