We might hit up Slovenia then that is really close to Germany after all.
I have never tried squatting, and I am very interested. I have heard there are lots of good squats in Europe. Wouldn't hurt to check them out. If you have any first-hand experiences to share about it. i love listening to that kind of thing.
I do not have much to say on the monk side of things. I am interested if you want to elaborate further.
Awesome
I dont have any first hand experience from an established squat, but aquatting in Ljubljana is very interesting. You can basically scout the entire "scene" in one day. A massive effort is being put forward by the municipality in recent years to clean up everything that is abandoned so most of it is gone now (I remember 10-15 years ago it was no mans land, you could do whatever you wanted and no one cared) all the squats got evicted and demolished, so the scene is dead now
Finding an empty corner of the city is mostly in half built abandoned buildings or half built mid-build projects now
the rest got sold and rebuilt and demolished, hundreds of properties if not more
but there is still hope outside of the capital, there you can find manors, castles and entire industrial zones, factories, buildings, houses, and you can actually choose, find something decent, that isnt just concrete walls and a floor.
There are a ton of squats here in the EU I want to visit them too ⭐
On the monk side of things, its kind of about meaning and purpose I suppose, what is the goal for the energy you spend in your life, I find great comfort and safety in aligning myself with a spiritual path, it doesnt feel empty and meaningless like dopamine and sensual pleasures do. You can inject good feelings into your mind forever, but at some point you do start to question why thats necessary and what the defition of happiness is.
My path went from the hedonic (mainly escapism) over to eudaimonic idea of happiness (self growth/self-actualization), and from there beyond to Buddhist philosophy which critically analyzes how the mind works and why we even need to find safety in abstract ideas and concepts, why cant we just be happy with what is. What this burning fire of desire and craving actually is.
Maybe it sounds more radical in text, in reality its simply observing the precepts, virtue and sense restraint. Not giving the mind free reign to assert its own assumed ideas of what this and that is basically, you restrain that impulse and zoom out a bit to the context in which these ideas and assumtions arise, to see what the conditions, the conditioning you reinforced from your habits. Its very fulfilling, once it all comes together and you start to see and understand the path to happiness 💕
but yeah, studying the mind, its fascinating
what is your experience on these areas? which idea of happiness do you go with, what do you find meaning and purpose in?
these are the questions my search for peace has lead me to I always find it interesting to ask fellow non-normative souls
