you get what you optimize for?

thumbnail
Dan G, modified 11 Years ago at 1/30/13 10:02 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 1/30/13 10:02 AM

you get what you optimize for?

Posts: 11 Join Date: 1/4/13 Recent Posts
i am curious if some folks could explain a little more about what this phrase means in relation to practice. I have seen it stated a few times and am curious about it. Maybe provide some examples of how people have seen this play out. Thanks.
thumbnail
Joshua, the solitary, modified 11 Years ago at 1/30/13 2:41 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 1/30/13 2:41 PM

RE: you get what you optimize for?

Posts: 86 Join Date: 9/28/12 Recent Posts
I'm not the best one to answer this but since you have no replies yet, I think it means that if you are a sort who sees the merits of socialising, loving-kindness and all this, then your meditation will naturally gravitate towards making you more effective at relating high insights to daily morality for laypeople, for example. While if you see all that as hogwash, and just want to become a meditator who can penetrate any truth, perhaps at the cost of skills in explaining your insights, or plain old regular morality, then you end up going in that direction.

Consider the Muslim mystic Mansoor, who one day cracked such a certain high level of non-duality he said 'I am god, I am god!'. He was killed for this. He completely negated mundane thinking, clearly. He optimized for union with the universe. Another may optimize for making people less uncomfortable during their daily lives.

Breadcrumb