Zen.Buddha.Tao
@indybuddhist.bsky.social
Objective & genuinely purposive spirituality in plain & simple English, underpinned by scepticism & Western philosophical ideas. (University of London.)
https://petereastman.substack.com/ (always free to read)
https://medium.com/@peter-eastman
https://petereastman.substack.com/ (always free to read)
https://medium.com/@peter-eastman
‘The Buddhas say that Enlightenment cannot be attained because there is nothing to attain.’ Yes but you need first to attain the ‘unattainable’ to realise that truth; you are not ‘already a Buddha’ as your ordinary dumb self, as taught by various utterly moronic New Age sects.
October 28, 2025 at 3:43 PM
‘The Buddhas say that Enlightenment cannot be attained because there is nothing to attain.’ Yes but you need first to attain the ‘unattainable’ to realise that truth; you are not ‘already a Buddha’ as your ordinary dumb self, as taught by various utterly moronic New Age sects.
Philosophy - that is, using your intellect to maximum effect on received ideas - is a preparation (if you're lucky) for metaphysics - ie exploring the furthest reaches of existence; and if you can get that far, consolation (in life) is trivial; alcohol will do just as well.
September 25, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Philosophy - that is, using your intellect to maximum effect on received ideas - is a preparation (if you're lucky) for metaphysics - ie exploring the furthest reaches of existence; and if you can get that far, consolation (in life) is trivial; alcohol will do just as well.
Adult spirituality starts here: abandon/shelve all beliefs & received ideas about God, Life, the Universe, everything & simply ask yourself: ‘what is existence?’ & ‘is there anything wrong with things as they are?’ Don’t turn to received ideas & dogma: look & see for yourself!
September 14, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Adult spirituality starts here: abandon/shelve all beliefs & received ideas about God, Life, the Universe, everything & simply ask yourself: ‘what is existence?’ & ‘is there anything wrong with things as they are?’ Don’t turn to received ideas & dogma: look & see for yourself!
Went into the kitchen & found I had forgotten to buy peanuts for my vodka blowout. Idiot! Life ruined! Worse, I should have been reflecting on deep spiritual metaphysics, not raging over f*king peanuts. So? Thoughts, from most infantile to utterly divine are just more thoughts.
August 15, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Went into the kitchen & found I had forgotten to buy peanuts for my vodka blowout. Idiot! Life ruined! Worse, I should have been reflecting on deep spiritual metaphysics, not raging over f*king peanuts. So? Thoughts, from most infantile to utterly divine are just more thoughts.
Ground (base) yourself (intellectually) not with theories & doctrines & likes but rather with what you can see with your own mind’s eye; & if you can’t see anything, it’s because your education was defective & you were never taught how to think for yourself. But it’s never too late: start today.
July 27, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Ground (base) yourself (intellectually) not with theories & doctrines & likes but rather with what you can see with your own mind’s eye; & if you can’t see anything, it’s because your education was defective & you were never taught how to think for yourself. But it’s never too late: start today.
QM, string theory, relativity &c; those who look to physics for an 'insight into reality' need to grasp that science is wholly unrelated to ultimate human existential needs & concerns (fulfilment, insight, enlightenment) & might just as well be regarded as misleading gibberish.
July 23, 2025 at 8:08 AM
QM, string theory, relativity &c; those who look to physics for an 'insight into reality' need to grasp that science is wholly unrelated to ultimate human existential needs & concerns (fulfilment, insight, enlightenment) & might just as well be regarded as misleading gibberish.
Zen/Ch’an began in China as a core version of Buddhism- enlightenment only- nothing else. Idea was basic meditation could do it, but meditation activates imaginings & soon semi-psychotic states= enlightenment. Clarity of mind crucial for metaphysical quest, not idiocy.
petereastman.substack.com
petereastman.substack.com
July 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Zen/Ch’an began in China as a core version of Buddhism- enlightenment only- nothing else. Idea was basic meditation could do it, but meditation activates imaginings & soon semi-psychotic states= enlightenment. Clarity of mind crucial for metaphysical quest, not idiocy.
petereastman.substack.com
petereastman.substack.com
To engage meaningfully with metaphysics, you genuinely need to want to know what 'your being' can tell you about the ultimate meaning of existence. You have to be able to observe, explore & analyse objectively & impartially all aspects of mind. (Hard work; not for everyone.)
July 10, 2025 at 7:30 AM
To engage meaningfully with metaphysics, you genuinely need to want to know what 'your being' can tell you about the ultimate meaning of existence. You have to be able to observe, explore & analyse objectively & impartially all aspects of mind. (Hard work; not for everyone.)
