You can in fact take courses taught by the greatest in the field. The one does not exclude the other.
Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
51–60 of 112 posts
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
"To be done with doing", from Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels, always struck me as such a powerful phrase. An entire state of mind boiled down to 5 words. But then again I remember her saying eastern philosophy greatly influenced her writing, if I'm not mistaken
To be done with doing, would appear to require passive income?
> To be done with doing, would appear to require passive income?
who is asking this question ?
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#53I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
Similarly, the Western idea of Stoicism seems to focus mostly on controlling or even suppressing your emotions (at least on surface level), while the Stoicism you rightly call "Roman" (thanks for that, btw) is much more holistic and more of an ethical framework.
Stoicism in Ancient Rome was COMPLETELY about controlling your emotions, though. And in Greece it was never that big of a deal. The stoics we remember today are all Roman. Marcus Aurelius, Epicurious, Seneca.
Meditations is largely Marcus Aurelius soothing himself with logical arguments.
Im not doing it full justice but the passages read like “A whole is not less than its parts, Humans are intelligent, therefore the universe is intelligent, there for my situation is a logical plan from the universe, so I should be content.” Marcus was explaining why he needed to be the perfect elite Roman citizen, using nature to logically show why he needed to embody societally cherished traits like being logical, just, fair, but also being stern, powerful and strong. Over and over again.
Now at the time, they did consider it a hard science. They were trying to figure out secrets of the universe, the absolute correct ethics, and therapy (controlling your emotions) at the same time. Each tenet relied on eachother, you couldn’t have one with the other. Today we know the science was wrong and ethics are more complicated than they could’ve imagined, but the controlling emotions side remains. So I completely disagree that modern stoic bros are bastardizing it, it just is an flawed ideology that matches well with some of our modern western traits of a “masculine” man.
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#54I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#55I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
> But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness.
I cannot recommend the Idler magazine strongly enough. It's outstanding material towards a healthy way of aimless being.
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#56I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
Actually, this is a matter of Buddhist sects. It's not that you're wrong—the etymology is correct—but I think you're taking the historical changes too lightly. Because generally speaking, there is Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, and they usually follow the Pali tradition. In fact, the concept of 'emptiness' (Sunyata) in Mahayana Buddhism is itself based on non-duality. So what you're asserting is not wrong as a source or an original form of Buddhism, but regarding the description of Zen in the article, the actual Seon tradition is generally closer to what I'm claiming. In fact, you can't really talk about Seon Buddhism without bringing up Taoism, because during the process of its transmission through China, it merged with Chinese folk beliefs and then spread throughout East Asia. (For reference, I'm Korean, and the Buddhist traditions in Korea were also heavily influenced by China.)
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
Actually, this is a matter of Buddhist sects. It's not that you're wrong—the etymology is correct—but I think you're taking the historical changes too lightly. Because generally speaking, there is Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, and they usually follow the Pali tradition. In fact, the concept of 'emptiness' (Sunyata) in Mahayana Buddhism is itself based on non-duality. So what you're asserting is not wrong…
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Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#58I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
To summarize your argument a bit, you are essentially saying, 'Christianity was originally a Jewish sect, so the current Trinity doctrine is wrong.' Generally speaking, Zen (Seon) moved from India to China, and after Bodhidharma, it began to emphasize self‑nature while incorporating Taoist concepts. Perhaps your argument might come from a perspective that is not East Asian but rather based on the original texts, possibly from the Indian tradition. In Mahayana Buddhism, Sunyata (emptiness) is the core of non‑duality, and it is actually somewhat different from your Theravada interpretation.
The problem is that the way Zen is used resembles the Seon traditions of East Asia, specifically Korea, China, and Japan, and those traditions are built on Mahayana emptiness with Taoist elements mixed in. Therefore, from the perspective of primitive Buddhism, what you say is correct, and from the Pali perspective, it can be called Jhana, but strictly speaking, that is difficult to call Zen[1][2]
[1]https://kabc.dongguk.edu/content/view?dataId=ABC_BJ_H0184_T_...
[2] https://www.ibulgyo.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=28814&ut...
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#59I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
There's no such thing as "wrong" in this sense. Eastern religious traditions are manifold across space and time, they influence each other, change, and split quite significantly.
Re: Zen and the Art of Machine Learning Research
#60[flagged]