Buddism

Head Full of Ghosts

by

If you’ve done any form of meditation or therapy you know about those complexes in your mind. The fears, the obsessions, the habits that take over so much of our life, probably more than we want to admit.

It’s like having a head full of ghosts.

These aren’t the cool ghosts either. There’s no dramatic revelations of the past or lineage. They aren’t some vital spirits directing us to a better life after three disparate visions. None of these ghosts is delivering useful advice. Not a single one resembles Patrick Swayze.

Honestly, these ghosts in our head, these habits and neuroses, are boring and pathetic.

They’re mechanical and repetitive. They run on tracks burrowed into our mind, clockwork-clicking along whatever path set out by our past experiences. They are powerful, they are annoying, but they’re also not that interesting or unique. The reruns of the soul.

They’re often quite pathetic. A bad experience here, a grudge there, something we didn’t acknowledge in the past. Even the horrible ones are sad, the results of our bad choices or the cruelty of others. There’s something invalid about them, and we fear, about ourselves.

They’re damaging. They hurt us, obsess us, misdirect us, but not in any cool way. They’re often stupidly self-destructive – of ourselves and even themselves. They negate themselves yet always resurrect.

But worse of all these Ghosts, these complexes and obsessions of the past are so empty.

There’s nothing to them. No acknowledgement of reality, even when reality triggers them. They don’t grow. They aren’t relevant even if perhaps they once had reason to exist. When we acknowledge them, their shallowness is stunning. Here we are, people, and we have to share our head with these phantoms.

It’s humiliating. These mechanical, harmful, phantasms drive so much of our life and don’t deserve to. I once read someone discussing the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and decided to translate what is usually interpreted as craving as humiliation, and I get that.

I find looking at this emptiness, this voidness of our complexes helps me deal with them. When you see their shallowness and pointlessness, you can overcome them. Not necessarily by great exertion or cultivation (though it may help) but by just seeing through them and deciding to move on.

They seem to shrink when you do that. Probably because your attention and ignorance was the only thing keeping them going.

–Xenofact

The Blind Hunger of Nothing

by

As I write this in 2025, I’ve become fascinated by the amount of people in our culture that are Performative (capitalization intended). They want attention, internet clicks, regard, and engagement, so therefore do whatever gets them that. The Influencers, many a politician, no small amount of media personalities, and way too many social media addicts are Performative; some seem to be only Performative.

OK actually all of those kinds of people are Influencers. Anyway, let’s go on

A peculiar thing I keep noticing among these people for whom Performance is a lifestyle, is the only thing in their life, is an anger that burns inside them. It seethes beneath the surface, it bursts out in conflict far beyond something for attention. It’s seen in the glowering, contemptuous eyes and the edge in the voice that disregards most everyone if not everyone.

I’ve wondered as to the nature of this anger, as there are times it seems outright inhuman. The Performative people are all image, all anger, and in some cases seem barely human. There’s an emptiness there.

So, let’s talk desire.

Desire is the cause of suffering, a we are all too aware from our studies of psychology, Buddhism, Taoism, or just being alive and unhappy. Dealing with desire is a major part of mystical and not-so mystical practices.

Desire cannot truly be sated, it always comes back. It can be satisfied temporarily, perhaps enough for regret or enough to move on. One may recognize the temporary nature of the satisfaction and employ that awareness for wise choices. However many desires have at least the illusion of satisfaction, and in turn there’s some chance of definition.

We want to get laid. We want a drink. We want to get that promotion. Desire has at least some definition, even if we’re deceiving ourselves.

But for those who are Performative, I think satisfaction is elusive. You may engage in Performative behavior to make money or sell something, but the Performative nature can overtake your life. Some people just want the attention – or end up that way – and their entire lies are just about putting on the act to get the clicks, the praise, what have you.

The desire for attention is inherently unsatisfying. It’s temporary, it has to always been maintained, and it’s easily challenged. It also doesn’t relate to anything. You may become Performative to achieve some other goal, but your goal is to be someone else for people you don’t know to get ephemeral attention in order to get advertising dollars or something. You end up abstract from your goals – to achieve solid goals you must be epehmeral.

And that’s if there’s even much of a goal beyond a desire for attention.

I think the Very Performative people are so angry because there is nothing that can satisfy them even temporarily. The become only an act, without even the solidity of the illusion that they can feel satisfaction. They exist as pure performance, always on, always for the ephemera of attention, always empty.

Imagine walking around knowing you are nothing inside. Whatever was there rotted away as you worked on The Performance. You can’t even feel right. Even your anger is just a bitter resentment of everything because you’re nothing.

This insight is helping me understand the Very Performative, that look in their eyes, their instability, their sudden outbursts. They’re a giant yawning gap of desire with no chance of satisfaction because they’re empty of even something to desire. Their a ghost haunting the empty house of their own lives.

–Xenofact

McMindfulness: Aware In The Dark

by

I picked up McMindfulness by Ronald E Purser when I saw it at a store, right after it had been mentioned on a podcast.  I’d heard of this look at the “mindfulness industry” and how repurposed stripped-down Buddhism was used to basically serve capitalism.  So I picked it up, read it, and found that my summary was a little too genteel.  So let me review the book – and heartily recommend it.

The book starts by looking at how, over the decades, mindfulness exercises taken in part from Buddhism had become big business in seminars and corporate advice.  The core idea is that you become more aware of your actions (and reactions) and thus mindful, are not as troubled by the world because you are so aware.  You’ll notice, by the way, it stops there – you just learn to navigate the world better as opposed to asking “why am I so stressed out?” and “why do things suck?”

The author, a Buddhist himself, walks through the Mindfulness Industry and shows how widespread it is but also how useless it is.  Since the industry is firmly lodged in neoliberal capitalism, it has no interest in fixing the system it’s in – which often causes the problem.  In fact, seeing how Mindfulness has become a corporatized product illustrates the problems of our economic and culture – which the Mindfulness Industry can’t and won’t solve.

During this tour, Purser notes firmly and intelligently that this separated selfish pseudo-self awareness misses out on Buddhism’s teachings on community, compassion, and responsibility.  The Mindfulness Industry doesn’t just take a few bits of Buddhism, it outright excludes the social elements of the religion and its teachings.  It couldn’t include them since then they’d basically be selling something that wouldn’t fill those big corporate conferences – and worse.

Because, Purser goes in depth more than I expected on mindful politics, war-waging, and more.  We’re so used to the “mindfulness” stuff we might not realize how far it’s penetrated, showing up in banal political speeches and efforts that desensitize people in the name of “not being reactive.”  Even if you pay attention to this stuff, you may be surprised beyond your capacity for cynicism.

Purser also speculated on how McMindfulness produces a selfish, separated, almost abstract sense of self.  I can see echoes of the prosperity gospel and online conspiracy theories in his speculations – both ways to seek wealth and self-aggrandizement, but without any responsibility or even real transformation.  If anything, I think there’s more to study in this area.

He does see hope – or ways – to free Mindfulness from its current corporate shackling.  So it’s not a hopeless book – it’s one carried by a kind of passionate loving rage.  So yes, you’ll get angry Buddhist when you read this.

A firm recommendation for seekers like ourselves.

-Xenofact