Anyone have thoughts about someone being, trans-racial?

I believe this lady straight-up cray cray!

shit.. that sucks.. I'm just hoping to get busy soon so I can crawl out of this funk...





she claimed to be a black woman.. the DNA test determined THAT was a lie..

you people need to learn to sit down & just be, or practice meditation, and just let go of the incessant monkey mind, instead of trying to suppress it with chemicals or run away from it with constant busy-ness.

before someone accuses me of proselytizing buddhism, the catholics used to call that contemplative prayer-- i'm sure the ortodoxos have something similar. or try sufism.

summer is the best time to sit down and just look at a fucking tree.there is nothing more delicious than nothing.

Dude, I'm an Orthodox Christian, only the monks and chaste old ladies possibly spend more time in prayer, meditation, and spiritual contemplation than I do. Those things keep me sane about 90% of my spare time, but the 10% can really drag me down the rabbit's hole sometimes :(

meditation is non-thinking though. it's not good-thinking but outside-of-thinking. just zero. nothing. it's hard as fuck at first; once it's a habit its easy to plugin like neo and escape the matrix. agent smith becomes irrelevant.

Yes Daniel-san but the problem is that inevitably the brain has to turn itself back on and do functional human things, and if your brain has dysfunctional hardware issues, then that can be a problem.

I appreciate your efforts, I'm just venting here.. is what it is and I can only just continue to navigate my own experiences without totally falling apart. Indeed, its been almost ten years since the last time that happened so I'm sure I'll be fine, but then again, that is sort of the part that fucks with me the most lately, the very mediocrity and inevitability of it all. Sometimes its more human to just hit rock bottom than to so precariously try to balance everything all the damned time.

i know. that's why you need to sit and look and listen to that tree/wall/whatever right now, so that when you come back to your dysfunctional brain you do it with a little bit more space between it and you, ha ha ha.

i'm not denying the pain of dysfunction, just saying it can be left behind. because even eufunction (is that a word?) causes suffering.

also to note-- to stop thinking is not to be unconscious. you can be totally conscious but not-thinking-- the chatterbox is OFF. you know that state of flow that people talk about for peak performance? that's it. proof that you can do functional human things with it-- but it takes practice not to fall off that bike.

seriously, it's like working out. gotta keep doing it, especially when thinking starts to hurt.

Again, meditation or lack there of is not my issue, i appreciate the advice. However at this junction im not particularly in the mood for essentially hearing a modified version of "its really just your own fault, try harder next time."

would positive rep this a thousand times if i could

i see you added more to your post after the part i quoted, so i didn't take that into account when i wrote my reply. so now it reads like im overpushing it when i was just dealing with a different original text.

but anyway, so as not to overpush it, i'll stop from arguing "i wasn't saying it's your fault," etc. and just let you be.

im getting to the point in my own life where the incessant and quasi fascist drive to positive thinking and the religion of working on yourself is testing my patience.

i feel like telling people to fuck off and increasingly im looking for ways to firmly shut down the conversation when it comes to this

its the most condescending non advice you can get. it basically boils down to "but you just have to do it!" over and over again. for someone to say this to you implies a level of disrespect, condescension and stupidity that is extremely irritating.

i do not give a fuck if these attitudes are socially mandatory and aggressively promoted by the majority of people at all times. they are wrong. the denial of the negativity of our situation is imo highly linked to how much we actually suffer it. it is a form of abuse to demand this positivity and supernatural inexhaustible will power from people, to force them to personalize EVERYTHING so that collective and social experiences cannot form and only individualized misery and suffering and self blaming can propagate and our slavish devotion to exploitative reality paradigms can continue unquestioned and further punish and hurt us.

if it handicaps me in life to reject this attitude then so be it. i will tell anyone who tries to reply to this by saying one thing about ME and not my actual argument with the phrase "fuck off" and nothing else. if i get one single response about ME to this then that's what i'll say if i even reply at all. and in real life i will at least feel like doing that.

as far as im concerned anyone that feels like they have a right to sadistically try and reformat my brain into positivity and self blame is someone not worth respecting or listening to.

