I don't really understand meditation people's focus on diagnosing location with stuff like stream entry, second path, third path, attainments, etc.
I'm not totally sure what about it is triggering the confusion I'm noticing. Maybe-
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it's something like, they talk about the finger pointing at the moon and then diagnosing attainments feels like discussing the finger, or something?
or maybe it's the way it's discussed, like the progression signs are more objective/universal than I intuit that it is?
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Or maybe I'm confused about *why* this is important? I mean I get some curiosity, like if weird shit is happening to your brain and you want to make sense of it using external narratives, but it feels like the importance it holds in these communities is greater than just that.
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Maybe it's cause it feels like it's actually appealing to some authority? Like, attainments get 'diagnosed' by authoritative people, or ppl falsely claim attainments and u gotta sus them out, it all carries the vibe of getting credentialed from a university
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...yeah I think this last one feels closest to the heart of it. Maybe I am interpreting meditative focus on attainments as actually being about subjecting yourself to external authority, like deriving validation from a non-you system, and then im like ??? u r god tho like why
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for the record it seems like a lot of buddhism is pretty dumb
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also ur "the thing ur complaining about isn't really Buddhism, true Buddhism is actually fully not-dumb" card fails against me, the Christians used it on me too many times and now I'm immune
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I think it’s more the “I, a person with extremely cursory knowledge of a thing a half billion people find value in, have decided it’s dumb” thing
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I understand the urge to avoid complexity or difficulty but you’re adopting the analytical rigor of an edgy 15 year old here, lol
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