The Buddha
Article
The Buddha is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between October 29, 2021 and May 15, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “The Buddha discussed states of extreme bliss attainable through meditation”; “There’s a sutta/story where the Buddha describes mastering jhanas 5-8”; “On the other, you have people like Epictetus and the Buddha”. It most often appears alongside Buddhism, jhanas, jhāna.
Metadata
- Category: People
- Mention count: 3
- Issue count: 3
- First seen: October 29, 2021
- Last seen: May 15, 2024
Appears In
- Jhanas and the Dark Room Problem
- Highlights From The Comments On Jhanas
- Profile: The Far Out Initiative
Related Pages
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- Buddhism (2 shared issues)
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- jhanas (2 shared issues)
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- jhāna (2 shared issues)
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- MDMA (2 shared issues)
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- @the_megabase (1 shared issues)
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- A Mind Without Craving (1 shared issues)
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- A Pan-Species Welfare State (1 shared issues)
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- ACX (1 shared issues)
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- ACX Grantees (1 shared issues)
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- ACX MEETUP (1 shared issues)
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- Andres Emilsson (1 shared issues)
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- Andres Gomez Emilsson (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
The Buddha discussed states of extreme bliss attainable through meditation:
But this sweet spot is the fault of your own inattentiveness. If you could really concentrate on the metronome, it would be even more blissful than the symphony. Emilsson says he’s achieved these levels of concentration and can confirm. I talked to another meditator who agrees metronomes can be pretty blissful with the right amount of (superhuman) focus, although - as per the Buddha quote above - total silence is best of all.
The jhanas are kind of controversial within Buddhism. There's a sutta/story where the Buddha describes mastering jhanas 5-8, concluding they are not very useful, and then remembering jhanas 1-4 and realizing they are very important for progress toward liberation. However the Zen folks don't use them at all and your mainstream Vipassana people have always been a little skeptical of them.
I have strong opinions on this, because a reading of the early suttas clearly indicates that jhana is perhaps the single most important factor in the Buddha's path to enlightenment, and traditions which try to reach it from normal cognition ("dry" paths) seem to be missing something.
Chris Merck recommends Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and The Mind Illuminated, both of which I’ve reviewed before (MCTB, TMI). I agree these are good, though they’re much more comprehensive than just jhana.
But there’s always been a sort of split in philosophy. On one side, you have people like Plato and Marx, thinking about how to improve the world. On the other, you have people like Epictetus and the Buddha. Even if you improved the world, they say, you would never be happy. If you want happiness, you have to look within.