#buddhist posting

[fiifayefoofum]

very lucky to be in a place where listening to buddhist talks by monks are decently common and i can't help but feel how enjoyable it is despite the simplicity of it all. a number of people sit and gather around a wise person and listen to their reflection and musing on life.

[system-of-a-feather]

I love my job and the people in it, but I don't think I'll ever not sigh in amusement at the successful people in this field all being RA RA CHASE YOUR GOALS YOU CAN EARN THIS MUCH MONEY HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH and looking at me being someone with a fuck ton of potential and getting confused when Im just a silly boy doing tgis for fun and actively refusing to chase something yet I perform so well regardless

Its like they can't fathom how someone would work hard and be so focused on something without a big grand desire or really wanting to make huge money

Them: WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO GET WHAT YOU WANT? HOW HARD ARE YOU WILLING TO GO

Me: I will walk very intentionally at my goal

Them: YOU SHOULD CHASE IT

Me: nah im good ill just do what i do and ill do better than most people chasing just by walking consistently at it

[system-of-a-feather]

Honestly, it wasn't until we were doing a meditation session where I was pretending to be a client for a dry run (our clinics opening next week so we are practicing for this week), did I really start to think just about how quiet my head is now compared to the average person let alone the average mentally ill individual.

Meditation these days is like... incredibly easy and I've actually done an hour and half long session before relatively easily, but like... another thing thats just interesting is that like.... I realize that when most people who aren't practiced in meditation try meditation, they really really don't get that tranquil "no thoughts" calm after effect or even the large refreshing "restart" to energy as though you had taken a full cat nap.

Cause the therapist leading the group in that session then moved onto a worksheet thing about writing down our thoughts for two minutes and I just sat there like "........" "........." "no thoughts head empty" and then I was like "wait I was playing a character as a client I can generate it within character lets think about our role and get back into it"

And its just... interesting honestly. I used to hate meditation and "suck at it" in the past and honestly, its really one of my FAVORITE things these days. I LOVE meditation and the opportunities to do it.

[system-of-a-feather]

Tid bit of Buddhist wisdom, (<- yes this is half me being genuine and half me chuckling at and making humor of the Western ooooooh Buddhist Wisdommmmm oooh mystical~~~) but if you want to find confidence, comfort and stability in your values, beliefs, and actions, its best to find the answer and understanding for why it is that you do what you do from yourself rather than from others as the confidence and comfort in your own actions comes not from following a set of rules defined by another, but from the journey you go through to reach the conclusion you run into after deeply exploring and analyzing a topic.

If you simply ask for the rules, what is right and what is wrong, memorize all the rules and apply them exactly as you remembered them, you will always be worrying whether or not the person you got those rules from was right, whether or not they may or may not have persuaded you incorrectly or convinced you - intentionally or not - that your stance is correct. The person who follows the socially determined morally correct and proper behavior to a perfect T will often find themselves, over time, oddly more and more "incorrect" as that person will likely have missed the core fundamentals as to why the rules were established and made in favor for the current presentations that are situational and temporally relevant.

If you actually observe, explore and analyze the situation, spend a lot of time deeply reflecting with as much honesty and objectivity as you can, you will often come to a conclusion that you feel both comfortable and confident in, because you have explored the topic in depth and come to what you believe to be the core fundamental theme and purpose that were the reason these rules and standards are applied. If you can understand the over arching themes and core fundamental reasons things are the way that they are, your behavior and values are likely to adapt with changing times and situations as the presentations may change but the core fundamentals often do not.

And in much less jargony way of saying it, when aiming to understand any rule provided to you, it's much better to question, observe and analyze it's purpose and reasoning and decide whether or not it makes sense and apply it to your individual judgement than it is to follow the rule itself.

