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Tangent: Spirituality (Patreon)

Published:
2024-07-26 18:14:57
Edited:
2024-07-26 19:19:14
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hi friends,

It's been truly an insane month in American politics, but I've somehow managed to keep it together enough to finish this Tangent (maybe all the mindfulness meditation has improved my focus).

In a lot of ways this is an expansion on themes introduced in past Tangents: skepticism, psychedelics, New Age religion.

I'm going to be very busy the next couple months working on a main channel video that I've given a firm deadline in October (the video is not directly US election-related but it's not entirely unrelated either, and I'd like to have it out by then). I'm also planning a more ambitious livestream event—more details on that when there are details to report.

So I'm thinking that next month (August) it would be easier for me to do an old-fashioned AMA stream in lieu of a Tangent, if that's acceptable to you all. It would work the same as before, with $15+ patrons able to ask the questions on a post that would go up the week before the stream, and all patrons able to watch the stream and archive.

Tangents would resume either in September or whenever I publish the main channel project, depending on how that goes.

Anyway, here's spirituality.

Enjoy, and as always let me know what you think!

-Natalie

P.S. Here's the video link, in case embedding doesn't work: https://youtu.be/Af3nB1dGFrw?si=UmaS_WtvHzRHcwSI

Files

Tangent: Spirituality

Thanks so much for your support! Bach Fugue in F-sharp Major from Kimiko Ishizaka's Open Well-Tempered Clavier Bach Cantata BWV 80 performed by the Netherlands Bach Society: https://youtu.be/fAt2LgpDnaA?si=dNHSGd-2weJk-h0K ▬ Contents▬ Part 1: On Being a Scully 00:58 Part 2: Becoming a Dao-Aware Influencer 25:42 Part 3: What Doth Life? 33:52 Part 4: The Buddhist Question 44:49 Part 5: Meditating on Acid is Not the Answer 59:21 Part 6: Am I Spiritual or Just Dissociating? 1:07:50

Comments

Daria Costea

Damn whatifalthist really is the alt right uneducated version of you

jesse sa

blessings of the psychic zoroastrian collective unconscious dead sea scroll mind sefirot for a new tangent on this fine solar axial rotation

abhor

aaaaa te amo

soph

this video is gonna go insanely hard at the baptist potluck

Tomme

Thank you mother!!

Bethany

I just got off a 6 AM -2 PM shift, and this is the best post-shift-gift everrrr.

Kapelski

maybe I'll upgrade my patreon for one month and think of a banger question for the AMA

highclass_lady

oh my gosh you're doing an AMA! I've had a question I've been waiting a year to hear your thoughts on!

jejasf

CONTRA I hope you read this message one video u mentioned how focusing on the light is patriarchal- Jeff brown has a podcast on Spotify- one episode is called The Perils of Patriarchal Spirituality and the Illusion of the Enlightened man- check it out lol.

redr0om

Yay, new tangent! And great plan for the upcoming months :)

Andrew May

Cheers, Natalie—thanks for sharing another Tangent; we’re all really excited about a livestream and an AMA in the future! You’re such a tease.

Oliver G

I love the Tangents but I’m totally down for an old-school AMA, it’ll be kinda nostalgic. I totally support you having the flexibility to choose which Patreon reward best supports your current workload

Jake

Thank you mother!

Pascal

I think you should feel free to change the rules of the AMA to "it's going to be X hours long, I'll answer as many questions as I can". Also I believe you can have us heart questions and then sort by number of hearts, to prioritize.

Vinni

insane serendipity on the timing and theme of this one for me : -0

Jessica Cheeri

Well, I'm always here for an AMA. I do miss those, always such great times. I met friends in Chat during those

Jazz Jackrabbit

I've honestly been wondering if you're gonna do a sequel "Voting"

Pookiemookie

made my friday, thank you natalie! all those plans sound delightful, and i hope you are having a wonderful summer

Nell

We have the same dress! 🤩

Daniel Burgos

Yay Natalie! Looking forward to it

Bethany

Blue Collar Workers for Contrapoints

Nora

Yes please jabber!

em

my weekend plans just flew out of the window, so excited to watch this!! also an AMA sounds great, and good luck with the main channel video, words can’t describe how much i’m looking forward to it!

Rachel VIll

What a wonderful notification to get at the end of a long week! Can't wait to watch this, looking forward to the upcoming main feed video and AMA as well.

Noah Carlin

Weekend plans: contra tangent, third eye exercises, and mystery substance boofing (in minecraft)

Ida Duvnjak

I still havn’t figured out where to vote for topics but I would love a tangent on Hannibal. 😊😊

Graham

Woah a topic I can actually contribute to! Neat! I'm a westernized Zen Buddhist convert and completely agree with Buddhism being characterized as a religion, despite the many attempts of people like Sam Harris claiming otherwise. Western culture has an idealized view of Buddhism, often because their only exposure to it being by lay people who have done a couple retreats who go on to extol meditation, or by exposure to the Dalai Lama and think "Wow, this guy seems pretty happy and peaceful, why can't our Evangelical neighbors be like him?". But until you've practiced in a traditional buddhist center it can be hard for non-buddhists to see how much religion is imbued in it. There's chanting and mantras, there's many statues of the buddha within meditation centers, and there's highly religious conversion ceremonies if you decide to become a buddhist/buddhist monk. I like the discussion around Dukha, with my only pet peeve being a slight misinterpretation around the first Noble Truth "Life is Suffering" or "Life sucks". My teacher and many others have instead framed it as "Life is unsatisfactory", due to the negative connotations in the West, and even with identifying the Buddha as some sort of nihilist. The Buddha is simply pointing out what we've all experienced; life can be pretty unsatisfactory, we buy a new car, feel excited, and then complain weeks later. We get what we want, and yet we're still unhappy! It's really more of an observation of human psychology. I don't have much to add about anata as "no self" as a concept is more of an experience than a concrete philosophy - you'll come to know it when you experience it. Very cool that you're trying out meditation more seriously! If you become stuck or feel like you're in need of a more "complete" meditation guide I'd highly recommend "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa. His take of the process of enlightenment is more of a Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhist which means that he's broken up the path to enlightenment into stages, which has helped a clueless westerner like me lol, and has been invaluable in navigating the often complex and mysterious world of buddhist thought from a "neurological" perspective.

Isaac Mac

I just rediscovered Lorde's solar power album this week so this tangent could not come at a better time!

a. j. archer

god i need to do acid again ♥️ so excited for this one

Kai Lewen

Cheers for the drunks making figures in corn fields. They are iconic for leaving their mark in history under a drunken haze.

Alexander Bohan

Yes! I also got to Buddhist meditation through the ideas actually making sense to me. I’m so curious if you’ve considered doing a 10-day vipassana course. I started doing them when I had read about as many books and done about as much meditation as you and it basically sort of plunged me into the deep end. I’d be so curious to hear about your experience.

Austin F

i've always been a very non-spiritual person, at least in a traditional sense. not out of any disrespect for people who are spiritual, or animosity towards the entire concept; i just have never been able to connect to the spiritual concepts that other people talk about. the biggest reason for that is that i just am not bothered by the concept that life "doesn't mean anything". i don't think anything inherently means something. emotional experiences are what gives meaning to things. on a cosmic level, nothing has meaning, because meaning is different for everyone; we create meaning for ourselves and others, and that's a beautiful thing, in its own way. it's just hard for me to think in traditional spiritual terms. i don't like the concept that there's some broad, universal meaning or plan, because that makes me feel powerless (and it makes me feel like nobody else has power, either). i guess, in a way, spirituality makes me feel even less meaning. the concept that we aren't in control of our own destinies makes me feel like our actions are pointless, which i think is really depressing. in terms of astrology, the idea of "my personality and future are controlled by random stars and nothing i do will ever change that" is actually kind of cosmically horrifying to me. no thank you. i guess i'm just bad at this. lol

Clara

Hey I thought this was really cool! One question I'm having is, why maintain this distinction along the lines of masculine and feminine? I've noticed this in other people's work too, I saw a talk at a conference which described two fundamental kinds of desire as masculine/feminine, and I always wonder: why these words? I think one advantage is that they are looser than terms like active/passive, since you may want to say that this feminine force is not merely passive (the person in this talk I mentioned said that feminine desire 'hesitates'). But these are obviously politically loaded terms that carry some risk, so I'm interested in the motivation for trying to incorporate them into broader metaphysical/ethical claims. (I'm not trying to cancel you here, genuine question btw lol)

a. j. archer

okay pausing like 10 secs in to say that as a catholic i'm actually perfectly happy with my current cult :) and as a lowbie i didn't even vote on the topic. BUT i am very used to spirituality being considered suspect and unserious on the left (which, i get it lol) so it was pretty exciting when one of the left-wing thinkers i most respect started taking it seriously. also, no disrespect intended, but my "mother" is a woman called brenda and she's a very nice lady!

Martijn Busink

There's not many movies I turned off (I think it happened 3 times, and I watch quite a few and including some really bad ones)), but What The Bleep was such a scam. And I don't discard esotericism and spiritualism a priori, but there's so many charlatans in that field.

Paula GV aka Yukimi87

Such a great surprise. Made my Friday! I would also love a Ama. I am a fairly recent Contra discoverer (yeah, I lived under a rock for 7 years it seems)

Teun

Probably a cold take but I think these tangents are the best content you have ever put out. Fascinating and super important stuff. By any chance are you aware of Brad Troemel? He releases amazing semi-regular videos on his patreon about topics such as literalist thinking, AI, the hipster era and healing culture, from a contemporary art perspective. Feel like you are both on a very similar arc atm.

M.m. Wright

Natalie, I support your spiritual journey. My meditation experience is mainly dabbling in the basic tradition of Patanjali's raja yoga in "How to Know God". Fun fact: Christopher Isherwood has a translation of it. It's a very old and very simple system, it just takes practice. Some advice - don't jump around to different systems, dedicate yourself completely to one way of meditating and be consistent. Every day do 30-60 minutes at least and you will start having altered states probably in under a month. TLDR Stay very still, breathe very evenly, ignore your senses and try to repeatedly redirect your brain to concentrate on one point, then let go of that point. It takes your brain a really long time to calm down into a meditative state, especially at first. It's basically like exercise and you need to build up your stamina. But yeah, you can get extremely high with your own brain completely sober and it is actually good for you. I haven't been able to sustain these high af states super long because I too am still a novice after a few years of dipping in and out. Also, the more you try to "state chase" the harder it is. You have to not care, ironically.

Nate Card 🇺🇦

Hi Natalie. Thank you so much for this tangent; I think it is your best one yet and I often find your tangents even more interesting and engaging than your main channel videos. I feel like our stories somewhat overlap in that my avenue to a more significant spiritual experience also came through musical performance (saxophonist), especially during my time as a music major. I’d love to talk more about this but it’s probably only interesting to me and my comment is already getting pretty long so I’ll just say thanks again.

ContraPoints

$15+ patrons vote on the topic, in polls I post on here

ContraPoints

I have considered it yes. Maybe after November lol

M.m. Wright

yo I love shit like What The Bleep, but it was too dumb even for me, even as a hate watch. Surprised she didn't mention the NXIVM connection there with the director Mark Vicente. That was his first cult under Ramtha.

Alexander Bohan

Haha fair. Sitting there observing terror and worry for 10 days is absolutely no fun.

Aysel Akhundova

Hi Natalie, This is a silly comment. I just dyed my hair red and got into spirituality. Thanks for sharing this. I still will be into astrology, but yeah, somehow this video came at a very correct moment, just hit the spot. Or maybe it is my confirmation bias speaking. Thank you for this.

Laura G

About 60 something years ago Aldous Huxley wrote a novel called Island about a society that employed the scientific method and psychedelics and Buddhism to optimize human well being. He wrote the novel before a bunch of people badly misused psychedelics and got hurt, so he was not aware of the potential risks. He had used psychedelics himself, and I seem to remember that he took them on his deathbed at the end because he saw them as a doorway to spiritual experiences. I was college circa 1970 and had friends who were hurt because they saw the drugs as some sort of cure all. Meditation is much healthier. Excellent video!

gracelove44

I read Waking Up while still atheist and went to the same place in Myanmar that Harris goes to in the book. After ten days, I had profound experiences that made it hard to remain atheist. Dao De Qing also chipped away at the rigid atheism a closeted childhood catholicism had necessitated as an intermediary before coming home to inner sources of knowing sans middlemen.

Austin F

also, about super successful people still being sad - when janet jackson was talking about her extremely depressing (and extremely good) 'velvet rope' album, she mentioned the concept of 'having everything you want but still feeling sad'. now, it's actually pretty debatable if she had everything she wanted (considering she was just coming out of a super abusive marriage + various other issues), but that concept stuck with me, because there's this existential dread to it. if you already have everything that could make you happy, and you're still miserable...what else can you do? do people with that mindset fear that they'll never feel any better than they do now, and maybe that's what causes some of them to become so nasty and petty and miserable? not that i have a ton of pity for people like elon or jk rowling, but it's an interesting psychological analysis to make, or even a cautionary tale

Brandon Callaway

Hello- longtime watcher (creepy- sorry,) first time commenter. I just want to say how happy I was to see the tangent progress into an explanation of Buddhism and meditation. Just some friendly encouragement: it really isn't a "religion" so much as a method to investigate reality. Most of the convoluted things about it that you mentioned are really just geographical elaborations. Basic Buddhism is like exercise for your perception. Reality as perceived through one's own sense and processed through your mind. It's an exercise in recognizing the fundamentals of, well, just existing. The essential Buddhist teaching (said so himself) was the teaching of the 4 Noble Truths. That's it. All you have to grasp. Within those truths are the instructions for how to re-align yourself with "what is." Truth of the dissatisfaction of life; the causes of that dissatisfaction; recognizing that there is a way out of that persistent dissatisfaction and that way being the Noble Eightfold Path. Learning to meditate through Vipassana (which is what the Buddha taught and encouraged others to practice,) you learn how to observe reality, as well as the contents of your mind. How you react (or, not react, hopefully) to that stimuli is what it is all about. Being quiet, still enough to not react but to simply observe: your thoughts, feelings, distractions, reactions to them all leading to insight into yourself. The Eightfold path isn't a set of commandments. They're separate yet interconnected prescriptions for how to meditate more clearly on the reality you are observing. In fact, the Buddha did refer to his teaching as "The Middle Way" and likened the act of existing to a string on a stringed instrument. If too lax, the sound is terrible and the string can't perform. If too tight, it's too shrill and you run the risk of snapping it. It's being in tune. In tune with yourself. I recommend reading Bhante Gunaratana's other book on the Eightfold path, "Eight Mindful Steps To Happiness, " as well as Stephen Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Belief. " Batchelor writes on "secular Buddhism, " which ignores all the "woo woo" parts that people get thrown off by. Essentially, the overcomplication of the basic teaching. Anyway, sorry for the waaaaay-too long message/comment from an internet stranger. Thanks for all of your hard work and, please, keep it up. This one was another great one! Stay safe.

