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  • QueerCommie [she/her, fae/faer]
    ·
    6 months ago
    Buddhism

    Trying to stop thoughts is a subtle form of aggression. What works better is to let go of the sense of attachment to them as me or mine and then just watch what they do.

    I didn’t mean to suggest I’m forcing it. I know my mind is not me and it’s just coming up with nonsense, but it’s seductive and the metacognition comes in by default too. Also, music never stops playing in my head unless music is playing in real life or I’m hyperfocusing. I find much of my meditation time is spend accidentally believing my thoughts, and I’m glad my mind’s more settled, but I don’t have the patience to go for concentration, unless I’m insanely happy for no apparent reason.

    Eternalism and nihilism are both traps. Two poles. The middle way is to go with the flow.

    Obviously eternalism is stupid. Possibly related: I finally stopped wasting time on counter factuals. It’s hard to live in the moment with under stimulation or hyperfixation, or maybe the latter is the moment and not just a cope? I try to be mindful when I’m doing enjoyable things, but that can “ruin” them due to the fleeting and fragmented nature of experience. Hedonism is a failure.

    And life is full of both.

    Of course, and I’m not sure if I want a more gray consistency like the mental health people think one should, or irrational but sometimes enjoyable ebbs and flows. I just don’t like not knowing what to believe. Positive and negative feelings are a unity of opposites and there are positive and negative sides to the contradiction being stronger or weaker. Dialectics is and is not nihilistic. It is natural for nihilism and over-reading meaning to be paired within me.

    I find the anapannasati meditations quite helpful. Depending on if you want something more structured or less I could link you a few guided meditations. I primarily practice plum village zen and under bhikkhu analayo (theravada reformist and early Buddhist scholar).

    Ok <3 I’ve read and listened to various Buddhist things, recently starting mctb.

    • rayne [she/her]
      ·
      6 months ago
      more Buddhism

      And I apologize if I made too many assumptions in my post about where you are at with your practice and dialectics.

      I get caught in nihilism too, so I guess I just wanted to poke a little bit at that word and see what was fueling it. I'm sorry that you're feeling that way and apologize if I was being a bit aggressive.

      This is a more formal practice. Designed to be deepened over seven weeks. The idea is to do each meditation for a week. It's based on the Buddha's annapanasati sutra (which translates as full awareness of breathing).

      https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/resources/breathing-audio/

      And this is a less formal meditation, that's more accessible. But it uses the same technique of being mindful of the breathing and is based on the same sutra as above.

      https://youtu.be/Qp14LJkYABM?si=U9W2ZStsPtozTfla

      The plum village app is free (actually not full of ads and micros) and has an audio version of the above. Dharma talks. And tons of guided meditations. Under extras there's a rainbow family section, that's queer Dharma teachers.