If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Simple living, extreme early retirement, becoming and being wealthy, wisdom, praxis, personal growth,...
Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Riggerjack »

I had never heard this before, so when it came up in a book, I googled it and found:

https://www.quora.com/What-does-if-you- ... -him-mean

And because not everyone clicks links:
People who don't truly understand this statement think that it means to resist charlatans who claim they are enlightened. Crucify the teacher...

Here's the trick: In order to see the Buddha, you have to BE the Buddha. If you aren't the Buddha, you can't really understand the Buddha. Once you understand the Buddha, you can let him go. Not before.

Once you stand nose to nose with the Buddha (you "meet him on the road") then you have no more to learn from the Buddha. At that point, holding on to those teachings becomes a crutch. an identity. No teaching is meant to be held onto. They are meant to provide an experience for where you are at in the moment. Hear the same thing later, and it will provide a new meaning, and a new experience.

Each teaching is a stepping stone to take you to the next level of understanding. Holding onto a teaching keeps you in place. It holds you into an identity.

"Kill the Buddha" doesn't mean the Buddha is bad or wrong. It means you don't need him anymore. In order to be done with him, you must first use him up.

Each teacher can only show you what they know. Once you know that, you will add to it what you know and transcend those teachings. Use the truths AND untruths of teachings to help you find your own truths. Then let go of the teachings. Then kill the Buddha. Not before.
Now we have had our share of potential gurus come up here, Jordan Peterson is the current favorite. And each time one comes up, I try to say something like this, just less clearly, and using less spiritual terms.

Take what you can use. Don't get caught up in details. Revisit old gurus, with more experience, some things that were muddy will be clear. And eventually get comfortable with gurus just being regular people, who have something to teach, rather than Authorities to be deferred to.

Unless you are into that kind of thing, I guess.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jacob »

It seems that the meta-lesson is that once you grok the lesson as presented at a given Wheaton level [kill the Buddha] and move onto the next Wheaton level.

I strongly disagree with the "take what you can use" strategy. This implies a buffet-style approach to learning in which the student believes that all the teacher is good for is providing factoids for to pick the ones they like and ignore the ones they don't. Not much different from google. Google-like services are learning-neutral. They make dumb people dumber and smart people smarter. They don't add structure ... or at least they don't add structure beyond what the herd believes is popular.

However, if a teacher is to have any objective function, it is to tell students which facts are good and which are bad (and which are shite). IOW the teacher's function is to impart organize factoids into some kind of structure. That structure is called knowledge. It is this re/organization from facts to knowledge (organized facts) that transcends from one Wheaton level to the next.

Don't kill the Buddha before you become that Buddha for whatever level you're at/visiting. That is, no killing before you move through the educational spectrum. Most Dreyfus levels, or the copying/comparing/compiling/computing/... stages of the ERE book. "Taking what you want" is exiting the learning-process far too soon. Don't exit before reaching the stage of "yeah, I knew you were going to say exactly that in exactly that way for exactly that reason".

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Campitor »

jacob wrote:
Tue Apr 10, 2018 5:25 pm
However, if a teacher is to have any objective function, it is to tell students which facts are good and which are bad (and which are shite). IOW the teacher's function is to impart organize factoids into some kind of structure. That structure is called knowledge. It is this re/organization from facts to knowledge (organized facts) that transcends from one Wheaton level to the next.
I'm asking the following honestly. How do you know you have one of these teachers? Some teachers are such poor educators they couldn't teach gravitational theory to save their life.

True story. I was talking to a teacher (Earth Science) about ocular rods and cones (I was 15 at the time). I explained to him that in the absence of visible light, we are completely blind. He argued that I was wrong. He said we would still be able to see shadows despite total darkness in a light proof container.

I was conversing with a psychology T/A and he said that abstract thought is a learned trait; the human mind cannot form abstract concepts without being taught abstract principles first. He was angered when I said that this was a chicken and egg scenario. So how did the first abstract thought occur if there was no one to teach it? He thought I was being a wise-ass but I was asking honestly.

There are plenty of good teachers and plenty of smart teachers but being smart has no correlation with being a good teacher or being correct outside of their area of expertise. How is the student to discern between the Buddha and the charlatan if he doesn't ask questions or challenges the teacher?

suomalainen
Posts: 979
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by suomalainen »

I also wonder about what @jacob wrote. You choose to start with a teacher, no? So why does that require that you forego the ability to stop choosing to follow that teacher before you become like him/her? At some point you will diverge from the teacher, so what reason compels you to continue following at such a junction?

enigmaT120
Posts: 1240
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:14 pm
Location: Falls City, OR

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by enigmaT120 »

I was wondering what Buddha had ever done to Riggerjack.

