Friday, 24 November 2017
blogspot doesn't work that well as a message board
it surprised me that i found after opening zen mystical, that it quickly became infested with the most toxic posters from r|zen and i had to ban just about everyone
i really don't want to be involved in the endless stupid arguments that go on, if people want to do that then why not open a subreddit on your own account rather than waste my time with the endless idiocies that the arguments of people seem to think a useful way to pass the time !
the bottom line is you people don't interest me any more and i am not sure you ever did, i have better things to do and would rather talk to myself than you, its way more productive !
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Fine, I'll stop talking about Zakaj. I was trying to deliberately ignore him until he started insulting me again and bringing up Singulatarianism to shame me. He said I was going to burn in hell over email when he was obsessed with Calvinist Protestantism, and now he thinks I am fool for finding the natural world interesting because he thinks we'll fuse with machines by 2040. You should chastise him too since he started it and spammed your blog with pseudo-scientific Singularitarian propaganda.
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Deletesepehr, its disturbs me how you don't seem to want to understand what i say in my posts !
Deletei'm not concerned with the rights and wrongs of your arguments with zakaj
its just not interesting to me and peripheral to my own interests
as i suggested set up you own subreddit !
No, I want to stop talking about it too. He's gone now and not harassing me anymore, so I'm not going to bring it up starting now.
Deletesepehr, please read what i wrote, its very telling you are not prepared to open a subbreddit !
DeleteI want to open a blog where I post pictures of birds I watch with my binoculars, post videos of my cats reviewing children's books (already have this -- too shy to share it), and occasionally post poems. It will be a collaborative effort with my wife.
DeleteI know this is a random question, but do you have much experience with bird-watching binoculars? I'm trying to decide between a Nikon Monarch 5 8x42 vs 10x42.
ReplyDeletezeiss make better rifle scopes than nikon
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ReplyDeletesimone weil is very interesting thanx !
Deletehttp://thesecondpass.com/?p=1150
You recommended this book of translated poetry of female Chinese Chan monks/hermits from seventeenth century, right?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Nuns-Women-Masters-Seventeenth-Century/dp/0824832027/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0824832027&pd_rd_r=A3MZ8N9VPWWFE6BT8DXG&pd_rd_w=L3aOe&pd_rd_wg=Pg8Md&psc=1&refRID=A3MZ8N9VPWWFE6BT8DXG
I forgot to put it on favorites. Do you recommend that one or this one?
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Echoes-Classic-Commentaries-Masters/dp/161429187X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=161429187X&pd_rd_r=K1C4QTKAYKPZVEFFV486&pd_rd_w=Wk7p9&pd_rd_wg=cMdZN&psc=1&refRID=K1C4QTKAYKPZVEFFV486
what good does it do you to read this stuff ?
Deleteyou are just collecting "holy reliquaries"
really all these years and the way you waste my time !
I want to buy the book for my wife.
DeleteI'm a lay practitioner that isn't very good atm, but in the future, I will practice more single-mindedly on a plot of land.
well find whatever you are lay practitioner for and don't waste my time you lazy s.o.b. !
DeleteI'm not lazy though. I'm going for another BS in CS already.
Deletewonderful for you and the shark you are use me for you entertainment !
Deleteyou are intellectually lazy and conceited, G O A W A Y !
How am I intellectually lazy when you find many of my writings and the info I share good? Your opinion on my character is very inconsistent, and I cannot tell if I should either go or stay!
Deletesepehr, what i have found dealing with the crazies on r|zen is they skip the main points i raise, like i said you were collecting reliquaries and using for me for entertainment
Deletethat is what you are doing is nothing like what i am interested in and your behavior is that of a shark
you must have fed well because you don't seem to want "to be set out to sea"
your "reliquary collecting" has been very consistent over the years and i want nothing to do with it or you, fooled once i don't intend to making that mistake for the rest of my life !
you are unusual in that you have "visionary ability", but like your dream of getting lost in that red building and then ending up in some bizarre space of brains in vessels outside bodies in a lab and a twisted puppet you take wrong turns that cannot be righted
there may have been hope if you had remained unmarried but as it is you are in a different paradigm and i want to avoid being crucified by you !
if you can't tell whether to go or stay show this dialogue to your wife and ask her opinion on it !
