Posted inPersonal/Stories

Being without power for a week shows what’s important

My wife, Laurel, and I, along with all of our neighbors, plus over a hundred thousand other Oregonians, have been without electricity since last Friday night, February 12. That's when a massive ice storm hit Northwest Oregon, powered by cold air from the polar vortex that afflicted much of the United States and a moisture-laden storm coming in from the Pacific.  The result was snow in areas to the north of us, including Portland, but freezing rain in our area. Which, believe me, is way worse than snow. I shared photos of the damage to our property in a Saturday…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Have a listen to my Everyone’s Autonomous podcast interview

Today my rather lengthy interview with Marie D'Elephant's Everyone's Autonomous podcast interview appeared on her web site. The episode starts off with about 35 minutes of Marie talking before our interview starts. So click your way to the 35 minute mark if you're mainly interested in the interview with me. There's a few gaps in the recording, but they don't last long, so stick with the silence and it will soon end. https://everyonesautonomous.com We covered a lot of spiritual, philosophical, and religious ground. The focus of Everyone's Autonomous is on recovering from dogmatic religiosity. Mostly Marie speaks with Christians who…
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Posted inComments Personal/Stories

More churchless do’s and don’ts from commenters

In my recent post, "Here's some churchless do's and don'ts for the new year," I invited blog visitors to leave their own do's and don'ts in a comment. So far, five people have done that.  Here's what they said. Nicely done, guys. Osho RobbinsDON'T seek God because He ain't seeking youDO live your life as an ordinary personDON'T seek enlightenment because it's already thereDO simply BE YOURSELFDON'T try to be anything other than what you areDO simply BE YOURSELFDON'T complain about your lifeDO simply accept what you have in lifeDON'T think you NEED anything to be happyDO be happy regardless…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s some churchless do’s and don’ts for the new year

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. They are easy to say and difficult to do. I figure that if there was something I should change about my life, it would have been obvious before the arbitrary date of January 1, 2021. But I do believe in taking stock of, well, what I believe.  So here's a run-down of some of my personal do's and don'ts for the coming year -- which aren't different from what I did in 2020. I'm sharing them because others might find them useful. Or entertaining. Or useless.  If you have your own do's and…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

2020 sucked, but our Christmas letter finds some humor in Covid

This wasn't a great year, to put it mildly.  At first I wondered if I should even write our usual Christmas letter, which Laurel, my wife, and I call a Holiday Letter since we don't believe in Christ or any other imaginary god/supernatural being. (I share it as a "Christmas letter" because that's how most people refer to these things.) Laurel convinced me that finding some humor in tough times is a good thing. So after writing a serious first draft of the letter, I started over last night and composed a lighter version.  Here it is, in PDF and…
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Posted inBooks Personal/Stories

It feels good to be getting back into yoga

When I was about 20 or 21, I was a yoga dude. My college girlfriend and I had been studying yoga and meditation with (in retrospect) a crazed Greek teacher who managed to cobble together a blend of Eastern religion, yoga, and Christianity. We used to drive around with him in a VW van with Christananda Ashram on the side. Yeah, it was weird, but this was 1969 and 1970, when weirdness permeated the San Francisco Bay Area, where we attended San Jose State College.  Here's a photo of me from my yoga days. I got pretty damn good at…
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Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories

Oregon wildfires reflect the uncertain nature of reality

Religions are prone to all sorts of ridiculous errors, but one of the worst is believing that reality can be tamed. Meaning, eliminating uncertainty, chance, randomness, unpredictability. It's a psychological truism that we humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty. So we make up stories to fill the gap between what is known and what we have questions about where answers are lacking. How did existence come to be? Nobody knows. Science is content with leaving this question as a mystery. Religions, though, make up a tale about how God created the cosmos -- ignoring the obvious problem of how God came…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Religions

It’s amazing how fictional stories can seem so real

If you ever wonder how religious stories -- Adam and Eve, Krishna, Moses, so many others -- are believed by billions of people, go into a movie theater. (Or remember doing this, if theaters are closed where you are because of the Covid crisis.) If it's a horror film, likely you'll hear shrieks of terror. If a thriller, gasps of surprise. If a romance, tears being wiped away. We humans have no problem being drawn into a fictional story to such an extent it arouses much the same emotions as if the drama was happening to us in real life.…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Live as if you could die at any moment

A few days ago I tried to explain my relationship with reality. Given how meaty, or in my case, tofuy, that subject is, I necessarily had to leave out some of the maxims that currently guide my life. The title of this blog post is another one: live as if you could die at any moment.  Practically speaking, i really mean live as much as possible as if you could die at any moment, because likely it would be counterproductive to always have a sensation that death could come in the next instant. Or, maybe not. I'm unsure about this.…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

May I accept reality as it is (if only Trump would)