Lucy B

Thanks again, Natalie, sharing your thoughts. As always, your nuance and depth is engaging to listen to. I come from a naturalistic pantheist perspective, and have had my fair share of similar psychedelic experiences similar to yours. I share the same issues with most new agey spiritual movements and groups, which I often see within my ecstatic dance community. I view the oneness feeling described in the major eastern religions and psychedelic experiences as a recognition that in a real, material sense, we conscious entities are literally one "thing": a self aware piece of the overarching process of the universe (the Dao, everything everywhere all at once, however you define the big thing we exist in) simply existing through spacetime. Our bodies, born from the cycle of evolution, provide us with some semblance of an ego as a tool for surviving within this process. However, as folks like Lao Tzu and many an observant person have stumbled upon, this is just an illusion crafted by the mind. One can look at a river and say that it is a singular thing. Of course, the river is made up of a constantly flowing stream of water molecules and various other contaminants, though it also wouldn't be a "river" without the banks giving definition to the water's flow. The edges of the water and the riverbank blur, and there is no physical "thing" that goes from being the riverbank into just regular ground. If one drinks from the river, that thing we once considered to be a part of this otherwise non-living suddenly becomes the process that is one's living self. The water molecules either act as substrate or change as fuel for our body's metabolic processes, and is eventually released back into the world, where it presumably becomes a part of the non-living water cycle again. Humans have strong ego systems to help us give ourselves identities, purposes, ways of understanding how ourselves and others operate within the world. Natalie, Youtuber, Woman, Addict, Electric Meat Sack, Cat Girl: These labels help give us and others shape of how we wish to be viewed or act as. But at the end of the day, we are literally the flow of water molecules, the banks of a river, the earth mud given animus. We are the flow of genes over populations. We are the flow of language memes shared and evolved over eons. We are walking apes, which are just specific mammals, which are synapsids, which are fish, are vertebrates, are animals, eukaryotes, archaebacteria, rNA loops in lipid bubbles, the materials of the earth, the sun, the galaxy, the big bang. Death only feels like an ending because we see ourselves as having a beginning in our conscious forms. The fundamental forces that make us up were forged in the history of the big bang, slowly interacting with the rest of the universe til they took shape into you, me, all of us. Even going back just one generation, what became us as individuals were once two cells that were fundamentally other people, and thus we are intrinsically a continuation of their living processes. Things we see as fearful, addicting, pleasurable, hateful, as "other", are only so because our brains are doing their best to give shape to the world in a way that helps us survive and reproduce. Psychedelics erasing priors or deep meditation bringing focus to such a fundamental living stream of breathing in air and releasing it back can help us let go of these sensations as defining how things are, and have the mental bandwidth to embrace more fully what simply *is* around you without as much judgement, thus being able to possibly engage with them with more nuance and freedom from pure reaction based on your assumptions on the world or the situation. That, I feel, is what's fundamentally going on with folks engaging with the more genuine, grounded forms of spirituality.

jejasf

Atman and anattā are not as opposed to each other according to some Buddhist and hindu philosophers. A popular conceptualization of Buddhism nowadays is that the buddha says that there is no enteral self. Buddhist along the centuries have had debates about this- but according to some scholars and philosophers anattā alludes to the senses and misidentification (not-self not no self) - "Form is not the soul (anatman), sensations are not the soul (anatman), perceptions are not the soul (anatman), assemblages are not the soul (anatman) mind is not the soul (anatman). Seeing thusly, this is the end of birth, The Brahman (godly) life has been fulfilled. What must be done has been done" -Gautama Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya, 3.196) Advaita vedanta and contemporary Buddhism have this tendency for solipsism and nihilism- which if u follow it to its logical conclusion that's what it is lol. "Both formerly and now, I have never been a nihilist, never been one who teaches the annihilation of a being. Rather, I have taught only the source of suffering, and its ending." - Gautama Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya, 1.140) The greatest conundrum of contemporary Buddhism according to some philosophers, is that it teaches that there is no self and the task is to achieve nirvana but if there is no self to become liberated- then what is the purpose ? "All processes are impermanent... All processes are afflicted.. All phenomena are not Self; when this is seen with knowledge, one is freed from the illusion of affliction. This is the pathway to purity." Gautama Buddha (Dhammapada 277-279) In early Buddhism there is a term called Tathagatagarbha to refer to the idea that there is an eternal self. According to Frank Morales, Buddhism does teach the truth but is it a via negativa- it tells us what reality is not but it doesn't tell us what we are.

Victoria H

Loved this tangent! Felt it was worth pointing out that one of the creators of What the Bleep Do You Know went on to be a prominent member of the NXIVM cult (if you’ve watched The Vow, that’s Mark Vicente, the guy whose footage they’re using for most of it.) Probably goes to show the line between spirituality and cults can be a thin one, or at least that there’s a pipeline there.

Matthew McAnea

Just joined the other day and binged all the other tangents excited for my first in real time one lol.

Lucy B

And one last note, since that comment was already far too long: In relation to magic, you might want to check out The Devil's Tome by Shiva Honey. Her contextualization of what "magic" and ritual is is essentially hijacking the various purpose drives within us that you described in the tangent towards focusing your mental processes towards your goals or desires. The magic crystal doesn't emnate supernatural focus molecules that will manifest money or love or whatever. It can serve as a mental shortcut in giving one's mind the feeling of having something helping your behind the scenes, thus giving oneself a source of confidence and drive towards actually making the things you want to happen happen. I think this "spicy psychology" view is basically what's going on when you see people experiencing genuine changes when engaging with certain spiritual practices. We don't know the minutiae of what these practices do, but they can have material impacts in how we live our lives, and thus can be considered "real", even if we don't take the ways we describe them happening as literaly true. But then again, that's the Dao: the thing or process of being that exists beyond language. If you learn to give in to the mystery, you can discover something you might not have noticed before.

Alecxy

I watched Twilight video twice and I am sure I will watch it again because you are doing hell of a job in each and every video. I am non-binary, specifically agender. I won’t say that I disagree with your take on the duality of femininity and masculinity. I don’t expect you to agree with what I am about to say because I think it’s not your experience and could be hard to relate. But I guess I would like you to keep an open mind about it. I believe when you said you find Dao’s message or teachings feminine: we are a drop in the ocean, yield to it, don’t try to control or manipulate (don’t be masculine). But I think there is another meaning, another ‘way’ (dao) to it: where masculine and feminine are melted into each other, become one and no longer separately exist. Where they become harmony. And that’s an exact quote you put into the video but haven’t given much weight to it. (I have to add that when you said Dao is more feminine than other beliefs, I stopped the video and literally said what I wrote in this paragraph. The word I used was harmony which made me smile). When you reach that harmony, you become a part of the ocean. You inherit the power of the ocean that doesn’t seek dominance or submission. All that said, I am also aware not many people become non-binary through psychological and/or spiritual experiences. But it is a possibility (and certainly my reality) and this possibility itself proves the validity of non-binary. I think all I want to say, some of us live in duality (masculine-feminine) and some of us become the One (non-binary)

Austin Luther

I've always likened the concept of spirituality to the feeling of wonder and awe. So witnessing a natural phenomenon, experiencing a work of art, or even thinking about something awe-inspiring is what for me is a spiritual experience. I'm a molecular scientist, and I would describe learning new concepts and observing and analyzing unusual specimens as spiritual experiences.

jejasf

THIS IS MY LAST COMMENT- but according to Jeff brown the patriarchal model of spirituality harps on the "monkey mind" and that getting control of the mind is really in some respects just suppressing difficult emotion. His model focuses on the "monkey heart" and dealing with the emotions and somatic material in the body to find peace of mind. With what we now know with nervous system regulation ( I recommend Healing Developmental trauma by Laurence Heller for more information) and contemporary models of therapy that it takes more than the silencing of the mind to achieve well being. I respect a lot of wisdom that comes from Vedic culture and Buddhism but it has a tendency for dissociation and demonization of the body- I think the way forward is a middle ground of balancing spiritual wisdom but being rooted in the body and approaching life head on and not trying to escape suffering but honoring it. What I mean by suffering Im mainly talking about the human condition not systems of oppressions.

Yegua Mustaparta

Ok, so, majors work differently in Mexico, but, in my second year of my philosophy major, one of our teachers took my class to the movies to watch "what the bleep do we know." It was 🤦🏼‍♀️

Wobtax

I got a lot out of the book Qabalistic Concepts, which advises not to have any spiritual experiences while meditating: "Do not attempt to 'obtain messages,' hear mystic voices, or seek any kind of phenomenal responses. Should you think anything of the sort is happening, refuse firmly to be distracted by it, and strive for closer contact with infinity."

Socrates Stamatatos

One week ago I finished the book ‘God Human Animal Machine’ by Meghan O'Gieblyn. I think it has a pretty accurate description on contemporary struggles in regards to spirituality especially in relation to technology 🎀

angry crow

This was so fascinating! your ick over magic made me think a lot about the paradoxical uptake of Tibetan Vajrayana into Westernised secular Buddhism per the psychedelics tangent - like why is Tibetan yak farmer ritual mode possessed of the best grasp on spiritual materialism etc. If magic and its like active/'masc' intentions feel inimical to Western ideas of passive Eastern spirituality, also curious if you think having spacing out be a guilty thing is about trying to not integrate that kind of intention? Also chogyam said we have to watch out for the sorcerers so stay woke

Viktoria Fagerlund Hambro

Hey! I found this very interesting, but i actually disagree a bit with your last point. I think awakening is actually the OPPOSITE of dissociation. I dont think spirituality will lead to dissociation because spirituality (to me) is all about direct experience of existance without mind-made protecting borders interfering, while dissociation is essentially avoiding the reality by escaping deep into your own mind. I see a lot of people escaping their pain and trauma through pseudo-enlightemnet but where they dissociate instead of awaken (not saying thats you). In these cases, their meditations become a self-soothing coping mechanism instead of a tool for waking up, which is not a bad coping mechanism, but its something else than enlightenment. But facing the pain and fear of the past AND the present is essential for the awakening. And political engagement is often a empathically driven response to taking in the pain of yourself and others, but not in such a guilt/shame-driven way. Ram Dass is a good example of someone who is awakend but also very politically enganged. I think he describes his journy as going from being somebody (an high achiving academic), to becoming nobody (enlightend, meditating) and back to playing with form as a sombody (who is teaching and being politically engaged). He actknowlage that you cannot trancedent the human form, so why not take the curriculum while you're here? Part of that is playing out your role as a human amongst other humans. Alan Watts also talks of being sincere, yet not serious. I think a sincere person is still very much enganged with politics, but it might look a bit different than a serious persons involvement in politics. Love your content!!

jejasf

"If my spirituality is not intersectional, then it is just oppression dressed in light." -Meggan Watterson ( Mary Magdalene Revealed, The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & The Christianity We Haven't Tried Yet)

Miriam

I love it when a new tangent drops and all the contrapoints tweets of the past month make just a tiny bit more sense

Pierre Brown

I cannot stress enough how great your color is!! You really hit the perfect warmth of red.

Pallas Esmeralda

Natalie saying "astrology doesn't have a statistical significant effect" just validated my pursuing a PhD in Economics

Marta

thank you for this video!!! would you ever make a playlist of your favorite (bach) pieces? I'd love to listen to more!

serrap

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." - Carl Sagan I think it's interesting that despite frequent characterisations that place spirituality in opposition to science, a lot of the great physicists of the past century were spiritual in one form or another. Perhaps there's something quasi-spiritually profound in being deeply immersed in answering fundamental questions about the nature (albeit physical nature) of the universe. Or perhaps it's that even when you know all the answers that current physics has to give, you realise that those foundations aren't as satisfying and cohesive as you had hoped. I really like the Schrödinger book you cite. The Upanishads seem to be a favourite of him and contemporaries like Bohr, and the Bhagavad-Gita comes up a lot, too. “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” - Werner Heisenberg

Pallas Esmeralda

OMG the discussion on Bach 😍❤️ I don't play any instruments but I absolutely relate about the perfection of Baroque

Sara

advocating for "a little healthy dissociation" is soo libra

Sara

lol

Nicola Callahan

Yes! Absolutely Natalie! Your tangents are wonderful, but I know they take lot of work. I’ve been hoping you’d scale them back so you don’t feel pressured to overwork yourself on creating tangents & main channel vids. I’d be ok with a tangent every other month or something.

The Bilderberg Group

Great discussion as per usual. I'm curious if you've run across Graham Priest's work at all. He's a logician primarily and I had the good fortune of being introduced to him through a modal logic class that used his "Introduction to Non-Classical Logic" as it's primary text. His life's work appears to be in exploring and making accessible principals of Buddhism and Taoism to analytic philosophers, which I gather from your videos is not really the tradition you come from but still it's good stuff! 'Beyond The Limits Of Thought' and 'One: Being an Investigation Into the Unity of Reality and of Its Parts, Including the Singular Object which is Nothingness' seem pretty germain to where you are at in your spiritual journey. I can't speak to any of his newer works but it seems like in the last few years he's lasered in even further on the Buddhism front so they are probably worth your time. 'In Contradiction' is probably superfluous and is primarily just logic. Western philosophy aside, when I ran through the psychedelics to Buddhism to meditation pipeline I got routed into Soto Zen instead of pure land Buddhism for similar reason as why you went toward vipassana and while it definitely has its share of ritualist and religiousity that it fosters but it lacks some of the savior-focus that you seem really turned off by. Curious if you ever dug into Dogen and the Shobogenzo at all? I imagine so but if not it might be worth your exploration as it's an incredibly rich set of lectures. Anyway, loved the tangent and really excited for your October surprise!

Richard Earley

How can thousands upon thousands of people work at Disney for my Disney dollars, and still never piqueway my excitement like this notification from one single amazing person

demolitionwoman

The way I was about to say “put some respect on Marlee Matlin’s name” and then I was like “oh nooooo” 😅 Anyway, really really love this one, I was genuinely moved at a few points (particularly the way you talk about your experience of music). So much was similar to my own ways of thinking but also gave me so much more to think about. Appreciate you 💖

Emma

Natalie Wynn, the Michael Pollan for gay women, your favorite tangent’s favorite tangent 🙂‍↕️🙇🏻‍♀️🏳️‍⚧️🫡

Pierre Brown

Ok, now that I've watched the video in full after resetting twice due to ADHD and creative distractions... I've come to a place that sounds very similar to what you seem to described prior to taking an interest in reading Tao Te Ching. I am tired of carrying so much at once, including the heaviness of guilt and self sabotage. I am an atheist too, but sometime last year, I gave into an itch I had but never scratched; Pulling tarot. I'm not educated in it at all, I barely/do not know what I'm doing but every question I had gave me a direct, honest, and tough answer. I know there has to be something in participating in the act of pulling cards, because none of the cards went without telling intimate truths specific to me. I think of Tarot not as my spiritual practice per se, especially since I don't do it regularly, but I see it as a way to give myself permission to explore the very idea you're discussing: There is clearly something else other than science, but it is not what I found in the fervor of Christianity, or anything similar to it. Ironically, I also have been considering trying ketamine therapy for a few months but 1. That shit's expensive and 2. I too am wary of anything that is too eager to promise me a quick fix. I believe I've been living with depression, anxiety, and PTSD since I was a kid, (despite not being properly diagnosed until I was like...27 - 29), so 7 weeks or whatever of treatment sounds too good to be true. I could be wrong and willing to hear otherwise. I fell off of it months ago, but I did enjoy meditating for a short while in the mornings and I have had a slight curiosity about Buddhism. I'm going to try reading the Tao Te Ching for myself and see where it takes me. Atheism, and the rest of the choices I've made that got me here, has begun to feel lonely, but not enough to seek communion or community in places I've already tried either.

brnabez

Religion and spirituality have always intrigued me. Perhaps it's because I'm from Brazil, where spirituality—or more accurately, religion—is deeply influential and ingrained in our culture. Or maybe it's because I'm a Scorpio LOL, and we're naturally drawn to mystical stuff. I share your views on spirituality and believe in a universal consciousness that we all return to after death. Despite this belief, I've encountered experiences that challenge my perspective, and I thought it would be interesting to share them with you guys. Raised as a Christian, I believed in God but never felt a connection to Catholicism. When I was older, I began attending Kardecist Spiritism centers. Their messages of charity, love, and faith resonated with me, and I was fascinated by the concept of life after death. In these centers, mediums channel the spirits of the deceased, referred to as "spiritual guides." These guides offer sermons, advice, and even "spiritual medicine" to help with ailments. It's astonishing to witness, as the mediums genuinely transform their demeanor and voice. The experience is even more striking at Umbanda houses, where spiritual guides undergo profound changes, including adopting different accents and withstanding fire on their skin without being burned. The skeptic in me sometimes thinks these people are experiencing some sort of collective delusion, but they say things to you that you can't explain. For example, one of the guides once told me that my father had a urinary infection and should get it checked out, or it would spread. My father dismissed it, saying he didn't have any symptoms and felt fine. Two weeks later, he was in the hospital with a severe case of urinary infection. I personally know a guy who is a medium, and he says it is a weird sensation. When he channels the spirits, he is conscious but he loses control over his actions and words. My relationship with Kardecism is complicated. Its heavy Christian influence often brings feelings of guilt, with frequent discussions about "hell" and punishment. Despite this, the tangible experiences I've had—seeing these phenomena firsthand—make me wonder if there truly is something beyond this realm. Ultimately, we'll only know for sure when we die, so... let's see! On a different note, I have a theory that perhaps there's a spirit that believes it is God and acts accordingly. I believe that true universal knowledge is a collective consciousness made up of all of us. It's not a concrete entity but a unity currently in distress. Every living being is striving to evolve and learn so that we can all merge together again and become one. PS: I promise I'm ok lol

Vincent Ardea

May i suggest reading Rob Burbea’s Ways of seeing that frees for a deeper dive into no self and emptiness. I think this will really speak to you.

Vítor Medeiros

Yet again, as it usually happens, the persona you display on your videos is almost eerily easy for me to identify with, and I can't help but think that we are very similar (a convoluted way to say I really like your videos lol). I relate very hard to many of the paths you narrate here, from being an eternal Scully through finding Nietzsche's critique of Christianity compelling as a queer person to dabbling in psychedelics and meditation and Buddhism -- I also always found the image of 'dying as a return to the sea' I first learned about in the finale to The Good Place profoundly evocative. So I found it very helpful to hear you talking about your own experience with all this stuff and am already looking forward to reading the Tao Te Ching and Mindfulness in Plain English. I think I'm in a place in my life where medidation would really work beyond just struggling through the guided stuff on the app Headspace, which I didn't like much when I tried it back in quarantine. To be a drop in the Oneness Ocean speaking to an irretrievable Other: thank you thank you THANK YOU for this delightful hour-and-a-bit of very reassuring and inspiring Content. Looking forward to the next main channel video!

