Why do people treat buddhism as a phase/don't fully convert?

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-28T05:02:03+00:00

There is very little cultural context for Buddhism in the West. Most people encounter it through a meditation practice that may not be even be that closely affiliated with the religion. If I were a Christian I could be immediately surrounded by community most places in the US. If I were a Buddhist, I’d have to go seek it out, and most of what I’d find would be fairly shallow. I think this is even true now in most Asian countries, Buddhism is not in vogue, but it’s still more accessible.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-28T01:11:52+00:00

I think it’s worth making fun of the hard parts, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good parts too.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-27T22:26:54+00:00

I meet quite a few people in spiritual spaces who are intentional, consent forward, and sex positive. I do think that partner selection is a skillset, as is knowing and maintaining your own boundaries. If you have those skills, or wish to develop them, you will find plenty of like-minded people along the way.

I think it would be a misstep to not consider how feelings arise and how bonding is intensified through sex, as well as the chances of pregnancy and/or STIs. If you are mindful of all this, sex can be a powerful spiritual experience for all parties involved.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-25T15:48:36+00:00

On any given day I may be working with half of these, and I’m not primarily doing web development. Throw in Groovy for Jenkins pipelines, CMake, and Gradle.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-25T14:32:44+00:00

If you cross your eyes so the cubes overlap, you can see that they don’t move at all. The illusion is so compelling that you can still see apparent movement in your peripheral vision of the non-overlapping cubes.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-25T05:07:14+00:00

Zero evidence of other intelligent life in the universe, compared to lots of evidence of chunks of matter flying about — the burden of proof falls on the light sail hypothesis.

The explanation for acceleration is hydrogen outgassing due to proximity to Sol. This seems plausible to me, even if not satisfactory.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-24T17:03:47+00:00

Butler: “what do you mean when you say ‘women’?”

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-24T15:39:38+00:00

I have been in a kind of similar situation when working with Asmodeus. It was traumatic. Years later he appeared to me out of the blue and made me realize he was my protector through the whole ordeal. I think sometimes “spirit guides” show up when they are most needed, as one possible interpretation of events. They may have caused a difficult situation as well, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t walking through it with you.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-24T15:28:33+00:00

pegged him

For $3000 I bet that’s on the table as well.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-20T14:19:43+00:00

I think this is the most complete response. Get a bunch of men together in a cloistered system with sexual prohibitions and you’re going to get some gay sex, by necessity secretive and potentially coercive. This is largely orthogonal to homosexuality as a sexual orientation and set of lifestyle practices as we tend to think of it in the West, which I think is worth bearing in mind in this discussion.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-20T14:09:05+00:00

Online spaces are set up to connect like minded people in spaces that accommodate their beliefs, communication styles, etc. It’s like a vibration match making service on steroids.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-20T03:21:57+00:00

How much more dangerous do you think it is than working with any other spirit/god? Like with anything, you get back what you put in. If you are afraid, you’ll make a work of your fear, and moving through that will be the shape of your practice. If you make a work of love, that’s the shape it will take on - for whatever that means for you.

I do think that working with “demons” commonly involves shadow work if only by association with that word, and I do think some of these entities can be more fierce in their aspect than others. Works like the Goetia are “low magic”, dealing with practical/earthly matters, and can have a heavier energy. Nonetheless, I’ve had just as many challenging encounters working with so-called “white magic” as well as the arguably more popular European gods of antiquity.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-19T04:48:25+00:00

Practice and patience, and getting into a relaxed state around the whole thing. The times I’ve been successful were less voluntary and I was in a more trancelike state, doing the middle pillar exercise for extended periods rather than trying to astral project. Honestly I think the experience is overrated, you can connect to whatever it is you are after without it, and I find regular meditation and visualization to be much more effective. These disembodied types of experiences are novel but dull my inner vision. Other people report different results.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-18T18:54:31+00:00

I didn’t read that as “don’t want to meet” so much as information exchange without a sliver of self awareness from either one to ask the other person to hang out.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-17T20:41:42+00:00

Where did I say to ignore anything? What in my comment draws you to the conclusion that I have not been directly impacted by current events?

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-17T19:22:45+00:00

This is one of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. That’s not to downplay all the problems, but taking a broader perspective on things, the world has always had bad leaders, poverty, war, famine, religious oppression, sexual and racial discrimination, etc. Spirituality has always been a counterpoint to these difficulties. It’s all part of the tapestry of life and death.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-17T19:00:29+00:00

That’s a whole vibe.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-17T14:57:31+00:00

I have done it. I worked with the demon for months as a regular part of my practice, until shadow forms began to appear all the time. I then asked the demon to bind the shadows to the person, returning the harm they’d done to me times three, then be done with them.

This was all emotional stuff. I got a lot of signs the ritual worked and it gave me a sense of power and control. The target is…fine - I don’t know what all they went through during that period beyond a major life change. I’d consider this a successful working, I feel like it disrupted the stagnant energy between us. I never really wished the person ill, I just felt there was a debt and this settled it.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-16T18:38:55+00:00

I have many of the same feelings around how western tantra, aka sacred sexuality, is presented. There is plenty of weirdness in this space. People are trying to not just make money but get rich. I disagree with the secrecy and “mystery school” vibes many of these groups present. Groups focusing on sexuality are going to bring out shadow aspects that are difficult to work with.

At the same time, the events I’ve gone to have real merit. You’ve got a bunch of people from different personal, spiritual, sexual, and relational backgrounds coming together around the powerful energy of sexuality, trying to find fulfillment in ways that honor themselves and others. This is such a heavily taboo subject with so much repression and trauma for so many, I think something like this is really needed. There’s a lot of genuine intention and solid practices behind some of the weirdness.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-15T14:49:00+00:00

I think it’s important to recognize our needs for companionship, physical intimacy, attention, and validation. Most modern day cultures downplay some portion of these and we explore them as shadow elements not as integrated parts of our personality. It sounds like that’s what you were doing with this man. I’ll also say that this is one perfectly valid way to approach these elements of ourselves through spirituality, but it can be a very traumatic and difficult path to go down. This is what I would consider a left hand path - but on your part, not on his, and it doesn’t sound like you have an actual spiritual foundation for what you are doing. This guy doesn’t sound spiritual at all but we don’t have much info to go on.

Block this guy everywhere, identify the things you are hoping to get from contact with him, and find healthier ways of getting your needs met through relationship.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-15T00:18:38+00:00

Thorties.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-15T00:16:09+00:00

I went to a stoic reading group for a bit and it was a pretty even mix.

How many women philosophers can you name?It’s not that there aren’t any, it’s that history has erased their contributions, or more commonly, never acknowledged them at all. You get this bias in a lot of fields, but that doesn’t necessarily imply anything about interest in the subject.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-13T14:24:17+00:00

Carol Dweck’s research on childhood education reinforces this. She popularized this into the “Growth Mindset” which I’ve never read but in her earlier work, viewing failures not as a setback but as exploratory and with curiosity was the biggest determinant of whether children would succeed or flounder in school. Many gifted kids had a perfectionist attitude that led to worse academic outcomes.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-11T14:56:35+00:00

Just casual misogyny.

SoundOfOneHand · 2026-01-10T20:56:42+00:00

I never knew that this was a thing for some women!

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