This post is evoked by the largest paragraph in Linda's most recent post.

One way to regard Thevara Buddhism's apparent neglect of the form and its actions might be to apply a modern metaphor of User, software and hardware. Consciousness is the invisible and intangible User function, interpretations, valuations and imaginations may be regarded as the software function, and human actions may be regarded as biological robot hardware functions interacting with its environment, which includes other such biological robots that are likewise engaged in actions/functions.

There is a clear hierarchy here: Only the User experiences what's going on. The software interprets, valuates and ideates. The hardware operates according to the available software.

All humans, both 2,600 years ago and today, get a lot of software long before the hardware is expected to operate in its environment as an adult. The User is rendered helpless, because the uploaded software, which the User did not get to choose, is running away with the hardware, according to its programmed content.

As Humanity as a whole has been and still is faced with such a predicament, and as our dysfunction and destructiveness as 'human' forms continue to be run by some erronous and defective software that we, as Users, did not get to choose, Thevara Buddhism favoring the still and silently receptive function of mindfulness may be very useful to us.

This is because mindfulness that enables the User to focus on, notice and correct software errors, inconsistencies and other defects - can be expected, automatically to improve the behaviors, actions, and activities of the human forms.