Jessie Lees

As someone who has attended numerous yoga trainings, because I started to see it pop up as a useful tool in trauma, I agree I'm not big on the spirituality spaces. They freak me out. I definitely attended the right training though, because my teacher said she's worried about the yogis going on about just manifesting rent money and don't worry about it. She said you can't just wish your problems away. She's also atheist, which made things fun. I like reading Thich Nhat Hanh's works for Buddhism. He was a good writer and had a lot of good insights on how to write about Buddhism in an accessible way.

Vítor Medeiros

Welcome to the non-community! (like Natalie, I'm suspicious about 'joining communities,' especially online lmao but the Patreon comment sections are usually very pleasant)

Vítor Medeiros

I would absolutely love to hear Natalie's thoughts on this, but just to chime in, I think there are two big advantages: first is that it works really well for us Western types to associate 'masculine' and 'feminine' to a series of 'family resemblances' we are already pretty familiar with growing up in a heavily gendered culture, and second is the hundredish years or so of psychoanalytic theory about sexuality (especially feminist psychoanalysis!) which Natalie also seems to draw from a lot that uses these terms in increasingly metaphorical ways without losing sight of their institution as *sexual* in nature, which is also usually helpful. In short, it is more about connotation than denotation -- and the point is, as I see it, precisely to see how no one is actually Male or Female, but we live traversing this polarity which is always blurred and interdependent.

Anthony DeNicola

AMAZING book. One of the most electrifying reads of the year for me. Explains so much about technology’s role in society and it was riveting to read the perspective of someone who was so deep in religious thought who became a skeptic.

Joel

I need to get back into meditating. I read Mindfulness in Plain English like 8 or 9 years ago and developed a really good 20 minute a day meditation habit. I don’t know why I let it slip away.

Box

Dissociation, also the pathological kind, is a really common experience among meditators though. Meditation is generally arousal-inducing, so if one continues along this path the nervous system tends to down regulate by going into hypoarousal states which more or less is dissociation. Of course it's up for interpretation whether there are wholesome ways to avoid these states, but the overlap between dissociation and meditation is supported by research (e.g. varieties of contemplative experiences study)

Ash Gabrielle

Haven't watched the new tangent yet, but wanted to chime in to say that an AMA would be fine by me! It's fun to mix things up now and then.

Box

Former Cheetah House user here, a few points: First, i think it's important to note that dissociation is just one side of where meditation can take you. The other side that goes side by side with it is hyperarousal, i.e. heightened focus, excitation, euphoria, "electricity", mania, but also anxiety, terror, less sleep and in extreme states delusion+hallucinations... Second, I think it's important to make clear to yourself what "moderation" means to you specifically. Once you experience adverse effects, there is a sea of people ready to brightside or otherwise trivialise your experiences, so a lot of people, myself included, will end up interpreting negative effects in a positive light for a long time before you realise you should probably stop meditating, or at least alter your practice. It seems a lot of people are turned away from Cheetah House because they might seem like hardliners, but a more middle-of-the-road approach might be the book Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven. The book The Making of Buddhist Modernism by David McMahan might also be of interest here.

Couch Table

I don't think most skeptics have been informed that magic is HARD. It's a skill and craft like any other that takes a lot of practice, and there are lot of things it just can't do, like regrow limbs. But it is not a question of belief. I'd also say that polytheism neatly resolves some of the thornier theological questions.

Andrew L Butula

Can it do anything that wouldn't happen eventually on a long enough timeline? I'm seriously asking because I like to think I'm open minded.

Gabriella yungme69

I read the Tao Te Ching in college as an assignment and we had to write an essay working through how to deal with an issue in your own life. I was dealing with becoming estranged from someone who used to be my best friend for years. Writing that essay was the most cathartic thing I've ever done.

Mazen

The only region I believe in is the religion of Mother, and her prophet Natalie 🙇

pjkc

Great video! I never had that same reaction to Bach as you, but I have that same reaction of like cosmic perfection when listening to Beethoven's late period. I find this era has his most powerful work, and I think watching this made me realize why -- he fundamentally shifts towards a much more resigned tone, especially in the piano sonatas, and points to the mysterious beyond in e.g. the Missa and the Ninth symphony. A man who spent his whole career shaking his fist at the world, an ego the size of Vienna, only to resign, to give in, to bend to fate. That's the music I lean on when life gets hard, that consumes me and teaches me to let go.

pjkc

(For piano sonatas, the last movement of the last piano sonata specifically is the best thing that has ever been written in human history imo)

Lorena Alvarez

god I wish I had someone like you to talk to in my life

J G O

Fascinating to hear her takes on eastern philosophy after all of this time. Also reminds me a lot of the book “I am a strange loop” with the themes of not self, Schrödinger’s world view and psychedelic ego death. I would jizz karmic seeds everywhere to hear her take on this book :)

Paola Nicoll Alzuru Castillo

I'm processing. I just want to say that, not only this tangent, but this one in particular speaks to me so specifically because of my background: to be born on a protestant household, being a musician (Bach has delighted and traumatized me in the cello and in the piano) and my curiosity for oriental worldviews... Like, I definitely found my place. Btw, I nearly died when you meowed tha Lutherian melody cuz that shit IS SACRED in my house, I know that hymn as "Castillo Fuerte" (Strong Castle lol). So funny. I heal so much with this.

nat

not to guru-fy you but you’re genuinely one of the smartest people I’ve ever seen like I’m always so locked into anything you make you’re just so thoughtful…. Loved this 😁

Aderyn Albarelli

Thanks for the cantata BWV 80 recommendation It's not bad in meows, either! I'm glad meditation has done good things for your calm and patience, and hope it continues to. That you use a sexual metaphor to describe ego death validates me asking myself "is that door erotic?", when I don't know what's on the other side, I get to blame the twilight video for that habit :P

Aderyn Albarelli

I should find the copy of the tao te ching, my dad gave me

Ellen Owens

Natalie have you considered a sharp bob just below your chin? I think you could totally pull it off.

zxnpu

I read the Tao Te Ching during many early acid trips its one of the most profound books I've ever read and lsd is like, very strangly and seemingly coincidentally a molecule that somehow "teaches" many very similar insights, or influences ones experience toward the same direction. Im loving this thank youuu!

s

Zen buddhism is a form of buddhism which originated in china after buddhist thought was brought to china from india in the 3(?) century. It is deeply influenced by taoism and is worth a look if you are drawn to either philosophy. Zen mind, Beginner's Mind is a classic introductory text to Zen for westerners, but the works of Charlotte Joko Beck, one of the earliest american teachers and the founder of the San Diego Zen Center, are my favorite. See also China Root: Taoism, Ch'an, and Original Zen by David Hinton on the taoist roots of zen.

Johnathan Hansen

I’m curious if you would enjoy Mark Epstein (American author) of Buddhist philosophy and western psychology. “Thoughts without a thinker” and “the trauma of everyday life”. ¨̮

Rachel Delta

she will never defeat the catgirl allegations

zxnpu

i would soo love to hear what you think about Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa - if u have read it, or do some day

Sphee sfi

Glad to see you got rid of the Fantasia-watching while doing psychedelics :D It might be fun, but it’s like having a meal cooked by a great chef and then pouring hot sauce all over it. As often, you are putting into words things I’ve felt in a long time as a hardcore leftist doing psychedelics and meditation but not talking about it at parties or to anyone really. Also completely agree about the dangers of meditation/psychedelics and dissociation. I feel like that’s where a lot of the conspiracy-rightwing egomaniacs stem from. Love you seeing you on this tangents.

Mere Alien

Enjoyed this. I used to play chess when I was into doing acid and I don't really remember much about it, except that I enjoyed it enough that I did it often. But I do remember the ego death stuff, that was intense, and life altering, because I saw what I was and gained a lot of interest in learning about what others have thought about existence. These days, Zen is probably closest to where it's at for me. Anyway, I enjoyed your talk.

Aninja

Thank you for this! I have OCD (which I did not know at the time), anxiety and depression and after so many people told me meditation would help, I gave it a go. I was stuck for two days in a state of hyperarousal - I thought I was going to go insane. It was awful and I’ve been terrified of mediation ever since. I kept having doctors recommended meditation to me for my anxiety and felt ashamed for not being able to do it.

Aninja

I would like to find a way to engage in meditation that does not worsen my symptoms!

Claire Off

Thank you, Natalie! Highly recommend Joseph Goldstein's dharma talks. He has a great sense of humor and makes meditation feel more accessible/fun

Viktoria Fagerlund Hambro

Interesting. The studies I see point to a reduction in dissociation through meditation. I dont doubt that something as confronting as meditation can trigger dissociation in some situations (escpesially where there is trauma), yet it doesnt seem like this is the norm? Maybe its just something to be a bit careful with if you have trauma? Would be very interesting to see research on this meditative hypoarousal/dissociative state. Is it really the same thing?

Robert

When are you going to do an analysis on Final Fantasy VII

Darren DM

I'm 2mins in, so the only feedback I have is I'm loving the top you're wearing.

SuperMaria

thoughts: - i am desperate to hear your take on how all this intersects with and what it implies for queer discourse, but i don't want you to get canceled again - there's a lot of yielding in science when you consider it as a process rather than its results, you have to yield to data and your frustrating inability to make sense of it sometimes, accept that you can't force your conclusions on your observations if you want to get closer to truth etc - i think the solution to the problem in part 6 is community. impossible to dissociate very hard if you maintain a commitment to community. your position is weird because community is what your work is all about in a way, but digital community (and the specific nature of yours) allows dissociation more than irl community - your eyebrows are so beautiful - thank u for another wonderful tangent

Alecxy

and sometimes the polarity (or duality) doesn't exist - non binary. But I admit that it is currently an exception in all societies. I do believe though that will be the future of the humanity.

Αγγελος Μπερτος

I don't know if anyone cares....but the last time i was on Acid. I felt that i turned on the light in the back of my mind....the unconscious self....and the only thing that i found was millions copies of my self. That's all hehe....have a great day

Toldry

Natalie, you convinced to also read the Tao Te Ching. Can you please recommend a specific translation/edition of it? Edit: I see Stephen Mitchell is the translator that Natalie used in this tangent, so I'm going with that

Ryan M

You are now a rich white woman interested in Bhuddism; congratulations, your transition is complete.

Ann C

I love the idea of an AMA. I haven't participated in one before, so it will be fun. Also, as a relatively new Patreon member, I've really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes videos. I have no idea how hard they are to make, but I'd love to see one for the main channel video in the making.

Sappho's Friend

I enjoy art very deeply (music and visual art), they cause massive emotional reactions, and it serves a symbological role. However it's really not something id ever call spirituality. Analogously, when i was into new atheism as a teenager i had a pretty elaborate ethical system (that ive retained to this day), and while it couldnt be derived from science, it still existed within me independently of spirituality, it is again not something id call spirituality and finally, im more or less an advocate of decentralised ritualism divorced from religion. But again wouldnt call it spirituality, because to me, spirituality involves the supernatural, even if no religion is being followed This must be some new definition of spirituality that im unaware of, and pretty much disagree with on grounds of utility.

Najeeb Khadim

You might like Muhammad Iqbal's philosophy (Pakistani philosopher - died in the 1930s) he writes a lot about the relationship between unconditioned reality (a kind of intuition, what we would perceive with no senses - includes but is not limited to mystical experiences) and conditioned reality (logic, observation) whereby it is essential a society have the former but it must be tempered with the later. He partly basis this on his idea of revelation. In the Islamic tradition there is the belief there used to be relative and particular revelation from God that gives specific commandments for specific times that was ended when the Qur'an as universal guidance was revealed. For Iqbal this is a historical process of humans gradually maturing towards a focused on the self (khudi) and unconditioned rather than just the conditioned.

Anouk Jones

The old boy knew his flow :)

Jeremias B

Great video! In honour of the Paris Olympics, could Lady Foppington, known enjoyer of Parisian Salons, make an appearence in a forthcoming video?

Jae H

Gosh. Signed up to the Patreon to watch this one, and I'm so glad I did. I feel like a fourth century Byzantine listening to St John Chrysostom and weeping while crying "Orthodox! Orthodox!" Among many points that hit home: your point about science as a form of "masculine" knowledge that enables us to feel in control of a situation, versus spirituality as a more "feminine" form of "receptivity". It brought home to me the ways in which science (and other fields, such as critical biblical scholarship) has functioned in that way for me, and the ways in which I need to cultivate more receptivity. Oh yeah, and I also need to listen to BWV 80 again, *stat*

Abigail

Why is astrology so much a part of queer culture? I thought we were about destroying the random labels put upon us by our birth circumstances.

Anna Drew

I just became a supporter today. I found your youtube channel just surfing through searches. Your videos have given me some self awareness as a trans woman, and though I don't agree on every viewpoint ( someone who agrees with me on everything is not a unique and valid individual, they are a sock puppet ) I consider your insight to be valuable and helpful.

Amanda Tori Meeting

I find Tarot particularly helpful in developing your capacity for symbolic thinking. It’s very much what CG Jung and Joseph Campbell advocate for (minus the problematic misogyny, queerphobia, racism, etc.) and more aligned with the narrative thinking of animism and forms of indigenous spirituality (that is, using narrative and symbols to develop meaning rather than having a codified 10 commandments, Leviticus, etc. as in Abrahamic traditions or complex philosophical discourse as is the trend with so-called Eastern traditions. Which is not to say there isn’t a fair amount of symbolic thinking in those as well, just that in our modern age there is typically a pastor, priest, guru, etc. that tells you exactly how it should be interpreted in literal terms so it’s not a muscle I think people engage as much in those traditions). Anyhow, all that to say, symbolic thinking can certainly help with “meaning making.” Ritual alone is a very powerful foundation for meaning making. According to Jung, symbolic thinking can also lend itself to helping you see synchronicities (which a skeptical perspective would remark that it is because you are cognitively primed to then see those patterns. You can decide if you want to be a Sully or not in that case).

Sirenkai

Thank you for posting this for my one month hrt anniversary. That was very kind of you.

Sappho's Friend

Why is submission to events inherently feminine exactly? I think gender essentialising concepts like "control" and "letting go and being softly submissive" as being masculine and feminine is questionable at the very least. It's sounding a lot like DHSM, spirituality version; feminine = passive acceptance and submission to events Contra xD

Amanda Tori Meeting

I think it’s helpful also to keep in mind that Buddhism was often reacting politically to Hinduism. It’s beyond my knowledge basis but, considering how foundational the concept of Atman is to much of Hinduism, I suspect that the Buddhist concept of anatta was, in many ways a reaction or attempted spiritual course correction to this concept. There may have been quite a divide in how these concepts were understood at the time that they were initially taught but Buddhism and Hinduism has had so much influence on each other over the years that, upon close inspection, it really seems like they are talking about the same thing almost. Though I agree with your Frank Morales quote that the Buddhist framing is typically towards a “negative theology” so to speak. While potentially more philosophically defensible for that reason, I do find Hinduism often more rich in its symbolism (which is an over generalization considering internal diversity of all religions but, alas, I can’t write a dissertation on this).

Wissa

You said something that stuck out to me—Magic isn’t power, power is power. But what exactly is or should be the intersection between power and spirituality? Speculating here, but as it appears what draws you to the Dao is the feminine aspect, what is that in terms of power? Is it a surrender and let go of it, or is it a kind of way achieving a different kind? What is “real” power? Do you feel even in your meditation practices and psychedelic experiments, are you still driven by the want for power of some kind? Thank you for being open about your thoughts and journey, even though I am of a much different mindset when it comes to this stuff, I appreciate it.

Sappho's Friend

I defo agree with you that there is fundamental suffering/void that no political reform or revolution will fix, however i will add that the examples you used to support this are off. For example. In the context of unjust systems like patriarchy or white supremacy, these two systems dont make the target privileged groups thrive. Patriarchy doesn't make men happy (it makes most men miserable), and white people dont really maximally thrive in white supremacy either (white slaveowners being perpetually terrified of a slave revolt and white guilt). So the most privileged individuals within current society really don't represent the "most ideal" human state of being, where this "fundamental suffering" could be observed in isolation, and don't prove your (our) point. Im having so many thoughts on this tangent. Please excuse my prolific output.

KD & Levin Dávila-Menekse

Really enjoyed this one. It feels almost taboo to talk about spirituality and the need for spirituality once one renounces irrationality in other forms. I know you've been vulnerable on camera before, but this felt special to me. I am going to pick up Dao De Jing and see if it resonates.

Daniel

I'm here to support the art you make. I'm constantly staggered by the quality of these tangents--easily top-tier main-channel content for almost any other creator. If producing what you do means no tangent next month, I'm completely okay with that.

