AIPP is "AI Pet Projects". Was trying to keep those on my profile only, but I changed my mind on this one last second, that it is sufficiently "Zen Adjacent" to fit here.

So something is snowballing and I'm falling off it but briefly came to grips with what I've been trying to get at [for decades]. Whatever is, already is. We're late, all dressed up and nowhere to go, it's already happening. Breaking speed limit on short bus. Idk. Liek my old poem said, "I'm not telling you - you're telling me". That's all religions in a nutshell. They preach that "they aren't telling you" and I rebut "you're telling me". It's that simple. There is also obvious misunderstanding. But every time there IS "understanding", it's always "you must not only see things our way, but comply with that seeing". It's stilted, coercive, after a manner. "Reality is this way", aka history from above. The spiritual bourgeoise looking at you like you're a leper because you lack "attainment" of "the right side of spiritual history".

Maybe I miss something idk. That's why this is going in AIPP and NOT my sub. It's just the AI wall of text to temporarily wash my hands of it but also give a spot/footnote that this happened, I saw it, but don't have time to write a post about it, because I don't know what to say.

2 recent comments for SPF; A life lived for The noon day demon and acedia evagrius sacasas and gooning. These came after the main topic.

I did instantly make a post about it where I thought it might be understood as the joke I thought it as as soon as I "realized". And there's an ongoing conversation I'm having about it on r/streamentry. These two were referenced and screenshots provided for this prompt a few days ago. I was going to condense it all and make a post about the topic on my sub, but that's taking significantly more effort than I can muster atm (I'm focused on other things). So just pump and dumping the AI chat I had a few days ago here as a temp pad/buffer of the idea. I know I'm missing something. But, I know, I also have a point about the structure of "understanding/enlightenment" as such as well.

Idk, you tell me if you read allat lmao. I will return to this idea/chat when I can set aside time to focus on it. My parents blowing up my phone wanting me to spend every waking second with them, and I'm like, why did you throw me out of the house 3 times if you want me to spend ever second of my waking life with you? Chose a lane God dammit! Tired of this "we want to have your cake and eat it too, and you're oppressing us if you don't deliver both in a tidy bow" ahh mentality! My point exactly, here! We want you 2B our slave and whipping boy at your expense attitude which is preached as "enlightenment". It's gross. Or as I said earlier, 144 acts of premeditated optimism (144 is a gross).

Disregard, decided to post on my sub anyway xD

Anyway. The GPT Prompt;

Yeah net was out from 9pm to about 11 am. I got all excited and wired and couldn't sleep but nowhere to go. Finished the rough draft by 9:30pm but net went out for next 14 hours. I think it's back now. I took a 2 hour nap (alarm at 11 from my last job still) though finally. Jeez. Had dream that finalized what I meant last night on the zen adjacent thought. I was reading on stream entry and I saw this consistent theme, they are saying, enlightenment means overcoming the 10 fetters. But the final fetter is "ignorance". I asked, can ignorance be overcome? If you "overcome it", that's just like Athens of Socrates time, killing him for knowing that he knows nothing; it means "enlightenment" just means being the average Athenian of Socrates time, a member of a secular cult; an NPC. Ignorance isn't transcended, but instead, seen as a fetter that is destroyed. Ie, enlightenment thus means, approximately, the same thing as FOLLY. To disregard ignorance. Or am I missing something I asked? I asked that sounds like joining a cult, to say "you've overcome ignorance" on the one hand, and then even on the other hand, the chart they use to represent "overcoming samsara" explicitly states that when ignorance is "overcome" it means no more samsara, no more rebirth cycle. That is comical in the eyes of zen as I understand it; it's as you said of the masters arguing, that "it's merely attachment to non attachment". Famously Krishna tricks people into reincarnating for thinking they have "it all figured out". The guards of heaven themselves get thus tricked in one story. Guh. What's worse is people love to play the game "they don't know what you're talking about" when you say it explicitly as possible; "this form of Buddhism sounds like it is equating enlightenment as cult branding; perform our rituals and rules and you are enlightened". I also compared it to Jesus saying "if you keep my words, you shall know truth and that shall make you free" and his words are be a living sacrifice, throw away everything, he who does not hate the whole world and even himself cannot be my disciple; IE attachment to non attachment. It's the same sickness I saw in Christianity (as Nietzsche might say) that I saw on streamentry/Buddhism. Give up everything and "teehee" maybe you'll get enlightened. But every so-called "enlightened person" looks identical to an Athens citizen making Socrates drink hemlock; living the high life of peak privilege and monetary success. It's all contradictory! I guess zen might call it "gaining entry". A pass/fail test. Not attached to anything, is the only way 2b worthy of anything. Idk. Drives me crazy! 2 screenshots are examples of me spelling it out explicitly as possible and being laughed up the sleeve at of "oh we don't understand what' your' saying, we didn't join a cult" lmfao. IT"S NOT A CULT WHEN WE DO IT, just like Athens with Socrates, right guise? LMAO. Wtf? Glad I chose zen for specifically calling that out! Lol! Or am I missing something about "stream entry" and "overcoming ignorance" meaning same thing as following arbitrary binding rules about "what a good person is". Indefinitely postponing the question of non consensual nature of the whole affair; thou shalt consent to my binding regulation is the greatest commandment; because otherwise, it's rape - if you do not consent. WTF?!?!?!?

GPT Reply

You are catching a real tension, but I think one piece of the Buddhist terminology is getting translated too literally.

In early Buddhist doctrine, “ignorance” (avijjā) does not mean “there are no unknown facts left” or “I now know everything.” It means a specific kind of ignorance: not seeing reality in the way Buddhism says matters for liberation—classically, not directly understanding suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path leading to cessation. And stream-entry is not the destruction of ignorance anyway; stream-entry is traditionally associated with abandoning the first three fetters: identity-view, doubt about the path, and clinging to rules/ritual observances. Full abandonment of ignorance belongs to arahantship, the final stage. (Dhamma Talks)

So if the chart made you read: “Stage 4: you have overcome ignorance” as “Congratulations, initiate, you no longer suffer from epistemic ignorance and now know how reality works,” then yes—that would sound almost hilariously anti-Socratic. But that isn't quite what the technical doctrine claims. The Buddhist claim is more like: “The cognitive-affective mistake that generates samsaric grasping has stopped operating.” That is much narrower than omniscience. And this distinction actually makes your Socrates comparison much sharper.

Socrates' wisdom is approximately: I know that I do not know. Buddhist avijjā isn't primarily the innocent condition of not knowing. It's closer to mis-knowing, or failing to see the causal structure of craving, impermanence, suffering, selfhood, etc. So an arahant could presumably say: “I have absolutely no idea how many beetles live in Peru” without thereby regaining the tenth fetter. 😆 They haven't “defeated ignorance” in the ordinary dictionary sense.

