#buddhist rambles

(And have done for a while. I'm mostly sharing it because I was thinking about it and its relation to other values and thoughts I have and felt like sharing it)

Temporarily denying access to a main coping tool

It sounds counter intuitive, but every so often - either when I want to develop myself more or when I feel like I am stuck for no particular reason and thus feeling as though my life has grown dull and empty - I look at what I spend most of my time doing, particularly to relax, and I say "hey for the next week, we aren't going to do that. Its still there, but that action is off limits" and I choose to limit the usage of whatever I usually spend my time doing

It can cause some stress and so I don't push myself to abide by it 100%, but I try to stick to it when I can, because I often find that when a dominating coping mechanism and time sink is removed, there opens up a vacuum and that vacuum serves to provide a lot of opportunity to introduce new habits, new skills, and see life in a more creative and open manner.

It causes a mild amount of adjustment stress, but so long as the coping mechanism is still there to return to (and you let yourself dabble if it ever gets too stressful with the interest of still minimizing usage) that adjustment stress is a small payment for experiencing new things and being able to expand the things that you can self sooth with.

Not only is this helpful for having diversified coping strategies and introducing healthier habits, but it also practices and helps reinforce to the emotional / trauma brain that sometimes when things that we love and are used to regularly using to sooth aren't available, that we are okay and able to manage with other coping tools - including ones we haven't acquired. It reinforces the idea that even without our familiar coping tools, the world has a lot of things out there that can fill the role as something soothing.

And when you practice the unavailability of preferred coping tools in a space where they aren't ACTUALLY 100% unavailable, you can practice and develop the tolerance to that lack of access in a space where you still have control how much you can tolerate

But the realization and awareness that I have - for at least the past like two years and increasing in frequency - been experiencing a lot of paradoxical sleep is just such a fucking interesting experience and a thing I'm DEFINITELY exploiting cause like, I've very much kind of just found a way to basically fall asleep in literally less than 2 minutes and actually go into REM stupid fast while still being conscious / lucid w/out dreaming and its so fucking wild.

But like I've been doing little self experiments of observation with it and like the other day I was like "Aight Im tired, Imma give myself fifteen minutes" and in 8 minutes got the whole fucking "cat nap" feel of shit while still being aware of like the general passage of time albeit at like 2x speed and I was in the plane today and Im like "dude I literally felt my body turn off what the fuck this is kind of fucking cool" plus also me going "Okay so I lost the ability to dissociate to take a break from existing with recovery but INSTEAD I've unlocked Sleep Hax"

Cause Im like HOLD UP

When I get REALLY deep into my thoughts and just rest my eyes and I SWEAR to GOD Im literally awake but I am OBVIOUSLY externally asleep, that is ACTUALLY sleeping and that is ACTUALLY going into REM and part of why I retain that sense of being awake is cause my brain goes into REM stupid fast

And so Im just like bro bro bro

I can go from not being able to nap in the day time to being the MASTER napper while just engaging in my deep thought?

AND THE FUNNIEST THING

IM LIKE THIS IS LIKE LUCID DREAMING WITH NO DREAMS IS THAT A THING

I LOOK IT UP

LIKE

HELLO HOW DID BUDDHISM COME UP AT ME AGAIN

Like its NOT clear light sleep as I experience it but Im like man its like Im lucid dreaming but with no dream i wonder if that is a thing But dude like of course cause I've always made myself my own guinea pig and shit I'm just taking this weird thing about me and testing where I can go with and its fucking wild to have no dream but be "ah, I'm asleep, I should proabbly wake up in a bit" and actually like tuning into senses through the sleep like muting of it all to just keep track of time while asleep its SO weird but kinda fun

But I couldn't really go into all the lines of thought I had for story flow, but a thing a lot of people get wrong about meditation is that it is 1) only meditation when it is done sitting in lotus / half lotus and chanting mantras, particularly "Om" 2) meditation - especially in Zen practice - is doing nothing and tuning out from everything

Both of those aren't quite true. Yes ideal traditional meditation is done sitting in lotus / half lotus and can include mantras but meditation is more so a practice of intentional doing not intentional Not Doing

From the outside, because many meditate while sitting and "doing nothing" it looks like a practice of nothingness; what is actually occuring is the practice of actively doing one thing - existing

The reason many sit, say mantras, and 'do nothing' is because those things can get in the way of a focused practice at the singular action of Just Existing.

Learning to simply exist is important to Buddhist practice and to learn to "simply" exist requires practice in Intentionally Existing, because simply existing in the world is a very difficult and challenging skill. And so we sit and focus on practicing nothing but Existing as that translates into our daily life and makes "simply existing" easier.