I mean, you encouraged me to get married and such.
DeleteAll I do is ask a few questions because I think you have good tastes in literature and art.
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DeleteI am not collecting this stuff. I think reading mystical poetry and koans deeply can help bring about Samadhi sometimes. Once I picked up a Daoist text translated by Thomas Cleary in the library, and I believed it was called Outer Collections. Regardless, while I read it, I felt a tingly hot sensation in my forehead and lots of energy. Kusan Sunim talked about this too and called it "sanggi". Sometimes after reading a poem, I feel a spark travel through my body. I was asking you about a book for quality reading for myself and wife
Delete"All I do is ask a few questions because I think you have good tastes in literature and art. "
Deleteok, i am not here to discuss on that basis, so please leave
i am one of the tiny few genuinely enlightened and know what it is about, you can read daoist bullshit by thomas cleary to your heart's content, just don't bother me with it !
all my writing is quality reading !
I think your poetry is very good, same with my wife who also read it.
Deleteyeah but that's not the basis of the blogspot
Deleteyou really have different agenda, i won't say there's a million like you, but i just can't be bothered untangling it !
I see your point. If I'm not penetrating into how no "non-existance outside the river... that is All", then I am wasting your time. I know what you're pointing to, which is very no different than Brad Warner's kensho experience from Hardcore Zen, but it has to occur frequently, otherwise it eludes one's tacit apprehension. I need to be more consistent with my Shikantaza and serious about this practice. I can't treat it on a frivolous level... I'll come back after several weeks of Shikantaza and serious contemplation.
DeleteI see your point. If I'm not penetrating into how no "non-existance outside the river... that is All", then I am wasting your time. I know what you're pointing to, which is very no different than Brad Warner's kensho experience from Hardcore Zen, but it has to occur frequently, otherwise it eludes one's tacit apprehension. I need to be more consistent with my Shikantaza and serious about this practice. I can't treat it on a frivolous level... I'll come back after several weeks of Shikantaza and serious contemplation.
ReplyDeleteWhy is 'enlightenment' desirable? They say "you can't ride on two horses", me and you are married - your first duty will always be to your wife. The oldest story in Buddhism is about Buddha leaving his wife. The tradition literally starts like that, with a family breaking up. It's no coincidence.
DeleteI think Andrew really hit the nail on the head when he said 'show this dialogue to your wife' ... I'm posting this just because it seems you have glossed over that crucial 'challenge'.
The married man always accessed the spiritual life via proxy. The access was never direct. Either via a priest, a cult, mass, ritual, a family guru, 'the sangha' (monetary support), or as a 'personal relationship with a savior' who is presently unavailable (so he cannot be bothered). Andrew doesn't want to perform that function --- it seems. If he was interested, he'd do well to put some kind of donation requirement. Like a 'family guru' in India is payed - and with good reason, I think. A couple always needs a metaphoric Father to maintain consistency.
In retrospect, I think the only reason to want 'Zen enlightenment' is if life is unbearable to you, if things are too broken, and so you want to break them completely, to go all the way. I heard a Tibetan teacher once say that only two paths are viable: either being a stupid pious man, or a fully enlightened master. Everything in between is misery.
I know you resent me for trying to 'evangelize to you' in the past, but in truth, it's not false to say that if you and your wife managed to become Christians (I mean completely average Christianity, not again some deep mystical tradition), you'd be much better off. I think this is impossible for you, as you intellectualize things too much, and so the path of being 'pious and stupid' is not open to you, but the proof is in the pudding, the Christian formula has worked for centuries and definitely contributed to the success of the Western civilization. Formulas exist because they work.
