In intellectual terms, I cannot grasp the implementation of Buddhist philosophy to motivation.
What is wrong with the claim that successful practice would ultimately lead to being a vegetable?
Poof, you're a vegetable.
Depends what type.
Carrot.
means ultimately lead you to just sit in a puddle of your own urine and feces and die.
Well, the Buddha almost did just that, didn't he?
Not the urine and feces part.
The Buddha was ready to just pass away.
I mean, the first point, I think, is that not everything comes from karmic volition.
When you let go, you don't stop acting like a human being.
You are a human being.
I always like to refer to quantum physics because it's just so Western.
And a lot of these questions are just so Western.
And maybe even not quantum physics.
Let's just think of a theory of reality where it's mostly physical and where the mind has a very limited potential to interact with the
the reality.
It does have an ability to interact and change, but not ultimate free will in the sense of saying, poof, you're a vegetable or so.
And so even when the mind stops actively changing, even if the mind were to stop actively changing the physical reality,
much of it would still continue.
So there would still be lots of walking and lots of even talking, for example.
There would still be the ordinary activities that were habitual and appropriate at the time.
See, the thing is, an enlightened being doesn't stop acting, doesn't stop thinking, doesn't even necessarily stop acting mentally.
They don't stop acting mentally in terms of changing the physical reality, but they stop
trying to or they stop they stop forcing it they stop creating volitional tendencies like desires they can still have intention the intention to do this the intention to do that because that's all you could say habitual but I think better is it's appropriate
An arahant, an enlightened being, is someone who does things that are appropriate.
The key here, I think, is you're in intellectual terms, because you're thinking in intellectual terms.
And it's not intellectual.
It's real.
It just happens.
You let go, and you're free.
When you use terms like motivation and vegetable, Buddhist philosophy, you're creating empathy.
Motivation, you're creating this idea of being motivated and it creates dichotomies or trichotomies.
It sets you up for either this or that, either motivated or not, either successful or not, and so on.
Which is really not the case.
A person who sees clearly, let's go, and when they let go, they're free.
that has nothing to do with whether or not they do this or do that and in fact they can be highly motivated people to an extent or something akin to motivation I would say dedicated and energetic people because they have these qualities in their mind not because they want them to be there or because they need them or they actively seek them out but because it's appropriate, it's proper, it's natural
really Buddhism is about coming back to nature, which in Arahant you could say is the most natural human being or being.