Sometimes in these pages I am asked to speak as an authority on Buddhism. While I'm flattered at this, I also feel compelled to say quite honestly that I should not be regarded as any kind of expert. I am not a formal teacher of Buddhism, nor am I a veteran of lengthy meditation retreats that have given me the keys to the Absolute.
My practice is that of an amateur in every sense, and while it's true that I've avidly studied these subjects for a long time, it would be a mistake for anyone to see me as anything but a serious beginner.
While there are many various spiritual traditions that interest me, Buddhism has always held a special appeal for me. Partly this is because there is an intellectualism to Buddhist study that appeals to my need for cerebral exercise, and partly it's because Buddhism has a clean coolness and clarity that I find to be an enormous relief and antidote to the fiery emotional winds that once dominated my life.
But if pushed to really define why I see myself as a Buddhist, the reason can be summed up by one single experience.
About 15 years ago, one Saturday morning saw me shopping at a local indoor retail center in Minneapolis, a relatively avant guarde section of town known as Uptown. In one of the upstairs galleries at the shopping center, I came upon a pair of Tibetan Buddhist monks working on an elaborate geometric mural painted with colorful sands, known as a mandala. The exhibit was sponsored by some American-Tibet exchange program, and the room was sparsely decorated with a simple Tibetan alter with some small shrine objects, but it was extremely simple by most standards.
Mandala artwork is a well-known craft in Tibet. These large sand "paintings" are created on the floor, by artisans who sit cross-legged on the floor, applying the dyed sands to outlined patterns with tools that most closely resemble those pastry bags that bakers use to apply fancy frostings to wedding cakes. Sometimes the designs are purely geomentric; sometimes they resemble landscapes or other natural scenes. The artist sits cross legged, hold the nozzle of the bag where he or she wants the sand to fall, then gently taps on the metal tip so a fine layer of sand drifts down and covers the wood base. A variety of nozzles are used, depending on the relative coarseness or fineness of the design.
In can take days, weeks, or even months for a mandala to be completed, depending on its complexity. Ultimately, this is an exercise in understanding the temporary nature of existence, since the artwork is never preserved, but is soon cast to the winds or allowed to wash away in a river.
On this particular morning, the two young monks were nearing completion on the mandala; a small flyer announced that in a week, the mandala would carefully be carried down to the shores of Lake Calhoun and allowed to wash away. A number of observers came and went during the hour or so that I sat and watched the monks. Once, a man paused to ask me a question, a fact that puzzled me until I realized that the khaki trousers and Minnesota maroon sweatshirt I was wearing was very close to the saffron and gold robes the monks were wearing. I had by mistaken for some kind of tour guide or sponsor for the exhibit.
The work was painstaking, with the monks hunched over in a position that would have been agonizing for you or me. They were about three hours into a four-hour work session. Eventually, they'd be relieved by helpers.
Then a young family with two small children came into the gallery to watch, and something in me know that problems were brewing. The mandala could not have been any more delicate, and the boys were about 4 and 6 years of age. No genius was required to see what was coming.
The moment of disaster was both entirely innocent and quite dramatic. One of the young boys, as they sat off to the side to watch the monk, kicked off his boot---which sailed across the floor and smeared colored sands to all four corners of the compass, effectively ruining the portrait. Days worth of work were instantly ruined.
Now, I know that Buddhist monks were supposed to be patient and kind, but nothing prepared me for the response of these two young monks, perhaps 20, 25 years old. I would have supposed that even these fellows would have to wrestle with anguish and possibly impatience at seeing their work ruined. In my mind's eyes, I imagined that they'd struggle with a bit of anger, probably successfully fighting it back, then grinning and bearing it.
That's about the best I'd have hoped for for myself, on my very best day. But even though I was watching with utmost intensity, I saw not the least flicker of dismay in either of these young monks at seeing their hard work demolished in a moment. Instead, one of the monks simply asked for the boy's name, then lettered his name in finely scripted colored sands on the floor of the gallery using his bag of slendidly colored sands. The boy was at first startled at not being scolded in any way, then lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw his name emerge on the floor.
I watched the monks for another hour, long after the family left. When I finally stood up to leave, one of the monks stood, and bowed to me with a smile as I left. I wasn't asked for any contribution, wasn't handed flowers, didn't receive any literature asking me to join the club.
As I looked back through the storefront glass, the monks were already back at work, in intent and joyful concentration on a task they well knew was entirely ephemeral.
That day, I knew that I'd very much like to be like those monks. If not in this lifetime, then perhaps in another.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Morbid (Mortal) Thoughts, part 1
Philosophically, I'm pretty well adjusted to the truth of human mortality.
What I mean is that, on the intellectual plane, I really don't see much reason to worry about death. It doesn't really scare me much, and the reason for this isn't because of some kind of mental parlour game I play with myself. For example, I don't somehow imagine that I'm going to heaven, and thus have nothing to fear from death. Nor do I have a concrete intimation of reincarnation, which might help me avoid the fear of death. I don't insist that such a possibility doesn't exist; but I don't have any evidence that it does, either. It would be cheating to console myself with such mythology.
No, I know full well that the person I am now will come to an end one day, completely, and when the subject comes up for discussion, I don't really feel too much angst over it. Others my age sometimes talk about feeling younger, more alive, than they ever have before. Frankly, I"m pretty sure this is nothing more than a mind game they're playing with themselves. If you have any degree of self awareness whatsoever, you can't help but witness the truth of our decline.
In point of fact, life can be a somewhat tumultuous, messy affair, and there are times when I actually quietly look forward to the end of all the tumult, an end to the constant sensory barrage that is life. I think that death may represent a well deserved rest.
Then again, I do have a pretty strong intimation that awareness is an energy inherent in the world itself, and while I'm pretty much willing to relinquish my petty human awareness one day, I'm also reassured by a strong sense that awareness as a universal force will simply gobble up my miniscule personality for recycling.
I often think of myself as compost—raw material that is currently serving as nutriment for my kids and perhaps my friends.
And when I look around at the world, I see no real indication that anything dies forever. Individuals die, sure, but they are always recycled in some form. This recycling is a reassurance and relief to me, and frankly I think it is a very fine thing that we don't go on forever. On my death bed, simply thinking about my kids will be pretty good reassurance.
That's my position intellectually, and I can argue it pretty damned persuasively.
Viscerally, though, deep in my gut, it's another matter entirely.
On that level, present a long way south of the brain, I'm not in the least bit happy about growing older, and like almost everybody, I have a strong wish to put it off as long as possible.
In a 20-year blink of an eye, I've gone from a young man to a solidly middle-aged man. In another 20 years, certain to pass even more rapidly, I'll be an old man by every possible definition.
I don't like this. Not even a little bit.
Arthritis has plagued almost every member of my family, and while it's come to me later than most, feet and ankles that could once walk for many, many hours without complaint, now feel the pain after a few hours of walking. My hands are thus far largely free of arthritis; but it has appeared in my left elbow, which becomes tender to the touch after a couple hours of gardening.
Yep. I'm in the process of decay, and I hate it.
(to be continued)
What I mean is that, on the intellectual plane, I really don't see much reason to worry about death. It doesn't really scare me much, and the reason for this isn't because of some kind of mental parlour game I play with myself. For example, I don't somehow imagine that I'm going to heaven, and thus have nothing to fear from death. Nor do I have a concrete intimation of reincarnation, which might help me avoid the fear of death. I don't insist that such a possibility doesn't exist; but I don't have any evidence that it does, either. It would be cheating to console myself with such mythology.
No, I know full well that the person I am now will come to an end one day, completely, and when the subject comes up for discussion, I don't really feel too much angst over it. Others my age sometimes talk about feeling younger, more alive, than they ever have before. Frankly, I"m pretty sure this is nothing more than a mind game they're playing with themselves. If you have any degree of self awareness whatsoever, you can't help but witness the truth of our decline.
In point of fact, life can be a somewhat tumultuous, messy affair, and there are times when I actually quietly look forward to the end of all the tumult, an end to the constant sensory barrage that is life. I think that death may represent a well deserved rest.
Then again, I do have a pretty strong intimation that awareness is an energy inherent in the world itself, and while I'm pretty much willing to relinquish my petty human awareness one day, I'm also reassured by a strong sense that awareness as a universal force will simply gobble up my miniscule personality for recycling.
I often think of myself as compost—raw material that is currently serving as nutriment for my kids and perhaps my friends.
And when I look around at the world, I see no real indication that anything dies forever. Individuals die, sure, but they are always recycled in some form. This recycling is a reassurance and relief to me, and frankly I think it is a very fine thing that we don't go on forever. On my death bed, simply thinking about my kids will be pretty good reassurance.
That's my position intellectually, and I can argue it pretty damned persuasively.
Viscerally, though, deep in my gut, it's another matter entirely.
