Explore past nudges

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Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Buddhist philosopher, argued that nothing possesses *svabhāva* — its own independent, self-sufficient nature. Everything exists only through its...

When you last revised a scene involving your primary threat — did you locate that threat in a person, or in a set of...

Zen Buddhism / Japanese martial philosophyEugen Herrigel (Zen in the Art of Archery, 1948)

Kyūdō — the Japanese martial art of archery — has a rule that puzzles beginners: you are not allowed to look at the target while drawing the bow. The discipline insists that...

When you're with your child today, how much of your attention is on them — and how much is on the evidence of whether...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Buddhist logician, argued that things have no fixed, intrinsic nature — not as mysticism, but as a logical claim: every object or concept only makes...

In the last month, which capability in your product have you defended primarily by pointing to past performance rather...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNagarjuna

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist philosopher, built his entire metaphysics on a single uncomfortable observation: every category we use to stabilize the world quietly...

What is the sharpest distinction you're currently drawing — between two options, two people, two versions of a...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna — Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (c. 150 CE), particularly his use of prasanga (reductio ad absurdum) to expose the self-undermining structure of any fixed conceptual framework

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, built his entire philosophical project around a single devastating observation: any framework used to analyze reality becomes...

If you stripped your current product strategy of its core explanatory framework — the lens you use to justify...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, built an entire philosophical system around one unsettling move: showing that a concept, when examined rigorously, undermines its...

Name one model you applied this week without questioning it — and name the assumption buried underneath it.

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE) in dialogue with Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil (The Misunderstood Limits of Folk Science, 2002)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, argued that things have no fixed essence — that what we call 'understanding' is not a state you arrive at but a relationship...

If you stripped away the vocabulary you use to explain a subject you know well, what would remain — and how far would...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (c. 150–250 CE)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, developed a method called prasanga — the technique of following an opponent's premise to its own collapse, not to win, but to...

Who in your thinking about God are you protecting from the relational problem — and what would you have to give up if...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, spent his career dismantling one specific cognitive trap: the assumption that a thing is fully characterized by what it does in...

Name a position or thesis you hold right now and describe — without using the label you gave it when you bought or...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist philosopher, argued that every concept contains the seeds of its own negation — not as a flaw, but as the condition for its usefulness. He...

What is one term your team uses daily in product discussions whose opposite nobody has ever named out loud — and what...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna — Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (c. 150 CE), particularly his analysis of svabhāva (inherent self-existence) and dependent origination as applied to conceptual frameworks

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, built an entire philosophical method around a single, vertiginous move: he would take any concept you were using as a tool for...

For the mental model you've applied most automatically this quarter — what was the specific situation that first made...

Zen BuddhismGeorge Miller

Cognitive scientists call it 'cognitive load' — the invisible tax your working memory pays when too many decisions, tasks, or unresolved questions compete for attention at once....

In the last 48 hours, which decision did you make while your attention was clearly split — and what might you have...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNāgārjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 150 CE)

Nāgārjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, demonstrated that any system of concepts becomes self-undermining the moment you treat it as foundational — a move he called...

Name the one word your team uses most confidently about your users or your technology — then describe a behavior you've...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (नागार्जुन)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, built his entire philosophy around one unsettling move: showing that any concept, pushed hard enough, dissolves into its...

Name one cognitive task you've handed to AI in the last month — then honestly assess: if that tool disappeared today,...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, built an entire philosophy around what he called śūnyatā — not 'emptiness' as in void, but as in: every thing exists only in...

When did you last let a protected thing go — not because you were forced to, but because holding it was what made the...

Madhyamaka BuddhismNagarjuna (c. 150–250 CE)

Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Buddhist philosopher, spent his career doing something that looks, from the outside, like pure destruction: he took every philosophical position anyone...

What would someone need to challenge before you'd say they'd 'gone too far' — and why does that boundary exist?

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, c. 2nd century CE)

Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Indian philosopher, argued that every conceptual category — including your most trusted ones — is only valid relative to the framework that generated...

For one model you reached for instinctively this week — what kind of situation does it need to be true in order to feel...

Madhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna — Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (c. 2nd century CE), particularly the analysis of svabhāva (intrinsic nature) and the reflexive limits of any inquiry that includes its own instrument

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist logician, argued that the self cannot be found by searching inward — not because it doesn't exist, but because the searcher and the searched...

In the last two weeks, what did you keep reformulating — reshaping the question rather than answering it? What does...

Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophyNagarjuna

Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist philosopher, argued that things do not possess fixed, inherent natures — but he applied this insight to propositions themselves, not just...

What is the belief you hold about yourself that you've never actually argued for — you've simply treated as the ground...

Mādhyamaka Buddhist PhilosophyNagarjuna — Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, c. 2nd century CE), specifically the doctrine of śūnyatā (emptiness) as the absence of svabhāva (inherent self-existence) in all phenomena

Nagarjuna, the 2nd-century Buddhist logician, made an argument that unsettled his contemporaries: no phenomenon has svabhāva — inherent, self-contained existence. Everything...

Name a specific training moment in the last month where your mindset was unusually strong — then identify what external...

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