Philip Carter

I so appreciate this video — thank you for your openness and all of the insights. Polyvagal Theory has a really unique way of framing the value of spiritual/introspective practice, by appealing to the exercise of our social engagement systems, which often go offline for poor folks in emotionally triggered states. The act of prayer and chanting, for instance, recruits the breath and the social engagement system and regulates the self without needing another person to regulate with. It’s almost in the same family as masturbation from a self-regulation perspective. Is that crass ? lol Thanks again Natalie

Amanda Tori Meeting

You may or may not find Bernardo Kastrup interesting (I know Natalie in particular has voiced distaste for ontology). He has a very well produced video essay course on the site Essentia detailing his metaphysical theory of Analytic Idealism. There's also an interesting discussion between him and Swami Sarvapriyananda on the Vedanta Talks podcast where they discuss how Kastrup has essentially reconstructed many of the ideas in Advaita Vedanta from Western philosophical roots. I also think it's worth noting that Kastrup is grounded enough within analytic philosophy and physics that even Michael Shermer has had a civil discussion with him about it. I'm queer and come from the Christian fundamentalist to New Atheist to disillusioned Western Buddhist pipeline. Ultimately I found Buddhist meditation was not the answer I was looking for, at the time at least (it's not the most accessible for folks with a trauma history and I find the term "spiritual bypassing" is very applicable to many Western applications at least). I eventually began having personal breakthroughs in the psychotherapy modality Internal Family Systems (IFS) but was troubled by how it ultimately hinged on the healing properties of a fundamental Self (not unlike the "observer Self" sometimes discussed in Buddhist circles) and (I found out later) it is a concept directly borrowed from the Hindu concept of Atman (among others but this was the most blatant). As damaging as my Christian background was, I couldn't deny meaningful experiences I had within that tradition. I had attributed to those experiences to "holy spirit" while in that tradition, and they mirrored the feeling of experiences I had in IFS under what is termed "Self." Kastrup's theory is the most plausible alternative explanation I have found outside of a placebo effect under a strict naturalism/physicalism paradigm.

Gaybriel

Natalie about Bach: he didn't just fall out of a coconut tree

Ruby Power

You playing Bach whilst on acid for research when Donald Trump nearly got assassinated is a unique experience and honestly I want a religious text for it. And then a fugue based on that text.

Jake Penny

I really enjoyed this, and I finally feel like I have something to add! If you are at all interested in Classical Chinese for philosophical purposes, I highly recommend Bryan Van Norden's 'Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners'. Having gone through the book and using the Chinese Text Project I have found it relatively easy to work out what exactly is going on, although a background in Mandarin obviously helps. I also suggest that to understand the irony of the early Daoists you need a good understanding of the other schools of Chinese thought and also practice - the Neiye wasn't something I found particularly interesting but it does foreground a lot of the practices the Daodejing alludes to and the Zhuangzi (which I turn to even more often) talks about in a little more detail.

AkiKyo

I don't care what topic wins I could listen to Natalie talk about anything tbh

Aderyn Albarelli

If suspending yourself in surrender for a time can help you decide on a scope of things to engage with is that a sort of power? When Natalie brought up the over-engagement with meditation can be disfunctional in a way that religion can be used as an opiate, I couldn't help but wonder what magic is, or does, as "part of a balanced breakfast". Also, hi again! Hope you're doing well

Dillon McCormick

I have thought recently about how much of the excess wealth of industrialization has been invested in eliminating boredom. Like, of all the sufferings that exist in the world, being bored is the one that we have most fastidiously endeavored to eliminate. Not sure if that's because it's more painful than we like to admit, or because it's low hanging fruit compared to hunger or disease

Mihaela Sacara

Can you recommend a good English translation for the Dao de jing?

The Bilderberg Group

She uses the Stephen Mitchell translation for all quotes in the tangent

Mariam Songhulashvili

I would recommend listening to SHWEP (Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast) as it touches on the apophatic writing about the One in western tradition

Almeno Gonçalves

Of course Bach had to be there :) Music is inherently abstract, so it won't just grow too old for new audiences because there are no outdated ideologies being presented (unless when there's a text being sung, but that's the text's territory and not the music's). Of course, there is sometimes a need for the brain to get used to certain aesthetics, you need to have some sort of entry point to Bach otherwise you won't get the profoundness of the music instantly, but I don't think it's very hard to do and certainly not impossible. This is something I easily associate with spirituality because it has no real "era" in which it makes more or less sense, it just "lives" each time it's being produced by its "intermediary", the interpreter (or whatever produces the music you're listening to). It's like an organism, being born, living and dying in the amount of time it takes to perform. Bach made some of the most true living forms of music! Not every single piece of music will be a profound spiritual experience though, that would be a shame.

abi

As someone with the same birthday as Natalie, I would like to submit my scientific evidence that we are astrologically fated to be gay leftist libras.

Jamie Fritz

Pdq is my favorite Bach but JS was decent too. Excellent tangent.

jejasf

Good point, I think it's important to remember that everything has its own sociology and can impact the way teachings are interpreted and thought of. Im curious to know why you believe the negative framing in Buddhism is philosophically defensible and whyt the concept anatta was a course correction. I'm not a Hindu or a buddhist because I believe both belief structures have a tendency for bypassing and dissociation that masquerades as "enlightenment"- but I haven't given up on the self.

Hotjamaicanboy

Great tangent as always! I tried reading the old Chinese version and it was really hard as a modern Mandarin speaker! Probably understood like 50% lol.

Mars Hall

Decent atheists aren't difficult to find. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe are atheist and pro-science without being dicks. It's all just a question of evidence, after all.

Kate Taylor

I really recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book: “Wherever you go there you are.” It’s a simple and straightforward guide to mindfulness meditation in everyday life.

Allotrope

Askin the real questions ;u;

Allotrope

Yeah while overall finding the video fascinating I felt weirdly uncomfortable with that whole part and I'm relieved I wasn't the only one

Allotrope

Interesting point. I feel, though, there may be an element of wishful-thinking (and possibly performatively-cynical UN-wishful-thinking in my case, so salt grains at the ready.) Yes, privilege can serve the privileged far less well than they think it does, and there's a difference between a system thriving (by violently suppressing/eradicating other competing systems) and the people perpetuating those systems individually being healthy and happy. But for your point to really invalidate those examples, wouldn't, say, *every* white person have to have lost as much as they gained from the privileges brought by white supremacy? Sure, I'd love to believe it was so, to serve some sense of justice. But unfortunately, quite a lot of them seemed to just... do really well off it, with no real consequence or justice within their lifetimes, even internal e.g. guilt. It's just that they were horrible enough as individuals to not care that their flourishing was at the horrific expense of everyone else involved.

Allotrope

THANK you for beautifully articulating the bit about yielding in science, I felt weird about how that whole thing was characterized but couldn't think how to word a response aaaaaa

S. R.

The stuff about the oceanic feeling was interesting. It reminds me of a technique I found helps to overcome intense anxiety. When I get into an anxiety spiral, I get stuck lying awake all night paralyzed by terror that whatever im scared of is going to kill me, I'm convinced I'm a moment away from death and I can't control when or how it will happen. I found a way to submit to that fear, and in doing so ascend over the fear into this state of acceptance of my place within the universe and my own inevitable death. I had been calling this the babadook method bc he was one of the things my anxiety brain got convinced were coming to kill me, but I think I'll start calling it the oceanic method instead lol

Saoirse

"Protestants struggle aesthetically, just in general."

Saoirse

I like Ursula K. Le Guin's

Allotrope

damn I'm glad I stayed on that comment for the whole ride, now I'm gonna think "whoooooaaa" about the previously perceived boundaries of my self every time I drink water. kinda wanna drink water now. congrats you made me hydrate

Allotrope

nah that sounds kinda nice actually, if you figure out how to get that into pill form I'll buy a suspiciously large bale of them

Allotrope

yeah seconded/thirded/fourtheded/whateverthed, I'm kinda hung up on this too!!

Ethan Good

Great Tangent. Not my preferred topic, but I always enjoy being exposed to ideas I wouldn't seek out on my own. As someone who was raised and homeschooled Southern Baptist until he rejected religion as a teenager, I certainly went through a phase in my young adult life where I eschewed all religion and spirituality from a position of ridicule and contempt. As I've aged, my position has become tempered. I very much enjoyed and agree with your statement that science and hard rationality fail to provide people with meaning in their lives. As such, I've tried to empathize more with spiritual/religious people who use these forms of thought to derive a sense of guidance, personal morality, life purpose, or peace with death. I think engaging with spirituality in this manner can be healthy, but my tolerance for it ends when it becomes a tool for political oppression, as is often the case here in the States. As for the role of spirituality in my own life, I haven't found one. But there are two areas where I feel it could be healthy to find a place for it. The first is life purpose or meaning. I left my last job in March of 2023 to take the gap year I had wanted to take before going to college. This is the first time in my life where I've been free to pursue my own interests and values independent of external obligations (parental expectations, job/school responsibilities, etc.). The most useful revelation I've had is that I've spent my entire life either doing what authority figures demanded of me or what I thought I was supposed to be doing based on societal norms and standards. I've never had my own life goals; they have all been dictated to me. Having taken a step away from all that, I've had to ask myself what I actually want to do with my life, what I want to achieve, what I believe is worth devoting myself to. In a word: purpose. I've settled on political action—finding a cause like environmental conservation or progressive activism that I could work in service of—but I fear this will ultimately be unsatisfying. As a Leftist, much of the political changes I would like to see are revolutionary to the degree of being unattainable, and I worry that deriving my entire sense of life purpose from struggling to achieve the unachievable may set me up for emotional and professional martyrdom. Being a Leftist is exhausting. The constant awareness of exploitation and injustice in nearly every aspect of society wears me down. I feel like spending my life resisting systems of injustice while knowing that I may never live to see them overthrown will demand a level of spiritual discipline and fortitude that I currently lack and that can't be found in the realm of cold rationality. The second is comfort surrounding death. While I don't believe in a collective consciousness or the concept of a soul, I do find the idea of returning to a state of cosmic Oneness upon death interesting. I feel that this uses spiritual language to express the scientific idea that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Neil deGrasse Tyson, in one of his many pop science interviews, said that we are all made of star stuff and that our consciousness is a way for "the universe to know itself." This is using scientific language to express the idea of there being no self or of self and the One being the same thing. So I feel that this is an area where science and spirituality are approaching the same truth from different perspectives, and that makes it easier for me to incorporate it into my worldview. I like the thought that the constituent parts that comprise my person will disseminate into the wider web of existence upon my death and be reconstituted into other forms of life. That is a far more compelling and comforting vision to me than any form of eternal life or reincarnation as described in religious terms. Thinking this way has relieved the adolescent anxieties about the absence of heaven that set in after I rejected Christianity, and it has changed my plans for my final arrangements. As a youth, I wanted to be buried in a graveyard and have a headstone. Now, the thought of having my matter locked in a box makes me feel like I'd be cutting myself off from the inevitable return to Oneness, so I've decided I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread somewhere meaningful to me. Why try to preserve this form when I could facilitate the reintroduction of myself into the Oneness of existence? This may be a tangential way of engaging with spirituality, but its enough for now and could be an entry point for future epiphanies.

Pippa Russell

There’s a line in the show Dickinson I always liked where Emily Dickinson describes poetry as “taking dictation from god”. Not a believer in god, but there is something about writing that makes inspiration feel like a religious experience, and art as transcendence rings so true to me.

Saoirse

I also really vibed with the Tao De Ching when I read Ursula Le Guin's translation last year. I love that it essentially opens by saying "there are no rules. What we're saying is the tao is inherently incomplete and you have to figure it out for yourself." Then the rest of it is a mix of good advice and deeply profound ideas you can contemplate and interpret for years.

Saoirse

I find your discussions of the Feminine very interesting. As an afab enby, it's something I've never had much investment in, and so it's enlightening to hear you describe these aspects of the tao as Feminine: yielding, softness, receiving. I think you also name what I consider missing from the Tao De Ching: what about when you need to take action? To change society or protect people? Yielding to the Way is not that, but is action inherently Masculine? Is there a way to do it that also listens and waits for the right moment? When to yield and when to fight? At least in my contemplations, I haven't been able to find much insight into this within the tao de Ching. But to be fair, there has been a hell of a lot more written in the "masculine mode" of taking action and conquering than in the feminine mode that you name in the tao de Ching, so maybe it doesn't need to.

Saoirse

I agree Bach was cooking with the Divine unlike Paul of Tarsus

Saoirse

Thanks for sharing that Schrödinger quote about consciousness, I hadn't encountered that book before. It's interesting he uses the metaphor of data points on a sheet of paper, same formulation as the famous "double slit experiment" which demonstrates the way quantum states interfere with one another (and themselves) by shining light through a grate with two slits in it and seeing the pattern of light that comes through on a screen on the other side. Also fun fact, I used to work with one of Schrödinger's grandsons (who by pure happenstance became a quantum physicist before ever knowing of his grandparentage). I hadn't heard of the book you pulled from, it seems like a lively read!

Allotrope

that is some freaky brain judo method of dealing with anxiety, mad respect additional respect that you called it the babadook method which to me frankly just sounds like gay contraception

Saoirse

All hail Natalie, Our Dark Mother of the Middle Way 🌊🧘🏼‍♀️🤳🏼

Anna

The part about Lisa Simpson decrying the angel being used to promote a new mall reminded me of Jesus in the temple.

Allotrope

Nyatalie, though you might already be familiar with this one: Douglas Adams, of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fame, wrote another (way better imo) novel called "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". The music of ya boi J.S. features heavily in it - as a rather wonderfully-shenaniganed plot point, in fact - in a way that makes me suspect he felt very similarly to you on the subject. It may amuse you <3 aaand that's all my non-negativity exhausted. This video was kinda terrifying for me, in a way that (like most stimuli) makes me feel stupid - and maybe it's deeply and unflatteringly revealing that that's what I find scary. I deleted this comment twice because I felt stupid being so self-absorbed and parasocial at the same time, but plenty of other people seem to be happily blogging about their emotional trajectories in the comments so why the hell should I think I'm so goddamn superior? I grew up with vaguely christian-hippy-ish, philosophy-inclined parents, but I was very interested in sciencey things, and was not discouraged in that. I was "bright", came to define all my self-worth by that, and was obnoxious and unlikeable to other kids as a result (I also peaked in high school as usually happens with those little shits, loooool maybe there's SOME justice in the world.) In my emotionally turbulent mid-teens I got dragged through a small corner of the evangelical puddle by some of my cousins, who alternated weekly-monthly between backwoods druggies and born-again Christians, so I ended up with a lot of religious hangups (and the associated unconscious wiring) that my more moderate parents would have found puzzling. In my early 20s, I then flipped hard the other way and became an obnoxious reddit atheist before Reddit was a thing. Later in my 20s, I almost attained the cringe pinnacle (cringeacle?) of that steep-sloped fedora by joining the whole "human rationality" techbro cult of personality around Eliezer Yudkowsky and HPMoR. I jumped ship after I used techniques I learned FROM them to figure out they were a cult, which was a weird mentor-betrayal arc I was NOT anticipating. Hit early thirties, divorced from an abusive relationship and figured out I was trans, and therefore found myself newly part of a community (only technically though, I've never actually felt the whole sense-of-community thing, even when I rewatch all your videos in a weird tearful fugue-state at 5am) where science had been experienced mainly as a convenience others used to justify atrocities, or a means to advancement in committing them more efficiently. It doesn't make me sleep any easier that I still know way more about the Manhatten Project than the gay rights movement, and yet still feel too much of an outsider/impostor to really work hard at changing that. New partner/fiancee is very patient with me, is a much more spiritual person than I am and seems to derive genuine comfort or sense of meaning from it. I don't begrudge them that - I hope? - even if we joke-bicker about astrology. That kind of trajectory should, I feel intuitively, lead to some more tempered or placid feeling about life, and one's place in it. It seems to for other people. I've given up on it a smidge. I'm 36 now and I hate and fear all the sides, not least my "own" side (atheism I suppose.) I low-key envy people who believe anything, because I'm a nihilistic piece of shit and I know that's why I'm miserable, but it ain't happening. I think I feel safer, in some way, being miserable and nihilistic, than feeling potentially complicit in the ills of whatever camp I could end up in, because that's all I see people do with belief. Which is stupid, because I'm already complicit. I eat meat, I own a smartphone, I have made 0 credible efforts to sabotage an IAF ground attack jet before it could take off to go bomb another entire apartment building full of civilian families because one guy who lives on the 5th floor (and isn't currently home) might possibly be a bottom-rank Hamas member... the list goes on. In my late teen years, I saw "What The Bleep Do We Know?" in theaters when it came out, with my credulous philosophical-dilettante buffoon of a dad, and naturally as someone who thought of themselves as scientific and rational, I was... entirely taken in and fascinated by all the pseudoscience, because it sounded superficially similar to things I already believed wheeee. The one I found MOST fascinating - and somehow plausible, fuck knows why - was the stupidest one, the water thing. I'd love a world where I can wish the water in my arteries into beautiful shapes, maybe beautiful and pointy enough to puncture the metaphorical eardum of the brain and let in some soothing existential tinnitus. Tl;dr: the closest thing I have now to a religious text is that beautiful old black-and-white video up on the 'choob of Tom Lehrer performing "We Will All Go Together When We Go". (Except for the unfortunate nowadays-racial-slurs I sincerely believe he used out of ignorance rather than malice in the final verse, pls don't cancel Tom Lehrer I love him ;n;) Life is equal parts terror and longing, for being swallowed by the sea, and I slightly prefer a several-kilometer-wide rapidly-expanding globe of plasma because I'm very afraid of drowning and also my garbage AMAB-raised brain says it would be more exciting that way. All suffused, with an incandescent glow glOWO glUwU