On that level, present a long way south of the brain, I'm not in the least bit happy about growing older, and like almost everybody, I have a strong wish to put it off as long as possible.
In a 20-year blink of an eye, I've gone from a young man to a solidly middle-aged man. In another 20 years, certain to pass even more rapidly, I'll be an old man by every possible definition.
I don't like this. Not even a little bit.
Arthritis has plagued almost every member of my family, and while it's come to me later than most, feet and ankles that could once walk for many, many hours without complaint, now feel the pain after a few hours of walking. My hands are thus far largely free of arthritis; but it has appeared in my left elbow, which becomes tender to the touch after a couple hours of gardening.
Yep. I'm in the process of decay, and I hate it.
(to be continued)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Prophet in the Brothel of Iniquity
I lately find myself fascinated by the surging anti-religious mood in this country. It is both heartening and worrisome to me at the same time. I applaud the modern atheist assault on religious hypocrisy, especially in fundamentalist sects of all stripes. Religion has caused a great deal more problems than it has solved, it seems to me, so it's high time to set it in its place. But at the same time, I also worry about the atheists' denial of any kind of symbolic, spiritual life.
A number of the folks I've linked to in my list to the right are atheists, but the site I'd most recommend is Sacred Slut in the Temple of Reason. I recommend it not only because her site features one of the best layouts and great writing, but because its a blog that serves as a clearing house for lots of extremely reasonable voices in this community. It's also a site where I can occasionally play devil's advocate and actually get reasonable arguments rather than shouts.
Deep in Sacred's archives there is a post (read it here) in which she describes her "deconversion"--her move from a religious perspective to a secular, atheistic one. The story is that she came to a point where she began to shine the light of practical sense and reason on her beliefs, and found them wanting. Her investigation was a courageous one, and I admire her for it.
Except for one thing, Sacred's story is a lot like my own. Though my religious upbringing was different (I was raised a Lutheran), I too came to a point where I realized that the tenets of my religion were nonsense, and that I'd need to find truth elsewhere.
Sacred and I came to different conclusions, however. As she describes in her early post, Sacred came to the conclusion that there is no spirit, no reality separate from the body. Her conclusion was that everything commonly called mind or spirit or soul is in fact a manifestation of body, and that there is no supernatural reality separate from the physical.
But while I agree in the falseness of the religious premise, a similar investigation caused me to reach different conclusions from Sacred's.
The premise of the modern atheist is that all spiritual endeavor is inherently false. The belief is that what passes for mind or spirit in fact emanates from the physical. Our sensation of soul, in other words, is nothing more than a highly refined manifestation of matter.
My own investigations, on the other hand, continually point to another equally likely explanation: that the physical emanates from the energetic. What we know as "spiritual" in the end, simply refers to the realities we can't immediately see or grasp. The energy rather than the matter.
It's likely that neither Sacred nor myself is right or wrong. In the end, as Einstein showed, matter and energy are exactly the same thing.
And taking both meditation and daily vitamins is probably a better prescription for happiness than either one alone.
A number of the folks I've linked to in my list to the right are atheists, but the site I'd most recommend is Sacred Slut in the Temple of Reason. I recommend it not only because her site features one of the best layouts and great writing, but because its a blog that serves as a clearing house for lots of extremely reasonable voices in this community. It's also a site where I can occasionally play devil's advocate and actually get reasonable arguments rather than shouts.
Deep in Sacred's archives there is a post (read it here) in which she describes her "deconversion"--her move from a religious perspective to a secular, atheistic one. The story is that she came to a point where she began to shine the light of practical sense and reason on her beliefs, and found them wanting. Her investigation was a courageous one, and I admire her for it.
Except for one thing, Sacred's story is a lot like my own. Though my religious upbringing was different (I was raised a Lutheran), I too came to a point where I realized that the tenets of my religion were nonsense, and that I'd need to find truth elsewhere.
Sacred and I came to different conclusions, however. As she describes in her early post, Sacred came to the conclusion that there is no spirit, no reality separate from the body. Her conclusion was that everything commonly called mind or spirit or soul is in fact a manifestation of body, and that there is no supernatural reality separate from the physical.
But while I agree in the falseness of the religious premise, a similar investigation caused me to reach different conclusions from Sacred's.
The premise of the modern atheist is that all spiritual endeavor is inherently false. The belief is that what passes for mind or spirit in fact emanates from the physical. Our sensation of soul, in other words, is nothing more than a highly refined manifestation of matter.
My own investigations, on the other hand, continually point to another equally likely explanation: that the physical emanates from the energetic. What we know as "spiritual" in the end, simply refers to the realities we can't immediately see or grasp. The energy rather than the matter.
It's likely that neither Sacred nor myself is right or wrong. In the end, as Einstein showed, matter and energy are exactly the same thing.
And taking both meditation and daily vitamins is probably a better prescription for happiness than either one alone.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
I Hope, You'll Understand
A few days ago, an article I wrote here provoked more commentary—and intelligent commentary, at that—than anything I've written in the last year. And not only in blog-land, where the subject even found its way onto other blogs. In real life, too, discussions about the value and meaning of hope in human happiness found their way into lots of face-to-face discussions.
The premise of that article was this: I challenged the idea that hope is forever and always a prime human virtue. I suggested, in fact, that it can even be the driving force behind unhappiness.
It's easy to see why this was a controversial post. We have all been raised to believe that hope, along with faith and love and charity, is one of the very principle virtues by which people should live. It's in the Bible, after all. To say you're "hopeless" is thought to be represent the ultimate in discouragement and depression.
So at the risk of reigniting the firestorm, I'd like to address the subject again, and explain a little more about where my thoughts came from.
As tradition has it, we believe that hope is the force that brings positive change about. This is the standard logic, and it goes something like this: 1. We find ourselves in an unpleasant or painful situation. 2. This leads to hope—which we can define as a "visualization, or conception of a future situation which we will find more pleasant than the present one." 3. The energy of hope fuels action toward the hoped-for goal. 4. Upon achieving the desired goal, happiness is ours.
When we are happy, we generally assume it is because our hopes have been fulfilled.
But when I looked closely at myself, I began to see that this was not always the case for me. Sometimes, sure, it did work exactly that way. Confronted with a painful infection, visualizing, then seeking medical help, indeed led to a reduction of pain and more contentment.
But not always. Not even most of the time. Sometimes, all that really came for me was the faintest of rest periods before another round of hoping began. And then I began to see instances where the equation ran something like this:
1. I find myself with a hope, a desire, for something different. 2. This leads to dissatisfaction in the present circumstance, unhappiness. 3. I surrender hope (in the first instances, this was done somewhat experimentally). 4. I found that the here-now became much more immediate, more energizing. 5. I was considerably happier.
In other words, it was not an effort to change outer circumstances that brought about happiness. As often as not, it was the subtle inner adjustment that was far more necessary and effective.
This explained, in part, a most interesting phenomenon—the fact that happiness often seems to be largely independent of outer circumstances. On a day where I've arisen on the wrong side of the bed, there is nothing whatsoever uniquely awful about my circumstances, yet I might be mildly depressed and unhappy all day. But on other days, quite a lot of unpleasantness can occur, yet it doesn't really affect my general cheerfulness for life.
Or perhaps you, too, know a few people who will treat a simple rain shower as a personal insult to their happiness. And maybe you know other people able to live with cancer even while being exceedingly happy.
So what this all implies to me is that happiness isn't always about the outer circumstances.
Often, it's about the inner perception.
Those of you with strong beliefs in the traditional value of hope have a very legitimate comeback to this thesis. You might argue, for example, that if you simply tolerate every circumstance that happens to you, you will just wind up staying in situations that are demeaning, degrading, or even dangerous.
But it really hasn't worked out that way for me, and I'm certainly not recommending that we tolerate situations that are intolerable. That's stupidity. Faced with unpleasant circumstances, I always respond and react to them. But I'm not aware that hope is really present at all. In fact, taking action all by itself seems to eliminate the physical sensation of hoping. Responding to pain and suffering, it seems, doesn't require hope; it just requires practical sense and the surrender of inaction.
And it's been interesting to note that even the staunchest defenders of hope have told me that at those times when they are utterly happy and content, they're not hoping for anything at all. They are just thrilling to the moment.
Did they get there because their hoping has been successful? Or by turning loose of hope for a moment or two?
I have to tell you, with all honesty, that I'm happier when I'm not hoping.
The premise of that article was this: I challenged the idea that hope is forever and always a prime human virtue. I suggested, in fact, that it can even be the driving force behind unhappiness.
It's easy to see why this was a controversial post. We have all been raised to believe that hope, along with faith and love and charity, is one of the very principle virtues by which people should live. It's in the Bible, after all. To say you're "hopeless" is thought to be represent the ultimate in discouragement and depression.
