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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave
@bodhidave.bsky.social
1.7K followers 310 following 3.7K posts
humanistic psychodynamic Buddhist deconstructionist ... and all-round sweet guy interested in cross-cultural parallels in contemplative practice . https://utexas.academia.edu/DavidCollins [header is the rock garden at Ryōan-ji; avatar is an enso]
utexas.academia.edu
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Nov 21
1:2

The numbers of followers for this account increased this week. I'll re-post an essay I have online which reflects on the present-day "mindfulness" movement.

In that piece, about half-way through, I mention the experience of practicing the jhānas ... and ...

thesideview.co/journal/deco...
Deconstructing Mindfulness
There’s been a marked increase in studies of mindfulness and meditation in recent years.
thesideview.co
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2h
There's a recent weeklong retreat's worth of background and context for further explaining this, but I'll keep it in a brief form and say:

In tonight's #meditation there was a sense for how it's less about something I do, and more about what is happening.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 5h
legit LOL
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 7h
word
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 13h
bsky.app/profile/klas...
klasfeldreports.com
Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 14h
Ghana's foreign minister rejects DHS's reported plans to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to that country.

Eswatini's government previously made similar announcement on social media. h/t @garygrumbach.bsky.social
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 13h
bsky.app/profile/klas...
klasfeldreports.com
Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 14h
Ghana's foreign minister rejects DHS's reported plans to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to that country.

Eswatini's government previously made similar announcement on social media. h/t @garygrumbach.bsky.social
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 17h
Right. The Buddha's teaching alerts us to the fact that even pleasurable experience is *unsatisfactory* as long as we're not awake to the genuinely miraculous nature of experience per se.

translation of "Altura's" post:
It is necessary to understand, and not just on an intellectual level, why the Buddha's statement about the truth of dissatisfaction is not pessimistic news.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d
❤️ 🙏
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d
meanwhile...

bsky.app/profile/rbre...
rbreich.bsky.social
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 1d
AI companies are spending billions on deals with each other, which boost their value.

This has helped twenty billionaires tied to AI add $450B to their fortunes in 2025.

Meanwhile, an MIT study found that 95% of companies using AI haven't seen returns on investment.

Be warned.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d
bsky.app/profile/bodh...
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Apr 1
Reminds me of a survey years ago on effectiveness of different modalities of psychotherapy (psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive).

They found that respondents stated the most significant factor in whether they felt benefited by therapy was if they experienced the therapist as a warm person.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d
Was reminded that a "unified" conscious experience of, say, a car passing nearby — of which we have a visual awareness, and an auditory one, and a tactile one (air blowing on us) — that experience is a thing stitched together, with the sensory inputs arriving in the brain at different speeds...
... which is a reason John of the Cross suggested we should not become over-proud of spiritual experiences that we may have: by the time those reach our phenomenal awareness, what put them into motion has already occurred - we are, in effect, the last to know. [smiling emoji, praying hands emoji]
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d
speaking of insurance plans in the U.S., I just sent this message to a friend here in NC re home insurance policies

www.ncrabbithole.com/p/why-are-so...
seeing a story that while everyone knows the NC Outer Banks ... which are essentially huge sandbars ... naturally move and that building on them is ultimately dumb ... NINE houses have fallen down in the past month ... in part due to a combo of things like a pair of hurricanes offshore (and climate change of course means more, and more severe, hurricanes will happen) ... but the piece notes that insurance companies will not pay for you to take your house down and rebuild elsewhere — they'll only pay when your house crashes down
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
bsky.app/profile/bodh...
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
I have a dear friend who I met online a couple years back. She lives in Europe and, we have come to realize, we both used to sit in the same meditation center in Austin, Texas, twenty years ago — only she sat there in the mornings and I sat there in the evenings, and we never met back then.
conradhackett.bsky.social
Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 3d
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
I have a dear friend who I met online a couple years back. She lives in Europe and, we have come to realize, we both used to sit in the same meditation center in Austin, Texas, twenty years ago — only she sat there in the mornings and I sat there in the evenings, and we never met back then.
conradhackett.bsky.social
Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 3d
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
contemplative practice (meditation) as a kind-hearted honesty that is a path towards ... and an expression of ... how things really are
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
... something something about an ICE box ...

😬
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
bsky.app/profile/bodh...
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Nov 1
The #Buddha was once walking with some of his followers, and he pointed to the ground and said, "This would be a good place to build a temple."

The god Indra placed a blade of grass in the ground and said, "The temple is built."

🙏 🙂

(~ Book of Serenity, case 4)
screenshot of text that says: “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” – Henry Miller
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
I don't pretend to be able to offer a full on diagnosis, but as a psychologist I've long been struck by how his statements are continually in line w/ *what he perceives can benefit him*—rather than true or false or legal or illegal or moral or immoral. And he appears to be getting worse cognitively.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
"I see what you did there"
a scowling jack o' lantern with an eye patch
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bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
For me a sign of a healthy relationship is when we like the person we ourselves can be in the context of that interaction.
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d
a closer view

bsky.app/profile/bodh...
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 13d
I'm entering a weeklong silent retreat in a Zen Center north of #Asheville in the coming hour. This is the view from the back yard currently. 🙂 🙏

#BloomScrolling
bright blue skies with white clouds over blue mountains with a white moonflower and a lot of puffy flower seedlings in the foreground
bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 3d
she's definitely singular 👍
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 3d
Contemplative traditions, esp. Zen, will say, on the one hand, there's nowhere to go — but also that awakening is transformative.

My strong sense is that that transformation lies in us seeing what is already actually happening

(which includes our sense of "I" as being a part of what is happening).
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 3d
heh ... I didn't realize there was a movie
poster for The Invisible Woman, showing a shadowing female figure, with headshots of actors, Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, John Howard, and Charlie Ruggles
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 3d
Journaling during a Zen sesshin (intensive silent retreat) is discouraged, but I typically jot down a few notes to come back to afterwards. I just had a look at my notes from last week's retreat, and find:

"Flow is worship."

(I'm not enraptured by Csikszentmihalyi's term "flow," but I like that^.)
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bodhidave.bsky.social
bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 3d
awesome

🙏 (<= praying hands)
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