this blog is the continuation of a genuine mystical tradition, unless you get in daily contemplative time and abstain to a significant degree from "entertainment" then you are just wasting your time and mine !
I had a weird experience last night. I was very depressed after realizing I could never have certainty with anything life: primordial awareness without subject/object division, God, Buddha, Infinity, it doesn't matter. Once you start using it as a crutch, it becomes a impediment of some sort...
I realized this and for once I said something deeply I knew to be absolute: I am all alone in life. I start at my hand and it looked like it wasn't my own. It looked holographic and the space between it seemed infinite. I can't explain it, but I came to that profound realization...
I've been starting to feel like that lately. I am all alone... no one sees me the way I see myself, and the same applies for practically everything. There is indeed a kind of solipsistic aspect in life.
When people mock you, sometimes there is a dreamy surreal atmosphere. Like, it's just you feeling mocked and there is no mocker, since what they are mocking is not you... since you're absolutely alone.
It's just best to get used to it... and realize there is something ineffable in solitude... where you can't cling onto what gives you comfort. The comfort has to come from being content not with a belief system, but with ... something I'm not sure of yet.
Yeah, you're right. It makes sense to speak poetically about one's own experiences than babble about the concepts of another. It's the problem of the non-duality crowd.
I do think solitude and aloneness point to something non-dual, but poetic language can point to it unlike terse philosophical exposition and quoting the words of others as a source of authority.
when i was at tassajara, i was running out of things to read and i heard about a rule book, or pamphlet, that was around and i wanted to read it!
and of all people brad warner had it. some people mentioned brad warner to me about how he was a big writer and blah blah . . first time i looked at him i knew he was autistic or something.
anyway, when i asked him for it he was surprised for some reason? sort of taken aback, i guess most people didnt approach him the way i did, which was "who are you?". didn't really see him as anything special . .
took him a week to finally give it to me and that was after searching all over to finally find him in the library .
" after searching all over to finally find him in the library "
yeah, H Y P E R L E X I C ! :o)
what I have noticed myself about these people who supposedly have some super aura or something is they just seem ordinary people to me or some sort of idiot . .
one of the very few people with a genuine aura I have ever come across was john loori and he was quite crazy in some respects which has made me very wary of people like this ! :o)
brad is stuck in some sort of illusion of nostalgia and zen, and is actually self funding . .
why he would go to tassajara to line the coffers of the san francisco zen center by working those long hours unpaid there I don't know
very unhealthy for him as they are sort of rejecting him by not having him teach while resident there, they are just rejecting him and he is one of the better teachers, way ahead of anything that the crap artists of the san francisco zen center can produce ! :o)(
I've actually sat in Brad Warner's car, and spoke a little bit about Meister Eckhart, and went out to eat pizza with him and my sangha at a Mellow Mushroom. That was a very long time ago though.
zakaj, as I was lying in bed this morning I was trying to think of a zen or similar teacher who had done well out of it, but really I can't think of one who it wasn't a disaster for !
I have followed brad warner for awhile on the web, trying to work out what is really happening for him, one thing he disguises is the extent to which he "self funds" , that is he was a quite a successful businessman while working for tsuburaya productions and between the money he was able to put aside from that and possibly the royalties from a couple of his early books (though he seems to be dissing of royalty income !) he is able to support the phoney dream of being a suburban zen master despite his almost wholesale rejection by those meiji zen turds claiming transmission from tainted japanese lineages ! ! :o)
anyway I am just commenting on this almost universal disaster of zen involvement and being a teacher one spills one's time, attention into a bottomless pit of f u c k i n g b l o o d y a r s e h o l e s !
t h a t ' s t h e l e s s o n o f re d d i t Z e n , j u s t a b u n c h o f r e a l l y m a l i g n a r s e h o l e s , n o t w o r t h t h e t i m e t o t a l k t o !
In our first conversation ever, you told me: "You use this stuff as a shield." That was a penetrating insight. And I think it describes reddit zen in general: they use Zen as a shield.