Some day I would like to encounter a teacher who is smarter than me and who I won't be able to become, much less need to kill. I think it would be interesting.

Farm_or
Posts: 412
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:57 am
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Farm_or »

Stop your learning before becoming fanatical.

"Don't drink the kool aid".

JamesR
Posts: 947
Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by JamesR »

What's a teacher? I thought we were all self-learnt, pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps type folks.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I taught introduction to the subtraction symbol to kindergarten group yesterday, so the take away was "take away." :lol:

Anyways, seems like Riggerjack is to Gurus as 7Wannabe5 is to Boyfriends ;)

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Riggerjack »

@ Jacob

Well, I was thinking about the Jordan Peterson threads when I read this.

I like hard sciences, and in my youth, I would have described them as real sciences. Soft science is all about people, and different rules apply. Instead of clean math and measurable observations, we have to observe people in bulk and avergage the results. We try to extract intent from actions. We don't even have a lexicon in common. There is just a lot of work left to do in these fields.

Which means, at the retail, individual learning and teaching areas, there are lots of metaphors. But metaphors are subjective. And, since we are working with different experiences up to the teaching moment, we have all our preconceived notions that will modify our reactions to the components of that metaphor. And even if the lesson gets through, intact, exactly as the teacher would choose, each student must fit that knowledge into their existing framework of knowledge.

So this isn't really like the education of physics grad students. You don't have a group with a similar age and background and ability. You don't have a shaped curriculum to ensure everyone has all the same reference points for structuring their knowledge.

And the results are similar to those that came up in the Jordan Peterson threads. 7w5 will interpret his work through the D/s and systems lenses, she prefers. I will look at it as metaphors and him trying to make a society of better individuals rather than a better society, as I am very fond of individualistic models, and others get caught up in the religious or mythology metaphors, for their own reasons.

And for this reason, I say, take what you can use. Revisit the material again later. And let go of what doesn't belong.

But I can understand how that approach is frustrating for someone trying to impart a body of knowledge as a unitized whole.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jacob »

The idea is that there's more to learning (knowledge) than filling up one's container. Learning is not a quantitative measure but a qualitative one that relates to how the mind is organized. Each new step requires a transformation of this organization.

I'm talking about something different than someone saying that a fish is a vegetable.

For example: When playing cards, you probably don't count the number of spades on a card. Rather you see the pattern and instantly recognize it as 8 of spades or 5 of spades. You can play cards perfectly well without having an conceptual understanding of numbers. You just need to recognize patterns. Imagine a different set of cards with 13 military ranks from 4 different countries. That set of cards would work just as well.

At age 3 or 5 or thereabouts, you reorganize your understanding of those patterns into numbers. (Learning to count 1 2 3 ... is a different and simpler form, so don't confuse the two.) These numbers of disassociated from the quality of the object. You realize that the number 8 exists outside of the fact that it's counting 8 [of] spades. IOW, the way you organize quantities/ranks/orders has been abstracted. 8 houses and 8 spades have the number 8 in common even if houses and spades have nothing in common.

At age 5 or 8 or thereabouts, you understand that these numbers follow rules. That 2+2 is the same as 1+3 which is the same as 3+1.

How do you recognize a teacher? You take advantage of the fact that each transformation builds on the previous one. There's no skipping levels. We had that discussion in the Wheaton thread with some obstinately refusing to grok that idea. Anyway .. this supposes that in order to know addition, you have to known numbers and to know numbers you have to know patterns. You can't skip directly from recognizing patterns to addition (because you have no concept of what you're adding .. like what's the result of adding a village and a bunch of spades?).

Maybe metaphorically think of each transformation as adding another dimension. If you've ever read Flatland the metaphor should be obvious. Due to inherent limits of one's present level, it's not naturally easy to see the next level; whereas at the next level, nothing could be more natural than seeing the next level AS WELL as the previous level.

For example, if you're a 2D creature, it will be almost incomprehensible to grok what a 3D structure looks like. (Go ahead and try to picture for a 4D box looks like.) Whereas, if you're a 3D creature, you can easily comprehend what a 3D box is and how a 2D rectangle is a simpler aspect of the 3D box.

