This kind of framing sounds nice but ultimately functions to obscure the fact that certain actors are more responsible for those shifts and to shut down conversations about what to do about it.
To draw an analogy, it’s like when Exxon took out those “We all need to do our part for the climate” ads to shift the conversation towards consumer responsibility and away from corporate responsibility.
This kind of “aren’t we are all implicated” (Abrahamic, liberal guilt complex) serves merely to paralyze and prevent action. To “both sides” in a case of a power imbalance is to take the side of the powerful. And here, with billions of dollars pouring into AI investments, it’s quite clear which side power and capital is on!
Thank you for your feedback: these are interesting points. I’m of course not arguing for diluted responsibility or that “everyone is equally to blame.” I’m making a more basic claim about moral posture. The op speaks from a position that implicitly places the critic above the conditions being judged, as if observing corruption from a place of purity.
Ironically that stance resembles the very thing you are rejecting: a quasi-Abrahamic image of an unconditioned observer standing outside the world. From a Dhamma perspective, my understanding is that there is no such vantage point. Critique does not require transcendence from conditions, only clear seeing within them.
Naming power, capital, and harm is definitely necessary. But imagining ourselves as morally unconditioned judges is not, and that illusion was precisely what I’m questioning.
Thanks again for this exchange that I have appreciated
No, I am not questioning Bhante’s personal purity or intentions. My point is about the conceptual framing: even well-intentioned critique can adopt a “pure vs corrupt”, “us vs them” stance, as in the Pharisees. From a Dhamma perspective, my understanding is that this framing is misleading because it obscures dependent origination and risks creating an illusory moral separation between critic and conditions, rather than promoting clear insight.
Yes, in Buddhist morality we generally try not to essentialize “those people over there are evil.” Rather, we are phenomenologists: we focus on judging actions and patterns as being beneficial or harmful, skillful or unskillful.
Rereading Bhante’s OP above, I don’t see it as engaging in that kind of essentializing, does it? It seems quite careful to call out specific statements and actions for censure.
No. The notion of good and evil, pure and impure, beneficial and unbeneficial etc. are core patterns we see in the Dhamma. As you explore the suttas you will begin to see it everywhere.
That said, non-enlightened beings can only attempt to determine when a thing or person is good or evil based on the guidance in the suttas and our own powers of investigations. This is why the Buddha teaches to be discerning about people while not openly judging them. If someone is bad news we should stay away. But we don’t need to stand on the street corner proclaiming their qualities unless it is necessary and beneficial to do so. And in the current situation, it really is necessary to point out what is going on.
The Buddha never avoided classifying things just because they are ultimately dependently arisen. Neither should we. But we should be careful.
Thank you for your responses. I appreciate your time and effort to clarify the issue and I am learning a lot in this discussion.
First of all I completely agree that discernment and classification of wholesome/unwholesome, beneficial/unbeneficial, or good/evil are important in the Dhamma, and that non-enlightened beings must rely on the suttas and careful observation.
My point is not to deny these distinctions or the necessity of caution in practice. Rather, it was about the posture from which critique is made. For example, in the OP the author frames human creativity as “pure” and AI-mediated work as “corrupt,” implicitly positioning himself as morally and creatively outside the system he critiques. Even if well-intentioned, I thought that this can subtly reinforce conceit and obscure dependent origination, since creativity never happens in a vacuum and always arises conditioned by tools, tradition, environment and effort.
My suggestion was that pointing out harm or misuse can be done clearly and skillfully while maintaining awareness of our own entanglement in the same conditions. This preserves insight and effectiveness, without needing to adopt a stance of moral exemption.
That’s not true, is it? (That’s a genuine question btw)
I haven’t read the entire other thread, but I just read the OP that you referenced. What it says is that there is a moment in human creativity that is pure (the blank canvas)…
But that moment is now lost, as is the (human creative) struggle to resolve it (if we use AI)…
And that creative struggle is worthwhile for humans, because…
The OP (in the other thread) seems to be about AI undermining human creativity by removing the struggle that we creatives encounter with the ‘blank canvas’. It is not suggesting that the creatives mind, or canvas, or tools of creativity are free from conditions. That would be a bizarre interpretation.
And as an aside, you suggest:
I couldn’t find the word “corrupt”, used in the OP (of the other thread) at all, so I’m not sure where you got that from?
I’ve received a message raising concerns about possible derailing, so I’ll reply briefly out of politeness, but I won’t continue further on this topic since it’s been noted to me that it may no longer be appropriate.
