Unknowing Mind

Is Anger Always a Bad Thing?

2010-06-15T20:13:00.000-05:00

In response to a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh: "Anger and hatred are the materials from which hell is made. A mind without anger is cool, fresh, and sane." (Peace is Every Step), a friend of mine asked me, "Is anger always a bad thing?" The following was my written response:

When I see someone mistreat a dog, does it make me angry? Yes, it does. Is that bad? That question is really of no value because "bad" is too vague. Two better questions are, "What effect does my anger have?" and "What are the real causes of my anger?"

My anger has many effects, some of which are as follows: My heart and breathing rates increase; my mind races; my muscles shake due to the adrenaline surge; my stomach tightens. These effects are now causes of subsequent effects, some of which I'll list:

(1) Science has shown that adrenaline surges arising from anger, jealousy, fear, etc. have a different physiological effect than adrenaline arising from, say, playing a sport or an active game. The former are considered "bad stressors" that have a deleterious effect on our bodies, leading to classic signs of stress such as increased chances for a heart attack, etc. The latter do not have this effect on the body. So right there, we see one major long-term problem with the energy given us by anger.

(2) When my mind is racing, it is increasingly difficult for me to make well-thought-out, logical decisions. The more my mind races in anger, the harder it is for me to think straight (e.g., the proverbial "seeing red"). If I cannot think straight, I will make mistakes: I will misinterpret phenomena, I will say and/or do things I should not (things that are unnecessarily harmful to others and myself), I will rush decisions and actions, etc. I feel very safe in stating--from my very own personal experience--that any good decision I make while angry is solely the product of luck, and sometimes a product of me being able to slow myself down enough to actually think through what I am about to say or do. I have never, not once in my life, made a decision or performed an action out of anger that I have anger to thank for it.

A common rebuttal to this is that anger gives you energy and the ability to do things like escape captors, etc. I disagree completely. The energy anger gives you was available to you all along; and if you're a prisoner of some sort, and the chance comes for escape, you don't need anger to supply that energy--it should be there as a function of other emotions and instincts such as the will to survive. The most inspiring thing I've read is a story of a Tibetan monk that was imprisoned and tortured for years in a Chinese prison.

Returning to my example about somebody mistreating a dog, the effects I get from anger do not, in any way, help me to help that dog. Responding out of anger at the person or action results in nothing better than responding out of compassion for the dog, and the anger can only result in me making bad decisions in the process of trying to help. So, just on the basis of analyzing its effects, anger is almost self-evidently harmful.

Now let's discuss "the real causes of my anger." Why am I angry at the person or the action instead of feeling compassion for the dog? (in reality, I feel both, but in this example, the anger response is more powerful, more in the forefront) Anger comes out first or more powerfully than compassion if I have sown its seeds in my past more often than I have compassion. Every single time I respond with anger, I sow its seeds in my mind. Each time I do so, that makes it easier for me to respond in anger next time. So, a major cause of why I'm responding in anger is because I have done so before! What solution is there to this self-generating behavior? Mindfulness. If I first calm my anger (because, as we've discussed, I can't think clearly while angry), and then examine it with focused mindfulness, I can begin to see anger's real cause: I'm angry at the person or his actions because I'm unable to see or understand the real causes for his behavior. Maybe he is mentally disturbed, in which case it's not entirely his fault. Maybe he was beaten as a child and this is his learned response. Maybe he's just had a bad day and is taking it out on his dog. None of those justify his behavior! But if my initial reaction were to see that he is harming the dog due to causes in his life that I do not know, then I can respond to him out of compassion for him, and anger has no need to surface and cause all the harmful effects we've already discussed! This compassion generates the same amount of energy as anger, and I am not hindered by anger's harmful effects, and as a side-bonus, I am generating seeds of compassion, which will make compassion more likely to arise in the future! In this way, I can help the dog just as effectively without anger.

This response wouldn't be complete if I didn't touch on the fact that anger has obviously played a role in our survival as a species, hence why such an emotion evolved in the first place. In humanity's early years, survival was predominantly a factor of responding to immediate environmental threats. I don't deny in the least that the adrenaline provided by anger is immediate--faster than most other emotions. But that just goes to show what its value was--when we were about to be taken down by a predator, a flash of anger facilitated our fight or flight response. However, as our civilizations developed, this type of danger has become much less common, and while it might be useful to generate anger in a pure fight-or-flight situation, in anything that requires any semblance of strategic thought (such as fighting in the military!), anger is more of a detriment than a help.

One more situation to touch on before I sign off: that of seeing one's loved ones harmed. This is probably the easiest situation in which to justify anger. If my wife was harmed, would I get angry? Yes! However, I feel that an analysis of anger makes it obvious that such a response is not only harmful, but unnecessary. If she were in danger, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for me to be angry at the person endangering her. The most important thing is to get her to safety and neutralize the danger. As I said before, if pure fight-or-flight was all that was needed, then perhaps generating anger would be the fastest way to go about it. But if any sort of thought is required, such as handling a delicate situation of being held at gunpoint, anger is probably the worst emotion you could possibly experience at that time. Once she's out of danger, then shouldn't I be angry at the person? No. The person deserves to be punished in whatever way our justice system determines, for the safety of society. But me being angry at the person is only reflective of one thing: my lack of insight into the causes of his behavior. As that Tibetan monk illustrated, compassion is still the ideal response, and one that I hope my practice will develop as my primary response in this lifetime.

Interfaith Blog Event #8: Pantheism (Part 3: Comparison to Buddhism)

2010-04-10T15:44:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the 8th Interfaith Blog Event! In this event, we'll be discussing Pantheistic religions. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be joining me in this event. He will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective.

My essay will be posted in 3 parts, as I have to develop a lot of background information before I can begin discussing Hinduism. This post is Part 3. The other posts are linked below:

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

(Links will be provided as they become available)

[Jon's Essay]

(Part 3)

Comparison to Buddhism

How does this ancient wisdom compare to the teachings of the Buddha? One way to answer this question is to trace, very briefly, Siddhartha Gautama’s early life through his enlightenment.

Siddhartha was born to King Suddhodana and Queen Maha Maya and, hence, raised as a Prince of his kingdom. However, at the time of his birth, a great seer predicted that Siddhartha would become either a great political leader or a great spiritual teacher. Siddhartha’s father wanted him to become the next great leader of his kingdom, so throughout Siddhartha’s life, the King ensured that his son was constantly surrounded by glamor and material wealth, hoping that he would never feel the pull of the spiritual life. However, around the age of 29, Siddhartha left the palace and, despite his father’s attempts to keep all sick, aged, and suffering people hidden, Siddhartha encountered the suffering that people experienced, things that had been hidden from him as a Prince in the palace. Seeing this suffering, his heart broke in compassion for these people. He also met an ascetic, and afterwards left the palace to find the solution to the suffering of the world.

Siddhartha devoted himself to his training under several great spiritual teachers of the time, all of whom practiced expressions of Indian Spirituality, as I previously discussed. Through his training, he mastered the skill of concentration (as I discussed previously) and achieved the deepest meditative states attainable (which Buddhism terms jhanas), bypassing several of his teachers. These were the states that Indian Spirituality said brought the awareness that the Atman is simply a reflection of Brahman and, hence, the attainment of Moksha and the ending of the cycle of rebirth.

However, Siddhartha was not satisfied for several reasons: (1) These miraculous states were temporary--they could not be maintained indefinitely in life (“But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain” [Majjhima Nikaya 36; (MN 36)]); (2) Suffering was not ended by attainment of these jhanas; and (3) These concentrative attainments did not lead to the end of the cycle of rebirth (#3 is basically a subset of #2).

Therefore, Siddhartha left his final teacher and resolved with all his being to sit in meditation until he discovered the Truth. Finally, in a marathon overnight meditation session, Siddhartha attained enlightenment just before dawn, becoming the Buddha, the Awakened One, at the age of 35.

The obvious question is, “What prevented Siddhartha from attaining true enlightenment in his earlier practices?” Or, in other words, “How does Buddhism differ from Hinduism?” The primary factor that led to his enlightenment that was missing from his earlier practices was Wisdom. Buddhism acknowledges the vital importance of concentration: Right Concentration is one step on the Eightfold Path, the path toward ending suffering. However, it, alone, is insufficient; it must be tempered with Wisdom, which has several components that are encompassed on the Eightfold Path in the factors of Right View, Right Intention, and Right Mindfulness.

Wisdom is a very important aspect of the Buddhist path and, hence, is a very deep subject with many facets. For the purposes of this essay, a detailed exposition of these facets must be omitted (many of them are discussed in greater detail in other posts on my blog). In short, while the Buddha agreed with Hindu teachings on the importance of concentration, the practice of ethics, and some aspects of karma, he directly observed that such were insufficient to attain freedom from rebirth and, hence, the complete ending of dukkha (I use the Pali word dukkha here instead of the traditional English translation of “suffering” because the English word suffering is woefully inadequate and inaccurate in understanding the original idea of dukkha. [see Footnote 2 for a more thorough explanation of dukkha]).

Cosmologically, Buddhism retains a similar understanding of other realms of being (including heavenly realms) as Hinduism. However, whereas Hinduism views the realization of the oneness of the Atman with Brahman as moksha, Buddhism observes that moksha is only temporary; what Hindus interpret as the merging of Atman with Brahman after the body’s final death after attaining moksha, Buddhism states is really a rebirth into a heavenly realm. And while this is a rebirth filled with happiness that lasts 60,000 aeons [3], it is still temporary, and after the causes that have generated this rebirth have all been used up, another rebirth will occur.

Part of the discrepancy occurs due to each religion’s understanding of karma and rebirth. Hinduism posits that the Atman of a person, when it first separates from Brahman, will incarnate into a very simple form. As the Atman acquires knowledge and skills via different rebirths, it will incarnate into higher and higher forms (for example, from vegetable into animal into human), and once an Atman has achieved a certain level, it cannot revert to a lower level. Hinduism views the human level as the highest level of rebirth, and hence, the realization that the Atman is just a reflection of Brahman allows the Atman to rejoin Brahman after death, thus transcending the need for rebirth and coming full circle to one’s source. (Incidentally, this upward-spiraling path of the Atman is also one of the causes of the caste system in early Hinduism; lower castes are seen as “newer” humans whose Atman haven’t developed as far as those of the higher castes).

The Buddha, however, observed a very different system of karma operating in the universe. While Hindus acknowledge the cause-effect nature of karma, it appears that the Atman-Brahman link lies outside that system, since once an Atman has achieved a certain level, it cannot revert regardless of its thoughts and actions. Buddhism, however, sees Cause-Effect as operative in all things. In other words, everything that happens is a function of a complex of causes, and this includes rebirth. Hence, one’s rebirth is an effect of prior causes, so therefore, there cannot be a restraint on the form taken in rebirth. This immediately conflicts with the Hindu upward-spiraling Atman. To give an analogy, if I act very compassionate and loving to my wife one day, but then the next yell and scream at her in anger, that outburst will still have major consequences and effects that are not completely negated by the compassion and love I showed the prior day.

In his development of Wisdom, in addition to concentration, the Buddha directly observed that the Self, the Atman, is also a falsehood--in other words, one interprets the Atman’s existence due to one’s misleading belief that there is something within one that is permanent, everlasting, eternal, and not subject to change. One “regards material form thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’ He regards feeling thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’ He regards perception … mental formations … what is seen, heard, cognized, encountered, sought, mentally pondered … thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’ And this standpoint for views, namely, ‘That which is the self is the world; after death I shall be permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change; I shall endure as long as eternity’--this too he regards thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’” (MN 22:15). The Buddha attributed these views to the untaught ordinary person, who is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma. The final part--that which is the self is the world--comments directly upon the Hindu belief of the merging of the Atman with Brahman in moksha.

In contrast, the Buddha directly observed that the well-taught disciple, skilled and disciplined in their Dhamma, “regards material form ... feeling ... perception … mental formations … what is seen, heard, cognized, encountered, sought, mentally pondered … thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’ And this standpoint for views, namely, ‘That which is the self is the world; after death I shall be permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change; I shall endure as long as eternity’--this too he regards thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’” (MN 22:16)

At this point, it is very important to note that the Buddha devoted few words to philosophical matters. As stated by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his translation of the The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya), “[T]he Buddha’s objective is the practical one of leading beings to release from suffering.” (pg. 32) Philosophy not only has no role in this process, but is also detrimental because it diverts one’s attention from the important matter of practice. Accordingly, the Buddha gave the Simile of the Raft, which I’ll summarize below.

“Suppose a man, in the course of a journey, saw a great expanse of water, whose near shore was dangerous and fearful and whose further shore was safe and free from fear, but there was no ferryboat or bridge for going to the far shore.” (MN 22:13) The man then collects grasses, twigs, branches, and leaves and builds himself a raft with his own hands. He then paddles across the water, safely reaching the far shore. The man might then think thus, “‘This raft has been very helpful to me, since supported by it and making an effort with my hands and feet, I got safely across to the far shore. Suppose I were to hoist it on my head or load it on my shoulder, and then go wherever I want.‘ By doing so, would that man be doing what should be done with that raft?” (MN 22:13)

No! “Suppose [the man] were to haul the raft onto the dry land or set it adrift in the water, then go wherever [he] wants. It is by so doing that the man would be doing what should be done with that raft. So I have shown you how the Dhamma is similar to a raft, being for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of grasping.”(MN 22:13). The Buddha continued, “[W]hen you know the Dhamma to be similar to a raft, you should abandon even the teachings, how much more so things contrary to the teachings.”(MN 22:14).

What do we learn from this teaching? That the Dhamma itself is never to be taken as philosophical truth, but as skillful means to lead one to freedom, to wisdom, to enlightenment. The Buddha is most often heard teaching non-self, that there is no permanent, everlasting, eternal Self, not subject to change. However, note that the prevailing viewpoint of his day was that of traditional Indian Spirituality which embraced the idea of the Atman. Therefore, the Buddha’s teachings were meant to free the people from this delusion. In no way whatsoever was the Buddha preaching philosophical truth. He was using skillful means to bring his followers to enlightenment.

In MN 148, The Six Sets of Six sutra, the Buddha even demonstrated “by a reductio ad absurdum argument that impermanence implies non-self: when all the factors of being are clearly subject to rise and fall, to identify anything among them with self is to be left with the untenable thesis that self is subject to rise and fall.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi, pg. 29) However, the Buddha also gave the following teaching in MN 2:6-7: “What are the things unfit for attention that he attends to? … This is how he attends unwisely: ‘Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? … Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? … Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where will it go?”

The Buddha continues, ”When he attends unwisely in this way … the view ‘self exists for me’ arises in him as true and established; or the view ‘no self exists for me’ arises in him as true and established; or the view ‘I perceive self with self’ … or ‘I perceive not-self with self’ … or ‘It is this self of mine that speaks and feels and experiences here and there the result of good and bad actions; but this self of mine is permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and it will endure as long as eternity.’ This speculative view is called the thicket of views … the fetter of views.” (MN 2:8) In other words, this entire thicket of views of self versus non-self is ultimately to be abandoned. While realizing the truth of non-self acts as a raft to allow us to reach the other shore of enlightenment, once there, we must abandon even that view as a fetter!

Once you can understand the following statement, you understand the Buddha’s teaching:

“If someone should claim that the [Buddha] speaks of a view of a being, a view of a life, or a view of a soul, would such a claim be true? No, such a claim would not be true. When the [Buddha] speaks of a view of a self, the [Buddha] speaks of it as no view. Thus is it called ‘a view of a self.’ … those who set forth on the bodhisattva path know, see, and believe all dharmas but know, see, and believe them without being attached to the perception of a dharma. And why not? The perception of a dharma is said by the [Buddha] to be no perception. Thus is it called the ‘perception of a dharma.’” (Diamond Sutra. Red Pine. Pg 26-27)

You cannot understand this paragraph by mere logic. Logic brings knowledge; similarly, philosophy, which is the application of logical discourse to a topic, brings knowledge. Neither is capable of bringing wisdom. In many ways, philosophy is the absence of wisdom because time wasted on philosophizing is time that could have been spent on the development of wisdom, the practical application of skillful means to bring one closer to freedom.

I’d like to end this essay with a discussion of Nirvana, and how it compares to Hinduism’s Moksha. Both Hinduism and Buddhism designate Moksha and Nirvana, respectively, as the liberation from samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth) and, hence, the suffering involved in being subject to this cycle. Hinduism states that for such liberation to occur, the individual Self or Atman must be realized as one with the divine ground of all being, Brahman. As I stated above, in this training after leaving the palace, Siddhartha Gautama attained the states Hindus identify as the merging of Atman with Brahman, but Siddhartha directly observed that while these states were blissful and wondrous, they did not lead to the end of suffering, nor to liberation from samsara.

As I explained above, Buddhism denounces philosophy as a harmful distraction, and the Buddha’s teachings on Nirvana are no exception. In MN 26, The Noble Search sutra, he described Nirvana in verse 18 as the, “Unborn, … unageing, … unailing, … deathless, … sorrowless, … undefiled supreme security from bondage.” In verse 19, the Buddha indicated that attaining Nirvana implies a definite task, describing it as, “seeing this truth [of] dependent origination; stilling of all formations; relinquishing of all acquisitions; destruction of craving.”

