Michael Zittel 💙
@michaelzittel.bsky.social
🔔 Contemplative Sentinel 🏔️ Trauma-focused Therapist 📿 Applied Buddhist Psychology 🪷 Dharma teacher 📜 Neurospicy Writer building bridges between societal healing & liberation. Never again isn’t a slogan. It’s a vow. https://michaelzittel.substack.com
My New Substack drop explores the Rogue Sage,its initiations, and the vow it demands of us now. Freedom is one fire: inner liberation, social liberty. Awakening and justice are the same breath. #RogueSage #SpiritualEmergence #WiseResistance open.substack.com/pub/michaelz...
Rogue Sage: Awakened Archetype For Our Moment
They stand where fracture meets horizon.
open.substack.com
I think that since the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are cisgender men, we should take their guns first.
For LA contemplatives 🌿 Rogue Wisdom: Wired for Awakening Awakening isn’t far away — it’s already wired into the nervous system. Join me for an open class exploring the body’s natural pull toward liberation. All are welcome. #RogueWisdom #Meditation #Awakening #LosAngeles
“Steady progress on Rogue Wisdom: Awakening in Times of Collapse. Just crossed the halfway point — 5 chapters down, 5 to go. On track to finish this year 🙏 ⚡️ #RogueWisdom #Awakening #Buddhism #Meditation #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #CollapseAware #BookInProgress
Heading into teaching retreat today. We’ll sit in silence, track the breath, watch the self try to rebuild itself—and let it fall quiet again. Not chasing anything. Just remembering what the body already knows. Grateful for the chance to listen that deeply, together.
Between ICE’s attacks on our communities, particularly targeting Latino populations & SCOTUS new ruling that could revoke protections of birth rite citizenship that could effect millions, Here are some affordable resources in the LA area: 🏛️ Nonprofit & Pro Bono Legal Aid. 🧵
“Conscientious compassion is not a mere passive sympathy with the suffering of others, but an active commitment to stand up against systems of oppression and to pursue alternatives conducive to the general good.” www.lionsroar.com/commentary-p...
Commentary: Protecting Human Dignity from the Threat of Moral Nihilism
In Vietnam for the UN International Day of Vesak in Ho Chi Minh City from May 5-8., Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi gave the May 6th keynote address. His topic: “Protecting Human Dignity from the Threat of...
lionsroar.com
1. RIGHT-WING INFLUENCE AS WRONG EFFORT When energy feeds hatred, it’s not strength—it’s sickness rehearsed as righteousness. Thoughts about pro authoritarian media and what it cultivates as direct contradictions to the path of awakening.
Happening now. Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi giving a presentation on Abhidamma (Buddhist Psychology) www.youtube.com/live/jhGRIjl...
Back to the Roots: Mapping the Mind through Abhidharma with Bhikkhu Bodhi
YouTube video by Tergar Meditation Community
youtube.com
Late-stage capitalism feeds on despair. Authoritarianism grows where meaning withers. We need a new story. Read: Social Dharmacracy open.substack.com/pub/michaelz...
Social Dharmacracy: Reclaiming Democracy in an Age of Authoritarian Capitalism
A spirituality that is only inward-looking, disengaged from social concerns, can easily be co-opted to support the status quo.
open.substack.com
RFK Jr. wants a national autism registry. Track the “abnormal.” Store the data. History screams a warning. This is how genocidal systems begin.
"A sickness known as hate. Not a virus, not a microbe, not a germ — but a sickness nonetheless, highly contagious, deadly in its effects. Don't look for it in the Twilight Zone — look for it in a mirror. Look for it before the light goes out altogether." — Rod Serling
Since RFK says autistic people don’t write poetry, I offer haiku: 1. RFK speaks loud— facts run screaming from the room. Science files a suit. 2. Autism, he claims. Yet it’s empathy that’s lost— not our dignity. 3. Autism, he mocks. Yet we build worlds from silence. He just sells the noise.
Autistic people aren’t broken—they’re brilliant, creative, and part of our collective past, present & future. RFK’s harmful rhetoric erases our humanity and ignores the real work: building a world where neurodivergent people are supported, included, & empowered. ❌ Scapegoats ✅ Solidarity
Inspired by Shinzen Young, who spoke of a book inscription that read, “Be the master of no position,” this drifts along that notion — the freedom that stirs when hands release their grip, when the weight of title and tether slips free, and the self stands unbound. open.substack.com/pub/michaelz...
Be the Master of No Position
Stand nowhere.
open.substack.com
“A group is a lie” ..often attributed to Emerson (though no proof he said it). Still, it reflects his and Thoreau’s philosophies, which emphasize self-reliance, personal integrity, and skepticism toward collective identities that suppress individuality.
Worth the read. An apt analogy for who Trump is in the context of history
Żen Ťrixter ❌ 👑 🐸@zentrixter.bsky.social · last yr.🔔 Quisling :: Hitler As 🔔 Trump :: Putin Makes more sense than past analogies, reframes authoritarian influence beyond invasions into ideological & systemic subjugation. Watch video & read thread 🙏 *Thanks Amy Shira Teitel @amyshirateitel.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/oHlYy...
Camus saw fascism as a moral failure—rejecting reason, justice, and freedom for brute force. True rebellion affirms life; fascism betrays it through oppression.
In 1906, Gandhi launched his first satyagraha campaign, a philosophy of nonviolent resistance rooted in truth and moral force. Not passive protest, but relentless, soul-powered defiance against oppression, proving real strength lies in principle, not brute force. www.history.com/this-day-in-...
America should go president-less for the next four years and just work on ourselves. Hit the gym. Read more. Explore some hobbies. Only once America loves itself will it be ready for a president.
"The Sutras say Fudo has no fixed abode, abiding in the heart of all beings. Why do we need a wrathful fierce form of the Cosmic Buddha? Because the middle way includes all aspects, soft and fierce." open.substack.com/pub/seigaku/...
Is It Real?
What's Real?
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