What do you consider spiritual?

When they talk about ‘faith’ in Zen, they’re often referring to unquestioning acceptance of the methods they employ in awakening.
Faith doesn't require a God. Faith is just a belief or trust in something or someone, often without requiring empirical evidence or proof.
When they talk about ‘faith’ in Zen, they’re often referring to unquestioning acceptance of the methods they employ in awakening.

I don’t consider Zen (Rinzai/Soto) to be a religion - there’s no Deity, no speculation on an afterlife and no scripture. I don’t know enough about Daoism to have an opinion on that.
I don't think having a Deity is needed in order to be considered a religion. I often Joke about Atheism being a religion because it has a belief system and doctrines. Atheism requires the person to believe that there are no deities, gods, or spirits. Many of the Atheist groups have regular meetings, discussions, and events.

Scientology is considered a religion by its own followers. Both Atheism and Scientology requires the faith and belief that they are not wrong about gods, deities, and spirits.

Zen (Rinzai/Soto). I had to look this up. What he says is similar to how I see a lot of stuff. First do it and then write about it vs writing about it from an outside perspective without experience doing it.

I don't know if this guy is accurate, but I like most of the things he touched on. A lot of what he says are things I've naturally come across in my life.

Aspects of Enlightenment in Zen: Some of you may have already experienced this.

Direct Experience: Enlightenment is achieved through direct, personal experience rather than intellectual understanding.

Present Moment Awareness: Enlightenment is closely associated with being fully present in the moment, free from attachments to past or future. (This what happens when I train)

Everyday Life: Enlightenment is not seen as a distant goal but as something that can be realized in everyday activities and interactions. (marital arts training and how it influences who we are)

This may sound familiar to some of you
 
That’s the way to do it, but as, perhaps a 16-18 year old.

Which did you plump for?

It would be nice to say I picked the church that touched my heart, or the one that I felt part of. Or even the one that had the coolest stain glass windows.

Instead, I picked the one all the kids in my neighborhood went to.
 
Didn't Malcom Muggeridge bury George Orwell?

I will tell you something is that isn't very spiritual: Arguments. One of the least spiritual things humans do (and of all animals only humans do it).

I think the term "spirited debate" is a contradiction in terms. Everyone wants to win, nobody really does, because to quote Kurt Vonnegut,

"If a bunch of them are lying around on a beach, and one of them farts, everybody else laughs and laughs, just as people would have done a million years ago...I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
 
I'm curious about what people consider to be spiritual. In that endeavor, if people could provide a working definition of spiritual/spirituality, under than 20 words,
I cant think of one moment where I felt the need for using or defining that adjective.

But I loosely associate others poeples use of the world with things that lacks a physical basis or motivation.
 
I cant think of one moment where I felt the need for using or defining that adjective.

But I loosely associate others poeples use of the world with things that lacks a physical basis or motivation.
You are the best! My new hero and role model 🙇🏽
 
I cant think of one moment where I felt the need for using or defining that adjective.

But I loosely associate others poeples use of the world with things that lacks a physical basis or motivation.
I agree with that, but I'd add that awe seems to be a component of that meaning of the word.
 
Interesting, abstractly I think of "awe" as have some physical basis as beeing a survival trait of any "physical system", be it a human, a single cell, or an proton. Respect or fear of something surprising, could make you reflect twice on your optons before taking a knee-jerk action. This very rational and selv-preserving for me. All this is for me, philosophical ponderings about nature, where the word i think originates from "lover" of "wisdom", so very rational and physical for me.
 
Interesting, abstractly I think of "awe" as have some physical basis as beeing a survival trait of any "physical system", be it a human, a single cell, or an proton. Respect or fear of something surprising, could make you reflect twice on your optons before taking a knee-jerk action. This very rational and selv-preserving for me. All this is for me, philosophical ponderings about nature, where the word i think originates from "lover" of "wisdom", so very rational and physical for me.
Have you heard of the ‘God Helmet’? It a motorcycle helmet with magnetic coils place in specific places. The experimenter (Prof Michael Persinger) activates them in specific orders and frequencies and can produce out-of-body experiences, profound religious experiences (the awe of being in the presence of a god) etc in the wearer . It suggests that these experiences, reported by many people, are caused by the activation of neural circuits


Professor Blackmore attends the Zen meditation sessions I attend!
 
Have you heard of the ‘God Helmet’? It a motorcycle helmet with magnetic coils place in specific places. The experimenter (Prof Michael Persinger) activates them in specific orders and frequencies and can produce out-of-body experiences, profound religious experiences (the awe of being in the presence of a god) etc in the wearer .
I had not before, but i looked it up now. :cyclops:
It suggests that these experiences, reported by many people, are caused by the activation of neural circuits
Yes, that makes sense.