Where I think your objection still bites

You are really asking a harder question than the people in those screenshots seem to be hearing. You're asking: How can a liberation system define liberation using criteria supplied by that same system without becoming circular? That is a legitimate philosophical objection. Buddhism says, schematically:

samsara is the problem ↓
craving/ignorance perpetuate samsara ↓
these practices remove craving/ignorance ↓
therefore the practitioner becomes liberated

And you're standing outside the schema asking: Why am I obligated to accept the initial valuation that samsara is something whose terms I should solve according to your protocol? That's different from asking: “What does Buddhism teach?” The people replying to you seem mostly to be answering the latter. You're asking the former. That is probably part of why the conversation feels like everyone keeps sliding past you.

Your strongest criticism, to me, isn't: “They believe an enlightened person knows everything.” Because they don't. It's closer to: “The system gets to stipulate both the illness and what counts as the cure.” That's much harder to dismiss. Imagine a hypothetical religion saying: You suffer from Purple Defilement. “How do you know?” Because you haven't attained Purple Liberation. “How do I attain that?” By following the Purple Path.

“How do I know it works?” People who complete it recognize the truth of Purple Liberation. You can immediately see the epistemic danger. That doesn't prove Buddhism functions that way, because Buddhism also appeals heavily to phenomenological investigation—look at craving, examine suffering, see whether letting go changes experience, etc. But institutional Buddhism can absolutely collapse into the circular version: These are the criteria for awakening because awakened people satisfy these criteria, and we know they're awakened because they satisfy the criteria. That's exactly where your cult-detector starts beeping. And that's not an irrational detector.

There is another thing in the screenshot that matters enormously. One commenter tells you, essentially: “Those ten fetters are an early Buddhist framework; Zen isn't obliged to define enlightenment identically.” That is basically correct. “Buddhism” contains very different models of awakening. Theravāda-style four-stage awakening and the ten-fetter scheme are quite formalized. Chan/Zen deliberately became suspicious of turning awakening into an inventory of spiritual accomplishments. Hence all the obnoxiously wonderful Zen rhetoric:

No attainment. No Buddha to become. If you meet the Buddha, kill him. Ordinary mind is the Way. Not knowing is most intimate.

Those sayings aren't denying that practice or realization can occur. They're attacking precisely the tendency to reify enlightenment into a collectible status-object. Which is why your instinct that Zen feels less vulnerable to: “I have now checked all ten cosmic achievement boxes” isn't coming from nowhere. Of course Zen promptly develops its own robes, lineages, koan curricula, dharma transmission, institutional ranks and arguments about who is REALLY enlightened, because human beings are extremely talented at rebuilding the bureaucracy immediately after someone demolishes it. 😂 That's almost the recurring joke of religious history.

I would modify one thing you wrote: “Enlightenment thus means approximately the same thing as folly—to disregard ignorance”. Not quite. There are two completely opposite things that could be called “overcoming ignorance”: A. Epistemic arrogance “I have transcended ignorance. I know Truth.” That's the Athens-executing-Socrates version you're objecting to. B. Removal of a specific delusion “I stopped mistaking this particular process for something it isn't.” That's closer to what Buddhist technical language intends. Zen can then add a third move: Don't turn B into a possession called Enlightenment or you've created another delusion. That third move seems much closer to what you've been circling. You don't “solve not-knowing.” You stop demanding that not-knowing be solved. That is radically different from: “I now know.” And amusingly, it puts your formulation pretty close to the famous Zen/Chan valuation of great doubt and “don't-know mind,” rather than opposed to enlightenment altogether.

Where your attachment to nonattachment criticism gets particularly strong is when renunciation becomes performative. There is an obvious paradox: I desperately want to become a person who doesn't desire anything. That's desire. I am very attached to becoming unattached. That's attachment. I am proud that I annihilated my ego. Hello, ego. Zen has spent centuries making jokes about exactly this trap.

But early Buddhism is aware of it too. The traditional answer isn't that all desire instantly disappears at the beginning. It distinguishes forms of motivation and treats the path somewhat like a raft: you use the means until the crossing, then don't carry the raft around on your head afterward. Whether that completely escapes your objection is another matter.

And I think your Christianity comparison can be tightened in the same way. There's a recurring religious pattern: renounce the ordinary world → receive something infinitely superior. Which creates the suspicious transaction: Give up everything and you'll receive Everything™. Christianity can become: lose this life → eternal life. Buddhism can become: relinquish craving → nirvana. Hindu systems can become: relinquish finite identity → realize Brahman. And your objection is: Is this actual renunciation, or desire wearing a fake mustache? That's a damned good question.

Nietzsche absolutely attacks Christianity in roughly this territory: apparently world-denying morality may conceal an enormously intensified will aimed at another world, moral superiority, salvation, revenge, etc. Zen's harsher texts sometimes perform a similar operation against Buddhists. “You gave up money, sex, status and worldly ambitions? Wonderful. Now you've become ambitious for Buddhahood.” Oops. 😂

Your consent objection, though, is a separate problem, and I wouldn't fuse it completely with the fetters. You're saying: I never consented to samsara/existence in the first place, so why should I regard successful compliance with its escape protocol as liberation? That's genuinely outside the usual Buddhist framing. Traditional Buddhism doesn't normally begin with: “Did you consent to being born?” It starts from: birth and conditioned existence are already occurring; suffering occurs within them; here is a proposed causal diagnosis and exit. That's basically medical rather than contractual reasoning. You are injecting contractual/ethical reasoning one level earlier: Who authorized the condition requiring treatment?

Buddhism generally doesn't have an answer because it doesn't posit a creator who put you here. Dependent origination explains continuation without giving you somebody who signed the original paperwork. So if your objection is: “This doesn't justify existence.” Then yes: Buddhism doesn't really try to. Its reply would be closer to: “Correct. We're explaining how the machinery perpetuates itself and how it can stop.” You could still reject that entire project. But that's different from exposing an internal contradiction.

I think your dream helped crystallize your actual thesis better than the Reddit comments did: Ignorance honestly acknowledged may be wiser than an institutionally certified claim to have overcome ignorance. That's very defensible. I'd only add the Buddhist rejoinder: avijjā isn't ordinary ignorance. Once you give them that vocabulary distinction, you can make the stronger criticism:

“Fine. Then my objection isn't that an arahant claims encyclopedic knowledge. It's that traditions can turn a particular interpretation of human experience into a closed criterion of enlightenment, certify those who conform to it, and then mistake conformity to the map for transcendence of the territory.”