So at the risk of reigniting the firestorm, I'd like to address the subject again, and explain a little more about where my thoughts came from.
As tradition has it, we believe that hope is the force that brings positive change about. This is the standard logic, and it goes something like this: 1. We find ourselves in an unpleasant or painful situation. 2. This leads to hope—which we can define as a "visualization, or conception of a future situation which we will find more pleasant than the present one." 3. The energy of hope fuels action toward the hoped-for goal. 4. Upon achieving the desired goal, happiness is ours.
When we are happy, we generally assume it is because our hopes have been fulfilled.
But when I looked closely at myself, I began to see that this was not always the case for me. Sometimes, sure, it did work exactly that way. Confronted with a painful infection, visualizing, then seeking medical help, indeed led to a reduction of pain and more contentment.
But not always. Not even most of the time. Sometimes, all that really came for me was the faintest of rest periods before another round of hoping began. And then I began to see instances where the equation ran something like this:
1. I find myself with a hope, a desire, for something different. 2. This leads to dissatisfaction in the present circumstance, unhappiness. 3. I surrender hope (in the first instances, this was done somewhat experimentally). 4. I found that the here-now became much more immediate, more energizing. 5. I was considerably happier.
In other words, it was not an effort to change outer circumstances that brought about happiness. As often as not, it was the subtle inner adjustment that was far more necessary and effective.
This explained, in part, a most interesting phenomenon—the fact that happiness often seems to be largely independent of outer circumstances. On a day where I've arisen on the wrong side of the bed, there is nothing whatsoever uniquely awful about my circumstances, yet I might be mildly depressed and unhappy all day. But on other days, quite a lot of unpleasantness can occur, yet it doesn't really affect my general cheerfulness for life.
Or perhaps you, too, know a few people who will treat a simple rain shower as a personal insult to their happiness. And maybe you know other people able to live with cancer even while being exceedingly happy.
So what this all implies to me is that happiness isn't always about the outer circumstances.
Often, it's about the inner perception.
Those of you with strong beliefs in the traditional value of hope have a very legitimate comeback to this thesis. You might argue, for example, that if you simply tolerate every circumstance that happens to you, you will just wind up staying in situations that are demeaning, degrading, or even dangerous.
But it really hasn't worked out that way for me, and I'm certainly not recommending that we tolerate situations that are intolerable. That's stupidity. Faced with unpleasant circumstances, I always respond and react to them. But I'm not aware that hope is really present at all. In fact, taking action all by itself seems to eliminate the physical sensation of hoping. Responding to pain and suffering, it seems, doesn't require hope; it just requires practical sense and the surrender of inaction.
And it's been interesting to note that even the staunchest defenders of hope have told me that at those times when they are utterly happy and content, they're not hoping for anything at all. They are just thrilling to the moment.
Did they get there because their hoping has been successful? Or by turning loose of hope for a moment or two?
I have to tell you, with all honesty, that I'm happier when I'm not hoping.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
A Mild Rant
I find myself in an odd position, culturally, with a foot in two very opposite worlds. Or maybe it's actually three different worlds that I don't fit into.
I read lots of blogs representing lots of different view points, engage lots of people in friendly discussions over coffee, but I've lately been a little disturbed by some of the hostility and apparent arrogance I encounter.
I'm curious about the religious literalists, though I don't understand this position very well. This group includes the creationist crowd, and virtually all fundamentalists, whether they be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist. What I most wonder about is how a person can live happily when a literal doctrine collides with common sense and evidence. I'm genuinely interested in how this works. I occasionally have tried to intelligently discuss these things on blogs hosted by Christians of this type, and I'm shocked by the hostile reaction There are some Christians who are meaner than any Ku Klux Klanner you'll ever see. I asked one blogger how he personally reconciled a hatred of gay people with the Christian injunction to love his neighbors... and was told that I was going to burn in hell most painfully for asking such a question.
But this doesn't mean that I fall neatly into the atheist club, because at the same time I reject religious literalism, I very strongly do believe in spiritual pursuit, and am frankly put off by the folks who act like science has all the answers. This crowd, to my way of thinking, has just substituted another false idol to the Jehovah they rail against. My instincts and my personal experience is that it's not a purely scientific approach, but a more symbolic and artistic life that leads to happiness. Such a suggestion, though, causes the apologists for science to be just as hostile and insulting as the fundamental Christians. I've been accused of ignorance by people who've never read Thomas Kuhn on scientific revolution. While I admire much of what Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins say, a great many of their followers seem to have no forward agenda at all, and are simply interested in fighting religion. And living your life purely to fight is not for me.
Then there are the new age group, with astral travel and angel collections and crystal therapy.
For some reason, this group seems to be the friendliest and least judgmental, but it is just a little too undisciplined for me to want join their club. A 30 year old once tried to explain why Tantra was THE answer, and how I was a pure fool for not seeing it. Tantra, he kindly explained to me, was developed in San Francisco in the 1960s. His source of information was not the ancient Hindu or Buddhist root texts that lay out the basis for Tantric study, but some web sites he had seen sponsoring tantric retreats in New Mexico. A month later, he had turned to relexology.
So having no natural membership in any of these clubs, I choose to study all these various traditions, and to compose a spiritual practice based on a synthesis of the symbolic truths I find underlying all of them. My heroes, in this regard, are people like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, for whom religious mythologies and civilized culture represented extremely real psychological truths about human nature.
Jung once suggested that humans would eventually evolve to a stage where the pursuit of science, religion, psychology and art would be exactly the same endeavor. Yeah, man. I can get behind that. Jung, for example, thought we should openly accept the belief in UFO visitors...as an interesting manifestation of group delusion.
So my shelves include The Bible, the Quran, the Bhaghavad Gita, the Origin of Species, Id and Ego, The End of Faith, and many other books that are all equally valuable works of art. They all represent humans trying to understand what evolution is aiming toward, what we should strive for. What a great thing that we're all looking for virtually the same thing. It's through the hearing many different interpretations that I think we get closest to the truth.
But for those of you who think that one of these books is somehow more valuable and true than all the others...
I fear you won't be very interested in this particular club. And sometimes I fear that it's a club with only one member.
I read lots of blogs representing lots of different view points, engage lots of people in friendly discussions over coffee, but I've lately been a little disturbed by some of the hostility and apparent arrogance I encounter.
I'm curious about the religious literalists, though I don't understand this position very well. This group includes the creationist crowd, and virtually all fundamentalists, whether they be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist. What I most wonder about is how a person can live happily when a literal doctrine collides with common sense and evidence. I'm genuinely interested in how this works. I occasionally have tried to intelligently discuss these things on blogs hosted by Christians of this type, and I'm shocked by the hostile reaction There are some Christians who are meaner than any Ku Klux Klanner you'll ever see. I asked one blogger how he personally reconciled a hatred of gay people with the Christian injunction to love his neighbors... and was told that I was going to burn in hell most painfully for asking such a question.
But this doesn't mean that I fall neatly into the atheist club, because at the same time I reject religious literalism, I very strongly do believe in spiritual pursuit, and am frankly put off by the folks who act like science has all the answers. This crowd, to my way of thinking, has just substituted another false idol to the Jehovah they rail against. My instincts and my personal experience is that it's not a purely scientific approach, but a more symbolic and artistic life that leads to happiness. Such a suggestion, though, causes the apologists for science to be just as hostile and insulting as the fundamental Christians. I've been accused of ignorance by people who've never read Thomas Kuhn on scientific revolution. While I admire much of what Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins say, a great many of their followers seem to have no forward agenda at all, and are simply interested in fighting religion. And living your life purely to fight is not for me.
Then there are the new age group, with astral travel and angel collections and crystal therapy.
For some reason, this group seems to be the friendliest and least judgmental, but it is just a little too undisciplined for me to want join their club. A 30 year old once tried to explain why Tantra was THE answer, and how I was a pure fool for not seeing it. Tantra, he kindly explained to me, was developed in San Francisco in the 1960s. His source of information was not the ancient Hindu or Buddhist root texts that lay out the basis for Tantric study, but some web sites he had seen sponsoring tantric retreats in New Mexico. A month later, he had turned to relexology.
So having no natural membership in any of these clubs, I choose to study all these various traditions, and to compose a spiritual practice based on a synthesis of the symbolic truths I find underlying all of them. My heroes, in this regard, are people like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, for whom religious mythologies and civilized culture represented extremely real psychological truths about human nature.
Jung once suggested that humans would eventually evolve to a stage where the pursuit of science, religion, psychology and art would be exactly the same endeavor. Yeah, man. I can get behind that. Jung, for example, thought we should openly accept the belief in UFO visitors...as an interesting manifestation of group delusion.
