Seriously sick Professor Jordan Peterson seems to be hallucinating or conflating as he pontificates on the allegory of the "Story of the Buddha" mixing it up with the Christian interpretation of the "Story of Adam and Eve" and Paradise Lost in terms of Joseph Campbell' "hero's journey."
Continued: Siddhartha had previously turned his back on fundamental "meditation" (lit., jhana/dhyana, the pleasant meditative absorptions that unite the mind in a highly coherent state called samadhi), thinking instead that the path must be one of penance, suffering, striving, austerities (tapas[blaming the body as if it were in control of the mind]), self-torture, self-abnegation, and manly (virile) effort (viriya) when it is really the Middle Way that avoids both extremes of hedonism and self-torture. (There is such a thing as "sane asceticism" undertaken with a competent monastic).
He one day realized that he had been avoiding the bliss and pleasure (piti) of absorption as if it were like sensual pleasure. Realizing that it is utterly unconnected to the ordinary pleasures of the senses, he allowed himself to pursue these eight super states (the four material and four immaterial absorptions). This provided the temporary purity of mind/heart necessary for breaking through and realizing the ultimate truth of mentality and materiality, of mind and body.
The five phenomena (form; feeling, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness) are referred to as the Five Aggregatesclung to as self throughout the Buddhist sutras and commentaries of the Pali canon and are the focus of the world-famous Heart Sutra, the favorite Mahayana Buddhist text nearly no chanter of the Sanskrit seems aware of.
What we take to be real is an illusion, whereas what is in fact verifiably real is at a more basic level of reality. What we have been calling "mind" all along breaks down to feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Cittas or "mind moments" are the ultimate constituents of these impersonal processes. And what we have been calling "body" is not "me" or "mine" but ultimate matter (the Four Elements or qualities and characteristics of particles called kalapas).
It is completely mistaken to assume that the Buddha's use of the term "Four Elements" has anything to do with the ancient Greek or classical Indian understanding. There are not four "things" in matter. Instead, there are four categories of characteristics/processes or potentialities of matter: fluidity, density, support, temperature... for a total of 12 traits or states of material phenomena.
This is a practical, tangible, realizable reality (Four Elements Meditation by Pa Auk Sayadaw) not a theory of particle physics. This is about name-and-form (nama-rupa) not Western science. It is personally verifiable here and now. It is not going to win anyone a Nobel Prize in theoretical physic or microbiology. It is a PRACTICE of clear-seeing (vipassana), not a theory or paradigm to be argued about so that one becomes entangled in a thicket of views.
When one sees this directly, the mind/heart let's go, and one is freed. Free from what? Free from delusion, free from ignorance about these things, free from identity and personalization, free from suffering (pain, disappointment, unfulfillment, distress). So every five-minute version of the life of the Buddha should include these eleven elements:
Raised in privilege and comfort
Feels lack (unhappy, unfulfilled)
Renounces position, power, privilege
Sets off on spiritual quest for ultimate truth
Learns meditation (jhana practice) and yoga (restraints, practices, pacification of mind and body)
Avoids the tempting extremes of penance and sensual pleasures
Gains stillness (samadhi) through the absorptions
Emerges from jhana and takes up fourfold mindfulness (of body, feeling, mind, and mind-objects)
Practices Dependent Origination
Awakens to the ultimate truth that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal
Letting go (real renunciation takes places) and light dawns, knowledge-and-vision arise.
When the Buddha-to-be (the Bodhisatta) was born, his father, King Suddhodana, and all the other Scythian (Shakyian) princes were educated by a very wise and virtuous Brahmin named Asita.
Asita was a sage who lived in the jungles close to the Himalayan foothills. He spent his days meditating in a hut there, when one morning he saw and heard the woodland fairies (devas) rejoicing by singing and dancing.
Inquiring, he learned that a baby boy had been born to King Suddhodana and Queen Maya and that this prince would one day become a supremely enlightened teacher surpassing all other beings. Hearing this, the sage Asita was delighted and hurried to Kapilavatthu to see the king.
When King Suddhodana saw Asita, he was very happy that his old teacher had come to see his baby, even before a message was sent informing him of the birth of his firstborn son. The king brought the prince to show him to the wise old sage so the sage could examine him and make a prediction about the little one’s future.