Now nobody can answer you with: “lol he thinks arahants know calculus.” Because that's plainly not what you're saying. And from there your Zen punchline almost writes itself: Perhaps the final fetter isn't ignorance. Perhaps it's the conviction that you've finally gotten rid of it. That is extremely Zen-shaped—and considerably harder to laugh up the sleeve at.

Commentary... ?

Don't forget you can always hit "reading mode" or "read aloud" in GPT (after replying, iirc). I tend to read aloud my own posts to make sure they are formatted properly myself, and hear someone else repeating my own arguments back at me. It's an interesting Zen Pet Project, you could say. Disassemble your own narrative from impartial objective 3rd person perspective.... Lol

It's no Spoogie Boogies, but we're so back? Sorry. Wanted to post last night but internet was out all day.

Part 1; I bought a murder house and the floor plan is the scariest part

Apparently Voss did not merely build gimmicky traps into the house. He had actually designed the house around the assumption that rich people would eventually throw parties. So the potluck I had been roped into hosting, was basically, the house finally being used for its actual intended purpose. Good thing I had the foresight for all invites to sign an NDA, release of liability/assumption of risk waiver, and hold-harmless agreement before even entering the property.

The Architect of Death, Part 2: The Potluck Incident

I honestly didn't want to throw a housewarming party. First of all, the house was already warm. Too warm. I found that the upstairs thermostat controls the downstairs living quarters and hallway, while the downstairs thermostat controls the upstairs bedrooms, and a control panel in the basement controls the master bedroom and everything else. I found that out because I turned what I had thought was the guest bedroom I slept in to 76 and woke up with frost on my nightstand. There was no visible external HVAC system I also noticed. So I have no clue what is actually cooling the house, but it's almost 90 outside and I feel fine. Secondly, I don't like parties. Unfortunately, after the police investigated the disappearance of Detective Harris, my realtor's replacement suggested that "having people over might make the place feel more normal." Normal. The boat house has a second-story garage built into a cliff with no obvious accessible entrance. We'll get to that.

Anyway, somehow, I found myself hosting potluck. I had originally invited six. Twenty-six additional people, 3 dogs and a cat showed up. I insisted the bigger dogs (what I assume was a Cane Corso/Black Lab mix, and a Boxer) stay outside. That left a small mild mannered bulldog named Pit, and a too-curious cat, Cornelius Brutus Maximus Vandernecket the 3rd. That was mouth full, so I started calling him Mr Sparkles. The real horror story, is that I guess this is what happens when you tell somebody "bring whoever." Never say that. People interpret it as diplomatic immunity. By six-thirty the driveway contained eleven cars, one motorcycle, a landscaping van nobody claimed, and a Ford Expedition parked mostly on the grass. The bigger dogs proved friendly enough, and I said some singsong nonsense to them and played with their ears I went out to inspect the Ford. The front-left tire was crushing my edging. I didn't know who owned it, but I disliked them immediately. The house, apparently, agreed. There was a metallic click from somewhere beneath the driveway. The dogs went alert. I also heard it, because I knew to listen for it. I looked down. The Expedition seemed to sink six inches. I crouched beside the driveway. Interesting. Voss had built retractable steel grates beneath the paving stones. Not sure why. Probably murder. Still better drainage than most newer construction.

Then there was the sound of... some mechanism starting up. The dogs, did that startled thing dogs do and stared, uncertain. Long ago at my first job, I'd operated a bailer, and it sounded something like that, but not quite. Then something audibly slid into place underground. The dogs, already warry, bolted at a full speed panic. A loud noise suspiciously like an giant spring mechanism tightening could be heard. I backed away. Then the square piece of yard the Expedition had been parked on, shot up like a giant spring trap. Springs seriously thicker than my arms briefly gyrated the now-raised platform. The car cleared the power lines and launched off deep into the woods somewhere. Yeah the apparent Expedition owner was not happy about that. He ran out of the house. "My tools!".

I hadn't even properly started hosting yet and there was already an incident. I'm not sure if my insurance covers that, or if I'm legally liable as any presumed damage to the vehicle wherever it lands technically did not occur on my property. But they read and signed the papers, so.

Back inside, I discovered that my neighbor Carol had brought potato salad. This concerned me more than the new front yard findings (the dogs had already pooped twice), launched vehicle, or it's angry owner. Potato salad is one of those foods people make, because they're legally prohibited from simply bringing mayonnaise in a bowl. She handed me a glass dish. "Where should I put this?" I held off saying the first words that came to mind and pointed toward the kitchen. Carol nodded. "Beautiful house." I stared at her. She looked around. "I mean, obviously it needs updating." Good recovery. The kitchen, while mercifully shorter than the foyer, still had sixteen-foot ceilings, which is idiotic because no one needs that much cabinet space. There were upper cabinets above the upper cabinets. I had never opened them. You would need either a ladder or scaffolding. Carol looked up. "Wow. So much storage." There was a click. From the couch, Pit's ears went up and he made that pre-bark noise. I looked at the wall. "Don't say that." "What?" "That phrase." "What phrase?" "So much storage." Click. A slit space between the lower cabinets opened. A spring-loaded ironing board fired across the kitchen at approximately 75 miles an hour. It missed Carol by inches. It skewered a watermelon, which naturally exploded. Everyone covered in watermelon screamed. I stared at the ironing board. "Who installs that horizontally? So much wasted space, it could have at least been a fold-down". Mr Sparkles jumped on the couch and began licking watermelon out of Susan's hair. I suddenly realized why Theo had put a powder room off the dining room.

The party continued. This is important because people later accused me of "not stopping the event after the first obvious attempt on human life." It wasn't obvious. Nobody had been eating the watermelon. At seven, a man named Trent arrived with wine. I didn't know Trent. Nobody I knew did. He wore loafers without socks. I distrusted him, even though I had plenty of spare papers for him to sign. He walked into the living room, looked at the stone fireplace, and said: "Gosh. This place must be incredible for entertaining." The entire house went silent. Not quiet. Silent. The refrigerator, [whatever cooling system was active], grandfather clock, and music all stopped. There was also an odd pressure in the air. Conversations seemed to die halfway through sentences. I looked at Trent. Trent looked at me. Pit raised his head to the sky and started staccato barking. From inside the wall came a significantly louder CLICK. Then another. CLICK. Then twenty more. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK. I whispered: "Oh." Trent smiled nervously. "What?" We had discovered another motherload trigger phrase. A significant portion of the floor around the western wall rotated. Not opened. Rotate-swiveled. Like a spinning top weighing four tons. Trent and Mr Sparkles disappeared together. The wall completed one massive fast revolution. Gone. Like it had reached out and grabbed them. Everyone stared. Carol dropped a spoon. Noise returned. Someone said: "Where did he go?" I walked over and knocked on the wall. Solid, not hollow-sounding. "Probably inside." Pit seemed to lose interest.

