During a conversation, a friend once asked “What would Buddha do?” Echoing the familiar “What would Jesus do?” I retorted, “What Would G Bu Do?” (G Bu short for Gotama Buddha), which eventually became the name for this site.

This site started out as a portable reference of a personal collection of notes related to mindfulness, meditation, and the question "what would Buddha do?" (and the related question "what would Jesus do?"). Over time, it has expanded based on readings, contemplation, practice, and conversations with friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers. The original intent has since grown into something that may possibly be of value to anyone exploring these concepts, whether from a spiritual, religious, or secular perspective.

Overview

This site has a few main areas with a variety of subtopics:

Click on any of the items above or any tab in the menu that may resonate with you or interest you to explore the site.

COMMENTARY

Some people hesitate to explore meditation or Buddhism because of religious concerns. But meditation is not inherently religious and one does not need to be a “Buddhist” to benefit from Buddhist ideas. Meditation has appeared across cultures and traditions for centuries (including Christianity), and you don’t need to adopt any religious belief system to benefit from mindfulness or meditation.

The concepts and practices here are intended to help observe and understand the mind, develop mindfulness practices, cultivate peace and mental clarity, and, if possible, ease suffering.

A few simple but profound ideas are at the heart of these:

  • Life includes "suffering" (dukkha, often translated as suffering but can be the subtlest of dissatisfaction, anxiety, uneasiness, etc.)

  • The mind becomes entangled in patterns of thoughts, habits, and conditioning which lead to dukkha

  • Awareness, through mindfulness and meditation, helps us see these patterns and potentially change them, creating the possibility of peace and freedom from dukkha

Conditioning

We are shaped by conditioning—family, culture, education, media, and personal experiences. Over time, the mind learns to generate and reinforce patterns of thought, often without our awareness. Through mindfulness and meditation, we can learn to observe these patterns, understand how they contribute to suffering/ dukkha, rewire conditioned patterns and patterns of reactivity, and, perhaps, allow peace to manifest.

The Nature of Self- A Deep Dive

One of the more challenging (and liberating) insights explored is that what we call and identify with as “self” is not fixed or independent. If we look closely, we are:

  • constantly changing

  • interconnected with everything around us and interdependent on "non-self"

  • a dynamic "process" rather than a static identity

This concept shifts the "self" from a noun to a verb. Instead of being a solid "thing" that moves through time, we are continuous events—much like a flame or a whirlpool—that require the rest of the universe to keep "happening." This perspective can be approached philosophically, experientially, or through Biology, Neuroscience and Physics.

Biology and Neuroscience: The Narrative "I"

Modern brain science, basic biology, and developmental psychology all support the notion that a fixed, enduring "self" is a clever biological fiction. We tend to view ourselves as solid, constant entities navigating through time, yet both the physical material and the psychological character of that "I" are in continuous flux.

Consider first the everyday realities of our physical turnover:

  • Physical Shedding and Replacement: When you clip a fingernail, shed millions of skin cells, or lose a strand of hair, you don't feel as though a piece of your "self" has disappeared. Beneath the surface, this happens on a massive scale—red blood cells live for about 120 days, the lining of the gut replaces itself every few days, and bone tissue continuously remodels. If every piece of physical matter that comprised "you" ten years ago has been replaced or discarded, at what point was any single cell a permanent "self"? The physical body is not a fixed structure, but a dynamic flux—a temporary whirlpool through which matter continuously passes.

Just as the physical "stuff" is never constant, the psychological "character" is equally fluid:

  • The Impermanence of Identity: The person who inhabited your body at seven years old had different values, fears, cellular structures, and neural wiring than the person reading this page today. Personality traits, emotional baselines, and core beliefs shift predictably across decades, and radically in response to life events or trauma.

  • The Fiction of Memory: We feel constant because memory reconstructs a narrative thread, but neuroscience shows memory is not a video recording. Every time a memory is recalled, the Default Mode Network reconsolidates and edits it based on the present emotional state. The "story of you" is rewritten slightly every time it is told.

  • Moment-to-Moment Shifts: Even within a single day, the feeling of "who I am" fluctuates based on blood sugar, fatigue, neurochemistry, and environmental context. A stressed, exhausted version of you holds completely different perspectives and reactions than a well-rested, calm version. There is no baseline "true self" holding still beneath these states—only the succession of the states themselves.

This dynamic reality echoes a famous dialogue written over 2,000 years ago. In the Buddhist text Questions of King Milinda, the sage Nāgasena explains to the Greek king Menander that the "self" is like a chariot. If you disassemble the wheels, the axle, the chassis, and the reins, the "chariot" disappears—revealing that the word is merely a convenient label used to describe a temporary arrangement of parts. When asked if a person who is grown is the same as the child they once were, Nāgasena points out that just as a flame burns differently through the night while remaining part of the same continuous process, a person is neither strictly the same nor entirely different from moment to moment.

