what is abiding?

[Busmum]

i found this over on the "moving Dudeism forward" thread, and i edited it a bit:

... Dudeism isn't about spilling so much ink (pixels?) to TALK about a belief system and how to evangelize the rest of the world, and find meeting places. Shoosh, I seen that fail a few times before. Here we are, once again, the "haves" and the "have-nots", cause we're supposedly so enlightened. Religion is un-dude.

It's LIVIN' it that makes you a dude. Hence the word "abiding". If yer a livin' example of it, people will be attracted to you and ask questions. Abiding will spread on its own. "Grass roots" I think they call it where I come from. Otherwise, them folks lookin' at all this chatterin' from the outside will tend to tell you to shut the fuck up, 'cause yer just makin' noise....

many thanks, hominid, for a fantastic conversation starter! 

you do have an excellent point about modeling behavior, and in fact i've gotten a bit of needling from some of my work mates for an abiding attitude towards the usual workplace drama; the interesting thing is how the hatefulness of the office drama has subsided a bit in the time that i've been there, imo.

as far as all the chatter goes though, this is how we meet and exchange ideas-- we are all spread out world-wide, and so must consider the forum as our local watering hole, coffee shop, pub, etc.-- i'm all for a grass-roots movement, and this is how we do it these days.

so... at work, at home, while commuting...how do we abide by example in our lives? 

[apnp]

...hmmm, should I be peelin' the Dudeist fish sticker off my rear window, or is low-key marketing still dudeable?  Not that I'm a mere follower, mind you, but it does make leading by example more caricaturable...

[cckeiser]

It's just like my opinion...
Abiding isn't Dudeism...It's Abiding on it's own terms...without the Lebowski influence of Dudeism.
Abiding is more Tao then it is Dude. It's about gently allowing your Qi to flow through life...neither being too much...nor too little.
Too slow and you get mired in the mud...too fast and you crash against the rocks.
Abiding is the Middle way...to gently float through life.

[cckeiser]

...hmmm, should I be peelin' the Dudeist fish sticker off my rear window, or is low-key marketing still dudeable?  Not that I'm a mere follower, mind you, but it does make leading by example more caricaturable...

You can be both...a Dudest and an Abodeist...and even a Lebowskist...if that's the way you roll.
I am often all 3...depending...

[forumdude]

Maybe Abideism is to Dudeism what Zen Buddhism is to Buddhism? The pure experience of Dudeness without the vehicles?

I was reading a transcript of an excellent audiobook called "Religions of the Axial Age" by Mark Muesse, and the part on Buddhism is especially interesting. I was reminded just how much Buddhism evolved from a method of liberation towards a metaphysical doctrine. Luckily Zen hung out in the shadows and followed Buddhism from India to China, Japan, and then the West, providing an offramp from the increasingly chaotic and crowded freeway of thinking too much. Of course, Zen became saddled with its own rules and ritual too.

Anyway, my point is, maybe Abideism could be a hermetic sect of Dudeism, a far more serious one  which protects the peaceful, unironic core of Dudeism. Just a thought.

[cckeiser]

Maybe Abideism is to Dudeism what Zen Buddhism is to Buddhism? The pure experience of Dudeness without the vehicles?

I was reading a transcript of an excellent audiobook called "Religions of the Axial Age" by Mark Muesse, and the part on Buddhism is especially interesting. I was reminded just how much Buddhism evolved from a method of liberation towards a metaphysical doctrine. Luckily Zen hung out in the shadows and followed Buddhism from India to China, Japan, and then the West, providing an offramp from the increasingly chaotic and crowded freeway of thinking too much. Of course, Zen became saddled with its own rules and ritual too.

Anyway, my point is, maybe Abideism could be a hermetic sect of Dudeism, a far more serious one  which protects the peaceful, unironic core of Dudeism. Just a thought.

Dudeism Is the Tao of The Dude in The Big Lebowski...you embedded them together...we cannot separate them without destroying Dudeism.
Abideism is at the core of Dudeism, but it is Not Dudeism. Abideism is what The Dude does...but it is not The Dude.

The Map is not the territory.
 

[apnp]

...indeed, perhaps the ironic core of Dudeism is the most abiding aspect of its appeal... otherwise, if we are to expose the Tao of Dude, we must rather be Tudeists, yes?  Irony keeps the rug flat.  ... ehm, okay, don't know what that means...

[cckeiser]

Maybe Abideism is to Dudeism what Zen Buddhism is to Buddhism? The pure experience of Dudeness without the vehicles?

Oops...Sorry Ollie...that's what you said.
Yeah, it's Dudeness without The Dude! Well put.

[apnp]

Is it then essentialism?  It seems to me that Dudeism needs The Dude lest it wander into the mysts of ... ummm ... not human things?