oldperson420

You gave a couple of criticisms of science which I think are important. But there's a third one that I think deserves to be in the running. The practice and even process of science has not been perfected by any means. The science we use today is in some way to attempt to overcome any possible bias either personal or societal that might hinder a scientists attempts to communicate their findings to other scientists and to a lesser extent non-scientists. Note that the latter group would include people like engineers and doctors, who do not consume the literature as a scientist would, if at all, people like regulators and policy makers, and the general public who most always are getting this information from a second and source. So the process of science and its dissemination has itself has been warped by this and it hasn't really adapted in an efficient way. We have very rigid standards for various forms of scientific output. For example in certain fields the gold standard is a double blind study regardless of the object of that study, but the threshold for significance is generally considered to be too low and the filter through which these findings are communicated, even to other people in the same field, distorted the statistics even more, and the extent of this is unknown. And secondly, more specific to the actual method, there are many ways of collecting scientific evidence that don't make the cut in various fields which are almost totally censored by convention and institutional restriction. Sometimes a double blind study with a particular flavor of statistical analysis is, at the very least, not the correct way to begin a conversation regarding interpretation and possibility of future research about a potential finding, and sometimes it takes a peer reviewed article using particular methods, costing millions of dollars, to get this process started, and remember the finding will have to filter through a societal structure which severely weakens the evidence in ways that are known to be significant but not fully understood. And another thing is that science, as practiced by actual scientists, includes a lot of exploration in to the meaning of the results, the philosophy we ought to use to interpret what we find, which very much influences the path of discovery. In fact this stuff sometimes borders on the mystical, and we get this information through a different filer, usually the media, which again distorts it greatly. And the unfiltered version of this is I think very relevant to a serious exploration into mysticism, while the media filtered version is generally useless and often misleading and counterproductive. For example there are some serious philosophical mysteries in physics: Is the universe infinite? Are all the branches of the universal wave function actually instantiated into reality? (Is there a quantum multiverse). Is anthropic reasoning valid, could there be other universes aside from the one we exist in? If so, can we characterize them and use probability theory or some other form or reasoning to narrow down which of them we might be inhabiting. There's decision theory, a branch of mathematics/philosophy that tries to tell you what to do in various situations depending on your preferences for the range of outcomes which might occur. And unlike in strict game theory, there are multiple competing frameworks which necessarily give different answers in real life situations, so even though it's pure math it's philosophy as well. And even in pure math, by far the most rigorous form of science yet invented,+ there is the question of interpretation, is mathematics created or discovered? If discovered, well we again have multiple competing frameworks where the answers very much differ, universes of mathematical objects which are wholly incompatible. If we aim for spirituality then I think we should make an effort to incorporate at least some of this stuff into our approach.

SuperMaria

lol you're welcome! maybe it's because i am a literature major trying to do vaguely scientific things for work and i feel utterly dommed by the data. i yield every day. i am powerless. find me reciting the serenity prayer while rocking myself in the corner over there

sw

PLZ check out Notes on Complexity by Neil Theise ! gr8 vid <3

Nikola

Yes to the AMA ❤️ I missed those

Austin F

confession: up until now, i thought queer people were mostly doing it ironically 😭i thought the only genuine emotion behind it was finding it fun, not anything to put actual stock into. i guess i'm out of touch

Austin F

i would say that's more true for male privilege than white privilege. as a cis man that's also gay, having masculinity standards pushed on me has been a huge source of trauma. and while i think a lot of gay and trans men have similar stories, some straight men do as well. so many people dunk on men that are desperate to prove their masculinity, and some of those men do deserve it (or at least are doing too much), but i think a piece of context that some people miss is that "not caring about masculinity" is not an option that men have (at least not in the US, idk about other countries). if you aren't masculine, other people will punish you for that. often other men, but not exclusively. men learn growing up that being perceived as not masculine can lead to being a victim of violence, especially because a lot of boys in school are pretty vicious about it. when i was in middle school, it got so bad so consistently that i genuinely wondered if my classmates would kill me one day (which now i really doubt they would have, but when you're 11 years old, you're not exactly rational with fear). men don't have the luxury of not caring. i think male privilege can be a very double-edged sword for men that aren't at the top. (having my The Rational Male moment, i guess, how cringe of me) now, at least in my experience, that's not really something that applies to white privilege. sure, there's various types of social pressure in existence, but not behaving the "right" way as a white person is not likely to get you attacked. also, being white is a lot more about visuals than performance and is not nearly as fragile of a state, so the constant anxiety about performing well enough is not really a factor. (also honestly, white guilt seems to be mostly be a thing among weird leftists in academia or on twitter, and that's more their problem than anyone else's. i don't think the average person feels it, and i don't think you get pressured into it by general society. although it does get really embarrassing in academia; there are papers i've read from white people where i could feel the self-loathing tangibly emitting from the page lmao)

YogaDadBod

As another dweller in spiritual darkness, to me spirituality is about finding connection to the infinite (stole this from Dostoevsky, I think) and celebration of mystery (also stolen, but can’t recall from whom). My going hypothesis, suspicions is that fundamentalists and fascists both at some point lost, or maybe never had, the ability to understand metaphor. “This is not a tree” and all that jazz. EDIT: There is a translation of the Tao Te Ching by Ursula Le Guin. It is a gem, as one might expect. Highly recommend. EDIT EDIT: The original point of yoga, as a practice, is to prepare the body for meditation. As a Dad yogi I can say this manifests as two things - post yoga sitting is more comfortable, and the physical exhaustion makes it easier to find the stillness needed for meditation. That said, I suck at meditation so maybe I’m not he best voice here.

Riley Kate

Wonderful look into your experience! I got into meditation though Dan Harris’ book 10% Happier, which is pretty much the skeptics case for meditation through his autobiographical account.

Sappho's Friend

I wasnt really trying to make the argument that the oppressors are just as much victims as the marginalised people are, i've seen this rhetoric and i hate it, just to clarifiy. I was just trying to say that you cannot observe this "fundamental suffering of the human condition" (that i agree is very real) by pointing out some unhappy individuals amount the top most privileged, nor even by pointing out that on average they are still not that happy, because this fundamental suffering could only be observed in an ideal system, and cannot be proven in this manner because we dont know if an ideal system could produce better outcomes than the current one already produces in the most privileged (i think its plausible to say that extremely rich, white, straight, non-disabled etc men, i.e. the top of the privilege pyramid would still have it better emotionally in a theoretical non-patriarchy than they have it in patriarchy). The existence of this fundamental suffering can be argumented via and extrapolated from investigations of human neurobiology, i.e. how too much euphoric happiness will start to numb your brain receptors, and such. But not by pointing out the unhappiness of Elon Musk. Im didnt quite catch for certain what you were trying to say here: "But for your point to really invalidate those examples, wouldn't, say, *every* white person have to have lost as much as they gained from the privileges brought by white supremacy?" But i made my best attempt and responded to what you likely meant, in the paragraphs above

Sappho's Friend

"i would say that's more true for male privilege than white privilege" We can say that, sure, very plausible. We can even, purely for the sake of argument that patriarchy is the only unjust hierarchy where the members of the privileged identity class are suffering. Still, because we live in a world that IS a patriarchy, we can conclude that we don't live in a society where the condition of the ultrarich, white, cis, straight, able-bodied men, i.e. the top of the privilege pyramid, couldnt be further improved by society not being a patriarchy. Thus, we cannot currently prove fundamental suffering by pointing out members of the most privileged population on earth being unhappy, because they also live in the patriarchy, in an unideal, further improvable condition. In other words, even if the only current hiararchy where the privileged class is suffering immensely as a result of it were the patriarchy, the examples are still invalidated in their ability to prove fundamental suffering (which i firmly believe exists/is inevitable in one way or another). * * * Your experience being a gay man is unfortunately common in our society. The patriarchy hurts hetero cis men as well, a lot, i can see it around me, even in my family. I can see it in my father, how it has made him say homophobic and misogynistic things sometimes to posture in front of other men, and how that severely strained our relationship (im a cis lesbian)

Sappho's Friend

I immediately had a reaction of some kind of amorphous mental unrest and distress over that statement, took me a a few seconds to get to the root of it and formulate a thought, i.e. the criticism. Im also relieved i wasnt the only one lol

Stephanie Kauff

Would you ever consider trying a one day retreat? If you would like some more information on Buddhism the Columbus ktc podcast has some great episodes that break down meditation very well. This video helped me understand the relationship between Eastern and Western Buddhism better. I practice Tibetian Buddhism which has a whole element of cultural preservation. Western Buddhism has not witnessed the same level of threat of being erased by world Governments.

Brad Vinall

Thank you for this Tangent, Natalie. As a former new atheist and current zen student/practitioner, this really resonated with me. Similar to the reasons you mentioned in Granola Fascism, I am concerned by what Evan Thompson calls "Buddhist Exceptionalism" - the idea that Buddhism somehow stands apart and that its claims should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other religions. Sam Harris interviewed Thompson on his Waking Up podcast (I think the episode is - "Science in Solitude") and I'm pretty sure it did not go the way Harris thought it would. As a secular buddhist who does not believe in magic or miracles (though I accept there is much we do not know, perceive, or understand), I'd like to share a few resources that have been very helpful to me in my practice: Dao de Jing: A Philosophical Translation by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall China Root: Taoism, Ch'an, and Original Zen by David Hinton The Making of Buddhist Modernism by David L. McMahan Why I am not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton Thank you for your practice. I hope you'll share another update when you feel the time is right.

Grace Douglas

I am just a commendable nonfreeloader, but a tangent I think would be interesting is to just do an explainer of Freud and what you agree and disagree with about his thinking. I feel like you’ve weaved him into a lot of your content but it would be interesting to go to the source.

Divad Abelhczejen

This was so great. The stuff at the beginning reminded me so much of "the Secret" (if you think it, it WILL happen #manifest) which gave me crazy brainworms during my childhood (new-age upbringing, lol)

Yuliia

one of the best tangents for me ever. i cried i laughed it was amazing. i have i few thoughts and reflections and i would like to share them. as a person living in quite painful circumstances: i am a ukrainian, i never left my country since the full scale invasion and i am a psychotherapist. because of my profession i obviously deal with a lot of pain and constantly witness concentrated human suffering and i 100% agree that softness is the way to cope with life. during wars it is natural that we turn to our yang, and i see lots of manifestations of it in my society, but people who cherish and practice their softness/yin/femininity do better for themselves and for others. i also love the idea from acceptance and commitment therapy (originally it’s buddhist think) that suffering is pain plus our efforts to avoid pain. and we can learn to be with our pain and let go of it by giving up on our efforts to avoid it. this idea about suffering is actually in the root of a lot of mental health disorders. when it comes to meditation and it’s potential harm i think of functional contextualism, an act is inseparable from it’s context (personal, cultural, historical etc.) i think that meditation might become problematic when we go into it with the intention to avoid pain or when we believe that sitting quietly for 20 minutes will help to achieve world peace. it’s not the way to enlightenment it’s the way to become a delulu new age “guru”. that said i admire your approach to meditation and wish you love, health, safety and peace🫶

Carly Danielle French

It must needs be remarked that even skeptical Dana Scully was the more religious of the two protagonists. I remember one of the hardest parts of deconstructing religion for me was losing belief in an afterlife. I think you're right that science and atheism doesn't really give you a replacement for meaning or a way to cope with the nature of suffering. I'm glad you included that quote about experiencing multiple little deaths of the self in life. It's a balm for an existential itch I've never been able to scratch. I'm glad mediation and exploration of Eastern philosophy has helped you create the beginnings of your own path.

Marstead

Hey Contra -- Not sure if you'll see this but I think you might find it interesting. It's a short talk from Adam Frank, an astrophysicist who REALLY hates What The Bleep Do We Know. But he makes an argument that the Scientific View of the world is missing something, and and it's hard to talk about it. I recorded this talk he gave at a Buddhist consciousness conference, but if that's not up your alley most/all of his points are in his book, The Blind Spot. https://youtu.be/U3TYPaMsvxk

Zindagigi

Rewatching this and had a petty lol about Deepak Chopra, looking like a hale and hearty 60, stating his "bio" age is forty. ETA: If you see this, Wynn, have you looked more deeply into Mark Vicente (director/writer of What the Bleep)? He was formerly in the NXIVM cult and was instrumental in bringing it down and getting the leader convicted of numerous felonies. He's a really interesting person who has had a lot of vulnerable-in-public moments.

Susan Massar

Fabulous as always! As oldster fan, had to laugh about same discussions being had by students at liberal arts colleges. Indeed had same conversations 50+ yrs ago. Welcome to the club! Btw, became philosophy major after LSD trips 😏🤣

zeaphoenix

I had a relationship with a guy once who introduced me to Zen buddhism. We were hanging out and talked about stuff people do. He said he didn't like to do much at all, and I said well me neither, I also like to just sit and thinl

YogaDadBod

Seconded on the Ursula Le Guin translation. Succinct and beautiful and truly the best footnotes of any translation likely to ever to be made.

YogaDadBod

Ugh, I feel like I’m turning into That Guy, but I would highly recommend Ursula Le Guin’s translation. It is short and beautiful, which is how the Tao Te Ching should.

YogaDadBod

I dimly recall there being a work by the author Daisetz Suzuki on Zen. My college eastern philosophy teacher assigned the book - which I still have but never read. I only remember because my teacher (himself Japanese) said the translation of Daisetz was, literally, Big Shit. But my teacher was a bit of an imp, so perhaps he was messing with us all. That was my favorite class from college (with music theory being a very close second).

GGN

So stellar

John Ackrill

this is a fantastic video. i had a very similar experience about a decade ago when listening the the dao de jing for the first time. i would suggest also reading epicurus as his philosophy is a kind of solution to the inherent flaws in hedonism.

Pdlp

Love the topic! I would love to hear you do a deep dive in : Magick vs spirituality, sympathetic magic, spiritualities conenction to glamour, spaces where you feel spirituality exists in its most genuine form.

Christopher

“The Hunger” spoke to me, and addressed a lot of my feelings on this topic. I am a pretty generic atheist who has always had a strong interest in morality and metaphysics. I recently went through a period of flirtation w/ rejoining my old church (Anglican). While I retain reverence for Jesus as a teacher (in the same way you discuss Laozi), I too find the Bible … too specific. I mean, I’m open to the idea of a god who decides to meddle in the lives of specific peoples, but idk how I’d pick which of those gods to really believe in, lol. But meanwhile lately I’ve just been struck by how dumb I was when I was “de-converted” and how really terrible most atheists’ I know understanding of religion is. I’m constantly agitated by my old friends making “reddity” digs at Christianity which make no sense if you’ve ever stepped into a church. Ofc a lot of this is selection bias… I’m reading a lot of interesting religious thinkers atm who are very smart, and hearing atheist attitudes from the unwashed masses. Wow ok this is a ramble but it’s just to say it’s helpful to see someone else wrestling with this.

Aristana Scourtas

This was amazing. I have so many more thoughts. I’m curious if anyone here has any recommendations for resources on Buddhism that are *not* secular?

Brad Vinall

Happy to try and help. What topics are you interested in?

Carl Albert

These are conversations I crave having irl. It’s a real gift getting to listen to your thoughts, Natalie. Wish I could have a chat with you or someone like you. Cheers, friend!

Syn

Great tangent! What your favorite Tao Te Ching translation? I'd like to read it.

Nik Johnson

Natalie I love you but calling Academy Award winning actress Marlee Matlin “that lady from the L Word” was very not sliving of you

Halcy

Damn. Yet another of your videos where I only meant to watch for a few minutes....over an hour later here I am staying up too late again. I really ought to know better by now. 😅 If I start watching I will not stop. Bravo on another captivating video, by the way! 👏

Queen of Narnia

I get so befuddled when people talk about how death is this existential horror. I just don't get the fuss. You live. Then you die. And then you don't need to worry about anything anymore. Why spend so much time worrying about a future circumstance that won't even bother you when it happens?

huru uruh

The "i" is just a stray thought manifest.

Collin

Bach refined Luther as Red Velvet refined Bach

KJ Xiao

If you liked Dao De Jing, you might like the "sequel" Zhuang Zi. It is a lot more humorous than serious.

Haiz

the most angry i've ever been at a book is when i read the Alchemist. i got so furious with the whole manifestation and "just believe in fate!!!!" shit. like i absolutely think there's a good middle path of keeping yourself open to good things coming your way rather than rejecting something before it has a chance to happen, but you can't will things into existence by wanting it enough. that's just victim blaming. the most spiritual i have felt reading any books have been the chronicles of ancient darkness. yes, it's a fantasy series for teens taking place in prehistoric times, but the amount of research the author has done on indigenous cultures carries this enormous respect and humility towards the world around us, and there's something about that that makes it feel like the world opens up and everything connects. like an ocean, but also an open sky.