and someone IRL is doing this EVERYDAY and shits gonna hit the fan soon

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to !@#$%! again

Yes. There is enormous value in meditation. I don't sit much anymore but I should. When I received my Zen lay ordination in the '90s, I was really into it, and it made me feel better about myself, and that made me a better human being, somebody who was kinder and more patient. I was still human, I still did dumb things, I still made a lot of mistakes, and I still got angry and sometimes mean and impatient. But I was a lot better off than I would have been without it. What I find with meditation is that it gives you some space, in your daily life, to slow down, so that you are not reacting as much and instead are responding. I have a hard time seeing that there is anything at all wrong with that.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to gmku again

a sorta ex of mine called me crying because he broke up with his girlfriend and is moving back to florida and asked if maybe we can hang out whenever he's back because he'd only be an hour away or so, and i "really got him" and etc. every fucking time one of these guys ends a relationship, they call me.

FLEE

oh, i told i can't talk tonight for one... i feel bad because his brother just died, too. but we ended things on fairly awful terms but maintain a semi-friendship online, and ugh, no way am i returning to that in any semblance

i'm glad to hear that. exes are exes for a reason. you're working hard to make a new life, so-- yeah.

he essentially is a human tornado. yeah. it sucks i seem to have a tractor beam for junkies and outcasts, but whatever. trying to do better. i'm trying to plan a trip home in the next few weeks and like, regroup myself.

i tried meditating today- it was super fucking hot outside (heat index is 101 fuck that) but i sat under this nice tree on campus and chilled for a few minutes listening to some slowdive. it kinda helped, but i also had a dose of ritalin so i was just feeling okay overall.

ha ha ha-- whatever works! right?

since everyone seems in a better mood now i'll explain a supersimple technique

the easiest easiest most basic form of "meditation" i can think of, one that is simple enough for everyone and requires no sore legs or mystical beliefs or anything, is to lie down flat and comfortable with the pams facing up, you know what they call the "corpse" pose in yoga-- do an image search

then you simply breathe and scan your body-- become aware of it-- starting from, say, the feet, and moving upward. some people teach this with just the skeleton/muscles, consciously relaxing them as one progresses, all the way up to the face, but i like to become aware of my insides as well, because of some chinese stuff i learned once-- just feel around the organs, lungs, liver, stomach, etc. and regardles of the circuit path i like to finish in the navel area as a collect point.

anyway, that stuff, that simple stuff, the act that putting your mind back in your body gets one back from mental overdrive and into the world with peace again. it's superrelaxing before sleeping, for example, and i have empirical evidence that it helps prevent nightmares. the why and how is a long hard-to-believe explanation, but basically i've seen it work and i swear by it.

ooh! actually i did that to go to sleep for a long while. i'd do the corpse pose, and slowly tense every muscle from the toes up, count to then, then un-tense while breathing in and out. it always helped. then i just did drugs instead, but yknow, life happens.

but it is super relaxing. i taught it to my brother, too. and he's more hyperactive than i am.

ha ha ha-- "life happens". yes. funny/sad, but there is no reason not to pick up where you left off. i think everyone has to get lost a little (more or less) before returning "home", so to speak. once upon a time i went mad-- it was a kind of neurosis turning into a psychosis from the stress. deep depression, suicidal, shit like that. oooooffff... dark times. i'm much better now.

anyway, yeah. you can do that anywhere actually, with practice, without a special pose-- just get out of your head and back in your body. that stuff helps me with anger, panics, serious pain, etc.-- i know the instinct is to flee the body into fantasy, but actually minding the body helps more.

ps- and i mean the actual body, not "the mental image of the body" which is a source of soooo much trouble (and plastic surgeries).

It's been over a month since EVOLghost last posted......any word on how he is doing?

