The fundamental analysis is a methodology of stock market analysis, aims to determine the true value of the title or action, called fundamental value. This value is used as an estimate of its value as a commercial profit, which in turn is supposed to be an indicator of the expected future performance of the security.
To know the real usefulness of the Buddha-Dhamma we have to ask ourselves three questions.
- What problem do you want to solve?
- What competitive advantage does the Buddha-Dhamma have over other solutions?
- What is the means proposed to solve it and what is the cost / utility?
These three basic questions are what every person interested in Buddhism must do before investing their time and money. This is useful for any investment in life, be it the purchase of a car or a home, a cryptocurrency, a package of stocks or a simple hamburger with potatoes and soda.
The example of the hamburger is evident: The three questions would be answered as follows:
- Remove hunger
- It pretends to do it without having to cook, quickly, cheaply, without having to clean the dishes.
- Large marketing campaigns to make attractive a product that in itself is very poor. Generate gluttony in the target audience to approach their Burger, queue, ask and pay, queue orderly, look for a table, eat in a short time, be they those who remove the remains and return home. Marketing is offered more than nutritional value.
This is for a simple hamburger. If you are within the target audience that is impressed by an attractive commercial that awakens gluttony, the hamburger solution is good for you.
If we put ourselves in the case of the purchase of major investments such as stock market, vehicle, company, housing … it is the first thing that must be done.
I say it must be done , not done.
Most people do not analyze any of this and simply get carried away by their basic instincts or by the opinion of third parties that seem reliable. This is a necessary basis for unscrupulous people to enrich themselves with the ignorance of the people. In a way, if individuals do not look for their interests, and let others do it for them, it is normal for others to watch over their own interests, and end up with the first ones scammed and ruined.
They were really looking for it: it is the price that has to be paid for the mental vagrancy, just as it is paid to do the housework or any other service that we could do for ourselves.
Now, let’s go to analyze first of all from the fundamental point of view, the Buddha-Dhamma.
We are going to notice that, precisely, the four noble truths are the whitepaper that answers the three questions of the fundamental analysis.
The first is what the Buddha-Dhamma promises to solve, it is the first Noble Truth, that is, suffering. The first noble truth goes to show that suffering exists, that beings of all kinds suffer it and identify it as what it is capable of solving.
The second is that it identifies the problem and says that it resides in attachment or in desire, which differentiates it from other existing solutions that try to solve this problem. This is the second noble truth. In addition, the third noble truth says that there is a definitive solution to this problem and points to it, and it is also the only one that does it: Nibbāna.
Finally, the fourth noble truth describes his proposal for the solution of suffering on the basis of carrying out a group of eight actions concatenated in a circular manner, which he calls an eightfold noble path.
As is well known there are multiple ways to implement this investment product. Remember that it is really about this, since it entails an economic effort both in time and money, travel, training, etc. These forms are called ‘schools’ or ‘sects’ or ‘branches’ or whatever they are called.
The original product was the one taught by the Buddha himself and it is quite simple. He uses what are called jhānas in order to control the mind.It is not something new because jhānas are present in all the mystical movements since the world is world. What it does contribute is a scientific method, that is, reproducible if it is executed according to the instructions to do it, which is concentration on the breath. This procedure differs from the others because it is a protocolizable technique and not a divine grace or something like that, which is the vulgar way of trying to explain that some «elect» are able to reach these states, but without knowing how they do it.
As the practice of jhānas produces, among other things, the elimination of involuntary reactive thoughts, it works like a real antivirus that will allow us to perform the proposed practice of the noble eightfold path.
Needless to say that with a mind in which proliferate all kinds of thoughts that incite attachment and aversion it is impossible to successfully implement the conditioning of their eradication.
For its part, the noble eightfold path is a behavioral procedure whose purpose is to condition the mind so that it does not act by attachment or aversion. In psychology with 66 days it is enough to achieve it, although it is at 90 days when the results are seen.
The cost is really low for the results to be obtained. The learning of the technique should not take more than six sessions, and stabilizing the mind to begin the noble eightfold path requires a daily practice of jhānas of no more than 20 minutes. And finally, yes, the 90 days of practicing the method with total attention and effort to every detail of daily life to detect and decondition our primary impulses to aversion and attachment.
The best thing about this method is that it is approachable, safe, tested and replicable, and does not require the user’s faith or belief, you should only practice a little and see for yourself the results you are getting.
It is an appropriate procedure for people who know what they want, are intelligent and do not give their faith to the first person who passes.
But as not everyone gives this profile, that is, there are people who do not know what they want, their intelligence is low and who prefers to believe to think, have proliferated all kinds of organizations whose market niche is precisely meet the demand of the less intelligent ones who do not know what they want.
In this way we can get to review the most popular and most successful solutions in the market with the brand ‘Buddhism’.
In order of antiquity, we will analyze the Mahayana. To begin with, what it offers is not to end the suffering of the user (or patient) but with that of all beings in the world. And from his perspective the individual demand to solve his own suffering is ‘selfish’.
The means they bring are Bodhicitta and compassion. There is no description of how a feeling born in the user’s mind can eliminate the suffering of a fish that is being eaten by another in the middle of the ocean.For this they restrict their diet, they become vegetarians. And to demonstrate their commitment, they commit themselves to suffer for all beings until the last day of Samsara.
Nor do they describe the end of Samsara or the billions of years that the user would have to live to stop suffering.
The best known implementations are Zen (which curiously is a word that derives from jhana). Zen is zazen and zazen in Shinkantaza for Soto school. That is, sit down without more. Thus, by sitting down, they free all beings from suffering.
The mechanism that accomplishes it is not known.
For the Rinzai school is the solving of riddles.
Nor does it explain the mechanism.
Other popular schools derived from the Mahayana, are limited to pronounce a short phrase permanently, called mantra.
Nor does it explain the mechanism.
The so-called Vajrayana Buddhism bases its practice on ceremonies of attractive colorful colors, fundamentally for the North American spiritual tourism. As the goal is also delayed, that is, they do not solve the suffering in this life, they fill their rich practice with rituals from different cultures such as the Hindu tantra or the native animistic bön of the Tibetan plateau.
Nor does it explain the mechanism.
Finally, the most recent school in time, the theravadin centers its solution on the detailed scholastic study of the writings of the Buddha, of the commentaries on those writings and of his immense array of combinations which is his Abhidhamma. Some limit it to that study, others do practices of what they call vipassana meditation that is summarized in seeing the viruses as they go through the mind without solution of continuity, one after the other. And they say that not clinging to those thoughts one ends the suffering is not this life but in several later.
Nor does it explain the mechanism.
That they do not explain the mechanism, or that they do not contribute any case of success, does not matter for those who have faith. That is why faith is not ethical: it makes you suffer and avoids the end of suffering, which is the basis of ethics. But a nice word, a warm tea at the end of a session, a kind word, listen to what you want to hear is part of the product that is, without a doubt, the true success story.
The proof is in the hundreds of millions of Buddhists in the world, their expansion and their capitalization value.
Ignorance is a sure value. The safest in Samsara because, in the end, it’s what it’s built from,
Faith moves mountains, and it is hope that makes you wait for them to move. And while, be compassionate or charitable or whatever you want to call it, that looks good and attracts more believers.