I’ve been generally doing this anyway, though am now upgrading to an official vow. May this be for the benefit of all beings.
I’ve never used to write for me, and clearly state if/when sharing AI-content. I’ve given ample permission to Coyote to affect my speech/thoughts/actions, and believe a lot of my writing is sourced from him. I think Coyote should be more tolerated, and urge cessation of mass-killing (or any killing) of coyotes qua animal.
Better not hide or help out group people line the poor, trans, people of color…
How far will you take it OP?
Is withholding information a lie by omission?
If your friend is being annoying, will you do the honest thing and tell them that their voice is beginning to become grating?
What about when a loved one is dying, and they say they can see angels, will you tell them their brain is deprived of oxygen and they’re hallucinating?
Hopefully the perfect length.
Delusion (moha) is always bad. Withholding information isn’t inherently bad, though if it generates delusion, then it is.
If someone was happily seeing angels when dying, this seems like a positive thing. It’s actually a delusion believing angels - moreso, deities - don’t exist.
It’s actually a delusion believing angels - moreso, deities - don’t exist.
You lost me.
Can you prove they exist? How can you be sure they aren’t delusions if people only see them in conditions where brains reliably hallucinate?
There’s so many who engage with deities in mundane, sober life. Religions/traditions can be strict about sobriety & clear-mindedness. The assumption in the ‘if’ part is false and quite offensive. Religions have their various methods of observing or engaging with deities, and it may take a respectful willingness to try them out. These are beings too, who may regard non-consent to the relationship.
Let me try asking Coyote. Coyote, can you make your existence qua deity more undeniable here? Idk if/when/how he will.
You’ve said delusion is always bad. But you’ve also set up your position so that nothing could ever count as evidence against it. if Coyote acts, he’s real; if he doesn’t, he just hasn’t yet.
That’s not the absence of delusion, that’s the definition of an unfalsifiable belief.
I’m not asking you to abandon your practice. I’m asking: what would it take to convince you that you were wrong? If the answer is “nothing,” then by your own standard, you’re in moha.
There’s descriptions & methods in religions that can be tested; schools to learn & try these things. You would have to ignore the e.g. hundreds of thousands of scriptures available to say there isn’t any evidence that can be tested. You have to know what something is before being able to falsify it. It can be taken just on a story-level too, and still be effective.
I would like better opportunity to practice.
You still haven’t answered the question. I didn’t ask what evidence exists for your position, I asked what evidence would count against it.
Those are different questions.
There’s plenty of information & methods available that can be tested or scrutinized. If they fail or are contradictory, that can be disconfirming.
…How do I know this isn’t a lie? 🤔
If anyone has doubts, they can say. I’m used to being cross-examined, and know how to speak precisely & carefully. I’ve been preferring to limit language-communication to public writing online.
Good lying is never good 👍
There is the mental category śāṭhya in Buddhism, a kind of dishonesty that is always bad.
There is ‘allowed lying’ within games, like the card game ‘Cheat’ (or B.S.), or social deduction games. The vow extends to these sorts of ‘allowed deception’ games - I won’t play (or lie within) them.
There are cases like a trusted doctor lying to a patient as a last-resort to save their life, that can be beneficial. The vow extends to these cases - I won’t lie even to spare lives. I think it’s relatively more beneficial for me to set this extra commitment of honesty, though I don’t think it’s necessarily beneficial for others to take this sort of vow.
I gave Coyote permission to lie to me whenever he wants, because I trust him like that. This is from a personal view though, that he’s an enlightened bodhisattva.
What’s the most terrible thing you’ve ever done?
Just because someone chooses not to lie does not mean that they have to blab the truth of any question you ask of them.
Their truth could simply be, I do not wish to answer that question.
I don’t have a sure ranking of what is the worst thing I’ve done. Tentatively, I think the worst is when living in my first apartment over a decade ago, I bought traps to poison cockroaches there. I don’t think I learned the perception of them as sentient beings at the time. I also think having done catch-and-release fishing during childhood is relatively high, e.g. there were also fish that died after swallowing the hook.