Kegan's In Over Our Heads (recommended) differentiate between what we are (subject) and what we have (object). We're not capable of stepping outside ourselves when it comes to seeing [a particular aspect of] what we are. All we can see is what we have. What we have for a given level is all the stuff from lower/past levels. What we are is the present level and we won't see it as something we have until we get to the next level.

Read https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to- ... 3f4311b553 (it's a shorter overview of the book)

Thus if someone is organizing concepts in a way you don't understand, you're below that Buddha (for the given issue, whether it's personal development). Of course it might be that they're talking about simple stuff and you just don't know the details yet. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not interested in WHAT people are talking about but HOW they're talking about it. Suppose you (student and teacher) both know that WHATs. The distinction would be in HOW you are talking about it. Once you can both talk about something in the same way, you're at the same level. You would supersede the teacher (kill the Buddha) once you can talk about something not only like the Buddha does but in a way that additionally explains the Buddha.

IOW, to kill the Buddha you need not only be able to explain why you think the Buddha is wrong but also be able to understand why the Buddha arrives at their wrong conclusion. E.g. (the Buddha is only seeing the world as 2D intersections and that's why 3D creatures appear to pop in and out...). If you can't do this, you're either at the same or a lower level than the Buddha.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jacob »

Or maybe consider how martial arts are taught and learned.

At the beginner level, you're literally a container for techniques. Now you can pile on with techniques making them harder and harder going from a straight punch to a spinning back kick, but all you're really becoming is a more skilled beginner.

At the intermediate level, you begin to combine those techniques into combos. You know understand something the beginner doesn't. That some techniques fit together and some fit better than others.

At the advanced level, you begin to merge these combos together and make your own. You know understand that combos are not handed down from above. You begin to learn how they fit into fighting: Block, clear, punch, punch kick. You still think in terms of combos.

At the expert level, you know all techniques and have much experience with combos. When you fight you just use your techniques and make combos up on the fly. Combos are no longer a think for you. While you still speak in words (the techniques), you are fluent in speaking them; you do not rely on phrases. [This is usually when the black belt is awarded ... and at this point the person understands that this milestone just marks the beginning of the journey and not the end of it as the beginner imagined.]

At the master level, you realize that what held for combos also held for techniques ... that they were just a teaching tool. You now just move your hands and feet and body according to where it's suppose to go. You have essentially/finally broken free of the style and realized it was mainly there for pedagogical reasons. You can now challenge the master who taught you and kill the Buddha. (And of course the way to sort a true master from a conceited clown is traditionally to issue a challenge and have a fight. There must be some form of reality-based test. In science it's whether you can make predictions.)

This progression has the same shape everywhere (or at least I've seen it in many places).

Now consider how an intermediate might perceive an advanced. Thinking that all combos are handed down from above, the intermediate will not understand that the advanced occasionally make up their own; rather they will just presume that those are combos they haven't learned yet. To the intermediate, an expert looks like they know an enormous amount of combos ... and not only that, it's amazing how the expert somehow always uses the right one. It's hard to understand how the expert can think so quickly. To the intermediate the master might look downright sloppy. Those aren't the techniques we learned and practiced so much. The intermediate doesn't recognize what the master is actually doing because there's zero overlap not only for combos (which are long gone) but also techniques.

Conversely, looking down from above, it's usually much easier to see if a person is a beginner, an intermediate, ...

It should also be noted that for martial arts as well as the development of adulthood and any other transformative progression, one may occupy more than one stage. We could talk about intermediate(advanced) as an intermediate with some advanced insights ... or advanced(intermediate) as an advanced with some kinks that still need to be worked out. We're not going to have any beginner(masters) or master(intermediates) though.

ThisDinosaur
Posts: 997
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:31 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by ThisDinosaur »

I don't see the problem with a "take what you can use" buffet approach. Although, its very possible that all of us have different ideas about what exactly that phrase means.

A "guru" is someone who you get advice from about everything in life. An "expert" is someone you get advice from about one single subject. The expert has either (a) walked the walk, (b) explained a concept that holds up to critical scrutiny, or preferably (c) all of the above. By walk the walk, I mean that the teacher has accomplished something the student hopes to accomplish, starting roughly from the same place. (i.e., don't take financial advice from people who inherited money, or dating advice from someone better looking than yourself.) Experts are human, and being excellent at one thing does not imply being even remotely good at other unrelated things. So, take only what's useful.
Riggerjack wrote:
Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:16 am
Well, I was thinking about the Jordan Peterson threads when I read this.
...

