Are you someone who gets frustrated easily? Are you competitive? Are you honest? Are you openminded? Do you get stressed easily?
At some point we have been called to answer questions such as these. It can be tempting to answer with bias, to answer not what we are, but what we would like to be.
It's not an obvious error. If I want to come across as a chill guy and something intense happens, I will actively suppress my frustration. Does it not count if I am successful at suppressing consistently? I think it is a reasonable argument that it counts, so much more if we consider there is someone out there who can't control their temper however hard they try.
Here's a fierce question: how can we actually do it? How can one change their easily-frustrated internal world, even if they can hide it, to be a source of automatic equanimity? Another question: is it even possible?
Welcome to Buddhism. A collection of techniques to intentionally and meaningfully change oneself (among other definitions).
Through this lens, Buddhism is quite unique. Few other philosophies outline a practical path with such properties. Buddhism says: follow these straightforward and practical instructions and you will internally and automatically feel more equanimous and less stressed, more compassionate and less selfish, more joyful and less gloomy, more alive and less numb.
So, this is firstly about one's internal world. And this internal world will reflect in the external outside world as well. A compassionate and calm person's actions ripple out and consciously and subconsciously encourage compassion and calm to all the people they interact with.
Do you see where this is going? This is the vision: an enlightened society which converges towards these specific universal values: equanimity, compassion, clarity of mind, minimisation of suffering. Let's do this in life.
I should be clear here: I do not make a claim of an objective morality. I declare axioms: I desire these values because I value them in themselves. Not everybody has to value them. But if one does, Buddhism is one way to achieve them. There can be others.
Buddhists historically pride themselves on being scientific. Modern science can debate the claim but the Buddhist argument is compelling: do not blindly accept these claims; follow the instructions and see for yourself.
Different branches of Buddhism have different instructions. No killing, no stealing, no lying are universal across branches. Meditation is a principal practice in many, especially in Zen and Theravada, the two most prominent branches of Buddhism we have in the West.
Meditation is but a tool. Different meditation techniques lead to different outcomes, with significant differences between them. What I find most fascinating is the collection of frameworks and concepts for understanding our mind.
Explore dependent origination to get started. Challenge your favourite LLM on the 12-link chain. Say "this makes no sense, what does volitional formation even mean?". Then say "how could this ever lead to consciousness?". Now read. The instructions to practice Buddhism can be simple but the explanations have a lot of depth.
So, this is Buddhism. It’s supposed to be useful. I only care about it if it's useful. It doesn't resonate with everyone. I think it’s a pretty advanced mind technology.