Chasing perfect balance can be endless if the design philosophy isn't right, but we need to chase after it to discover the right philosophies.

Has anyone tried deriving enlightenment from first principles? As in, we start with basic observable truths we can all verify for ourselves?

If Buddhism never existed, would any of us be able to figure it out on our own or together as a group?

What would that look like? What would the goal be? I feel like we would not say "to end suffering" because that's too vague. If a car hits me while I'm walking, I'm going to suffer, enlightened or not. So I'm assuming this just means psychological suffering. And we can't stop another from suffering. Unless we enlighten them. But how? Preach? So it must be 'personal' mental suffering. The ability to be your own psychologist, basically.

But the end goal for therapy isn't the same as enlightenment. And why not? Doesn't the therapist also want to end the personal mental suffering of their client? Do they simply not know about enlightenment? Do they think it's just another religious preference?

I think what is missing is the direct personal experience of what Buddhism claims to offer. I've had a satori, so I know it's real. I can in my own words explain the path to nirvana. But it would be met with disagreement no matter how eloquently explained. There is no modern agreed upon language, only some very old books not even written by the Buddha.

Should we not encourage true digesting where you derive yourself in your own words and actually live the experience to confirm its truth? Is this not the whole point? Must we also be so literal and argumentative? The words are not so important as seeing it and living it. There are some basic principles and practices, and something very real and dramatic happens. We could probably 'reinvent' the old texts. Serious question, are the current systems working? Are people experiencing profoundly different states of mind? I mean it was as if I took DMT or some crazy drug. And to have such a radical thing happen while completely sober is lifechanging, permanently. It is quite the event you never forget. Are other people having these experiences too?

I used some website buddha net and read some basics, nothing more. I did some zazen at 8am and 8pm every day for about 2 weeks, had to focus on counting my breaths and ignoring body itches but then all of a sudden there was nothing. No thoughts no mind no body. I can't even put it into words. Time and space did not exist. I saw the past. I saw how I die. I saw everything all at once. It is too much to process. It totally makes sense that our brain evolved to block most of it out, because you would not even be able to order a pizza like this.

I'm fact it was a bit much and I have not tried again since.

Is this Buddhism? Am I just 'having an episode' lmao. I have no history of mental issues. None in my family either. So no reason to suspect it was just some kind of random psychotic break from reality.

I was raised a scientist and I cannot derive this experience from first principles at all. Not philosophically. Not scientifically. But I have been there and have seen it for myself, whatever it is.

When I read the Tibetan book of the dead or some Buddhist writings, it seems immediately obvious to me that they are talking from inside this inner space where time and space do not exist. I can see rebirth as a cycle happening *internally* where the thing being reborn is my "me" from moment to moment. The stage of this moment's "me" determine the next moment's "me" and from second to second there isn't much difference so we simply don't notice that it is a process that has to continually renew the sense of self. In meditation, with no performance required of the self - it can *extinguish* and thus awareness enters "nirvana."

I don't know if I experience nirvana or just a taste, a satori, but either way it felt amazing and I was in shock and awe. While I find the process simple enough to follow, the result is something that we really don't have English words for. I mean I'm using satori and nirvana instead of more descriptive scientific language because we have no way to derive this from first principles. Science describes the self as "an economy of forces" - and I agree with this. But this is a far cry from a roadmap to enlightenment. I have read the nirvana sutra and it was NO help whatsoever. It's mostly poetry and wild stories. Some vague details like 32 major marks and 80 minor marks. Tons of dialogue that doesn't really tell you much. How that is supposed to help modern man reach enlightenment? It can't. So what do we do folks...?