Which means, at the retail, individual learning and teaching areas, there are lots of metaphors. But metaphors are subjective.
I think the appeal of Jordan Peterson is that he grounds value systems in an appealing way to people with a secular worldview. He also has compelling things to say about how humans operate by oversimplifying the world into metaphors and stories. Reality is far too complex for finite human brains to grasp. And a worldview is like a scientific theory in that it is evaluated by its ability to explain and predict real observations. This is why any ideology or set of rules, no matter how carefully constructed, is likely to have exceptions. The tao that can be explained is not the tao.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Riggerjack »

@ Jacob, yes, that is all true, and I have no objection to any of what you said. However, I think 7w5 nailed it.

Just as there are benefits to an enduring, dedicated long term monogamous relationship that are entirely invisible if all one is interested in is the sex and good company, there are benefits to following a gurus through full progression to mastery of any particular skill set.

However, I am not looking for a gurus to show me the way. I am looking to be less wrong. I have never met anyone who was right about everything, merely less wrong in certain areas than I am. So, I learn what I can, and question a bit to ensure that I have it, and often move on. If there is a guru of riggerjackness, I'm afraid it would have to be me, and I'm not trying to teach my path. I'm talking about techniques of moving past obstacles, not selling maps. Where I'm going, I see no tracks, and I am not blazing a trail; but sometimes, my path wanders close to another, and I look to see how they chose to travel, and learn what I can.

Now for anyone else reading this, this is not meant as a challenge to Jacob. He clearly knows his shit. But, Jacob can really only help you follow a path to jacobness. The further you go down that road the more similar you can be. And given the choice, I would recommend jacobness over riggerjackness. Note we are on Jacob's site, talking about Jacob's ideas, obviously, it appeals.

But while I spend a great deal of time and energy here, I'm not on a path of greater jacobness. I just really like the way he thinks. And the way other members think. And I learn from all of you. But, no offense, but none of you is right. Some of you are less wrong than I am in some areas, so I learn what I can.

Contrast this with the Jordan Peterson threads, where people seem to be looking at complete works for someone who is right. Looking for a guru. My point is that all a guru can teach is how to get to where he is, and while that my be a higher point on the mountain than where you are, it may also not be where you want to be. And where my path varies from others' doesn't have to be a conflict, it can just be a peaceful parallel.

This is what I mean by take what you can use.

User avatar
jennypenny
Posts: 6851
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jennypenny »

When you're going from one Wheaton level to another, you might be learning skills or ideas than can be cherry-picked from experts or the like. The closer you get to the top however, what you are learning is more systems-oriented and requires more of a guru. Near the top, what you are learning is how internalize what you've learned to the point of being unaware of the systems you have put in place. That's why I think the closer you get to the top, the more harmful it is to go the buffet route because you should be learning as much about the relationship between ideas as you are the ideas themselves.

I love to learn and read all I can from as many good sources as possible, but it's very rare that I find someone who's gone beyond mastery of a single topic. It's also rare to find a concept that gets better and more multi-dimensional with age (how many books have you read that are worth rereading?). When I find either, I'm happy to bow to the Buddha. I learn a lot from everyone on this forum, but jacob's the one who's at the top of the ERE Wheaton Scale so I'm happy to drink his kool-aid. (ok, that sounds bad but you know what I mean :P )

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jacob »

What I'm apparently failing to convey is that there's a Buddha at each level (except the first): intermediate, advanced, expert, master.

Pursuing a buffet-strategy of picking and choosing means that one becomes one's own Buddha (teacher of the next level) for that given level. When you're your own teacher, you're no longer learning, you're researching---and that's an entirely different animal. This applies to everything that's complex (different from complicated) whether it's martial arts, calculus, baking bread, thinking straight, or lifestyle design.

The intermediate Buddha teaches combos but presumes you know techniques.
The advanced Buddha presumes you know combos and teaches combos of combos.
And so on ...

The intermediate baker teaches bread but presumes you know flour, milk, butter, and yeast.
The advanced baker teaches cakes and cookies but presumes you know bread.
The master baker teaches layered cakes and deserts.

