Question & Answer #86: from Debating about Nirvana to the Need for a Demiurge

Questions include: a debate about Nibbana; how to unretard self; is taxation theft; consciousness without perception; appropriate speech; how to be less negative and argumentative; the karma of working at a convenience store; Little Buddha in Nepal; gandhabbas; how memory works; cultivating equanimity; making a start in mindfulness; Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu; self-destructive egos; my favorite meditation technique; the Sarvastivada notion that All Exists; speaking to very conservative religious people; being sucked back into western culture after being a monk for so long; better concentration with no or little sleep; latent karma; faith vs. adherence to morality and observances; the deepest form of ignorance; can No Self be deliberately unseen; the liminality of being multicultural; practicing Dhamma in the context of western culture; realizing that “things are not what they appear to be”; Benatar’s asymmetry argument; the Buddha on wage slavery; Woke Buddhists leaving the Sangha; a canonical commentary on monastic discipline; do I seek joy; and must there be a demiurge to perceive the entire cosmos.

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