However, it is important to note that Nirvana really cannot be “reached” or “entered.” Nirvana is not a place; as stated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu in A Verb for Nirvana [4], “[Nirvana] is realized only when the mind stops defining itself in terms of place: of here, or there, or between the two.” He explained that, “Samsara is a process of creating places, even whole worlds, (this is called becoming) and then wandering through them (this is called birth). Nirvana is the end of this process.” Thanissaro Bhikkhu very nicely describes the limitations of Samsara: ”Wherever there's attachment, that's where you get defined as a being. You create an identity there, and in so doing you're limited there. Even if the ‘there’ is an infinite sense of awareness grounding, surrounding, or permeating everything else, it's still limited, for ‘grounding’ and so forth are aspects of place. Wherever there's place, no matter how subtle, passion lies latent, looking for more food to feed on.” Notice that in addition to describing Samsara, he also describes the Hindu notion of Moksha and its inherent limitations.

I simply cannot explain how Nirvana can emerge from this situation better than Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from whom I will quote liberally as follows:

"If, however, the passion can be removed, there's no more "there" there. One sutta illustrates this with a simile: the sun shining through the eastern wall of a house and landing on the western wall. If the western wall, the ground beneath it, and the waters beneath the ground were all removed, the sunlight wouldn't land. In the same way, if passion for form, etc., could be removed, consciousness would have no "where" to land, and so would become unestablished. This doesn't mean that consciousness would be annihilated, simply that — like the sunlight — it would now have no locality. With no locality, it would no longer be defined."

"This is why the consciousness of nirvana is said to be "without surface" (anidassanam), for it doesn't land. Because the consciousness-aggregate covers only consciousness that is near or far, past, present, or future — i.e., in connection with space and time — consciousness without surface is not included in the aggregates. It's not eternal because eternity is a function of time. And because non-local also means undefined, the Buddha insisted that an awakened person — unlike ordinary people — can't be located or defined in any relation to the aggregates in this life; after death, he/she can't be described as existing, not existing, neither, or both, because descriptions can apply only to definable things." [4]

In MN 26:19, the Buddha described Nirvana as, “profound, hard to see and understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise.” In the same way that Nirvana cannot be philosophized, non-self cannot be philosophized, nor can impermanence be philosophized. They must be experienced directly, and once they are, it is as the Buddha described, “My deliverance is unshakeable.” (MN 26:19)

[2] Old age, sickness, death, and physical pain are not dukkha or suffering. Dukkha, or suffering, is our mental response to such experiences. We cause ourselves to suffer because of our response to our life experiences. For example, if we stub our toe, it is not the physical pain that Buddhism calls suffering or dukkha, it is our mental response that may be called suffering. Do we dwell on the pain, curse ourselves, or curse the object on which we stubbed our toe (suffering)? Or do we acknowledge the injury and immediately work to reduce the pain without anger or other emotional response? (not-suffering). Buddhism teaches that pain, old age, sickness, and death are unavoidable. But suffering can be completely ended.

[3] Just like the Bible, Buddhist scriptures utilize large numbers to signify “a great deal of time,” not numerically accurate renderings of exact time periods.

[4] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nirvanaverb.html

Interfaith Blog Event #8: Pantheism (Part 2)

2010-03-15T07:17:00.004-05:00

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

(Links will be provided as they become available)

[Jon's Essay]

(Part 2)

Encountering the Self

We still haven’t discussed how control of the mind, senses, emotions, and desires leads toward discovery of the Self. We have shown the importance of this control, that without it our vehicles run rampant anywhere they want. We have shown that in each moment, we can choose to follow either of two paths: the senses or the Self. But how does this lead us to discover the Self? The answer lies in CHOICE. Easwaran stated, “When the senses are trained, you can go anywhere and never lose your capacity to choose.” In order to know our True Self, we have to be able to see it, feel it, hear it. At each moment, our Self tries to make its choice known to our discriminating intellect, but without this control, our discriminating intellect will not hear it and will follow the senses along the path of Preya. When we start to hear the Self, we can start choosing Shreya. The more we choose Shreya, the more we get to know the Self. It’s like getting to know a new friend: you have to listen to her, learn what she enjoys, wants, and what is best for her. If you ignore her, you won’t learn anything about her. If you always choose things that she dislikes, she’ll stop making her opinions known.

The next obvious question is: How can this control be accomplished? The answer is twofold: concentration and slowing down. Everyone has had the experience of knowing they “should” do something, but then they find it exceedingly hard to actually do it (such as going to the gym to exercise, or not grabbing a bag of chips to eat while watching TV knowing that you’re not really hungry). Stop reading for a moment and think of an example in your own life where you knew you should do something, but you encountered strong resistance to doing it. Your example behavior should have occurred at least twice; in one of the instances, you succeeded in overruling your senses and doing the “right thing,” in the other instance, your senses won the day. Ideally, the surrounding circumstances should be as similar as possible between the two instances.

If you carefully compare your two examples, you’ll notice that your greatest enemy in the failed instance was “quick thinking” or “fast thought.” When you’re thinking, analyzing, and acting quickly, you don’t have the time to delve down and truly examine the options and differentiate Preya from Shreya; at this pace of activity, you’re just reacting based on your past experiences (which, as we’ve already seen, are usually based on your senses running your life). Hence, in your failed instance, you did not consciously slow down and give your discriminating intellect a chance to examine the choices.

However, just slowing down is not enough. Maybe in your failed example, you did slow down and deeply examine the options, but you chose Preya anyway. The second necessary ingredient is concentration. Without concentration, you’re incapable of burning through the smokescreen presented by your desires, your emotions, and your senses. The amazing thing that people don’t realize is that the level of concentration we are capable of is nothing less than miraculous! To give you an experience of the level of concentration we can attain, imagine a time when you were under the spell of a very strong primary need (such as you were starving because you hadn’t eaten in 18 hours, or you were parched, or were so angry you were “seeing red”). Imagine yourself back in that situation and try to relive the experience. Remember how all-encompassing that need was? Remember how that desire completely monopolized your thoughts, and that the only thing you could focus on was the need? Well, imagine if, while engrossed in the maelstrom of that need, you could simply turn your mind to a game of tic-tac-toe, and the need was out of your mind as easily as you can clap your hands. This capability represents just the very beginning of developing strong concentration. If you are incapable of this type of mental control (99% of us are), then your concentration skills are lacking.

Combining the tools of slowing down and concentration, a person becomes capable of ascertaining and choosing Shreya at every opportunity. Said another way, if you are missing either of these tools, you either won’t give yourself the time and space to see that your senses are leading you down the path of Preya, or you won’t have the mental wherewithal to see through these lies. Two very important things to note: (1) Every single person on this planet is capable of developing this miraculous level of concentration, without exception; and (2) Without this miraculous level of concentration, any understanding you have of your true Self will be false in some way.

We’re finally at a place where we can discuss the ultimate reason why all of these steps are necessary on the path. It’s self-evident, with just a little observation of our own lives, that we have a choice in every single moment between Preya and Shreya. It’s also self-evident that choosing Shreya at every opportunity is beneficial, while choosing Preya is detrimental. But are there any other benefits to these practices? Hinduism answers an emphatic, “Yes!”

In Hinduism, we are seen as having two selves: (1) Ego, and (2) Atman, or our True Self. Returning to the chariot analogy, the passenger in the chariot that I referred to as our Self is our True Self, the Atman. The Ego is a product of the mind (hence it lives in the reins). We usually interpret our self to be the Ego, but in reality, the Ego is simply a tool of the True Self that the Discriminating Intellect needs to learn to use to make proper use of the senses. We can start to see our Atman trying to lead the way once we develop our concentration to these amazing levels, giving our discriminating intellect total control over the reins of our mind, emotions, and desires, and, hence, over the horses that are our senses.

There is, though, another benefit to these levels of concentration that we have developed. When we apply these miraculous levels of concentration toward looking directly at the True Self in meditation, we notice that the Self is but one reflection of Brahman, “The unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe” [Wikipedia: Brahman]. Hence, through our concentration in meditation, we observe that the Self, Atman, is identical to Brahman. This realization is the essence of Awakening in Hinduism. [1]

Hindus call this Awakening moksha, the complete freedom from the conditioning of time, space, and circumstance. According to Easwaran, “Those rare few who discover the Self see the same Self in every other creature. In this sense, life is a kind of cosmic condominium with billions of apartments, each with a different name on the door yet each with the same occupant. This is not mere metaphor. If you knock on twelve doors in a real condominium, the people who greet you are not twelve separate people. They are all the same Self, casting twelve different [ego]-shadows. Only because of our physical orientation do we believe that because these shadows are separate, the inner person must be different too.” (pg. 183-4)

(Part 3 will be posted in the next few weeks)

[1] Interestingly, the nature of Brahman is described as transpersonal, personal, and impersonal by different philosophical schools; hence my statement at the very beginning of this essay that Hinduism is less a monolithic religion than a system of varied beliefs and practices based around similar world views and understandings of the universe.

Interfaith Blog Event #8: Pantheism

2010-03-11T08:45:00.006-06:00

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

(Links will be provided as they become available)

[Jon's Essay]

Caveats
First, I would like to note that while I am very well versed in Buddhism, I am very newly introduced to Hindu spirituality. Therefore, for the purposes of this essay, I am relying on Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran. Any mis-statements about Hinduism I make in this essay are solely my fault, and I welcome corrections from those with greater experience in the topic.

Second, in my research for this essay, I have learned that Hindu spirituality encompasses a vast array of different beliefs and practices (for example, while some Hindus are pantheistic in their understanding of the universe, others are monotheistic and still others are polytheistic). Therefore, my treatment in this essay may embrace slightly different viewpoints throughout, and is not meant to be a complete--or even adequate--treatment of the religious spectrum of Hinduism.

Introduction

Hindu spirituality is incredibly old and is less a monolithic religion than a system of varied beliefs and practices based around similar world views and understandings of the universe in which we live (something one could call “Indian Spirituality,” which is, incidentally, part of the subtitle of Easwaran’s work). This Indian Spirituality also forms the basis for Buddhism, a religion that both shares much with, and yet differs in very fundamental ways from, Hinduism. In this essay, I hope to present the reader with a comparison of the many similarities between these two great Indian religions, as well as clearly identify where they diverge.

The Chariot Analogy

In his work, Easwaran presents a beautiful and enlightening analogy that clearly describes the basis of Indian Spirituality. Traveling the roads of life are numerous horse-drawn chariots. Just like in a satellite view of a major metropolis like San Francisco, roads snake in all different directions, full of chariots. These chariots represent the vehicle we’re all given, the body, which helps transport us through life. Every chariot needs a driver, which represents the Discriminating Intellect or Judgment. The Discriminating Intellect holds the reins—the Mind, Emotions, and Desires—which are attached to the horses: the Five Senses. Our chariot is transporting a very specific passenger along these roads of life: the Self, the very nature of each of us.

Let’s dissect this analogy to gain a better understanding of the Hindu view of our purpose in life. The first observation to glean from this analogy, as well as probably the most important, is that we are not our bodies, we are not our minds, we are not our discriminating intellects, nor are we our five senses. All of these things are just the means by which Self moves through life. That being said, let’s describe how the vehicle functions for 98% of us.

It’s a little past noon, and you haven’t eaten since 7:30 this morning. Your Self indicates, “I’m hungry.” Immediately your horses (senses) start rearing, itching to pull you to the nearest diner where you can get bacon, eggs, and buttered toast. Your driver (discriminating intellect), through years of disuse, doesn’t even examine the health implications of the meal the senses want. The horses bolt, carrying the vehicle toward the diner for the breakfast that will satisfy them. For some of us, the discriminating intellect may kick in briefly, noting the health implications of the meal the senses suggested, and may even decide that that’s not a good option. But again through years of disuse, the discriminating intellect has no control over the reins (mind, emotions, desires), and so is unable to override the sense’s decision, and you end up eating the unhealthy meal anyway.

Try applying this same analytical tool to your own life and your own particular circumstances. Maybe you know that you should exercise more, that you’d feel better and be more effective at everything you do. But exercise is unpleasant in the short-term, and your senses don’t like unpleasant things—this is their nature. The problem here is that while your discriminating intellect may understand all the long-term benefits of exercise, if it doesn’t have control of the reins (mind, emotions, desires), you won’t be able to control where your horses take you, and that place will not be the gym. Maybe you really want to go to the gym, but your mind keeps coming up with excuses, other things you “just have to do.” Maybe your mind unconsciously sabotages your plan of going to the gym by causing “accidents” such as spilling something on your shirt (hence you just have to wash this now before it stains). Maybe you can logically bring yourself to the decision to go work out, but you just can’t muster the energy to get yourself off the couch; the inertia is just too great.

Here’s one more example, just to show how this lack of control penetrates everything we do. You’re cleaning your house, vacuuming and dusting. You don’t enjoy cleaning, but you’ve put it off long enough and so you know you have to do it, despite its unpleasantness. But while you’re working, your mind is off thinking of the next things you’re going to do, daydreaming of the things you could be doing. Because you’re not paying close attention to your current task, you accidentally knock a collectible you own to the ground, breaking it. In this example, your senses are going to try to do what is in their nature, chase after pleasurable experiences and avoid unpleasant experiences. If you haven’t trained them to obey the discriminating intellect, then you won’t have the ability to stop them when they start to follow their nature. The same goes for your emotions and desires. Because of this lack of training, you can’t hold your attention on your current task and you break the object.

Even while reading this essay, your mind has probably wandered to something else; or maybe you shifted in your chair. Think about it: what is a shifting of your position? It’s your body’s response to an unpleasant sensation; you are getting uncomfortable and your body shifts. This process happens so frequently that while you may remember shifting position now, you probably did it unconsciously at the time. And you’ll do so again before the end of this essay.

The next obvious question becomes: So what? The answer is that without training your discriminating intellect to use the tools of the mind, emotions, and desires to control the senses, you’re basically living a lie. Everything you think, everything you do, everything you believe, will be based on chasing immediate pleasantness and avoiding short-term unpleasantness. The problem is that your Self is a very quiet individual. He or she is completely drowned out by the overpowering nature of the senses. So if you lack control over the senses and your mind and emotions, then you are completely unable to hear your Self with any regularity. The only way to discover your True Self is to gain that perfect control over your mind, emotions, desires, and senses, using your discriminating intellect. Please note the converse implications of this: as long as you lack this control, any understanding you have of your True Self is false in some way.

How does this control allow you to recognize your true Self? At every single moment in life, we have a choice of actions, thoughts, emotions, and desires. All of these choices will follow one of two paths, called Preya and Shreya. Preya describes a choice that pleases our senses; it is pleasant immediately and usually tickles the ego. The problem is that it is often not beneficial in the long term. Shreya has no reference to pleasing/displeasing. It is simply what benefits us in the long term. Sometimes Shreya choices are very pleasing right away, but most of the time Shreya choices cannot compete in the short term with Preya choices. But beyond the immediate present, the benefit and pleasantness of Shreya will catapult it past Preya every time.

I hope the connection of these two paths to the chariot analogy is clear. For people who have no control over their senses, their vehicle will choose Preya every time, even though their Self will want them to choose Shreya every time. These paths don’t exist only in monumental moments, they occur during every individual millisecond of your life. You go to the movies and you want popcorn, but you’re not actually hungry. What do you choose, Preya or Shreya? Let’s say you choose to order the popcorn. Do you drench it in butter and salt (Preya), or do you forego both (Shreya)? Maybe you opt to use just a little butter and salt. Do you eat the entire bag, or do you stop when you start to feel full? Try applying Preya/Shreya to you own life; you’ll see their truth is self-evident.

Political Question

2008-10-16T10:04:00.003-05:00

This isn't a political blog, but I've got a question on which I'm looking to get some opinions to help me understand something I cannot currently comprehend.

I’ve got a serious question that I want to ask, really because I just can’t wrap my mind around the opposite viewpoint to the one I’ve come to -- something I am usually good at -- and I’m curious as to all of your thoughts to help me understand this other side.

I watched the Presidential debate last night (October 15, 2008). Let me preface my question with the fact that I will not be voting for either party candidate, but rather for the Green Party, whose platform is one that I agree with wholeheartedly. Here’s my question:

How can anybody actually think that voting for McCain is a good idea?

After watching Obama and McCain go at it last night, I just cannot fathom anybody coming to a conscious decision to vote for McCain. Here are my reasons. First off, watching them last night, I don’t trust McCain’s judgment under pressure -- and as President he’d be under a lot of pressure! He just seems angry and snippy, two traits that make for poor decision-making. He interrupted Obama regularly during the debate, which says to me that he’s impatient and isn’t giving due consideration to others. If you watched Obama in the split-screen, he looked directly at McCain as he answered, actually paying attention. McCain generally stared off into space, making mocking faces and fidgeting because he was so impatient to retort. And while both candidates distort the other’s platform -- that's a common tactic -- McCain seemed to take it to an unreal level, particularly with Obama’s tax plan which McCain just doesn’t seem to be able to get right.

Getting off the candidates’ personalities and mindsets, let’s look at issues.

McCain's focus on deregulation is disturbing. I’ve been a regulator for the last 6 years (not a Federal regulator, but my job is to regulate financial markets), and deregulation simply doesn’t work. The whole culture of the financial world is money-based, and the markets just do NOT regulate themselves. Strong regulation is required; I’ve seen first-hand what happens when there is insufficient regulation.

