95 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
[1]puddingtime.org
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[2]
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\___/ \_/ \____/ \_| \___/ |___/ |___/ \___/ \_| \_/ \____/ \_/ \___/ \_| |_/\____/ (_) 🔥🤘🏻🔥
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July 14, 2025
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[3]What is practice
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Al and I went to a dome show at OMSI called "Trust the Universe: The Philosophy
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of Alan Watts." Up front, because reviews are thin on the ground, I would
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recommend against it: It's only 45 minutes long, feels pretty disjointed, and
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the psychedelic visuals are sometimes a little campy. When the lotus position
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guy sort of gets sucked up into the mandala having dissolved his own ego I was
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annoyed.
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I find Alan Watts engaging. He was a gifted explainer who could make heady,
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paradoxical ideas flicker into solidity and coherence. There are a few moments
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in the show where his ideas do come together and you get a sense of what he was
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about, particularly about teaching and spiritual practice.
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It ended up giving Al and I something to think about afterward. She's a member
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of a local Zen center. I've never really felt very compelled to take up a
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formal practice. Certainly nothing like Soto Zen. I have some contradictory
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feelings about it that the show resurfaced, because Watts saw some spiritual
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practice and relationships with teachers as a sort of revolving door one could
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never get out of if they don't push us toward our "oh, it's in here" moment.
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I guess I've always felt like big changes and shifts are "it's in here"
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moments. There are lots of techniques and approaches to get us to those shifts,
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and a skilled coach, mentor, teacher, or counselor can help us to or through
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those shifts, but my moments of radical clarity have always come just bumping
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into life. It's interview season right now, for instance, and I have been
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reminded of the "pouncer" and "stalker" learning styles. I think in life
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matters I've turned out to be a "pouncer."
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But I also think there's value in spiritual community -- even having a teacher
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-- because to be raised in a liberal society in the 21st century is, regardless
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of your ideological tilt, to be coached toward profound egoism and a kind of
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selective sollipsism. Finding someone to trust and someone willing to work
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through our egoism and self-protection can be helpful. I know I've benefitted
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from it when I've been stuck on something, even if the benefit I got wasn't a
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resolution, so much as an ability to sit with the discomfort of a lack of
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resolution.
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I titled this post "What is practice?" because I'm not always sure. If I ask
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that question of a Soto Zen practitioner I'll get a kind of answer. If I ask
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three Soto Zen practitioners, I will likely get three different answers. If I
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widen my survey to different sects, still more answers. If I ask the person
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trying to sell me a mindfulness app, there will be another answer, and since
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there seem to be dozens of those people, probably dozens more answers.
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I think for now my working definition is "whatever grants you the most ability
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to sit with your thoughts and feelings in a place of remove from them, but
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engagement with them." For some people, that will involve very austere forms --
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Al says at her Zen center you can opt in to a firm rod on the shoulder if your
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form slips -- and for others not anything like that at all. I'm most in a
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"practice mindset" when I'm running, doing some kinds of writing, and playing
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some kinds of games.
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Those aren't buttons I can push -- click I am running so I am correctly engaged
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with my thoughts and feelings -- because I find myself sometimes a mile down
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the trail having been eaten by a narrative instead of understanding where a
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narrative came from -- but they're the most reliable cues to get to the right
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relationship.
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So, I don't know, I said I wouldn't recommend that dome show. I suppose if you
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have a few Alan Watts books sitting around, or care to undertake some internet
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research and are careful to avoid what appears to be a recent trend of people
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making Alan Watts deep fakes that spout mysticism, you could sort of rig
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something up for yourself with headphones and a good screensaver. But it did
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remind me of a few questions about practice and mysticism I hadn't thought
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about for a while. It did smell a little like weed in the dome theater, though.
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powered by [4]LMNO.lol
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[5]privacy policy · [6]terms of service
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References:
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[1] https://puddingtime.org/
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[2] https://puddingtime.org/signin?goto=/what-is-practice
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[3] https://puddingtime.org/what-is-practice
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[4] https://lmno.lol/
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[5] https://lmno.lol/blog/privacy-policy
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[6] https://lmno.lol/blog/terms-of-service
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