Matt8800

Im a big fan of Tantric Buddhism

@Conscious life Yeah, stop associating with them.

The medication he was taking is an antipsychotic, which is usually prescribed to people with schizophrenia or bipolar. If one has those mental disorders, they may not be able to stand up under the pressure of the psychologically difficult process of awakening.

@Serotoninluv Sigh....Yes, maybe someday my mind can awaken to the point where I can comprehend the nuanced evils of eating tacos and owning a buddha statue....until then I suppose I will just have to keep spreading destruction and suffering with my cultural appropriation. If you happen to run across anyone that was injured or experienced suffering as a result from my taco-eating ways, please tell them it was only because I was not awakened enough to understand their pain and suffering......and then tell them to get a life

@Serotoninluv Im glad you finally have expressed your agreement that my cultural appropriation is a non-issue

@Serotoninluv You dont even know what you are talking about. You cant think of anything that would happen to somebody if I eat a taco or get a buddha statue. If you could, you would have said so by now. You are basically saying, "I cant think of any negative effects that would result from your cultural appropriation...I just know that if you expanded your perception, you would become aware of something I am unaware of." Prove me wrong and tell me what will happen if I eat a taco...I dare you! You assume that if somebody disagrees with you that it must be THEM that needs to broaden their perspective. If you cant even explain the effects of ignoring your ideology, then its a worthless ideology. I have given you numerous examples of how I take advantage of cultural appropriation and you have been unable to explain ONE negative consequence of my actions, despite an avalanche of words. I am a pragmatist so Im not concerned about other people's imaginary consequences.

@Serotoninluv You are right...I have no clue what your point is. Maybe you could help illuminate the issue by spelling out a real world example. Please finish this sentences to help me understand: If I eat a taco, _________________ will happen to _____________________. If I use Tibetan prayer beads, ________________ will happen to __________________. If you cant finish those sentences, you have no clue what you are trying to say. My prediction is that you will avoid the direct questions because you know that nothing will happen to anybody but refuse to admit the obvious.

@Serotoninluv Even after your in-depth car analogy, I still dont have any guilt or shame about my taco-eating, buddha statue, prayer beads, etc, etc, etc. I simply dont care when it comes to culture appropriation. I dont care about your shoulds and shouldnts. I dont care about your invented "rules". I simply dont care and I dont apologize. BTW, the ultimate bastardization of another cultures spirituality is Western Yoga. If one were able to ask Ramana about his opinion of the correct down dog position or westerners standing on one leg in a warm room thinking they are doing spiritual work, he would have most likely laughed. I hope you dont have a yoga mat at home because that would be the ultimate hypocrisy on this issue.

@Serotoninluv What does that have to do with me eating a taco or buying a buddha statue? If the only way you can explain something is to over-complicate it, its probably delusional. The Truth is simple. Im not trying to analyze the "wrongness" or contemplate the consequences of eating a taco (as an example). I dont ruminate about the pain and suffering my taco-eating is inflicting on others. I find those that do humorous. Also, I dont attach my identity to groups nor do I participate in other people attaching my identity to groups or ruminate about which groups can eat tacos and which ones cant. Its all just silly nonsense to me. Your limitations are not mine. You care about this but I dont. You keep explaining it more as if I would suddenly start feeling guilt about appropriating other cultures into my life if I could only understand. I understand what you are trying to say but I simply dont care about it or agree when it comes to my own decisions. Im totally for culture appropriation, as long as one is not treating the sacred as profane. I will continue to enthusiastically appropriate other cultures, with respect to the sacred, if it enriches my life.

@Scholar OK, Ill keep that in mind

@Scholar This is a strawman. You are giving examples of one person that cares about animals and one person that does not. Never have I said anything that would indicate that I dont care about others. Eating a sushi doesnt mean, in any way whatsoever, that I dont care about Japanese people. What I am saying is that white people expressing their white people outrage because Im eating ethnic food or appropriating another culture's spirituality is nonsense. I dont need to justify anything just like you dont feel an obligation to justify yourself munching on some lemon grass - If I feel like eating sushi, Im going to eat it. Simple as that. No justification or validation required. Furthermore, you have lost your right to judge others and express outrage if you have incorporated other cultures' spiritual practices and symbolism into your spirituality. Im not concerned with your hypocrisy, because it doesnt effect me, but maybe you should look into it further.

