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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#581

Post by BTCOG »

memonkey wrote: post #420
BTCOG wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so odd to me that since the dawn of time, humans find this innate need to live in slave morality. Living a life of moral slavery based on stories and tales previous humans made with their own minds. It's a definition of insanity, from my own perspective. To contribute to the discussion: I practice nothing, no religion, no meditations. Nothing. I find peace enough knowing that I'm not morally enslaved and that I…

You know, I think you can interpret Nietzsche's slave morality as the process to master morality. For example, the enlightenment was supposed to free society up from faith-thinking and introduce rational thinking, but (and he right criticizes it) it did not. I think the movement instead brought society out of older slave morality institutions into master morality and which are now considered slave morality again. You…

Interesting concept, and thank you for the link.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#582

Post by dbrueck »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #560
dbrueck wrote: post #166

Day starts with prayer and studying scripture by myself for awhile, then briefly as a family before everyone goes their way. Part of the personal prayer time includes seeking direction on who I might help that day. Throughout the day I try to take little breaks for a brief prayer, longer if I'm stuck on a programming bug whose solution eludes me and for which I need extra inspiration. Also I try to go on a daily walk…

How does this align you to the teachings? How does this alignment manifest in your moment-to-moment experiences?

Great question. Briefly, the goal is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, in thoughts, words, and deeds. In practice that generally means looking outwards, not being totally self-absorbed (which is my natural tendency), and treating people with kindness and compassion - choosing to see them in the best possible light.

The scripture study and related discussion helps me identify the gap between the ideal version of myself and where I am presently, but in a way that I don't get totally overwhelmed or depressed by the gap, but just see it as a long-term process of slowly developing as a person. The prayer gives me clarity and direction, both for myself but also in knowing who to help and how.

Both prayer and scripture study also really lengthen one's perspective, which in turn dulls the the edge off pretty much every challenge. For example, having an assurance that there is more to my existence than 80ish years really helped me deal with pain from a sudden death in the family. And road rage. :)

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#583

Post by bayindirh »

roeles wrote: post #45
bayindirh wrote: post #15

I practice Zen meditation for almost 9 years. I also can teach entry levels. The transformation it brought is unimaginable.

Care to elaborate on the transformation? I'd love to hear more!

Of course. :)

Zen meditation (as I practice) is one of the deeper ways of practice, and helps one to reflect and dig deeper into one's emotions and being.

As a person who read early, and immediately started to tinker with computers and electronics, I was the different kid who bullied a lot, and it deformed me in a lot of ways. I was short tempered, introverted, scared and scarred without any self-esteem and self-worth. My brain was always noisy, and had concentration problems. This affected my friendships and relationships. Having a couple of bad girlfriends made everything worse. Much worse.

When I started to practice, I started to balance and heal myself. I understood myself better, my brain silenced, I became much more patient and kind (I wasn't rude either, but Zen made me softer). I had some career-defining moments in my life, and was able to navigate them with help of Zen.

All in all it made me rooted, balanced and helped me grow to an healthy and better adult. I probably have some crinkles and dents here and there, but at least I know who I am. It allows me to reflect better and understand what's happening.

It's a never ending way, and I'm not looking for a destination to be honest, however it's not a silent walk in the park all the time. Sometimes you encounter your inner demons. These encounters are what transforms you.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#584

Post by HEmanZ »

mikercampbell wrote: post #360
natch wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nothing actually matters Maybe it’s just a matter if having a time perspective that is appropriate for what we can possibly get a handle on as humans. In the medium term, as opposed to the heat-death-of-the-universe long term, stuff definitely matters. Also btw that phrase “nothing actually matters” is a little piece of propaganda planted by religion as a false caricature of non-religious thinking. You might conside…

You're right. And I mean that earnestly. In reality, what I should have said was "I was suddenly responsible for assigning value to all the aspects of my life. They suddenly had no inherent godly value, just the value that I, and those around me assigned it". But still - ultimately nothing has value. With the sun eventually consuming the earth and the universe either collapsing or going cold, everything that could ha…

When we are yanked (or freely leap, depending on your perspective) from our deeply religious world views it can be terrifying. I remember being incredibly nihilistic and depressed for at a few years.

I highly recommend diving into Philosophy. The questions about human meaning aren't exclusive to individual religions, or even to religiousness. They are universal, and very smart humans have been thinking very hard for a very long time about them.

