Isn’t it kind of super essential that the master picks the activity for the student? That is the master can look what ia going on with the student and set himon a path that wil mess with their particular issues and circumstances. It would seem in comparison that in rationality side things are often taken so that a half-informed half-baked reasoner will do learing route decicions with their current understanding which would be equivalent for the zen student to choose whether they should in this phase do breathing exercises or not. And there seems to be the basdic issue that the kind of mind that needs or benefits from them can’t for the same reasons understand why that is so.
It’s not impossible to figure out what is worth working on or what techniques to use as a student independent of a teacher’s recommendation. There’s a meta skill of doing this, a kind of way of both observing hints about yourself and what you need, and experimenting. Even with that you might be better served by a teacher who can short circuit experiments to rediscover knowledge, but it’s not irreplaceably essential in all cases.
It’s not impossible to figure out what is worth working on or what techniques to use as a student independent of a teacher’s recommendation. There’s a meta skill of doing this
Are there any teachers that teach this? (Or any other materials on the subject—while it might be mostly domain specific, anything that general which exists seems really useful and worth finding out about, even if it’s only good for getting started.)
That’s a really good point. For the most part there’s no kind of apprenticeship program in the rationalist community. CFAR partially fills that role, but not long term in most people’s lives.
I agree and think this is a weakness within the rationality community’s approach to training. The challenge is that it’s hard to be a student, and rationality disproportionately attracts folks who are bad at being students (too many folks who are overly independent, avoidant, recalcitrant, of otherwise generally defiant of allowing themselves to be dominated by our subservient to others). Further, I’m not sure there are many good teachers within rationality in the sense you’d be willing to give them the kind of trust a Zen teacher asks of a student. Thus rationality has to take a different approach, offering up a whole bunch of stuff and some guidance about how to use it, but also largely leaving people to their own devices because of a combination of lacking stronger culture of a particular kind and having a culture that prefers going it alone.
Isn’t it kind of super essential that the master picks the activity for the student? That is the master can look what ia going on with the student and set himon a path that wil mess with their particular issues and circumstances. It would seem in comparison that in rationality side things are often taken so that a half-informed half-baked reasoner will do learing route decicions with their current understanding which would be equivalent for the zen student to choose whether they should in this phase do breathing exercises or not. And there seems to be the basdic issue that the kind of mind that needs or benefits from them can’t for the same reasons understand why that is so.
It’s not impossible to figure out what is worth working on or what techniques to use as a student independent of a teacher’s recommendation. There’s a meta skill of doing this, a kind of way of both observing hints about yourself and what you need, and experimenting. Even with that you might be better served by a teacher who can short circuit experiments to rediscover knowledge, but it’s not irreplaceably essential in all cases.
Are there any teachers that teach this? (Or any other materials on the subject—while it might be mostly domain specific, anything that general which exists seems really useful and worth finding out about, even if it’s only good for getting started.)
That’s a really good point. For the most part there’s no kind of apprenticeship program in the rationalist community. CFAR partially fills that role, but not long term in most people’s lives.
I agree and think this is a weakness within the rationality community’s approach to training. The challenge is that it’s hard to be a student, and rationality disproportionately attracts folks who are bad at being students (too many folks who are overly independent, avoidant, recalcitrant, of otherwise generally defiant of allowing themselves to be dominated by our subservient to others). Further, I’m not sure there are many good teachers within rationality in the sense you’d be willing to give them the kind of trust a Zen teacher asks of a student. Thus rationality has to take a different approach, offering up a whole bunch of stuff and some guidance about how to use it, but also largely leaving people to their own devices because of a combination of lacking stronger culture of a particular kind and having a culture that prefers going it alone.