Today, science reiterates Nāgasena down to the cellular, neurological, and temporal levels. Just as a chariot has no central driver's seat once disassembled, the brain has no singular "control room" or static ego-center. The feeling of being a continuous "main character" is a functional narrative constructed by decentralized brain regions like the Default Mode Network to help us navigate the world. When those biological circuits and physical processes cease, the illusion of "I" vanishes—proving we are not a solid, permanent entity, but a beautifully coordinated, ever-changing process.

Physics: The Dissolving Boundary

At the atomic level, the idea of an independent self completely falls apart. We function less like isolated structures and more like whirlpools in a steady stream—holding a temporary shape while the medium itself is in constant, rapid transit. Every breath we take is an atomic exchange: we inhale oxygen molecules synthesized by local plant life and exhale carbon dioxide that was, moments ago, a structural part of our own cellular tissue.

The calcium in our bones is not a permanent fixture; it is continuously dissolved and rebuilt, utilizing dietary calcium minerals that were once locked inside ancient limestone or ocean shells. The iron carrying oxygen through our bloodstream was forged in the core of a dying star billions of years ago. We swap out roughly 98% of our body’s atoms every single year, meaning the physical "chariot" you inhabited a decade ago has been entirely returned to the Earth and replaced by a completely new set of environmental building blocks.

When we peer past the atoms into the subatomic realm, even the boundary of "solid matter" dissolves. Through the lens of Quantum Field Theory, there are no isolated, fundamental particles acting as tiny billiard balls. Instead, the universe is filled with continuous, overlapping quantum fields—like the electron field, the electromagnetic field, and quark fields. What we call "matter" is simply a localized "excitation" or ripple in these underlying, universal fields.

The body is not a separate object placed inside an environment; it is a complex, localized ripple in the very same fields that make up the empty space around you. What you perceive as "you" is not merely in the universe—it is a specific, temporary expression of the universe experiencing itself. "You aren't a visitor here. You are the universe doing a human for a little while."

Experiential Liberation

Philosophically and experientially, realizing the self is a "dynamic process" liberating: it reframes identity from a fixed thing into an ongoing unfolding of perception, thought, and relation, which reduces attachment, increases flexibility and compassion, and opens the possibility of intentional transformation.

  • If the self is static, you are trapped by your past, your labels, and your mistakes.

  • If the self is a process, you are perpetually "new," "born again."

By seeing through the illusion of the "fixed ego," the need to defend, polish, or protect a rigid identity evaporates. You move from being a "fragment" of the universe to being the entire process of the universe occurring at a specific point in space and time.

This realization is the bridge between the "mystic" Jesus and "non-dualistic" philosophies: the moment the drop of water realizes it doesn't just belong to the ocean—it is the ocean in motion.

A Practical Path

You don’t need to commit to any ideology.

You can simply:

  • Sit quietly and observe your breath

  • Notice thoughts as they arise and pass, like clouds in the sky or leaves floating down a river

  • Bring awareness into daily activities

  • Act with a bit more patience, clarity, and kindness

Over time, small shifts in awareness can lead to meaningful changes in how life is experienced.

Cautionary Notes and Expectations

Keeping a Balanced Perspective

We shouldn’t take mindfulness too seriously. Treating it as a solemn, all-encompassing solution often adds a new layer of self-pressure and judgment (“Am I doing it right? Why can’t I stay present?”), which defeats its core purpose of easing mental strain. It is a highly useful skill for noticing thoughts and reducing reactivity, but life also demands action, emotion, planning, and occasionally getting fully lost in experiences rather than perpetually observing them. Overdone, mindfulness risks passive detachment instead of engaged living.

Not A Cure-All

Mindfulness and meditation can be beneficial, but they are not a cure-all. Individuals with a history of anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, or other conditions should speak with a qualified healthcare professional before beginning or deepening a practice. Please read the disclaimer page (click here).

Potential Expectations of Others

When we discover mindfulness and meditation and experience the positive effects, we can be eager to share it with others. However, we shouldn’t expect too much from people, including ourselves, when it comes to self-awareness or emotional regulation. Most people are quietly struggling with their own thoughts, emotions, stress, habits, and blind spots—just as we are.

Mindfulness, equanimity, and consistent kindness are cultivated skills, not default settings. Many have not practiced them deeply (or at all), and even those who have, including ourselves, will still falter under fatigue, pressure, or triggers.

Holding ourselves and others to a high standard of constant presence and compassion sets us up for frequent disappointment, judgment, and resentment. It is far more freeing—and realistic—to offer basic decency as our baseline expectation, appreciate genuine kindness when it appears, and focus primarily on modeling the values we want to see. This drastically reduces interpersonal friction and allows us to respond with more patience when people inevitably act like... people.

Closing Thoughts

Don’t accept any ideas, from any source, simply because they sound right, they are believed by others, or you are told they are “truth.” Explore them. Practice them. Question them. Let them go. See what happens.

And perhaps, in that process, the question changes from

“What would Buddha do?” or “What would Jesus do?” to something more immediate:

What is happening right now—and how will I respond to it?

This site is a work in progress. It will continue to evolve over time. If you notice errors, omissions, or outdated information, feel free to contact me.

a very large star in the middle of the night
a very large star in the middle of the night

Overview and Commentary