march

Sorry that happened to you

So by our definitions I am mostly safe, and you are *completely safe*.

Whew, that’s great news. Love the first world.

Generally, everyone is walking around with some degree of energy pent up in their hands and throats—our systems of inter-personal relations being at fault— in need of a shaman (therapist?) to uncork and channel it all.

Generally, everyone is walking around with some degree of energy pent up in their hands and throats—our systems of inter-personal relations being at fault— in need of a shaman (therapist?) to uncork and channel it all.

I don’t think this contradicts what you’re saying. Meaning accommodates a slice from any orientation.

As a man who skews self-conscious, I drank heavily from the “control yourself” brand of toxic masculinity when young and thus continue to envy my partner’s safety and freedom at, say, expressing her anger freely at work.

I cannot imagine feeling safe doing that!

This is real and true, but maybe so is its opposite (as often happens in the messy landscape of meaning).

We also perceive women as being relatively free and facile with emotion—sad when sad, angry when angry, etc—whereas, men are are perceived (and expected) to restrain, channel, swallow, etc.

This sounds like toxic positivity, but it’s actually the antidote to toxic positivity which is already running rampant, unnoticed

You are like a canvas that hates paint, needlessly

The trick isn’t to get rid of negative thoughts, emotions, impulses, etc.

The trick is to recognize that what you’re feeling and doing isn’t a consequence of negative thoughts, emotions, impulses, etc.

Rather, it’s the consequence of the LOADS of extra “badness” you’re adding to all of it.

The hazard of mindfulness is that it offers MOARRR CONTROL, and BOY are we primed to fall into that trap in our anxious, optimization-obsessed culture.

The true opportunity of mindfulness is that it can show you how that control reflex is ruining every moment of your life.

All the things your heart radiates out into the world each moment: love, anger, longing, despair, …

All of it carries the yawning, world-shattering echo of creation.

It’s there, at the root of every frequency. You only need to become sensitive enough to hear it.

Krishnamurti said he owed his happiness to “not minding what happens.”

More precisely, he didn’t mind that he minded what happens.

Get the flavor of working with koans, and all the world’s wisdom opens up to you.

Taking the “God of the Bible” and making it “your God” is like buying a potted orchid at the store so you can “live in the rain forest”.

To see your god(s), you should look around you, here and now.

Authentic human spirituality is a fine art.

How do you see the world *exactly* as you *ought* to see it without bastardizing it.

IMO… with a lifelong beginner’s mind.

At least the materialists are purportedly committed to “what (actually) is”, but neither can help having their way with things.

The debate between, say, materialists and intelligent design folks was fun and seemed deep when I was an angry young adult.

Both stances seem like an utter waste of an opportunity to notice and (actually) worship the unbelievable order of things. (FWIW the materialists are closer to this IMO.)

I gave up evangelical Christianity and became a materialist as a tween when it was obvious the blind were leading the blind.

By 40, I’ll have sworn off materialism, too, for something richer, more romantic, more poetic.

But never for another “God” made in man’s image. Utter folly, that is. 🤷

Safety hand wringing is classic status quo fallacy

feel, now
what couldn’t be felt, then

Likewise! ❤️

🔥

And I begin to wonder
what other sounds
might I become next
what bursts of being
dancing throughout the cosmos

When I sit still
I can feel
that I am vast space
boundless compassion
full of grace

The “I” that I was
just before waking now
is suddenly seen
merely a useful clap
ringing out

Not everyone will take up meditation, ofc, but whether people sit or lift or run or whatever, life will continue to throw sticky, hard-to-navigate shit at them, and toolsets like Vajrayana will eventually propagate.

Tantric-ish practices will have their moment in the sun (like, Mindfulness™️) once basic meditation tech is more normalized.

Mindfulness is great, anon, but have you tried dissolving your difficulty in the infinite vacuum of your true god nature?

And ofc reticence to talk about something is, itself, a super valuable signal

Fully 3/4 of the benefit of “spiritual practice” is just ordinary growing up

Progress only means
That the good will get better
As the bad gets worse