I agree that the OP does not explicitly claim that the creative mind or tools are free from conditions, and you’re right that words like “corrupt” are not used verbatim. My point was about implicit framing, not literal wording. The contrast between a “pure” moment (blank canvas, silence, openness) and a later technological mediation still sets up a symbolic opposition between an unconditioned, authentic origin and a degraded or lost process.
From a Dhamma-informed perspective, that framing is what I find problematic. The “blank canvas” itself is already conditioned by training, culture, memory, desire etc. The struggle with it is not outside conditions, nor more essentially “human” in any absolute sense; it is simply one configuration of conditions among others. When we single out one moment as especially pure or privileged, we risk reifying it and obscuring dependent origination.
So my concern isn’t that the OP denies conditions, but that it subtly elevates one conditioned process as normatively superior while positioning critique from a stance that feels outside the system being analyzed. That kind of framing, however unintentionally, can slide into a moralized inside/outside distinction, which is what I was trying to point to, with my reference to the Pharisees.
In short: I’m not disputing the value of creative struggle. I’m questioning whether describing it in terms of lost “purity” is the clearest or most Dhamma-consistent way to analyze what AI changes.
For any further discussion please feel free to DM me as I have been told that some of my posts are derailing the conversation so I will be posting much less in future.
It’s strange because I read the OP (from the other thread) in a completely different way. Maybe it’s because of our different backgrounds. Here’s my understanding.
I would suggest that more often than not, when someone uses the concept of ‘pure’, they are using this idea in a conventional way such as pure water, or a pure note which is sung. These things are of course completely conditioned.
Having said that, we do have this idea of ‘pure’ as a synonym for the unconditioned in the EBTs (see sn43.12-43 for synonyms).
But elsewhere we see the concept of pure used in a completely conventional way too. For example, in Iti 21 we see:
If that individual
were to die at this time,
they’d be reborn in heaven,
for their mind is pure.
If their mind had attained to the unconditioned, then that individual would not be reborn.
Another example would be DN 2 which I know that you have been reading—DN 2:40.3
And he reveals a spiritual practice that’s entirely full and pure.
The spiritual path in Early Buddhism is not the unconditioned, it is conditioned—the destination is unconditioned, not the path leading to it.
From a Dhamma-informed perspective, the framing by Bhante seems to be spot on for me. ‘Purity’ does not necessarily imply unconditional. Indeed if is much more likely to be used to imply a particular configuration of conditions.
And that’s exactly what Bhante suggests about the ‘moment’ where:
The page is blank. The canvas is clean. The air is silent.
He says that:
Something inside the creative’s mind is pushing, some craving, some desire
So we are in the realm of the conditioned (that’s where craving and desire resides). Bhante is very clearly not implying some synonym for nibbana (where there is no craving or desire).
Correct, and this has not been suggested, hence the craving and desire of the creative mind.
Although the human realm is quite wide, it does have it’s limits as to what is considered a human (and what is considered other realms of existence) in Early Buddhism. We see this idea of a configuration of conditions that fall outside the human realm (for example, a dog).
In Iti 83 we find the devas consider that the human realm is the best realm for the practicing of dhamma and the Buddha seems to agree:
What do they reckon to be blessed with good fortune?
What do they reckon to become well grounded?”
“It is human existence, mendicant, that the gods reckon to be going to a good place.
When a human being gains faith in the teaching and training proclaimed by the Realized One, that is what the gods reckon to be blessed with good fortune.
When that faith in the Realized One is settled, rooted, and planted deep; when it’s strong and can’t be shifted by any ascetic or brahmin or god or Māra or divinity or by anyone in the world, that is what the gods reckon to become well grounded.”
In AN 3.36 we get Yama, the Lord of Hell, thinking:
‘Those who do such bad deeds in the world receive these many different punishments. Oh, I hope I may be reborn as a human being! And that a Realized One—a perfected one, a fully awakened Buddha—arises in the world! And that I may pay homage to the Buddha! Then the Buddha can teach me Dhamma, so that I may understand his teaching.’
Now, I don’t say this because I’ve heard it from some other ascetic or brahmin. I only say it because I’ve known, seen, and realized it for myself.
For me, the above examples elevate the human realm above all of the other realms (configurations of conditions), and I don’t think there is anything subtle about the OP in this respect.
I would suggest that the use of words by Bhante has never left the conditioned.
For me it is a powerful point—some deeds (kamma) will give us the skills to understand dhamma both now and in future births as human beings, and some other deeds will remove those very same skills, strip our minds inclination towards a human birth and result in unfortunate future births instead.
I’m sorry, I didn’t get the Pharisees bit at all. I Know they feature in the Lord of the Dance hymn. That’s all I know about them.