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Delete(By "the formula works" I mean it works for the family. That it functions for society. - Speaking of which, I recently discovered something. That almost all people of our generation have a common problem: they have been pussified by their mothers. This started 50 or so years ago, women have been gaining and gaining in 'social strength' and men have become weaker; fathers are distant and weak. A role of a father is to protect children from their mother. This protection is required because otherwise, a mother will 'eat' their children (symbolically) meaning: shower them with so much love & affection, even as they grow up, her instinct to feed them and treat them like children doesn't go away, so they become attached, menchildren, and never become independent, "real men". - This problem I see is common, and makes men effeminate. This effeminate nature leads them to effeminate things. A man who has been pussified by one's mother then finds another 'mother' in a wife, and continues the same old. I suspect we have the same problem there, our generation, you and Jason, too. - The constant need to find a 'guru' (and you can pretend you're not doing that, but you are) - is related to this, to the 'insufficient' father hypothesis.)
Delete(Deleted one post as it contained too many digressions and irrelevant and personal elements. I reposted abridged version above.)
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DeleteMy wife is not like other women and our relationship is different. For example, we will not have children and she loves Schopenhauer alongside other literature. Our goal is to save money and live a life like this:
Deletehttp://youtu.be/qYHUyLLiaDc
(good cartoon with heavy themes in Zen.
Has nice touch of magical realism and all about solitude in natutal scenery.
I recommend it)
However the purpose of all this is to harness creative energy to make the best children book ever.
Cue theme song:
I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was.
To experience Kensho is my real test, to bring it forth in art is my cause...
I will travel across the land, pacifying my mind far and wide,
Apprehend Buddha mind, the power that's inside.
Zen! Gotta see into my true nature!
It's the mirrored you and me...
I know it's my destiny.
sepehr you don't listen to me do you ?
Deleteits such a basic, if you think i know what i am on about why don't you listen ?
I will make a blog like Jason very soon.
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DeletePxZ, why did you remove that post, it was good !
Delete"I'm really confused about your (ed. sepehrs) worldview. It's one of the most bizarre concoction I've ever encountered... natural scenery, anime, Zen enlightenment to write children's books "
don't forget "make iran zoroastrian again" and persian racial supremecy !
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PxZ's full post
It's strange. You seem to be following Andrew and completely ignoring him at the same time. Are you following a phantom? Your own mind-made idol?
About "my wife is not like other women" ... that is adorable, but you are in for a rude awakening brother.
"For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child." - Friedrich Nietzsche
My wife, too, tells me she doesn't care about/like/want children, but unlike you, I don't believe she really means it. It's a 'strategy'. The subconscious instinct for a child will eventually prevail. Only one who doesn't know women would believe otherwise. It's their mission in life. -
The children's book fixation could be an overcompensation; I'm really confused about your worldview. It's one of the most bizarre concoction I've ever encountered... natural scenery, anime, Zen enlightenment to write children's books ... but I see some of you in me, there are similarities, although I never liked childish things (anime, children books, etc.), they never appealed to me. Pompoko is decent.
(Delete+repost to fix some grammatical errors.)
DeleteYou seem to be following Andrew and completely ignoring him at the same time. Are you following a phantom?
About "my wife is not like other women" ... I think you are in for a rude awakening brother.
"For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child." - Friedrich Nietzsche
My wife, too, tells me she doesn't want children, but unlike you, I don't believe she really means it. It's a 'strategy'. The subconscious instinct for a child will eventually prevail or at least have negative effect on her psyche if it remains suppressed. It's their mission in life. -
The children's book fixation could be an overcompensation; your world is chaotic: Zen, anime, children books, Schopenhauer. I think you have a talent for comedy, unintentional comedy is the best kind of comedy.
"Quixotic Persian nationalist wants to achieve Kensho through Shikantaza, so that he can live an anime-inspired life in nature where he plans to write the perfect children book with his anti-natalist Asian wife and his cats."