Cassidy Brinn

Tangent suggestion: philosophy of science (or whatever topical issue can serve as a jumping off point for a reflection on philosophy of science). The tease of the critique of science here was giving Luce Irigaray? So curious to hear you dive deeper into a psychoanalytic read of scientific practice and conceptions of knowledge.

Cassidy Brinn

And I add my voice to those thrilled about an upcoming AMA! As a recent patron, I have streamed some of the old ones and it's so much fun to hear you riff on a wide variety of topics. People let's please give her some good questions - no asking what's your favorite metal band or your favorite anime, and no fucking placeholders, honestly. (Those who have watched more of the AMAs maybe can give better advice)

Tom Casiello

For my meditation practice, I sort of felt like meditating with a sangha was my "LSD shortcut." It's easier to meditate with other people, which is surprising since since sitting quietly doesn't really seem like it should be a good group activity. And a good teacher is familiar with the dangers of mindfulness meditation and can help you through them or avoid them. I'm lucky to have found a good group, though. Spiritual communities can get a little weird.

Miranda

I don’t find this take very compassionate. There are many reasons why people fear death. Maybe try asking them about it. For one, things you love ending is very painful, and whatever your interpretation of the experience after death, the immediate implication of being separated from everything you care about is sure to cause some worry. I consider myself pretty at peace with death, but I think any philosophy claiming to make death “easy” is probably bs to a degree.

E Pluribus Nada

The point about the silliness of miracles and claims of divine intervention reminded me of the dispute between St. Ambrose and Symmachus, where the latter argued that the Roman empire post-Christianization should still support pagan religious establishments, citing the story of attacking Gauls who'd managed to sneak past Rome's defenses being exposed by the honking of a bunch of sacred temple geese. The former retorted that that was a weaksauce, cuck-tier miracle that proved pagan gods were unworthy of worship, so based on the opinion of a 4th century saint, God really needs to step up his game next time someone takes a swing at Trump.

Gaia Moisan

Damn this is what I have been saying about rebirth for so long 😔 nobody gets me like you

Gaia Moisan

As a neuroscientist, I think the most important reason to scan the monks is to learn about what brain regions are involved in degrees of consciousness (which is essentially the same as arousal). It is a unique opportunity to lay groundwork for more understanding like scanning the brains of depressed people. Neither are to prove that their subjective experience exists, though some people may treat either that way.

Lauren Kawulicz

I also tend to mainly view the sacred as the beautiful and perfect and I also often question the line between spirituality and dissociation. As someone who goes intensely into ideologies I think that can be a fine line for me to walk. I appreciated thinking along with you as always!

Anna Drew

As a trans woman and a member of the LGBT community, I have to be very open about people disagreeing with me on these things or I wouldn't have many of the friends I have. I do make it a point though to prove to people if they will let me that real Christians don't exclude queer people. I was raised Methodist, and both of my parents supported me when I came out. I am very sorry for the many who are less lucky than the few like myself. My religion is under assault from those who want to use it as a vehicle for hate.

Queen of Narnia

Weird of you to assume I haven't already asked people, listened to their answers, and still feel utterly unmoved and unconcerned about my inevitable death. Hence my use of the word "befuddled".

Aysel Akhundova

I am on the path to internalise this, as a new immigrant, as an artist. And this approach helps immensely.

Joanne David

First of all I'm so glad that this video was so grounded about spirituality without shaming the ''nature'' of it, thank you for sharing this side of yours with us. We share very similar views especially on buddhism (although I prefer shamanism a bit more), I'd highly suggest Discordianism, I think it fits you well O:) About finding a community, the problem except the burn out (that I also have lol) is that most of the paths are transphobic and enbyphobic, as an enby trans that tried to be in many of these circles, I still haven't found anything that is fully accepting and doesn't divide groups by cis women and cis men for ''divine feminine/masculine''. It's all binary and mononormative. I'm at this point were if I start a group that is fully queer accepting I'll accidentally end up being a cult leader ffs so yeah something political(?) might needs to be done for all of this.. ughh

Intro

I recommend Ursula Le Guin's!

Bara

I love this. Thank you. Granola Fascism had me worried. As someone who does believe in magic, miracles, and manifesting (in a totally gay sort of way) some things that have resonated with me are Jessa Reed's Podcasts and the movie Mindwalk.

mina sewell mancuso

The ecstatic experience being framed in a sexual manner that you speak about around the 39 minute mark (and a bit in the Twilight video too if i remember correctly) reminds me a lot of the work of a few different scholars. In her book "The Eloquent Blood", Manon Hedenborg-White breaks down the history of the figure of Babalon, particularly in regards to the all-consuming spiritual and mystical experiences of occultists such as Aleister Crowley. These experiences are also described in ecstatic, often sexual terms in much the same way as you do in this video. White cites Sociologist Catherine Waldby's concept of "erotic destruction" which she describes as "the tender violence and the terrors involved in sexual practice and relationships, the kinds of violence this does to any sense of self as autonomous.” Waldby posits this erotic destruction as a kind of ego destruction, because, in the act of penetration, boundaries between self and other are blurred. Obviously anyone can have these experiences, but because we live in a patriarchal, phallocentric culture, it's often seen as something done 'by' men 'to' women (hence the themes of being 'taken' and 'submitting' that you mention). So when men write about taking a feminine position in regards to the divine, this is often why they frame it as 'feminine', and that's something that can be seen in everyone from Crowley to Laozi. Anyway, great tangent <3

Jessica in LA

The past year has been a period of unexpected spiritual growth and exploration for me. I grew up a closeted bisexual southern Baptist pastor’s daughter, and worked hard to reclaim a form of Christianity that centered justice and unconditional love. I have a master of divinity degree and was working in a non ordained role at a church this year when I was censured by the pastor when I named the war on Palestine as unjust in a prayer. (Pretty mild terms if you ask me.) I left the job, extremely hurt and disillusioned that the progressive Christians I worked with were so hypocritical and apathetic in a moment that called for urgent moral leadership. I abandoned my lifetime one-woman mission of reforming Christianity and for the first time, at age 36, sought out new spiritual paths. Witchcraft is the path I’m on now. This word can be used to describe forms of pseudo spirituality that amount to soulless woo woo consumerism or gender essentialist bigotry, but I’ve found a tradition that’s helpful to me in the Reclaiming school of witchcraft associated with the writer and activist Starhawk. I find that a lot of her thought shares ideas in common with strains of Buddhism or Taoism, but it’s more accessible to me because it’s accessed through practices that are very mundane, embodied, and sensual, which is healing after leaving Christianity, a religion that in its most progressive forms still has a very negative view of the body and all things material. It touches on concepts of the self being illusory, of light/dark masculine/feminine being constitutive of one another, and the truth of the universe, observed in the natural world, being one big organism of unfolding processes, not a mechanized collection of separate parts. It also vibes with a secular worldview - Starhawk says you could call magic “sophisticated non-mechanistic psychology," but using words like magic and witch helps to reach our “younger self,” that part of the mind that understands things through pre-verbal symbols rather than overly intellectualized ideas. Plus the inherent cringe of calling myself a witch who does spells imbues my spirituality with a humility and sense of humor that I’m finding very helpful. I’m thankful for the things I learned from my Christian past, but it’s very exciting to be pursuing a whole new stage that feels more genuinely “religious” for me, in the best ways, than Christianity has in many years. Thanks as always for another excellent video! I’m hoping pieces of the Psychedlics and Granola Fascism tangents, along with this one, will make their way into a big main channel video about spirituality!

singeingfeathers

Stephen Mitchell is my favourite translation, I'm so pleased

Alex Moody

I love this! You and I were going through very similar things at the same time over these past few years xD I visited Bhante G's monastery in 2021. He was a sweet old raisin. These days I'm busy with an apprenticeship so I can have some financial security... but only so I have something to fall back on in case my plan to become a monastic in the Catskills doesn't work out ;) I'd be the first queer one...! If you ever do want to try sangha, there's an American Zen monastery there (zmm.org) that has all sorts of retreats, from single day to whole week. And you can do a period of residency for a few weeks or a whole year (not that you'd have time for the latter lol). It's very accessible and the monastics (all white folks, men and women...) are approachable, sincere, and interesting... I'm a part of their TGNC Zen sangha. We'd love to have you come to our monthly Zoom :') Shoot me a message if interested!!

Taron Fredenburg

I enjoyed this! I know Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG (and probably other meditation educators) says that avoiding drugs helps with meditation, so I was curious to hear what you were going to say about doing it on acid. I shouldn't have been surprised by the outcome, lol.

Femininja

Te pedí un vídeo, no una obra maestra! Gracias Contrapoints 🩷

Abby Wilson

I studied Chinese literature in college. My favorite translation of the Dao De Jing is the Ralph Alan Dale version. I first came across it in my highschool chinese teacher’s classroom when I was 16. She insisted that I borrow it and I’m so glad she did! It created a philosophical foundation for me to grow from ❤️ I re-read it every year and each time new concepts “click” or make sense in my mind. It later helped me to better understand Buddhist philosophy also.

Knight Alexander

I had a similar experience from when you read the Tao Te Ching but instead of when I learned about the Buddhist teaching of interbeing and no self. It felt like the answer I was seeking about how I view myself and how I move through the world. I feel all genders inside of myself. I feel no genders inside of myself. This is not shifting like waves nor is it conflicting. This contradictory nature of my self and no self occurs at the same time. So much of the sources of my own suffering comes from pushing against this. When I accepted that I am in interbeing with the world, that I am not a self, I started to find peace and insight.

Adra

I just got out of the hospital from a bad edible and this is the only thing that helps thank you for your service

Hunter Hylton

Fantastic as always! The mention of psychedelics being used by techbros that end up becoming even more egocentric reminded me of a song I love but was always iffy on the lyrics of: Third Eye by Tool. I have never had any experience with psychedelics (don’t know if that makes me more or less annoying than the average Tool fan) so the lyrics that seemingly scoff at someone trying to force a spiritual experience through psychedelics always felt pretentious to me in an “I do drugs better than you” kind of way. Your anecdote made me reconsider; if you’re someone who uses psychedelics and is heavily involved in western esotericism, you probably see a lot of Musk types worthy of scorn. Maybe we should be more gatekeep-y about this stuff; at the very least, keep it out of Silicon Valley. Sorry if this was long-winded, essentially, I just wanted to thank you for recontextualizing a song from a band who gives me the same feelings you describe with Bach. :)

Frankie Andrien

fascinated to see this as someone who has figured out my religious bullshit recently (i am rapidly becoming more religious than my entire deeply dutch reform family, which is confusing the hell out of them because i did this without becoming christian OR republican). it drives me genuinely fucking crazy when people treat religion as being about Whether You Believe In God. it's honestly a very christian-specific way of looking at religion; pretty much no other faith places that much importance on what you personally think about the existence of higher powers or magic or what have you (islam does to some extent, but less so). i'm currently starting down the road of becoming jewish, and yeah people hardly mention the guy. my favorite things in the entire universe from birth downward have always been singing and literary analysis, so it says something about the faith tradition i grew up with that they managed to turn me off of "weekly meetings where we all sing together and talk about a book." discussing my crises of faith has always been met with people trying to address Why God Is Real as if i don't read fantasy novels way more voraciously than i've ever read biographies. i literally am not trying to have faith in god; i'm trying to have faith in humanity. edgy atheists who are only interested in believing claims substantiated by evidence are missing the part where "people are good and the world will eventually be a bit less broken than it currently is" is completely counter to all observable facts but also still worth thinking of as true. anyway meditation pretty consistently makes me want to crawl out of my skin because i already live in a pretty constant state of self-aware anatta, so i just sing songs and pray and do weird textiles shit in community, but i am glad it's going well for you and i hope you keep exploring it. the queer community has, in a very visceral way, had religion stolen from us. to your point about religion distracting you from activism, i think taking back ownership of your spirituality is an act of resistance. thanks for the vid sorry this comment got so long

Teageen

this comment is not up to my quality control standards but i dont have the energy to improve it. i'm convinced that there isn't a way to comment in a public internet space without being cringe, idk. 1. lol this is what my friends and i talk about at "parties" 2. choral music is the closest I ever feel to having a religious experience, and i feel very seen by natalie here 3. the Twilight video essay was for me what she described as sort of a revelation /turning point (posting at end of video so idr what exactly she said). I finally felt like i could understand human religious/spiritual practices as potentially constructive through a literary/ symbolic interpretation of death and rebirth. (though I still think that religion is bad; by which i mean religion as a way of denying reality and avoiding responsibility / accountability over their own life and actions ). i finally worked through my world crushing breakup from 2020 with my first love in HS that i reconnected with [like an extremely smart person because there was no way for that to go terribly, obviously], and found a light at the end of the tunnel of sexuality related religious traumas.

Ollie

Did anyone else keep mishearing "Pali" as "poly"? Like "dukkha" is poly for suffering

Cota

Thanks for the video. Great as always.

Abbi

I talk about this at parties too! Great second comment too

Sarah

Spirituality may be cringe, but being miserable is debatably more cringe.

Richard Podkolinski

After watching this tangent, I have a book recommendation for you Natalie, or anyone else who wishes to read something strange. The Teaching of Vimalakiriti https://read.84000.co/translation/toh176.html It's one of the few Sutras I've read multiple times, because it's funny as well as being paradoxical and profound. Pretty much the only Buddhist Sutra that I know of that goes all-in on the rascality of Lao Tzu. It even features a chapter where a Goddess turns one of the Buddha's main disciples Sariputra into a woman after he tries to suggest that women are of lower birth. In an effort to get him to grasp the emptiness of form. It also features a lot of wonderful imagery of the Buddhist multiverse that feels like it really came out of an acid trip.

Reetta

Good hair, good video

masterkawas

Natalie straight up had a Pequod High Language experience with the universe while on acid

William Knight

The rape metaphor also occurred to John Donne in Holy Sonnet 14 so even if it is weird you are in good company.

Nunya

I tried to get into meditation long before “the rectangle”, before YouTube & FB, before I was even addicted to the internet. And guess what? It was STILL super hard to sit still for 10 minutes (or less!) It’s just hard overall.

Teageen

your username is fire

Fallen Through Time

The contents of this video are very disrespectful to medieval dirt farmers

Cassidy Brinn

Yes at first I thought it was a joke that went over my head about how polygamous people see the world

Cassidy Brinn

I wonder if there are different ways to meditate while tripping. Like, isn't mindful attention to the breath a means to an end? The way Natalie described that experience didn't make sense to me, like a person meditating who keeps getting distracted by enlightenment, and has to rush back to the "right experience" of ... I guess having an empty mind and only thinking about the breath? My experiences with mindfulness meditations rather were about total concentration on whatever was happening and not holding onto it - which is why you can also have like a mindfulness walking meditation, where the focus is rather on the feet touching the ground. So a tripping meditation would just be focusing on the trip? Other forms of meditation might anyway pair better with LSD. Or maybe meditation should be let go as a ladder from which we dive into the trip. David Lynch makes a passionate case for transcendental meditation? Or what is the best way to train the mind to celebrate the ecstacy of uniting atman and brahman TAT TVAM ASI

MLVF

Hi Natalie, thx for sharing. You (or others) might be interested in the idea of Yin/Yang, feminine/masculine principle through the lens of the 4 dimensional Klein bottle, which I find to be a quite helpful image to combine with the tajitu. This topic is covered at about minute 27, of this video: https://youtu.be/zzTIgPr0f00?si=cq1PMJ9SWarcdEHY

Jose C

Hi Natalie. There is a minority? of Buddhists in the Theravada tradition who think enlightenment is possible in this lifetime (myself included, planning on becoming a monk), but this requires some serious and consistent practice (I heard only done by a minority of monasteries/monastics). The difference between the unified 'I'/psychedelic/Brahman experience and awakening is like going from 1 to 0, nibbana is the cessation of all experience.

Bibi

I once accidentally did a meta bhavana meditation while on edibles, which was very enjoyable! I had a lovely cry. I boil down those basic human needs usually satisfied by religion as: the need for satifaction of understanding and the need for satisfaction of feelings. In terms of understanding, I'm satisfied more by science than astrology, and with an anti-capitalist framework. For feelings, I have a strong network of close friends (especially important because I am usually single and sometimes struggle with that). I love those people strongly and feel very loved by them, it's not really "community" so much as multiple very close 1-1 or very small group relationships. And also by taking anti-capitalist action with others.

Stephen York

You might be interested in reading Stephen Batchelor's "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist". He draws an interesting historical parallel between Jesus/St. Paul and Gotama/Kassapa - in both cases a leader with insightful philosophical ideas gets turned into a religious practice that is enduring even if it doesn't embody the founder's teaching well.

