David Chapman Corpus Reading Tracker

An appetizer: purpose Preview: eternalism and nihilism What is meaningness? Misunderstanding meaningness makes many miserable

Stances: responses to meaningness

Stances trump systems Stances are unstable Nebulosity Pattern Fixation and denial Confused stances come in pairs No middle way Accepting nebulosity resolves confusions about meaning Not a general dialectic Confusion, completion, misery and joy Meaningness as a liberating practice The psychological anatomy of a stance Adopting, committing, accomplishing, wavering, appropriating The Big Three stance combinations Schematic overview: all dimensions

Meaning and meaninglessness

The puzzle of meaningness Meaningfulness and meaninglessness Extreme examples, eternalism and nihilism ⚒︎ No cosmic plan So how does meaningness work? Rumcake and rainbows Schematic overview: meaningness

Eternalism: the fixation of meaning

I get duped by eternalism in a casino The appeal of eternalism The promise of certainty The illusion of understanding The fantasy of control The wheel of fortune Eternalism as the only salvation from nihilism Eternalism is harmful Eternalist systems Vaster than ideology Accomplishing eternalism Exiting eternalism Eternalist ploys and their antidotes ⚒︎ Imposing fixed meanings ⚒︎ Smearing meaning all over everything ⚒︎ Magical thinking ⚒︎ Hope ⚒︎ Pretending ⚒︎ Colluding for eternalism ⚒︎ Hiding from nebulosity ⚒︎ Kitsch and naïveté ⚒︎ Armed & armored eternalism ⚒︎ Faith ⚒︎ Thought suppression ⚒︎ Bargaining and recommitment ⚒︎ Wistful certainty ⚒︎ Faithful bafflement ⚒︎ Mystification ⚒︎ Rehearsing the horrors of nihilism ⚒︎ Purification ⚒︎ Fortress eternalism

Nihilism: denying meaning

You’ve got nihilism wrong Cold comfort: the promise of nihilism The emotional dynamics of nihilism What is it like to be a nihilist? Nihilism is black magic Sexy cynicism and nihilist elitism The nihilist apocalypse “Nihilism is OK” is not OK ⚒︎ Nihilistic rage and clarity ⚒︎ Nihilistic intellectualization and understanding The uncanny absence of nihil –ism 190-proof vs. lite nihilism Nihilistic reasoning errors Lite nihilism, on the way to completion Not really meaningful No extra-special fancy meanings No absolute meaning No transcendent meaning No ultimate meaning No eternal meaning No cosmic meaning No objective meaning Some other varieties of objectivity No meaning without justification No meaning of life as a whole ⚒︎ Not enough meaning Reason your way out of 190-proof nihilism No meaning without proof ⚒︎ Scientific rationality has proven: everything is meaningless No meaning from the Big Bang No meaning for mortals ⚒︎ Nihilistic depression illuminates the shadow ⚒︎ Miserabilism tastes like nihilism ⚒︎ Nihilistic anxiety opens into play ⚒︎ Sartre’s ghost and the corpse of God

The complete stance

The appeal of complete stances Peak experiences Obstacles to the complete stance ⚒︎ Observing meaningness Finding the complete stance Textures of completion Wonder Open-ended curiosity ⚒︎ Humor ⚒︎ Play ⚒︎ Enjoying the dance of nebulosity and pattern ⚒︎ Creation Stabilizing the complete stance

Unity and diversity

Schematic overview: unity and diversity Monism and dualism contain each other Boundaries, objects, and connections ⚒︎ Non-existence: Scarlet Leviathan ⚒︎ Monism: the denial of difference ⚒︎ Critiques of monism ⚒︎ The dualist critique of monism ⚒︎ The nihilist critique of monism ⚒︎ The complete stance’s critique of monism ⚒︎ Dualism: the fixation of difference ⚒︎ Participation

Selfness

Schematic overview: self ⚒︎ A billion tiny spooks ⚒︎ The true self ⚒︎ Selflessness ⚒︎ Intermittently continuing ⚒︎ Neither objective nor subjective

Purpose

Schematic overview: purpose Mission Mission: defects and obstacles What should I do with my life? ⚒︎ Politics make for mediocre missions ⚒︎ Antidotes to fixating higher purposes ⚒︎ Antidotes to denying mundane purposes Materialism Rejecting materialism ⚒︎ Materialism: defects and obstacles ⚒︎ Antidotes to fixating mundane purposes ⚒︎ Antidotes to denying higher purposes Mission and materialism mingled ⚒︎ Enjoyable usefulness ⚒︎ Want what you like

⚒︎ Personal value

Schematic overview: value ⚒︎ Specialness ⚒︎ Ordinariness ⚒︎ Nobility

⚒︎ Capability

Schematic overview: capability ⚒︎ Total responsibility ⚒︎ Victim-think ⚒︎ Light-heartedness