So my shelves include The Bible, the Quran, the Bhaghavad Gita, the Origin of Species, Id and Ego, The End of Faith, and many other books that are all equally valuable works of art. They all represent humans trying to understand what evolution is aiming toward, what we should strive for. What a great thing that we're all looking for virtually the same thing. It's through the hearing many different interpretations that I think we get closest to the truth.
But for those of you who think that one of these books is somehow more valuable and true than all the others...
I fear you won't be very interested in this particular club. And sometimes I fear that it's a club with only one member.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Somebody Else's Words, for a Change
I ran across this film clip tonight, and thought I would share it with you. It's a touch on the long side, but quite delightful and I think you might enjoy it.
It explains pretty clearly why some of us have received such help from Buddhist philosophy. This is a practice that is really nothing more than a rational study of the conditions of happiness, and I doubt you will ever hear anyone speak more logically than this Frenchman turned Tibetan monk.
Have a listen:
It explains pretty clearly why some of us have received such help from Buddhist philosophy. This is a practice that is really nothing more than a rational study of the conditions of happiness, and I doubt you will ever hear anyone speak more logically than this Frenchman turned Tibetan monk.
Have a listen:
I ran across this film clip tonight and thought I'd share it with you. It's a touch long, but it is quite a brilliant explanation of why Buddhist philosophy appeals to many of us.
This practice is essentially a down-to-earth study of the conditions of genuine human well-being, and I think you'll never find a man that speaks any more rationally than this Frenchman turned Tibetan monk. If you have a few minutes, have a listen:
This practice is essentially a down-to-earth study of the conditions of genuine human well-being, and I think you'll never find a man that speaks any more rationally than this Frenchman turned Tibetan monk. If you have a few minutes, have a listen:
Sunday, March 30, 2008
It is Hopeless
Sometimes, deep looking causes me to wonder about certain cultural assumptions we make. In recent years, one wide-spread assumption in particular seems to have a dubious benefit, at best. I'll apologize in advance, because I know to question this assumption will possibly upset some people.
I no longer think that "hope" is a particularly strong virtue.
In fact, I think a case can be made that "hopelessness" is, in fact, of stronger spiritual merit.
Now, I think that hope plays a perfectly fine role in helping people get through truly dreadful times, since it effectively tells us that nothing remains the same forever, and that this terrible moment will inevitably change into something else in the next moment.
But as I look around, it appears to me that there are many people who turn hope into a way of life. And when you look closely, it becomes evident that hope fits into the same family of human experience as dissatisfaction and regret. Hope, in effect, is the future tense, with dissatisfaction the present tense, and regret the past tense.
All three mind states are the result of disagreement with what is. Regret is disagreement with what was in the past, dissatisfaction is disagreement with the present, and hope represents a strange sort of dissatisfaction with our expectations for the future. We would not hope at all, were it not for our fear that the future will look exactly like the present.
The essense of hope is a desirous wishing for conditions to be other than what they are, and I don't know how, exactly, we have turned this into a culturally sanctioned virtue. Could there be anything less conducive to happiness than to constantly wish for things to be different?
It takes only a very slight shift in perception to see that there is virtue in hopelessness, because to be without hope implies a full, embracing acceptance of the present condition of things. In this moment, if I am without hope, it is because I have fully embraced the present and am responding to it automatically, without desire or aversion.
Desire and aversion, otherwise known as hope and resentment, don't in and of themselves accomplish anything. They are simply unhappy mind states, and in fact they exist because we cling to stasis rather than going with the flow of the universe. The antitode, it seems to me, is to fully and entirely inhabit our experience, our moment. To act, instead of hope.
An example:
Once or twice a week, I bypass the bus and walk home from work, which gives me a rather vigorous two hour hike of almost 6 miles. On this walk, I pass through a somewhat shabby area of town near highway overpasses where trash is often strewn about. Over the course of several walks, this stretch of two or three blocks caused me to feel disheartened and saddened by the selfish behavior of the human race.
Then one day, ahead of me, a girl on a bicycle acted in the most perfect manner. Coming across loose newspapers, she simply reached down, picked up a single piece of trash and threw it away. She clearly wasn't at all unhappy about it. It was simply the thing to do. One piece of trash.
I began to do the same. Coming across a cracked liquor bottle under the underpass, rather than fume about the selfish bastard who threw it from a car, I just picked it up and threw it away. It cost me no more time or effort, and my poor mind state was instantly relieved.
Responding automatically, intuitively, with simple logical action is perhaps all it takes to eliminate fear and resentment and longing and hope.
I no longer think that "hope" is a particularly strong virtue.
In fact, I think a case can be made that "hopelessness" is, in fact, of stronger spiritual merit.
Now, I think that hope plays a perfectly fine role in helping people get through truly dreadful times, since it effectively tells us that nothing remains the same forever, and that this terrible moment will inevitably change into something else in the next moment.
But as I look around, it appears to me that there are many people who turn hope into a way of life. And when you look closely, it becomes evident that hope fits into the same family of human experience as dissatisfaction and regret. Hope, in effect, is the future tense, with dissatisfaction the present tense, and regret the past tense.
All three mind states are the result of disagreement with what is. Regret is disagreement with what was in the past, dissatisfaction is disagreement with the present, and hope represents a strange sort of dissatisfaction with our expectations for the future. We would not hope at all, were it not for our fear that the future will look exactly like the present.
The essense of hope is a desirous wishing for conditions to be other than what they are, and I don't know how, exactly, we have turned this into a culturally sanctioned virtue. Could there be anything less conducive to happiness than to constantly wish for things to be different?
It takes only a very slight shift in perception to see that there is virtue in hopelessness, because to be without hope implies a full, embracing acceptance of the present condition of things. In this moment, if I am without hope, it is because I have fully embraced the present and am responding to it automatically, without desire or aversion.
Desire and aversion, otherwise known as hope and resentment, don't in and of themselves accomplish anything. They are simply unhappy mind states, and in fact they exist because we cling to stasis rather than going with the flow of the universe. The antitode, it seems to me, is to fully and entirely inhabit our experience, our moment. To act, instead of hope.
An example:
Once or twice a week, I bypass the bus and walk home from work, which gives me a rather vigorous two hour hike of almost 6 miles. On this walk, I pass through a somewhat shabby area of town near highway overpasses where trash is often strewn about. Over the course of several walks, this stretch of two or three blocks caused me to feel disheartened and saddened by the selfish behavior of the human race.
Then one day, ahead of me, a girl on a bicycle acted in the most perfect manner. Coming across loose newspapers, she simply reached down, picked up a single piece of trash and threw it away. She clearly wasn't at all unhappy about it. It was simply the thing to do. One piece of trash.
I began to do the same. Coming across a cracked liquor bottle under the underpass, rather than fume about the selfish bastard who threw it from a car, I just picked it up and threw it away. It cost me no more time or effort, and my poor mind state was instantly relieved.
Responding automatically, intuitively, with simple logical action is perhaps all it takes to eliminate fear and resentment and longing and hope.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Early Morning Thought
One day in the garden called Eden, Adam and Eve decided that they were tired of all things being true, and that they would prefer to decide for themselves what things were true. To this day, they're still arguing about who exactly had this brilliant idea first, but for all intents and purposes, we can say that they decided it together.
At the moment they said to themselves "we have decided that these are the true and good things," all the other things became, by definition, false and evil.
And with that realization, Adam and Eve grumbled to themselves and left the garden. They weren't thrown out; they left of their own choice, because Paradise didn't match their expectation of a flawed world.
They left a symbolic world where all things were true, going instead to a mundane, literal world where it was necessary to choose truth on a case by case basis. This is what they wanted for themselves. They also were looking for the first Macy's store, needing clothes to cover their naughty bits. The literal world is much colder than paradise.
And that's pretty much where we've been ever since. We suffer because we reject symbolic reality, where one thing can mean many things; and insist on literal reality where one truth must exclude the others. I'd argue that the mantra of the suffering human condition can be summed up in these words: "This, not that."
From time to time, a few people have been able to look back over the river from Literal Land to Symbolic Eden. They are, by and large, the artists, poets and mystics, although they actually come from many vocations.
As I look at my bookshelf this morning, I see some evidence of these symbolic thinkers. One shelf up on the left is the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas, where Jesus is quoted as saying "heaven is right here in front of them, but they know it not."
The literalists, though, intent on their one reality, banished these words from the collection that went into the Bible, insisting that no, heaven had to be a tangible, real place that IS NOT HERE. Also: the flood REALLY HAPPENED. It didn't represent the symbolic truth of period catastrophe and re-creation.
A few books down is a collection of writings from Meister Eckhart von Hochheim, the 13th/14th century German Christian mystic. In one of those sermons, Eckhart says, in effect "forget that literal virgin birth stuff. What we should realize is that to experience God, the truth, we must empty ourselves and become virginal in terms of competing beliefs. We must all become virgins, if the infinite truth is to take root in us."