Is he in rehab?

here's one I sometimes do: (i think i already posted this somewhere here)

How to disappear - Haytham El-Wardany

1. Sit alone in a public space like a café, garden, or public square.
2. Try to shift your focus from the thoughts spinning in your mind to the sounds of the space surrounding you.
3. Consider the sounds that reach your ear, sound by sound, without granting any one sound greater significance than any other.
4. Contemplate the folds and creases of the sounds you now hear. When you hear the voice of a passerby, contemplate its tone and this tone's depth, not only the meaning of its words. When an annoying car drives past, contemplate the harsh sound of its motor and the sonic spectrum of its reverberations. When you hear a distant radio, don't focus merely on the singer's voice or the sons's name, but rather contemplate the clarity of its frequency and listen to its static. When you ultimately succeed in listening to the place in its entirety, you will find that the distance between yourself and the space's sounds has diminished, and that you have become part of the place. You will find that no one around you notices your presence; everyone will pass by without seeing you.

How to reappear

1. Return home and turn on all the electrical appliances you own. Run the vacuum cleaner at full power, turn the radio and televsion on at full volume, turn the air conditioning on if you have it, run the washing machine, and have the alarm clock go off if possible.
2. Sit for half an hour amidst this maddening cacophony. (...)

Gotta keep telling myself that I can't be more than 100% of what I am already. There's no shame in wanting more in life. But once that wish renders you unhappy even though you've accomplished some things in recent history, you might want to work on your attitude. Any suggestions on how to effectively think small?

exercise has helped a ton with my body awareness- i'm still a total klutz (which i sorta attribute to my lack of peripheral vision; half the reason i sucked at actual marching in marching band) but being aware of form, breathing, etc. it's hard to really focus on anything else, too, which is nice.

thinking small... hm. i'm in the same boat, antagon. so i'm of no help. other than try to break down things into 24 hours. the last few times before this one where i was trying to quit certain habits, life was a facsimile of hell essentially but with an even slower sense of time... i just had to break down stuff hour by hour. like, okay, i'm doing a task, just make it through the hour. etc.

find a good translation of the tao te ching?


yes, i've seen you post that before! i tried it earlier this morning and it was great. the thing is there is no "public place" around here so if i became unnoticeable i wouldn't now. the "how to reappear" sounds hilarious.

i like how it's all sound-based.

the reappear is awesome. ten seconds of that sounds enough.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron made a huge, huge difference in my outlook. I haven't re-read it for many years, but I remember it as simple, direct, and commonsensical. Please at least try it.

i've never heard about that! i should take a look.

Sorry i turned this into the "bitch and mope about your sorrows" thread yall ;)

If you are interested in reading an English translation of the Encyclical released by the Pope today, you can get it in .pdf format here - w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf

Why would we want to read that?

I likes to be informed, stay comfy and current.

he is pissing off all the wealthy USA people that spread the disinformation about the damage that humanity is doing to our Earth and have already started playing the spin game with this encyclical.

Jebediah Bush, without reading it, stated that he feels religion should not be politicized, which is as funny as Satan saying that Evil needs to be vanquished. Nearly every single politician in USA politicizes their supposed religious beliefs at every chance they get!

Especially ironic since George Bush II was deeply involved with the Vatican under Pope Benedict in ways that even Kennedy would have avoided.. I find it interesting the Vatican using in a literal way the "bully pulpit" considering that historically (I'm talking like two thousands years) the Patriarchates and Bishoprics in Christendom were platforms of criticizing political leadership in the tradition of the Prophets of the Old Testament who criticized openly the Biblical Kings. In the days of the Patristic Fathers, the bishops and patriarchs were vocally critical of political leadership even when aligned. Indeed political intrigues are what divided the universal Church in the 450s (at Chalcedon Council) and then again in the 1050s (Great Schism) and then again in the 1550s (Protestant Reformation)..

On the positive side my mood as shifted from somber to numb, which for me is significant progress. If I can get to "ephemeral detachment" I am golden until I swing back towards "manic ecstasy" ;)

THANKS! your link is busted as it redirects to this board itself , but here's the correct one:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/fra...dato-si_en.pdf

i'm reading it-- it's pretty great! i never thought in my life i'd say this but i kinda like this little jesuit pope-- so far, anyway.

I've read some selected quotes taken from the book now. Some good stuff. I'm considering getting a copy. Thanks.

Thanks for the recommendation.