@rnd Ill give an example on how one can use spirits for healing: Ive had sleeping issues at night and energy issues during the day for as long as I can remember. Ive tried everything over the years but thought I would try a different approach. I gave some offerings (candle, incense and cup of water) to healing spirits, called them in and asked them to disclose to me what my problem was so that I could try to fix it. Im not able to see and hear spirits much but my significant other is a very gifted clairvoyant. When I ask spirits questions, I tell them that if I cant hear them, to go tell my significant other and she will tell me. I dont tell her that a message might be coming her way because I dont want to prompt her. She was totally unaware that I had contacted the healing spirits. The next day, I simply mentioned that I need to figure out my sleeping issues. She suddenly said that she was receiving a message that there was a problem with my hypothalamus and that I needed to research it. When I looked it up, I found that it is a part of the brain that is responsible for telling our bodies to sleep at night and produce energy during the day. I found that Western medicine is ineffective with treating hypothalamic dysfunction but there is strong evidence that traditional Chinese medicine is extremely effective. Im seeing a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner next week. I love my spirit allies There are also methods where one can breathe in energy/chi and move the energy out of the hands with the exhale while infusing it with gratitude and intention to heal. (gratitude is a very powerful energy to heal with). I like the Taoist micro cosmic orbit meditation for building up your chi and etheric subtle body. This is a very powerful method I have a lot of success with also. Disclosure: I regularly give offerings to spirits when i dont need something to build that relationship with them so I can call them in for the help when I do need something. Giving gifts only when someone wants to ask for something works the same with spirits as with people.

@Serotoninluv This is a lot of unnecessary mental masturbation to try to transform your subjective ideology into objective should and shouldnts. Spewing more words doesnt make it more true or valid. If I want a taco on Cinco De Mayo, Im going to get one. If I want to incorporate Buddhism and Yoga into my spiritual practice, Im going to. If I feel like practicing Chinese Medicine, Im going to. If I want Tibetan prayer beads, Im going to get some. If I feel like experimenting with Haitian voodoo, Im going to. Anyone's finger pointing at the "terrible oppression" I am inflicting because of my "horrific" actions above is silly nonsense. I feel absolutely no guilt and dont consider this Green non-issue issue when making my decisions in the least. The irony is that many people that would express outrage over this nonsense have things like Buddha statues at home. Looks a lot like selective hypocrisy to sooth their white guilt to me.

@Serotoninluv This is EXACTLY what a green person would say. Of course a green would say a yellow is deficient.....because they dont share green's ideology I understand the green ideology more than might be obvious because I had green ideology about two years ago.

@Scholar Is that really more important? Or is that belief that green just holds to be important? I suppose it would be pointless to ask green because they wouldnt know the difference anyway.

@Serotoninluv Green would believe that yellow is orange. Green would believe that yellow is small minded and short-sighted.

@CaptainBobbyOlsen Thanks for the kind words I used to get myself involved in conspiracy theories when I was younger. I would caution against it and here are a few reasons: 1. There is rarely any empirical evidence. Many people, such as flat earthers, will claim they have hard evidence through complex theories but if you break it down, many times there are epistemological errors. Its usually a complex story that might sounds suspicious, assuming all the parts are true (many times they are littered with things that simply arent true when looked at deeper). I have had people tell me they have proof that Hillary Clinton was a mass murderer. I told them they should go to some anti-Clinton authorities and give them their evidence. They always decline because, deep down, they know it doesnt fit a rigorous definition of evidence. They usually say something like "It doesnt work like that" without explaining why. The simultaneously believe unconsciously that they have evidence while knowing they dont have real evidence. That fits the definition of cognitive dissonance. 2. For the few theories that might actually be true, so what? Even if Clinton was a child sex-slave-selling mass murderer, what impact does it have to obsess about it? Why focus on a few theoretical murders when there is actual proof of thousands of people being brutally tortured, raped and murdered in places like Syria? There was never a time in human civilization that corruption and shenanigans by powerful people didnt happen. People might say that they are helping by knowing about it and talking about it but if you look at it closely, it will do nothing - especially if there is no proper empirical evidence that cannot be argued against. All this psychic energy that people are wasting on these things does literally nothing. 3. It misdirects what the real focus should be. It robs one of inward focus to focus outward, which is like a cancer to spiritual work. 4. If someone was being honest, the most they could say is that they dont know if the conspiracy theory is real or not because the "evidence" never fits the definition of empirical. My advice to anyone that believes in a lot of conspiracy theories is to study epistemology thoroughly and then apply what they have learned to the theories. Someone who has a solid grasp of epistemology is very likely to believe different things than someone who doesnt know anything about it. It certainly had a massive impact on my beliefs.

