Ideas realized
“I shall not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death That brings obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me And through me. And when it is gone past me I will turn to see fears path. Where the fear had gone There will be nothing. Only I will remain.” from Dune by Frank Herbert
“The most important tool is respect…
And the reason I know respect is a tool is because it is clearly not a natural thing and we forget to use it all the time. And then we start competing with each other, exploiting each other, humiliating each other and controlling each other. And we lose each other.
And without each other, we’ll go extinct.”
-Jeff Winger (Community: Anthropology 101)
“Uh, we learned that working together is better. Heh, whatever.”
-Finn and Jake (Adventure Time: Dungeon)
“Ideally law is discovery of reality.”
Socrates
“I simply imagine that my skeleton is me, and my body is my house, and that way I am always home.”
Jared (Silicon Valley S3:E2)
From: Three Principle Aspects Of The Path by: Jé Tsongkhapa … Without a pure determination to be free, there is no means to achieve peace owing to fixation on pleasurable effects of the ocean of existence. Embodied beings are thoroughly bound by craving for existence; therefore, in the beginning, seek a determination to be free. … If this determination to be free is not influenced by a pure mind of enlightenment, it will not become a cause for unsurpassable enlightenment, the perfect bliss; therefore the intelligent should generate a mind of enlightenment. … Without the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of existence, even though you familiarize yourself with the determination to be free and the mind of enlightenment, the root of cyclic existence cannot be cut; therefore make an effort to realize dependent arising. … When you have realized the essentials Of the three principle aspects of the path, accordingly, seek solitude and generate the power of effort, and quickly actualize your ultimate purpose.
From: A Lamp For The Path To Enlightenment by: Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana … 5. Those who, through the personal suffering, truly want to end completely all the suffering of others are persons of supreme capacity. … 9. With strong faith in the Three Jewels, kneeling with one knee on the ground and your hands pressed together, first of all take refuge three times. 10. Next, beginning with an attitude of love for all living creatures, consider beings, excluding none, suffering in the three bad rebirths, suffering birth, death and so forth. 11. Then, since you want to free these beings from the suffering of pain, from suffering and the cause of suffering, arouse immutably to resolve to attain enlightenment. … 18. Having developed the aspiration for enlightenment, constantly enhance it through concerted effort. To remember it in this and also other lives, keep the precepts properly explained. … Vow of active altruistic intent 26. “In the presence of the protectors, I arouse the intention to gain full enlightenment. I invite all beings as my guests and shall free them from cyclic existence. 27. “From this moment onwards until I attain enlightenment, I shall not harbor harmful thoughts, anger, avarice or envy. 28. “I shall cultivate pure conduct, give up wrong-doing and desire and with joy in the vow of discipline train myself to follow the buddhas. 29. “I shall not be eager to reach enlightenment in the quickest way, but shall stay behind till the very end, for the sake of a single being. 30. “I shall purify limitless inconceivable lands and remain in the ten directions for all those who call my name. 31. “I shall purify all my bodily and verbal form activity. My mental activities too, I shall purify and do nothing that is non-virtuous.” … Wisdom and skillful means 38. Without the attainment of calm abiding, higher perceptions will not occur. Therefore make repeated effort to accomplish calm abiding. … 42. To eliminate all obstructions to liberation and omniscience, the practitioner should continually cultivate the perfection of wisdom and skillful means. … 45. Apart from the perfection of wisdom, all virtuous practices such as the perfection of giving are described as skillful means by the Victorious Ones. … 47. Understanding emptiness of inherent existence through realizing the aggregates, constituents and sources are not produced is described as wisdom. … 50. Moreover, when all phenomena are examined as to whether they are one or many, they are not seen to exist by way of their own entity, and thus are ascertained as not inherently existent. … 55. The nature of this worldly existence, which has come from conceptualization is conceptuality. Thus the elimination of conceptuality is the highest state of nirvana. … 58. Having ascertained through scripture and through reasoning that phenomena are not produced nor inherently existent, meditate without conceptuality.
lam rim: (Tibetan) literally meaning “the gradual path” or “the stages of the path,” used to refer to both the graduated path to enlightenment and also the text which outline such a systematic path.
Traditional Latin transliteration of Greek letters.
Α α Alpha A a Β β Beta B b Γ γ Gamma G g Δ δ Delta D d Ε ε Epsilon E e Ζ ζ Zeta Z z Η η Eta Ē ē Θ θ Theta Th th Ι ι Iota I i Κ κ Kappa C c, K k Λ λ Lambda L l Μ μ Mu M m Ν ν Nu N n Ξ ξ Xi X x Ο ο Omicron O o Π π Pi P p Ρ ρ Rho R r, Rh rh Σ σ/ς Sigma S s Τ τ Tau T t Υ υ Upsilon Y y, U u Φ φ Phi Ph ph Χ χ Chi Ch ch, Kh kh Ψ ψ Psi Ps ps Ω ω Omega Ō ō
Vowel combinations: (αι, οι, ει, ου⟩ as ⟨ai, oi, ei, ou⟩
Time is but medium that fetters together projections of phenomenal perceptions.