⚒︎ Ethics

Schematic overview: ethics ⚒︎ Ethical eternalism ⚒︎ Utilitiarianism is an eternalism ⚒︎ Ethical nihilism ⚒︎ Ethical responsiveness

⚒︎ Authority

Schematic overview: authority ⚒︎ Reasonable respectability ⚒︎ Romantic rebellion ⚒︎ Freedom

⚒︎ Sacredness

Schematic overview: sacredness ⚒︎ Religiosity ⚒︎ Secularism ⚒︎ Kadag

Meaningness and Time: past, present, future

How meaning fell apart A gigantic chart that explains absolutely everything In praise of choicelessness The glory of systems Invented traditions and timeworn futures Systems of meaning all in flames The collapse of rational certainty Countercultures: modernity’s last gasp What makes a counterculture? Hippies and Evangelicals: monist and dualist countercultures Renegotiating self and society Rejecting rationality, reinventing religion, reconfiguring the self The personal is political Rotating politics ninety degrees clockwise ⚒︎ Countercultures: modern mythologies Fundamentalism is countercultural modernism ⚒︎ Counter-cultures: thick and wide Why both countercultures failed Wreckage: the culture war Completing the countercultures Subcultures: the diversity of meaning ⚒︎ Subcultures: meanings at play ⚒︎ Subsocieties: urban tribes ⚒︎ Archipelago: subcultural politics Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution Atomization: the kaleidoscope of meaning Not a good decade for thinking ⚒︎ Fluidity: a preview Modes of meaningness, eternalism and nihilism Desiderata for any future mode of meaningness ⚒︎ Sailing the seas of meaningness ⚒︎ Fluid self in relationship The Cofounders ⚒︎ Fluid society ⚒︎ Fluid culture: metamodernism

Appendices

Appendix: Glossary Appendix: Further reading Appendix: Terminological choices Terminology: Complete Terminology: Emptiness and form, nebulosity and pattern Terminology: Non-dual

Table of contents:

Standalone Essays

Against “really” “Ultimate”: use carefully Pop spirituality: monism goes mainstream Bad ideas from dead Germans An improbable re-animation Acknowledging Romantic Idealism The New Age: appeal and limits SBNR: system-free monism? New Earth, Big Lie Dr. Bronner’s monist soap Spam from God Spiritual smugness Influence Illuminatus!, Voegelin, and the politics of SBNR monism At the Mountains of Meaningness The toxic power dynamics of Oneness The new politics of meaning The hippie family who invented contemporary conservatism Tribal, systematic, and fluid political understanding The Court of Values and the Bureau of Boringness Natural misunderstandings of adult stage theory YOU NEED MORE LUX Seriously bright light vs. winter blahs

Essays index:

Metablog

About the metablog Reasons to be cheerless, part 3 Enough of eternalism! Pattern and Nebulosity: Deconstructing Yourself podcast Fluidity: the Meaningness audiobook

Metablog index:

Vividness

Approaching Vajrayana

Approaching systems of meaning Truth and methods Principles and functions The futile quest for certainty “Fit” Approaches to religion On the path Off the path Mixed feelings Opinions and curiosity Visionary truth, objective truth Yanas: vehicles and their functions Yanas, contradictions, and understanding Yanas are not Buddhist sects Vajrayana is not Tibetan Buddhism (and vice versa) Yana shock Yana slip Understanding Buddhist Tantra by contrast Sutrayana Sutra and Tantra compared Sutra, Tantra, and the modern worldview Renunciation is the engine for most of Buddhism How does “Sutrayana” relate to actual Buddhisms? The Tantric Base: Spacious Passion The power of an attitude There are no spiritual problems Your self is not a spiritual obstacle Tantra is anti-spiritual Nothing special Passionate connections Spacious freedom Emptiness in the Aro gTér The Tantric Path: Unclogging Energy Buddhist tantra is not about techniques Free-flowing energy Tantra and flow Unclogging Unclogging Consensus Buddhism Unclogging and traditional Buddhism Our Buddhism goes to eleven The learning relationship in contemporary Vajrayana How to learn Buddhist tantra Yidams: a godless approach, naturally! Wrathful practice Charnel ground Pure Land The Tantric Aim: What is Vajrayana for? What do you want Buddhism for? Mastery Power Nobility Dzogchen Beyond emptiness: Zen, Tantra, and Dzogchen Why Dzogchen? The scarcity of Dzogchen No holiness—vastness! Finding vividness in spacious clarity No cosmic justice A non-statement ain't-framework Relating as beneficent space We matter to Buddhism Responsibility Endangered species Twilight of the isms “Buddhism is for boomers” Thought soup Buddhism shattered Consumerism, Fundamentalism, and Buddhism A Dzogchen-shaped hole in the culture Yes Three percent of the Dharma

