nolan_void

There has been a shift in my energy. In the past I have often thought that the best cure for depression is anger. There may be some truth to this insofar that anger is a really self-centered emotion. I find it odd that the term "self-centered" has to come to have such negative connotations. Is not the point of all meditation to be self-centered? Is there anyway we can be centered in any other way than within ourselves?

There is a vital energy that comes with indulgence of the self. This has been my biggest problem with Eastern Religions. If Western thought has contributed anything positive to the world, it is its realization of individuality and self-importance, of making your own way and not following someone else's, of being responsible for your own happiness and your own sadness.

This is why I find myself always straddling the fence between Satanism and Buddhism. On one hand you have total self-importance and on the other total self-denial. It is very hard for Westerners to realize what Buddhism is really saying about the concept of No-Self, that we (as beings) are composed a number of conditional factors that are all interdependent(without one, none of the others could be, and no one factor can be identified as "the self"). Most of us are raised all our lives to think that we have these immortal ego-spirit-soul thingies that are going to live forever, beyond the temple-that-is-our-body which makes possible the manifestation of consciousness. We think that when we die we aren't just going to become ether, but a glowing Obi-Wan Kenobi ghost version of the consciousness that hangs around and maybe goes to Paradise or burns in eternal damnation.

But just because we share a common essence with all of reality doesn't mean that in this form or incarnation or whatever you want to label it that an aspect of our consciousness isn't strongly bound to our sense of individual self. It is insane to try and make it as otherwise.

Passion may burn us, but we need it. Peace is boring. It is. It is numb and boring. There is no way in hell that meditating on my breath is going to make me any more joyous about life than eating animals, having sex, getting petty revenge upon my enemies, and attaining worldly power and material comforts. Those things alone may not be enough, but they may just allow me to be sane enough to attain communion with my fellow human beings. How can anyone be an enriching influence if they've "peaced" out all of the things that make them interesting and have resigned to an existence as a boring little Hindu cow.

We are all going to die some day, and there is no model or guarantee for what happens after that. Don't waste the wonderful experiences that make up this world trying to transcend it.