But the literalists of the day, insisting on their one truth, very nearly had Eckhart executed for the expression of these most logical symbolic truths. Nope, Mary WAS a virgin. And this IS Jesus' corpuscles you are swallowing. How dare you suggest symbolism.
On another of my bookshelves is a volume of collected works by William Blake, containing a poem where he says that holy joy becomes ours when we "see the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour." Elsewhere he notes that "if the doors of perception where cleansed, we would see all things as they truly are——infinite." This is a perfect expression of symbolic life—living in a way where one thing means many things.
But the literalists, for whom an infinite universe is enormously threatening, have largely dismissed Blake as a diseased crackpot.
On the other shelf to the right of the window, there are all the books by Joseph Campbell. In The Masks of God Volume I, he makes the interesting observation that modern man has a more arid spiritual life than primitive peoples largely because we insist on literalness. The primitive tribesman doesn't really belief the spirit of his grandfather inhabits the tree standing outside the village; he doesn't really believe there are spirit voices in the sounds of water. But he finds that it makes him feel connected to the larger world, he finds the spirit of play nourishing to his soul, to enter into this playful "What if." The symbolic life is a more meaningful and rewarding life than a narrowly literal one.
Modern men, on the other hand, insist on that their beliefs must be more than beliefs, that they must be the one and only truth. No room for expansive symbolic truth, only the narrow literal pretense to truth. And their souls become spiritual deserts because of it.
When I scan my fellow modern men and women, I see something interesting. The happiest are those who have room for the symbolic life as well as the literal. I know a man once who recovered from serious mental illness—the kind that causes many to wind up carrying their belongings in a shopping cart. He acknowledges that he recovered when he found it possible to hold many realities at the same time. "I needed medical, scientific help, yes," he said. "But mine was also a psychological problem. And it was a religious problem. And a mystical problem.
"It wasn't one thing," he concluded. "It was—and is—all things."
At the moment they said to themselves "we have decided that these are the true and good things," all the other things became, by definition, false and evil.
And with that realization, Adam and Eve grumbled to themselves and left the garden. They weren't thrown out; they left of their own choice, because Paradise didn't match their expectation of a flawed world.
They left a symbolic world where all things were true, going instead to a mundane, literal world where it was necessary to choose truth on a case by case basis. This is what they wanted for themselves. They also were looking for the first Macy's store, needing clothes to cover their naughty bits. The literal world is much colder than paradise.
And that's pretty much where we've been ever since. We suffer because we reject symbolic reality, where one thing can mean many things; and insist on literal reality where one truth must exclude the others. I'd argue that the mantra of the suffering human condition can be summed up in these words: "This, not that."
From time to time, a few people have been able to look back over the river from Literal Land to Symbolic Eden. They are, by and large, the artists, poets and mystics, although they actually come from many vocations.
As I look at my bookshelf this morning, I see some evidence of these symbolic thinkers. One shelf up on the left is the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas, where Jesus is quoted as saying "heaven is right here in front of them, but they know it not."
The literalists, though, intent on their one reality, banished these words from the collection that went into the Bible, insisting that no, heaven had to be a tangible, real place that IS NOT HERE. Also: the flood REALLY HAPPENED. It didn't represent the symbolic truth of period catastrophe and re-creation.
A few books down is a collection of writings from Meister Eckhart von Hochheim, the 13th/14th century German Christian mystic. In one of those sermons, Eckhart says, in effect "forget that literal virgin birth stuff. What we should realize is that to experience God, the truth, we must empty ourselves and become virginal in terms of competing beliefs. We must all become virgins, if the infinite truth is to take root in us."
But the literalists of the day, insisting on their one truth, very nearly had Eckhart executed for the expression of these most logical symbolic truths. Nope, Mary WAS a virgin. And this IS Jesus' corpuscles you are swallowing. How dare you suggest symbolism.
On another of my bookshelves is a volume of collected works by William Blake, containing a poem where he says that holy joy becomes ours when we "see the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour." Elsewhere he notes that "if the doors of perception where cleansed, we would see all things as they truly are——infinite." This is a perfect expression of symbolic life—living in a way where one thing means many things.
But the literalists, for whom an infinite universe is enormously threatening, have largely dismissed Blake as a diseased crackpot.
On the other shelf to the right of the window, there are all the books by Joseph Campbell. In The Masks of God Volume I, he makes the interesting observation that modern man has a more arid spiritual life than primitive peoples largely because we insist on literalness. The primitive tribesman doesn't really belief the spirit of his grandfather inhabits the tree standing outside the village; he doesn't really believe there are spirit voices in the sounds of water. But he finds that it makes him feel connected to the larger world, he finds the spirit of play nourishing to his soul, to enter into this playful "What if." The symbolic life is a more meaningful and rewarding life than a narrowly literal one.
Modern men, on the other hand, insist on that their beliefs must be more than beliefs, that they must be the one and only truth. No room for expansive symbolic truth, only the narrow literal pretense to truth. And their souls become spiritual deserts because of it.
When I scan my fellow modern men and women, I see something interesting. The happiest are those who have room for the symbolic life as well as the literal. I know a man once who recovered from serious mental illness—the kind that causes many to wind up carrying their belongings in a shopping cart. He acknowledges that he recovered when he found it possible to hold many realities at the same time. "I needed medical, scientific help, yes," he said. "But mine was also a psychological problem. And it was a religious problem. And a mystical problem.
"It wasn't one thing," he concluded. "It was—and is—all things."
Saturday, March 22, 2008
That's What Friends Are For
Last week I got to hang out with a old friend that I haven't seen in more than a year. This friend, dear to me as a sister, has many of the same spiritual interests as do I, and so naturally this constitutes a lot of what we talk about.
Over coffee one morning, at one point she cocked her head and looked at me with a sort of bemused grin.
"What?" I said.
"Of all the people I know with some sort of serious spiritual practice," she said. "You might be the only one I know for whom the practice actually makes their life better, happier."
This statement both pleased me and saddened me. My friend almost certainly sees me as a little more serene and "together" than I actually am. I struggle mightily with insecurities and self doubts, though I have become kinder to myself in recent years. I catch myself behaving stupidly all the tim. But she is right in some ways: it is undeniably true that spirituality has made my life genuinely better, and this was the piece that pleased me--that the fact was obvious to others.
What saddened me was that the other half of the statement was also true. Lots and lot of people aren't really made better or happier by their spiritual practice at all, and this is truly a shame. And it suggests that something is wrong.
Quite a long time ago, I decided that the only legitimate goal of the spiritual instinct should be the pursuit of a genuine happiness and peace of mind, and it was perhaps this that my friend sensed in me. As we talked, though, we realized how many people we both knew for whom spirituality meant different things.
There are quite a lot of people, many of them participants in traditional church communities, whose traditions seem intent on convincing them of their loathsomeness, their shame. This was largely what the Lutherans wanted for me, all those years ago, and it was why I said no to that club. And in all the years since, I have rarely seen a Christian or Jewish worship service that didn't premise itself on the principle that humans are incorrigibly awful to start with. Nothing very happy in any of those places, at least that that I could see.
And we both knew people, many of them belonging to new age spiritual movements, who seemed to use spirituality to hide from their inherent unhappiness, changing directions frequently whenever the discipline of the month was no longer able to mask the truth. This kind of thing has been no more acceptable to me than the religions of damnation.
All this is largely why I tended toward the Buddhist philosophy a while back. Here, there was no deity, no real liturgy, only something that made common sense. For there is really only one prayer in all of Buddhism, and although the precise words vary, the idea expresses precisely what I believe:
"May all beings know happiness, and the causes of happiness."
I thought this expressed with brilliant simplicity what the spiritual instinct wants from our evolution, and thus that's the way I practice.
Spirituality for me, then, is actually rather scientific. The goal is to analyze the constituents of true happiness, to pursue behaviors that move us in that direction, and avoid behaviors that deter us from that goal. I have had moments that might rightly be called "mystical," but arriving there has always been a matter of following common sense and the logic of experience.
As we talked, I realized several things about the way I live (this is what good friends do for you: show you things about yourself).
First: I have gradually come to see that my times of unhappiness have largely been the result of attaching my identity to phenomenon that are inherently fleeting and impermanent. If I am not attached to one particular identity, I have nothing to defend and hence no loss to fear. And what sense is there in saying "That is me"? "That" changes in the very next moment, anyway, leaving "me" entirely in doubt.
Second: I learned that genuine, durable happiness had nothing to do with the pursuit of ecstatic excitement. It was not an easy lesson to learn, for I was something of an adrenaline junkie as a young man. Happiness for me, though, turned out to be equanimity and peace, not a pounding heart.
Third: Unhappiness always melts if I can introduce spaciousness into my experience. Suffering and unhappiness comes with the illusion that things are concrete. Space always brings happiness.