EDIT:  Ok. Abideism doesn't need The Dude, but it needs dudes... or rather, Abideism doesn't need, but Abideists need to be Dudes, and Abideism is not even nominal without dudes who can name it as such, or not.

[cckeiser]

Is it then essentialism?  It seems to me that Dudeism needs The Dude lest it wander into the mysts of ... ummm ... not human things?

That is what we are saying...Dudeism needs The Dude...Abideism does Not.
Abideism is what The Dude does.
Abiding is what makes The Dude...The Dude, but it is Not The Dude.

[apnp]

Right, I think my edit captured that, or not... But is there Abiding independent of any dude (and I include cats and birch trees as potential dudes here)?

[Rev. Ed C]

Hmm... what to say for my first post apart from...

I'm not sure why I'm admin here

I'm not exactly Zen, I'm more about the living of the life, although I am into the philosophising (no, not the pontificating, as has been suggested ).

I'm not down with "evangelising", in fact I'm dead against it (in spite of what people might think).  I wasn't down with some of the evangelising went down in Edinburgh, and I myself refused to profer flyers, I just held them so interested folks could take them and ask my smiling, hairy mess of a face what was what.

I'm not about removing Lebowski from Dudeism, I'm about not playing up to it so much, so I guess a stronger Abideist movement of philosophy would lessen the Lebowskiism, making a more abiding, less parodying version of Dudeism... but I'm certainly not an advocate of pure Abideism without the loose, freeflowing concepts we've built on in Dudeism.

I don't really see myself being called an Abideist instead of a Dudeist, I just don't say Church of the Latter-Day-Dude.  I don't preach, in fact I don't even mention Dudeism unless asked about myself and my way of thinking (which often differs from the norm).

I might have said, if you were looking for someone to take Abideism into a proper branch, that Busmum is your dude, and someone like Spacedog, who's more knowledgeable about the wider tennets of these philosophies/religions.

I'm just an ideas/concepts man who likes to philosophise on life.  I'm not an authority figure (although I am a top-notch admin guy) and to be honest, I seem to be have become a bit of a controversial figure of late.

So, that's where I roughly stand, and why I'm not sure I'm the man to Admin these boards.  But, I have to go to work soon, and I'm not taking my notebook in today, so... I'll catch up on all this later!

[Andrea Da Fino]

At the risk of being not a golfer, and given that it's almost a year that I don't wander into the forum so I've lost a bit of the conversations, what's the point about Abideism and Dudeism? That is, are we splitting hairs here?

If I've understood it right Dudeism is based on its three pillars and Abiding is one of the three. Dudeism is the body and abiding is one of its legs, so to speak. Dudeism as a religion isn't based on The Big Lebowski so there is no need to detach from the movie, if the term is correct. For now the Dude is the best example of Dudeism but with time it can also happen that another character better expresses the tenets of Dudeism. I mean abiding is one of the things that makes a Dude a Dude.
If things gets complicated everything can go wrong, and we don't want to follow the tracks of other religions who went uptight right? And begun flashing irons or bowling balls on the lane. I mean I've become a Dudeist at least one year before seeing the movie so maybe that's why I don't see a literal connection between the movie and our beloved religion and no need to separate Abideism from Dudeism. Someone can abide without being a Dudeist but you can't be a Dudeist if you don't abide. Am I wrong?

Sorry for being a kind of park ranger dudes. 

[Busmum]

...hmmm, should I be peelin' the Dudeist fish sticker off my rear window, or is low-key marketing still dudeable?  Not that I'm a mere follower, mind you, but it does make leading by example more caricaturable...

but if you like your sticker...why would you do that?

[Busmum]

At the risk of being not a golfer, and given that it's almost a year that I don't wander into the forum so I've lost a bit of the conversations, what's the point about Abideism and Dudeism? That is, are we splitting hairs here?

If I've understood it right Dudeism is based on its three pillars and Abiding is one of the three.

i don't think of it as splitting hairs, but i do see your point. i think of abideism of more like a specialty, not a separate concept...an outgrowth of the conversation of where dudeism is headed, which got very passionate, indeed over the last few weeks.

Dudeism as a religion isn't based on The Big Lebowski so there is no need to detach from the movie, if the term is correct.

well... if what you're saying is, it isn't intended as a movie-cult religion, then i think you are right-- the basic ideals of dudeism predate by thousands of years in some cases, and are updated for today's populace by using the idea of this modern character from a movie as a vehicle. 

but it does get taken as a movie cult, and these discussions branched off as a way to explore what all the ins and outs mean to some of us... not just in the iconography, but the egalitarian and gender issues, as well.

sorry-- gotta cut it short    time to go feed the monkey