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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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271–280 of 966 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#272
Christianity, after comparing few religion, the Jesus teaching and practice (the only required practice is pondering/remembering His words and implement it in real life: like love one another, forgive, test every teaching, etc) far way superior than newer one that claiming to be continuation of it '__')

after reading history of the religion's founder (the killings/torture and robbing, marrying a minor when he's already 50s, marrying his adopted son's wife, very suspicious teachings that only benefit himself, mixed up names and messed up commands in their scripture, demeaning women, etc), I feel like 25% of this world been totally fooled or brainwashed, but thankfully only a little of them that are truly following his teaching/deeds (one that in war region)

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to look at some of the more modern / postmodern branches of Christianity. Some people who practice it sincerely don't think of the Bible as a literally true document that has no mistakes or inaccuracies, nor a rulebook that must be followed in every particular, but rather a series of subjective recountings of different people's encounters with God over the course of many centuries, strongly colored by…

> You might want to look at some of the more modern / postmodern branches of Christianity > Some people who practice it sincerely don't think of the Bible as a literally true document that has no mistakes or inaccuracies, That's not “modern and postmodern” Christianity, that's just OG Christianity. The view that, as doctrine, the Bible is entirely literal and without error in any sense (rather than often nonliteral a…

Name and cite a single Christian source from before 1600 which believes the Bible is a flawed text which contains errors.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#275
post #70

As a religious Jew, I (am obligated by my religion to) pray three times a day, morning, noon and evening. The longest is the morning prayer, 45 minutes approximately. The prayers are a mix of gratitude, humility and supplication.

45 minutes? That's a long shachrit.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#276

Orthodox Jew. I pray three times a day. Morning takes about 20-25 minutes, afternoon is 5 minutes, and evening is 5-10 minutes. I don't really think of it as a spiritual practice though, more of just a religious obligation.

Another Orthodox Jew checking in here. How do you manage to do shacharis in 20 minutes? Do you go to minyan? ;)

Is 20 minutes supposed to be long or short? Without a minyan it usually takes me about 10-15 minutes and I'm faster than average.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#278
post #235
post #223

I am a practicing Catholic. I have four kids all under 7. My normal day consists of feeding them, bathing them, calming tantrums, losing my temper, getting bitter at my lack of time for hobbies, and growing resentful of my lack of time for reading the Bible, praying, etc. But then I remember that this is a true dying to self. Not only a dying to self, but a dying to the world too as each of these sacrifices, failures…

You might like this poem (from what I can find it is attributed to Bill Britton): When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ. THAT IS DYING TO SELF When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and y…

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 trust in natural workings of this possibly created planet. It's not that I do not believe there's some God or force out there, potentially, but I fully trust in living a natural life, the way I was born and in a somewhat Stoic fashion. When I die, I just am. I will become nature once more. So be it.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#279

Not long ago in my new apartment after breaking up with a long time girlfriend I had an amazing experience while meditating. The odd thing was I never really meditated back then. Something just told me to do it. I was led on an internal journey that showed me some things about my self. One, don't turn away from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Two, don't judge yourself. Three, the ego or this idea of myself is an…

> "Bad" feelings have lost their edge. When I sat with the feeling I discovered there is nothing "bad" about it. [...] With this I have become lighter, freer, happier and more at peace with the experience just as it is, right here, right now. I'd like to give a heads up that this can and may come crashing down[1]. The 'Dark Night of the Soul' is a very real phenomena, and it can happen out of nowhere -- just a normal…

Thanks for raising this issue. I had to back from meditation entirely due to disassociation and energetic unwellness. Heavy physical exercise helped get me back in the body.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#280
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortune cookies are one of my favourites, too. I tend to use coin flips a lot. Occasionally I'll draw a rune or a tarot card, but I find I don't always understand what they're trying to say until after it's happened. > In particular I pray to Ganesh to help me let go of negative things I'm holding onto (this was a beautiful outcome of therapy mingling with my spiritual life); I always find it fascinating which gods m…

> Pop goes Ganesh I don't know but now I need to know

I just checked, it is 'Low Magick' by Lon Milo DuQuette. The entirety of Chapter 11 is on 'Pop Goes Ganesha'. It might sound a little irreverent, but here is a snippet from the book --

> I first created it to be a whimsical meditation that I could quickly perform mentally to begin and end my morning routine, but it soon became for me something more. In fact, within the context of its goofy simplicity, I have found not only a powerful banishing ceremony, but also a profound and breathtakingly effective technique of invocation.

DuQuette is a great author (Chicken Qabalah, Magick of Aleister Crowley, especially) with a good sense of both humour and the serious, and I'd highly recommend checking him out.

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