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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#141

Post by fsiefken »

* visualisation and morning prayer, meditation

* contemplating the four thoughts https://tsoknyirinpoche.org/teachings/how-to-structure-a-dai...

* prostrations and mantra

* reading dharma books https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhist-books/

* occasional vajra dance and yantra yoga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=var4yRB1Fnc&t=565s

"Before we discuss the technique of meditation, let us point out the merit and sanity and wakefulness you are going to get out of just simply being willing to sit like a piece of rock. It’s fantastically powerful. It overrides the atomic bomb. It’s extraordinarily powerful that we decide just to sit, not hang out or perch, but just sit. Such a brave attitude, such a wonderful commitment, is magnificent. It is very sane, extraordinarily sane."

The Path Is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation. Chogyam Trungpa

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#143

Post by candiddevmike »

fergonco wrote: post #136
candiddevmike wrote: post #54

I recently started reading about druidism after spending the majority of my life an atheist. I found myself missing the spirituality side: rituals and a connection for meditation/introspection, which druidism provides (all revolving around nature, earth, moon, and sun). Additionally, druidism has a lot of neat math/science roots that I find pleasing, such as the eight holidays and the wheel of the year. Druidism has…

I also miss the spirituality side. I miss rituals for milestones with my kids a lot. Can you provide some references?

For learning, I started out reading the book The Druidry Handbook by John Michael Greer and /r/druidism. From there I explored various parts of Druidism and some paganism that interested me--elements (not science elements, spirtual/symbolic ones like air/wind/fire/earth), tarot, and living with nature.

For rituals, you can choose how far you're willing to stretch your imagination: a contemplative walk in the woods, or trying to commune with trees. I started doing tarot cards as well, which for me is less divination and more perspective. It hacks your minds pattern matching and forces you to think about situations from a different angle. It can also be fun or intimate with other people. My family celebrates the wheel of the year which gives you tons of opportunities for fun festivals/connecting with each other and nature. All of the holidays fall outside of traditional Christian holidays, so it's really easy to celebrate them without upsetting your extended family as well.

I recommend having an open mind, I'm highly skeptical in general and definitely had to sift through stuff to figure out what makes sense to me. Which is OK with druidism, it's kind of like a Linux distro/DIY spirituality framework.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#144

Post by g5095 »

d-d wrote: post #8

I talk to God throughout the day and focus on listening. This includes some light Bible reading and expecting answers. Transparent, concise, empathic, respectful prayers seem to be answered with great enthusiasm. God is dad, but dad is also God. It is both odd and fantastic.

I really resonate with this

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#145

Post by injidup »

BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #69

I study how science and spirituality meet. There's tremendous overlap between how machines work, how physics work, and how our own psychology works. Finding these overlaps where 10 different things in 10 different areas are shown to be one thing is my way of trying to grow spiritually and intellectually. Most recently I discovered a link between the Wheeler-Dewitt equation describing time as a subjective phenomenon o…

Sorry to break your model but FP has nothing to do with not having a time component. You can write operations over "space"

   some_container |> map ( item -> item + 1 )
or write operations over "time"

   some_event_sequence |> map ( item -> item + 1 )
both are functional programming.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#146

Post by sudosteph »

p0d wrote: post #3

Every morning I read a section of the Bible's Old Testament, Psalm, Proverb and New Testament. I then use the Lord's Prayer as a framework to pray. Having done this for many years I have observed we begin 'Our Father' and focus on God. My own inclination would be to start with 'Forgive me' and focus on me. I then spend my day trying to honour Jesus's teachings. The highs and lows of the previous day are discussed the…

I love your observation about the Lord's Prayer. I often end up using it as a framework too, partly because it does feel so complete (also because of course Jesus literally told us to pray like that). I feel you a lot in the urge to otherwise start with "forgive me" part, and I myself still do that a lot. I realize I need to work on practicing gratitude towards Him more often too, which is important to escaping the trap of self-pity I'm so prone to falling in.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#147

Post by kortex »

AYBABTME wrote: post #83

In the morning, I think while drinking coffee. Then I really think in the shower. As a result I take long showers. Sometimes during the day, I'll sit back and think. While going to bed, I'll think some more. Usually I think about problems to solve, reflect on my life so far, course adjustments, things to self improve. One day I'll pick up a religion, but it seems like they all would require a lot of mental gymnastics…

> One day I'll pick up a religion, but it seems like they all would require a lot of mental gymnastics to keep consistent with my mental explorations.

> I wish there was a "Debian Sid" religion

Convert to Discordianism! We make mental gymnastics an Olympic sport! You are not only allowed to, but expected, nay, mandated to believe everything and nothing you want. You can compile your beliefs against any platform, arch, Goddess, God, Dog, Amphibian, or cat manufacturer.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#148

Post by lebuffon »

Scea91 wrote: post #104
forinti wrote: post #78

I am not religious at all and I've thought of myself as tolerant of religion (they all have some very good teachings, after all). But lately organised religion has been bothering me a lot. It is just so obviously a form of controlling people: you have to believe this and that and also hand over some cash and vote for such and such. I can't get around the fact that this still goes on so blatantly in this day and age.

Recently I was attending several catholic weddings and I was taken aback by the level of religious fervor and literal interpretation of the bible there. I was expecting the preaching to be more focused on how to live a good life and be a valuable member of society, but instead it was more about how I will burn eternally for not believing.

These attitudes come in cycles in the Roman church. There was a 50 year period of liberal thinking. The current has era has swung back to the conservative. When an organization has a 1600 year life span you can expect things like this. Just wait a while...

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#150

Post by mrweasel »

Not sure if this counts, but I truly believe that very few people are actually evil. It’s something that is always in the back of my mind when dealing with troublesome individuals. People aren’t bad or trying to get you, they just have different world views, different perspective or just on a different path. It helps prevent conflict and helps me meet others with the kindness they deserve.

Except that one developer working for a former client… DUDE, what hell’s your problem! Your a liar and a conman.

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