And Just Existing is a very very busy thing to do when you start really practicing it. Its why some practioners can sit for hours on end doing "nothing", because even if the one activity is Existing, the deeper you get into it, the more busy Existing can be - but busy in a good "engaged" way.

And also, Just Existing is hard and so while sitting in lotus / half lotus is best practice, not everyone can tolerate that level and so meditation in more "distracted" settings can be done. Often the alternatives are repetitive, dull and monotonous work. For those that can get overwhelmed with just existing (such as people with C-PTSD) giving yourself something to mediate the intensity of Just Existing can help start the practice

Personally 90% or more of my "meditation" is while at the gym on an elliptical, while on a walk, or while driving. Each activity, for where I am at, serves a similar purpose of a mantra which is to simply help me focus on not focusing on anything that would detract from my practice of existing.

Cause certain ideas that come from Buddhism that I tried, found to be true and helpful for me to try to keep in mind and all I tend to need to restate in times of high stress and I was like "Yeah theyre kind of just my mantras that I use to keep myself aligned with what makes me feel how Id like to"

But then I paused and went "wait mantra is a sanskrit-origin word huh... its probably actually from Buddhism or Hinduism....google google."

Doing Nothing is still a valid and honestly freeing activity to do. Capitalism likes us thinking that doing Nothing is not doing anything, but when the choice to do Nothing is an active decision, it can be really peaceful and healing.

Learning to do Nothing is hard because it is easy to get distracted by something and be removed from the activity of doing Nothing, but once doing Nothing becomes an activity you can choose to engage in, doing Something slowly begins to also feel like doing Nothing.

The peacefulness that comes in doing Nothing and doing Something begin to blur as the skills of doing Nothing begin to translate into the foundation of your actions of Something

"The biggest, most dangerous form of evil in Buddhist thought is "ego" or self-grasping. If ANY mental phenomena increases your self-cherishing attitudes (self importance, grandiosity, jealousness, craving, hatred, self-loathing, self-absorption etc) it's evil. IF a mental phenomena causes greater flexibility, less attachment, more tranquil emotions, less mental chatter/discursive thinking, increased generosity and compassion toward others, higher mental clarity etc.--that's good. When working with the infinite power of your own mind, it's important to think of it like a garden. What plants are you tending to most? Are they medicinal? Are they ornamental? Are they poisonous? Are they weeds?"

as well as

Now, leave it to Victorians to take Tulku concept and turn it into a completely individualistic way of making another Ego inside your Ego--as if having one wasn't enough of a burden.

I would also like to say for those reading this, do not use white, western, and christian interpretations of terms like "evil" and "good" - evil and good in Buddhist philosophy doesn't inherently mean Evil like it does in Christian heavy spaces. It means a thing that brings dukkha or suffering / unhappiness.

A large core of zen is removing the "I" from life.

And no, again, western perspectives, this doesn't me "sacrificial selflessness" necessarily either, it doesn't mean anything more than 'removing the I' and if that confuses you or doesn't make sense, that is because - at least in Zen practice - it is an extremely esoterical concept that sets the frame work for a literal life time of practice to explore and deeply understand. There is no way I could ever imagine to explain what "removing the I from life" means in a textpost that not only does it justice as someone who is relatively young in my practice to explain it to someone who doesn't know the practice at all, in one post. It's not something you can explain, it is just something you either need to engage with to understand or simply just respect. If you have preconceptions of what it is, you are probably incorrect.

So the very act of creating more egos and concepts of "I" with details and divided lives and interests and tastes and aesthetics and relationships is just... so fundamentally not Buddhist. I used to say not Zen Buddhist because that is all I can talk about, but apparently not Just Zen Buddhist.

Its honestly - as an ex-Satanist/Luciferian (depends which part you ask) myself - like trying to make the case that Satanism is a genuine innocent respectable break off branch of Christianity that is not at all meant to be mocking, twisting, or disrespecting Christians. Satanism is taking everything Christians tend to condemn about the human soul and spirit and flipping it on its head to have its own philosophy and ideology. It is inherently a fuck you to Christians (which I support love yall)

"Modern Tulpamancy" is taking what is one of the largest causes of dukkha (probably the closest thing to 'sin' if you HAD to draw comparisons) in Buddhism and just... EMPHASIZING it, making it the center of your lifestyle and/or practice should you choose to use that term, and then trying to say.... its not??? disrespecting??? it??? that it isn't a mockery???