However, when he held the baby, his little feet touched the Brahmin’s head dress (jathah). Surprised at this, the sage took hold of his tiny feet and saw by the lines of his soles that this baby will definitely become a supremely enlightened one.
I am sure he will choose his Quest.
He was so happy at this that he got up from his seat and, holding his hands in front of his heart (anjali mudra), he paid respects to the baby. When the king saw this teacher venerating the baby, he too held his hands together and venerated his son. (This was the first time the king, the father of the Buddha-to-be, paid homage to his son).
However, Asita’s delight quickly changed into sadness when he realized that by the time this baby would become fully awakened, he himself would have passed away from the human realm to an Immaterial Sphere world known as the “realm of neither perception nor perception” or neva-sagna na-sagna yathana.*
*The mind is so subtle at this stage of absorption (jhana) that the karma of attaining it leads to rebirth in this realm. See the 31 Planes of Existence. Consciousness here is so subtle that it can hardly be said to be perception at all, but it is certainly not non-perception. The meditative practice of jhana, later classified by the Buddha as "right concentration" or samma-samadhi (extreme stillness of mind) brings this rebirth about. However long lasting such a rebirth is, it is not permanent and is not nirvana.
Nevertheless, the prediction was made that this baby would one day become a supremely enlightened teacher, a buddha. The prince was named Siddhattha (Sanskrit Siddhartha, which literally means “Doing good to the world” or “Wish fulfilled”).
On the seventh day after Prince Siddhattha’s birth, his mother Queen Maya passed away.
Thereafter, her younger sister and second wife of the king, Queen Pajapati, adopted the prince and looked after him like her own son. (She eventually had two children of her own, Nanda and Sundari Nanda, but always gave Prince Siddhattha the most attention over his siblings).
Other soothsayers told the king that his son might become a world monarch (cakkhavati), but if he saw the downside of life, he would likely turn away and renounce the world.
So to ensure that he went on to exercise rule over the whole known world (at least Jambudipa), it was advisable to protect the prince from hardship.
The father so loved his son and so wanted him to be a great king that he decided to shelter him and dote on him and give him everything he could want, spoiling him for 29 years.
At 29, Prince Siddhartha left it all behind.
But all of this had the reverse effect because, eventually, when the prince saw how the world really was -- beset by old age, sickness, and death -- it made such an impact that he had to go in search of a solution. This led him on spiritual quest. He abandoned the good life and went in search of the pure life of yoga (with first one yogi named Alara Kalama then another named Uddaka Ramaputta), meditation, and yogic austerities (tapas) to win complete enlightenment. These all failed him to win him the ultimate goal.
So he settled down, cared for his body, and undertook the Middle Way, avoiding extremes of hedonism as he had pursued in the palace and self-mortification as he had pursued on his own in the forest. Instead of rejecting the pleasure and rapture of the initial meditative absorptions, he pursued them to ever more refined states of stillness, practicing all eight jhanas.
Now his mind was temporarily released from the defilement, purified, and ready to practice clear seeing (vipassana) through mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. He took of his initial question that led him on this quest, "Why is the cause of suffering?" Practicing Dependent Origination, he traced back present suffering to its causes and conditions in previous lives, on account of karma and its results, all the way back to ignorance.
Forward and back, he went until he made a breakthrough in understanding, in knowledge and vision, directly knowing-and-seeing for himself. He awakened to the utmost under his bodhi ("enlightenment") tree and eventually agreed to teach after doubting if anyone would understand or put in the effort to purify their knowledge and vision and thereby gain the same liberation he had won.
(Refuge of the Male Mind) June 10, 2025: Let's explore one of Arthur Schopenhauer’s most controversial and philosophical views on women. Drawing from his major work The World as Will and Representation, we can analyze how he saw the female nature, the biological role of women, and how it all connects to the blind Will-to-life, the irresistible will to live and carry on, to consume and reproduce. "Eat, Mate, Kill, Repeat." Prepare to reflect on deep, provocative, and forbidden ideas that still spark intense debate today.