It's honestly also why a lot of Buddhism in the west is perceived as mystic and esoteric. A lot of Buddhism doesn't really enjoy giving the answers out right to the people that are interested in it as much as they prefer to provide hypotheticals, stories, and questions that challenge a concept as means of exploring and understanding hypothetical and philosophical concepts that then become the "rules" of Buddhism. At the end of the day, Buddhism really states that you should never follow any rule of Buddhism that you yourself have not tested out and - on your own experiences and observations - come to the conclusion that it works and helps improve your life. Buddhism states you are free and at liberty to toss out any teaching, rule or tradition that doesn't feel beneficial because at the core of Buddhism, there is the denial of dualism, and the denial of "good and bad" and "right and wrong" - ideas that often drive the very concept of "rules".

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This post is tangentially related to this post.

[system-of-a-feather]

there's a solid chance you've talked about this before and I just missed it, so I'm super sorry if thats the case, but if you feel comfortable discussing it: what are your thoughts on the whole tulpamancy cultural-appropriation debate? i feel like the debate is populated by a disproportionate amount of non-buddhists, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as someone who is actually part of the affected group.

have a good one!!

-ray (@rayssyscourse)

Oh I have talked about it A LOT cause its one of the topics I like to think about and examine from different perspectives (and debate within our parts a lot) but I absolutely don't mind being asked about it. Tbh I welcome any like specific questions cause it's a very complex topic imo that I really honestly couldn't do justice in a single post if I wanted to, particularly since my opinions are pretty complicated. I'll link some of the more recent-ish posts we've made on the topic cause it's easier than going into each of them. I often talk about it whenever I have a Thought On The Matter that I feel is worth sharing AND I have the energy to do so.

The short answer is that I honestly think its way too complicated than any straight forward "side" or answer I could simply summarize in anything less than maybe five paragraphs and even then I'd probably do my opinion disservice.

I do take pride in being one of the main runners who started the first relatively recent wave of Tulpacourse like in 2021 or 2022 I think? At that point I hadn't gotten too into Buddhism beyond a cursory ankle dip into it since I found that when I went into it earlier, as much as it was helpful, it fucked with our dissociation a lot so a lot of my views then were built on a reverence but superficial skin deep understanding of Buddhism (which is still much deeper than the average person's understanding of it since even on a skin deep level there is a lot of misunderstandings due to the western mysticism of Buddhism) and mainly charged from my experiences as a POC interacting with white people.

Generally, I do stand slightly on the "if I have to pick a side" opinion of "it is cultural appropriation and people should probably not use it" as I feel a lot of people that want to use the term don't acknowledge and want to consider the complications, history or any of the details to it and with the community as it stands, I don't think there is enough genuine and honest respect to the history of the term "tulpa" and the harm its done and the relationship it has to orientalism / cultural appropriation and what not. So generally speaking, if you made me say "which side to I stand with", I'd probably lean on the "yeah its cultural appropriation and shouldn't be continued" but that's really only on the conditional that - for whatever reason - talking about it and discussing the nuances, intersectionality, history, and present issues / aspects of the term is off the table.

Ideally, I'd honestly really just like to be able to have a not-heated no-judgement no-name-calling no-winning/loosing discussion with people in the tulpamancy community about a number of things and compared and contrast experiences, practices, values, etc of the tulpamancy community against that of Buddhists and ALSO talk about the complicated and problematic history it has and what can be done to better respect the history.

I don't (anymore) think that people HAVE to not use the "tulpa" term and I really don't think its productive to try to make someone not use a term just by saying "stop its bad" or "stop its racist". I think its much more productive to hold a discussion and talk about it and develop a much more developed understanding of the term and it's history and its relation to complex topics.

I do think there is a large racism issue in the tulpamancy community though, but I don't think its fair to dunk an entire practice, concept, and community based on the bad apples, even if the bad apples may be the majority and/or the loudest bunch.

