Tangent: Spirituality
Added 2024-07-26 18:14:57 +0000 UTCHi 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
Comments
Tangent about Jung? You seem to be…well not a fan from various asides, and I’m curious as to why?
Lisa D
2025-11-14 16:23:46 +0000 UTCThe thoughts at 41:55 about receptivity being healing in times of distress are ... much needed right now, I'm afraid.
Rose Dombegh
2025-10-22 22:52:27 +0000 UTCOk 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.
Rob Barnatt
2025-10-07 07:21:22 +0000 UTCRe: 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.
Rob Barnatt
2025-10-07 07:10:44 +0000 UTCI 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.
Leeasle
2025-09-09 12:27:21 +0000 UTCLove this tangent!!
Leeasle
2025-09-09 12:09:29 +0000 UTCnatalie if astrology isn’t real explain how azealia banks donald trump and kanye west are all geminis…!
Peter Manougian
2025-08-02 05:29:05 +0000 UTCIf the solution to "dukkha" is "awakening," that means it does have a solution, even if the solution is not "political" 👀👀👀
Gnome Choomsky
2025-07-31 21:10:10 +0000 UTCOh, and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is indispensable. You should read it.
Charlie Wilde
2025-06-16 07:00:30 +0000 UTCalso, I think you’d find this very compelling - https://www.parallax.org/product/transformation-at-the-base/ - it’s nothing at all like the rest of thich nat hanh’s writing. It’s a technical and thorough Buddhist psychology. I think you’d dig it.
Charlie Wilde
2025-06-16 06:54:20 +0000 UTCThank 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.
Jana Drápelová
2025-05-27 22:43:37 +0000 UTCBeautiful 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
DaniloDaSelva
2025-05-17 00:14:26 +0000 UTC2020 rlly was the year of unrequited love, addiction, and turning to the tao te ching for comfort/enlightenment, huh?
Olivia B.
2025-04-24 01:38:36 +0000 UTCI 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.
Lauren Shear
2025-04-14 22:08:13 +0000 UTCMy Theory of Knowledge teacher played What The Bleep Do We Know, uncritically, for a bunch of 16 year olds....
Seiya
2025-04-09 23:22:24 +0000 UTCI wish I had these kinds of discussions at parties. Then maybe I'd actually go to some.
Kelly Chartier
2025-03-30 15:28:01 +0000 UTCI 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.
Nassim Tanha
2025-02-19 10:04:14 +0000 UTC1. Why is th e lemurian channeler dressed like captain kirk?
Lenore Roca
2025-02-06 19:26:17 +0000 UTCmy cat was dead asleep and at the meowed hymn she awoke, shot her head up, and stared at the speaker until it was done
Roz May
2025-01-21 06:08:03 +0000 UTC“Christians love Jesus, Buddhists love lists” - my favorite Buddhist joke
Jade
2025-01-15 19:54:04 +0000 UTCi'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
Meghana Bharadwaj
2024-08-26 12:03:16 +0000 UTCDid you claim Aristótel's mosotes as your invention?
Yegua Mustaparta
2024-08-26 05:32:10 +0000 UTCLets goooo! Im ready to be fixed
Albertyna Varga
2024-08-11 21:09:55 +0000 UTCI 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.
Johnny B. Goode
2024-08-11 03:05:34 +0000 UTCI 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
Oliver G
2024-07-26 19:29:13 +0000 UTCCheers, 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.
Andrew May
2024-07-26 19:28:59 +0000 UTC
