I generally liked the “Goodness of Reality” section quite a bit, and this part especially made me go “oh, of course!”:
I think Christianity’s emphasis on forgiving all, Taoism’s emphasis on not resisting anything, Buddhism’s emphasis on being equanimous with everything, and Islam’s emphasis on submitting to all aspects of God’s will are different ways of talking about the same general thing.
I was less convinced about several of the other sections. I agree that there’s a loose sense in which we reap what we sow, in that actions that are derived from tanha tend to create more tanha, whereas non-tanha-based motivation tends to create more non-tanha-based motivation. But I thought the suggestion that everyone inevitably experiences a life review felt unconvincing (largely due to similar reasons as habryka).
It also felt to me like the post was trying to argue for everyone’s morality converging in the end, which I’m skeptical of. I do think that there are some paths that do converge, but also others that do not. One big example would be the ideological difference between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, where Theravada tends to lean toward just ending your own personal suffering and “noping out” of reality, whereas Mahayana tends to have more of a “get enlightened and remain around to help all sentient beings” ideal. A meditation teacher I recently spoke with mentioned that this divergence tends to be reflected in his students. Some of them become increasingly dedicated to helping everyone else as a result of their practice, while others take more of a “well if everything is just arbitrary sensations, I might as well spend the rest of my life just playing video games” type approach (even if he actively tries to nudge them toward the more compassionate route). He speculated that the divergence seems to be driven by personality factors, but he hadn’t identified which ones exactly.
I generally liked the “Goodness of Reality” section quite a bit, and this part especially made me go “oh, of course!”:
I was less convinced about several of the other sections. I agree that there’s a loose sense in which we reap what we sow, in that actions that are derived from tanha tend to create more tanha, whereas non-tanha-based motivation tends to create more non-tanha-based motivation. But I thought the suggestion that everyone inevitably experiences a life review felt unconvincing (largely due to similar reasons as habryka).
It also felt to me like the post was trying to argue for everyone’s morality converging in the end, which I’m skeptical of. I do think that there are some paths that do converge, but also others that do not. One big example would be the ideological difference between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, where Theravada tends to lean toward just ending your own personal suffering and “noping out” of reality, whereas Mahayana tends to have more of a “get enlightened and remain around to help all sentient beings” ideal. A meditation teacher I recently spoke with mentioned that this divergence tends to be reflected in his students. Some of them become increasingly dedicated to helping everyone else as a result of their practice, while others take more of a “well if everything is just arbitrary sensations, I might as well spend the rest of my life just playing video games” type approach (even if he actively tries to nudge them toward the more compassionate route). He speculated that the divergence seems to be driven by personality factors, but he hadn’t identified which ones exactly.