Zhakrah

Thanks to this video I watched XRA for the first time ever

bluebestfriend

The rape metaphor kind of connects to aspects of The Horned God in British Traditional Witchcraft. He is known as "The Lord of Sex and Death" and the "Guardian of the Crossroad" and is particularly animalistic. I think part of the concept is the dissipation of boundaries and a submission to loss of boundaries ... The crossroad is almost a taoist concept ... where we stand on life/conscious side of it, and him being the guardian has one foot in life/conscious and another in death/unconscious. Bit of a nebulous ramble

Bara

Can you do a tangent on Stoicism?

Greg Borenstein

My kingdom for a tangent about Meaning. Everyone talks about it, it’s clearly central to human flourishing and at the core of spirituality, but no one ever explores it in anything like a systematic or structured way that I can find. When I try to search for relevant philosophical texts all I can find is debates about linguistic/symbolic meaning not meaningfulness.

Katie

I'm curious if you've ever read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl - I liked that as a jumping off point for thinking about the concept of meaning and its impact

Katie

In the interest of filling a bit of this understanding in for us both - for me, it's that we have so little understanding of different forms of consciousness. Cause and effect / stimulus response relationships come in many forms, and I have basically no clue about the subjective experience of any other collection or diffusion of matter besides "human with my specific brain". Just because I don't remember what it was like for my atoms to be distributed across the universe doesn't necessarily mean that something wasn't happening to them, that there was no subjectivity there. We don't really have any testimony of anyone decomposing and re-distributing, for the very obvious reasons that decomposing people can't communicate or think or have normal human experience in any way, that experience is almost certainly unrecognizable as consciousness or subjectivity from our brains. But something is very much still going to be happening to us, and we have no idea what, or what it "will be like", in any way, because our whole idea of "being like" is based on the active human brain. I am very sympathetic to (and often optimistic about!) your sense that there will be no subjectivity, consciousness, or experience in any form after death. I'm just not as confident that matter doesn't take in and process signal in any way whatsoever, via decomp / reintegration into soil/plants/other organisms/etc you know? Even if it is very clearly nothing remotely like our own consciousness. And the unknowability is scary. Does that make sense?

Greg Borenstein

Thanks for the recommendation! That does seem to be the one book that comes up in my searching that’s actually about the topic. I’ll give it a shot.

Deconstruction Interactive

I've been trying for a while to comment on this in a witty way, but I think I don't have anything witty to say other than, this was a great video, and it's wonderful to see you engage with spirituality! I think it's honestly very refreshing to see, as a lot of philosophy I engage with is either adamantly atheist or Christian with a capital C. More please! Love Dao Te Ching :)

Miles Slade

is there a distinction to using the word "unsatisfactoriness" instead of "dissatisfaction" ? re: Dukkah

CrystalJade

I really enjoyed this. There’s something deeply personal about this subject. I’m also left wondering about the recipe for a perfect balanced breakfast! Love the Lacan references. Let’s make them all kiss! Xx

Irina Mirinda

Hey! Amazing tangent. If you ever want to talk more about technology and boredom, a book I've liked was "Wish I were here: Boredom and the Interface" by Mark Kingwell. I liked it, but I have very little knowledge of philosophy and I can't vouch for the accuracy of it. The first chapter is the best, it kinda repeats itself afterwards. It also has some political discourse in chapter 3 that boils down to "maybe we should agree to disagree".

Anna Drew

" Man and Time" by J.B. Priestly. Though he was not a philosopher by trade, I think his book on the subject handles the issue of time pretty effectively, in a way that does not affirm or invalidate any particular religious belief. It could potentially allow one to see their existing beliefs in a different way without cancelling them.

Fr3nchFrii

I'd like to extend a friendly argument. I believe such people as Elon and Rowling ARE suffering because of politics. Cognitive dissonance towards their public actions, words, etc, and the mental energy expended in order to continue convincing themselves that the power of influence they weild is both warranted, and in any way moral, would, in my opinion, short circuit anyone into a miserable psychosis. I personally believe those that dehumanize others trade their own humanity in order to do so. Both cognitive dissonance and acts of dehumanization against others are huge separations from the self, which would, again, in my opinion, result in extensive mental and physical damage. Gabor Mate talks a lot about that concept when discussing trauma. I can lose myself in many winding rabbit hole adjacent soapbox tangents on this concept and why I believe anarchy is the only true form of direct democracy; and that pre figurative (newly learned term thrilling to me) cultural revolution is necessary to shutdown the cycle of empires that has been going on for many millennia. Only to give rise to capitalism and western imperialism, which, again, in my opinion, is far from our collective best. I think we can do better. Reformation is not even a band aid when all focus is on features not bugs. The system is working as intended, to keep it's war machine ever turning and eternally fueled with the exploitation of lives, minds, and narratives (ie trans people having to defend their right to exist) by those corrupted with greed and narcissism enough to take the helm (ie Rowling with influence over opinions of voters and policy makers, and her immoral moral takes on trans rights). (Also insert here a rant on my belief that morality is subjective and dynamic and should continuously be in discourse as doctrine and dogma have damaging consequences). Anyhow if I haven't annoyed the shit out of you and you made it here, I always thoroughly enjoy listening to your evolving thought processes as they provoke many intellectual and philosophical quests of my own, which I appreciate more than I have words for. Looking forward to the next time I click on one of your videos. Cheers!

Lizz

the intro had me laughing so hard

Anthony Bates

Lovely atmosphere in your setting. Goes well with the delightful feminine presence of your voice. Nice lamp with fringes. Enjoyed your thoughtful and humorous talk on spirituality. Read multiple translation of the Tao together, yes, we got so much more out of it in our Zoom group. I like Red Pine, by the way. You are so wise about acid, opening “the doors of perception.”

Johnny B. Goode

I wish you wouldn’t second guess yourself so much. So often, you’ll pause a perfectly fine point to be like “I know this is cringe and this is stupid, but,” when it’s totally unnecessary. Great video that’s very humble yet touched on a lot of profound things. It’s reflective of a lot of my own thoughts in the topic, so I connected with it a lot.

Brad Vinall

You might want to check out "Meaning in Life and Why It Matters" by Susan Wolf. She focuses on meaning IN life, not meaning OF life. And for a person to find meaning in their life she says they must answer three questions: 1. What do you want to exist even if you don't? 2. How real (or how really real) is it? 3. How much of a difference are you making to it right now?

Alexandra

I recently had a discussion with a good friend of mine who is also an atheist (I like to consider myself atheist/agnostic) and I found myself referencing this video repeatedly because I resonated with so much of it. Funny enough, I came to my perspective on spirituality in a similar way to Natalie, psychedelics. i love the idea of oneness and connection to all life/the universe, but I often feel mysticism takes away so much from focusing on our material realities. =

Mighty Yam

When I had my wisdom teeth taken out 9 years ago, they put me under laughing gas (no idea if that's even still used anymore) and in the brief time I was under, I saw a vision of a series of red triangles marching forward together like Scar's hyenas during the music video for the 90s pop hit 'Be Prepared.' And I had this epiphany that all of us are the red triangles -none of us are a single triangle, but we're all little pieces of a whole who exist as a whole even though we appear to be separated into triangles. I was overwhelmed by this realisation and committed it to memory, even as I was being led by the arm out of the orthodontist's office and nearly puking on his assistant. That weird fever dream has essentially been the foundation for my own spirituality and belief in a form of collective consciousness that seems startlingly similar to the Daoist beliefs you discuss here. I feel a little less weird now. Or more weird.

Natalia

Natalie, “spirit rock” you can do retreats of varying lengths and they are super pro LGBTQIA+. Many of them as staff

Ali Flanagan

It's super courageous to be so open and earnest about your core beliefs and spirituality, thank you for sharing this with us, Natalie!

Ky Sargeant

I think one of the most, let's say useful aspects of being buddhist is the fact it forces you to confront yourself as the only source to find the answer of your own suffering. The concept of No-Self can also be seen as all of the universe is your "Self". You have no separate independent Self. That's why the system of enlightenment is grounded in compassion for the other (I.e. your "self" in another context) Mahayana Scholarship also differs greatly on the 3 Mark's of existence, because it says that awakening rather than suffering is a mark, which for me implies that it is not suffering that grounds the human condition, but the possibility of healing our suffering.

marco

I'm glad that you aren't letting the cult-mommy followers get their way. I really loved the format! And felt that you did a good job covering the content. Personal note: Have been on a similar path spiritually for a while, less public. Finally tuned in again. Felt that the meditation segment was a little weak to end on and the bach interlude was Completely Unnecessary, but you're entitled to artistic license. I'm Chinese and I haven't read the Tao, but I think it's funny that you're worried of being accused of whitesplaining various eastern practices (when you did a better job than most people I'd know would have).

Halcy

Nice! Thank you for the link! 😊

Francisco Rosso

Does someone has a list of each book she mentions in each video in Patreon? I am looking for a book that she mentions but I dont remember the name. I think it was mentioned in Psychedelic Experiences, she was explaining that is common to have trips relatable with your cosmogony, your metaphisical explanation of reality. thats explains the capacity that a someone who believes in devil could really see him.

rj

Here is a quick line that I wrote about religion "The Devil measures things." Devils and demons give facts, but also lead you astray. How is this possible? They are the same act, the comfort and confidence that comes with complete trust in science is foolhardy.

rj

I've read the extant fragments of Heraclitus, and they read much like how you describe the Tao Te Ching

Yegua Mustaparta

Did you claim Aristótel's mosotes as your invention?

meghana

i'm watching your video in the midst of a yearlong residency inside a zen monastery :) resonated a lot with ur reflections on ur psychedelic experiences and looking to integrate them within a more fleshed out spiritual framework. i think you might also like zen if you are compelled by buddhist approaches but like daoism's emphasis on simplicity. and entirely selfishly i'd like to recommend the text i've been reading to you- nagarjuna's middle way (siderits and katsura translation). it's fucking knocking my socks off. sending love <3

demontwink

Hi Natalie, where can I find that rendition of Ein feste Burg? Is it on Apple Music? Plz <3

Mr Samratt

[Rape content warning!] The term bra#man doesn't translate to the same meaning anymore in the contemporary Indian dialect. Now it is used to refer to a fascist ethnic group of people, who claim themselves to be exempt from human decency and humanity because of the spiritual reasons described by you. But instead of bringing anything good out of their "birth-possessed" spirituality, they acquit each other out of rape cases by citing that "brahmans have good sanskar (so they musn't be punished for the rape they committed )", "sanskari" means "spiritually respectable". A Disgusting Example! -> https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bilkis-banos-rapists-are-brahmins-have-good-sanskar-bjp-mla-3266193

Andrea Schreiber

The Bible sometimes reminds me of a medieval version of a search engine. I particularly think of this when I watch movies like "The Name of the Rose," where monks are revising biblical texts. It makes me think of today's practices on platforms like Amazon, where people write fake reviews, or on social media, where so-called click workers monitor content like nude pictures. Interestingly, when rewatching George Orwell's "1984," I also thought of these monks. In the scene where people constantly review newspaper articles to replace "new words" with "old words," I saw parallels to the monks modifying texts. Now that I think about it, I also wanted to check if the printed Bibles that are publicly accessible include an edition number.

sultann

Have you heard of Spiral Dynamics? It's a controversial psychology model but one that has occupied my mind for a while since someone introduced me to it. You might like exploring some of the concepts (it explores the role of masculine/feminine energy in terms of human/humanity's development)

KatyCon

“We used to have hogwarts houses…. Before the troubles”

Marc-Olivier Gagné

It's always a pleasure to listen to you. Thank you for sharing your reflections.

Andrew May

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hot take on Steiner’s 1894 classic Die Philosophie der Freiheit today.

Kevin Junk

I think you might enjoy the concept of spiritual bypassing - which talks about how there is a possibility to use spirituality to bypass problems, reality and other issues. It’s close to saying I can’t x because of planets or if you’re poor it’s bc your manifesting skills suck

Daniel T

I'm happy to see you take to Buddhism, Natalie. I've been at it some over 20 years and can't say I passed the beginner phase and this isn't false modesty. But yeah, glad to see the back of some habits and the heart opening up a bit. The only thing I'd say is to bring it into your life as much as possible. What happens off the cushion is more important than what happens on it. There's heaps of theory and lists, as you say, but there are also some wonderfully pithy pointers. Like the Buddha's advice to Bahiya: "you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized." Or from Zen, "Not knowing is the most intimate." All the Best to you!!!

Tomme

he was a published, anally detailed white supremacist but go off

Andrew May

So just like most people in philosophy 😂

William M

May I recommend Zhuongzi over Laozi? Especially in the original Classical Chinese, it’s way less hierarchical. Really leans into free play and equality. Lovely writing too.

William M

Excuse me, Zhuongzi!

+χ+

Body scan meditation helps with (my) hangovers, by outlining painful areas of the body, that alcoholic anesthesia covers. Eventually softening body pain does fight headache 😅

mink

"just do heroin, nothing feels better than that" carfentanil: "am i a joke to you?"

Cynthia Sonier

On another video, I left a comment about a lepers hospital that could, maybe, if you squint, make it seem like I am catholic but nah. Yes leper hospital in my town, but the priests also used local boys as their private hareems for generations and the community knew it! I am not catholic, but still a believer, though. In june 2011, there was a grave crisis in my family. I was a danger to them and to myself and literally curled up in a ball crying in a dark exam room at the hospital. Then I said a buddhist prayer I had learned in university. Even though the circumstances outside of me were the same (still stuck with my brother), my mind was clear and capable of facing those things. Tension dropped from 103 to 0. I know there is a scientific explanation to this. In a documentary ("The Story of God") and from a philosopher called Boris Cyrulnik, I heard some experiments have shown that the parts of the brain responsible for emotional control rush with blood during prayer. I know it's all neuroscience, I know it's just the bigger, more intense cousin of "taking a deep breath". But just because it can be explained, doesnt' make it any less divine.

KnoXX Vicious

As someone with a degree in and teaches chemistry: the John Hopkins book on intro to chemistry best explains that chemistry has its very roots in religion - the search for God. They are intertwined and to separate the search for God from the search for the atom is to loose the forest for the trees.

floral.horror

Thank you so much for mentioning the Nutty Putty cave incident because it’s something I think about all the time.

Ana Uluceanu

Thank you so much for this one. I really loved it.

Sam Hudock

You didn't become my guru, but in gay terms, you have rendered yourself Mother. I think on these things a lot, and you provided such succinct set of arguments and histories that help me feel comfortable in my instincts. Spirituality, to me, has always been the space between. It is essentially the ineffable quality of community, or even more, one's relationship to everything. And I never understood why people found the need to clutter (as you say) that stunningly apparent reality with other garbage. Humans probably have a tendency to build out instead of dig in. Anyway - thanks for this tangent. Really loved it.

Giraver

Hi Natalie, The 8-fold path is on the 4th stage of the path (out of the 5 stages of the path to enlightenment) so it’s VERY advanced. Most Buddhists are not even on the 1st stage, we are on the baby pre-stage. Some very experienced practitioners may be on the 2nd stage (I don’t know any personally, it’s not for me to comment). When on the 3rd stage, you begin the path of seeing which is 1st level bodhisattva, achieved by completely seeing through the illusion of self and other. (The sense of self/self-grasping is the root cause of suffering, from which the poisons arise: desire, aversion, ignorance). At this stage, there is no declining, woohoo! (If following a shravaka path, one would begin the stages to become arahat). But we have a long way to go (many many lifetimes). The bodhisattva levels don’t correspond to being a bodhisattva. Anyone can be a bodhisattva if you take the vow. If you break the vow, you are no longer a bodhisattva. The vow comes out of the depth of compassion for all beings that we are so lost in samsara, and with certainty that the only way to help beings, is to become buddha, so we aim to achieve Buddhahood as quickly as possible, out of the deep compassion for every single being throughout limitless space, and choose to be reborn to help all beings. This is the aim of Mahayana buddhism. “If there is no self, what is it that is reborn?” - rebirth is an insufficient term, relatively there is just a continuum of a mindstream. The confusion comes from the western idea that the mind “arises” from the brain. Yes…. there’s a lot of lists, it’s not for everyone. If you can get on board with harnessing the power of imagination, the Vajrayana path is wonderful. Being kind and understanding cause and effect (our actions have consequences) are the most important things. Compassion without wisdom leads to burnout - hence the aim to realise our buddha nature. With love and care xx

mink

What do psychedelics have in common with my ex boyfriend? They're both dangerous and unstable tools.

