r/secularbuddhism

My Buddhist center tied together Dependent Origination and No-Soul in this interesting way:

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Our sense of self is entirely the product of our causes and conditions. Broadly, three things form the "I":

• Sense Impressions. Things we perceive outside of us. Everything from a broken fingernail to a gripping novel.
• Judgements. Opinions we form from our impressions. "People should trim their nails more often." "Camus was more accurate than Sartre."
• Actions. Includes mental thoughts, spoken words, or physical actions.

Our identity is constantly shifting because sense impressions, judgements, and actions are constantly shifting. The person you were before reading Camus or breaking a nail is different from the person you are afterward.

This is oversimplified and incomplete, but I think it's in line with Buddhist psychology.

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This seems to come down pretty hard on the "nurture" side of the "nature vs nurture" argument. I don't see any room for a person being born with certain personality traits, nor for genetics to play a role in identity.

Is this a correct view of Buddhist psychology? Does Dependent Origination imply that there is no lifelong fixed self?

I'm 55, Frenchie, having right now a closer look at reddit communities.
I got myself a PhD in astrophysics without any effort, was wired as scientist, autistic like, social phobic, hypersensitive, depressive as hell. I instantly put in all my mental ressource in studying Tibetan Buddhism when i first read a Matthieu Ricard's book when i was 30.
Done that because I recognize the scientific approach I could take on that one, Buddha himself said to not believe his words but study, contemplate, experiment for one self, that's the only way the essence of Buddhism could penetrate my mind, blind faith is totally stranger to me.
Until now I just can't find any flaw, and I'm still a bit depressive because I haven't found a way yet to convince my scientific fellow that science of matter is nice (physics) to bring external confort (or atomic bomb), but science of the mind is even better as it impacts directly your quality of life and those around you.

In fact physicist don't even know yet about the mental continuum of energy, they study only the material continuum of energy and they think a soap of quarks can start to think and feel all by itself, sounds like magical thinking to me now.

If only Einstein were alive, he would certainly have an opened enough mind to start studying seriously Tibetan Buddhism philosophie and theory, and spread that good news around the world.

I apologize, I dont know how relevant this question is to secular Buddhism only. Religious buddhism seems to always include an emphasis on friendship, fellowship, listening to those more experienced and helping those less experienced.

Well, I’m reading Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs, and halfway thru: friendship. Gotta be connected, gotta grow through relationships, etc.

Im autistic and only have one friend, who isnt Buddhist, so I usually just roll right past these sections with some guilt. I am a nurse and feel like Im doing compassionate work and not living in a bubble.

But the idea of going somewhere to mingle or try to receive personal guidance or start some kind of relationship is not for me. I see the harm in shunning people, putting hands up and saying sorry no, this makes me uncomfortable. But I dont know how much of this personal obstacle I can realistically overcome.

Im looking at the possibility of silent retreat next year, and it is so enticing.

Thanks for reading.

I'm always fascinated by the common phenomenology found in many traditions...or even therapies... And this leads us to the nature of the subject experiencing these states.

Maybe you'll be interested in this breakdown based in neuroscience, and systems theory (Friston, Chandaria):

The Formless Jhanas (or Arūpajhānas—the 5th through 8th stages of deep meditative absorption) represent a systematic, stepwise deconstruction of the brain's internal generative model.

While the first four jhanas manipulate sensory precision, bodily pleasure, and emotional tone within a structured spatial world, the formless jhanas progressive strip away the structural priors of space, time, subject-object division, and sensory content entirely.

In terms of the Free Energy Principle (FEP), active inference, and neuroimaging, the formless jhanas correspond to the sequential reduction of parameter space in the brain's generative model—dropping the gain on prediction errors until the internal model is left running with near-zero content.

1. Step-by-Step FEP Deconstruction of the Formless Jhanas

[Form-Based World] ──> [5th: Boundless Space] ──> [6th: Boundless Consciousness] │ ▼ [8th: Neither-Perception] <── [7th: Nothingness]

5^th Jhana: Boundless Space (Ākāsānañcāyatana)

* Phenomenology: Physical bodily boundaries vanish; the sense of self dissolves into an infinite, borderless expanse. * FEP Pathway: Precision weighting (\gamma) on all somatic, interoceptive, and exteroceptive sensory prediction errors is turned down to near-zero. * Neural Correlates: Deactivation of the Superior Parietal Lobule (SPL). The SPL maintains the brain's egocentric spatial frame of reference (constructing the physical boundary between "in here" and "out there"). When the SPL loses its input streams, the internal spatial prior defaults to an unbounded, infinite manifold—the "pool walls" dissolve.

