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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • Buddhism isn’t dogmatic about cosmology/theology, but there’s a lot of it there. Most likely as a hold over from Hinduism, as teaching using the ancient Indian conventional worldview would have been a skillful means for the Buddha and his disciples.

    That said, in that cosmology, the Hindu gods live in the Deva realm. Time there is much slower but they still do age (impermanence) and die, and cycle into lower realms if they don’t awaken. A being can be both a Buddha and a Deva. Just as Siddhartha was a Buddha and a Human.

    An example of this is Amitabha, the Buddha of the Pure Lands (a Deva realm). This is a Buddha that many east Asian Mahayana Buddhists take refuge in, as Amitabha made a vow to hold space for people to practice and achieve enlightenment.

    Amitabha isn’t worshiped the same way Western religions worship gods. The outward customs look similar. Offering incense and stuff like that. But the goal is gifting. It’s giving something to someone you value or love, similar to taking care of the monks and nuns. And gifting is considered a spiritual practice (because it is, giving something with no strings attached or expectation of reward nurtures joy, compassion, etc.)

    Amitabha doesn’t get mad and kill all the firstborns if people don’t give him gifts in other words. That’s the difference between worship and devotion.

    Reading your above comment you might like Burning Man too. The principles provide similar guidance to religion. A lot of Burners are into meditation and stuff like that. A lot of us are also into drugs, loud music that goes all night, and carnival level art spectacles. Which isn’t everyone’s jam, but it’s a very loving community based on anarchism and making art.









  • I was thinking about this more just now. I know you use weed for medical reasons. Do you ever get hypnagogic images off it when you close your eyes?

    I believe this is the cerebral cortex teaching itself how to see things. I get it a lot when I fall into a porn hole or spend a lot of time staring at mushrooms. I think it’s dopamine reinforcement and neuroplasticity, essentially.

    Anyway, you can teach yourself to spot them, is what I’m saying. Smoke a bowl, watch some videos online of people hunting them. Preferably a lot of in nature shots so your brain is learning to see them in the right context. When you start to lose interest, pause a good shot and allow yourself to relax and fall into your breathing. If you do this enough, I bet you’ll start to see morels when you close your eyes before bed.

    And when you get out to look for them, they’ll be much easier to spot if you allow yourself to again relax and fall into your breathing and sort of trust your muscle memory.

    The weed is optional for anyone else reading. But it does have action on dopamine and can give some people mild closed eye visuals, which helps to verify the experiment.






  • Beta blockers - they don’t cross the blood brain barrier and help calm the adrenaline response. If you’re prone to panic, anxiety, trauma triggers, etc. They’re very helpful for my CPTSD triggers.

    Qi Gong

    Listening to a Plum Village dharma talk.

    Walking meditation is good when very restless or anxious. Body scans when trying to build deep states of physical relaxation. Sitting meditation for deep mental calm.

    Pendulation works well when working on an overwhelming task. Permission to take small bites/small steps out of something difficult essentially.

    Reminding myself that the stressor and the sensations of stress are all temporary is good for acute stress, but chronic stress can require radical acceptance instead and changes in lifestyle/habits/thinking patterns.

    Oh I almost forgot, switching from coffee to tea. Although I don’t do that most mornings. When I skip the coffee my anxiety is much less.