In terms of energy policy, McCain is just wrong. I am personally opposed to any additional offshore drilling. However, as a national policy, I can understand performing due diligence in studying the potential for future energy to be gained by such drilling, and if that is necessary because other means of energy production will be insufficient, then we’ll have to pursue it, in tandem with reigning in our consumption. However, McCain keeps saying that we need to drill offshore NOW, and that such is necessary to bring down gas prices today. Well, additional offshore drilling simply will not have any effect for approximately 10 years. So again, I think it’s something that needs to be explored, but McCain seems to really think it’s a solution, and I think it is patently obvious that it is not. Palin’s response in the VP debate when Biden said that McCain’s focus is, “Drill, drill, drill,” that “The chant is actually, ‘Drill, baby, drill!’” shows their misplaced focus. I think both candidates are right, though, that we need to pursue further nuclear options to wean us off oil.

One further thing I don’t understand is that McCain was very hypocritical in his statements on electing judges. He said at one point (in another segment of the debate) that he’s a Federalist -- someone who favors greater regional autonomy for the States, rather than a strong centralized government (a very Republican view). But then in the section on judges, he said he wanted to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which is the first step toward a federal law outlawing all abortions (possibly with danger-to-the-mother exceptions), which is the goal he has favored in the past. So how is that possibly a Federalist viewpoint? Though I do give McCain credit for voting NO on the constitutional ban of same-sex marriage, which is consistent with a Federalist viewpoint (leave that up to the individual states to tackle).

After the debate, channel 5 interviewed Mitt Romney, who said that he felt McCain did a great job and had Obama speechless at times. I could only sit there dumbfounded, wondering if he and I watched the same debate. I saw Obama easily handling himself under McCain’s assault, and I saw McCain appearing frustrated and impatient trying to counter Obama. I saw Obama answering the questions much more directly than McCain, though he too definitely skirted some issues like we see with every candidate. I saw Obama acting like a leader, someone I might actually trust being the face of our country, someone with the mental facility to consider the complexity of all the issues when advised by his advisors; whereas McCain was tense and impatient and disagreeable, and he appeared to struggle when forced to consider the mutual impact of complex topics like the economy and energy and military policies -- definitely not somebody I would ever follow as a leader.

So I’m curious -- for those of you who plan on voting for McCain, how do you come to that decision?

June 4, 2008 Contemplation

2008-06-04T10:59:00.001-05:00

Since lately I've had very little time to devote to writing, I've decided to start a regular feature wherein I'll post a scriptural reference to contemplate.

Instructions: Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Breathe in for a count of 3, and out for a count of 4. Open your eyes and read the contemplation below. Read it several times if you wish. Then, click on the link to begin a 2-minute session in which you can contemplate the saying I have posted. The timer will begin automatically, and an audible sound will mark the end of the session (so wear headphones if you're at work!).

Close your eyes, and contemplate the saying along the following lines, "How can I apply this to my life?" "Have I seen evidence to support this author's statement? Where?" "If what I've seen contradicts this author's statement, could s/he have meant something else?"

Contemplation

The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we much criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life."
-Dalai Lama

Begin 2-minute meditation now

May 27, 2008 Contemplation

2008-05-27T13:36:00.001-05:00

Contemplation

"Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend -- or a meaningful day."
- Dalai Lama

Begin 2-minute meditation now

May 9, 2008 Contemplation

2008-05-09T14:54:00.003-05:00

Contemplation

People should remain in society and carry out their usual profession. While contributing to society, they should internally carry on analysis and practice. In daily life, one should go to the office, work, and return home. It would be worthwhile to sacrifice some late evening entertainment, go to sleep early, and get up early the next morning to perform analytical meditation."
-- Dalai Lama

Begin 2-minute meditation now

March 26, 2008 Contemplation

2008-03-26T08:05:00.003-05:00

Contemplation

If in this present moment you aren't able to meet the Buddha in person, then for countless lives to come you will have to be reborn in the three realms of samsara, always searching for something to grasp hold of that will make you feel comfortable, continually being born in the womb of an ox or ass.
--The Record of Master Linji

Begin 2-minute meditation now

March 25, 2008 Contemplation

2008-03-25T08:44:00.004-05:00

Contemplation

"Before, when I was a householder, maintaining the bliss of kingship, I had guards posted within and without the royal apartments, within and without the city, within and without the countryside. But even though I was thus guarded, thus protected, I dwelled in fear — agitated, distrustful, and afraid. But now, on going alone to a forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty dwelling, I dwell without fear, unagitated, confident, and unafraid — unconcerned, unruffled, my wants satisfied, with my mind like a wild deer. This is the meaning I have in mind that I repeatedly exclaim, 'What bliss! What bliss!'"

His deer is obviously not the deer in the headlights. It's a deer safe in the wilderness, at its ease wherever it goes. What makes it more than a deer is that, free from attachment, it's called a "consciousness without surface." Light goes right through it. The hunter can't shoot it, for it can't be seen.

-- From Freedom from Fear by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Begin 2-minute meditation now

March 20, 2008 Contemplation

2008-03-20T08:04:00.002-05:00

Contemplation

In response to Huike, a future Zen Patriarch, looking around everywhere for the truth, Master Linju asked him, "How come you keep looking for a head when you have a head already?"
-- Master Linji, The Record of Master Linji, #21

Begin 2-minute meditation now

March 19, 2008 Contemplation

2008-03-19T08:28:00.003-05:00

Contemplation

Master Linji: If you still love the holy and hate the profane, then you will continue to drift and sink in the ocean of birth and death.

Begin 2-minute meditation now

New to Buddhism?

2008-03-16T14:00:00.006-05:00

If you are interested in learning about Buddhism, how do you begin? Most people begin by reading, and there's nothing wrong with this, especially if you know nothing about Buddhism. There is great benefit to learning the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold path, the Way of the Bodhisattva. One problem commonly arises with this method, however. Buddhism is not a noun; it's a verb.

I learning the following training from my teacher, Samu Sunim: Meditation is concentration; concentration is oneness; oneness is no self, no other; no self, no other is no birth, no death; no birth, no death is True Suchness. Our logical minds can only make sense of the first two of these trainings. But the last three transcend logic. The only way to understand these trainings is through practice. To be frank, the only way to truly grasp the first two is via practice as well -- while logic can give you a superficial understanding, Realization comes only from practice.

Treating the Buddhist teachings as philosophy, as a description of the way the world works, is a trap that many people fall into, and understandably so -- it's fun to philosophize and debate. But actual Buddhism is not like this. The Four Noble Truths are not to be taken as a description of the world. They are guides to practice. The Buddha once said that we should never accept a teaching based on the trust we hold in our teacher, or tradition, or mere logic. Rather, we should examine the teaching, practice it, and discover its truth for ourselves. Only then should we accept that teaching. Such is the only way to gain insight and wisdom. Remember: Buddhism is a verb!

So if you're new to Buddhism, what do you do? My recommendation is to go ahead and read a book or two -- you know you will anyway even if I were to tell you not to! :) And while you're reading, research the Buddhist temples in your area. Pay several of them a visit. There are many different types of Buddhism, with different emphases, and only by exploring different traditions can you find the one that best fits you as you are right now. Once you find a temple you like, begin to practice according to that tradition. Attend their services. Take their meditation classes. Go to their functions. Let this practice show you directly the value Buddhism holds for you.

Begin a daily meditation practice. Contemplate Buddhist ideas while on the train or bus. Train your mindfulness while you eat, cook, clean, shower, and garden. And see for yourself the truth of the trainings. Read more, if you like.

I suggest that of the time you spend on Buddhism, devote 80% to practice and 20% to study. Buddhism is a verb -- always ask yourself, "How can I put what I just read into practice?" "How can I realize the truth of this teaching for myself?"

Now, go meditate.

Existence of a Personal God

2007-12-15T17:42:00.000-06:00

What would it take for you to be convinced
of the existence of a personal God?"

A good friend of mine -- who happens to be a Christian pastor -- asked me this the other day. After giving it some deep thought, I decided to put my conclusions in writing.

While he was raising this question, my friend stated that it was easy for him to believe in a personal God because how can he not believe in someone he has personally met? This experience of "direct knowing" is the evidence to which I attribute the greatest strength -- if someone has personally experienced the effects of gravity, how can one convince him that gravity does not exist?

However, this form of evidence presents a very interesting paradox. How do we explain contradictory "direct knowledge"? In particular, I am thinking of people I have known in the past who had a direct experience of their patron god and matron goddess from their primary pantheon. I am thinking of my friend's experience of directly knowing a single personal God. I am thinking of my own direct experience of the interbeing of us all, how we are each empty of independent existence. I am thinking of Charles Darwin who, in his notebooks, noted that through his studies in the Galapagos, he directly realized that the Christian religion in which he was raised -- indeed, he had been pursuing studies to become a clergyman at the time -- was false; he knew that the existence of such a God was a delusion.

It's my feeling that this paradox itself lies at the core of our absolute nature. Our physical minds are finite. So while we can enhance our five physical senses and our sixth intuitive sense, our human minds simply cannot grasp the totality of all that is. Hence, we're all experiencing some aspect of absolute truth. But it is egotistical and delusional to believe that you can encompass the entirety of the absolute; it is similarly egotistical and delusional to believe that your "direct experience" is completely true and all other contradictory "direct experiences" are false. You cannot be inside another person's mind; hence, it is simply impossible to directly compare your internal experience to another's.

Returning to the original question of what would convince me of the existence of a personal God, my answer is: Nothing. My personal religious experiences of emptiness and interbeing lie in opposition to the existence of a personal God as defined by the Christian faiths. Furthermore, were I to have an experience such as my friend's of a personal god, that would simply be an experience of another aspect of truth, one that I feel lies on a lower organizational level than emptiness and interbeing.

Many people see our world and cannot fathom how such a place could have arisen without the influence of a Guiding Hand. I side with Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin when they share their utter awe at how nature has evolved through natural selection through the eons. A personal God is not necessary for this process to occur as we've observed, so I see no need to superimpose one over life's systems.

Many people think about the beginning of the universe and cannot fathom how it could have begun without God. The problem here is one of perspective. Our experience of time is linear -- beginning, middle, end -- and we naturally think that such a linear system must apply to the universe too. But given the span of billions of years lying between us and the big bang -- not to mention the nature of singularities in general -- we cannot know for certain what preceded the generation of our universe. One could propose the idea of a God. One could also say that there never was a beginning; generation and destruction may be cycling continuously without beginning or end.

I can hear the arguments already: "But that doesn't make any sense! How could time possibly cycle continuously without a beginning or end? Everything has a beginning. Infinite time is illogical!"

My answer to that is to ask a few counter-questions: how logical is it that time has "shape"? How logical is it that time is inextricably woven into space to form a continuum? How logical is it that an electron can never possibly be said to be at any particular location around a nucleus, but can only be said to be probabilistically located at any one point at any one time around a nucleus? How logical is it that time actually slows down as one's speed approaches that of light? My point is that many of our quantum and relativistic findings defy the limited logic of our minds. I once explained the idea of Schrodinger's Cat to my dad, who simply refused to believe it because it didn't make any sense. That doesn't make the quantum laws it illustrates any less true, though.

The fact is that we cannot know the beginning of nature. We cannot know if it has a beginning at all, regardless of what seems logical. We can conjecture all we want, but such musings are ultimately fruitless and of little use. It is infinitely more important that we accept the truth we have been lucky enough to "directly know," and accept the truth that others have been lucky enough to "directly know." It is infinitely more important to engage in whatever spiritual practice applies to your "direct knowledge," and to dedicate that practice to the benefit of all others and the world around you.

Nothing can convince me that a personal God exists. In the same way, I know nothing can convince my friend that his personal God does not exist. I'd never even dream of trying.

Arther Miller on Morality

2007-09-27T06:09:00.000-05:00

Interesting quote:

It is impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky' ...the concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon--such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.

- Arthur Miller, The Crucible

True Threat of Terrorism

2007-09-22T15:56:00.000-05:00

Bill over at Integral Options Cafe posted this today about terrorism and the true threat it poses to our nation. Thanks for posting Bill!

Spirituality vs. Religion

2007-09-21T18:18:00.000-05:00

In a recent conversation with my friend over at Jesusfollowers Journal, he had responded to a comment of mine regarding spirituality and religion with the following thought (I'm paraphrasing):

The difference between spirituality and religion is subtle, and arguable.

Actually, there is a very sharp distinction between spirituality and religion, spirituality being the much more important of the two. In order to describe spirituality, let me borrow a term utilized by C. S. Lewis. Spirituality is mere compassion, mere love, mere patience, mere forgiveness, mere harmony, mere concern for others' well-being and happiness.

"Mere" is a key term here, and the primary reason why spirituality trumps religion. The true purpose in life is to develop untainted compassion for all beings, love others as yourself, be patient, caring, helpful, and calm. Work toward others' happiness, and thereby your own happiness as well. By "mere" I mean "essence" or "nature." When one practices spirituality, one practices reaching toward the heart of true compassion, true love, true forgiveness. To be able to display mere compassion for another is not just to be compassionate toward another, but to BE compassion itself. Touching that true nature, that suchness, that essence, that mere-ness of compassion goes beyond just surrounding oneself in compassion. Instead, one becomes the heart of compassion altogether. That is the practice of spirituality.

Religion is different. Religion is concerned with faith in one tradition or another, with an acceptance of some definition of reality. The practice of religion is not necessary to the practice of spirituality. That phrase is so important, let me say it again.

The practice of religion is not necessary to the practice of spirituality.

Of course practicing the right religion for you can enhance the development of your spirituality. For people who truly practice their faith with their entire being, maintaining openness and love for others, religion enhances their compassion, their love, their patience. For many people religion seems to have the opposite effect, fostering intolerance, conflict, and aggression. The point here is that we have a matrix of possibilities:

Spiritual and Religious	Spiritual and Non-Religious
Non-Spiritual and Religious	Non-Spiritual and Non-Religious

I think the upper left quadrant--spiritual and religious--is the ideal, not because it is inherently better than the others (which it's not), but because people in that quadrant tend to have the greatest number of tools available to them to live well for themselves and for others. Not only can they draw on their spirituality, they can draw on the lessons of their religion to help them improve their spirituality.

The spiritual and non-religious person is in the second best position--second only due to the fact that they do not have the myths and practices of a religion to use toward developing their spiritual qualities. However, this by no means reflects on the people falling into this category. Many spiritual and non-religious people are much more compassionate, loving, caring individuals than those in the upper left quadrant.

The lower left quadrant comes next. This is stereotypically the quadrant of fundamentalists. To have religious belief, but to not have that reflect into your life as a stronger level of compassion, love, tolerance, acceptance, and patience shows that you are off-track. Any religious practice that does not result in increasing compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, love, patience, and caring is either (a) worthless and harmful, or (b) being practiced incorrectly.

The lower right quadrant is last, and stereotypically houses materialistic, egotistic individuals, people for whom caring and love are a foreign concept.

Bringing us full circle, we all must work to develop our spiritual qualities. If we find a religion that suits our nature, we can use its teachings to further our development. But if not, that's ok. We don't have to drape a mental model over reality in order to develop our spiritual qualities. We can simply practice mere compassion, mere love, mere patience, mere acceptance, and thereby touch, become, converse with, see, or merge with God--whichever of those understandings resonates with your being.

Interfaith Blog Event #7: Gender in Divinity

2007-07-31T19:30:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the seventh Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a regular basis, we'll explore a single topic across five different religious traditions. I am writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan/UU perspective. Jeff joins us from Druid Journal, and Matt joins us from Journeys In Between as an Evangelical Christian who borrows from esoteric movements like Wicca, Neo-Gnosticism, Yoga and Zen.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

What does gender have to do with divinity?

(Links will be provided as they become available)
[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay] [Jeff's Essay] [Matt's Essay]

Before we dive into the role of gender in divinity, we need to understand divinity itself in Buddhism -- a religion without a creator god. When this life ends, our Karma conditions our next rebirth in one of six realms. The middle realm is the human realm, considered to be the most fortunate rebirth because it is especially suited for spiritual practice due to (1) human life is wonderful and happy, (2) we have the awareness and capacity to practice, and (3) we suffer, which motivates us to practice, giving us an experiential reason to practice.

The three lower levels (realms of animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings) are less conducive to spiritual practice due to reduced mental capacity to practice and the constant bombardment of suffering. The two fortunate levels above the human realm, while realms of beauty, bliss, happiness, and long life, are also less conducive to practice because there is little motivation without suffering. These two realms are called the realm of the gods and the realm of the demigods (or devas).

These gods, goddesses, and devas -- what one might consider divinity -- deserve respect and love, just as do all other beings in all the realms of existence. In this context, gender is meaningless. Men and women can both achieve rebirth in a heavenly realm, and such rebirth can result in male or female manifestation. Gender does not convey any greater or lesser importance in the heavenly realms, just as it does not convey any greater or lesser importance here on earth, where we're all equal.