Over coffee one morning, at one point she cocked her head and looked at me with a sort of bemused grin.
"What?" I said.
"Of all the people I know with some sort of serious spiritual practice," she said. "You might be the only one I know for whom the practice actually makes their life better, happier."
This statement both pleased me and saddened me. My friend almost certainly sees me as a little more serene and "together" than I actually am. I struggle mightily with insecurities and self doubts, though I have become kinder to myself in recent years. I catch myself behaving stupidly all the tim. But she is right in some ways: it is undeniably true that spirituality has made my life genuinely better, and this was the piece that pleased me--that the fact was obvious to others.
What saddened me was that the other half of the statement was also true. Lots and lot of people aren't really made better or happier by their spiritual practice at all, and this is truly a shame. And it suggests that something is wrong.
Quite a long time ago, I decided that the only legitimate goal of the spiritual instinct should be the pursuit of a genuine happiness and peace of mind, and it was perhaps this that my friend sensed in me. As we talked, though, we realized how many people we both knew for whom spirituality meant different things.
There are quite a lot of people, many of them participants in traditional church communities, whose traditions seem intent on convincing them of their loathsomeness, their shame. This was largely what the Lutherans wanted for me, all those years ago, and it was why I said no to that club. And in all the years since, I have rarely seen a Christian or Jewish worship service that didn't premise itself on the principle that humans are incorrigibly awful to start with. Nothing very happy in any of those places, at least that that I could see.
And we both knew people, many of them belonging to new age spiritual movements, who seemed to use spirituality to hide from their inherent unhappiness, changing directions frequently whenever the discipline of the month was no longer able to mask the truth. This kind of thing has been no more acceptable to me than the religions of damnation.
All this is largely why I tended toward the Buddhist philosophy a while back. Here, there was no deity, no real liturgy, only something that made common sense. For there is really only one prayer in all of Buddhism, and although the precise words vary, the idea expresses precisely what I believe:
"May all beings know happiness, and the causes of happiness."
I thought this expressed with brilliant simplicity what the spiritual instinct wants from our evolution, and thus that's the way I practice.
Spirituality for me, then, is actually rather scientific. The goal is to analyze the constituents of true happiness, to pursue behaviors that move us in that direction, and avoid behaviors that deter us from that goal. I have had moments that might rightly be called "mystical," but arriving there has always been a matter of following common sense and the logic of experience.
As we talked, I realized several things about the way I live (this is what good friends do for you: show you things about yourself).
First: I have gradually come to see that my times of unhappiness have largely been the result of attaching my identity to phenomenon that are inherently fleeting and impermanent. If I am not attached to one particular identity, I have nothing to defend and hence no loss to fear. And what sense is there in saying "That is me"? "That" changes in the very next moment, anyway, leaving "me" entirely in doubt.
Second: I learned that genuine, durable happiness had nothing to do with the pursuit of ecstatic excitement. It was not an easy lesson to learn, for I was something of an adrenaline junkie as a young man. Happiness for me, though, turned out to be equanimity and peace, not a pounding heart.
Third: Unhappiness always melts if I can introduce spaciousness into my experience. Suffering and unhappiness comes with the illusion that things are concrete. Space always brings happiness.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
A Little More about Meditation
If you have a meditation practice of any kind, at some point you may want to try a variation known as tonglen, sometimes known as "taking and sending" meditation. Although I believe it originated in Tibetan Buddhist practice, the exercise isn't a religious ritual of any kind, so I think it's not likely to trouble anyone, even Christians.
Tonglen, like most forms of meditation, is a breath-based practice, and its essence is very simple: On inhalations, you visualize that you are taking in the pain and suffering of other people; and on exhalations, you are giving away your goodness to the world—offering up any and all pleasant feeling and good will you can find within you.
When I first started the practice, I was surprised to find how much resistance I had to it. Though I imagined myself to be a more or less compassionate person, there was a silent resentment to the notion of giving away my goodness and breathing in the pain and suffering of others. I began to see how conditioned I was (perhaps how conditioned we all are) to defend ourselves against pain and suffering, and to collect and hold whatever kind of pleasantness we can find in life.
Tonglen offers a way to test out what it might be like to drop that habitual defensiveness and territoriality. The results are best experienced when the practice no longer seems symbolic, but when you adopt it quite literally. You genuinely do feel that you are giving away all that is good and pleasant within you, and that you are absorbing very real pain of others. On every outbreath, you take a leap of faith and offer every last ounce of happiness you have, with no expectation of return.
If you can take the leap and practice this way in a very literal fashion, a pretty stunning realization soon sets in. No matter how much goodness you give away, more reappears instantly to replace it. It isn't a limited resource at all, but one that flows freely if you simply unclog the pipes. Even at a moment of deep despair or depression, you can, on every exhalation, always find some goodness to be handing off to others. In fact, times of low spirit are the best time to practice tonglen. And rather than feeling depleted by the suffering of other people entering you, it begins to feel like a form of nourishment. The pain you inhale is the fuel that is transformed into the peace you breathe back out. It is like the carbon dioxide inhaled by plants that they may exhale oxygen.
Your assumptions pretty soon get turned entirely upside down, for you recognize that there was never any reason to defend yourself, nor any reason to hoard goodness in any way. Rather than living in a miserly way, counting pennies, you can freely walk, because the ground is pretty well covered in gold coins. Rather than living from a perspective of poverty and deficit, we start to feel free .
Like many such practices from my adopted tradition, tonglen isn't so much a moral practice as a practical one. This is one aspect that seems quite alien to people who come from a Christian/Muslim/Judaic tradition. Giving away goodness isn't a sacrifice we make in order to be deserving of goodness in return. We do it because the tangible evidence shows that softening the ego and reversing our habits makes us feel happier in a genuine way.
Unlike some Western traditions, which are based on a kind of economic model in which we must "buy" our happiness or salvation through good deeds, in this tradition we just follow the evidence. Living in openness just plain feels better, and that's the only reason we need. It's not a matter of living in a manner that pleases some higher power into rewarding us. We live this way because it works, here and now.
Tonglen, like most forms of meditation, is a breath-based practice, and its essence is very simple: On inhalations, you visualize that you are taking in the pain and suffering of other people; and on exhalations, you are giving away your goodness to the world—offering up any and all pleasant feeling and good will you can find within you.
When I first started the practice, I was surprised to find how much resistance I had to it. Though I imagined myself to be a more or less compassionate person, there was a silent resentment to the notion of giving away my goodness and breathing in the pain and suffering of others. I began to see how conditioned I was (perhaps how conditioned we all are) to defend ourselves against pain and suffering, and to collect and hold whatever kind of pleasantness we can find in life.
Tonglen offers a way to test out what it might be like to drop that habitual defensiveness and territoriality. The results are best experienced when the practice no longer seems symbolic, but when you adopt it quite literally. You genuinely do feel that you are giving away all that is good and pleasant within you, and that you are absorbing very real pain of others. On every outbreath, you take a leap of faith and offer every last ounce of happiness you have, with no expectation of return.
If you can take the leap and practice this way in a very literal fashion, a pretty stunning realization soon sets in. No matter how much goodness you give away, more reappears instantly to replace it. It isn't a limited resource at all, but one that flows freely if you simply unclog the pipes. Even at a moment of deep despair or depression, you can, on every exhalation, always find some goodness to be handing off to others. In fact, times of low spirit are the best time to practice tonglen. And rather than feeling depleted by the suffering of other people entering you, it begins to feel like a form of nourishment. The pain you inhale is the fuel that is transformed into the peace you breathe back out. It is like the carbon dioxide inhaled by plants that they may exhale oxygen.
Your assumptions pretty soon get turned entirely upside down, for you recognize that there was never any reason to defend yourself, nor any reason to hoard goodness in any way. Rather than living in a miserly way, counting pennies, you can freely walk, because the ground is pretty well covered in gold coins. Rather than living from a perspective of poverty and deficit, we start to feel free .
Like many such practices from my adopted tradition, tonglen isn't so much a moral practice as a practical one. This is one aspect that seems quite alien to people who come from a Christian/Muslim/Judaic tradition. Giving away goodness isn't a sacrifice we make in order to be deserving of goodness in return. We do it because the tangible evidence shows that softening the ego and reversing our habits makes us feel happier in a genuine way.
Unlike some Western traditions, which are based on a kind of economic model in which we must "buy" our happiness or salvation through good deeds, in this tradition we just follow the evidence. Living in openness just plain feels better, and that's the only reason we need. It's not a matter of living in a manner that pleases some higher power into rewarding us. We live this way because it works, here and now.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Supersition and the Curved Cosmos
Over the last year or two, a cultural shift toward anti-religion has become pretty prominent in popular media. My profession is the printed word, and in the Religion category in various publishing digests, you'll now see prominent discussion of best-selling books condemning religion and touting atheism. Five years ago, it was Christian fiction dominating these categories.