That's one helluva headline right there.
Andrew: I deleted it just for editing/fixing/rearranging some sentences.
DeleteBlogspot really needs an "edit" function ... one of its major flaws.
(Also added a paragraph.)
DeletePxZ
Deletethe sentence i quoted was very good and better left in as is, you don't want to worry about being abrasive here !
My wife and I won't have children. I know this 100%. I deleted my obtuse and unnecessary explanations. I also got side-tracked into other stuff.
DeleteAlso, I don't just read or watch children's media. I think I'll just make a blog and focus while doing frequent Shikantaza. I won't have the time like an3drew to do it about 3 hours a day, though that seems beneficial.
sepehr, you are a liar, you won't open a blog or do shikantaza (which i don't necessarily recommend btw) because you have never done so before
Deleteyou are a failed shark stuck in pretence, a figit spinner trapped in your own inanity !
i can't believe the way i have let you butcher my life with your totally narcissistic consumption of my best time !
I used to attend retreats all the time. You have poor memory. We talked about them a lot.
DeleteI would have become a disciple in my Soto Zen sangha if it weren't for their obsession with proper Lotus posture, which almost destroyed my left knee.
Deletewhat retreats ?
Deleteno zen i know requires you to sit in the lotus posture. an upright cushion or seiza is fine or even a chair
i really feel you have ewk-like lying, a constant distortion of the truth in a way that is reality denying and schizophrenic !
You have poor memory, an3drew. I attended at least 3 "Zazenkais" at Atlanta Soto Zen Center, and I was close to deciding to become a disciple of my teacher. I decided against it because I felt there was a weird implicit bias for sitting on cushion. I agree a chair suffices, but for some odd reason, a bias promote sitting on cushion was spread.
DeleteI did experience deep samadhi during those retreats, even as my left knee hurt, and I will be honest, I rarely feel like that again except occasionally walking.
How am I like Ewk when I consider Dogen visionary and so forth?
I find a lot of your poems and wisdom great, but sometimes I feel there is miscommunication or something. I just asked for a book for my wife, and you went on this trail of argumentation. I didn't even critique or challenge you because I acknowledge you have more wisdom and contemplative depth at the moment.
Zazenkais are like 3-day retreats where you sit 7-9 hrs on cushions with occasional walks. I also attended my weekly sitting session and etc. I was more consistent then, but I eventually became disillusioned with the Soto obsession with proper Lotus posture. Sometimes I felt there was a kind of background of competition to sit in Lotus with proper posture for long duration.
DeleteAlso, I know you disagreed with this, but I never understood your argument against Hua Tou? You once told me to read Kusan Sunim, and I did. It begins by advocating Hua Tou, and I picked the Hua Tou "Who am I?" after listening to a Leonard Cohen song. For 1 week, I did Hua Tou very intently, and I found this equally as effective as Shikantaza. Regardless, coupling it with Shikantaza would probably give better effects.
Samadhi basically feels like melding with the experience around you, while experiencing a kind of mirror-like quality to it, and having more control on how you choose to respond to it.
you are not listening to me, you are disputing me and infilling your own crap into that space !
Deletethe problem with retreats under teachers that are not enlightened which is just about all of then is you take on a lot of stuff that really screws you up as the retreat process makes you absorbtive of these things
'samadhi' is nonsense, you missionize nonsense, crazy crazy crazy !
How am I disputing you when I acknowledge you have experienced kensho and have a tacit apprehension of it on a daily basis?
DeleteI mean, an3drew, you have frequently told me contradicting things. You say that I should get more daily solitude and open a blog, but then you tell me to drop the whole thing because I am married and the fundamental matter of Zen will always elude me.
Tell me precisely what I am best off doing? I'm really not trying to be a shark because I agree with a lot of what you say and such.
Also, doesn't samadhi just mean union or being absorbed in some contexts with Zen and Buddhist literature? That's what I meant.
Deletelike being 'of' rather than 'about'?