Closer to the Western mind's understanding of divinity are the numerous buddhas and bodhisattvas. Buddhas are people -- just like the historical Shakyamuni Buddha -- who attained enlightenment. There are countless such buddhas and bodhisattvas who continue to take rebirth to fulfill their vow to liberate all beings. Just like the innumerable gods and devas who, despite their fortunate lives, are still subject to the wheel of rebirth, the countless buddhas and bodhisattvas deserve our respect, compassion, and honor too. However, these buddhas, having attained the ineffable ultimate, also act as models for us to follow on our spiritual path, and we offer to them our humble thankfulness for their generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

While all buddhas have attained complete enlightenment in that they have perfected the wondrous qualities of generosity, compassion, wisdom, and love, there are several buddhas to whom we give special significance as manifestations of particular qualities of buddhahood. Of these manifestations, some are male, some are female. In that sense, gender is again meaningless in divinity in Buddhism.

In Buddhism, gender is simply a result of Karmic propensity toward a rebirth subject to the differences in gender that have evolved over the billions of years this universe has been in existence. There is no spiritual difference between man and woman. Both have, in their heart, perfect Buddha-nature, and both sexes can attain enlightenment using the gifts inherent in the evolved male and female gender dispositions.

I'd like to end this essay with a story. In an earlier universe, many billions of years ago, there lived a princess named Yeshe Dawa. Through her own personal experience, she became a devoted practitioner who took complete refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Through her practice, Yeshe Dawa developed perfect love and compassion for every single being in existence, without bias. Rather than being consumed by the luxuries of her royal family, she vowed to devote every single minute of her current and future lives toward a single goal -- the liberation of all beings. It is said that she vowed to liberate millions of beings each day before breakfast, millions more before lunch, and an additional million before going to sleep at night. Because of this life mission and the devotion with which she pursued her mission, she was called Arya Tara, which means “noble liberator.” When several religious authorities suggested to Yeshe Dawa that she work toward a male rebirth in the future, she refused. She noted that many Buddhas had already manifested as males, so she vowed to attain Buddhahood in a woman's body, and then to continuously return as a female in her quest to liberate all beings.

Through her exalted practice, Princess Yeshe Dawa became Tara, the Buddha who symbolizes enlightened activity. May we all follow in Tara's footsteps and vow to help everyone see the untainted, unsullied perfection that lies at the heart of their very being.

References
Thubten Chodron. How to Free Your Mind: Tara the Liberator. Snow Lion Publications. Ithaca, New York. 2005.

The World is a Level Playing Field

2007-07-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

The Way I See It #185:

A valuable lesson I've learned from making music is to never let anyone intimidate me. Every student, celebrity, CEO, and math teacher has experienced love, loneliness, fear, and embarrassment at some point. To understand this is to level an often very lopsided playing field.
-Anna Nalick

I read this quote on my Starbucks cup this morning, and it gave me pause. There is no ultimate difference between any of us. We all want happiness; we all do our best to avoid suffering. We have all experienced the pain of loss, the bliss of love, the pull of attachment. What we need to realize is that the person sitting next to us on the train is no different from us. The high-powered businessman leading the seminar is no different from us. The homeless man sitting on the bench at the bus stop is no different from us. The world really is a level playing field. If we think otherwise, our delusion is to blame.

Interfaith Blog Event #6: Role of Faith

2007-05-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the sixth Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan/UU perspective. And as a special treat, we've added two new bloggers to our event! Jeff joins us from Druid Journal, and Matt joins us from Journeys In Between. Jeff, as I'm sure you can tell from the title of his blog, writes from a Druidic perspective, while Matt has the following to say about his perspective (copied from his blog): "[I am an] Evangelical Christian asking what I can learn from esoteric movements like Wicca, NeoGnosticism, Yoga and Zen - and what spirited wisdom Jesus may have to offer in response."

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

What is your view regarding the meaning and the role of faith? What importance does it play in your community and in your daily life?

(Links will be provided as they become available)
[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay] [Jeff's Essay] [Matt's Essay]

The English language is a curious thing. In this question, what do we mean by “faith?” We can speak of faith as a noun, as a synonym for religion itself. We can also consider this question in terms of the verb faith, as in “to have faith” in something. I am going to focus on the verb interpretation, and will touch on aspects of the noun interpretation.

Faith has a mixed reputation in Buddhism. It is common for Western Buddhists to eschew faith, to say that Buddhism transcends faith through critical analysis, direct observation, and testing. In the East, however, many Buddhists are falling into the same trap as many Western Christians, that of relying 100% on faith for their beliefs. Stated another way, many Eastern Buddhists (and Western Christians) are raised by their parents in a certain religion, and they are remaining in that religion throughout their lives without ever actually critically examining the beliefs that they have been effectively brainwashed with in their youth.

I argue, however, that these Eastern Buddhists have fallen away from the Buddha's true message, and that these Western Buddhists are trying to separate themselves so completely from their predominantly Christian roots that they have overshot the Buddha's true teaching and landed at the extreme of faithlessness. Buddhism truly does incorporate faith in its practice, but it is a particular kind of “deserved” faith that the Buddha taught.

The Buddha's primary teaching on faith was presented in the Kalama Sutra. In this Sutra, the Buddha said to the Kalamas, the residents of the town of Kesaputta:

So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, "This contemplative is our teacher." When you know for yourselves that, "These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering" -- then you should abandon them.'

Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them.

Without understanding the context of the Buddha's teaching, it is easy to see how Western Buddhists can interpret this teaching as an endorsement of faithlessness. However, as I've stated many times in my essays, the Buddha always taught through the use of “Skillful Means,” meaning that he did not “preach” the exact truth (which is actually an impossible act given the conceptual nature of words and thoughts), but rather taught such that his message could be understood and implemented by his specific audience, bringing them closer to true realization. As an example, it would have been pointless to discuss the deeper nature of Dependent Arising when his audience did not yet understand or skillfully practice fundamental mindfulness. So in order to put the Buddha's teachings into context, we have to understand the Kalamas. In this Sutra, the Kalamas ask the Buddha:

Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?

The Kalamas have been told too many “truths” and are confused as to who to believe and what to follow. Therefore, given their particular situation, the exact teaching they require to help them on the Buddhist path is to emphasize the role of personal testing of all such teachings.

In other Sutras, the Buddha spoke of the Five Spiritual Faculties, which are the primary virtues that arise as spiritual training is undertaken: faith, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Given the well-known importance Buddhism places on mindfulness and wisdom, to put faith in the same list as these two “powerhouse” virtues really emphasizes its importance in Buddhist training.

Ultimately, what this tells us is that faith is an important practice in Buddhism, but for it to have any value, it must be applied skillfully, in conjunction with constant testing and questioning, and not unskillfully as in blind faith. All this being said, what is a skillful use of faith?

Let's consider the first Paramita (Perfection) of generosity. There are many examples of the Buddha's emphasis on the value of generosity. However, in Buddhism, one should not take these teachings as Gospel. Instead, one should initially have enough faith in the Dharma to undertake the practice of generosity for oneself. Here is where the unique approach of Buddhism really shines. If one had had complete faith in the Buddha as some divine, infallible deity, then he would be biased in his interpretation of the results of his practice of generosity, and he could never learn for himself whether generosity was truly beneficial or detrimental. But if he approaches the practice of generosity with a Beginner's Mind, open to all experiences without reservation or bias, then he can critically examine the causes and results of generosity, and can come to his own direct experience of the wisdom of generosity on the Buddhist path. At this point, faith is no longer required, as one knows for oneself the truth of the matter.

Let's take another example--the Precept (ethic) of not lying. Again, this is not a teaching we should take as infallible truth as uttered by the Awakened One. Instead, we have enough faith to test the precept for ourselves. If we had treated such a teaching as Gospel, we would be unable to see the true causes, conditions, and results of lying, due to our blind faith. Is this bad? Yes, it is, because with such faith, we will be blind to the situation in which lying is actually the least harmful, most skillful response. But in our unskewed, critical examination (approached with Beginner's Mind), we will be open to the conditions surrounding this precept, and will be better able to apply our wisdom in life situations.

I've discussed faith as an “early prerequisite” of practice, but does faith play any other role in Buddhism? Yes, it does.

Consider that Buddhism is a complete system of total life training. Particularly in our earlier stages of training, we are incapable of attending to all aspects of the path at once. Faith thus plays an important role in the aspects of the path in which we have not yet accumulated enough wisdom to act naturally out of love, compassion, and nonviolence.

As an example, you wake up one morning, walk into your living room, and notice a spider on the wall. To your eye, that's one BIG spider, and you're scared. You start to panic--you need to get that spider out of your home, fast! Your first instinct is to kill the spider. As this is your first instinct, you likely have not yet awakened to the wisdom in the Buddhist practice of nonaggression and not harming other beings. But before you smash it with your shoe, you recall the first Precept: “Do not harm, but cherish all life.” Here faith comes into play. You haven't yet attained a level of wisdom through testing that tells you in your heart that killing this creature would be an unskillful response. However, your faith in the Buddha's teaching gives you the strength to “try out” his teaching and follow his advice of non-harm, even though you don't truly know for yourself that this is the better course of action. So you capture the spider in a cup and release him outside in the grass.

In this example, faith has led you to a skillful response in a situation in which you were not yet able to foresee the best course of action for yourself. Ultimately, the purpose of Buddhist training is to point toward your true nature, and the true nature of everyone and everything around you. When you waver, Buddhist training gently guides you back onto the path of practice. Blind faith has no value in Buddhism, as it harms your practice by dulling your testing, questioning mind. Skillful faith, however, helps guide you along the path and gives you the strength to test and question and observe.

Interfaith Event Question Re: Forgiveness

2007-04-15T12:21:00.001-05:00

Jon wrote in a comment:

I am particularly curious why forgiveness is seen as so important to Buddhists when it is peripheral (at best) philosophically to them.

I consider the answer to this question in the second half of my essay, but in short, Buddhism is a path, not a doctrinal religion. As such, it is only the benefits of a practice that define its importance to any one person, not its philosophical ground. A good example are the various kinds of meditation practice existing in Buddhist traditions. There is concentration on the breath, contemplation of koans, contemplation of hwadu, loving-kindness meditation, mindfulness meditation, meditation upon death, etc. There is no universal doctrine that says, "You must meditate on loving-kindness in order to progress spiritually." Rather, we must use the practices that work the best for us on the path. I might already exhibit a strong degree of loving-kindness in my life, but maybe I lack focus, so concentration is the ideal practice for me. For someone who struggles with showing compassion, perhaps contemplation of loving-kindness is a better primary practice.

And here is where the strength of a path becomes evident. Practices that otherwise have zero philosophical basis in a tradition may still be beneficial for other reasons to a practitioner. Consider prayer. In Buddhism, we have no creator god to which to pray. However, prayer is a practice that can still be beneficial to Buddhists. A wonderful example in the May 2007 issue of Shambhala Sun magazine instructs that before opening a new email, one can center oneself by pausing, and reciting a gatha, such as, "May I open this email and respond for the benefit of myself and for all beings." We are not asking for divine assistance in this action--there is none to be had. Rather, we are opening our hearts and our minds to loving-kindness and compassion. Through such, we can ensure that we will read and respond to this person with a mind steeped in compassion and love rather than the scattered, unfocused mindset that is often the result of the rush of everyday life. Prayer has no philosophical ground in Buddhism, as Western apologetics would say. But it has a solid ground on Eastern religious paths in that its practice results in many effects that are easily seen to be beneficial to the path we follow.

Interfaith Blog Event #5: The Role of Forgiveness

2007-04-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the fifth Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

What role does the concept and application of interpersonal forgiveness play in your spiritual tradition?

(Links will be provided as they become available)
[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]

At one time, in a life prior to that in which he became the Enlightened One, the soon-to-be-Buddha was a Bodhisattva named Khantivadi. One day, he visited the city of Benares and sat to meditate under a tree. While he was meditating, the King passed him with his harem and, having seen the Bodhisattva, interrupted his meditation to ask him what virtue he was practicing. The Bodhisattva replied that his practice was that of forbearance. The King, of the opinion that virtuous practice was worthless and a weakness, summoned his executioner and instructed him to cut off the hands and feet of the Bodhisattva. As the executioner did so, the King asked the Bodhisattva what value his practice of forbearance was now that his limbs were being cut off. The Bodhisattva replied that his forbearance and other virtues were not in his limbs but in his mind. He extended his loving-kindness to the King. The King, angered by his failure to upset the Bodhisattva, kicked him in the stomach and left him lying, without hands and feet, on the forest floor.

Soon thereafter, the King's minister heard of the King's cruel actions and hurried to the side of the Bodhisattva. Seeing him lying in the dirt, dying, the minister bowed deeply and said to him, "Venerable one, none of us agreed to this cruel act of the King and we are all sorrowing over what has been done to you by that devilish man. We ask you to curse the King but not us." The Bodhisattva responded, "May that king who has caused my hands and feet to be cut off, as well as you, live long in happiness." Having spoken thus, he died.

(The Elimination of Anger. Ven. K. Piyatissa Thera.)

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, the verb "to forgive" has the following definition: "Stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw, or mistake." In the story I related above about one of the Buddha's past lives, we saw a most extreme example of cruelty toward the then-Bodhisattva. Such cruelty easily qualifies as an "offense, flaw, or mistake." And yet, the Bodhisattva did not respond in anger, nor experience any resentfulness. Therefore, in an ultimate sense, forgiveness plays no role in Buddhism, as anger or resentfulness toward someone for an offense does not occur.

Through observation of ourselves and our true nature, we learn that anger is solely the result of deluded thinking. Why do we feel anger or resentfulness when someone offends us? We experience such feelings because we think some combination of the following: "How dare they do that to me," "They should know better," and "Why me?" Slowing down and looking deeply at your anger will reveal the obvious truth that anger arises based on these factors. But it's not just the arising of these causes, but our attachment to them, that causes anger to escalate. Let's examine what happens when we get really angry. A person does something, and immediately our minds respond by flooding our system with adrenaline and thinking, "How DARE he do that to ME!" That thought consumes our minds--we become attached. We think it over and over, which stokes the flames of our anger. Soon we are white-hot. When our practice is strong, we can notice the initial cause of anger as it arises, and immediately douse the embers, as we know through our experience and deep looking that the only result of anger is to cause harm to us and harm to others. As we perfect our wisdom, anger and resentfulness do not arise at all, as in the case of the Bodhisattva above. Therefore, without the arising of anger or resentfulness, forgiveness has no relevance, as is clear from its definition.

All that being said, however, interpersonal forgiveness plays a very important role in Buddhism. The vast majority of us still become angry or resentful of others when we are wronged. In Buddhism, we speak of the three defilements of anger, greed, and delusion. These three defilements poison our minds and are the underlying causes of all suffering and the primary impediments to true love and compassion. Therefore, it is our primary practice as Buddhists to eradicate these defilements from our minds.

Since Buddhism is a path, not a dogmatic religion, it values any practice that will help one proceed along the path toward eliminating suffering and perfecting wisdom and compassion--even if that practice must ultimately be let go of after achieving its relative purpose. Forgiveness is such a practice. Even though, as I've explained above, forgiveness has no absolute relevance (i.e. after anger and resentfulness have been eliminated from the mind), it carries extreme importance on the Buddhist path in that it helps us eliminate suffering and perfect our wisdom and compassion. In Buddhism, we use the analogy of "seeds" being planted in the mind. We respond in anger because seeds of anger have been planted by our past actions (karma). For example, as children we watch our parents respond to certain things in anger. We love and respect our parents, and thereby we plant a seed of anger in our minds. Perhaps we try responding angrily ourselves, and thereby plant another seed. Each and every time we allow a seed of anger to sprout, we also plant another seed. The further we allow anger to escalate when it does sprout, the more seeds are planted. Hence, any practice that will help us to recognize anger early in the process and arrest its escalation will help us plant fewer and fewer seeds of anger in our unconscious. Forgiveness is such a practice.

Let's examine why this is so. Let's say our spouse forgets to pay an important bill. We notice the unpaid bill on the desk two days after it is due, and anger arises because we connect the unpaid bill to a worsening of our credit rating, a late payment fee, and our spouse's irresponsibility. A seed of anger planted previously has sprouted, and we now have two choices. We can choose to attach to the "results" of the unpaid bill, and let them stew in our minds, which will escalate our anger. We will eventually confront our spouse, and our anger will make such confrontation hostile and hurtful, in addition to planting further seeds of anger that will sprout in the future. We have a second choice of response, however. We can choose to forgive our spouse for this mistake, recognizing that she did not forget on purpose, but due to stress at work or some other similar cause. When we truly forgive our spouse, our anger immediately ceases. Then when we confront our spouse, we do so out of love and compassion, rather than anger. Forgiveness, therefore, is a beautiful Buddhist practice with many wonderful results: it stops the poison of anger in its tracks; it stops the personal suffering anger causes us; it protects us from causing harm to others when we act out of anger; it trains us to recognize and transcend anger earlier and earlier in the process; it prevents us from planting additional seeds of anger; and it teaches us how to act out of pure compassion and love.

Therefore, interpersonal forgiveness is a practice with a very important role in practical Buddhism. Eventually we will reach the point at which we have eliminated anger and, hence, the need for forgiveness. But until that time, forgiveness is a spiritual practice with innumerable benefits to all beings.