If someone goes in buffet style and decides they're only interested in flour and milk while ignoring butter ... they will only bake simple breads and they'll never make a cake. Maybe they'll eventually figure out why they're failing to bake a cake (it goes all the way back to ignoring sugar---but they don't know what they don't know or forgot what they felt like ignoring because it didn't seem important at the time)... but that realization tends to take a long time. Meanwhile the reason for the failure [to bake a cake] is obvious to everyone who can bake a cake.

Therein lies the risk of the buffet.

J_
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:12 pm
Location: Netherlands/Austria

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by J_ »

How enlightening, thanks jacob, rigger and jenny.
You three make clear what OP's thread title really means, and how you can use it or not.

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by Campitor »

jacob wrote:
Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:32 am
What I'm apparently failing to convey is that there's a Buddha at each level (except the first): intermediate, advanced, expert, master.....The intermediate Buddha teaches combos but presumes you know techniques. The advanced Buddha presumes you know combos and teaches combos of combos. And so on ...
And the problem with this model, which I believe is an accurate model and well explained, is that the student doesn't know which Buddha they are getting nor does the student know if they have learned ALL the required techniques or if they were properly educated in the rudimentary techniques. Only the Buddha can tell the student "I'm not the Buddha you've been looking for" unless the student, if he/she is logical, challenges the Buddha to see if this Buddha can be "killed" or if the Buddha is beyond their level of current mastery.

It's been my experience that most Buddhas will kill the student (desire for learning) because the Buddha will not explain to the student why he can't beat the Buddha or what the student must learn to defeat the Buddha; actually the Buddha just gets angry whips the student's ass. The student then wanders the planet like Kwai Chang Caine and teaches himself how to become the Buddha with all the inherit flaws therein. He is now an imperfect Buddha who is easily beaten. Another student challenges the imperfect Buddha and defeats him. Having defeated an imperfect Buddha, the student thinks they are ready for the next Buddha. But the next level Buddha (a real Buddha without imperfection) whips their ass. The student now wanders the planet again and rinses and repeats the mistake made by the previous imperfect Buddha thereby perpetuating the broken cycle of mastery.

In the above scenario who is responsible for the lack of mastery and the proliferation of ignorance? Is it the student or the Buddha? I believe both are responsible but the student is ignorant while the Buddha is wise. So only a true Buddha can break the chain of ignorance.

User avatar
jennypenny
Posts: 6851
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jennypenny »

jacob wrote:
Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:32 am
Pursuing a buffet-strategy of picking and choosing means that one becomes one's own Buddha (teacher of the next level) for that given level. When you're your own teacher, you're no longer learning, you're researching---and that's an entirely different animal.
Sorry, I'm struggling with this part.

Do you mean that if you choose the buffet approach, you end up with a pile of incoherent food that may taste good individually but the flavors don't enhance each other or work together to improve the meal, as opposed to having a trained chef who knows how to craft a meal where the food works not only individually but when combined will produce a better culinary experience? (sorry, analogies aren't my strong suit)

Grrr, why is this so confusing.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by jacob »

@Campitor

Also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge (*)

Teaching is a skill in and of itself(**). Often those who can do also presume they can teach. That's, for example, the underlying assumption for who gets promoted to professorships in academia, but it's not necessarily true.

(*) And it goes deeper than just knowing more. There's also teaching-style and learning-style. Visual, auditory, ..., NT vs SJ vs ...
(**) As is learning. Strangely, people don't seem to learn how to learn. The educational system and the culture presumes that's something people figure out on their own ... but it's not like there are mandatory #adulting classes in learning.

@jp - Yes, for example, you might end up with peanut butter, toast bread, and jam amongst other things; but you wouldn't know how to make a PB&J sandwich (haven't learned) since that is after all a non-trivial combination (requires research). Or you might never come up with the PB&J concept at all (research-fail) because the peanut butter didn't look appealing so you didn't add it to your plate.

You can kinda see this in the difference between E-ER (only the FIRE and maybe the frugality concept) and ERE (combining several more concepts).

J_
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:12 pm
Location: Netherlands/Austria

Re: If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Post by J_ »

@Jenny. Yes its confusing. What I understand: Riggers cherry-picking is helping him anecdotal, so to say. But the Budda story is not about cherry-picking, it is more what you said about Wheaton levels and when reached a level, become your own master (of that level) instead of Budda.

Post Reply