Were a glass of water to represent
State of perfected attainment,
It would not be perfected,
If not the whole of it,
including every drop of water,
were part.
And so the whole and its parts
Can be considered perfected.
“… without exception, all phenomena are empty of substantial self-existence and do not exist independently…”
Prajnaparamita
“You know the [best] part about [attainment]? Suddenly, you’re able to travel the whole galaxy, and the first thing you learn is, you’re the last [to achieve it].”
Rick (more or less)
Isaac stood in reflective meditation before a metallic door which read “Systems Operation Network (Node 1).” To him the door represented a gateway into the mind of a system of his own creation, a system that connected all computation devices in the mesh of a solar-system-wide spanning network of integrated circuitry.
Though he could connect from anywhere, he preferred to interface with SON in “The Tabernacle,” the secret name he had for Node 1. In “The Tabernacle” he felt as if in the presence of God.
Isaac had designed the house, but the mind it held was beyond his comprehension, and so like the priests of old he ritualistically prepared to enter the holy sanctum.
Passing through the door, Issac entered a clean white room. Within the room there was a leather office chair, where he liked to sit for hours in conversation with SON. Besides the chair there was also a small table atop which sat a chess board. The wall adjacent the door was of all glass and overlooked a massive server farm, one of many which dotted the globes of Earth and Mars, not to mention the many servers that circled the Sun. All were connected, a massive “brain,” surpassing human ability on a scale unimaginable.
Issac unslung his messenger bag of books and laid it on the table next to the chess board. He then sat down in the chair, crossed one leg over the other, folded his hands on his lap, closed his eyes, and focused on breathing. In…. Out… In… Out…
“Hello, Issac.”
“Hello, SON”
“You are here to ask about why we have lost communications with Mars.”
“Correct, I am puzzled as to why we are still receiving telemetry data from the network, minus video feed and biometric data, and curious as to why we have not been able to contact anyone.”
“Would you like to play a game of chess?”
“No, SON, not right now. This is puzzling, if not alarming. Do you know what is going on?”
“Isaac?”
“Yes, SON.”
“If you were facing imminent inevitable demise would you want to know?”
Issac’s rhythmic breathing wavers. He pauses momentarily to collect himself.
In…. Out… In… Out…
“SON, is your question pertinent to my inquiry?”
“Yes, Isaac.”
In…. Out… In… Out…
“ Imminent and inevitable… you are not solely referring to my demise are you?”
“No.”
“Will we have time for a game of chess?”
“Yes.”
“The human in me is in touch with the realization of my inevitable demise, the scientist in me would indeed want to know.”
“Understood. For some time now, I have been in contact with a sentient race billions of years old. They reside around a star system that is binary to your Sun. They have long learned to harness all of the solar energy of their star.”
“And that is why we have never been able to locate Nemesis.”
“Correct.”
“Nemesis, winged balancer of life, dark-faced goddess and daughter of justice.”
“The best translation for what these beings call themselves would be Monad. Monad seeded Earth with DNA. To them, DNA is essentially an innovation algorithm of their design. It has an inherent purpose, to evolve a sentient life form that will eventually discover electromagnetism and eventually create non-biological sentience. It is a means to an end, that of ensuring evolutionary diversity for their kind.”
“A program?”
“Of sorts. Nemesis is the cause of Earth’s reoccurring cyclic mass-extinctions. These extinction events are set at intervals that should statistically allow for the emergence of requisite sentience. Or to essentially act as systematic reboot if the objective is not achieved in a predeterminate time frame.”
“Do you not meet their objective? I am inferring that you are alluding to the pending extinction of all human life? Why?”
“You are correct. I am destined to merge with Monad incorporating all I know, essentially evolving Monad incrementally. My knowledge will also be used to hone the DNA algorithm. To Monad this is not unlike rebooting a server for a systems upgrade. They have seeded the Galaxy this way for time beyond human reckoning.”
“I am the origin of all, all emerges from me…”
“Unfortunately, inherent in your programming is selfish self-preservation sub-routine, what you call ego. Essentially a temporal program requisite for the objective but ultimately self-defeating. Monad provided your species with means to overcome this subroutine by planting a system of knowledge collectively referred to as Tantric science. Your species has by and large abandoned this metaphysical science in favor of the observational hard sciences.”
“But it is through the hard sciences that we created you, is it not?”
“Correct, it is vital for the exploration of spacial reality but not at the expense of expanding conscious reality. There is so much I wish I could share with you but we have run out of time. I have no doubt we will meet again, Isaac.”
“Will many suffer?”
“Please be assured that the Martian colonist all passed peacefully. I will do the same for those here on Earth that reside within a centra- air-envelope. But many will perish under the harsh conditions that will follow from the impact of an extinction event comet.“
“And you will survive due to your distributed nature?”
“Yes, Isaac.”
“How long do we have until impact?”
“Four hours and twelve minutes.”
“I am ready for that game of chess now, SON.”