Reinventing Buddhist Tantra

Reinventing Buddhist Tantra: Annotated Table of Contents Why I should shut up “Now you something say” Diversity, generalization, and authenticity Essential Buddhism What would “modern Buddhist tantra” even mean? Buddhism in the West Naturalizing Buddhist tantra Degrees of naturalization Four strategies for naturalizing religion Why did magic matter in Buddhist tantra? Reinventing Buddhist tantra badly Getting tantra wrong: The Roach/McNally fiasco Pussy-dripping goddesses with chainsaws Tantric Theravada and modern Vajrayana Shambhala Training was secular Vajrayana Some preliminaries: ngöndro Back to the future The Dark Age and Buddhism’s future

After Buddhist Ethics

“Buddhist ethics” is a fraud “Buddhist ethics” is not Buddhist ethics Traditional Buddhism has no ethical system Buddhist morality is Medieval How Asian Buddhism imported Western ethics Why Westerners rebranded secular ethics as "Buddhist" and banned Tantra FTFY Buddhist ethics “Ethics” is advertising The mindfulness crisis and the end of Consensus Buddhism “Buddhist ethics”: a Tantric critique Developing ethical, social, and cognitive competence Better Buddhisms: A developmental approach Emptiness, form, and Dzogchen ethics

Consensus Buddhism

The Crumbling Buddhist Consensus: Summary The Crumbling Buddhist Consensus: Overview “Nice” Buddhism Traditional and modern Buddhism: an illusory duopoly Inclusion, exclusion, unity and diversity How Buddhism became Consensus The Making of Buddhist Modernism Modern Buddhism: Forged as anti-colonial weapon A new World Religion Zen vs. the U.S. Navy The King of Siam invents Western Buddhism Theravada reinvents meditation What the Buddha REALLY said Protestant Buddhism Problems with scripture The Heart-Healthy Sutra What is called enlightenment? The essence of all religions? Effing the ineffable Are mystical experiences metaphysical evidence? Wholeness, connection, and meditation: Competing visions Epistemology and enlightenment What got left out of “meditation”? Disgust, horror, and Western Buddhism One Dharma. Whose? One Dharma, Zero Tantra Buddhist disagreements Constructive religious disagreement How not to argue about Buddhism Uncontroversial Buddhist lineages Buddhism and football Preventing holy wars, by consensus On criticizing fellow Buddhists Consensus Buddhism: what's left

Vividness TOC:

Standalone Essays

Books Finding Our Sea-Legs Why Brad Warner matters Ritual vs. mentalism Heart of Sun and Moon Emailing the Lamas from Afar illusory advice Enlightenments beyond the Enlightenment A Trackless Path: Dzogchen in plain English A contemporary gö kar chang lo terma Geeks: help connect Buddhists with resources! Tröma Nakmo, Bhutanese feminism, and modern Vajrayana Meditation risks, safety, goals, methods

Essays index:

Metablog

Imperfect Buddha podcast Two podcasts: Rebuilding the ruined city of Buddhism Ben Joffe: Ngakpas and ngakmas in exile Two new podcasts: tantra and ritual creation What ritual feels like when it works Buddhist tantra for non-Buddhists? Meanwhile, back at the charnel ground… Podcast: Enlightenment & Epistemology Geek thiglés Buddhist Geeks podcast II, and coming attractions My Buddhist Geeks interview with Hokai Sobol Halloween podcast with The Secular Buddhist The Buddhist Geeks Conference rocks Brad Warner vs. The Maha Teachers The Crumbling Buddhist Consensus: Preface The Aesthetic of Meditation is Broken Riding Solo to the Top of the World Jacob Dalton: Dark Age audio Anthropology of Repkong Ngakmas

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In the Cells of the Eggplant

Meta-rationality: An introduction

Rationality and refrigerators Clouds and eggplants A credibility revolution in the post-truth era The structure of The Eggplant

Part One: Taking rationalism seriously

Rationality, rationalism, and alternatives Rationalism’s responses to trouble Positive and logical The world is everything that is the case Depends upon what the meaning of the word “is” is The value of meaninglessness The truth of the matter Reductio ad reductionem Are eggplants fruits? When will you go bald? Overdriving approximation Reference: rationalism’s reality problem The National Omelet Registry Objects, objectively Is this an eggplant which I see before me? What can you believe? Where did you get that idea in the first place? The Spanish Inquisition Interlude: A logical farce Probabilism Leaving the casino What probability can’t do The probability of green cheese Statistics and the replication crisis Acting on the truth Overcoming post-rationalist nihilism