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Buddhism is far more sophisticated than nearly anyone realizes. The Buddha taught in a variety of ways, which made him very popular to different types of people. We imagine he only gave discourses or sutras, but he did much more than that. He told fables (many of which were published in Aesop's Fables), recounted past lives with talking animals and stories (jatakas), histories, a disciplinary code with origin stories for each of the rules (with a spicy sinful story that gave rise to the need for a rule), recorded verses of enlightened nuns, and most sophisticated of all is an entire collection of works in Buddhist psychology and physics called the Abhidhamma Pitaka or "Collection on the Dhamma explained in ultimate terms" or The Higher Doctrine Collection. Are women a trap for men, or men a trap for women, or pleasant objects a trap for clingy humans?
There exists a sutra where the Buddha points out that nothing is more alluring for a male than the form of a female. This sounds bad, but the same is said of females. Nothing is more alluring than the form of a male. (What can be said of pandakas, the third gender or gender-nonconforming individuals, we are not told, into which category would fit all LGBTQIA+ persons, whether gay, bi, or pansexual). We can imagine that whatever one likes, whatever one is attracted to, that is the most alluring. And this is problematic for anyone who wishes to make progress toward enlightenment and liberation in this very life.
The Buddha's Higher Doctrine in Practice
The Abhidhamma in Practice by N.K.G. Mendis, Wheel 322, BPS.lk, 2006
When the mind is not experiencing objects through the five sense doors — eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body — it can still be active through the [sixth sense called the] "mind door," taking as its object either something previously experienced through the five sense doors, recently or long ago, or some idea or image peculiar to itself.
Past experiences are registered in the life-continuum (bhavanga) in a subliminal form, where from time to time they can surface through the mind-door to serve as objects for the mind-moment (citta).
On the one hand, karmically active moments can follow this mental activity, and here again the practice of mindfulness — that is, being [dispassionately] aware that there is thinking — will prevent the arising of unwholesome causative mind moments.
On the other hand, if mindfulness is absent there can be unwholesome mental activity, such as longing [or lust] for things of the past, worry, remorse, regret, grudge, and doubt. Mind moments exhibit certain other interesting features that are dealt with in the Abhidhamma (the Doctrine or Dhamma in Ultimate Terms). Some of these are as follows.
Association with "roots"
Mind moments may be associated with mental factors called "roots" (hetu, mula), or they may be dissociated from these roots.
The former kind of mind moments are called sahetuka cittas, the latter ahetuka cittas; these are, respectively, rooted and rootless states of consciousness.
The roots are particular mental factors (cetasikas) that arise together with the mind moments, often giving it a determinate ethical quality.
Because the mind moment and its constituent factors, the mental concomitants (cetasikas), arise together and because both have the same object and base, it is difficult to appreciate the subtle differences in their characteristics unless one's mindfulness and insight are very sharp.
There are six roots. Three are karmically unwholesome (akusala); the other three may be either karmically wholesome (kusala) or indeterminate (abya-kata), depending on the type of consciousness they arise in.
The unwholesome roots are greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha). The three roots that are wholesome in some mind moments and indeterminate in others are greedlessness (alobha), hatelessness (adosa), and undeludedness (amoha).
Though these last three roots are expressed negatively they have positive manifestations. Greedlessness manifests as generosity and renunciation (unselfishness and letting go), hatelessness as loving-kindness and compassion, and undeludedness as wisdom or understanding.
In the ordinary unenlightened worldling these six roots can occur in various combinations. When one enters the path leading to enlightenment, the unwholesome roots are eradicated in stages until final emancipation is achieved.
For the fully enlightened person (arahant), the liberated one, the mind moments that arise can no longer be associated with any unwholesome roots. The mind moments that the fully enlightened experiences are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, as one does not generate any further karma; one's mind moments are exclusively indeterminate.
These indeterminate mind moments can be functional (kiriya, kriya), as on occasions when one is mentally active, or resultants (vipaka) when one is experiencing the effects of past karma or abiding in the meditative attainment of fruition.
For spiritual progress, it is important to be aware of the roots associated with the mind moments that we are experiencing at any particular moment. This is possible only by the practice of mindfulness as expounded in the Discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
This awareness helps us to rid ourselves of the unwholesome roots and to cultivate the wholesome roots. This practice enables one to purify moral virtue (sila), to develop stillness (samadhi), and to achieve insight (vipassana).