@Serotoninluv Yes, that is basically the narrative from the (mostly white) extreme left: "We dont know how to define what cultural appropriation is exactly, or when to know when you've been guilty of it, but dont do it. We'll determine your guilt and express our outrage after you do it." Interestingly, when I googled articles looking for people speaking against it, they all appeared to be written by white people. So much for your theory that the privileged group doesnt have the right to say anything about it - it seems they are the only ones saying something about it. Looks like its more of a "white guilt" issue that was manufactured by whites. The only exception I could find is Native Americans not liking their sacred objects being used in profane ways by people who had no respect for the sacred. As I stated earlier, I agreed that the sacred should remain sacred and I would side with the Natives on that one. As for me, I will continue to participate, with gratitude and respect, in aspects of other cultures that I admire and I will do so without any guilt. One could say that my whole spiritual path is built on the foundation of cultural appropriation of the sacred, and it is extremely rich, beautiful and powerful because of it.

@Keyhole Yes, I agree but I see the root of that problem as a lack of respect in the West for ANYTHING sacred, regardless of what culture it has come from. It is the mixing of the profane with the sacred that is problematic, regardless of one having the right ancestors. If this is true, it is not having incorrect ancestors that is the problem. Broadly denouncing cultural appropriation as a problem is an incomplete understanding of all the deeper dynamics. The problem with the West, generally speaking, is that it is profane. THAT should be the talking point. Specifically speaking, it comes down to the individual's intent and orientation.

@Scholar Technically, that would fall under the definition of cultural appropriation. If you are saying that cultural appropriation is fine if done with respect, then it sounds like we agree.

@Keyhole Yes, I agree those are sad situations and I empathize deeply. I personally feel that what is sacred to one culture should be treated as sacred by others. My point was certainly NOT to say that it is OK to treat other cultures any way they want. My point is mainly that if I, or others, want to participate in a facet of another culture out of love and respect, I see nothing wrong with that. This is exactly how Yoga and Buddhism made it to the West. My spiritual life is saturated with ideas and objects considered sacred to other cultures....and they are sacred to me also. I dont feel there is anything wrong with this however, it falls within definition of cultural appropriation.

@Scholar @Serotoninluv According to your ideology, would a white person decrying cultural appropriation that had a Buddha or Shiva statue at home be guilty of hypocrisy?

@Serotoninluv You are forcefully identifying me to a group of others, which I find personally offensive. Do I have a choice or does my skin color choose for me? Of course, whether Im offended or not wouldnt matter to your ideology because of what you believe "my" group (and thereby me as an individual) should or shouldnt do. No matter how you justify it, it fits the definition of racism. I have always been a recluse and a loner. If you have always been more of a social person, you wouldnt understand my complete non-identification with a group.

@Serotoninluv That is a lot of conceptualization with no foundation. The conceptualization is wholly based on the identity of the ego. Im not saying that pain that stems from a threat to one's hyper-identification with a constructed ego isnt real pain. What Im saying is that the real answer is to rise above individual and group egos where this pain no longer exists. There needs to be some balance between catering to people's egoic demands to prop up their constructed egos and encouraging them to see past the illusion of their constructed egos. Validation should not take prominence over transcendence. They both need to be acknowledged. By only focusing on validation of their egoic idenfication to a group, you are reinforcing the egoic prison of the individual.

@Scholar I stand by my previous statement: In the end, its all made up concepts that have an imaginary impact on illusory egoic identities. I do agree that we "should" be mindful of respect but ultimately, we have to decide what is reasonable because there are unreasonable people on BOTH sides. Some people have way too strong of a reaction to non-injuries. To some degree, we should care about their imaginary pain from their non-injuries but only to a certain point.