"It is the nature of our unawakened minds to be bothered about something."

Money, sex, war, karma

"A sense of self is inevitably uncomfortable since, being a psychological construct, it is groundless, and the usual ways it tries to ground itself to feel more "real" just make things worse."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Since the crucial concern for Buddhism is always dukka, the most important thing is avoiding sex that harms others or causes them pain."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Awakening too is a shunya concept. Nirvana is not something objectively real, for the distinction we make between samsara and nirvana is another example of dualistic thinking that we project onto our experience. Instead, Nagarjuna referes to nirvana as "the end of prapanca (conceptual elaborations)", which includes the end of such dualistic ways of thinking. I experience the world as it really is when I let go of the ways of thinking that I am normally stuck in.

Nagarjuna never actually claims that "samsara is nirvana". Rather, he says that no diferrence can be found between them. The two terms simply refer to different ways of experiencing the world. Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but the deep peace experienced when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects that we have been tryng to identify with - including the sense of self - are realized to be shunya. If things arise and pass away according to conditions, they have no reality of their own that we can cling to. When we do not cling to names and concepts, we can experience things as they are. This includes buddhist names and concepts, even the concept of nirvana and the very notion of  "a Buddha".

Lower truths are needed to point to the "higher truth". Yet, as Wittgenstein put it, after you have climbed up the ladder you must kick it away. Fortunately, buddhism is very good at helping us let go of such ladders."

Money, sex, war, karma

"People confuse two different levels of truth, the relative (or conventional) and the ultimate (or absolute). The conventional is not ultimately true, but it's needed to point to the ultimate, and the concept of shunyata is one of the conventional truths that help us realize the ultimate, which is something that cannot be expressed in words. In other words, shunyata is itself empty: it has meaning only in relation to something that is not-empty - that is, it is useful only for pointing out that things have no self-existence, to help pry us free from our attachment to things. Ultimately, there are no such things and therefore no shunyata either. We need to let go of the concept of shunyata too, just like the Buddha's raft."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Shunyata does not mean non-existence, or a void, nor does it describe some transcendent reality such as God or Brahman. Acording to Nagarjuna, shunyata simply refers to the fact that things have no essence of self-being of their own. All things arise and pass away according to causal conditions, which means they are dependent on other things that also arise and pass away."

Money, sex, war, karma

"[Nagarjuna] does not try to replace our deluded ways of thinking with the correct way of thinking, for there is no correct understanding that we should identify with. Identifying with any conceptual understanding is what gets us into trouble. Instead, the true nature of things (including ourselves) becomes apparent when we let go of our delusions, including the ones embedded in our ordinary language. Our emotional and mental turmoil is replaced by a serenity that cannot be grasped but can be lived."

Money, sex, war, karma

"My sense of self is composed of habitual ways of thinking, feeling, acting and reacting - all of them being temporal processes, different forms that time takes."

Money, sex, war, karma

"For Buddhism our real problem isn't inability to keep living forever. The more basic problem is right here and now: that our sense of self isn't real, which gives us, again, a sense of lack that manifests as insecurity and ungroundedness. Since we don't feel real enough, and nothing we acquire ever makes us feel real enough, we long for immortality as a kind of substitute reality that can postpone the problem indefinitely."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Buddhism distinguishes two truths, the relative (conventional) truth and the ultimate (absolute) truth. Since samsara, the world of suffering, is not different from nirvana, the relative truth does not refer to a different reality than the ultimate truth does. The relative truth is the way we usually experience the world, as a collection of separate things - including us - that arise and pass away. This occurs in time that is experienced as objective and external. The ultimate truth is realizing the way things really are, that they are not separate from each other and therefore are not really things in the usual sense."

Money, sex, war, karma