Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Life is mostly lived in the satisfactory middle, despite all the extreme talk about heaven and hell

Yesterday I wrote a post for my Salem Political Snark blog, "There's a middle way on AI and data centers between anything goes and everything stops." I noted that while I'm not a Buddhist, the general notion of the Middle Way appeals to me, since it applies to a lot more than the traditional moderate position between asceticism and sensual indulgence. In searching for an image to use in the post, I found this, which came from an interesting substack post by Daniel Jeffries, "The Middle Path for AI." That got me to thinking about the bell curve (or normal…
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Posted inConsciousness Mindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

My thoughts often seem like inner speech. But many people think in a different fashion.

In my "Our inner voice is linked to our various selves" blog post (August 2022), I described the decidedly strange experience I had after imbibing an excess of marijuana. Most of us have an inner voice speaking to us inside our mind. It can either be voluntary, as when I read "Most of us have an inner voice" and can hear those words silently echo within my brain. It can also be involuntary, as when I do something wrong and hear "You're an idiot" admonishing me without my consciously willing those words. This inner voice generally is taken for granted.…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Just 10 minutes of meditation results in significant benefits

For 35 years I belonged to an Eastern religion whose teachings required 2 1/2 hours of meditation a day. The reason for that length of time wasn't made very clear. Typically the religion's guru would say that we should "tithe" one-tenth of the day to God-realization, or 2.4 hours. Rounded off, 2.5 hours. For many years I put in that time. Eventually, though, I came to feel that quality was as important as quantity in meditation. Then I typically meditated for about an hour every day, usually in the morning. However, I was aware that the guru who initiated me…
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Posted inNeuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

Everyday awareness isn’t optimal. Psychedelics are one way to improve things.

Continuing with my posts about In Search of Now: The Science of the Present Moment by Jo Marchant, my reading of the book brought me to a subject that was dear to my heart back in my college days: how psychedelics like LSD and mescaline can open the mind to an expanded view of reality. Marchant had been describing how what seems to be the present moment actually is infused by the brain with both our past experiences and predictions of the future. I shared some passages about this in my previous post about In Search of Now. She then…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

The most far-out unexpected form of spirituality might be… just living life as it is

Like many people, I'm a big fan of the unexpected in movies, novels, and streaming shows. You know, that moment when the story line has been moving along in a predictable fashion -- interesting, but nothing special -- then the plot takes an abrupt totally unexpected twist that makes me go, Wow, I sure didn't see that coming. The people I thought were alive actually are dead. This is a computer simulation, not reality. The astronauts who long for their families back on Earth actually are clones with implanted memories. What seems to be a remote mountain community in Idaho…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Facebook post uses Deepak Chopra’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein to caution against spiritual bypassing

Someone recently sent me a Facebook post by Rosemary Holistic Therapy that has some interesting things to say about spiritual teachers acting badly and the danger of spiritual bypassing -- defined as "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks." I've shared the post below because I agree with most of it. It's a bit New Age'y for my taste, and indulges in some psychological talk that doesn't resonate with me. I also have no idea what the "life-force center" of the body is. But I agree…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

A thoughtful critique of the RSSB meditation practice

Obviously there's no one right way to meditate. There's lots of ways, and whether one seems "right" or "wrong" is entirely subjective. It depends on what sort of meditative experience someone wants. So if some religion, sect, spiritual path, or mystical practice claims This is the highest and best form of meditation, don't believe this. Because that sort of claim is complete dogmatic B.S. I'm confident in saying that because for many years I wrongly believed that the meditation practiced by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a guru-centered religion based in India, was #1. It took me quite a while…
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Posted inAlan Watts Spiritual practice/meditation

This is It, by Alan Watts, is a compelling essay about how unordinary our ordinary life is

In my previous blog post, I shared a quotation from Anne Watts, one of Alan Watts' children, that included an excerpt from one of his books, This is It. Liking the excerpt, I turned to my collection of Alan Watts books so I could take another look at This is It. I was surprised to see that I'd never bought This is It. No problem, Amazon delivered a copy yesterday. I read the short 11 page essay this morning. The book also includes five other essays about Zen and how Watts views spirituality. Wikipedia says This is It was published…
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Posted inAlan Watts Spiritual practice/meditation

Why it doesn’t make sense to take the advice of spiritual gurus

"Guru" often is used in a way that goes against the original meaning of the word, a religious or spiritual guide. The literal translation apparently is dispeller of darkness. So I guess a lighthouse keeper would definitely be a guru. More broadly, guru can mean a skilled instructor. If a golfer benefits from some putting tips provided by the club pro, they might say "That guy is a real golf guru." We all need that sort of advice from someone knowledgeable about a particular area. When I contact my doctor's office about a health problem that has popped up, I…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

Three meditation tips that go against what I did for many years

I've meditated every day since I was 21 years old. So I've put in a heck of a lot of cushion and chair time in the past 56 years. (Yeah, I'm old.) What keeps me going with meditation is feeling like I've always got something to learn from the experience. Like life itself, no moment in meditation is the same as any other moment. Something always is changing in my mind, my surroundings, my body. I used to believe that there was One Best Way to meditate. Namely, the way that my guru taught. Looking back, that was an absurd…
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Posted inBuddhism Mystics Religions

