[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I have a lot of respect for Zen, but I still get a bit weirded out by the concept of sitting silently for extended periods of time around similarly-dressed strangers in a zendo. I'm sure it's fine, just my bias against cult-like behavior.

Yeah, same here.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

In any case, I've been doing zazen using a few pillows at home stacked up enough so I can do full-lotus properly, and I've been going for at least 10 minutes a day pretty seriously for the past year. It's actually one of the only things in life I've had the willpower and dedication to do by myself, mostly because of how horrific my mental state was last year and how desperate I was to sync my mind to the Present Moment. My main progress, however, has been "Moving Meditation" --- attempting to stay tied to the breath during the entire day, every day, focusing intently on whatever I'm doing, one thing at a time. Whenever I would notice I wasn't paying attention to my breath (usually by realizing I'm stressing out over something, like my ex-girlfriend), I just went back to it. Easy to do when you're not doing shit with your life really.

That's really interesting. I assume you mean continuously walking in a circle with short steps? Maybe I should try that. Have you noticed any changed or benefits in your every day life? 10 minutes a day consistently for a year is impressive. I really need to get back to this.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

My landlady is quite stingy and didn't use much heat all winter (I rent out the basement in a separate unit), so I had a unique opportunity to pretend I was in some mountain hut, drinking tea in my bathrobe, studying texts, and sitting. I also highly recommend microdosing mushrooms (not enough to seriously fuck you up, but to give you perceptual effects) in nature. I always recommend mushrooms in nature. Preferably with cannabis handy. I have never experienced such beauty, and it's been in front of me the entire time.

That sounds pretty sweet, actually. Do you think the weed and mushrooms are necessary to see the beauty that has been right in front of you, or does it simply enhance it? If the former, what do you think has led you to being able to see and appreciate it when before you couldn't?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

My preferred translation is by the spiritual poet, Stephen Mitchell. I haven't read the Red Pine translation yet, but I like Stephen's because of how poetic and mysterious it is; if not a direct translation. When I was emotionally ruined and delivering pizza last fall and winter I listened to it over, and over, and over again in my truck. I also have the book -- the illustrations are beautiful. I'm actually going to teach myself Chinese/Japanese landscape painting when I get some free time.

Again, awesome. Let me know when you start teaching yourself, I'd like to try too.

Do you ever get frustrated reading about Taoism? I know by definition it is undefinable, and the second you start trying to put it into words you've lost it, but sometimes I feel like it's being vague and esoteric just for the sake of being so. Admittedly that's just my mind wanting definitive, concrete answers, but still. I think more broadly the esoteric nature of some Eastern philosophy and religion is what simultaneously attracts some people and turns others away. The attraction comes from a kind of mystical legitimacy that has been lost with Western religion due to its politicized nature and dumbing down. But that same mysticism makes it seem unknowable to others who are looking for something more straight forward.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Agreed. Moral and ethical purification are much more important than the God question anyways, which arises from suffering in the first place -- which is my main concern.

That's interesting. So you find morality the end, whereas I think of it more as a means to an end. I suppose the two are inseparable for me. Can you expand on your position a little?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I also believe the word "God" is far too tarnished and archaic at this point, at least for those looking outside of Abrahamic religions and the (in my opinion), silly codenames for certain concepts. I much prefer to think of the Universe as being conscious, and we all know for a fact that the Universe exists, seeing as how we are inside of it. I find it difficult to believe that consciousness at our level could spring from an unconscious system, but the "spectrum" of consciousness (See Nagel's: "What is the Consciousness of a Bat Like?") may very well be infinite, and it is likely we are just on one wavelength of that spectrum.

I agree about the word God being loaded. That said, taking your terminology of a pervasive consciousness, could I just swap out the word consciousness and replace it with God and mean the same thing? Forget everyone else's definitions of God. To you, are the two synonymous? Are you basically describing Pantheism? I've thought a lot about that...I think if I were to go in that direction though I'd lean more towards Panentheism, which is subtly different, but the difference between the two means everything, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

The major hurdle I passed while researching all this and meditating at the same time was the sheer awareness of what people call "Spirituality", in all of its myriad forms, on planet Earth. The sheer, staggering number of institutions dedicated to spirituality warrants a very serious examination --- now that I've grown up a bit, it does seem rather silly to write all of those people off as idiots. That being said, a lot of them are still idiots, as we see in the daily news constantly.

It does seem to get to the heart of something profoundly human. To me the question is always is this innate, or did it develop? It's almost impossible for us to understand it must have felt for early man to look up at the sky at night. Terrifying and awe-inspiring, I would think.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Chronicling spirituality throughout history is also very fascinating. Right now I'm studying a lot of Native American/Indian tribes and all of the different ways they interpreted whatever "Spirituality" is. Before the Europeans came, their naturalistic spirituality is actually very similar to the Zen/Taoist Nature-based fusion.

You've mentioned Naturalism a lot. Shinto is obviously Japan-centric, but have you looked into it at all? It seems like what you're doing is merging the idea of universe-consciousness with Naturalist spirituality, which is interesting.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

There are also some very interesting esoteric clues in Greek mythology......

I love Greek Mythology. Any examples?