6^th Jhana: Boundless Consciousness (Viññāṇañcāyatana)

* Phenomenology: The experience shifts from the space being known to the act of knowing itself. Awareness feels infinite, self-luminous, and omnipresent. * FEP Pathway: The generative model turns its predictive machinery onto its own sampling process. Instead of predicting objects in space, the top-down model predicts the state of attentional precision itself. * Neural Correlates: High Phase-Amplitude Coupling (PAC) between frontoparietal control networks and deep central structures, with the Salience Network and Default Mode Network (DMN) decoupling from sensory nodes. Metacognition (high-frequency coupling with low-frequency carriers) becomes the sole object of awareness.

7^th Jhana: Nothingness (Ākiñcaññāyatana)

* Phenomenology: The light of awareness turns off its object; there is no space, no consciousness, no content—only "nothing." * FEP Pathway: The active inference engine suppresses the generation of top-down content priors entirely. The brain stops predicting features, forms, or mental events. Variational free energy drops close to its baseline floor because there are no incoming error signals to explain, and no active predictions being generated. * Neural Correlates: Profound functional quietude across visual (V1–V4), auditory, and somatic cortices. Global power shifts toward hyper-coherent, slow-wave infra-slow oscillations (<0.1\text{ Hz}) mixed with localized gamma bursts, indicating high local integration with minimal global transmission.

8^thJhana: Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception (Nevasaññānāsāññāyatana)

* Phenomenology: The extreme limit of conscious experience. It is impossible to say whether one is conscious or unconscious. Memory, perception, and agency are at the absolute threshold of extinction. * FEP Pathway: The parameter capacity of the generative model reaches the minimum viable threshold required to sustain life and homeostatic steady states. The Markov blanket is operating at a near-flatline phase transition—one step prior to complete cessation (Nirodha Samāpatti). * Neural Correlates: Widespread thalamocortical suppression. The thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) acts as an extreme gatekeeper, blocking virtually all sensory-motor signals from reaching the cortex, leaving only baseline homeostatic autonomic pacing (cardiorespiratory resonance).

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* Thalamocortical Gating via the TRN: In formless jhanas, the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus (TRN) exerts powerful inhibitory control over sensory relays. This cuts off bottom-up prediction errors at the brainstem/thalamic level, preventing them from perturbing the cortical "vibrating polytope."

* DMN & Executive Network Reconfiguration: The Default Mode Network (egoic narrative self) is strongly suppressed, while the Frontoparietal Control Network remains selectively active to maintain one-pointed attentional stability without generating object-based thoughts.

* Cross-Frequency Entrainment: Electroencephalography (EEG) during formless states often reveals global Alpha-Gamma or Theta-Gamma Phase-Amplitude Coupling. The low-frequency carrier wave holds the entire cortex in a stable, non-reactive baseline, while high-frequency gamma reflects local coherence without chaotic spreading.

I spent years thinking that "all life is suffering" meant we’re all just trying to get through the day without crying. Ram Dass liked to say "We're all just walking each other home." While there’s some truth in that, and while it sure helps me feel empathy for other people, it turns out to have nothing to do with what the Buddha was talking about.

I was embarrassed to learn that dukkha simply refers to a warped potter’s wheel or an off-center axle hole. In other words, things are never perfect in life. There are always annoyances and even very real tragedies in life. Without those, it would not be life; there are no such troubles for the people in the cemetery. So I have come to prefer the translation that "all life has friction."

Realizing this completely changed my understanding of the practice. "Things" are never going to be perfect or get perfect, and in any event they are not going to last. Meditation was no longer a nice break from the day-to-day realities of life; it was just practice for dealing with those realities.

I'm sure most of you view Monks corrupted and are very superstitious. But would you still do "Dana" to them?

This is not trying to discourage or encourage donations to Monks. I just want to know how most of you view this aspect of Buddhism.

I spent years thinking that "suffering is caused by desire" meant that we should not want anything; that way we'd never be disappointed. While there’s some truth in that, and while lowering my expectations sure made it easier to be happy, that turns out to be a misunderstanding of what the Buddha was talking about.

I was surprised to learn that taṇhā refers specifically to craving or thirst. It is not unskillful to desire lunch, or happiness for all sentient beings. It is just counterproductive to crave or thirst for things in a needy way: being attached to achieving them. So I have come to prefer the translation that "All life has friction, and the friction is amplified by craving."

Realizing this has helped make more sense of the practice. I still desire meaningful work (in my case, songwriting) but try not to be attached to, or yearn for, a superb outcome.