It seems Zen is dying in the West, and Pure Land (the most popular kind of Buddhism in the East) will never take root here because people are already allergic to Christanity and Pure Land reminds them of Heaven.
Advaita has had seen a resurgence recently, but my intuition about it is that it's just a fad. I don't think it will last long. Personally I have a strong premonition that Tibetan/Vajrayana will dominate Western "spirituality".
You said you can't think of a successful guy in the field of spirituality, he is one example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Nydahl
He's rich and famous and praised as a lama; has centers all over the world, Hong Kong,etc. probably has millions of dollars in the bank account!
Tibetan Buddhism has never attracted me for some reason... I just have a spontaneous repulsion towards it. Or suspicion? I don't know. Anyway, I think Tibetan is dominating and will even more in the future, esp. Dzogchen and Mahamudra. Many will get rich and there will be many sexual scandals, too, of course. :) As always with gurus.
(I watched a Youtube documentary of a Tibetan monk who confessed being sexually abused by other monks since early childhood! As far back as he can remember...)
Andrew Levin for next Pope!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletezakaj, maybe he's worried about Richard carrier !
ReplyDeletehe's not a fool and can see the catholic church with its doctrinal nonsense can't survive in todays uncensored world !
islam is also a house of cards that is flying a p a r t . ! . !
http://www.assyrianvoice.net/forum/index.php?topic=39721.0
I had a weird experience last night. I was very depressed after realizing I could never have certainty with anything life: primordial awareness without subject/object division, God, Buddha, Infinity, it doesn't matter. Once you start using it as a crutch, it becomes a impediment of some sort...
ReplyDeleteI realized this and for once I said something deeply I knew to be absolute: I am all alone in life. I start at my hand and it looked like it wasn't my own. It looked holographic and the space between it seemed infinite. I can't explain it, but I came to that profound realization...
I've been starting to feel like that lately. I am all alone... no one sees me the way I see myself, and the same applies for practically everything. There is indeed a kind of solipsistic aspect in life.
When people mock you, sometimes there is a dreamy surreal atmosphere. Like, it's just you feeling mocked and there is no mocker, since what they are mocking is not you... since you're absolutely alone.
It's just best to get used to it... and realize there is something ineffable in solitude... where you can't cling onto what gives you comfort. The comfort has to come from being content not with a belief system, but with ... something I'm not sure of yet.
I live by myself and while you can't sorta see it, overall I would say there is something to solitude !
DeleteYeah, you're right. It makes sense to speak poetically about one's own experiences than babble about the concepts of another. It's the problem of the non-duality crowd.
DeleteI do think solitude and aloneness point to something non-dual, but poetic language can point to it unlike terse philosophical exposition and quoting the words of others as a source of authority.
Very interesting comment Sepehr.
Deleteis there influenza going around ?
ReplyDeleteyeah, flu even here in Australia !
ReplyDeleteyeah it's rampant in New York. am i just going to become more and more susceptible to these things as i improve my diet and supplement intake ?
ReplyDeleteyou are really going to have to write up what you are doing and post on the w_k message board so it can be discussed !
Deletegermanium and vitamin A helps greatly
fish oil and krill oil being omega three are somewhat immune suppressing, so is vitamin D in the very short term
without knowing what you are doing I can't really comment , germanium as per the compendium is an easy help !
figuring it out is a substantial portion of your life . . !
takes quite a bit of work !
what is the healthiest climate in the us ? new mexico ?
when i was at tassajara, i was running out of things to read and i heard about a rule book, or pamphlet, that was around and i wanted to read it!
ReplyDeleteand of all people brad warner had it. some people mentioned brad warner to me about how he was a big writer and blah blah . . first time i looked at him i knew he was autistic or something.
anyway, when i asked him for it he was surprised for some reason? sort of taken aback, i guess most people didnt approach him the way i did, which was "who are you?". didn't really see him as anything special . .
took him a week to finally give it to me and that was after searching all over to finally find him in the library .
