HN Books @HNBooksMonth

So anyone curious to try, I recommend first understandings how to properly meditate. After you have good experience with this can you move onto the jhanas. I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Right-Concentration-Practical-Guide...

If you know how to do step 1 and then follow this book to the T. You will experience the jhanas.

I however caveat, you don't want to do this. It's a bad decision. You don't want to do this, really.

>Is Jhana Really Better Than Sex?

Absolutely, up to the third jhana.

>Can Jhana Really Substitute For Other Pleasures?

The author clearly has not walked the full path. Then again someone who did would not write this blog.

>really helped people avoid addictions

Absolutely no question.

>IV. What Can Science Tell Us About Jhanas?

The science path is a bad decision.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enligh...

Let folks like Robert Wright make this mistake for you. For someone like him, he almost certainly has lost the ability to enter jhana.

Yes, absolutely. I linked this elsewhere in this thread, a Fresh Air interview [0] with the author of Why Buddhism is True [1] explains better than I can why having happiness be a permanent condition would not make any sense from an evolutionary perspective:

> I mean, natural selection built us to do some things - a series of things that help us get genes into the next generation. Those include eating food so we stay alive, having sex, things like that.

> And if it were the case that any of these things brought permanent gratification, then we would quit doing them, right? I mean, if you - you would eat. You'd feel blissed out. You'd never eat again. You'd have sex. You'd lie there, basking in the afterglow, never have sex again. Well, obviously, that's not a prescription for getting genes into the next generation. So natural selection seems to have built animals in general to be recurringly dissatisfied. And this is - seems to be a central feature of life, and it's central to the Buddhist diagnosis of what the problem is.

A key Buddhist teaching is that dukkha (often translated as "suffering" but I believe "dissatisfaction" is more accurate) is caused not just by pushing away negative feelings, but by trying to not let go of positive feelings.

Going out for a beer with my friends brings me happiness. If I chase that positive feeling, I might end up with a vicious hangover the next day, or long-term with a dependence on alcohol.

As an oversimplification, you can view any addiction through the lens of taking an ephemeral positive feeling, wishing for it to be permanent, and pursuing it over and over again, rather than accepting the nature of its impermanence.

0: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

1: https://amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenmen...

⬐ monktastic1

At the same time, Buddhism is about transcending samsara and therefore dukkha. It's hard to find a good word to describe the complete absence of all forms of dissatisfaction, but "happiness" is not a terrible first approximation.

⬐ davidjnelson

> complete absence of all forms of dissatisfaction

Peace?

⬐ nprateem

For me, it's "contentment" - not the high of happiness per se, but more of a feeling of everything just being right.

⬐ monktastic1

Yes, even if "objectively" being wrong.

Why Buddhism is True [0, 1] does an excellent job of covering the modern neuroscience that overlaps much of Buddhist teaching, such as the hedonic treadmill [2], while ignoring the more new-agey / spiritual / not-evidence-based aspects often associated with Buddhism and other eastern religions, such as reincarnation, "auras", etc.

When I started my meditation practice, the guided meditations in the Calm app [3] helped me a lot.

0: https://amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenmen...

1: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

3: https://www.calm.com/

As a science oriented person I reach spirituality only through secularism. I can recommend this book: "Why Buddhism is True - The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlighte...

In essence this book tells why secular Buddhism (secular, western meditation) is actually a very reasonable way of spirituality.

Counterpoint: No. I feel like you just trade one set of delusions for another with psychedelics. Talking to plants or rocks isn't real, its just another way the ego and the imaginative part of the mind plays with itself.

If you're looking for consciousness expanding activities, I found my meditation practice and buddhist readings were 1000x more powerful than my drug attempts. For an HN'er I'd recommend starting with this:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlighte...

as its more sciency/modern than diving into the Pali Canon or popular but dated 1960s attempts to westernize Buddhism.

⬐ ramblerman

Ego dissolution is an extremely common occurrence among mushroom users, and leads a lot of people to meditation, and eastern philosophy.

Also to brush off the 'imaginative part of the mind', i.e. your subconscious so readily is absurd. It drives us far more than our intellect would care to admit, and having a chance to interact with it so directly is very 'real', and not a delusion.

⬐ drzaiusapelord

The illusion of ego dissolution maybe, I mean this is difficult to quantify, but we do have research that shows the brain changes experienced meditators get dont happen to psychedelic users. Every psychedelic user is back to being an egotist quickly in my experience while the meditators I know seem far less egotist and are always advancing.

I don't think there are shortcuts to enlightenment and drug culture posturing is just fraudulent to me, or at best, a cheap and ugly temporary fix that ultimately distracts people from the proper path. That said, it does push some people to the right path, so it can't be all bad. The larger issue is that a lot of people have latent schizophrenia and its impossible to know if you do and drugs can set it off. Its not worth the risk imo.

This happened to someone close to me and it was difficult and heartbreaking.

⬐ pmoriarty

A lot of people come to Buddhism through psychedelics, and some use them to enhance their practice.

Check out Erik Davis' article "The Paisley Gate":

https://techgnosis.com/tantra-of-psychedelics/