I've been meaning to continue a conversation on the topic with @discourse-by-candlelight but the two of us are awfully cursed with the "we actually find this topic really interesting and important and so we want to be able to dedicate our full attention and mental space to genuinely considering the information provided and responding with my thoughts and thus RARELY have that ideal perfect mental place to reply"

But honestly, I think there's a lot more benfit to talking about the many intersecting and complex topics within tulpacourse than just simply regurgitating and parroting the not-wrong but also not-right "tulpamancy is cultural appropriation". I also think its especially not helpful when people parrot that in a context that is not it's original intent or use it to push an agenda that is not inline with the original values and intent in statement

(that being, the core issue with that statement is that tulpamancy is bad because its built upon orientalism, eastern mysticism, and just white people taking advantage of eastern cultures; therefore people who actively state other things that ALSO harm AAPI / eastern cultures should not be pretending to be an ally to AAPI; for more on this read the third linked post below)

But genuinely its something I have a lot of thoughts on and if you got any specific questions feel free to ask, cause honestly I like talking about this stuff and navigating the complexities of it and I'd really like to see a more nuanced and conversational discussion on the topic of tulpacourse.

Here's a bit of a directory of some recent-ish posts on it from us:

Nuanced Perspectives and Aspects to Consider in the Tulpamancy-Is-Appropriation Debate and My Thoughts

Anon Asking About the Term Thoughtforms

People who say "tulpamancy is cultural appropriation" but then state that plurality is inherently clinical / disordered / only due to trauma are honestly acting more annoyingly white / western than people who do engage and use the term tulpa / tulpamancy (also known as me being a clown and making "one" post about tulpamancy, spoiler it was way more than one post)

General Reflections on Buddhism, Plurality, Final Fusion / Functional Multiplicity

[system-of-a-feather]

(Just some rambling thoughts, feel free to add on or chatter on this cause I'm just sharing some thoughts)

Genuinely though, I feel a lot of people would benefit in life from just answering the question of "who am I" with "I am me" and just leaving it at there. It's a really complicated and hard thing to internalize in the white western culture where there is a highly individualistic culture and a high pressure to be able to define yourself and stand out and explain yourself to others, but life and existing is a lot easier when your identity is just whatever you are when you are asked.

I don't really have any REAL long term traits I really identify with. I can describe to you how I am now and how I was before and some of those are pretty consistent, but those terms aren't *me*. They're ways of describing things that have been and/or are aspects of present me, but they're just words associated with a very specific time period and version of me so they don't really *mean* much beyond the functional communication and language value of it.

I really feel bad for a lot of people that suffer their entire life trying to find and struggle with how "inconsistent" they are in identity or trying to understand who they are and develop some form of concrete image and what not to live within when you honestly can just... I dunno, live. Trying to be something or someone or shape something in particular just feels really pointless, stressful and unnecessary to just enjoy life. It sounds incredibly stressful.

[system-of-a-feather]

If I join a Shaolin Kung Fu Dojo, I'll be expected to wear the orange uniform / robes once I start regularly attending and I really must wonder if to white people who want to use Buddhism / Buddhists to further their argument and not actually to care about the practice, if THEN will I be a real and legit Buddhist.

Ya know, cause I'll be looking more stereotypical with orange robes and what not

Which TO BE FAIR Shaolin Kung Fu is inherently deeply Buddhist based on it's history so me actually regularly going into that AS a Buddhist is actually a pretty big step deeper into Buddhism but XD

[system-of-a-feather]

(PUBLISHING OLD DRAFTS THAT ARE GOOD / INTERESTING; This was written in March 2024)

A thing that is really funny thing I noticed since we've been practicing and implementing the concept of "never try to be anything more than what you naturally are in the very moment" is just how pervasive this demand and idea of "trying to be something" is in society (or at least American society)

Like a few days ago my mom told my dad that I am "trying to be healthy" because he was trying to make me eat more than I wanted and I raised an eyebrow, confused, because I wasn't trying to be healthy, I wasn't trying to be anything, I was just eating at a level and amount that felt right and made me feel happy.

And so I expressed my confusion and my mom really struggled to understand that I genuinely had no interest in seeking out health or having it be a relevant motivator as to why I was telling my dad I didn't want to overeat

(i hit a wall rip so imma wrap this thought up and go to sleep)

But its really simple, I didn't want to over eat because eating a lot doesn't make me feel good. Moderate eating is something I enjoy, it is what I am in the moment. There doesn't have to be anything beyond it. It is what I am doing and it is just how I am.