How do you think about impact when going for arahantship, or do you reject the frame? I’d love to do this too but think I could do an (actually) impactful startup
Truly beneficial impact is only possible with Awakening. Everything is still based in delusion until realization, and stream entry is not sufficient.
That does not mean you shouldn’t do anything until then. We can use everything for the path of letting go.
But simply telling yourself you are using everything for the path is not sufficient, and you are probably deceiving yourself in some way. Therefore find a true spiritual teacher, and a good spiritual community, who can keep you on track.
Until then, you are going to be making decisions based on liking and disliking, grasping and avoiding, and none of that really works. It only creates more, bigger problems.
You can check out the Buddhism for AI course online. Might be of interest.
Things based in delusion can still have truly beneficial impact; for example, if you spent a decade working in a soup kitchen without ever meditating even once, you’d still have standard levels of delusion (and you certainly wouldn’t have done the most effective thing) but you’d have helped feed hundreds or thousands of people who might otherwise have gone hungry.
If you spent that whole time meditating, on the other hand, then at the end of a decade you wouldn’t have had any impact at all.
Awakening and then doing something actually useful can produce beneficial impact, but it’s the doing-something-actually-useful step that produces impact, not the part where you personally see with clearer eyes, and moreover it’s possible to do useful things without seeing clearly.
If your worldview is that letting people starve is just as beneficial as feeding them, then I think it is your worldview that is deluded and causes suffering. I think that is an evil belief to hold and will lead only to harm.
Truly beneficial impact is only possible with Awakening. Everything is still based in delusion until realization, and stream entry is not sufficient.
That does not mean you shouldn’t do anything until then. We can use everything for the path of letting go.
But simply telling yourself you are using everything for the path is not sufficient, and you are probably deceiving yourself in some way. Therefore find a true spiritual teacher, and a good spiritual community, who can keep you on track.
Until then, you are going to be making decisions based on liking and disliking, grasping and avoiding, and none of that really works. It only creates more, bigger problems.
You can check out the Buddhism for AI course online. Might be of interest.
Things based in delusion can still have truly beneficial impact; for example, if you spent a decade working in a soup kitchen without ever meditating even once, you’d still have standard levels of delusion (and you certainly wouldn’t have done the most effective thing) but you’d have helped feed hundreds or thousands of people who might otherwise have gone hungry.
If you spent that whole time meditating, on the other hand, then at the end of a decade you wouldn’t have had any impact at all.
Awakening and then doing something actually useful can produce beneficial impact, but it’s the doing-something-actually-useful step that produces impact, not the part where you personally see with clearer eyes, and moreover it’s possible to do useful things without seeing clearly.
You are speaking from a materialist, consequentialist worldview. I do not buy into this worldview.
It has caused massive suffering and existential crises on the planet and is deeply deluded about what ‘beneficial’ is.
If your worldview is that letting people starve is just as beneficial as feeding them, then I think it is your worldview that is deluded and causes suffering. I think that is an evil belief to hold and will lead only to harm.