simply put magick without a religious basis is fuel for solipsism and ego-worship

SO SPICY

the editors disdain is barely contained

don't know why I'm reading so much about mahayana buddhism, picking apart where they believe in God while allegedly not believing in God

honestly its funny how there was a historical buddha and yet so many buddhas east asians revere and even prefer are mythological

tibetan buddhism is the best buddhism and rigpa and tummo are the best things to emerge from it in my humble opinion

emptiness of all dharmas (here meaning phenomena) (sarva dharma shunyata)

all this indeed is Brahman (sarvam khalvidam brahma)


imagine seeing that everything you can think of is a chain of dependent and transitory things and thus is "empty", while neglecting the one permanent independent thing: God. many mahayana buddhists say that bodhichitta (mind striving to buddha-hood), buddha-hood and even nibanna itself are ultimately empty and experienced by the wise as emptiness--devoid of substance like foam, dew, a shadow, or lightning. other (slightly later I believe) mahayana buddhists claim that there is a permanent primordial buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) at the essential core of every living being, defined as the mind/potential mind of perfect self-luminous knowledge (often said to be knowledge of emptiness, or knowledge of non-self)--said to be pure, infinite, unchanging and also as a kind of self(!). when talking about buddha-nature/buddha-mind/buddha-womb, of course, its so easy to stray into talking about God and the soul, which is/are said not to exist. even the same word used for Brahman-essence in Advaita Vedanta, svabhava (own-being), a concept totally denied by the aforementioned buddhist nihilists, is used for these buddhists for the buddha-nature!

while many, including the bhagavatism-influenced bhaktas and zen buddhists, claim their form of liberation or bliss is different and superior, I believe that all forms of highest samadhi are experienced equally, both because there is no ego or mind or intellect or senses to produce difference, and because it is a pure essential state equivalent to knowing Brahman which is the singular non-dual and partless substrate of all things including the mind. however, I tentatively believe that once the mind and intellect return after samadhi, even though the mind of a yogi/buddha is small p perfect (totally purified of imperfections and unfathomably wise), differences in interpreting the previously experienced state of highest samadhi/nibanna arise, owed not due to differences in purified minds per se but due to the sheer limitedness of the mind as a faculty in perceiving God (God doesnt have a mind, being indiscrete and without limiting adjuncts) who is all-encompassing. therefore someone who worships God devoutly might experience more bliss upon reckoning that they were unified with God (or close to God if they are not monist), and someone who doesnt believe in God or in any phenomena would be prone to cognizing the experience of samadhi as shunyata (emptiness), which is just an aspect of Brahman. (whether its saguna or nirguna Brahman depends on your interpretation, is the absence of qualities a quality?)

came up with a really good idea for a movie or book or whatever based loosely on a dream

thats a lot of emoji reacts graf

let's talk about the microplastics in extended release medications

freshman year of college my only female friend was an a vaishnavite indian girl. she showed me the little krishna cartoon which I believe is mostly based on the bhagavata purana. I would later show it to a fun transmasc who left fedi years back.

Seeing Titan
Image Credit: VIMS Team, Univ. Arizona, U. Nantes, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is really hard to see. Small particles suspended in Titan's upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding surface features from prying eyes. Still, Titan's surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths, where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced. Arrayed around this visible light image (center) of Titan are some of the clearest global infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a consistent processing of 13 years of infrared image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn from 2004 to 2017. They offer a stunning comparison with Cassini's visible light view. NASA's revolutionary rotorcraft mission to Titan's surface is due to launch no earlier than July, 2028.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260502.html #apod

diarrhea got me feeling like an office breakroom water cooler

I know a lot about vaishnavism I need to learn more about shaktism

wack

womp womp. I bought a fisheye lens

my favorite Japanese word, kumamoto

After about a year of working on it, my #NerdStitch cross-stitch tribute to the 1985 Amiga Deluxe Paint King Tut is done! Created from the original image, I did have to scale it down a little. The stitched version is 180x200, about 34,000 stitches.

I havent had a raw bay scallop in a while I really miss it