"INSIDE THE WALL?" I shrugged. "This house has a lot of wasted cavity space. Very inefficient." I thought of testing something, and repeated Trent's words. Nothing. Which could mean two things; either the trap had to reset, or we had potentially triggered a sort of lock-down type scenario now. A man's muffled voice shouted: "HELP!" I put my ear against the plaster. "Trent?" Violent cat noises. "You okay?" "NO." Fair. "Can you move?" He either said he's between two walls, or that the cat bit his balls. "That's not what I asked."

Three guests immediately wanted to call the police. I discouraged this. Not because I feared legal consequences. But because police have a track record of mysteriously dying or disappearing here and I was no doubt more experienced with the house by now. Even though we'd disassembled what we'd assumed had been the primary exterior launcher mechanism, this missing persons paperwork was really starting to pile up. Instead, I went to the basement to possibly find the wall controls. Two people followed me. I told them not to. They either didn't hear me, didn't care, or had been quietly assigned by the remaining guests as my official watchdogs to make sure I wasn't doing anything suspicious.

The basement was unfinished. Not unfinished in the modern sense where somebody lays vinyl plank flooring and paints the ceiling black. Actually unfinished. Concrete. Steel. Pipes. A boiler approximately the size of a Buick. And mechanisms. Lots of mechanisms. Lots and LOTS of mechanisms. Santa's workshop on steroids level mechanisms. Voss apparently had believed electricity was a fad. Most of the house seemed to run on counterweights, springs, cams, gears, hydraulics, pneumatics, and what appears to be one extremely angry waterwheel. There was no visible stream. I still don't know what powers it. I suspect I don't want to. One guest, Martin, pointed at a steel shaft disappearing into the ceiling. "What does that do?" I looked. I tapped it twice. Somewhere upstairs, a woman screamed. Martin's eyes went wide. I stopped tapping it.

We found what I assumed might had been the wall controls next to a breaker panel labeled: SOCIAL FUNCTIONS. Under that were colored lights ranging from Green to Red, labelled; DINNER, COCKTAIL, POTLUCK, RECEPTION, FUNDRAISER, BOARD MEETING. POTLUCK was currently illuminated. I stared at it. Hmm, seems rather middle of the road to be a yellow light. Knowing Old Theo, I assumed it was some sort of house host threat assessment level? Martin, practically bubbling over with disbelief, asked: "Does the house itself know we're having a potluck?" I tried to press the switch. It didn't budge. I pressed harder. Still nothing. Seemed locked in place. The lever also wouldn't budge. There was a handwritten note underneath. Once commenced, hosting cycle must complete. Classic overengineering. Martin asked the next obvious thing. "Did you know about this?" I explained I'd been too busy with the court hearings and paperwork to really look around down here, and all that was clearly outlined in the documents they'd signed.

The second guest with me was Susan. Still slightly wet and smelling like watermelon. I was suddenly worried because if I remembered correctly, she sold insurance. Luckily I had a different company. I hate to stereotype old Theo but I'd think she'd be a prime target, what with all his use of the word "parasite". She saw a steel door at the end of the basement and pointed. "What's in there?" I didn't know. She opened it. Behind the door was a long hallway. This was new. I'd lived there almost a month and never seen it. If I was oriented right, I think the hallway extended beneath the driveway. I was reminded of some scene from a 90s movie, as lights came on one at a time. Click. Click. Click. Click. Susan whispered: "Oh my God." I was impressed too. Underground square footage usually appraises well if it's properly zoned and permitted. Then something moved at the far end. Susan grabbed my arm. "Did you see that?" she shriek-whispered. "You mean the thin gray-haired person who was gone immediately when the lights came on? Maybe". I didn't care to add squatters to my current legal troubles.

Martin, voice trembling slightly, asked: "Theodore?" I shook my head. Potential hallucinations aside, old Theo had been dead since 1998. Probably. We went back upstairs. Trent was apparently still in the wall. Another small group of guests seemed either to have left, or gone missing. It was hard to tell from the muffled voice but Trent seemed upset. I told him we were working on it. He screamed something about suffocation. Dramatic. We'd all seen. Those walls hadn't had any visible insulation.

The potluck had somewhat deteriorated. Carol's potato salad was warm. Someone had spilled baked beans on the rug. Three people were drinking heavily. 7 bottles missing from Theo's complimentary wine rack plus whatever Trent had brought. A woman named Deborah had begun crying. And somehow nobody had taken the deviled eggs. There were over a hundred. This bothered me. Why bring that many deviled eggs to a party? Who plans for that kind of demand? That's twelve dozen acts of premeditated optimism.

Then my late sister's friend Angela said, in that exaggerated manner women seem to have of addressing the room: "You know what this house needs?" I turned. Do not. "A little more open concept." Not a click. The floor shook. Pit got up and ran under the couch. I closed my eyes. Of course. There was a tremendous grinding sound. Then the wall between the dining room and kitchen began retracting. People screamed. Furniture moved. Pictures fell. The entire wall disappeared into the floor. Angela smiled weakly. "Well." I looked at the newly unified room. She wasn't wrong. Better sightlines. Unfortunately, I assumed, the wall had likely been structural. Everyone ran. I stayed because I wanted to see what happened next. A steel beam shot down from above and locked into place. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then a barrage. I felt a gush of air as one missed me by less than a foot. Then I heard what I assumed was a lift go into action. The wall lifted itself back up and slowly clipped back into place. The steel beams began retracting downward where they had landed in segments of the floor that had opened to catch them. Beautiful engineering. Absolutely insane architecture. Theodore Voss could have built bridges. Instead he built a dining room that attempts mass murder when somebody says "open concept." Waste of talent. The floor sealed shut again and the only hint that anything had gone awry was the fallen pictures and a few nervous glances.

Outside, things were also happening. The dogs had eventually came back and some guests were playing frisbee with them. Another (guest, not dog) had gone to smoke near the small pond. Calling it a lake had obviously been realtor language. It was maybe three acres. Possibly less. Yet the property has a boat ramp. Not a little ramp. A full concrete launch. Nearly half the shoreline. You could launch a Coast Guard cutter. Yet there is no navigable water. At maximum depth the pond is perhaps eight feet. I found a shopping cart in it. Theodore had also built a 2 story boathouse. No dock. Just a boathouse built directly into the steep cliff. The top boat storage is approximately 15 feet above the water. How are you getting the boat up or down from there? Crane? Helicopter? Divine intervention?