Association with feeling
Mind moments differ according to the feeling associated with them. Every mind moment has a concomitant feeling, but the quality of this feeling differs from mind moment to mind moment. Some are accompanied by a pleasant feeling (sukha vedana), some by a painful feeling (dukkha vedana), some by an indifferent feeling (upekkha vedana).
It is important to recognize the feeling that accompanies each mind moment, for feelings serve as a condition for defilements to arise.
The mind's natural tendency is to develop attachment to a pleasant feeling and aversion to an unpleasant one. Any attachment will eventually cause disappointment (dukkha); for everything within and around us is impermanent, so when inevitable separation takes place, if there is attachment, the result will be sorrow, lamentation, and despair.
Aversion, apart from giving further nourishment to the unwholesome roots, is a totally futile response. We cannot change the essentially unsatisfactory nature of the Rebirth Cycle (samsara), but we can alter our reactions to our experiences in this cycle.
Therefore, the sanest attitude would be neither to get attached to anything pleasant nor react with aversion to anything displeasing.
This would be an attitude of equanimity or indifference, which can be of two kinds. One is a callous indifference that is a total disregard for one's own well-being or that of others. This type of indifference is born of the unwholesome roots and obviously should not be cultivated by a spiritual seeker.
The other type of indifference is a highly refined mental state that is better referred to as "equanimity" (unbiased looking on). This attitude, born of wisdom pertaining to the real nature of phenomena, is an attitude of mental calmness amidst all the vicissitudes of life. This is the kind of equanimous state that we must cultivate [for progress]. More
Solitude: Its advantages and drawbacks in Buddhist practice
(Doug's Dharma) June 9, 2025: The Buddha praised solitude [well undertaken as temporary withdrawal, mental seclusion, peaceful isolation, private intensive meditation, accompanied by piti from samma-samadhi] as highly beneficial.
00:00 Intro
00:48 The benefits of solitude
04:26 Dangers of solitude
07:06 Finding the balance
10:07 Cultivating solitude in lay life
11:47 Buddha's wisdom on solitude
He also warned of its dangers [when not well undertaken, done without the jhanas, the meditative absorptions, "right concentration," the stabilizing inner-stillness of samadhi].
How can we best balance solitude and community in our practice? How can we cultivate solitude [mental seclusion, temporary withdrawal] even in our busy everyday lives?
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Casual practitioners of the Dharma, the Teaching that Leads to Liberation, is a lot like that of a Buddhist monk or nun only more intensive, unrelenting, not easily hidden from. In our ordinary life, we can take a break and get away from ourselves (turn on and drop out), so progress is slow but easier than having to be at it, keeping our nose to the grindstone all the time. By the way, women are not "female monks" (bhikkhus). They are nuns (bhikkhunis). In referring to both simultaneously, we call them monastics. They are all samanas, "wandering ascetics," in the ideal; in practice, many have become temple priests and priestesses like the Brahmin priests of the Buddha's day.
Strive to see ultimate reality (mentality-materiality)
so "letting go" (nekkhamma) happens all by itself,
Pa Auk Sayadaw would say, agreeing with Ajahn Chah
How to become a monk: Why and why not?
(English Buddhist Monk) THAILAND. MAN GIVES UP EVERYTHING. In 2015, aged 47, an English (British) businessman gave up everything and travelled Asia to find true happiness.
Now a Buddhist monk (bhikkhu, samana, bhante), living a simple life in Buddhist Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka, he shares the continuing story.
ABOUT: Phra Dan (Ven. Dhammarakkhita, Bhikkhu, not yet tens years in the robe to be an Ajahn or official Thai "Teacher") is a Theravada Buddhist monk who lived in India from 2020, Thailand, and now Sri Lanka.
Dan was born in Sussex, England, in 1967. Educated by French Catholic monks, he was a successful businessman in estate agency and financial services during the 1980s and 1990s, married, divorced with three adult sons.
The year 2000 marked change and travel, including a visit to South Africa, returning to the UK in 2003 to continue different work and business activities until 2012.