In blog land, it's much the same. Recently I have come across some extremely intelligent, articulate, and skillful blogs that exist almost exclusively to torpedo religious extremist views, or religion in general. A couple of the better ones, in fact, can be seen if you browse my list of recommmended blogs shown in the left column.
Researching this blog trend shows that some blogs like to puncture one religion alone. There are a lot of blogs that seem intent on skewering Islam, as well as lots of them that want to set the world free of Christian extremism. A number of the more compelling ones are written by former evangelicals who have escaped that world. Other blogs are multi-denominational, and will point out the ridiculous and bigoted aspects of any faith. Still other blogs celebrate science as its own religion, and argue that science alone offers the road to truth.
I am fascinated by this trend, as well as awed by the skill of many of these bloggers. And I do think its justifiable to point out the lunacy inherent in much religious dogma—that's why I read these blogs. How can you not roll your eyes in disbelief when you listen to strict Christians ignore the evidence of biological evolution; or when you hear of Muslims trying to force toy stores to stop selling piggy banks because swine are unclean animals?
But I also sometimes fear that we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater during this anti-religion jihad. Is there room, I wonder, for denouncing the silliness of religion while still holding a space in our hearts for what William James called the "Religious Experience."? (See his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience.")
The God depicted in the Christian/Judaic bible, the Quran, is a quaint mythological representation of something inexpressible. And I agree that it's not only silly, but dangerous, to insist that such an entity exists in literal form, and that he has graced you and your friends with his favor.
But I will also insist on my right to believe in the spiritual impulse behind it all, and I'll also express my strong intuition that there is a spiritual and evolutionary goal that causes us to seek an enlightened state of mind.
That's all God really represents, after all: our desire for a peaceful existence.
And I also think that some apologists for "science" are just as deluded as any snake-handling hillbilly Christian in the mountains of Tennessee. Elevating science to a religion is complete folly—a fact that all the true geniuses of science have acknowledged. Scientific theories are always just theories, and the history of reason shows that these paradigms are nothing more than useful fictions, which can be discarded and replaced as circumstances require.
Do you think, for example, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? Then you haven't been reading your modern astro-physics, which now suggests that the cosmos is a curved phenomenon.
Any science and any religion is equally silly and dangerous at the point where it begins insisting that it owns the keys to certainty. This is the principle human folly, in fact—to insist on certainty, and I'd argue that it is the impulse behind most everything we think of as evil.
But what other option is there? I've heard people ask. Our job as rational humans is to find the truth, the certainty. That's what we do. Isn't it?
That's what most people do, I'll grant you, which may explain the condition of the human world. It's not the only way, though. The other way to live, the path less taken, is the one described by Irish song-writer Van Morrison, among many others:
Let go, into the mystery.
In blog land, it's much the same. Recently I have come across some extremely intelligent, articulate, and skillful blogs that exist almost exclusively to torpedo religious extremist views, or religion in general. A couple of the better ones, in fact, can be seen if you browse my list of recommmended blogs shown in the left column.
Researching this blog trend shows that some blogs like to puncture one religion alone. There are a lot of blogs that seem intent on skewering Islam, as well as lots of them that want to set the world free of Christian extremism. A number of the more compelling ones are written by former evangelicals who have escaped that world. Other blogs are multi-denominational, and will point out the ridiculous and bigoted aspects of any faith. Still other blogs celebrate science as its own religion, and argue that science alone offers the road to truth.
I am fascinated by this trend, as well as awed by the skill of many of these bloggers. And I do think its justifiable to point out the lunacy inherent in much religious dogma—that's why I read these blogs. How can you not roll your eyes in disbelief when you listen to strict Christians ignore the evidence of biological evolution; or when you hear of Muslims trying to force toy stores to stop selling piggy banks because swine are unclean animals?
But I also sometimes fear that we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater during this anti-religion jihad. Is there room, I wonder, for denouncing the silliness of religion while still holding a space in our hearts for what William James called the "Religious Experience."? (See his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience.")
The God depicted in the Christian/Judaic bible, the Quran, is a quaint mythological representation of something inexpressible. And I agree that it's not only silly, but dangerous, to insist that such an entity exists in literal form, and that he has graced you and your friends with his favor.
But I will also insist on my right to believe in the spiritual impulse behind it all, and I'll also express my strong intuition that there is a spiritual and evolutionary goal that causes us to seek an enlightened state of mind.
That's all God really represents, after all: our desire for a peaceful existence.
And I also think that some apologists for "science" are just as deluded as any snake-handling hillbilly Christian in the mountains of Tennessee. Elevating science to a religion is complete folly—a fact that all the true geniuses of science have acknowledged. Scientific theories are always just theories, and the history of reason shows that these paradigms are nothing more than useful fictions, which can be discarded and replaced as circumstances require.
Do you think, for example, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? Then you haven't been reading your modern astro-physics, which now suggests that the cosmos is a curved phenomenon.
Any science and any religion is equally silly and dangerous at the point where it begins insisting that it owns the keys to certainty. This is the principle human folly, in fact—to insist on certainty, and I'd argue that it is the impulse behind most everything we think of as evil.
But what other option is there? I've heard people ask. Our job as rational humans is to find the truth, the certainty. That's what we do. Isn't it?
That's what most people do, I'll grant you, which may explain the condition of the human world. It's not the only way, though. The other way to live, the path less taken, is the one described by Irish song-writer Van Morrison, among many others:
Let go, into the mystery.
Monday, March 3, 2008
I went to a funeral service for the tragic death of an acquaintance over the weekend, and was surprised at the nature of the Mennonite service.
I was raised a Lutheran, and have plenty of friends of this and other Protestant denominations as well as Catholic acquaintances. So I have a working knowledge of the principles of most Christian denominations. Frankly, none of them has really spoken to my soul, which is why most of my adult life has been spent studying eastern philosophies and disciplines. I'm not sure you could really pin me to any religious group, though if the issue was pushed I'd fit most neatly into the Buddhist club.
So this was my first ever exposure to Mennonites. This particular congregation belongs to what is commonly called "modern Mennonites," which means that they are main stream ocitizens that don't wear any special clothing, and wh by all appearances live pretty much like the rest of us. Many years ago, the Amish split off from the Mennonites because they wanted a much more conservative, disciplined practice.
In fact, though I was aware that Mike, the deceased, was a highly religious man, there was never a moment where he visibly "witnessed" his faith to the world at large. Mennonites are pretty private people, and would rather die than proselytize as do the Mormons, for example,
The first major surprise was that compared to other Protestant groups, the modern Mennonites have almost no discernible liturgy to their services. No creeds, no ritualized prayers, no communion. I"m told they do not even bother with baptism. The service was filled with music, and with personal stories about the deceased, and this appears to be what almost every worship service consists of. The members of the congregation move around the chapel quite freely during the service, and may roam about talking to one another, or may pop out to the lobby for a drink of water at any time. The kids roam about, and all the adults care for them as though they're parents.
The closest thing to gospel readings were a couple of brief quotes from Jesus, in which he instructed people to care for the poor, the sick, and for children with great compassion.
And this is about the only "rules" by which the modern Mennonites live: to try and emulate this compassion as modeled by Jesus. They don't really care about this "Jesus is the son of God" thing; they just believe it's the greatest good to care for others. They spend a lot of effort and time building schools in third world countries, rebuilding homes in places like hurricane ravaged Louisiana. And they do it pretty much without trying to convert anybody. This was what Mike's life had been about, and while he wasn't perfect, I can't point to many people who tried any harder to lead a good life.
I'm sure that digging a little deeper would reveal some not-so-nice features of the Mennonites. But my quick glimpse of it made we wonder if the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Pentecostals might not get a clearer picture of what Jesus was really thinking by paying attention to this little group.
I was raised a Lutheran, and have plenty of friends of this and other Protestant denominations as well as Catholic acquaintances. So I have a working knowledge of the principles of most Christian denominations. Frankly, none of them has really spoken to my soul, which is why most of my adult life has been spent studying eastern philosophies and disciplines. I'm not sure you could really pin me to any religious group, though if the issue was pushed I'd fit most neatly into the Buddhist club.
So this was my first ever exposure to Mennonites. This particular congregation belongs to what is commonly called "modern Mennonites," which means that they are main stream ocitizens that don't wear any special clothing, and wh by all appearances live pretty much like the rest of us. Many years ago, the Amish split off from the Mennonites because they wanted a much more conservative, disciplined practice.
