Meditation for me of late has become de-energized along a few different lines. I'll share some here. I have made progress and this has turned into a mental assertion that is eroding gradually the energy that made the progress possible in the first place. Think of it as
There are two ways in which world religions bring a person into a state of felicitous wholesomeness, where there is a temporary cessation of the Three Poisons of Greed, Hatred and Delusion. The first is bhakti, which is Sanskrit for devotion, piety, worship and faith. The second is taking refuge
Since the advent of modern women's liberation in the 1960s and 1970s, the period of so-called First Wave feminism, everything in American society has gotten worse. Middle brows are furrowing already as the phrase "correlation does not... uh... causation..." begins to form on chapped lips. If
The French passed Article 4, which makes it a crime to criticize the mRNA vaccines. Fines of up to 45,000 Euros and/or 3 years imprisonment for people who do so. In my last post, I mentioned how silly the Western obsession with law is and how it stems
The West is a meat grinder. Whatever you feed into it becomes chewed up beyond all recognition, fit only to be wrapped up in plastic and then slapped in a refrigerated counter under fluorescent lights. One of the questions that comes up among Westerners re: Buddhism is the latter'
If I were an oligarch – and no oligarch would ever do what I'm proposing here even though it would cost them nothing – I would build a black obelisk with the names of every U.S. senator and representative who voted to give Israel money since October 7th. I
The Fifth Precept goes: I undertake the training rule to abstain from intoxicating drinks and substances which cause heedlessness. I try to take the precepts each day, first thing before getting out of bed. If you do this along with the Five Remembrances – and maybe promise yourself to be mindful
It occurred to me one day that daily meditation – practice – is among other things a training for our death. This assumes that one's death is not sudden but rather something anticipated in terms of minutes, hour or months. If you die suddenly in this life, your practice will
In a recent YouTube video, Joseph Sciambra and Fr. John Strickland held an interesting review of Western art, exploring the underlying theology and anthropology. I never really paid much attention to just how weird Western religious art is. I knew some of the works were odd and I gravitated years
There is no Artificial Intelligence. Let's just get that out of the way. What people call AI is based on an oligarchical scheme to inflate company stock values. I worked at a small software company in the 1990s and saw its stock reach the stratosphere on revenues of
For years I've weighed the benefits of going mobile. Before I bought my house, I gave serious thought to going nomad, buying a used camper and taking to the open road. Here is a list of why I did not and still would not: * Cost. Used RVs and
This is a terrible story, but I'm glad Sheila Bell stepped forward to share it. Capitalists assumed that they could force the jab onto their employees and that they would share the indemnity extended to Pfizer and other firms behind it. This is not going turn out as