‘What’s the point of existence?’ can’t be resolved by identifying a feature of experience (mind, evolution, God, physics &c) & then explaining it causally in those terms; if the mystery is to be settled at all, something wholly unknown & unexpected & other will have to 'occur'.
July 4, 2025 at 7:12 AM
‘What’s the point of existence?’ can’t be resolved by identifying a feature of experience (mind, evolution, God, physics &c) & then explaining it causally in those terms; if the mystery is to be settled at all, something wholly unknown & unexpected & other will have to 'occur'.
Basic choice (since Big Bang!?) between faith & belief (received ideas) or believing in nothing & taking life as it comes. But why not explore objectively – using intellect & observation– the features of experience itself & see if the mystery of existence can perhaps be resolved?
July 3, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Basic choice (since Big Bang!?) between faith & belief (received ideas) or believing in nothing & taking life as it comes. But why not explore objectively – using intellect & observation– the features of experience itself & see if the mystery of existence can perhaps be resolved?
Are we all worshipping the same God? Allah, Ganesha, Jesus, Baphomet? If God doesn’t know what I want/ need/think & has to be told (by me)=wow! If God does, why clutter the airwaves with junk? But can a Big Cheese answer the ultimate question: what’s the point of God? (No point.)
July 2, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Are we all worshipping the same God? Allah, Ganesha, Jesus, Baphomet? If God doesn’t know what I want/ need/think & has to be told (by me)=wow! If God does, why clutter the airwaves with junk? But can a Big Cheese answer the ultimate question: what’s the point of God? (No point.)
Religious faith is about how to save poor ‘me myself & I’ from a dreadful annihilation. But if we closely observe experiencing itself, we can easily see that ‘me myself & I’ are mere items in the mix & are not its ultimate constituents. So any key to existence must lie elsewhere.
June 30, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Religious faith is about how to save poor ‘me myself & I’ from a dreadful annihilation. But if we closely observe experiencing itself, we can easily see that ‘me myself & I’ are mere items in the mix & are not its ultimate constituents. So any key to existence must lie elsewhere.
Achtung! Ultimate question is NOT ‘how do I please God?’ but rather ‘what’s the point of all this (including any God)?’ ie what’s the point of existence itself? What’s the ultimate point of this endless flow of experience? With serious questioning, God becomes very trivial.
June 20, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Achtung! Ultimate question is NOT ‘how do I please God?’ but rather ‘what’s the point of all this (including any God)?’ ie what’s the point of existence itself? What’s the ultimate point of this endless flow of experience? With serious questioning, God becomes very trivial.
Nobel physicists/neuroscientists: get to work on theorising about ‘the hand’! an incredible organ which can make things, play music, gesture, allude; surely the result of collapsing invisible crystal microtubules & god knows what other wonderful fancies; fame awaits your genius.
June 19, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Nobel physicists/neuroscientists: get to work on theorising about ‘the hand’! an incredible organ which can make things, play music, gesture, allude; surely the result of collapsing invisible crystal microtubules & god knows what other wonderful fancies; fame awaits your genius.
How does ‘spirituality’ work? Use the intellect to shelve thoughts of adolescent self-obsession & sentimental religiosity & explore objectively how experience presents itself to you. Why? So you can see clearly what the 'problem with existence' is & where a solution might be.
June 18, 2025 at 11:27 AM
How does ‘spirituality’ work? Use the intellect to shelve thoughts of adolescent self-obsession & sentimental religiosity & explore objectively how experience presents itself to you. Why? So you can see clearly what the 'problem with existence' is & where a solution might be.
2 kinds of 'SOUL'; 1) a specific spiritual 'gift' granting us access to love, God, virtue, &c; this is an imaginative fantasy reifying biased ideas 2) a psychological propensity for deep imaginative experiencing both positive & negative; not everyone has this but it is very real.
June 7, 2025 at 8:21 AM
2 kinds of 'SOUL'; 1) a specific spiritual 'gift' granting us access to love, God, virtue, &c; this is an imaginative fantasy reifying biased ideas 2) a psychological propensity for deep imaginative experiencing both positive & negative; not everyone has this but it is very real.
‘God’: an imagining + feelings + yearnings - & being only an idea, everyone thinks their version of God is supreme. In our culture 'God' emerged from the ancient ravings of some truly despicable & likely psychotic Jews & Arabs of the sort we often see on TV. C’mon guys seriously?
May 29, 2025 at 7:29 AM
‘God’: an imagining + feelings + yearnings - & being only an idea, everyone thinks their version of God is supreme. In our culture 'God' emerged from the ancient ravings of some truly despicable & likely psychotic Jews & Arabs of the sort we often see on TV. C’mon guys seriously?
Impossible fact for the 'big brains' to grasp: human existence begins (& ends) with ordinary experiencing, & not with atoms, QM, spacetime curvature, evolution, God, the brain, or similar invisible fancies. Imaginative phantoms fill our minds, yet they explain nothing. Puzzling.