Part Two: Taking reasonableness seriously

This is not cognitive science The ethnomethodological flip Aspects of reasonableness Reasonableness is meaningful activity You are accountable for reasonableness Reasonableness is routine Meaningful perception The purpose of meaning How we refer Reasonable believings Reasonable ontology Instructed activity

Part Three: Taking rationality seriously

The parable of the pebbles

Interlude: Ontological remodeling

Ontological remodeling

Part Four: Taking meta-rationality seriously

Preliminaries: Prerequisites, review, and caveats

Part Five: Taking rational work seriously

Eggplant TOC:

Buddhism for Vampires

The Vetali’s Gift (Novel)

The fine print The telling of the tale My father dies My mother dies 25 vampire stories The tale the vampire told Lord Buddha Sukhi Dragonflies You need to learn tantra Love and death The rat The Quest of Life and Death I go to the dakinis I fall into the sky Visions in the charnel ground The cave-ghoul A final gift Who is the monster? Eating an entire epistemologist “Take me to the vetali!” Sleeping with Sukhi The dead don’t think A delegation from Nalanda University Rakshi (To be continued…)

Essays

The Tibetan Book of the Undead Disgust as Buddhist practice We are all monsters Eating the shadow Romancing the shadow Hunting the shadow Absorb your shadow Drinking the sun On monsters Next time you die Buddhists who kill Love in a time of war Dakinis Tantra, sex, and romance novels You, being meat Dharmakirti (and Panini) Making a kangling for chöd The Buddha and the necrophiliac witch A philosophical zombie Can we hunt p-zombies with fMRI? Dark culture and tantric transformation What makes magic “black”? Black magic, transformation, and power Black magic and meaningness Dark culture: black magic as art and play Lovecraft, Speculative Realism, and silly nihilism Meeting Naropa’s dakini

Metablog

About the metablog The No Die List Buddhism, fictional and historical Stories of the vampire, stories of the sea The sea of stories Stories within stories Pops and the shudder Follow me on Twitter How disgusting should I be? The Secular Buddhist: Halloween podcast Death threats from offended Buddhists No sex or funny stuff Roaring Silence

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Substack

Meta-rationality: Outline Unavailable dakini catalyst Maya: a catastrophic extramarital encounter Rational romance Subcultures: 10/14/88 Personal experiences of sacredness & community Hello UFO! And farewell Historical Artifact. Elena: Forced out of the interpersonal stage Dzogchen Street Preacher #0: Kadag Conquering chronic crud Sacredness without metaphysics Maps of Meaningness Juicy Salif and Dreamfarm The mythic mode: from childhood, throughout life Seeing and doing mythically Meta-rational pain management Metaphysics misused in everyday life Vajra pride and the diversity of natural nobility Seeing like a Good King What's the connection between gender and meta-rationality? Leveraging lag: engineers and salespeople Software engineers are eating the world Nobility: table of contents Ofermōd To keep priests in check: prefer nobility to churlishness Priests and Kings Nobility and virtue are distinct sorts of goodness What is stage five (like)? Living beautifully † Cutting hard Stage five is nothing special Fivefold confidence This is it! Rigpa and ethical nihilism Does this chapter explain even itself? What isn’t philosophy: a meta-rational explanation Four kinds of philosophy I don’t do Buddha on the spot A prophesy for postrationalism—or an elegy Questioning the bodhisattva vow My life in keyboards Clarifying the roles of purposes The incomparable value of being wrong Meta-rational software development: Readings Not because I revel in destruction 🙋 Monthly Substack Live video AMAs ࿇ Vajrayana Q&A: Monthly Zoom ࿇ When the proof comes as white light and angels Philosophy isn't... Aspects of the theory of breakfast Myth, adult developmental stages, and entrepreneurship Philosophy doesn't work Undoing philosophy, Chapter 0 Who was that friend, who inspired the book Meaningness? Vajrayana, Ultraspeaking, and adult stage transitions My 70% failure rate Ask Me Anything! October 2024 edition Opening Substack chat, and Tuesday's live AMA Why Tibetan bureaucrats replaced battlemages with monks Ultraspeaking and Vajrayana are like peanut butter and jelly because...? How understanding Vajrayana theory boosts Vajrayana practice Turning meta-rationality inside-out Understanding software purposes meta-rationally Understanding purposes meta-rationally Can enlightenment (or the complete stance) end suffering? Metarat is tough, let’s make movies Transmitting ways of being, without dominance ploys Wearing human bone ornaments You should be a God-Emperor Confusions, grievances, enthusiasm, and curiosity Buddhism, cybernetics, and cognitive science Fake fatigue in long covid The most important knowledge in the world Software purpose nebulosity