Listening as a discipline
The phrase “when the student is ready the teacher appears” stems not from the pseudo “law of attraction” but from the fact that having an available teacher sitting in front of the student is pretty useless unless the student himself is ready to start listening and start the lesson. It can be attributed to the fact active listening is not a commonly practiced skill-set since most are too pre-occupied with their own self-esteem due to deep rooted insecurities.
Applicable Chinese idiom: the best medicine taste really bitter, the most helpful words are often unpleasant to hear.
Operating from first principles
As a heuristic, it can be readily applied in multiple domains. A few critical ones identified thus far:
Lifestyle as a configuration
The concept of a home when examined critically can be decomposed into multiple different functions. When the concept is unpacked, it is possible to discard functions that are not utilized and paid for to remove redundant resource deployment.
Identify as a figment of imagination
The notion of self is a figment of imagination. When examined critically, what objectively exists is but a steady stream of sensation that comes into the field of consciousness through one of the senses. It is mistaken to believe the sum of these sensations would at any point culminate into a tangible fixed identity. Culture, beliefs, values, norms and meaning; second order abstractions built onto of this shaky foundation should be critically examined.
Consciousness is the only phenomena that is indisputable.
Emotions
Labelled feelings like any of the eight below are abstractions one step removed from what has actually occurred.
- Fear
- Anger
- Sadness
- Joy
- Disgust
- Surprise
- Trust
- Anticipation
Examined objectively what occurred are patterns of sensations that came into the field of consciousness.