Splitting is the biggest danger in religiosity and mysticism

There are lots of good reasons to be wary of religiosity and mysticism. Splitting is one of the most important. It comes in various forms. Most obviously, religiosity and mysticism split us from other people. It is easy, almost compulsory, really, for a believer to consider that they are on a path that makes them special. Perhaps they are saved, while others are condemned. Perhaps they are God's chosen, while others are ignored by God. Perhaps they possess some special revelation, while others wallow in ignorance. But there's another way of looking at splitting that seems to be the foundation…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Sometimes it seems strange to have given up on spiritual projects

Change, even when it feels welcome, often has a way of seeming strange just because the old way of doing things had become so familiar. This is why my giving up on spiritual projects sometimes strikes me as such a departure from my previous approach to spirituality. Here's what I mean by a spiritual "project." Not so much a definition as examples that point to what I'm talking about. For most of the 35 years I was a member of an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I'd regularly go to a bhandara (spiritual gathering) of the organization where I…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Buddhism’s fourth noble truth can be ignored, because there’s no need to follow a path of liberation

My previous post was "The first three of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths are obvious. The fourth is unappealing." True. But I should have made it more clear that in addition to being unappealing, the fourth truth also is unnecessary. That's why I said that Zen is more appealing than traditional Buddhism, because it doesn't buy into the whole Right View, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration stuff. Or at least nowhere near as assiduously as traditional Buddhism does. Since in that post I'd quoted James Ishmael Ford as saying that he's…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

The first three of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths are obvious. The fourth is unappealing.

Here's the blog post about James Ishmael Ford's book, Zen at the End of Religion: An Introduction for the Curious, the Skeptical, and the Spiritual But Not Religious, that got pre-empted by my detour into a recently discovered essay that I'd written more than 25 years ago. I like Ford's style. Warm. Informal. Non-dogmatic. You know, what I'd expect from a Zen practitioner. Early on he speaks about three forms of Zen that lie outside Buddhism. Jewish Zen and Christian Zen are two of them. They don't interest me. Then there's secular Zen, which is the Zen I resonate with most…
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Posted inReligions Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Here I am, once again plugging my “Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing” essay

Half an hour ago I was planning to write a blog post about a new book I've started to read, Zen at the End of Religion: An Introduction for the Curious, the Skeptical, and the Spiritual But Not Religious. I'd planned to talk about a few subjects in the initial chapters that caught my eye. This included a mention of Traditionalism -- a rather esoteric branch of spirituality that I briefly threw myself into after an editor of a Traditionalism journal asked me to write an essay for his publication around 25 years ago, maybe even earlier. I wanted to…
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Posted inIndia Spiritual practice/meditation

Spiritual sickness arises from meditating too assiduously. Or viewing India as a promised land.

Most people view spirituality and meditation as a good thing. Often, it is. But almost always, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. Too much eating leads to obesity. Too much exercising leads to muscle/joint problems. Likewise, too much meditating, or meditating in the wrong way, can lead to ill effects. That's one of the messages in the "Spiritual Sickness" chapter in Scott Carney's book, The Enlightenment Trap: Obsession, Madness and Death on Diamond Mountain. I'd never heard of lung, the meditator's disease, until I read this passage in that chapter. In 2002, she recited mantras…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

The dry clarity of one who no longer lies

This morning I felt in love. With a chapter in Robert Saltzman's book, The 21st Century Self: Belief, Illusion, and the Machinery of Meaning. I knew that I wanted to share it in a blog post tonight. But it was a long chapter. I doubted I could type all of it into a post. So I started typing, figuring that at some point my fingers would tire, the time would grow late, and I'd have to pick and choose what to share, and what to leave out. Yet as I got into the rhythm of Saltzman's writing, needing to pay…
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Posted inDelusions Spiritual practice/meditation

Becoming is a fallacy. Instead, simply be, without the coming.

In my thirty-five years of belonging to an Eastern religion headed up by a guru, I heard lots of statements like this. Some came from me. "I'm going to become enlightened." "I'm going to become a more devoted disciple." "I'm going to become a better meditator." "I'm going to become God-realized." "I"m going to become a knower of ultimate reality." There's nothing wrong with having aspirations, goals, intentions. However, there's a problem with becoming in the realm of spiritual practice. It can easily become the proverbial carrot in front of a donkey -- always just out of reach, no matter…
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Posted inDelusions Spiritual practice/meditation

Don’t let your spirituality be second-hand. Know truth by yourself, for yourself.

I've almost finished reading Robert Saltzman's book, The Ten Thousand Things. I highly recommend it to anybody who is open to embracing an approach to life that is both really simple, and also really radical -- if like me, you've spent much of your life exploring second-hand spirituality. By second-hand, I mean learning how other people have explored what life is all about. At various times I've had a great fondness for Rumi, medieval Christian mystics (especially Meister Eckhart, Alan Watts, modern Hindu sages, and many other people who have written about how they approached the Big Questions of what…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Uncategorized

Meditating with eyes open seems to quiet my mind more than with eyes closed

I've meditated every day for about 55 years. I may have missed a few days over that long span of time, but it's been rare. But how I meditate has changed quite a bit. For the 35 years I was a member of an India-based religious organization headed up by a guru (Radha Soami Satsang Beas), I meditated for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours a day with eyes closed. The goal of that form of meditation was to "go within." Meaning, to leave the world behind and elevate one's consciousness to higher supernatural planes of reality by concentrating at…
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