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David Roberts's avatar

To see the world clearly is to see nuance and contingency and ambiguity, descriptions that often clash with the normal sense of clarity. Humans crave clarity and we will invent clarity even when it does not exist.

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Martin S's avatar

I'm all for calling attention to the benefits of practising cognitive empathy, avoiding attribution error, and learning to separate feelings and emotions from one's thoughts and intentions. Where I part company is the idea that the Buddha's (or Buddhism's) goal is to better the world. It's not about making the world ("out there") a better place, it's about learning how to make peace with the fact that the world is not a perfect place and will never be. That's not to say that the Buddha (and Buddhists) has not endeavoured to create conditions more conducive to practice--safer, calmer, and supportive--but this was just a means, not the end.

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