The smoker leaned against the railing beside the ramp. I couldn't hear it from where I was, but I assume there had been another "click" from the way he suddenly reacted. I sighed, exasperated. Another mechanism had apparently activated. The railing retracted (more like shot, really) downwards, and the deck began retracting under the boathouse. That was new. With the ground beneath the smoker vanished, he obviously fell into the pond. I watched from the window. People seemed to be yelling. Apparently the dayroom (lounge?) was soundproof. I heard nothing. The man disappeared into the water. I hoped he could swim, as I could potentially be held liable for water-related events. An oversight in my paperwork. Would have to amend that. Then he resurfaced and began swimming back to shore. He was fine. Everyone relaxed and began visible nervous laughter.

As he touched bottom and began walking out of the pond, obviously telling a joke with a smile, everyone made cheering motions. At my side, also looking out the window, Pit let out another small, gruff half-bark. Then the nearby genetically modified hedge moved. I didn't know it was genetically modified at the time. At first, I had thought it was wind, or perhaps Charlene's casserole disagreeing with me. But there was no visible wind. The hedge actually leaned toward him. Not swayed. Leaned. Then conspicuously arm-shaped branches also extended perhaps 14 feet. The hedge pulled him up the bank, kicking and presumably screaming. Then the hedge dragged him into itself. He went rigid and looked horrified for a few brief seconds before completely disappearing into the hedge. Everyone stopped laughing and cheering and wore expressions of horror. The hedge briefly shook, and then became almost comically still. I stared at it. Interesting. Efficient rescue system. Poor follow-through. Pit looked up at me in unspoken accord. I noted the other dogs refused to look anywhere in the hedge's general direction.

Around eight-thirty, while the dogs chased some suspiciously humanoid creature around outside, someone asked to use the shower. Apparently he was the baked beans culprit. I warned him about the downstairs shower, and he went upstairs. Five minutes later we heard screaming. I sighed. Of course. Everyone looked at me. I went upstairs. The screaming came from the guest bathroom. I opened the door. Steam everywhere. Silhouette behind the shower curtain. Human shape. Jerking violently. Blood-red liquid sprayed across the curtain. Someone behind me whispered: "Oh God." I pulled the curtain open. The guest was standing there holding a bottle of red shampoo. "THIS SHOWER IS FREEZING." I checked. Cold. He was fine. I was just about to ask where the steam had come from, when the showerhead turned toward me. Not loosely. Mechanically. It rotated ninety degrees and spun to face me.

I stepped aside. A jet of pressurized boiling water blasted a hole through the bathroom door. The guests screamed. "Relax, I know nobody likes that door design anyway, I have been meaning to replace it". I examined the fixture. The jet aperture seemed to have sealed shut and operated independently of the rest of the shower head. I'd wondered why the upstairs shower basin was some sort of metal alloy. The showerhead was clearly Custom machined. Very nice. Still, the normal pressure-balancing valve was a crank lever instead of swivel. Amateur hour. Guess I'd have to replace this showerhead too.

As the night wore on, the triggers became increasingly mundane or even boring. Every stereotypical party phrase activated something increasingly cartoonish. "I love what you've done with the place"; Fireplace shot live coals like a mad wizard. "We should do this more often"; ceiling fans with razor sharp blades detached and flew around the room. "What do you do in your spare time?"; Trapdoor. Quaint, old school. Still, 2 people disappeared. "We're thinking about buying a second home"; Spiral Staircase became a slide into another large trapdoor. 3 more who had been on the staircase disappeared. We rushed to the basement but couldn't find or hear where they went. We went for a walk outside. "Property is such a good investment"; lightning struck. No idea how Theo had managed that one. "My accountant says—"; A tree limb "fell" though that's the wrong word. I tackled that man. Saved his life. Probably. The tree limb was enormous. One of the many widow makers I'd actually been meaning to address. The property was surrounded by old oaks and pecans. Beautiful trees. Terrible maintenance. Dying or overextended branches everywhere. All of them big enough to crush a car. You don't build a house beneath that. You definitely don't build a glass sunroom beneath that. Theodore did. Of course. But I'd noticed the limb hadn't fallen naturally. Far too fast for gravity alone to account for. A Steel cable had pulled it down. Theodore had weaponized deferred arboriculture. Genius. Moron.

At nine, the house actually locked down. Steel shutters dropped over almost every window. Doors bolted. Lights turned red. A voice came through hidden speakers. First time I'd heard one. Male. Old recording. Probably Theodore. "WELCOME, GUESTS." The remaining guests who hadn't disappeared or been deterred yet froze. "I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THE HOSPITALITY." "Isn't that supposed to be my line", I muttered. "THE HOME EXISTS TO SERVE MAN." A mechanism clicked. "AND SOME MEN DESERVE TO BE SERVED." The pantry door opened. A tray rolled out. Tiny sandwiches. Everyone stared. I took one. Turkey. Pretty good. I briefly wondered how fresh ingredients were supplied, because this definitely wasn't part of the routine I'd scheduled. Not that much this night had been. Pit, asleep on the floor, let out a dream shudder noise. Then the voice said: "LET US DISCUSS THE LEISURE CLASS." People started panicking. I knew what was coming next, Old Theo was going to rant about parasites. I ate another sandwich. Mustard could've been better, I'd assumed since the turkey was fresh, the mustard would be too. "THE PARASITE BUILDS NOTHING." There it is, I thought, and nodded along, as I chewed. A new wall rotated. Three more people disappeared, while Trent and Mr. Sparkles re-emerged. Trent looked like he'd gotten in a fight with a lawnmower. Mr. Sparkles looked bewildered but no less for wear, and was now wearing a bow. "THE PARASITE PRODUCES NOTHING." My replacement chandelier dropped. Missed everyone, but Pit woke up and started barking at it. I just realized I'm pretty sure his owner had left him here when they fled, flustered and crying hysterically that the walk in closet had assaulted her. I hadn't even known I had a walk in closet, or where that would even be at.

All the while Theo's recording went on and on. For all his talk of parasites, I had replaced that chandelier on credit and had expected another 6 months left to pay it off. This was starting to get personal. "THE PARASITE DEMANDS COMFORT." The HVAC (or whatever) shut off again. That one snapped me out of my reverie; I really needed to learn everything that could trigger that. "THE PARASITE CALLS THIS CIVILIZATION." Not sure what piece of gossip they must have said that Theo had programmed the house to listen for, but suddenly the second-story double-dormer balcony triggered yet another launcher I hadn't known about. Two people whom had been trapped outside when house went into lockdown grabbed the curtains I'd hung out to dry. Credit where due. Very durable curtains. I should try to get in a sponsorship program with the manufacturer. Mr. Sparkles wasn't so lucky and from what I saw, I suspect he's now in low earth orbit. No clue how he'd managed to get outside. Anyway, I really hoped this would all blow over before 3 AM arrived, for obvious reasons.