" after searching all over to finally find him in the library "
Deleteyeah, H Y P E R L E X I C ! :o)
what I have noticed myself about these people who supposedly have some super aura or something is they just seem ordinary people to me or some sort of idiot . .
one of the very few people with a
genuine aura I have ever come across was john loori and he was quite crazy in some respects which has made me very wary of people like this ! :o)
brad is stuck in some sort of illusion of nostalgia and zen, and is actually self funding . .
why he would go to tassajara to line the coffers of the san francisco zen center by working those long hours unpaid there I don't know
very unhealthy for him as they are sort of rejecting him by not having him teach while resident there, they are just rejecting him and he is one of the better teachers, way ahead of anything that the crap artists of the san francisco zen center can produce ! :o)(
that was a very good post you wrote btw ! :o)
I've actually sat in Brad Warner's car, and spoke a little bit about Meister Eckhart, and went out to eat pizza with him and my sangha at a Mellow Mushroom. That was a very long time ago though.
DeleteI think he was seeing a new woman too.
Sepehr: It's not exactly Brad Pitt, but it still counts as a celeb encounter! :)
Deletezakaj, as I was lying in bed this morning I was trying to think of a zen or similar teacher who had done well out of it, but really I can't think of one who it wasn't a disaster for !
DeleteI have followed brad warner for awhile on the web, trying to work out what is really happening for him, one thing he disguises is the extent to which he "self funds" , that is he was a quite a successful businessman while working for tsuburaya productions and between the money he was able to put aside from that and possibly the royalties from a couple of his early books (though he seems to be dissing of royalty income !) he is able to support the phoney dream of being a suburban zen master despite his almost wholesale rejection by those meiji zen turds claiming transmission from tainted japanese lineages ! ! :o)
anyway I am just commenting on this almost universal disaster of zen involvement and being a teacher one spills one's time, attention into a bottomless pit of f u c k i n g b l o o d y a r s e h o l e s !
t h a t ' s t h e l e s s o n o f re d d i t Z e n , j u s t a b u n c h o f r e a l l y m a l i g n a r s e h o l e s , n o t w o r t h t h e t i m e t o t a l k t o !
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIn our first conversation ever, you told me: "You use this stuff as a shield." That was a penetrating insight. And I think it describes reddit zen in general: they use Zen as a shield.
DeleteIt seems Zen is dying in the West, and Pure Land (the most popular kind of Buddhism in the East) will never take root here because people are already allergic to Christanity and Pure Land reminds them of Heaven.
Advaita has had seen a resurgence recently, but my intuition about it is that it's just a fad. I don't think it will last long. Personally I have a strong premonition that Tibetan/Vajrayana will dominate Western "spirituality".
You said you can't think of a successful guy in the field of spirituality, he is one example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Nydahl
He's rich and famous and praised as a lama; has centers all over the world, Hong Kong,etc. probably has millions of dollars in the bank account!
Tibetan Buddhism has never attracted me for some reason... I just have a spontaneous repulsion towards it. Or suspicion? I don't know. Anyway, I think Tibetan is dominating and will even more in the future, esp. Dzogchen and Mahamudra. Many will get rich and there will be many sexual scandals, too, of course. :) As always with gurus.
(I watched a Youtube documentary of a Tibetan monk who confessed being sexually abused by other monks since early childhood! As far back as he can remember...)
"Advaita has had seen a resurgence" => "has seen a resurgence"
Deletemaybe all religion is collapsing, being displaced by drugs, music, poor population health and you tube ! ; o)
Deletethere was a communal lunch at Tassajara, so he was usually there. but like I said I didn't really know who he was, so I didn't pay him much attention.
ReplyDeleteworking at a pizza place right now actually. Sort of sucks cuz they provide me lunch, but I don't want to eat pizza at all.
there seems to be a universal health problem for those who eat food they cook for the public !
Deletere fast food certainly, eg macdonalds, staff who live off the company food get caught in a health and cognitive dysfunction trap !
one of the few healthy top cooks in france, never eats his own food, only what his wife cooks for him !
yeah I've noticed that. The real killer of pizza is the red sauce. And the dough of course.
ReplyDelete