The Five Aggregates in Artificial Intelligence To help drive home the meaning of the Five Aggregates as I wrote about in Part 1, let's try an exercise devising a high-level architecture for an Artificial Intelligence mapping to the Five Aggregates. In some ways it could be easier for us to relate to an Artificial Intelligence … Continue reading The Five Aggregates – Part 2 – A.I.
Category: Buddhism
The Five Aggregates – Part 1
Happy Bodhi Day!!! Today is January 13, 2019, the 8th Day of the 12th moon for 2018. It's Lunar Bodhi Day! Here is a little post I hope helps you meditate on a very important aspect of Enlightenment on this Bodhi Day: What are the Five Aggregates? The Whole is Greater than the Aggregation of … Continue reading The Five Aggregates – Part 1
What is Dukkha?
The Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet thinks I need to dig deeper into Dukkha itself. The Prism of Suffering In the Western world, Dukkha is typically translated as "suffering". That typical translation is drawn from Siddhartha Gautama's succinct and seminal realization under the Bodhi Tree that "clinging is the cause of all suffering". To me, … Continue reading What is Dukkha?
The Other Shore
The Heart of the Matter Early this morning I was recalling Thict Nhat Hanh's English interpretation of the Heart Sutra and its place in my Bodhi Day ceremony last year. In particular, the phrase "... while practicing deeply with the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore ...", strikes a profound chord within me. I envision … Continue reading The Other Shore
The Root of Dukkha – Part 3 – Lust, Gluttony, Greed
Situation Addiction goes way beyond the vices we normally think of such as gambling and drugs. If vices were the only addictions, why are there so many miserable people who aren't drug or gambling addicts? That's because anything we desire is an addiction - whether under the societal norms in which you happen to live … Continue reading The Root of Dukkha – Part 3 – Lust, Gluttony, Greed
The Four Noble Truths is an SBAR
Miscommunication results in unnecessary and disastrous errors while engaged in "battle". While in the chaos of battle, communication between team members is severely hampered. If communication were consistently structured, succinct, and deeply ingrained in the team's culture, information could be passed with higher fidelity. That structure should identify the problem, provide some background on the … Continue reading The Four Noble Truths is an SBAR
Obutsudan
Mrs. Hanamoku, His Holiness The Eternal Fishnu, His Holiness The Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet, and I attended a very nice Obon Festival last night. We had a (actually more than "a") bento with musubi, nasubi, inari, tomagoyaki, shoyu chicken! Wonderful! The Eternal Fishnu blessed the event with the largest turnout ever in the event's … Continue reading Obutsudan
Everything Forms Every Thing
In annoyingly paradoxical Buddhist style I will now talk about how Everything Forms Every Thing, even though I just got through talking about how No Thing Exists. How can there be things that form when no things exist? No Thing Exists is a statement about the true nature of the Universe. Everything Forms Every Thing states … Continue reading Everything Forms Every Thing
No Thing Exists
In yesterday's post, See, I discussed the phrases "Nothing exists" versus "No thing exists". Let's recap that discussion from another point of view because this is a fundamental Buddhist/Zen topic. Think of having heard a Buddhist priest saying, "Everything is an illusion. Nothing exists." Does the priest mean there are no stars, no Earth, no chair I'm sitting in … Continue reading No Thing Exists
See
One of the most frustrating words used in modern Buddhist literature is "see". For example, "If you see the reality of the Universe, you will know that nothing exists and that all is One." That is an important statement because it just about defines enlightenment, even though it sounds like esoteric garbage. So how does … Continue reading See
Fishnu 