I found that with enough hard thinking, guided by the hard questions and arguments of brilliant human minds, I have come to terms with the world and learned to love it. Philosophy and the philosophical process has shaped my mind to better understand and find tremendous joy in a "godless" (even the meaning of god changes as you explore deeply) and "meaningless" (even the meaning of meaning changes as you explore deeply) world.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#585

Post by UncleOxidant »

Not day-to-day in this case, more week to week: I practice sabbath and I've been doing this for a couple of years now. I sabbath on Sundays. I don't work, try not to think about working and avoid engaging in economic activity. As I understand it, the original Jewish conception of sabbath (I'm not Jewish) was that it was resistance against empire and oppressive economic systems. It's like declaring that I am a human being and I have intrinsic worth that cannot be measured in money or things - kind of like going on strike for a day every week. I find it very restful (duh) and it actually helps me have a better attitude towards work the rest of the week (though I'm trying not to have a utilitarian reason to sabbath as that would be counter the spirit of sabbath, I think).

I think one of my misconceptions about sabbath before was that it was a passive thing. As I experience it, it's a very active thing, a different way of being one day per week. It's active opposition to the culture of 24/7 work that's becoming expected in many sectors.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#586

Post by bluesoftware »

coryfklein wrote: post #533
sethammons wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear more on the history, documents, and truths you found. Would you consider emailing me (it is in my profile)? Summary and jumping off points super welcome.

The CES Letter is an excellent jumping-off point.

If you've already decided that you want to leave the church and need something tangible to point to as your reason for leaving, CES letter is well suited for that.

But if you are honestly and earnestly evaluating church history and are using CES letter as a primary source... I would make sure to give some of the more popular rebuttals (such as [0]) a read as well as they rightly call out some serious problems with the letter.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/lds/comments/lb3h3i/part_1_the_dish...

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#587

Post by throw1234651234 »

aerodog wrote: post #87

Muslim here. Ritual prayer is the core exercise. Before sunrise, after sunset, and 3 other times during the day. But as important or more so is constant remembrance of God. If that's not institutionalized in one's day-to-day psychology, one will lose spiritual momentum, if we can use such terminology. "Worship" in Arabic عبادة actually means something like "conformity to God's order", as far as I understand. So even…

"Ritual prayer is the core exercise." - well, you also work your legs and glutes when you stand up, and there is a good back stretch in there.

Develops a good sense of direction too.

Fasting for a month from sun up to sun down kind of kills gains though, and isn't enough time to go into ketosis, so I am not sure what that's all about (well, I know what's it's about from the book perspective, just not from the gains perspective).

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#588

Post by alecbz »

criddell wrote: post #568
good8675309 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raised Christian, became an atheist, then evaluated a bunch of religions for myself. Found Christianity to be the most historically and spiritually compelling but still didn’t believe. After feeling hollow and aimless for years I re-evaluated things, read about Jesus love for me. Really meditated on His perfect life, sacrifice on the cross, and resurrection. He died for me, in my place. It became personal. When I rea…

I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants. And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death? If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation? It seems to me…

> He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants.

Is any of this actually a part of Christian canon? It's not clear to me that by describing Jesus as "God", we're meant to understand that he's omniscient (is Yahweh/"The Father" God even omniscient in Christian canon?) or omnipotent with respect to his human form.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#589

Post by joshgrib »

mikercampbell wrote: post #360
natch wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nothing actually matters Maybe it’s just a matter if having a time perspective that is appropriate for what we can possibly get a handle on as humans. In the medium term, as opposed to the heat-death-of-the-universe long term, stuff definitely matters. Also btw that phrase “nothing actually matters” is a little piece of propaganda planted by religion as a false caricature of non-religious thinking. You might conside…

You're right. And I mean that earnestly. In reality, what I should have said was "I was suddenly responsible for assigning value to all the aspects of my life. They suddenly had no inherent godly value, just the value that I, and those around me assigned it". But still - ultimately nothing has value. With the sun eventually consuming the earth and the universe either collapsing or going cold, everything that could ha…

I was raised with religion and then later realized it doesn't make sense, I went through a lot of the same feelings

You could still have subjective value even if there's no "sea level" from which to assign an absolute value. "Value" is a pretty abstract concept and something everyone probably has to define for themselves, but at least depending on your definition _everything_ could have value - maybe not to you, or maybe not right now, but in some sense it still "ultimately" does - and that's pretty cool too

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#590

Post by yosito »

NateEag wrote: post #189
nottorp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least there is a vast area of things not yet understood They key is to accept that there are phenomena we don't know enough about yet. There's no supernatural, just stuff that needs a couple more hundred years of research :)

If you don't understand it, how do you know it's natural? Not saying it has to be supernatural, just that if you think it's not yet understood, being sure it's not supernatural seems like unfounded confidence.

I think you've got it backwards. The default assumption is that only the natural world exists. If something is not understood, the assumption should be that it has natural causes. A supernatural cause would imply the existence of something outside of natural causes, and to assert that that something exists without being able to demonstrate it is where the unfounded confidence lies.
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