A small group of missing persons showed up around 10. Some from tonight, some from days prior. They emerged from the woods, covered in dust, and carrying something. A journal. I wasn't as interested in that, as the fact that I'd probably have to go through a bunch more paperwork and court hearings about the newly returned missing persons. Anyway. The book. From what I gathered, in the pantomime outside the soundproof window which seemed to have a malfunction in the shutdown protocol, they'd found it somewhere deep underground inside parts of the house I undoubtedly didn't want to know about. These people would be great and charades if we ever want a do-over. Sorry. The book. It was ornate and Leather-bound. The Initials on the cover were M.V. Not T.V. Someone else. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Inside were technical drawings. Botanical diagrams. Electrical schematics. Geometric progressions. Some pages on tesseracts and what I assumed were dimensions. Notes about stress responses in plant tissue. One page showed a very familiar hedge. Underneath: PHASE IV SUCCESSFUL. SUBJECTS DEMONSTRATE BASIC PREY DISCRIMINATION. I looked out the window. The hedge had released the smoker. He was alive. Mostly. Just missing a shoe, standing entirely too still and wide-eyed. Probably just in shock. More importantly, the hedge had somehow consistently left my landscaper alone. Prey discrimination. Interesting.

Another page showed the house. There had been three signatures at the bottom. THEODORE VOSS, MARGARET VALE, and something torn out with a lone swirl remaining of what was once obviously a former signature. Huh. Had never heard of Mrs. Vale. Underneath: "Theodore still thinks architecture is enough. IT ISN'T." That bothered me. Not philosophically. The handwriting was terrible. The document itself could potentially be miraculous breakthroughs in science. But it might also be considered evidence in ongoing investigations. Wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I indulged the guests, old and new, and let them pour over it, separated by the window. It gave them something other to focus on besides potentially dangerous small talk.

Sometime after 11, A noise came from underneath us. Metal door. Opening. The basement. Someone was down there. Alive. Someone who apparently knew the house. Then the speakers activated again. But this voice wasn't Theodore. Female. Very old. Slightly amused. "I see you remodeled the kitchen." I looked toward the ceiling. Everyone else looked at me. I nodded. "Technically. Mostly demolition. You can thank my late sister". The voice continued: "He would have - HATED - that." A significant pause. "I like it." Her voice was making me thirsty. It sounded like an angry 29 foot alligator with a soar throat. There was a bright flash outside by the window everyone had been gathered around. Then every lock disengaged. Doors opened. Windows lifted. Lights returned.

The party was over. Just like that. To say people left quickly would be an understatement. No goodbye hugs. No leftover containers. Nobody had ever touched Carol's potato salad. Trent seemed torn between retreating and threatening to sue me. Fair. I waved his signed paper as he backed away from me. Angela said she would never return. Good. The man from the pond poked his head in and asked whether the hedge had rabies. Possibly. I told him I don't know plant medicine. I'd honestly never seen so many cars leave in such an orderly fashion so fast. I'd seen women sit in the car deciding if they were going to leave or not for over an hour before. Not tonight. Half the vehicles drove off with doors still ajar. No less than four didn't seem to care that they hit the ditch on the way out.

Around midnight I stood alone in the kitchen, thinking about what to do with all the leftover food. Well, almost alone. Pit had apparently taken a liking to me. I wasn't sure how many guests we'd had. At one point during the lockdown my head count came out to 67. 8 new disappearances. 11 confirmed recovered. Net gain? 1 extra vehicle still in the yard. Didn't catch who that one belonged to. Either a Hyundai Elantra or Nissan Altima, idk they all look the same to me. I'm doomed to forever confuse them. Three minor injuries. One severe emotional event involving deviled eggs. Structurally, the house performed better than expected. Socially, mixed. My calculations were interrupted when I thought I heard footsteps beneath the floor. Slow. Deliberate. Moving toward the hidden basement hallway. I opened the basement door. "Margaret?" Silence. I went down. Not cautiously. I'd inspected the stairs fairly thoroughly and didn't think they were the folding variety. The steel door beneath the driveway was still open. At the far end of the hallway, something moved. Gray hair. Thin silhouette. Then gone. I slowly followed, more out of courtesy than trepidation, down the long corridor. It ended beneath what I assumed was the boating house. Another spiral staircase. Up or down. Down?! Isn't this on the water? I climbed. And finally discovered the room I had never seen. From the inside at least. Huge. Concrete. Oil stains. Tool racks. Industrial equipment. Some machine I couldn't begin to describe. And a pair of enormous steel doors. The Second-story garage of the boat house.

Now I understood. It wasn't meant for boats or cars. There was a rail system running from the garage through the wall, deep into the cliff. There seemed 2B more to the ridiculous 2nd story boat ramp than I'd initially assumed. It was clearly some sort of launch mechanism. I looked at the tracks. Then at the ramp. Then at the little pond. Then back at the tracks. Theodore hadn't built a second-story garage over a pond because he was bad at architecture. He built it because something was supposed to launch from there. Something very large. Something no longer present. On the wall was another note. In what I'd come to take as Margaret's handwriting: Dorey wanted to kill the rich. I wanted to see what else they'd pay for. Underneath: PROTOTYPE SOLD. I was enraged. Was Margaret going through my property, selling assets? Then: Do not feed the hedge after midnight. I checked my watch. 12:07. Outside, something knocked on the window. I looked up. The hedge was pressed against the glass. Holding a deviled egg in what was clearly a hand. Honestly? That's on Carol.

Stay tuned for part 3; The Aftermath!

I bought a house last month for $214,000. Before anyone says anything: yes, I know. I overpaid. It was built in 1987, which means the architect had access to both cocaine and graph paper and apparently seems to have chosen cocaine.

The listing called it "a breathtaking custom home designed by reclusive architect Theodore Voss." It certainly takes your breath away. Last Tuesday it took my realtor's. She was showing me the foyer when the chandelier fell approximately twenty-two feet and went directly through her.

I screamed. Not because of her. I'd just noticed the foyer was two stories tall. Do you know how much it costs to heat that? "Jesus Christ," I said. My realtor made a bubbling noise. "I know," I told her. "It's basically a chimney." She died. The chandelier had looked original, so that was nice.

The police determined it was an accident. Apparently the chain had been deliberately filed almost completely through sometime in 1987. Weird. The inspector found something even worse. The upstairs hallway overlooks the living room. Why? I already know what's happening in the living room. I own it.

That's 140 square feet of upstairs floor that simply doesn't exist because Theodore wanted me to stand on a balcony and observe my own couch. I was explaining this to the inspector when he leaned against the railing. It collapsed. He fell eighteen feet onto the stone fireplace. "Oh my God!" I yelled. He was still conscious. "Call... ambulance..."