In fact, though I was aware that Mike, the deceased, was a highly religious man, there was never a moment where he visibly "witnessed" his faith to the world at large. Mennonites are pretty private people, and would rather die than proselytize as do the Mormons, for example,
The first major surprise was that compared to other Protestant groups, the modern Mennonites have almost no discernible liturgy to their services. No creeds, no ritualized prayers, no communion. I"m told they do not even bother with baptism. The service was filled with music, and with personal stories about the deceased, and this appears to be what almost every worship service consists of. The members of the congregation move around the chapel quite freely during the service, and may roam about talking to one another, or may pop out to the lobby for a drink of water at any time. The kids roam about, and all the adults care for them as though they're parents.
The closest thing to gospel readings were a couple of brief quotes from Jesus, in which he instructed people to care for the poor, the sick, and for children with great compassion.
And this is about the only "rules" by which the modern Mennonites live: to try and emulate this compassion as modeled by Jesus. They don't really care about this "Jesus is the son of God" thing; they just believe it's the greatest good to care for others. They spend a lot of effort and time building schools in third world countries, rebuilding homes in places like hurricane ravaged Louisiana. And they do it pretty much without trying to convert anybody. This was what Mike's life had been about, and while he wasn't perfect, I can't point to many people who tried any harder to lead a good life.
I'm sure that digging a little deeper would reveal some not-so-nice features of the Mennonites. But my quick glimpse of it made we wonder if the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Pentecostals might not get a clearer picture of what Jesus was really thinking by paying attention to this little group.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Mike
Mike and I have known each other for 20 years. We became acquainted when our sons entered kindergarten together, and as the boys played soccer together, wrestled on park board teams and the highschool wrestling team together, Mike and I saw a lot of each other then, not so much now. We're not close, close friends, but good acquaintences nonetheless. During the kids' highschool years in particular, our families saw a lot of one another, and would occasionally socialize at one another's homes.
As the boys graduated high school and drifted apart into different lives, MIke and I saw less of one another, but when we run into each other at neighborhood festivals or political meetings, we always catch with 15 or 20 minutes of enjoyable talk.
Mike is a very devout Mennonite, which puts us on slightly different planets, me being a fallen Lutheran and mostly Buddhist these days. But for a strongly religious fellow, Mike never pushes his belief on others. And I admire the good quality of his life. MIke and his family host foreign visitors from Africa frequently. They travel to central America to do social work in depressed neighborhoods. MIke has also overcome some personal problems in an admirable manner. Mike is an all-around good guy, who has rightly earned the respect of others.
Last weekend Mike traveled up to Fargo to handle funeral arrangements for his father, who just passed away. One night he went out for a jog on the streets of Fargo, and a driver struck and killed Mike on a blind corner.
Mike was 53 years old, just months older than me. He leaves a wife and two sons, ages 23 and 18——exactly the same ages as my kids.
It was pretty somber at my house last night. My son was home, and he seemed especially quiet. We were all, in our own ways, reflecting on the fact that life is so precious, so fleeting, and so uncertain. I'm sure my son was thinking about his friend, imagining what it's like to lose a father so suddenly, so randomly.
If ever there was a fellow who deserved to live happily into decrepit old age, it was Mike. But there is nothing whatsoever fair or certain about life.
And so we must live it right now.
As the boys graduated high school and drifted apart into different lives, MIke and I saw less of one another, but when we run into each other at neighborhood festivals or political meetings, we always catch with 15 or 20 minutes of enjoyable talk.
Mike is a very devout Mennonite, which puts us on slightly different planets, me being a fallen Lutheran and mostly Buddhist these days. But for a strongly religious fellow, Mike never pushes his belief on others. And I admire the good quality of his life. MIke and his family host foreign visitors from Africa frequently. They travel to central America to do social work in depressed neighborhoods. MIke has also overcome some personal problems in an admirable manner. Mike is an all-around good guy, who has rightly earned the respect of others.
Last weekend Mike traveled up to Fargo to handle funeral arrangements for his father, who just passed away. One night he went out for a jog on the streets of Fargo, and a driver struck and killed Mike on a blind corner.
Mike was 53 years old, just months older than me. He leaves a wife and two sons, ages 23 and 18——exactly the same ages as my kids.
It was pretty somber at my house last night. My son was home, and he seemed especially quiet. We were all, in our own ways, reflecting on the fact that life is so precious, so fleeting, and so uncertain. I'm sure my son was thinking about his friend, imagining what it's like to lose a father so suddenly, so randomly.
If ever there was a fellow who deserved to live happily into decrepit old age, it was Mike. But there is nothing whatsoever fair or certain about life.
And so we must live it right now.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Christian Taliban?
Mona Dobrich, an orthodox Jew, grew up in Sussex County, Delaware——frequently the only Jewish student in a predominantly Christian school district. It was quite common for Mona to quietly endure school programs and meetings that began or ended with Christian prayers, and for the most part she had no trouble with this. Most of her schoolmates at least accepted her, and she fully understood that she was a very small minority in this culture.
But as Mona's daughter, Samantha, grew up in the same school district, Mona became increasingly uncomfortable with a Christian religious atmosphere that was growing mor and more intolerant of other beliefs. And when, at Samantha's high school graduation, a minister's prayer proclaimed that Jesus was the only avenue to truth and salvation, it occurred to Mona that this wasn't exactly proper, and might not even be legal, strictly speaking.
Mona wasn't some kind of strident social agitator. Her response was a quiet and proper request to the local school board that future public events of this type feature a more generic and less exclusionary prayer element. She didn't want to do away with the religious element, just make it more universal.
But news of this quiet request leaked out, and soon the atmosphere of Sussex County, Delaware was full of angry, even hateful language on local talk radio, in the local newspapers, and at school board meetings.
Unbelievably, strident Christians viewed this request by Ms. Dobrich as an infringment on their rights of religious expression.
It was after hundreds of local people showed up at a school board meeting to protest Mona's simple and reasonable request, with shouts and cruel personal attacks, that Mona took the courageous next step and hired a lawyer and filed suit against the schol district. Another family, who has chosen to remain anomymous, also joined the suit.
The jihad began.
Death threats and personal attacks on the Dobrich children made it necessary for the family to move away from Sussex County, although the husband, Marco, stayed behind to work in the same job and protect the family's health insurance.
The family did try to reunite in at one point, but some boys came into the yard, pointed at son Alex, and announced that this was the boy who had "sued Jesus."
The Dobrich's then moved away from Georgetown for good, however the increased cost of living in a larger city eventually required the older daughter, Samantha, to drop out of college.
While discussing this story with friends and neighbors, I have run into a few people who believe that the Dobrich family got exactly what was coming to them. America IS a Christian nation, I've heard, and anybody who can't get on board deserves whatever they get.
To which I always say the following:
If things were ever to change...how would you feel if a high school graduation ceremony required you to kneel on a prayer rug, bow toward Mecca, and praise Allah.
If this would be fine with you, then I suppose it's also fine to praise Jesus at a public school event funded by public tax dollars.
But as Mona's daughter, Samantha, grew up in the same school district, Mona became increasingly uncomfortable with a Christian religious atmosphere that was growing mor and more intolerant of other beliefs. And when, at Samantha's high school graduation, a minister's prayer proclaimed that Jesus was the only avenue to truth and salvation, it occurred to Mona that this wasn't exactly proper, and might not even be legal, strictly speaking.
Mona wasn't some kind of strident social agitator. Her response was a quiet and proper request to the local school board that future public events of this type feature a more generic and less exclusionary prayer element. She didn't want to do away with the religious element, just make it more universal.
But news of this quiet request leaked out, and soon the atmosphere of Sussex County, Delaware was full of angry, even hateful language on local talk radio, in the local newspapers, and at school board meetings.
Unbelievably, strident Christians viewed this request by Ms. Dobrich as an infringment on their rights of religious expression.
It was after hundreds of local people showed up at a school board meeting to protest Mona's simple and reasonable request, with shouts and cruel personal attacks, that Mona took the courageous next step and hired a lawyer and filed suit against the schol district. Another family, who has chosen to remain anomymous, also joined the suit.
The jihad began.
Death threats and personal attacks on the Dobrich children made it necessary for the family to move away from Sussex County, although the husband, Marco, stayed behind to work in the same job and protect the family's health insurance.
The family did try to reunite in at one point, but some boys came into the yard, pointed at son Alex, and announced that this was the boy who had "sued Jesus."
The Dobrich's then moved away from Georgetown for good, however the increased cost of living in a larger city eventually required the older daughter, Samantha, to drop out of college.
While discussing this story with friends and neighbors, I have run into a few people who believe that the Dobrich family got exactly what was coming to them. America IS a Christian nation, I've heard, and anybody who can't get on board deserves whatever they get.
To which I always say the following:
If things were ever to change...how would you feel if a high school graduation ceremony required you to kneel on a prayer rug, bow toward Mecca, and praise Allah.
If this would be fine with you, then I suppose it's also fine to praise Jesus at a public school event funded by public tax dollars.
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