Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

We need to honor the brokenness in ourselves. And, in others.

This morning I listened to a wonderful guided meditation on my Calm app about the chips and cracks of our experience. Tamara Levitt ended the meditation with the words I've transcribed below. I couldn't help thinking about how this applies to supposedly "broken people" like the homeless in Salem. Actually, as Levitt says, the Japanese art of Kintsugi shows that healing brokenness results in more beauty, not less. Human flaws produce a tapestry that can't be reproduced, being the product of our unique experience. So rather than extolling those who seem to "have their act together," perhaps we should revere…
9
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

How an atheist can find “spiritual” inspiration

A few days ago I was talking with somebody about finding "spiritual" uplift without believing in God or any other supernatural entity. I put that word, spiritual, in quotation marks because I no longer consider that there's some sort of other-worldly spirit or soul. Not in me. Not in anybody else. Not in the cosmos. Yet I'm still attracted to the notion of spirituality. In a thoroughly secular sense. Meaning, well... it's all about meaning. Whatever inspires us to carry on through tough times; whatever propels us forward on our life journey when we're not sure if we can take…
13
Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Check out “The Way of Wonder” by Jack Haas. It’s, well, wonderful!

So, what do you read if you're not religious, but you're still filled with a sense of wonder about the marvelous mystery of the cosmos? How do you inspire yourself "spiritually" if you don't believe in God or any other theological fantasy, yet still want to feel an energetic boost that impels you more strongly to know the unknowable insofar as it can be known? My top answer is Jack Haas' book, The Way of Wonder.  I bought it nine years ago, in 2008. Somehow it took me until 2013 to leave an Amazon review. Which is still the only…
No Comments
Posted inPolitics Spiritual practice/meditation

How this atheist feels about prayers after another mass shooting

Another day in America, another mass shooting. A lone gunman shot Rep. Steve Scalise and four other people at a park where Scalise was practicing for a benefit Congressional baseball game.  This is a tragedy. So are the tens of thousands of other gun deaths that happen every year in this country.  But after dramatic shootings like this one, there's a familiar ritual: "thoughts and prayers" are directed to the victims and their families.  I wrote about this in 2015 after the San Bernardino shootings. Here's an excerpt from "Another mass shooting. No more 'thoughts and prayers.' Gun control ACTION!"…
5
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

The spiritual implications of drink when thirsty, eat when hungry

I'm a firm believer in living naturally. Not unnaturally naturally. Just naturally naturally.  Meaning, do what is natural. But don't make a fetish out of this, don't strive to do it, because trying too hard to be natural leads to artificiality.  When it comes to drinking and eating, here's some good advice: Drink when thirsty. Eat when hungry.  This sounds very Zen. And it is. But it also makes a lot of scientific sense. For example, check out "Just drink water when you're thirsty like a normal person, study finds." After much deliberation, a 17-member expert panel representing four countries…
7
Posted inFree will Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Experience of conscious will is an illusion

I don't believe in free will. But like most people, I have a feeling that my intention to do something is what causes that thing to happen.  So we have two things going on: (1) A scientific world view doesn't support a belief in free will. As I've written about a lot on this blog (type "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar to find the many posts), there is no evidence of an immaterial self/soul that somehow floats free of the material/physical goings-on in the human mind. So there's no entity within us which can…
6
Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

How meditation helped Yuval Harari write “Sapiens,” a terrific book

I absolutely loved Sapiens, a book by a historian that was like no history book I'd ever read before. It was filled with wonderfully fresh insights -- Big Astounding Ideas rather than little boring facts. My blog posts about the book will give you a feel for what the author, Yuhal Harari, wrought.  "Religion is just one of many stories humans have imagined""Imagined orders -- like religions -- depend on shaky myths"Given how much I admired Sapiens, when I saw the title of a post by Ezra Klein on the Vox site, I knew that I had to read "Yuval…
3
Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

The joy of living in a meaningless world

The deeper I dive into atheism, the more blissful those warm waters of faithlessness seem. Which is a big change from my early non-believing years, when I often felt that something important was missing from my life. That something was a built-in, ready-made, out-there-to-be-discovered meaning of existence. A spiritual shoulder to lean on, a cosmic compass to guide my way, an uplifting understanding of dependable solid ground lying beneath the shifting sands of everyday experience. Even after I'd given up a belief in God or any other obviously supernatural entity, I had a lingering feeling that is difficult to put…
4
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

I’m getting more skeptical about mindfulness

I've meditated every day, with a few exceptions, for over 45 years. For a long time I was a super-meditator, spending 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time on a quest for the Meaning Of It All (MOIA).  Failing to find the elusive MOIA, I've shifted to 20 minutes of morning meditation, half of it guided via my Calm iPhone app, and half freestyling on my own.  Having discarded a religious motivation for meditating -- I no longer believe in enlightenment, soul travel, or union with a universal consciousness -- I've embraced mindfulness as a secular alternative.  Be here…
13
Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

“Anxious time” is mental. “Calm time” is physical.