May 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Impossible fact for the 'big brains' to grasp: human existence begins (& ends) with ordinary experiencing, & not with atoms, QM, spacetime curvature, evolution, God, the brain, or similar invisible fancies. Imaginative phantoms fill our minds, yet they explain nothing. Puzzling.
Bizarre though it may seem, meditation (supposedly ancient spiritual ‘mind control’) is delusional & a total waste of time. Why? b/c all it does is encourage the imagination to run wild; how do we know? Talk to long-term meditators & discover their lack of insight into anything, notably meditation.
May 26, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Bizarre though it may seem, meditation (supposedly ancient spiritual ‘mind control’) is delusional & a total waste of time. Why? b/c all it does is encourage the imagination to run wild; how do we know? Talk to long-term meditators & discover their lack of insight into anything, notably meditation.
(Free book) Advanced Buddhist Metaphysics: Exercises in Sceptical Spirituality
A ruthless approach to all things spiritual & mystical, including Buddhism (!) Download here:
petereastman.substack.com/p/advanced-b...
Or better still (underpriced!) paperback from Amazon:
amazon.de/dp/B08VYLP3NY
A ruthless approach to all things spiritual & mystical, including Buddhism (!) Download here:
petereastman.substack.com/p/advanced-b...
Or better still (underpriced!) paperback from Amazon:
amazon.de/dp/B08VYLP3NY
May 14, 2025 at 7:13 PM
(Free book) Advanced Buddhist Metaphysics: Exercises in Sceptical Spirituality
A ruthless approach to all things spiritual & mystical, including Buddhism (!) Download here:
petereastman.substack.com/p/advanced-b...
Or better still (underpriced!) paperback from Amazon:
amazon.de/dp/B08VYLP3NY
A ruthless approach to all things spiritual & mystical, including Buddhism (!) Download here:
petereastman.substack.com/p/advanced-b...
Or better still (underpriced!) paperback from Amazon:
amazon.de/dp/B08VYLP3NY
Idealism – the theory that everything is ultimately 'mental' – is existentially worthless (ie pointless) because at best it only ever offers a partisan redescription of experience as we already have it. If everything is eternally ideal, how come existence is such a nightmare?
April 30, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Idealism – the theory that everything is ultimately 'mental' – is existentially worthless (ie pointless) because at best it only ever offers a partisan redescription of experience as we already have it. If everything is eternally ideal, how come existence is such a nightmare?
Spirituality is about about attempting to resolve – decisively – the mystery of the totality of existence. To make a start, you have to learn to THINK slowly, carefully & objectively. Groovy New Age mysticism is not the way to go. You’ve got to apply yourself. Not so easy, but it’ll be worth it.
April 22, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Spirituality is about about attempting to resolve – decisively – the mystery of the totality of existence. To make a start, you have to learn to THINK slowly, carefully & objectively. Groovy New Age mysticism is not the way to go. You’ve got to apply yourself. Not so easy, but it’ll be worth it.
As usual (since the very beginning of human history) we depend on other people to think for us, along the lines of 'omniscient QM (etc) guru, look though my eyes & tell me what I see'; so yes, feel sorry for me, as I for you: tell me what I need to see so that I can see what I need to see.
April 20, 2025 at 5:41 PM
As usual (since the very beginning of human history) we depend on other people to think for us, along the lines of 'omniscient QM (etc) guru, look though my eyes & tell me what I see'; so yes, feel sorry for me, as I for you: tell me what I need to see so that I can see what I need to see.
An 'argument' (evolution, theism, atheism, materialism) no matter how convincing, is just a bunch of words pretending to be definitive; it's an enticement. Yet could a 'decisive argument' somehow capture a genuine ‘TRUTH'? Not if you really care; we're just eternally gullible.
April 8, 2025 at 7:16 PM
An 'argument' (evolution, theism, atheism, materialism) no matter how convincing, is just a bunch of words pretending to be definitive; it's an enticement. Yet could a 'decisive argument' somehow capture a genuine ‘TRUTH'? Not if you really care; we're just eternally gullible.
‘Spirituality’ is about resolving – decisively – the mystery of existence. To make a start, you have to learn to THINK (yes!) slowly, carefully & objectively, avoiding all forms of belief. Fog will then lift. New Age garbage about ‘all paths lead to a loving God’ is infantile.
March 26, 2025 at 8:47 AM
‘Spirituality’ is about resolving – decisively – the mystery of existence. To make a start, you have to learn to THINK (yes!) slowly, carefully & objectively, avoiding all forms of belief. Fog will then lift. New Age garbage about ‘all paths lead to a loving God’ is infantile.