Subtle Stress and Sensation

2007-03-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

From The Strategy of a Peaceful Mind (Ajaan Suwat Suvaco. Trans. by Thanissaro Bhikkhu):

Stress, for instance, is a noble truth. It's right there in front of you. Why don't you become disenchanted with it? Because you don't see it, don't see the cause from which it comes. Or when you see the cause, you don't see its connection to stress. Why is that? Because delusion gets in the way. You see pretty sights, hear lovely sounds, smell nice aromas, taste good flavors, and then you fall for them. You get carried away and grasp after them, thinking that you've acquired something. As for the things you don't yet have, you want to acquire them. Once you acquire them, you fall for them and get all attached and entangled. This is the origination of suffering. When these things are inconstant, they stop being peaceful. They become a turmoil because they're inconstant all the time.

1-Minute Contemplation: What pretty sights, lovely sounds, nice aromas, good flavors, and sensual textures have you experienced recently? Carry yourself back to that experience. When the sensation ended, what was your experience? Look deeply at your response. There was perhaps a thankfulness for the opportunity to experience such a wonderful sensation. Was there any longing? Perhaps a twinge of "missing?" Or a very slight desire to feel the sensation again?

He Turned His Awareness to What Was Before Him

2007-03-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

"After crossing his legs and adjusting his body, he turned his awareness to what was before him." (Pine, 2001. Pg. 1)

After the Buddha had finished eating his meal, he sat on the appointed seat to begin his teaching to the full assembly of bhikshus and fearless bodhisattvas. Just like the first part of the first chapter I discussed here, this sentence of the Diamond Sutra is full of meaning. Before beginning his teaching, the Buddha sat cross-legged on his seat and focused simply on that which was before him. Such mental composition is a model for our actions.

The Buddha was about to convey that which is now considered to be his principal exposition of emptiness. One might say that his next act subsequent to sitting down was going to be one of the most important of his life (given the vital importance of emptiness in the Buddhist tradition). Notice that he did not fret, did not roll his mental reel to practice his speech, did not look about him haphazardly. Rather, he "turned his awareness to what was before him." This is a wonderful teaching. No matter what we are about to do, even if it is potentially the most important thing in our lives, we can do no better than to bring our attention to the present moment--in time and place--and ground our thoughts, words, and actions on this foundation.

Sometimes it is easier to remember to bring our practice to such momentous occasions than to the everyday, seemingly unimportant actions such as shopping for groceries or talking to our spouse. But if it is important to turn our awareness to what is before us prior to a very important act, it is doubly so for our common actions. Such actions provide us many more opportunities to bring our mindfulness to bear on all aspects of our lives. And if we are capable of attending to the most meaningless action with the full force of our attention, imagine how much more powerful such attention will be when applied to critical events.

Our Life is the Life of a Buddha

2007-03-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

A synopsis of part of chapter 1 of the Diamond Sutra:

While dwelling outside the city of Shravasti, as per his usual routine, the Buddha put on his outer robe, took up his begging bowl, and entered the city. After begging for food, and eating the city-dwellers' offerings of rice, he returned to his forest home. He put away his bowl and his outermost robe, washed his feet, and arranged himself on his cushion to begin his teaching.

In the Buddha's time, monks routinely obtained their meals by begging for food from householders (non-monastics). This practice served several beneficial purposes. For monastics, this practice taught them humility. Additionally, they learned to be thankful for the food they received, and it gave them the opportunity to practice non-attachment, as they learned to appreciate whatever food was given them. Begging for meals benefited the layperson as well, who was given the opportunity to practice generosity.

At first glance, this initial chapter of the Diamond Sutra might seem to be just setting the stage for the real teaching to come. But if we view it in that way, we miss the foremost lesson of this sutra. What actions do we see the Buddha performing in this opening chapter? He gets dressed, he obtains food, he eats, he puts his possessions away after returning home, and he washes. In other words, the daily actions of a Buddha do not differ from the daily actions of any one of us!

In the Ten Oxherding Pictures, created during the Sung Dynasty (1126 - 1279) in China as a depiction of the Buddhist path, the first picture is of a person searching for the ox. He walks down a path, and the ox is nowhere to be seen. In the second through ninth pictures, he locates, pursues, struggles with, tames, and eventually rides the ox. The final picture shows the ox herder walking down a path, the ox nowhere to be seen. The first and the last pictures convey the same basic image--the same teaching as that of the first chapter of the Diamond Sutra.

Therefore, while engaging in our daily practice, we need to realize that our true nature is that of a buddha. After attaining Awakening, it is not as if we suddenly don't have to eat or wash or walk. On the contrary, our external responsibilities and actions remain the same. The difference is in the mind guiding the actions. Instead of entering the city and becoming distracted by its many charms, we notice and appreciate the wonders of the city, and avoid attaching to them. Instead of eating our meal, distracted to the point of barely even tasting the wonderful flavors of the food, we eat in mindfulness, thankful for the opportunity to eat this meal, even while engaging our companions socially. Instead of walking with our minds bouncing between current events, the way we handled a meeting with our boss, and what we plan on doing later, we walk with a steady mind, applying it toward a purposefully chosen end.

Diamond Sutra: A Study

2007-03-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

I am beginning a focused study of the Diamond Sutra, one of the primary sutras in the Prajna Paramita wisdom literature in Mahayana Buddhism. I am going to use two translations of the text. One is by Tom Graham (originally by Master Hsing Yun) in the book, Describing the Indescribable. The other is by Red Pine in his famous book, The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom. It is my hope to spend the next several months or more focusing on successive chapters of this sutra, both from textual and experiential perspectives. I will, of course, write about my study here. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I expect to.

A Renaissance Mind

2007-03-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts here over the last month. I haven't had much time outside of school and work to maintain a regular writing schedule. However, I have made some very interesting observations. Over the last several years, a friend and I have often discussed how we feel mentally "sluggish," compared with the acuity we maintained when immersed in engineering coursework in college.

Now, two semesters into my Ph.D. program (electrical engineering), I notice a significant difference in my mental agility. My thinking has greater clarity; I've noticed that my mental "pictures" are more focused and sharp. And I attribute this improvement to my engineering studies.

There are side effects to this work, though. As I focus more on engineering principles and analytics, the part of my mind that writes seems to be taking a vacation. Leonardo Da Vinci, that great Renaissance thinker, accumulated hundreds of journals, while at the same time generating brilliant engineering designs, painting, sculpting, etc. How was he able to tap into the parts of his mind that excelled at mathematic principles, and then paint a masterpiece and record his unique observations of the natural world?

I'd love to hear others' experiences on this topic. Have you been successful in the mental agility displayed by Da Vinci? How? Have you too noticed that it's a struggle to get seemingly disparate parts of your mind to function optimally?

How Much is Too Much? How Much is Too Little?

2007-03-01T23:00:00.000-06:00

Very often, we want to attain the perfect state of mind, the perfect peace. We strive to handle a situation in the perfect way. We want our relationships to be perfect, and we want our careers to be perfect. Can we attain perfection? Sometimes. For athletes, something akin to perfection is being "in the zone." It's a state in which everything seems to be moving in slow motion, and you can do no wrong. But what can we do in other areas of life? How can we seek perfection?

A better question is, "What am I doing right now?" Right now, I'm writing. Some days, words flow easily. Other days--unfortunately quite common for me over the last couple weeks--I find it very hard to write. But both of these experiences have causes; it cannot be otherwise. Logically speaking, if I could arrange it such that all of the causes that cause me to write easily and well are operating when I sit down to write, and all of the causes that cause me to feel blocked are not operative, then there is only one possible result: I will write easily and well. The Buddha taught us that we can accomplish this. We are capable of this. We just have to do the work. And the work is mindfulness.

So when we're working on a project and we're getting frustrated, mindfulness is noticing that we're frustrated, then pushing that out of the way and bringing our minds to thoughts of peace, right? Wrong. Repression does not uproot the seeds of frustration because if we repress the emotion, what have we learned? Maybe we can force ourselves to feel peaceful--that does actually work some of the time--but we won't have moved any closer to knowing the true causes of our frustration. Mindfulness is noticing that we're frustrated. Then we notice how that feels specifically in the body. We acknowledge whether the feelings are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We see them simply for what they are. We don't interpret the bodily sensations or feelings as good or bad. They are simply feelings, indicators of the frustration. By such "simple" practice--and I put simple in quotes because most of the time it sure doesn't feel simple--we will come to naturally know the causes of the frustration. Once we know the true causes, and have deeply realized for ourselves the skillfulness or unskillfulness of "frustration," we can choose to generate those causes, or avoid generating them.

When we experience anything, the question to ask is, "What am I doing right now?" When we are not being perfect, which is most of the time, we are being given a gift. We have the opportunity to look at ourselves and see what, specifically, we are doing right now, and how much of it, specifically, we are doing. And by simply observing the body, observing the feelings, observing the mind, we learn whether we are doing too much or too little. Only when we intimately know "too much" and "too little" can we follow the Middle Path.

Making Good Causes

2007-02-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

"It's a matter of making causes. If the causes are good, the result is bound to be good, because all things are born of causes." (Being Dharma, Ajahn Chah)

1-Minute Contemplation: Look back over the last day. What happened to you? Seek to find the causes operative in your life over the past day. Rest assured that you won't find them all--life is too complex to pull that off. But to see even one when we saw none before is a step down the right path.

Why Does Time Seem to Go Faster as We Age?

2007-02-18T15:00:00.000-06:00

"Where did the day go? Five minutes ago I was waking up at eight o'clock, and now it's nine pm and I haven't gotten a single thing done."

Why is it that life roars by faster and faster as we age? Think back to childhood. It seemed like we had time to do everything we wanted when we were children. I can't recall ever being pressed for time, nor worrying that I wouldn't be able to get a task done. In adult life, admittedly, there are many more demands for our time. Not only do we have our hobbies, but now work demands our time, as do responsibilities such as house cleaning, laundry, yard work, home repairs, and cooking. So while the number of hours in a day has not changed, the number of things we try to squeeze into our waking hours has. And yet I still have days where I accomplish responsibility after responsibility, respond to emails, read for an appreciable time, write a short essay, play a game of chess, and still have time to meditate and spend the evening with my fiance. How can we have more days like that? The answer is intention.

On those amazing days like I described above, I find that a clear intention--all too often unconsciously set--carries me through. I say "unconsciously set" because while sometimes I consciously state my intention with each new activity, many times I only notice when reflecting back on my day how intentional everything was. I observe after-the-fact that as I finished the laundry, I confidently decided to meditate for 20 minutes. After that, I resolutely chose to write for an hour.

How does this compare to a "normal" day, when we seem so pressed for time? On these days, we tend to go about our day intention-less. It's really easy to move through life without intention. We have this vague mental construct of our tasks, and as we proceed from one to the next, there is no clear delineation between them. Further complications arise in that we are usually thinking about tasks 5, 6, and 7 while we are working on task 4, and occasionally our minds drift back to task 3.

On the contrary, when we set a specific intention before beginning a task: "I will sit and write for 1 hour," this provides a structure, a frame, within which our minds can work. With resolution, we place our minds in an optimal state for completing the task in front of us. We've noted our goal, defined the specific conditions for its outcome, and know our timeframe. Given this structure, our minds are assured that once the time for this task is up, they will be allowed to think about the other tasks--this helps us be mindful and focused on the current activity. Additionally, once we have completed this task, we then set our intention for the next task, and this provides a clear boundary between activities, to which our mind seems to respond very well. This "break in the action" allows our mind to regenerate, to rest momentarily and switch gears to function optimally on the new task.

From a Buddhist perspective, such conscious intention-setting allows us to break our karmic habits and choose our next actions with mindfulness. When we allow all our activities to run together, it is extremely easy to get caught up in our habitual thoughts and actions because we haven't given any direct instructions to our mind otherwise. However, by setting our intention, we have set the stage to see our habitual responses to life and, therefore, have the ability to change our response to one we deem more skillful. Setting our intention before each activity is truly an act of mindfulness, one with immediately observable benefits. It is also an act of compassion because it gives us the space within which to examine our responses and ensure that they are motivated by compassion, not ill will. As we age, we tend to get caught up in our habitual responses. We lose the mindful curiosity of our childhood. Things are no longer "new" to our minds, and so as we gain experience, it becomes ever easier to automatically respond as we have in the past. Conscious intention-setting counteracts this tendency and gives us a tool through which to develop compassionate, mindful action.

1-Minute Contemplation: Where do you find yourself getting pulled through life, time passing you by? In what way would intention practice help in your specific circumstances? Can you resolve to set your intention in these areas, and see what effect it has on your life?

Deeply Held Belief in Nonviolence

2007-02-11T12:01:00.000-06:00

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about a mutual hobby, tabletop gaming. We are both huge fans of the Lord of the Rings universe and play Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings Strategy Game. Tactics play the major role in this game, as each player controls an army comprised of units from within the Lord of the Rings mythology--elves, men, dwarves, Gandalf, Saruman, etc.--and fights a battle with their forces against the other player. To give our games some depth and meaning, however, we created a strategic world within which we play the game. In other words, it's closer to "real life" in that the results of our battles ripple through our respective Middle Earth empires. When (and if) to attack, how much force to use in doing so, what additional units to produce to strengthen our armies, where to maneuver--all of these are now important factors for which we have to account. Said another way, instead of just playing the role of a Field Commander in a single battle, we now play the roles of President, General, Defense Minister, and Foreign Relations Advisor, as well as Field Commander.

While we discussed our game and what appears to be an impending invasion of my territory by my friend, I noticed how uncomfortable I felt regarding our war. I love fighting our individual battles for the strategic challenge they present, just as I enjoy chess, Go, and other such games. But the more my job becomes "leading an empire," the more I shy away from warlike tendencies.

I think back to my college days, when I frequently played the computer game Civilization. In that game, you are charged with leading your chosen civilization from a single settler in antiquity to launching a manned spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, in the 21st century CE. Across this vast span of time, you can lead your civilization in an infinite number of ways, including creating and breaking diplomatic ties, choosing your form of government, forging trade routes, building Wonders of the World, and waging war. I always, always, always tried to win via diplomatic relations, and could never bring myself to wage war on the other civilizations, except under self-defense.

In Buddhism, the number one moral teaching is, "Do not harm, but cherish all life." All other ethical actions can be reduced to this one teaching--we should not lie because of the harm it can have on others as well as ourselves (we count as "all life" too!), we should avoid stealing because of the pain it causes others, etc. In November of 2005, the Dalai Lama gave a talk on the heart of nonviolence, and here is an excerpt from Stanford University's coverage of the event:

"Violence is destruction; nonviolence is construction," he [Dalai Lama] said.

But the boundaries between violence and nonviolence cannot be determined simply by observing actions on their surface, he said. An individual can use nice words to cheat or exploit another, he said. Conversely, a harsh action could be done out of compassion and the intent to protect others, he added. Limited violence can be permissible, and countering a violent action with a strong countermeasure sometimes is not only permissible "but is the right thing to do," he said.

The organized violence of war, however, is never a lasting solution, he said. Acting out of negative emotions, however natural they may be, obscures reality, he said. In today's reality, "the whole world is like one family or one body. Destroying one part of the world is like destroying yourself," he said.

War is very hard to justify, he said. It's too early to say whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong, he added. "We'll see," he said.

As I am a Buddhist, I embrace the idea of nonviolence. But in conversing with my friend, for the first time I truly observed for myself how deeply ingrained this approach to life is in me. Even in my completely unreal fantasy game, as soon as the game gave me responsibility as the leader of a people (rather than just a General in a battle without context), I felt it was completely wrong and irresponsible of me to pursue war. Even knowing this now, and knowing that our game was designed completely around giving us a reason and a context to fight our individual battles, I still struggle inwardly with any decisions involving waging war because I deeply feel that peace is always an option, and to allow events to proceed to the point where violence is unavoidable is to have failed in my job as leader. I agree with the Dalai Lama that strong countermeasures are sometimes necessary to minimize violence and harm in the long-term (WWII and Hitler being an obvious example), but it is only under extreme circumstances that this type of action is necessary.

1-Minute Contemplation: When in your life have you had the experience of seeing a deeply held viewpoint naturally emerge? Did you expect that response? Did you know it was even there? For me, I knew I had felt violence was wrong, but it had mostly been an intellectual understanding that had provided guidance for me. Until my revealing conversation with my friend. It was only then that I truly saw for myself the depth of feeling I had of the importance of peace and harmony in the world.

Respect Those Cabinets!

2007-02-06T20:00:00.000-06:00

Buddhism is about respect -- respect for oneself, respect for one's neighbors, respect for one's enemies, respect for all animals, even respect for your kitchen cabinets. You might be thinking, "I was with you through the animals, but my cabinets!?" Yes, that's right, even your cabinets deserve your respect.

In a way, I'm using respect as a mental trick. In Buddhism we tend to talk about mindfulness, compassion, wisdom, concentration, and generosity. While I think it's obvious that respect is a positive trait, and belongs in the above group, it shows itself infrequently in Buddhist sutras. But if we take a good look at respect, we can see that it really represents an effective means to practice, particularly when applied to kitchen cabinets.

When I open my cabinet to get a glass, I can pull the cabinet open, grab my glass, and let the cabinet door slam back against the cabinet itself. Or I can open the cabinet door, remove my glass, and let the door go a few inches from the casing as I turn my attention to my next task--filling my glass. Or I can close the cabinet door carefully, holding it all the way until I gently bring it back into contact with the cabinet. Here is where respect appears. If I respect the cabinet, how will I close it? Will I allow it to slam noisily? Or will I give it the attention it deserves until closure?

