March 7 2026

VINEETO: Well, if pride is the source of your ‘blithesomeness’ then with this motivation only actualism is not for you – the actualism method is designed to diminish all ‘good’ and bad feelings in order to experience the felicitous and innocuous feelings. Pride is a ‘good’ feeling, whilst hurt pride or unfulfilled pride leads to feeling bad.

JON: Noted.

VINEETO: It is interesting that even your terse answer points to your modus operandi, your technique – and I didn’t need to look far where this “noted” originates from –

JONATHAN: From what I can recall, Richard’s view of the buddha is not in the mainstream. As I understand it, the view that Gautama believed in a universal self is held by a significant minority of scholars. But the mainstream believes that Gautama and the bhagavad gita were on to two different points of views. Because Richard is with the minority, he doesn’t speak of emptiness ever. (I found a definition of it in the AFT and I found a page referencing Zen but I haven’t found anything on emptiness as the pragmatic dharma crowd speaks of it.) My question is. Is emptiness as the dho and kfd folks talk of it a feeling? When those folks speak of emptiness and r. speaks of Being with a captial B, are they talking of the same thing? (Message 162xx, 19 Jan 2014, Subject: Emptiness)

Richard then went into great detail to explain to you the difference between the “‘Noting/ Mahasi Style’/ ‘Goenka Vipassana’” practiced by the Affers in DhO and an actual freedom from the human condition –

RICHARD: (…)

Fifth, the reason why you did not find anything in my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website on [quote] ‘emptiness as the pragmatic dharma crowd speaks of it’ [endquote] is because what they speak of is the result of the presently-popular but controversial sukkhavipassaka practice (what is known colloquially as the ‘Dry Burmese Vipassana’, as in ‘Noting/ Mahasi Style’ and ‘Goenka Vipassana’, for instance) and which is more akin to the much-diluted modern-day ‘Neo-Advaita’ form of secularised/ westernised nondualism than anything else.

I have written about my degree of interest in that practice on this very forum.

Viz. (emphasis in the original):

#12054
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:47:49 -0000
From: Richard
Subject: Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism

• [Richard]: [...snip...].
• [Respondent No. 32]:  This is why I wish there can be a direct dialogue between you and some of the accomplished Buddhist teachers..
• [Richard]: I have no interest whatsoever in a dialogue with accomplished *sectarian* Buddhist teachers – and especially not any such teachers of sukkhavipassaka – as the buddhaghosavacana [‘the word/ teaching of Buddhaghosa’] is too far removed from the buddhavacana [‘the word/ teaching of Buddha’] for any meaningful discussion. [...]. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 21 December 2012).

To explain: that sectarian ‘ditthi’/ ‘drsti’ (i.e., ‘wrong view; theory, doctrine, system’) already mentioned – institutionalised by all those unawakened/ unenlightened practitioners, commentators, translators, scholars/ pundits, and so on, as the anatta/ anatma doctrine – has reified (reify = ‘to consider an abstract concept to be real’) and/or hypostatised (hypostatise = ‘to construe as a real existence, of a conceptual entity’) an otherwise simple expression which essentially means what the English word devoid conveys (devoid = without, sans, free from, completely lacking or wanting in, bereft of, empty of, deficient in, denuded of, barren of; destitute or void of) into being an (affectively) subjective ‘thing-in-itself’, so to speak, as in some kind of a metaphysical ‘emptiness’ and/or a timeless-spaceless-formless ‘void’ beyond all reckoning.

*

Having attended to all the points in your preamble your question can now be addressed as-is. (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 25 January 2014)

*

VINEETO: (...) actualism is not for you (...)

JON: Noted.

VINEETO: Your ‘noting’ has left out my explanation for the reason why actualism is not for you, so I will expand in a summary of our conversation for your further understanding –

Last week you were suggesting one should accept “shit like this”, “an unacceptable world as it is …” because that is your quick-and-dirty ‘noting’ summary of Richard’s suggestion to put things on an ‘it-doesn’t-really-matter’ basis. When I presented Richard’s exact quote you asked me –

Jon: How is that not close to what I said? It is better though. It would be beneficial to go and search what he exactly said. thank you.

Also, you informed me that you were contemplating to “cultivate a sense of being behooved to be happy and harmless for myself and to show to others that it’s possible then I think that’s a good life goal” because –

Jon: A problem is real-life goals and values. I was thinking that maybe if I changed those goals and values than I’d have more success. Valuing happy and harmlessness as a virtue to be proud of might help. 

(…)

I feel a renewal lately. At 48, I am experiencing a mid-life crisis. It is too late for me to be a family man and a successful professional or businessman. It seems taking pride in always being mirthful and never feeling pressured takes the sting away from missing out on having kids and not having a big network of friends or enough luxury money to travel on the drop of a dime or just completely retire right now if I wanted. Without that sting, which can cause some gloominess, it is easier to feel blithesome.

It seems to me that those lengthy explanatory correspondences with Richard in 2013 and 2014 have had no lasting impact – perhaps they went right over your head. You still value pride – “taking pride in always being mirthful” – and say that your aim is to gain “a virtue to be proud of”, and wonder if actualism can assist you in cultivating this virtue. Here is a definitions of what are considered the highest of all virtues –

Richard: • [quote]: ‘Brahmavihara’ (Sanskrit: ‘living in the Brahman-Heaven’), in Buddhist philosophy, the four noble practices of mental development through which men can attain subsequent rebirth in the Brahman Heaven. These four practices are: (1) perfect virtue of sympathy, which gives happiness to living beings (Sanskrit: maitri; Pali: metta); (2) perfect virtue of compassion, which removes pain from living beings (karuna); out of karuna the bodhisattva postpones entrance into Nirvana to work for the salvation of others; (3) perfect virtue of joy, the enjoyment of the sight of others who have attained happiness (mudita); (4) perfect virtue of equanimity, being free from attachment to everything and being indifferent to living beings (Sanskrit: upeksa; Pali: upekkha). These are also called the four Apramanas (infinite feelings), since these four practices give happiness to infinite living beings’. [Emphasis added]. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
(Richard, List B, No. 10b, 14 October 1999).

In short, your stated goal is a typical ‘self’-enhancing goal of being blithesome in order to be proud, and proud in order to be blithesome. Isn’t this the same as what the Affers did in 2010, bastardising some of the actualism techniques into gaining prestige amongst their peers? (see Latest Public Announcement, Addendum6)

Should your interest in life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, ever expands into a persistent and vital interest in being happy and harmless because it makes sense to you to do that, let me know. Or, in short, for your convenience –

Richard:• (Distilled précis for No. 25: Peace-on-earth is nice). (Richard, List B, No. 25, 29 May 1999).

Needless to say this would entail fully abandoning the Mahasi-style Affer-method of ‘noting’ and turning around 180 degrees (see Richard, List D, Claudiu, 7 February 2012).

It is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Jonathan, 7 March 2026).