It seems like hallucinations, which also presents itself in artificial neural networks. It is sometimes associated to "overfitting" insignificant details. The hallucinations are "extrapolations" that disconnects to reality (so a failure from the predictive perspective), while at the same time beeing perfectly consistent with the neural net predictions.

"AI hallucinations are similar to how humans sometimes see figures in the clouds or faces on the moon. In the case of AI, these misinterpretations occur due to various factors, including overfitting, training data bias/inaccuracy and high model complexity."
What Are AI Hallucinations? | IBM

I suspect the magnetic coils in that experiment might have been replaced by allowing participants in the same dark room, to sit on a popsicle. There is a good chance that many would have strange hallucinations?

One could ask; during what conditions are a neural net more like to start hallucinate? A wild guess might that that when put into an "odd situation", where there is little confidence in the predictions, maybe strange things are more likely to envisioned. Someone the whole sitaution, or beeing asked to relax, sit in a dark, room, attached to weird gadgets, likel puts your brain into unusual states, where it as "little training"...

I am not sure I would choose speak about spirituality in any of these cases. But fooling a predictive system, or getting it to derail is certainly interesting!! Both from perspectives of AI modelling and from psychiatry I guess.
 
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If religion requires belief, then can someone be a practitioner of that religion without belief? Does something spiritual require that same level of belief?

Experiential, Transcendence
Not based on belief , or religion

A product, not a goal or purpose.

 
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Have you heard of the ‘God Helmet’? It a motorcycle helmet with magnetic coils place in specific places. The experimenter (Prof Michael Persinger) activates them in specific orders and frequencies and can produce out-of-body experiences, profound religious experiences (the awe of being in the presence of a god) etc in the wearer . It suggests that these experiences, reported by many people, are caused by the activation of neural circuits
Soooo. Here's the thing about that. Ancient civilizations have always said that the visions were tuned into a specific frequency. This is why chanting is often done as a part of meditation.
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No matter what religion or culture you pic, there is a verbal chant that goes with prayer/meditation. The entire concept is that people perceive things on Frequencies and depending on the frequency you can have spiritual travel, visions, and other good and bad stuff happen. All of them have always said that it was about frequencies.

As a teenager I used to improve on the piano and one day while playing I could hear someone walking up the steps over the sound of the Piano. I went to check but no one was there. I haven't done it since then and I'm hesitant to do so. I get enough strange stuff happening where I live without trying to make it happen.

I found an ocean clip that I play to help me relax and sleep. I can't remember which of the two gave me my experience. I think it was the second one. Therese are like 2 minute audio that can be looped. I won't play the ocean sounds at night anymore because of what I experienced. The thing is that both me and my wife both heard the same thing. She thought it was the audio and I told her that it wasn't coming from the audio. When I play back the audio I don't hear what I heard. My wife is more sensitive to things like that and she had been complaining for a month about it. I brushed it off until I heard it. And I was like "Ohhhhhh so that's what she was hearing."

1. Sands of Time Ocean Sounds (1) - Album: Deep Sleep Melodies | Deep sleep
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2. Oceanic Soundscapes Soothing Nature sounds - Album: Wave Recordings Ocean Sound Machine
1734315910844.webp


The other thing that the guy in the video said about chemical and environmental effects were known by ancient civiliations. Look up Ley Lines. Then look at how many religious sites were built on top of them.
The thing about this stuff is that people experience similar things even without the chanting and many have shared experiences. My guess is that science will easily explain the individual experiences but they will have a difficult time in explaining shared experiences. If people see and hear the same thing at the same time without any suggestions, then it's difficult to say that "Its just in your mind."

It's going to get really difficult when it's a shared experience especially if it's with Animals and Humans.
If anyone has napster and wants to try that Second Wave audio while you sleep. Let me know. I'll tell someone else here what I experienced to see if the experiences are the same. Based on things I read in the past. It's all about frequencies. My experienced happened when I had a deep sleep for 1 hour which never happens. According to my watch deepsleep is like a 5 or 10 minute thing for me.
 
Someone the whole sitaution, or beeing asked to relax, sit in a dark, room, attached to weird gadgets, likel puts your brain into unusual states, where it as "little training"...
Sitting in a dark room would be uncomfortable for a lot of people. That alone would cause the mind to go wild. A lot of kids are naturally afraid of the dark. Some say that the fear is an evolutionary response as many large preditors will hunt during the night to kill sleeping prey.

My guess it's probably that + our ability to feel that something is off or not right. Add those two things together in the dark and it's mental chaos.
 
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