Here, again, you might be thinking, "But the cabinet isn't sentient. How can I respect a cabinet? That's nonsensical!" I agree, it is nonsensical. There's really nothing a cabinet can do to earn your respect. And that's the very reason why you should respect it! It teaches you that all things deserve respect, even those things that haven't earned it. So when somebody who really annoys you enters your conversation at a dinner party, your practice of respect will bear fruit, and you will find that you respect that person despite your differences.

There's another benefit to showing respect toward your cabinets. If you respect your cabinets, you will do nothing to harm them purposefully. You will be gentle with them, maybe even loving, and this becomes a lesson in nonviolence and nonharming. Furthermore, to avoid harming your cabinets, you will close them gently, paying attention the entire time. This is a practice in mindfulness. This practice is so effective because you have immediate feedback: sound. When you slam your cabinet doors, you are immediately reminded of your transgression.

So we have come full circle. We began by observing that Buddhism centers around respect for all beings. We then chose to extend this to non-sentient objects. By doing so, we obtained the wonderful side effect of the practice of mindfulness and nonviolence. In this way, we never have to ask, "Am I going to be able to carry this practice off the cushion into everyday life?" because the practice began in the midst of everyday life! So the next time somebody asks you what you get from your Buddhist practice, you can answer with a straight face, "I respect my kitchen cabinets."

2007 Blogisattva Award Nominee

2007-02-05T19:00:00.000-06:00

I'd like to extend my thanks for my nomination in the category of Best New Blog, 2006 in the 2007 Blogisattva Awards. There is some amazing writing represented in these nominations. Please visit Blogisattva and check out some of the nominee posts!

Sixteen Foot Buddha

2007-02-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

"With a blade of grass, we create a golden Buddha which is sixteen feet high." (Not Always So. Shunryu Suzuki.)

I just completed a difficult work project that has occupied most of my waking hours throughout January. Throughout that process, I both struggled mightily with my practice, and also found beautiful refuge in my practice. My regular sitting practice suffered because I had to constantly work. Several days into our hardest week on the project, I was extremely close to burning out, and my body let me know it by catching a brutal 24-hour flu -- my first flu in over 10 years. It was at that point I recognized that no work project was worth my health, and yet my task would not complete itself. So I put the work I had to do aside and sat for 30 minutes.

In my meditation space, I learned a tremendous lesson.

As Shunryu Suzuki says in the quote that opened this post, "With a blade of grass, we create a golden Buddha which is sixteen feet high." The joy in life opens up for us when we can look at even the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential thing, and see something as glorious as a sixteen foot golden Buddha. In my hell-week meditation, I saw directly how I was the source of my own suffering, with my response to aspects of the project, and it was completely in my power to respond differently. I was not seeing the sixteen foot Buddha sitting right in front of me, within the task I was spending so much time on. After that, I slowed myself down and worked with a mindful awareness of myself working, regardless of the deadlines that seemed impossible to meet. And what I found was that I was more efficient, more effective, and more calm throughout the entire process. I took what life was presenting me as my practice. So while my sitting practice still suffered, I gained valuable experience seeing that there is always time and a means to practice, if only I allow myself to see the shimmering golden Buddha within each blade of grass.

1-Minute Contemplation: Take a moment and consider a recent time when you looked at your blade of grass and saw only a hair-thin stripe of plant. Looking back, having achieved some space from this event, can you see a glimpse of the glorious golden Buddha?

Back!

2007-01-31T07:07:00.000-06:00

Ok, now that the work project that has kept me completely occupied for the last month has ended, I can get back to what's truly important - unpaid writing! :) Expect my posting routine to return to normal over the next couple days.

Impact of Buddhism on Everyday Life

2007-01-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

(Cross-posted to A Pagan Sojourn)

"How has your religion changed your daily, everyday life?"

"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery…we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love, compassion, and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness." (Dalai Lama)

Buddhism is a religion based upon empirical testing and observation. As the Dalai Lama notes in the quote above, the key to true happiness is inner peace. The primary manner in which Buddhism has changed my life is by showing me the means to obtain such happiness. And by that, I don't mean through pedagogic discourse but through not only giving me the tools to examine myself and my world directly, but also by making it clear that examining the world for myself is the only method by which I can discover the way to happiness--being told about it or reading about it won't get me very far.

In a sense, Buddhism has given me a toolkit with which to examine all aspects of myself and the world around me. Through application of mindfulness, I can slow down and examine the minutest aspects of phenomena. Of course, the ability to do this takes much time to develop--I certainly am not at the point of being able to be mindful to that degree--but the tools allow me to see progress for myself. What's the benefit of mindfulness of this type? As the Dalai Lama stated, anger is one of the primary impediments to happiness. As I slow myself down and look at anger as it arises, I can begin to see it for what it is--a body-less emotion that I, solely, am responsible for generating. Only with mindfulness can I avoid attaching to my anger, which prevents it from controlling me. I can then directly observe its causes, the conditions required for it appear in me, and the ultimate effect it has on my peace of mind and others around me. It is only through this method that I can see for myself the true damage that anger causes me, the effect it has on my inner peace. And it is only through this method that I can observe the true nature of anger.

This same process allows me to examine happiness in life. As the Dalai Lama stated, inner peace is the key to true happiness. But doesn't buying stuff make us happy too? Doesn't a good meal make us happy? Yes, but those happinesses are fleeting, impermanent, and ultimately unsatisfactory. How do I know this? Through mindfulness. Looking directly with penetrating insight at the feelings that arise when I buy something I really want makes it clear that this feeling is based on attachment. I see that after the initial thrill wears off, I need to buy something else to continue the "high." Is that really true happiness?

Buddhism has truly given me the tools to work with my everyday life, to see the true nature of every aspect of myself. It has given me a stronger peace of mind, and I've observed for myself the increase in happiness that comes with such inner peace. I'm thankful for coming to Buddhism when I did because it has allowed me to see for myself the things I do that are wholesome and beneficial, and the things I do that are unwholesome and harmful. It has also given me a 2,500 year old proven process to increase the wholesome and decrease the unwholesome.

Challenges of Non-Mainstream Faith

2007-01-10T21:45:00.000-06:00

Cross-posted to A Pagan Sojourn

How do you deal with the cultural/societal challenges involved in following a non-mainstream religious path?

In my life, the challenges that have arisen due to following a non-mainstream religious path (in the US, that would generally mean not being Christian) have been of two types -- external and internal. Initially, the external challenges seemed harsher and more difficult to deal with. But I've since learned that not only are the internal challenges more important, but the external challenges are really internal challenges in disguise.

In terms of internal challenges, my main struggle is acceptance; not wishing for acceptance from others, but being accepting of other's religious choices. Buddhism is a tolerant religion that states that other religions carry value insofar as they develop your inherent beneficial qualities of love, compassion, peace, generosity, and discipline (to name just a few), and insofar as they reduce the poisons of greed, hatred, and laziness. I see adherents of other religions benefiting from them along these lines regularly. I applaud them for finding a religion that suits their makeup. But I admit that I struggle understanding how people can choose certain beliefs--in particular, monotheistic faiths--as my experiences have been so contrary, my insight so opposite, to theirs. It's my own attachment to being right; it's my internal challenge for which I train to develop insight. The seed of this attachment is difficult to unearth, but that's partly why we undertake such spiritual training.

The external challenge I faced was one of being surrounded by those of Christian faiths during times of traditional ritual--holiday meal prayers, religious weddings, etc. I quickly realized, however, that this wasn't an external challenge at all, but an internal one. It was my own insecurity acting out. Experience after experience has proven to me the validity and benefit of my own faith, and each one has helped me to realize my choice is right for me, regardless of others' choices. Now, during holiday meal prayers with family, I just feel thankful for food and family in my own mindful way--I pray in a Buddhist manner. At religious ceremonies like weddings, I practice in my own way by generating loving-kindness for the lucky couple.

I've learned that any external pressure I feel is solely a product of my own internal state, which clear insight can break right through. Such challenges have truly turned out to be a blessing because they have spotlighted areas where my practice was weak, where my views were unwholesome. Now, I am thankful for each and every one of these challenges.

Essence of Buddhism

2007-01-08T20:50:00.000-06:00

(Cross-posted to A Pagan Sojourn)

We can represent the essence of Buddhism in several different ways. In terms of views, which is the approach I will discuss in this essay, we have what we call the Three Dharma Seals. As defined by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, "Traditionally, seal means something like a hallmark that confirms authenticity." (Shambhala Sun, January 2007. Pg. 52). These represent the views that underlie all Buddhist theory and practice. If a practice contradicts these views, it is not a Buddhist practice.

The first seal is that all conditional things are impermanent. Is there anything in our known universe or in your experience that is permanent and unchanging? We buy a new car and are happy, but that elation wears off and passes away. A family member dies and we are sad. But the sadness dissipates in strength over time. Perhaps it may never disappear, but it is always changing as we adapt to it. When we slow waaaaaay down, we can see our individual thoughts rise and fall as well. Even our sun is slowly dying, and in about 5 billion years will expand into a red giant, whose edge will reach approximately to the edge of the earth, to be followed over time by a slow decline to its end as a white dwarf.

The second seal is that all things are without inherent existence. The key word here is "inherent." The chair in which you sit exists (or else you'd be floating in mid-air!), but it does not do so inherently. By "inherently," we mean independent of all other things. If the chair existed inherently, there would be a quality we call "chairness" that we could identify, that was not dependent on any other phenomena. But look at your chair. It is composed of parts. It has legs, arms, a seat, a back. There is nothing there that you can call "chair" independent of those parts. We are no different. As beings, we have body parts, we have feelings, we have thoughts, we have consciousness. But there is nothing we can find within us that is independent of all other things. There is no independent "self" that we can point to and say, "This is independent of all other things." Everything in us is dependently arisen! Hence, we have no inherent existence either.

The third seal is that Nirvana is perfect peace and happiness. This says that our true nature is perfect peace and happiness, which is only obscured by the defilements, like anger, hatred, greed, and delusion. Hence, if we can eliminate these defilements, our natural peace and happiness will shine forth. This seal actually plays two roles. Not only does it show us that we are already perfect beings, only we just don't know it because we've hidden it beneath a fog of delusion, it also says that we can re-discover this perfect peace and happiness in our lives. And nobody can do it for us. Others can help point out the path, but only we can attain this rediscovery ourselves. I often say that Buddhism is the ultimate optimistic religion, and that is because this seal tells us that regardless of the suffering we feel, regardless of our current faults and challenges, we are truly perfect and are fully capable of realizing that perfection if we only try.

These three seals underlie all other Buddhist principles and practices. They form the basis for Dependent Arising, for mindfulness, for generation of perfect compassion and loving-kindness, for ethical training, for meditation, for generosity, for the Four Noble Truths. And what I find particularly amazing in the Buddha's teachings is that a blind faith in these seals is unnecessary and counterproductive. Rather, the practices are undertaken (perhaps initially motivated by the belief that these seals may be true), and they lead to a direct experience of these truths. Nowhere does the Buddha say, "Believe in these seals, my teachings, and you will be saved." Instead, he said, "Contemplate. Meditate. Discover these truths on your own." I find this last point to be the key essence of Buddhism. Spend your time practicing and experiencing mindfully, not studying for intellectual knowledge or playing mental philosophical gymnastics. While studying can give you knowledge, practicing will give you wisdom.

Guest Blogging at A Pagan Sojourn

2007-01-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

This week several fellow writers and I will be guest blogging for Sojourner at A Pagan Sojourn. Four different faiths will be represented on at least three different topics. Here is the guest list:

Me, from a Buddhist perspective;
Angela-Eloise from Blogickal, writing a Wiccan perspective;
Bernulf from A Heathen Blog - Expanding Inward, writing from a Heathen perspective;
Jeff from Druid Journal, writing from the Druid tradition.

I'll be cross posting my posts from A Pagan Sojourn to Unknowing Mind, but please stop by A Pagan Sojourn and read about all the interesting traditions represented!

Thanks to Sojourner for offering me this opportunity again.

The Hawk, A Simile

2007-01-06T09:30:00.000-06:00

From the Sakunagghi Sutta, The Hawk (Access to Insight):

Once a hawk suddenly swooped down on a quail and seized it. Then the quail, as it was being carried off by the hawk, lamented, 'O, just my bad luck and lack of merit that I was wandering out of my proper range and into the territory of others! If only I had kept to my proper range today, to my own ancestral territory, this hawk would have been no match for me in battle.'

'But what is your proper range?' the hawk asked. 'What is your own ancestral territory?'

'A newly plowed field with clumps of earth all turned up.'

So the hawk, without bragging about its own strength, without mentioning its own strength, let go of the quail. 'Go, quail, but even when you have gone there you won't escape me.'

Then the quail, having gone to a newly plowed field with clumps of earth all turned up and climbing up on top of a large clump of earth, stood taunting the hawk, 'Now come and get me, you hawk! Now come and get me, you hawk!'

So the hawk, without bragging about its own strength, without mentioning its own strength, folded its two wings and suddenly swooped down toward the quail. When the quail knew, 'The hawk is coming at me full speed,' it slipped behind the clump of earth, and right there the hawk shattered its own breast.

Watering the Seeds of Compassion

2007-01-06T01:00:00.000-06:00

"Now think of the person sitting nearest you as your own child, and you are the mother, embracing, supporting and caring, wanting to help, being concerned." (Ven. Ayya Khema, Shambhala Sun, January 2007. Pg. 62.)

This is part of a wonderful practice of compassion taught in Buddhism. In this meditation, after settling your body and mind, you contemplate your mother, and feel the love and compassion and softness wash over you. As you sit in this field of love, you then consider yourself as the mother, and turn your attention to your child, some other person in your life. You start with friends and relatives, proceed to neutral parties, and eventually you are able to feel the love and protection only a mother has for your enemies. You bathe in this feeling of compassion and loving-kindness, seeing the nature of this wonderful mental seed, planting it deep so that it comes forth naturally in your everyday life. The more you practice in this way, the easier it becomes, and the more you find it surfacing throughout your day. Like all things, there will be ups and downs. But persevere, and water the mental seed of compassion that resides in all of us.

Interfaith Blog Event #4: The Role of Justice

2007-01-05T07:30:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the fourth Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

What role does justice play in the universe?

[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]

Justice is a flawed concept. Before we can examine why this is the case, we must first understand the depth of this word.

The word "justice" derives from the Latin word justus which, in turn, is based on the word jus, meaning "law, right." (New Oxford American Dictionary). From this etymology, the concept of jus and, therefore, justice, clearly has two underlying premises: (1) A law exists; and (2) Actions can be right (further implying that they can be wrong). For our purposes, "laws" include both societal laws (e.g. Speed limits) and moral laws (e.g. "Do not murder" and "Do not gossip"). Justice, then, is really the administration of the law.

More importantly, however, how do we intuitively view justice? To gain some insight into this question, let's step away from our wordplay for a moment. The Qabalah, more explicitly the Tree of Life, gives us a wonderful tool for this analysis. The Tree of Life is a pictorial representation of the universe that consists of three pillars, the middle of which is a melding of the two extremes of the outer pillars. These outer two pillars are named Severity and Mercy. In other words, according to this model, a continuum exists that spans the entire range between the two poles of Severity and Mercy, perfectly balanced in the Middle Pillar, the Pillar of Mildness. It seems to me that the manner in which we intuitively view and apply justice lies on this Severity/Mercy continuum. When a law is broken (or we are wronged), we view this offense with a backdrop of Severity and Mercy. Maybe we want to effect justice, which connotes punishment; or maybe we forgive the offender, showing him/her mercy. Most often, our response lies somewhere in the middle, in a merging of these two poles such that we punish the offender, but reduce our planned sentence due to some special (merciful) consideration of his circumstance.

Note that we equally apply this approach to justice in our everyday lives as well as in our social justice system. If somebody says something that offends you, what is your most probable response? Generally speaking, people respond initially with anger or defiance, and then either punish the offender in some manner ("How dare you say that to me, you *$%@!"), or forgive him, or some combination of both. Sometimes our applied punishment is even more insidious, like the dreaded silent treatment. Regardless, the common element is the backdrop of Severity/Mercy -- how severely should we punish somebody who has broken "a law," and how merciful should we be?

The debate over capital punishment is a great example of this dualistic approach. Proponents of capital punishment argue that a person who so hideously harms another as to deserve this punishment has given up his right to life. They deem that the punishment be Severe to the utmost degree. However, note that Mercy has begun to show its face in recent history, as we try to make the death as painless as possible. On the contrary, opponents of capital punishment say that we do not have the right to take life in this manner. However, most of these people still view the situation in terms of "sentencing" the criminal with the punishment he deserves. Herein lies the problem with justice.

In our dualistic manner, we see how one person harms another and therefore think he "deserves" some kind of punishment. This is a clear example of wrong view, with ego as its fundamental cause. Any time we think along the lines of "deserving," it is our ego speaking. "I deserve to be treated better" is your ego exerting its self-importance. "He deserves to sit in prison for 10 years" is solely an ego-trip--how do you know exactly what he deserves? "He murdered his neighbor, therefore he deserves to spend his life in prison" is still an ego judgment on another being. Extending this to the sphere of moral law, any God who administers justice or mercifully forgives is acting out of his/her own ego. Of course, such personification of God is inherently limited. But I feel the truth behind the wisdom still holds--applying justice and, therefore, allowing for forgiveness, is wrong view.