For quite a while I've enjoyed a loving-kindness form of meditation where I contemplate these words, repeated twice more with "May you..." and "May all...." May I be happy.May I be safe.May I be healthy.May I be at peace. Lately, though, I've been experimenting with more of a catchall phrase. May I accept reality as it is. Perhaps this sentiment has become more attractive to me after three and a half years of suffering through the presidency of Donald Trump, who lies incessantly and wrongly believes that reality is something that can be bent to fit his own desires. Like,…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Musings on my Father’s Day get-together with an old friend

Over on one of my other blogs, HinesSight, yesterday I shared some thoughts about getting together with a friend, as we have been doing for many years, for coffee and conversation.  Have a read: "Having coffee with an old friend on Father's Day is a great gift." Here's how I introduced the post on Facebook. Hey, I'm actually sharing my feelings about how much I've enjoyed getting together with Jim Ramsey, an old friend, for 49 years. Of course, being a man, I'm going to send him a link to this blog post rather than tell him in person how…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Blast from the past: “I reveal my mystical experiences”

To inspire myself, an admittedly circular task, I've been reading a mini-chapter from my "Break Free of Dogma" book every morning before I meditate. Naturally I like everything in the book, because it consists of posts I selected from the early years of this Church of the Churchless blog, 2004-06. But some of those old posts appeal to me more than others, which gets them highlighted in the Contents section. Here's the first of a two-part Blast From the Blog Post Past, the second being a follow-up I wrote on the theme of mystery. Enjoy... I reveal my mystical experiences…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Politics

George Floyd protest brought my community together

There are lots of ways to feel a sense of community with our fellow humans. Going to a religious gathering is one way, but definitely isn't the best way, because religions are divisive -- if you aren't a member of a particular faith, likely attending a "service" there is going to feel out of place. Yesterday I took part in a protest here in Salem, Oregon against the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman. I was deeply moved by thousands of people coming out to protest the needless killings of so many black Americans at the hands of police…
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Posted inBooks Personal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

I have a “Brian Hines, Author” Facebook page. And an extra copy of Steve Hagen’s book.

Last week I got around to fixing two typos in my Break Free of Dogma book. That took some emailing back and forth with the folks at ebookpbook, as they had designed my 2019 collection of selected posts from the early years of this blog, 2004-06.  After getting print and Kindle files with the typos corrected, I uploaded them to Amazon and basked in the good feeling of finally having a typo-free book. Which led me to think, "Now is the time to do some promoting of Break Free of Dogma," something I hadn't done much of before. Being familiar…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Repurpose your outmoded religious beliefs

When something has gotten worn out and doesn't work well for you anymore, it's natural to lean toward discarding it. But often it's possible to find another use for the item.  For example, in my closet I've got a place where I keep my work-in-the-yard clothes -- old pants and t-shirts that I put on when I'm going to get dirty or sweaty. I didn't buy them for that purpose. They've just been repurposed from their original use. Likewise, it makes sense to do this with outmoded religious beliefs. You've moved on from the dogmas that you used to embrace.…
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Posted inCoronavirus Personal/Stories

Check out my top 10 bright spots during the coronavirus period

Head on over to my HinesSight blog and learn what's been keeping my mood up during the enforced isolation of Oregon's Stay Home, Save Lives orders.  Tonight I wrote, "My top 10 bright spots during Oregon's stay-at-home period." Number 1 is: This afternoon I came home from a dog walk to find my wife taking part in a Zoom dance party celebrating her grand-niece's birthday. Naturally I had to grab my iPhone and upload a short video to You Tube.
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Posted inCoronavirus Personal/Stories

How are you coping with the coronavirus outbreak?

Since this blog attracts people from many countries, I'm curious to learn how you are coping with the coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak.  Leave a comment on this post, if you like. It'd be good to know both how people in your part of the world are handling the disruption in everyday life that, likely, has been imposed by government authorities, and also how you yourself have been affected.  What disturbs you the most about what's going on? What bright spots can you find in this otherwise dark and distressing situation? All I ask is that you keep religion out of…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Reality: it’s not all about you

Many years ago, too many to count, a friend brought a tape recording to our house (yes, tape) of a talk that contained a marvelous little poem by David Ignatow. I wrote down his words. I've thought a lot about them ever since. I should be content to look at a mountainfor what it isand not as a comment on my life. In my religious-believing days, I would look for portents, signs, indications that the cosmos had something to say to me. If I was late getting to a meeting of my spiritual group and every traffic light would be…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Calm clear consciousness — my new favorite “mantra”

OK, calm clear consciousness isn't really a mantra for me, notwithstanding the title of this blog post. Those are just three words that I've been saying to myself a few times a day, because they do a good job of summing up my current approach to meditation and spirituality. Here's some additional words that explain part of the meaning that I attribute to calm clear consciousness.  Consciousness. Everything we have experienced, are experiencing, and will experience is dependent on consciousness. No consciousness, no experience.  But there are degrees of consciousness. There's a big difference between someone comatose, in a dreamless…
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