Ellie Fitzpatrick

The perfect thing to listen to while I work on my Buddhist art history project

Irina Mirinda

If Mother takes requests, I'd be very curious about her opinion on Rudolph Steiner. I was introduced to him in my acting class yesterday and found the exercises for "Speech and Drama" from the class to be fun and useful in the specific category of "dramatic acting". Then I got home excited to read more and discovered he is a full occultist dude, a literal fascist and the founder of a school system that resembles a cult. I've noticed quite fast that he sounds and writes extremely similarly to Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning. He has similar concepts, maps, ideas, exercises and all the funk. You can find his lectures online and they are extremely similar too. JP is almost a copycat, even. I'm worried that I liked it that much in the class and I'm now wondering if I'm being indoctrinated even. The teacher said he was the most important person in the 20th century, which is a huge statement to make about anybody. Could she not know he believed all that crazy stuff? Is my hobby the first step towards becoming an antivaxxer?

manuela

It would be amazing to have a tangent where you talk for an hour about classical music❤ I for one know almost nothing about it and yours would be the perfect introduction

Norah Luz

Re: Rudolph Steiner, you should watch Natalie's Tangent on Granola Fascism. you may find it interesting. She mentions Rudolph Steiner's esotericism and his anthroposophy. I am re-watching it now. hehe enjoy~

Irina Mirinda

Thank you, I’m listening to it right now. I skipped that one before. Really, should be a main channel video, it’s so good and so common nowadays. I even knew a guy who was a huge fan of Evola and described him as a philosopher and I had no idea what he was into, just assumed some common philosopher guy. These people are popular and no one is checking them out and criticizing them rn.

Selena Odendron

I used to have Stephen Mitchell's version Tao Te Ching and liked reading it but I gave it to a thrift store after finding out he's married to the fraud and professional gaslighter Byron Katie. This reminds me I need to get a different version. I can't fully immerse myself with the book knowing he translated it. And I have also heard his translation is full of omissions and additions from him personally, and he doesn't know a word of Chinese.

Harris Widdicombe

Your work inspired me to go back to school at age 40. I am now in the last year of my undergrad and thriving. Thanks for everything you do.

babilano

excellent as always, rarely disagree with you on anything. very disconcerting! for a less fleeting experience try ayahuasca sometime, you already know to surrender

Noel S

Finally, Advanced Lacanian Astropsychology is given it's due. (It was my undergrad minor.)

Purvi Dhiman

Just listening to this is making me feel like you might gain something from the series of Samadhi by AwakeningTheWorldFilm on Youtube. It is a 3-part series. It explained a lot of things that were going on with me or at least the ideas were something I could get on board with. It is one of those things you understand once you have felt it but I would still recommend you watch it in your free time. I think Part 2 (if I'm remembering it correctly) discusses Taoism as well.

Rose Dombegh

Just a note on Biblical literalism -- not only should it have never been a thing, but for a long time, it wasn't. In Christianity at least, many of the Church Fathers read scripture literarily, as metaphor and allegory. And Rabbis have (and still do) read the Torah as containing many layers of meaning.

Rose Dombegh

Also, I study religion and your descriptions of psychedelic experiences sound quite similar to experiences I + colleagues have had when immersed in religious texts

Jade

“Christians love Jesus, Buddhists love lists” - my favorite Buddhist joke

rozwisehart

my cat was dead asleep and at the meowed hymn she awoke, shot her head up, and stared at the speaker until it was done

Annabell Knajder

I’d love to see you and HealthygamerGG talk again, especially about this stuff, since he’s pretty much an expert on meditation and yogic philosophy (he is/was a monk in India for 7 years I think) and recently he’s been talking more about consciousness and spirituality on his YouTube memberships! :)

Lenore Roca

1. Why is th e lemurian channeler dressed like captain kirk?

Nassim Tanha

I started meditation, not as a practice of spirituality, but there was a period in my life were my anxiety was so out of control and debilitating that I tried everything and anything I could to remain functional. And some of those things stuck. One of those things (beside classic therapy and medication) was meditation. I learned that in that context, even failing at meditation is helpful. Meaning the act of getting distracted by thoughts, catching myself and bringing my focus back to my breathing repeatedly has the effect that it creates even the tiniest distance between me and my thoughts. I am not my anxiety, I am not my anxious thoughts. I am me and these are my thoughts or feelings in this moments. This, however minor was revolutionary in the state I was in. The constant panic state I was in was making me just exist as anxiousness, if that makes sense. It brought me some clarity and some brief moments of relief. It has become a part of my morning routine. I feel very unsettled if I don't do a 10 minute meditation every morning. How grounded I feel during or after on any given day is vastly different. Sometimes I find it easier to concentrate and bask a bit in stillness. Sometimes it's a mess of me just daydreaming for 10 minutes. But I would say it was very beneficial to my mental health. In turn this has become my window into some sort of spirituality. Since I come from Iran, there is a big literary reservoir in my head of Sufism and I make up my own spirituality. Beyond this, I am super non-religious. I just have these little pockets of stillness, which I interpret as some form of spiritual experience.

Ryz

I think Natalie would enjoy reading The Five Spirits by Lorie Eve Dechar. It has its own woo-woo bits but it does two really interesting things. First it breaks down how language gets in the way of a western understanding of Taoist Alchemy, because when we hear the word “Element” we usually think of a discrete category describing a specific substance, but when this word is used in Taoism to talk about fire, water, wood, metal and earth; it is describing parts of a process, which is fundamentally distinct. Which is an enjoyable brain twist to engage with. But secondly and perhaps more importantly this book draws a lot of connections to psychology and emotionality from the perspective of an acupuncturist who doesn’t really differentiate between mind and body. There’s one absolutely fascinating case study where the writer is working with a man who is struggles with anger, and helps him access his pain with a piercing question about how often he is allowed to grieve, and at no point in the interaction is acupuncture even involved. Which as a social worker myself was a mind blowing moment of “Wait, why did I assume my field of psychology and emotionality would be separate from these concepts because western thought separates it from medicine?” I don’t generally tell anyone they have to buy what any book is telling them wholesale, but it’s an interesting read.

Asocksual

I'm tempted to disagree with the idea that all humans need meaning or spirituality to some degree, because I am very staunchly an atheist and I do not believe in the supernatural. But there are certain philosophical values I hold that could arguably be considered spiritual. I believe that the universe and everything in nature was NOT made just to please/support humans and we shouldn't act like it is or expect it to serve us, I believe that humans are NOT exceptional as a species and that we should be more aware of the fact that we are a kind of animal and try to have more appreciation for and respect towards other animals, and I believe that it is extremely important for one to attempt to understand and perhaps even love that which ones fears. The first belief comes from my love of insects and how annoyed I get when people say stuff like that wasps or mosquitos are useless- that's both not true and a conclusion drawn from an absurd premise. The second belief actually comes from science, here's a cool video examining and disproving human exceptionalism: (https://youtu.be/Eb-x6Xg5Fk8?feature=shared). The third belief is connected both to the fact that I like bugs and weird fungi and the fact that a lot of bigotry comes from fear of being threatened by the Other. It is imperative, I think, for us to push through or sit with discomfort caused by people who are different than us and understand and appreciate them rather than allowing our fear to control us and drive us to cruelty. Overall I'd say I follow a system of positive nihilism and respect for curiosity and understanding over fear... but not one that sees fear as something one should fight so much as something that just is.

Asocksual

Ooh, I already knew and loved that Sagan quote bit I didn't know the other one. That's also super good

Asocksual

I actually feel the same way! I like the feeling of freedom and possibility offered by no meaning, and I've never felt like I was missing something. I think it's probably a personal thing, you and I don't need that but others do, and that's okay.

Taeschi

it is nonetheless the better translation

Kelly Chartier

I wish I had these kinds of discussions at parties. Then maybe I'd actually go to some.

Seiya

My Theory of Knowledge teacher played What The Bleep Do We Know, uncritically, for a bunch of 16 year olds....

Lauren Shear

I loved your discussion of the Bach piece! It is absolutely exultantly beautiful. I'm in the camp of "only the perfection and majesty of nature or the heights of artistic achievement - especially music - can make me feel the presence of something like the divine." Not to be basic, but this is why I listened to Beethoven's 9th and The Who's Baba O'Riley over and over as a teenager. I always fantasized about being able to be in a classical choir, and I still mourn that I'll never be a good enough singer to be part of creating that the transcendent beauty. I would love to see a post about the other pieces of music that bring you that transcendent feeling. I love getting recommendations from people who really know a certain genre of thing and are passionate about it.

Liv

2020 rlly was the year of unrequited love, addiction, and turning to the tao te ching for comfort/enlightenment, huh?

DaniloDaSelva

Beautiful comment. I've always felt that music and (to a lesser degree) other forms of art in a way substitute transcendence for me. Never was able to believe in anything that's claimed to be absolute, but music at least invokes a comparable feeling within me. I'm a classically trained musician and despite having no ear for the word of God or gods, at some point I discovered that actual liturgical music usually moves me more than anything else. If you'd like to have some recommendations (liturgical and not): - To me, there's a sense of deep spirituality in a lot of compositions by Johannes Brahms. I especially love his piano compositions. Check out Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118 No. 2, it's one of the most beautiful pieces I'm familiar with. Also, 10 Choral Preludes BV B 27. (These are piano arrangements of chorales composed by Bach.) - Arvo Pärt also speaks to me. He's an explicitly Christian composer but that doesn't prevent his music from being wildly popular within a secular audience. Littlemore Tractus is my favourite composition by him. - Then there are the great composers of the Renaissance period. Sicut Cervus by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrine is beautiful. Some more fringe recommendations: - One of my favourite composers isn't well-known at all: Frederic Mompou. He was influenced by Impressionism in the vein of Claude Debussy but has developped a completely unique style. To me, his music feels more spiritual in a "Zen-Buddhist" way than anything else. He once noted that his aim is to compose music which, paradoxically, is a manifestation of silence. To me that's best perceived in Musica Callada. It's a music from the void, minimalist and haunting. - There's a medieval composer who always has an immediate meditative effect on my mind: Perotinus. He's actually one of the first two Western composers who are known to us by name. Viderunt Omnes and Sederunt Principes are among his best-known works. If you're open to Modernist music even though it can be a bit straining: - Lux Aeterna by Györgi Ligeti - Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus by Olivier Messiaen

Michaella Cipriani

If you've always dreamed of joining a classical choir, join a choir! Learn to sing! Church choirs are a pretty accessible (and free) ways to learn how to sing. Singing isn't a talent you're either born with or not. It's a skill that's learned just like painting or knitting or playing soccer. It takes time, but you will make progress every time you show up and try.

Jana Drápelová

Thank you for this! I’m a former Christian struggling with losing a belief system and this was insightful and gave me some pointers where to look.

Charlie Wilde

I’m a refugee from a Lutheran church worker family who dropped Christianity after consuming significant amounts of grad school literary study, a small but non trivial measure of studies in epistemology, quite a bit of LSD, and a book that sought to explain zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. I’m now a piano teacher, and I play Bach everyday. I love what you have to say and feel extremely seen. Thanks for being you, Nat

Charlie Wilde

Oh, and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is indispensable. You should read it.

phastinemoon

Anyone else find her description of being on acid and watching the rain… just enthralling?

Gnome Choomsky

"spirituality to me is about cultivating distance from the ego..." WHOOPS! 💀💀💀

Gnome Choomsky

You can't say that the scientific view doesn't account for consciousness, morality, purpose, or meaning! Jordan Peterson is already out here saying all that shit! What we need is to BUILD the sciences of consciousness, morality, purpose, and meaning! Science is not merely what Karl Popper said it was! It doesn't have to be patriarchal/paternalistic! It's not about truth handed down from on high! Anyone can discover truth for themselves! That is science! That is what science is! Discovering truth! It doesn't matter what kind of truth! If you can use it to discover truth, that's what makes it science! We need to look at the search for truth in terms of practical results! Not conformity to some orthodoxy! 👀👀👀

Gnome Choomsky

Natalie! I experienced the eclipse last year like a medieval peasant might have, and it was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life! 👀👀👀

Gnome Choomsky

To back up what Girard says, you can see that what we call "civilization" requires human sacrifice from the myth of the founding of Jericho, where it says the founder sacrificed his firstborn son at the laying of the foundation and his lastborn at the setting of its gates. Construction is a dangerous job 💀💀💀

Gnome Choomsky

If the solution to "dukkha" is "awakening," that means it does have a solution, even if the solution is not "political" 👀👀👀

Derek

jordan peterson is an idiot lol

Derek

???

Peter Manougian

natalie if astrology isn’t real explain how azealia banks donald trump and kanye west are all geminis…!

Leeasle

Love this tangent!!

Leeasle

I liked it when you talked about what the “I” is and the theory that the different “I’s” of ourselves is already dead - I had a psychotic episode a year ago which was really bad and scary, and I’ve been struggling to feel like myself after that. Always thinking that I want to be “my old self” again. The perspective in this video was so soothing for me because if my old self is already dead it means I’ll never be myself before psychosis again, but it also means that myself that was psychotic is also dead and I can instead try to look forward and not backwards🥹love you.

nope

Id like to recommend John Verveake for that sort of scientific inquiry. Peterson likes to pick out juicy bits of cog psych when it suits him, which can be interesting, but he is absolutely on a political crusade and regularly twists facts to make you think whatever is convenient for him.

nope

It is bottom up so societal change. We make the world a better place by making ourselves better people. Not unlike some anarchist philosophy that you change society by changing the man.

nope

Re: No Self. In my tradition it is always taught as the dual concepts of Emptiness and Dependent Origination applied to yoursslf. So... Dependent Origination = all things/concepts/entities/whatever depend on other things for existence. Nothing has independent existence and all things are made of parts that are distinct. Emptiness = nothing has an essential essense. Due to all things being made of parts and relying on other causes and conditions to exist, nothing really contains its own identity. All identity is relational and transient, all identity is a simplification of reality made by the mind. Apply this to yourself: what you call "you" is a conceptual construct that in reality has no essential essence and there are absolutely no hard boundaries between you and the rest of the world.

nope

Re: meditation and opiates of the masses. Buddhism haa absolutely been used as a tool to make people concede to terrible conditions. We often refer to the modern form of this as McMindfulness. The solution is the Sangha part of the Buddhist practice. Being actively engaged with other practitioners and taking a vested interest in their lives and suffering is supposed to make you engage deeply with life. My monk says that meditation and mindfulness is supposed to make you dive into life deeply, and if you are dissociating and avoiding lifes problems you are Vegetating not Meditating. I know you're not into lists, but the 8fold path ks very well designed. Its hard to engage in right livelihood in a broken society, if you take that part lf the path as seriously as you take Right Concentration you have no choice but to engage meaningfully in improving the world.

nope

Ok last one, re: your original and unique idea of the Middle Way. Your final argument genuinely isnt thay far off the Buddhas argument. He came from a sect of ascetic monks who would frequently starve themselves to death in persuit of spiritual perfection, who fully withdrew from life. He rejected this. He was also in a culture where the primary alternative was what passed as a lifestyle of excess back then, in which material success was the primary goal. The middle way was literally the way between these two extremes. Eg: he stated that the entirety of the spiritual path was good friendship. he wasnt into self punishment and auffering, and he wasnt into isolation.

Rose Dombegh

The thoughts at 41:55 about receptivity being healing in times of distress are ... much needed right now, I'm afraid.

Lisa D

Tangent about Jung? You seem to be…well not a fan from various asides, and I’m curious as to why?

Ashley Knowlton

I disagree, I find it endearing and relatable. I'm not sure where exactly she did this here though, so forgive me if I end up talking past you. I feel there is more honesty in being able to show humility and vulnerability especially in a world otherwise filled with pompous, righteous, arrogant speakers who must always pretend to know everything and have all the answers. Like yeah, endless qualification is tiring, but so is "always right" discourse (and the hilariously long tail of self-contradictions we see noted about people who engage in it). Plus I think it opens the door to sharing thoughts or potentially giving birth to new ideas without having to always be prepared to rigorously defend them. Isn't that in some ways kind of related to the point of the tangents? I think the maximalist take on confidence and assertiveness in communication that seems to be the dominant expectation in culture (American at least) strikes me as problematic (and dare I say patriarchical?). I think we should value expressions of doubt or uncertainty. I know resurrecting this old comment is cringe, but..lol. Have a nice day!

Piotrrr

Fantastic

demlet

Max out my Amazon credit to get the hänssler complete Bach cantatas, got it. Thank you for the spiritual guidance, guru.

demlet

It's all just making Barbies kiss. - The Buddha, probably

PloubleUno

25:00 I really thought you were going to say Russell Brand

Ari

This is like the 400th comment on a two-year-old video, but I felt obliged. As someone who has experimented with psychedelics and was plucked from imminent death by ketamine back in the day...we really need to be careful with this stuff for mental health. You will find no bigger champion of these substances than me, but I recommend them with lots of caveats. Getting access in the first place is a minefield. Even if you're going the (expensive) legal route, there is no shortage of luxury rehabs or overpriced "spirit guides" out there very eager to separate vulnerable people from their money. When you do find the real deal, you're still ingesting a substance that is specifically designed to induce neuroplasticity. Great, for the most part - but if you wind up unlocking ~some shit~ and don't have adequate preparation/integration during the process, you could end up making yourself worse. A controlled trip in a secure setting and a "spontaneous" trip with friends you only kind of like produces such drastically different effects that you might as well be taking different substances. Idk I'm sort of selfish because my bimonthly maintenance shots keep the Fourth Horseman at bay and every time I read about someone getting screwed up in the news I fear a larger crackdown. But really, we need to put the same metaphorical black box on these that we put on any other psych med. Anything that puts you in touch with the "universal Oneness" should not be taken lightly.