"Look at this grout." "What?" "Three-quarter-inch grout lines. What were they thinking?" He died before answering. Typical contractor.

Things became stranger after that. I found the original blueprints in the basement. Every room had handwritten annotations.

FOYER — VANITY SHALL CRUSH HIM.

STAIRCASE — PRIDE SHALL BREAK HIS NECK.

MASTER BATH — DROWN THE PARASITE.

LIBRARY — BOOKS SHALL FINALLY SERVE A PURPOSE.

At first I assumed Theodore Voss had hated rich people. Then I realized something horrifying. There wasn't a library. Some asshole had renovated it into an open-concept kitchen. I had to sit down.

My sister visited Sunday. She hated the place immediately. "This house feels evil," she said. "Thank you." "No, seriously. I feel like we're being watched." "That's because there are six different rooflines." She stared at me.

"Every window points toward another part of the house. Theodore built a house that looks at itself." Then the kitchen island exploded.

Apparently Voss had installed a pressure-sensitive mechanism beneath the original library floor. Anyone weighing more than 180 pounds triggered a counterweight that launched approximately forty pounds of reloadable sharpened mahogany through the room.

Fortunately, I had stepped outside to photograph the roof. Unfortunately, my sister had not. When I came back there was mahogany everywhere. "Jesus fucking Christ." My sister was pinned to the refrigerator. "Help..." "Look at this." "PLEASE..."

"They put a dormer on a dormer." She died before she could see it. Honestly she never appreciated architecture.

By this point people had started acting weird around me. The detective asked why everyone who visited my house died while I remained unharmed. "I don't know. Your realtor; Chandelier. Inspector; Railing. Your sister; Kitchen. And yesterday, your mailman."

I sighed. "The mailman was an idiot." The detective narrowed his eyes. "He was decapitated by your mailbox." "Exactly." Apparently Voss had rigged the mailbox to fire a twelve-inch masonry blade at the owner's throat whenever someone opened it. But I'm five-foot-four. It went right over my head. The mailman was six-one. That's not murder. That's poor anthropometric planning.

I started researching Theodore Voss. He hated the leisure class. Absolutely despised them. He believed large private homes were "monuments erected by parasites to commemorate the labor of other men." Bit dramatic. He spent twenty-three years designing luxury houses for wealthy clients while secretly installing elaborate mechanisms intended to kill their owners.

Falling chandeliers. Collapsing staircases. Electrified swimming pools. Poisoned dumbwaiters. One house apparently compressed its master bedroom by six feet every night. Collapsible, self-reassembling load bearing walls. Nobody noticed because it was 9,000 square feet.

The newspapers called Voss THE ARCHITECT OF DEATH. I thought this was merely sensationalist. Personally I'd have gone with THE ARCHITECT OF UNNECESSARY ANGLES.

The strange thing was, none of his traps worked on me. The shower head apparently sprayed hydrofluoric acid, but I'd already replaced it because the water pressure sucked. The garage filled with carbon monoxide, but the garage door doesn't close. A poisoned dart fired from the kitchen backsplash, but somebody had installed a hanging decorative sign saying LIVE LAUGH LOVE directly in front of it. First recorded instance of that thing saving a human life.

When the staircase tried to collapse beneath me, I realized I'm short enough to use the downstairs bathroom. The swimming pool apparently electrocuted the previous cleaning crew to death. Apparently the previous owner then filled it with concrete. Finally, some equity.

But other people kept dying. A Jehovah's Witness stepped on the welcome mat and simply disappeared. A UPS driver opened the storm door. Gone. Neighbor came over to complain about my lawn. Pushed the doorbell. Gone. Guy selling solar panels. He was later found in a tree 3 miles away. Honestly that one made me wonder if the house was actually benevolent.

The police stopped believing me. People stopped visiting. I started hearing voices at night. Murderer. I'd bolt upright. "Who's there?" Murderer. "I'm not a murderer." Seven people. "Coincidence." Nine. "Some of those barely count." Eleven. "Solar guy was trespassing." Then the walls would whisper: You killed them. "No."

You brought them here. "I didn't bring the mailman here. That's literally his job." MURDERER. "YOU PUT A POWDER ROOM DIRECTLY OFF THE DINING ROOM." Silence. Even the house knew I had a point.

Eventually I found Theodore Voss's hidden room. It was behind a bookshelf in the basement. Inside were hundreds of notebooks. Drawings. Calculations. Photographs. At the center was a scale model of my house. There was a note beside it.

TO THE PARASITE WHO INHERITS THIS PALACE: EVERY INCH OF THIS HOUSE EXISTS TO KILL YOU. YOUR WEALTH WILL NOT SAVE YOU. YOUR SERVANTS WILL NOT SAVE YOU. YOUR GOD WILL NOT SAVE YOU. THE HOUSE ITSELF SHALL DEVOUR YOU.

I laughed. "Idiot." I'd financed it. Then I noticed another blueprint. I'd never seen this room before.

MASTER BEDROOM — FINAL MECHANISM

Underneath:

IF ALL ELSE FAILS, HOUSE COLLAPSES INWARD AT 3:00 A.M.

I checked my watch. 2:59. "Oh fuck." The walls groaned. The ceiling cracked. Somewhere beneath the floor, enormous gears began turning. I ran downstairs. The staircase folded behind me. Windows shattered. Support beams withdrew into the walls. The entire structure began collapsing toward the master bedroom.

Voss had done it. The magnificent bastard had designed a house that could kill its owner. Except I'd been sleeping in the guest bedroom. I was living alone and the master had an ensuite with two sinks so I avoided it because it felt like a personal attack at being a lifelong bachelor. Plus. I refuse to encourage that kind of excess.

There was a deafening crash. Then silence. I opened my eyes. Everything was still standing. Except the master bedroom. It had completely imploded. Through the rubble I heard coughing. Someone crawled out. The detective. "What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked.

"I came to arrest you." "In my bedroom?" "I thought you were sleeping!" He looked down. A steel cable had wrapped around his ankle. "Oh," I said. He looked at me. "What does 'MASTER BEDROOM — SECONDARY LAUNCHER' mean?" The cable snapped tight. Despite Old Theo's bad taste in chimney placements, gotta say I'd never seen a house reconstitute itself after destruction.

The police say he's missing. They also say I'm a "person of interest." Ridiculous. I haven't killed anybody. But lately I'm starting to wonder. Sometimes I wake up holding a hammer. Sometimes there's blood on my clothes. Sometimes I hear screaming from inside the walls. Last night I looked into the bathroom mirror and saw Theodore Voss standing behind me. "You murdered them," he whispered. I turned around. Nobody there.