Delete
Deletezen is just full of nomenclature bullshit, the term "samadhi" is just part of that !
what it all boils down to is quality reading (and not overwriting it with mental junk food like anime, games or 'spiritual' crap)
and getting solitary contemplative time
i think writing is actually a form of solitary contemplative time
that's all you have to do
what you are doing is attempting to create a methodology for this rather than talking from the decades of experience it takes to talk sensibly and effectively on the subject
i'm not joking when i say decades !
i'm not saying married with or without kids can't come to a reasonable understanding, its just they will have limitations compared to a celibate like myself who has, at huge personal cost devoted my life to it !
so focus on your computer studies and get in a bit of quality reading and contemplative time and particularly don't trash your time with the substandard
what has amazed me is how much better PxZ has done with a good income, i think if you are married a good income, or at least the prospects of one is essential or you will get too unproductively depressed !
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DeleteI agree with what you are saying, but since you are enlightened, I occasionally ask you about quality reading. I wanted to know if those poems by those Chan nuns were quality reading.
DeleteI agree with you on the need of solitary contemplative time and quality reading, but since I am not as enlightened as you, I occasionally ask what constitutes quality reading. I'm not asking because I want to collect them. I'm asking because I want to use them for enhance efficacy of solitary contemplative time.
I used Shiwu (Stonehouse)'s poetry for that.
My issue, and you gave this criticism in the past and rightly so, is that I am not consistent. Sometimes I have glimpses that I feel has "depth", but I need to secure financial income and more to go more deep or sustain it.
all translations are limited, not simply by the translators understanding but culture and time !
Deletedogen translations i simply give up on because they are so out of touch with what he will have said and the same for ryokan !
poetry is always what its about because of the way articulated thinking is bypassed by the highly dense and associative semantics !
the problem is when you skip over stuff you disagree with with, like for my writing
its really using the reading to investigate, not as a proxy for getting stuck in, you use reading as a proxy for such and effect !
in effect, 'we the damaged' have two modes, one i call "waiting at the end of time" which is just meaningless blather and proxying , but the other, so **rarely embarked on** i still have trouble believing it is to penetrate surfaces and move beyond !
When I read Tom Hennen and Shiwu's poetry, I feel like they use "deep image" in order to convey "meaning is a fluid", which is infinite, without getting bogged down in overt semanticism. Wikipedia does a good job defining deep image here:
Delete"[Deep Image] was later redeveloped by Robert Bly and used by many, such as Galway Kinnell and James Wright. The redevelopment relied on being concrete, not abstract, and to let the images make the experience and to let the images and experience generate the meanings. This new style of Deep Image tended to be narrative, but was often lyrical.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_image
Such poetry is, indeed, penetrating "surfaces and moving beyond", which I feel Tarkovsky's films effectively did too.
I agree one uses it to investigate his or her own experiences, which is what Jason does with his blog and homilies.
I feel reading Tom Hennen's poetry was the most profound, since I understood a lot of the cultural context of his poem. I highly recommend you buy "Darkness Sticks to Everything", which you praised for the uninhabited spaces before.
I ultimately agree with your advice and somewhat apprehend what you are pointing at. It's about reading quality works in order to inquire into one's mind more, open the uninhabited spaces, and increase depth of solitary contemplation aligned with Infinity.
It's just I feel like you sometimes misconstrue my intentions when I ask stuff and become somewhat abusive. I agree, sometimes I'm not in the right mind, but why do you think most of my conduct on here has been that of a shark when I agree with you and occasionally do somewhat of a decent job being 'of' it?
even this reply of yours is a shark, i'm not interested in this shit, i have stuff to work out that is light years ahead of tom hennen
Deleteyou are cruel, i have busted my brain on you this morning. all future posts by you will be deleted and this blog is closed permanently to comments
the problem is you are dragging me through spaces i have already traversed and are of no interest to me, but there is stuff ahead to be worked out and you are not taking me into that space !
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