#projection

[slyapartment]

[suburbansignals]

Bishkek. Mar 23.

[slyapartment]

[slyapartment]

[alunah-lalunah]

Let's Make a Deal With the Void

The Buddhist notion of emptiness or void is often misunderstood in the West as meaning that nothing exists or that reality is a meaningless blank. Classical Buddhism is usually making a subtler point. Things exist, but not in the way we imagine. The solid, permanent entities we project onto reality are difficult to find when examined closely. The enduring self is difficult to find. The permanent essence of things is difficult to find. The stable objects of desire are difficult to find.

Much human suffering comes from treating our thoughts as evidence that reality is organized around them. The process looks like this. A thought appears. "I deserve recognition." "I should be rewarded." "There must be a reason for this." "Someone must be judging me." "There must be a cosmic purpose." "There must be a final explanation." The mind produces these thoughts almost automatically. Then another step occurs. The thought is mistaken for a fact about reality. Then as these thoughts from the minds materialize in the universe the bargaining begins. If I do this, life will reward me. If I sacrifice enough, reality will compensate me. If I suffer nobly, meaning will arrive. If I become enlightened, I will finally receive peace. The transaction continues.

From your perspective, and from Buddhist perspective as well, meditation may not be about contacting higher powers or entering mystical states. It may be about discovering how relentlessly the mind manufactures these narratives. In reality, we are bargaining with our own thoughts. The interesting thing is that once the narratives quiet down, one often does not discover a hidden God behind them. One discovers silence. Not answers. Not guarantees. Not a cosmic parent. Just the absence of the machinery that was constantly interpreting reality in personal terms. This phrase "there is no one to bargain with" is psychologically powerful. It cuts deeper than atheism. Many atheists still bargain. Many spiritual people bargain. Many philosophers bargain. Many self-help systems bargain. The common structure remains. They assume that if the correct conditions are met, reality will provide the desired outcome. But the negotiation itself is a product of the human mind. The reality with which we can bargain exists only in human minds. Meditation becomes less a path toward transcendence and more a way of observing the negotiations as they arise. The mind proposes deals endlessly and bargains endlessly with God, fate, morality, children, spouses, history, society, death, old age, with itself.

And the void appears not when some mystical truth is revealed but when one sees that the negotiations never had a counterpart. The proposals were real. The negotiating table was real. The hopes and fears were real. But the imagined partner on the other side of the table was largely a projection. That interpretation would probably be too stark for many Buddhists, and certainly too stark for many religious people. Yet it does converge with something found in thinkers as different as Nietzsche, Cioran, and U.G. Krishnamurti. Again and again they strip away the assumption that reality owes us an answer, a reward, a purpose, a justification, or a settlement.

The final irony is that many people find this frightening because it sounds like loss. Yet there is another way to see it. If there is nobody to bargain with, then there is also nobody demanding payment. If there is no cosmic contract, there is no cosmic debt. The burden of negotiation disappears together with the hope of winning it. Some people, after the initial shock, experience this not as despair but as an unusual form of freedom. The universe was never waiting for an offer. It was simply there. And so are you, for a while.

[joepie49]

Slide projection

[billyengland]

It's called "PROJECTION" and the left are professionals at it.

The left's whole schtick it accusing others of what they are guilty of. Their accusations are admissions.

[tr1dent1al-reg1c1de]

someone should draw bro strider blowing vape smoke into daves face. for research