Here's another chapter in my never-ending story of Observations About the Cosmos That Are Either Astoundingly Brilliant or Fucking Obvious. I've figured out where anxiety comes from! And how to cure it!  OK, let's make that my anxiety. Your results may vary. Consult a qualified professional rather than this blog post if you're really being driven crazy by uncontrollable worrying. The sort of anxiety I'm talking about manifests in me as a sort of negative mental background buzz. I'll be lying in bed before going to sleep at night, or my senior citizen afternoon nap, idly thinking about stuff in…
3
Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Preparing for certain future events vs. being prepared for anything

This afternoon, during some part of my all-important senior citizen nap time, I had another of my Aha! moments where everything in the cosmos becomes crystal clear for a brief moment of intuitive comprehensibility. And this time, astoundingly, I wasn't even under the influence of a psycho-active substance. Aside from my brain, which now and then approaches a genuine psychologically "active" state of being. As I felt it did today. I was mulling over some of the things I needed to do in the realm of my retired-person civic activism. For example, I'm engaged in a fight against a wastefully…
1
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Break the habit of separating body and mind

Almost always, it is best for our body and mind to be in sync. Meaning, whatever our body is doing, the mind should be focused on that activity.  This is a key conclusion I've reached after becoming churchless following several decades of believing the opposite: that mind was a separate entity from body, and it was desirable to view the contents of consciousness as distinct from bodily goings-on.  Back in those dualistic days, when I embraced an Eastern "leave this world and find a better one" meditation approach, my guru taught that a mantra should be repeated as much as…
9
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Be Here Now” — actually, it isn’t possible to do anything else

I started studying yoga and meditation in 1969, when I was a student at San Jose State College. I've got a well-thumbed 1972 sixth printing copy of Ram Dass' "Be Here Now" book, which was published in 1971.  I haven't re-read the book for a long time. I guess the title alone was enough for me to keep in mind.  But today, when I was meditating in the morning, as I have virtually every day for the past 47 years or thereabouts, I was struck by how meaningless those words, Be Here Now, seemed to be in my present churchless approach…
3
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Profitable spiritual investing: do nothing extra in tough times

My churchless "sermon" this Sunday is based on an article in TIME magazine's March 28 issue, "In a turbulent stock market, the best investment move is the least obvious." This non-sacred secular scripture ends with a paragraph that has deep meaning for those of us -- which means all of us at some point -- who face difficult choices about how to deal with tough times in life. You can't avoid all the dangers that lurk in the global economy, but you can minimize their impact. Timing any market remains a fool's game. Another mistake, says Moskowitz, is that when…
1
Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

“Higher” states of consciousness actually are lower

I was turned on to an intriguing TEDx talk by neuroscientist Arne Dietrich about Surfing the Stream of Consciousness by a reader of this blog. His description of the core theme of the 17 minute video starts at about the 13 minute mark, if you want to get the gist in only four minutes.   A blog post on The Peaceful Self site, "Flying With the Pixies," includes a transcript of part of Dietrich's talk.  "Your mind, your soul, your hopes, your dreams, your emotions is about a cantaloupe size of meat crackling with electricity inside your skull. There's nothing sacrosanct…
5
Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Advice about marijuana “paranoia” from an ex-hippie pothead

In case you're wondering... sure, this post does indeed belong on this here Church of the Churchless. After all, I've written at some length about why "Marijuana is my secular sacrament." Excerpt: I’m grateful to Mother Nature for bringing forth a substance that elevates the spirit. There’s a reason we speak of getting high. Cannabis has a way of making my usual worries and anxieties appear much smaller, as if I were standing on top of a mountain, looking at them from a distance rather than close-up. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve lost touch with reality. Rather,…
2
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Live happy and healthy — die soon anyway

A Mark Morford piece, "Study: Live happy and healthy and die soon anyway," appeals to my basic cranky old man sense of WTF. Sure, I'm happy most of the time. Especially when I'm complaining about something. Which includes religion.  But I don't enjoy feeling that happiness is a must, that if I'm not happy bad things are going to happen to me. (Aside from being unhappy, of course.) This is, though, how in the past I've looked upon supposed scientific findings that a positive outlook is good for your health. And, if one believes in religiosity, for your soul. Thankfully, according…
No Comments
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Mantra meditation basically is useless

First off, tonight I had another circular moment when I decided to search Google for "mantra meditation useless," the topic that I wanted to blog about. This has happened to me before when I've asked the Great God Google to enlighten me on some subject. I do a search, then find that some of my own Church of the Churchless posts are the top results.  So I turn out to be the answer to the question that I asked myself.  In this case, Google led me to my "Meditation is useless" and "Skeptical look at mantras and Transcendental Meditation" posts. …
7
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

A walk in nature could be better than meditation

I've meditated every day since 1970. So obviously I'm a big believer in meditation.  But the more meditating I've done, the less I believe it is the best way to feel better and deal effectively with life's problems.  Sure, it is one way. There just are so many others -- as Brené Brown implied in an answer to a question posed to her in the "8 Questions" feature on the last page of a recent issue of TIME magazine. You say one of the keys to all this is spirituality. Why is that?I really wrestled with that. The way I define spirituality is a deeply…
3
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

It is impossible for the brain to always “be here now”

I'm a big fan of mindfulness and meditation. I resonate with a non-religious, secular, scientific approach to Buddhism.  But I'm also an avid reader of neuroscience books. My current fave is Antonio Damasio's "Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain."  Much of the book is filled with more details about brain anatomy and functioning than I really care about. The overall theme, though, is fascinating -- how our sense of self is built up from more primitive primordial feelings, along with a less primitive core self and a possibly uniquely human autobiographical self. Today I came across a section…
1