Gradually materialistic values turned to renunciation (nekkhamma), intentional simplicity, and meditation, living nomadically in an old Ford Transit van full-time for three years.
This sort of van life and meditation led to Theravada Buddhism and to the ancient (back to basics movement called the) Thai Forest Tradition, a Theravada Buddhist monastery in the UK.
During 2015, travelling the Buddhist Circuit, the holy sites in India, deep faith (saddha, confidence, conviction) reinforced a zeal for Buddhist ordination.
In 2020, after five years of intensive meditation practice between Thai Forest monasteries in Thailand and England, Dan was ordained in India, where he lived for three years, until returning to Thailand in 2023, and now living in Theravada Buddhist Sri Lanka.
Why does the Buddha say letting go of sex is the most skillful thing to do with sex?
Ego (Buddhism Podcast) April 13, 2025: Buddhism Explained. Ever wonder why the Buddha considered letting go of sex the most skillful action we can take [in the Sensual Sphere]?
In this poorly worded and mildly insightful talk by American (Thai Theravada Forest Tradition monk) Ven. Thanissaro, let's explore the Buddha's teachings on sensual desire, attachment (clinging), and the profound freedom gained through a sense of urgency (samvega) non-complacency and mindfulness.
Discover how the mind creates reality through constant choices and learn practical techniques to transform commonplace attachment into extraordinary liberation.
Explore how mindfulness and concentration can help us understand and skillfully handle sexual desires and other sensual attachments.
(Of course, the strongest attachment is to views, which is what insight and wisdom are for, helping us break free of ignorance manifesting as delusions, illusions, and wrong views).
Find out why heedlessness can become our worst enemy, and how the Buddha’s path to freedom leads to a state of genuine liberation, peace, and happiness.
Let's take an enlightening journey towards mastering the minds and emotions we habitually identify with and fixate on until we're completely trapped in webs of delusion with no easy way out.
Our life is easier when we let go and let the Universe take control
(Solace Fox) Ever notice that when we stop trying to control every detail, life actually becomes easier? Most people resist letting go, but surrendering to the Universe can unlock surprising peace, clarity, synchronicity, and effortless living.
In this video, discover the power of trusting the Universe, releasing control, and letting life naturally unfold [in accordance with the results of our past deeds, our karma]. Letting go isn't weakness — it's wisdom. Watch until the end to understand exactly how to allow the Universe to work for us.
Mindfulness means dispassionate observation for clarity rather than involvement, bias, fear.
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It is good to let go, and we may all know it on some level. But how to do it, that is the question. The Buddha advocated the supreme importance of renunciation (nekkhamma), internal letting go. We do not all need to become monastics, hermits, or recluses, but we all need to unclutch, get a little distance and perspective, and stop being so clingy. Easier said than done. How to do?
There is a way: mindfulness. What is mindfulness? It is bare awareness, vigilance, watchfulness of what is really there, without evaluation, without embellishment, without distortion, without making stories or relating to what we are seeing.
Real mindfulness is only possible with calm and serenity, as happens as the natural result of the meditative absorptions. When we can pay that much mindful attention, things reveal themselves. They are nothing to cling to, nothing to be attached to. We can "let go" all we want with our brains/minds, but that will never do. The heart has to let go. When we see things as they really are, there is no need to make an effort to let go. The letting go happens naturally. "Clear seeing" is called vipassana in Buddhism, usually translated as "insight meditation" (satipatthana). It is a systematic practice of emerging from the absorption, temporarily purified, and attending to four things one after the other: body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. They++ are all explained in the Maha Satipatthana Sutta or the "Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness Discourse."
So letting go is possible, but it will never happen by itself. The mind/heart in its present condition distorts and perverts everything until things seem permanent, capable of fulfilling/satisfying us, and personal. When we see them for what they really are (impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal), the heart lets go as when a feather fall into a fire and curls bac. The Truth will set us free...if we ever bother to clean the lens of the mind to see things, even for a moment, as they truly are. Otherwise, we're just believing and disbelieving and never really making any progress.
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Nevertheless, the prediction was made that this baby would one day become a supremely enlightened teacher, a buddha. The prince was named Siddhattha (Sanskrit Siddhartha, which literally means “Doing good to the world” or “Wish fulfilled”).