Right view, in contrast, consists of compassionate action and directly observable truth. In right view, we recognize that when one man has murdered another, he must be secluded from society for the safety of all. We attempt to rehabilitate the offender because all beings have the right to such fair treatment. Perhaps it will be unsuccessful, in which case that man never gets to leave prison. Perhaps it will be successful, in which case that man is released to rejoin society. In right view, we see that causes conditioned the murderer's actions and, while his actions are not condoned, there is zero judgmentalism. The murderer does not "deserve" to be punished any more than we deserve to die at the end of our lives or to be born at the beginning.

As another example, instead of applying the silent treatment when a loved one does something to us that we interpret as hurtful, right view is recognizing that the other person's actions are based on a complex of causes, which can only warrant a compassionate response. Even if they did the hurtful action "on purpose," causes and conditions in their past are still the only true offender.

Notice the difference in underlying attitude between right view and wrong view. In right view, all response is based in compassion, recognizing the true causes of all behavior. In wrong view, the dualities of Severity and Mercy, or similarly, Justice and Forgiveness, are employed by the ego in judging another's behavior. Therefore, justice is a flawed concept that only perpetuates wrong views of self, wrong views of other, and wrong views of the world in which we live. It seems logical to our minds, and does get criminals off the street, but it's really like a band-aid applied to a deep puncture wound--while the wound may seem to have been treated from the outside, deep within infection festers.

Compassionate action and right view, however, are the medicines for this wound. They treat directly the source of the problem. Instead of succumbing to ego, we ask, "What can I do to help others?" Then we go out of our way to do it. And we do it without thought of ourselves, but only of others. In the case of a dangerous criminal, we seclude them in prison for the sake of protecting others, which seems very similar to the Justice approach. But there truly is a major difference in the underlying attitude behind the same physical act of imprisoning a criminal. And this is where the strength of right view lies: in fertilizing the seeds of compassion and love in the mind, engendering true wisdom and unfettered love of others. Right View is admittedly difficult to develop, especially in our culture, but the results are worth the effort and are necessary to live a life of wisdom.

What Is Your Focus?

2007-01-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

In Buddhism, we speak of the Three Trainings of ethics, concentration, and wisdom. The various practices we employ all fall into these categories. Each is a necessary part of training, and neglect of one will hamper development of the others. For example, when we develop deep powers of concentration, this allows us to deeply penetrate phenomena and our natures. Without deep concentration, we'll get caught up in the flow of our thoughts and thus never attain the wisdom of our true nature.

While of course all practice truly transcends these divisions, these categories, it often helps our mind to consider them in isolation, while keeping alive in the back of our minds how practice in ethics is practice in concentration is practice in wisdom. An especially powerful way of deepening your practice is to devote a week to focus on a single type of practice. That doesn't mean you give up your already-established practice, but you devote a small, manageable amount of time to developing yourself toward whatever end you choose.

Weekly Practice Suggestion:
Pick an area of practice to which you will devote yourself for the next week. Now, recall an experience in your life that truly enlivens this area. Next, construct a simple sentence that you will use to represent your practice area. Finally, pick something that will act as a trigger, something that you naturally encounter regularly, but not extremely frequently, throughout your day. Each time the trigger occurs, take 15 seconds to let go of what you are working on, bring to mind your experience to generate a powerful feeling within you, and say the gatha--the sentence you have constructed--to yourself. Then return to what it was you were doing, letting the brief contemplation stay with you.

For example, if I chose to work on generosity this week, an event might be that I feel a tremendous flow of generosity when I think of a time I bought a special gift for my mother. I can create a gatha: "May I be generous and helpful." And for me, I hear phones ringing about 15 times per day, so that is perfect (I could also choose my incoming email alert, for instance, but that often happens in excess of 50 times per day, too frequently for this particular practice). Now, each time I hear a phone ring, I take a breath and let go of whatever I am working on. I bring to mind buying my mom that special gift and experience the wave of generosity that arises. I then remain in that contemplation for 10 seconds or so, and say to myself, "May I be generous and helpful." I then breathe, and return to my work, retaining the feeling of generosity I have generated.

What practice will you choose? Report back here in the comments section what you pick and how it goes throughout your week.

Give Just Ten Percent

2006-12-29T08:30:00.000-06:00

"The ten percent [of ourselves] who changes our day is the one who thinks every moment of life is special. The ninety percent is the irritated, speedy little 'me' who says, 'I’m busy. Leave me alone. There’s nothing new under the sun.' The ten percent is saying, 'We are the sun.'" (Ruling Your World, Sakyong Mipham)

The new year is fast approaching, and what better time than to take stock of your life, and dedicate just 10% of it to true daily practice. Allow the other 90% to continue living exactly as you do now. There’s no pressure to change everything at once, and besides, you can’t overcome 10, 20, 30+ years of programming overnight. Allow yourself just 10 minutes each day to quietly focus on your breath and contemplate such virtues as compassion, love, impermanence, and generosity. At the end of your contemplation, endeavor to bring just a little of that contemplation into the other 23 hours, 50 minutes of your daily life. Perhaps show just a little more generosity than you normally do. Even just smile and say hi to the store clerk who you look at every day but never truly see. Just 10 minutes a day to start your morning will reap amazing benefits over time, just as exercise gets easier and more enjoyable as you build your base fitness.

Happy New Year everyone! At the chiming of the new year, take just 1 completely mindful breath and breathe in your first breath of 2007.

Goal of Buddhist Practice: Link to Thoughts Chase Thoughts

2006-12-23T22:01:00.000-06:00

There is a great post at Thoughts Chase Thoughts regarding The Goal of Buddhist Practice. In that post, Tom brings to our attention an article written by B. Alan Wallace and Shauna L. Shapiro entitled, "Mental Balance and Well Being" from the October 2006 issue of American Psychologist. The segment of the article he quotes is as follows:

The goal of Buddhist practice is the realization of a state of well-being that is not contingent on the presence of pleasurable stimuli, either external or internal. According to Buddhism, this movement toward well-being is a fundamental part of being human. As the Dalai Lama commented,
I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness.
A fundamental insight of Buddhism is the recognition of the fluctuating, impermanent nature of all phenomena that arise in dependence on preceding causes and contributing conditions. Mistakenly grasping objective things and events as true sources of happiness produces a wide range of psychological problems, at the root of which is the reification of oneself as an immutable, unitary, independent ego. By first recognizing these ways of misapprehending oneself and the rest of the world, one can then begin to identify the actual sources of genuine well-being. The true causes of such well-being are rooted in a wholesome way of life, are nurtured through the cultivation of mental balance, and come to fruition in the experience of wisdom and compassion. In this way, the pursuits of genuine well-being, understanding, and virtue come to be thoroughly integrated.

This excerpt is a wonderful explanation of Buddhist practice, and I look forward to reading the rest of the article. Thanks to Tom for posting this.

A Practice for the New Year

2006-12-23T21:14:00.000-06:00

In Being Dharma, Ajahn Chah gives us a wonderful practice that can truly set us on the right path as we begin the new year. He says,

When you put your head on the pillow [each night], contemplate the in and out breath. Think to yourself, How about that--tonight I am still breathing! Tell yourself this every day. You needn't do a lot of chanting and recitation. "Am I still breathing?" You wake up in the morning and think, Hey, I'm still alive! The day passes, the night comes again, and you ask yourself once more. Ask yourself, "If I lie down, will I get up again?" ... Day after day, you have to do this. If you keep at it, things will come together and you will see. You will see the truth of what is taken to be self and others. You will see what is convention and supposition. You will understand what all these things really are.

I read this practice on my way in to work on the train, and it immediately hit me--how often do I really show appreciation for life? The Buddha uses the simile of a sea turtle who lives in the ocean and comes up for air once every couple years. Floating in the ocean is a life preserver. It just floats on the water's surface, being pulled this way and that by the currents. It is said that the likelihood of a human birth is the same as the probability that our friend the sea turtle will come up for air and just happen to poke his head directly through the opening in the life preserver. It is a great blessing to have this human life. As we start the new year, each new morning, notice that you're still breathing and give thanks for the opportunity to continue practicing this day. Each evening, notice that your breath is still flowing in and out, and acknowledge your blessing. Allow sleep to come as you mindfully follow your breath. Such a simple practice, but it has such profound effects.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

The Buddhist Practitioner: A Full-Time "Reflecter"

2006-12-21T16:36:00.000-06:00

I recently read the following line by Santoshni Perara: "A Buddhist practitioner is a full-time 'reflecter'." That is a very good way to consider your practice. Often, it is very easy to get caught up in the rapid flow of life, being carried this way and that, going through the motions without truly contemplating your actions, your thoughts, or your words. As Buddhists, we see the highest spiritual value in grabbing hold of a thick, solid branch so that we can remain stable within the rapid flow of life. As "full-time reflecters," we do not jump out of the river altogether--that is escapism, which is the antithesis of Buddhist practice. Rather, we steady ourselves and observe life as it flows through and around us. We practice noticing the most minute aspects of our bodies, our minds, our feelings, and objects of our mind. This practice confers the greatest of wisdom--the ability to see the true nature of all things, including our selves.

In this wonderful holiday season, take a moment for a short meditation.

1-Minute Meditation: Take a moment and consider your life as a river. Looking just at today, at the past few hours, where has your life dragged you without your conscious decision to pursue that particular route? Even if you truly had no choice (i.e. you had to go to work today), it is still highly valuable to be mindful of your decision to go to work and consciously choose that course of action, observing and noting the backdrop of bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, and mind objects that arise as you contemplate, and decide upon, that course of action.

Heedlessness is Just Holding Things as Certain

2006-12-13T09:04:00.000-06:00

From Being Dharma: The Essence of the Buddha's Teachings, by Ajahn Chah:

In practice, some come to see easily, some with difficulty. But whatever the case, never mind. Difficult or easy, the Buddha said not to be heedless. Just that--don't be heedless. Why? Because life is not certain. Wherever we start to think that things are certain, uncertainty is lurking right there. Heedlessness is just holding things as certain. It is grasping at certainty where there is no certainty and looking for truth in things that are not true. Be careful! They are likely to bite you sometime in the future!

What is heedlessness? Not only is it not paying attention, but it's not caring to pay attention. When we're heedless, we do out of habit, not out of conscious deliberation and choice. But it goes deeper than just doing out of habit. It strikes right at the heart of your inner mind. When we're heedless, we don't CARE enough to pay attention. If we did, we'd be paying attention and choosing our actions consciously.

When a loved one asks, "Did you pick up the detergent from the market?" And you answer, "No, I forgot." Did you? Sometimes you really did, and in that case, there is no problem. But often you remembered, but really didn't feel like going. Maybe you made a conscious choice not to go; or maybe you "allowed" something to distract you so that you were sure to forget.

But then you get home and answer, "I forgot." That's an easier answer, isn't it? But it's heedless. Usually such an answer just flows from your lips. That's habitforce, and it's proof that you just don't care enough--that you truly don't comprehend the benefit of--paying full attention and seeing the negative effects of your lack of mindfulness in allowing yourself to lie. Maybe you did consciously choose to fib in your answer; maybe that took some careful deliberation to decide. But it's still heedless because you chose to ignore the negative effects of such a lie.

1-Minute Meditation: Where have you been heedless today? Where have you allowed yourself to act under force of habit, as though all things were certain and not requiring of consideration, including potentially un-thought-of effects? Now look deeper. Why don't you think it's important enough to be heedful? [Ego might answer, "I *do* care!" But be honest. If you really did care, you would have been heedful in that moment, wouldn't you?]

Seeing Magnificence

2006-12-08T06:33:00.000-06:00

From Seeking the Heart of Wisdom by J. Goldstein and J. Kornfield:

When we let go of whatever we are clinging to, we can appreciate each thing as it is. There is no scarcity of things to appreciate but only a scarcity of moments when we are capable of truly seeing because of how often we are unaware, unmindful. ... When the mind is still, we can see a magnificence in even the most ordinary things--the vividness of a sunset, the warmth of a smile, the simplicity of serving a cup of tea."

How much beauty have you missed out on today because you were distracted by other, seemingly more important, things? Notice how the authors put a sunset--a classic--in the same terms as a cup of tea. This is a most wonderful "side-effect" of mindfulness. When you are truly mindful, each and every thing is magnificent, a true beauty. I am being misleading by calling it a "side-effect." In reality, such vividness of experience is our very nature. We only obscure it in the way we use (abuse?) our minds, craving this experience, mourning the loss of that experience.

Our practice is to unlearn the habits to which we are addicted and unleash the perfect mindfulness that is our very nature, our Buddha-nature.

Henry David Thoreau - 12.01.1856

2006-12-01T11:07:00.000-06:00

From The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 12/01/1856:

I see the old pale-faced farmer out again on his sled now for the five-thousandth time--Cyrus Hubbard, a man of a certain New England probity and worth, immortal and natural, like a natural product, like the sweetness of a nut, like the toughness of hickory. He, too, is a redeemer for me. How superior actually to the faith he professes! He is not an office-seeker. What an institution, what a revelation is a man! We are wont foolishly to think that the creed which a man professes is more significant than the fact he is. It matters not how hard the conditions seemed, how mean the world, for a man is a prevalent force and a new law himself. He is a system whose law is to be observed. The old farmer condescends to countenance still this nature and order of things. It is a great encouragement that an honest man makes this world his abode. He rides on the sled drawn by oxen, world-wise, yet comparatively so young, as if they had seen scores of winters. The farmer spoke to me, I can swear, clean, cold, moderate as the snow. He does not melt the snow where he treads. Yet what a faint impression that encounter may make on me after all! Moderate, natural, true, as if he were made of earth, stone, wood, snow. I thus meet in this universe kindred of mine, composed of these elements. I see men like frogs; their peeping I partially understand.

** Thanks to The Blog of Henry David Thoreau for this entry.

Cultural Adaptation of Buddhism

2006-11-29T22:34:00.000-06:00

In a comment to my post on Religious Traditions and Community, Pastor Jon raised an important question:

I am curious how much the practices of your group have been molded to accommodate western culture, and how much they remain authentic to their Korean tradition. For example, is it normative for groups like yours to meet on Sunday?

I found this such an important topic that my response deserved its own post:

I want to start this essay by stating that I feel it's very important for Buddhism to adapt, to a degree, to Western culture. To not adapt would be tantamount to hypocritically contradicting Buddhism's views toward, and use of, skillful means in conveying its teachings. I will return to this point later.

Let's first approach Jon's question from the viewpoint of my temple's monastic order--the group that has dedicated their lives to Buddhist practice. In this aspect, our temple almost identically adheres to native Korean Zen temple practices. While not privy to every detail of their lives, I have experienced the daily routine of my temple. The percussive beat of the moktak wakes temple residents at 5 am. A quick shower is followed by morning exercise, the morning bell chant, 108 prostrations, chanting, and seated meditation. Work practice--gardening, cleaning, cooking, etc.--comprise a portion of the rest of the day, as does sutra study and meditation, seated and walking. The evening bell chant, prostrations, chanting, and meditation end the day. This same routine is followed by native Korean temples, such as the one at which our head priest was ordained, throughout that nation. (I'd also like to note that the Japanese Zen temple to which I belonged before joining my current temple also practiced identically to its parent temple organization in Japan.)

In terms of our Sunday schedule, I don't know the Korean custom for lay services. That being said, I think this is one of those areas in which cultural adaptation is so important. In Journey to Mindfulness, Bhante Gunaratana explains that in the rural Sri Lankan village in which he grew up, the villagers visited their Theravada Buddhist temple daily. He wrote about how he woke each morning to his parents changing sutras in Pali. Again, this is Sri Lanka, not Korea, and a Theravada sect, not a Mahayana Zen sect, but in our society, very few people--sadly--have that kind of devotion to their religion. People in my culture are not, generally speaking, willing to sacrifice many of the things they love to follow such a time-consuming devotional routine. That does not mean, however, that we cannot benefit greatly from Buddhist teachings. Actually, I think it is imperative for the health of our culture to embrace practices such as those contained in Buddhism--our lives tend to be so hectic and over-scheduled that mindful meditation and a focus on developing compassion for all others is a vital necessity.

Given the work schedule of our culture, it is convenient to schedule group services for Sunday, as we have done. While I cannot verify whether there are Zen services in Korea on Sundays, I can confirm that the activities in which we engage at the services--reciting the refuges, chanting, and meditation--are primary practices in all Korean Zen temples. Additionally, many of our chants are actually in Korean (with English translations available for our study, of course).

For those who are more dedicated to their practice, we have twice-weekly membership sittings. These include additional practices performed in Korean Zen temples, including prostrations, additional chants, walking and seated meditation, and interviews. For the truly devoted, my temple has designated times for congregants to come for work practice. Plus, as is common among Korean temples (and I'd imagine most other temples and churches), members are always invited to come to the temple whenever they wish to meditate, study, do prostrations, etc.