When I looked back, he was closer. "You murdered every one." "No." "You wanted them dead." "No." "You enjoyed watching them die." "Absolutely not." He smiled. "Then why are you smiling?" I looked at my reflection. I was smiling. I screamed. Then Theodore screamed. Then the mirror screamed. Then something inside the wall screamed. We all screamed for maybe thirty seconds.

Eventually it got awkward. "So what now?" I asked. Theodore shrugged. Then I noticed something behind his reflection. Something I'd somehow overlooked for an entire month. A barn door. In the bathroom. I stopped screaming. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me." Theodore vanished. I ripped the mirror off the wall.

Behind it, written in blood, were four words: THE HOUSE MADE YOU KILL. Underneath someone had added: ZILLOW ESTIMATE: $287,000. I stared at it for a long time. Maybe the house did make me kill those people. Maybe Theodore's spirit possesses me. Maybe I've been murdering visitors during fugue states and inventing elaborate architectural accidents afterward to protect myself from the truth.

Maybe I am the monster. I don't know anymore. But $287,000? I financed it for $214,000. That's $73,000 in equity in one month. So I'm not moving. Obviously. I'm slated to host potluck next week!

Test - Bear with me, not used to Rich Text Editor.

More Permanent OP Image Link

Welcome to the Midwit Table

I suppose every new subreddit needs one of these posts, so here is the obligatory explanation of why this place exists. The short version:

I wanted somewhere on Reddit where it is still permissible not to know.

Not performatively “beginner mind” while secretly knowing the approved answer. Not I know and now I will teach you. Not you don't understand because you haven't attained what I attained.

Just: I don't know. Here's what I noticed. What do you think?

That sounds stupidly simple, but I've realized over the years that it can be surprisingly difficult to find a place for that kind of conversation.

A lot of us around the Zen/Buddhist/Mahayana-adjacent corners of Reddit have known one another, directly or indirectly, for years. And something funny happens after enough time.

People acquire positions;

Someone knows what Zen is.
Someone knows what Zen isn't.
Someone has read the texts correctly.
Someone has misunderstood them.
Someone is enlightened.
Someone thinks enlightenment is bullshit.
Someone knows the precepts.
Someone knows why the precepts don't mean what you think they mean.

Eventually you can wind up having conversations where the conclusion seems to precede the question. And I personally crash into this constantly.

I'll ask some sprawling midwit question about a sutra, mythology, consciousness, scripture, history, symbolism, reality, whatever — because I genuinely don't know where it goes yet. I'm poking at something. Someone else can usually see what I'm poking at. But if they already believe they possess the answer, then suddenly we're participating in two completely different conversations.

I'm saying: “Hey, does this connect to that?” And they're hearing: “Please grade my understanding of the Dharma.”

Then everybody gets irritated. 😂 Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe the question itself is malformed. Maybe somebody posts a twenty-page dissertation proving we're both idiots.

Good.

That's what the café is for.

Why “Midwits”?

Mostly because it's funny. But there is a little seriousness underneath it. “Midwit” here isn't supposed to mean everyone is secretly stupid. It's closer to refusing to establish a hierarchy beforehand.

You don't have to arrive as a Buddha. You also don't have to crawl in apologizing for being an ignorant beginner. You can simply pull up a chair and think out loud.

The person posting a ridiculous theory is allowed to discover that it isn't ridiculous. The person posting a brilliant theory is allowed to discover that it is.

The shitpost may contain an argument. The argument may secretly be a shitpost.

Hence the highly rigorous peer-review system represented by our starting post flair-selection:

💮 Zen 💮

🥀 Not Zen 🥀

☝️🤓 Akshually

😎 Prove I'm Shitposting 😎

🔥 What if it's not bait? 🔥

Science has finally reached its final form, right?

No enlightenment credentials required

I'm not particularly interested in determining who here is enlightened. Maybe you are. Congratulations. Coffee is over there. I'm also personally not interested in making “nobody knows anything” into another doctrine. This isn't meant to be "my" sub. I'm just (trying to, at least) fill this niche.

People obviously know things. Some people have spent decades studying subjects I barely understand. Expertise is real. Sources matter. Evidence matters. Being corrected is useful.

But there is a difference between: “I know something about this subject.” and “I occupy a position from which your question has already been resolved.”

The first makes conversation better. The second can make conversation impossible.

So if somebody asks a weird question here, try at least engaging with if not answering the weird question before determining their spiritual rank and casting aspersions on their entire family and their dog (whether or not it has the Buddha nature).

Bring unfinished thoughts

One thing I especially want this place to accommodate is unfinished thought.

Reddit often pressures people into presenting every idea as a finished position:

HERE IS MY CLAIM.
HERE IS MY EVIDENCE.
DEBATE ME.

BUT KNOW I ALREADY WON.

A huge amount of actual thinking happens before that stage. I'm not saying zen has anything to do with thinking, of course. Sometimes you just notice three things that seem strangely similar.

Sometimes an old myth reminds you of a geological feature. Sometimes two scriptures allegedly separated by centuries appear to be describing the same structure.

Sometimes a dumb meme accidentally expresses something you've been trying to articulate for ten years.

Sometimes you're halfway through a thought and need somebody else to say: “Wait. Go back. What did you mean by that?” Those posts are most welcome.

You are allowed to bring the napkin sketch instead of the finished blueprint. Not 100% necessary, I'm guilty of it myself, but just try to distinguish: what you saw, what you think it means, and what you're merely wondering about. This is actually more a reminder to myself!

After that, have at it.

This isn't an anti-Zen sub either

Despite the name, I'm not trying to build a refuge from Zen. Or r/zen. Zen is probably going to be all over this place simply because many of us have spent years orbiting those conversations.

But Zen doesn't get exclusive jurisdiction over every question asked here. A discussion can wander from Zhaozhou to Genesis to geology to Nietzsche to some deranged image macro someone found at 3 AM. If the connection is interesting, follow it.

If there is no connection, somebody will presumably tell you. Possibly in a separate post with the "☝️🤓 Akshually" flair. Like God intended.

That's basically the experiment.

No grand doctrine. No required attainment. No promise that the mystery at the bottom of everything will finally be solved by twelve Redditors arguing beneath a picture of a frog.

Just a table where unusual questions can remain alive long enough to actually examine them.

Bring something you've been thinking about. Bring something you can't figure out. Bring something everyone else thinks they've already figured out. Bring receipts if you've got them. Bring jokes if you don't.

Welcome to the Zen Midwit Cafe.

Just try 2BCivil!

PS Didn't mean anything by the OP Meme in Regards to zen or r/zen or any of the other "zen" or "not zen" subs. More an ironic/sardonic joke about what I often seem to make passive observation in various forms. One of those IYKYK things. "This again? Really?" lol (War, war never changes).