wheretonow

So my hypothesis came together yesterday and I think it is as complete as it will be without real scientific assistance. My immediate response was to try to get this started, through the vehicle I have known from my past life: business.

But this has filled me with anxiety, and I do not think it is the right path.

DHP22 // Just as two strong men might seize a man by the arms and drag him to a pit of burning coals, so too does Māra drag the heedless person toward ruin. // He would twist his body this way and that, trying to avoid it, for he would know: ‘If I fall into that pit of glowing coals I shall meet death or deadly suffering.'

Linkedin and business were toxic for me. They were so incredibly toxic, and I know that in my bones. Self-promotion and for-profit work. The thought of doing them again makes my stomach turn.

You don’t have to do them again though do you. That ‘always finishing what you start’ and ‘do what you say you will do’ is just more conditioning. Why does someone always need to finish what they start and why stick to a course of action once you realise it is wrong?

This is just more self-conditioning. The feeling like you have to define yourself. What they would call an autistic trait, I guess, but it’s the habit of a lifetime and it feels strange to know that I need not follow it.

I will speak with people gradually and see if anyone is interested in taking the ball from me to make this into technology, while I myself work on the training plan and try to do it through behavioural means.

But why do I want to do this in the first place? Initially it was very much a case of wanting to get this to the world - the sheer level of change in my life is impossible to put into words.

But then looking at the hypothesis; all it is is a reprogramming of the neural network. This is why I don’t have high hopes for r/streamentry. They specifically said ‘no sīla’ (ethics) in their rules but I have come to believe that sīla is the foundation of [a pleasant] awakening.

I think I have had minor awakenings many times before in my life; where I have woken up and hated what I was doing or I have woken up and stopped drinking or smoking or any other seemingly-unbreakable addiction.

But I have also had other ones where I have *caused* myself an addiction. I have programmed myself to retire in 3 years or become the best at x, y or z.

Nibbana without an ethical foundation will make someone utterly miserable.

It’s that simple.

You are just reprogramming your brain, and if you program it to crave then it will no know limits. If you program it to compete (which is some conditioning I am working on now) then you will never be good enough.

All I have seen through is the sense of a permanent self, and I have broken my cycle of greed. So the motivators for building any company would not be money or fame or renown; they are from a drive to get this to the people.

But what is it? It’s just the ultimate reprogramming of a mind.

And the program is what is important. This is why that monk on medium was admonishing his student who would watch violent media yet thought he could approach enlightenment. You can’t have your cake and eat it too; the cake is the poison.

So what is poison for me?

Poison for me is pitch decks and millions of dollars in funding. It’s balance sheets and cajoling and popularity contests and payroll. It’s employees who you lend a bike to and give 6 months compassionate leave but who come back and promptly resign before stealing the bike.

The poison is this capitalist system.

It made me sick, and I have only just received my treatment. I am only now getting better. The last 2 months may have felt like 2 years, but they were not; just my sense of time beforehand was skewed by the sickness of consumption and greed and craving and productivity and competition.

But I can take steps to get this to the world, gently, and in a way that doesn’t involve money.

That’s what I’m already doing, really, with this website.

I can take steps to continue my recovery.

The path is mine to choose, and I choose one of cultivation and growth, not reductionism and cash.

So I guess I will carry on working on my own trauma and my own conditioning. See if I can recover some of those memories from childhood which should be there but are not. Continue deepening the relationships with my family and spending time with my boys.

I had planned 5-10 years of retirement; maybe permanent. I will take it. I’ll shoot the info off to people but I’ll not drive the car.

DBP276 // The Buddhas only show the way; you yourself must make the effort. The contemplatives who tread the path are freed from the bonds of Māra.

I’m on the path and freed from a lot of Māra. Maybe some people will follow me, but that’s their choice. I will not cajole or hanker. Not again.

/jb202509140743