Back in the 5th century BCE, the Buddha preached regularly the necessity of skillful means on the path to Awakening. Because of the nature of the path, the teachings must meet each person where they are at in their life and must convey the Dharma in a manner from which the person can benefit (it is completely senseless, for instance, to explain the multi-faceted layers of Dependent Arising when a person is struggling with acting toward others out of loving-kindness and compassion). In my culture, to get people to sit in silent meditation for an hour is already a monumental achievement. Therefore, to offer a Sunday service, even if such a practice is not normally followed in Korea, is a skillful means of giving people the opportunity to experience the benefits of Buddhist practice for themselves.

Notice that we never change the key practices--meditation, prostrations, chanting, etc. What changes, adapts, evolves, is the means by which we make the practices available to as many people as possible so that they can see for themselves if Buddhist practice fits their disposition in this life. Even if it doesn't right now, they may return to Buddhism later in their lives, recalling their exposure to it. We even have several Christian congregants who have realized the necessity and benefit of regular meditation and, hence, regularly attend our services and trainings. For those who develop greater levels of devotion, the opportunity is there for advanced practices, as have been available in Korea for millenia.

In adapting to Western culture in this way, the pioneer monks who brought Buddhism to the West performed the most skillful, and most compassionate, act possible. Just as the Buddha, 2,500 years ago, taught his disciples how they, too, could Awaken fully, these pioneer monks gave us in the West this same gift. The Buddhist approach may not be right for every person in this lifetime, given the innumerable dispositions and attitudes of people today, but I can think of nothing our culture needs more than the message of peace, mindful living, and love taught by the Buddha.

Thanks, Jon, for such a thought-provoking question!

Interfaith Blog Event #3: Religious Traditions and Community

2006-11-27T10:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the third Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

Within your religious traditions, what rituals and/or traditions give you a sense of connection to your fellow congregants, beliefs, and communities? What actions do you take to ensure the stability of those connections? Do you feel that the connections that have been made are sufficient for your spiritual and/or religious needs?

[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]

In the 4th century CE, Buddhism was introduced to Korea by a Chinese monk. Buddhism quickly flourished in Korea, and traditions quickly developed, some dating back to the inception of Buddhism in the 5th century BCE. These traditions still live in our temples today, thanks to the line of teachers that has ensured their continuity.

Every Sunday, my temple hosts two services, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. During our standard Sunday morning service, we sit in seated meditation, followed by a short session of chanting and recitation in which we mindfully take refuge in the Three Jewels of the Buddha (our perfect inner nature), the Dharma (the teaching and path to recognizing our true nature), and the Sangha (the community of beings with whom we live). The recitation is followed by another seated meditation, after which we listen to a Dharma talk by one of our priests.

Our Sunday afternoon service is different. It begins with a seated meditation, followed by a recitation in which we take refuge in the Three Jewels. We then mindfully chant & sing a very simple verse, "Ma-Um," which means, "My mind is Buddha." Singing is followed by a question and answer session.

While these two services have very different atmospheres, two commonalities emerge--the taking of refuge in the Three Jewels, and meditation. I believe these two "rituals" give the primary sense of connection among our congregants.

Meditation has many different flavors. Some methods focus on concentration through counting the breath. Other methods are more analytical, examining such topics as emptiness, impermanence, or any number of other areas. Still other methods are based on generating and sustaining loving-kindness and compassion. Meditation is a very personal endeavor, with each person working on the aspect of the path that he or she needs to at that time. How, then, can the practice of meditation function as the primary means of community and connectedness?

The answer lies in the depth of wisdom contained in the seemingly simple formula of taking refuge in the Three Jewels. We say, "I go for refuge to the Buddha. I go for refuge to the Dharma. I go for refuge to the Sangha." Each of the refuges is simultaneously operative on several levels. When I take refuge in the Sangha, at the most basic level I acknowledge the shelter and protective value of community. Slightly deeper, I remind myself that my temple's community is there for me. Deeper still, I recognize that the entire world of beings is my protector because each plays a vital role in my life--family and friends nurture, protect, and love me; strangers and other "neutral" beings serve to educate me and provide me with opportunities to meet new people and act compassionately, lovingly, and mindfully; enemies challenge me to overcome my anger, greed, and hatred, giving me the opportunity to learn patience, love, and compassion for all. Thus all beings deserve my utmost respect, compassion, thanks, and blessing.

At the deepest level, that simple sentence, "I take refuge in the Sangha," represents the truth that my community is not different from me--I am not fundamentally different, or separate, from other beings, sentient or insentient, in the world. We are all of the same basic nature, Buddha-nature. One person may understand this truth intellectually. Another person may argue against it ontologically. But once a person personally experiences this truth, it is clear and authentic. The experience is intimate, immediate, spontaneous, and obvious, like feeling a sneeze coming on--you just KNOW when you're going to have to sneeze, there is no doubt about it, and nobody can really explain to you the feeling of having to sneeze. You have to experience it for yourself to know it.

This truth of inter-being, expressed in the third refuge, is the reason why group meditation is such a powerful communal practice. In row upon row of cushions, we sit, meditating on the aspect of the path that is right for us at that very moment, and the energy of the community truly unites us into a congregation, as we all share a common goal: to develop altruism and wisdom to the utmost degree.

The truest experience and development of community paradoxically occurs on retreat. I say paradoxically because our Buddhist retreats are marked by silence. Shorter retreats are comprised of intensive, repeated meditation sittings and walking meditation, interspersed with silent meal preparation and mindful eating. Longer retreats include silent work practice, such as mindful cleaning, gardening, and sewing, and interviews with the head priest. (Yes, you do get to speak during interviews. :) ) Retreats provide the ideal mixture of solitary and communal meditation--you sit in communal meditation like during services, but the intensive repeated sessions and silence often lead you toward much-improved mindfulness and invaluable insight. And the feeling of unity, of inner connection, of true inter-being, of the congregants is unmistakable.

In order to ensure the stability of these connections, we need only to practice in a group setting. Group meditation can never, and is not meant to, replace solitary practice. However, when performed in conjunction with a regular solitary meditation practice, group services and retreats not only develop our capacity for altruism and insight, but also foster the deepest levels of community and oneness among the congregants. The connections I have established in this way are more than sufficient for my spiritual needs, and in speaking to my fellow temple members, that feeling is nearly universal. I have heard story after story at my temple from members who had struggled spiritually, physically, and emotionally under other religions, who have since found in Buddhism the spiritual connectedness of community, discipline, happiness, and emotional and physical health that they could not find anywhere else. Therefore, it is my fervent wish that more people begin Buddhist practice and personally experience the truths that become self-evident in such practice, bringing a level of true happiness, mindfulness, and peace to this country that has been eroding for years.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

2006-11-24T12:10:00.000-06:00

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

I've always loved this poem by Frost. So short; such a simple structure. Yet it conveys such depth of experience. Frost's message reminds us of the Buddhist principle of impermanence. Just as the beautiful gold of dawn ends, so all conditioned things in this world end. This wonderful Thanksgiving day spent with family will end. Therefore, I am immensely thankful for the time I was able to spend with my family yesterday, and the time I will be spending with my fiance's family today.

1-Minute Contemplation: What do you take for granted? Said another way, what is there that you assume (often unconsciously) will last forever? Take a moment to identify something or someone in your life that you don't appreciate fully, and locate within you the assumption that must underlie such a lack of appreciation--that this thing or person will always be there. Find the experience within that will allow you to personally realize that this thing or person IS impermanent. Allow the unfettered thankfulness that you have been suppressing to arise naturally from your experience of impermanence.

I thank you, personally, for reading my blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T09:22:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In honor of our beloved turkey, please visit Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-a-Turkey Project and adopt your own turkey so that these precious animals can enjoy Thanksgiving with a sumptuous feast just as we do!

Inner Freedom - A Quote

2006-11-20T19:43:00.000-06:00

"On the other hand, if we do not practice [concentration and turning the mind away from its obsessions], we no longer remember the meaning of vimutti--a meaning that is not confined to a word, but is the experience of being freed from inner torment and thus, as a result, from the torment of one's own difficult, even addictive behavior patterns which are driven by unbearable mental states. If you think this description is excessive perhaps you have not observed yourself closely enough. If you watch yourself through any given day, observing the arising of desire and dislike, the sequence, say, of distraction, impatience, fantasy, dismay, and self-judgment, you will begin to understand that the ordinary mind is caught up in a rapid-fire sequence of mental states a large proportion of which is truly difficult to endure, and drives you to take whatever actions you believe will bring relief. We take this situation for granted, but when the possibility of vimutti, or inner freedom, can be borne in on us, we will understand completely why inner freedom is considered the most beautiful of all mental states." (The State of Mind Called Beautiful. Sayadaw U Pandita. 2006. Pg. 13.)

Poem from Ko Un: Winter Journey

2006-11-15T23:00:00.000-06:00

From Ko Un ("Buddhadharma," Fall 2006):

Winter Journey

How can you make it through winter
without knowing the fragrance of winter wind?

Dreams of that fragrance
are utterly unknown
to frogs, and snakes
underground.

Utterly unknown,
and that's the place you'll reach in the end.

Utterly, completely unknown!

90,000 Subtle Gestures

2006-11-13T19:00:00.000-06:00

It is said that there are 90,000 "subtle gestures" to practice in Buddhism.

In Zen, every single thought we have, every single act we perform, every single statement we make, should be made such that we are mindful of the thought we are choosing to have, mindful of the act we are choosing to perform, mindful of the statement we are choosing to make. We've all had the experience of driving or walking along and suddenly realizing we have no idea where the last 20 minutes have gone. But less obvious are the daily chores you perform. Take showering, for instance. I know I can coast through my morning shower completely oblivious to everything. Sometimes it's too such a degree that I have no idea where the last 10 minutes went. But more often, I'm thinking about something else and yet am still somewhat conscious of the routine I'm following.

In true Zen practice, however, we are mindful of every single act. When my practice is strong, when I am washing my hair, I know with every ounce of my attention that I am washing my hair. When I am lathering the soap, I know with every ounce of my attention that I am lathering the soap.

The question is, why shouldn't I just enjoy letting my mind wander around while I shower? What's the point of joyfully enforcing such strong mindfulness? In Buddhism, the highest goal is to penetrate through our habitual delusion and see our true nature. How can we possibly attain this awakening if we cannot even maintain mindfulness on washing our hair? Mindfulness of all our actions IS our spiritual practice because when I am washing my hair, my true nature is "the washing of hair." When I drink tea, my true nature is "drinking tea." When I am dicing apples, my true nature is "the dicing of apples."

You might say, "Oh, I get that. I understand how that works." Or you might say, "That doesn't make any sense to me." It is my own personal experience that when I have been able to attain even the slightest glimpse of this truth (not intellectual knowledge or understanding, but true personal realization of this wisdom), the freedom, the joy, the clarity of mind I experienced was so great as to be indescribable. Mindfulness is the key to Awakening.

The 90,000 subtle gestures are the 90,000 different thoughts and actions you perform every day that give you the opportunity to think and act mindfully. Each of these 90,000 subtle gestures is a blessing, a stepping stone toward Awakening for the benefit of all beings.

EDIT (11/13/06): I just read a post over at The Journey that discusses mindfulness as discussed in Matthew 6:25-33. While we may disagree philosophically about the nature of the universe, the spiritual importance of mindfulness, living in the present, transcends such polarities.

The Purview of Buddhism is the Mind of Living

2006-11-08T20:30:00.000-06:00

The purview of Buddhism is the mind of living.

Books abound with Buddhist philosophy. Walk the aisles of your local bookstore and you'll find shelves of books discussing Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, Chan teachings, and dissections of the sutras. These books aren't Buddhism. Buddhism has no Bible, no book that expounds the Truth for its adherents. To be a Buddhist is to experience life, in all its wonder, in all its pain, in all its beauty, in all its horror. There is suffering in life: people die, people lose their jobs, predators hunt, and kill, their prey. There is complete joy in life: puppies are born, children dress up in adorable Halloween costumes, people embrace in loving relationship. To be a Buddhist is to recognize, honor, and be thankful for EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE, pleasurable, painful, or neutral.

All those books on the shelves do nothing but point at our lives and beg us to remove the filter we maintain between what we think of as our "selves" and the lives we lead in the world. In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara proclaims, "All dharmas [objects, events, and beings] are defined by emptiness, not birth or destruction, purity or defilement, completeness or deficiency." [1] This teaching isn't a sermon proclaiming the Word. When we read this line, it hooks itself in our minds and impels us to look at all objects, all events, everything in our lives, with fresh eyes. It implores us to experiment, to test our views of everything, at all times. In the words of Suzuki Roshi, we train to keep Beginner's Mind at all times. In the mind of a beginner, everything is new and fresh, and the beginner is open to all experiences, all teachings. In contrast, the mind of the expert is closed off to fresh viewpoints, trapped in seeing all things in terms of his past experiences rather than what is presenting itself in this very moment.

The purview of Buddhism is the mind of living. All of our practices have a clear purpose--to remove the filter we continuously erect that prevents us from seeing all things, including ourselves, as they really are, in all their majesty, in all their painful reality. "[We] take refuge in the [Perfection of Wisdom] and live without walls of the mind." [1] We train our minds to live.

[1] Heart Sutra. Translated by Red Pine. 2004

Integral Options Cafe: Sogyal Rinpoche on Karma

2006-11-07T08:01:00.000-06:00

As posted by Bill at Integral Options Cafe, this was worth a repost because it's so clear, so logical, and so empirical.

Today's Rigpa Glimpse of the Day:

Is karma really so hard to see in operation? Don’t we only have to look back at our own lives to see clearly the consequences of some of our actions? When we upset or hurt someone, didn’t it rebound on us? Were we not left with a bitter and dark memory, and the shadows of self-disgust? That memory and those shadows are karma. Our habits and our fears too are also due to karma, the results of our past actions, words, and thoughts. If we examine our actions, and become really mindful of them, we will see that there is a pattern that repeats itself. Whenever we act negatively, it leads to pain and suffering; whenever we act positively, it eventually results in happiness. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

What is Truly Skillful Teaching?

2006-11-06T20:01:00.000-06:00

The heart of Buddhist training, and its brilliant effectiveness, lies in the use of Upaya, or skillful means. The Buddha gave many teachings in his day to many people of different levels of ability to comprehend and put into practice his teachings. Instead of presenting set "lectures," the Buddha taught each person according to his means. Some people's mental disposition and past experiences allow them to understand and improve their practice through direct Wisdom teachings--to these people the Buddha taught at an "advanced" level, framing the teachings in terms of emptiness and our inherent Buddha-nature. For others, such an approach would leave them behind, unable to improve their, and others', lives through the Buddha's teachings. To these people, the Buddha taught in a more directly practical manner. For example, to those whose dispositions were such that they could comprehend direct Wisdom, the Buddha may have explained the manner in which karmic influences affect our lives, and how to apply wisdom and compassion in all of our actions. To those for whom such teachings would fail to point them toward their own Awakening, the Buddha may have taught them the Five Precepts to guide them in their lives.

This isn't some judgmental approach that proclaims a certain class of people as "better" or more advanced than others. Rather, it is the ultimate expression of compassion and wisdom, the BEST thing the Buddha could do for that person at that time in their particular circumstances. The Buddha taught that each of us has the ability to Awaken to the fullest extent, and out of his perfect compassion, he guided each person with whom he spoke toward their own Awakening at whatever level they were capable of benefiting.

Any honest look at the world around us, and the people with whom we live, clearly shows that there is no single approach to life that will "work" for everyone. I have many Christian friends who, in their hearts, "know" that faith in Christ is in the best interest of every single individual on the planet. However, a number of my experiences in life have directly contradicted what Christians believe is True (e.g. I have directly experienced some level of interbeing and non-self, which Christianity strictly opposes). Therefore, Christianity clearly does not "work" for me; it does not model my experiences of the world, and I find several teachings in its most holy book to be 100% unethical (the denouncement of homosexuality comes to mind). I would be forced to lie to myself and others if I attempted to follow its teachings. Note that this isn't meant to bash Christianity. In terms of skillful means, Christianity does "work" for many people and is therefore an important guide by which many people live their lives. This is simply a personal example of skillful means in my life.

1-Minute Contemplation: Is there someplace in your life in which you used unskillful means in relating to others? Maybe a friend of yours required gentle compassion and you chose to use "tough love." Or maybe you tried to forcefully persuade somebody to your view, when a more gentle "guiding" approach would have been what they truly needed to hear. Contemplate this situation for 1 minute. How might you have acted more skillfully?

Altruism as Essential Spiritual Practice

2006-11-04T19:00:00.000-06:00

"So in a sense we could say that the practice of generating and cultivating the altruistic intention is so comprehensive that it contains the essential elements of all other spiritual practices." [1]

In Buddhism, we train in ethics, in concentration, and in wisdom. An aspect of wisdom is to see through our motives to discern whether we are acting out of altruism or veiled greed, in other words ethically or unethically. Concentration is the tool required for such penetrating insight.

Shantideva writes,

As long as space endures,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world. [1]

It is the deepest, most important, part of our practice as Buddhists to generate this pure altruistic intention for every single thought we have, every single action we perform, every single word we say. We awaken in the morning with the intention to help all beings (note how this is not limited to humans!) in everything we do. We lie down to sleep, thankful for every moment during our day in which our thoughts, words, and actions were altruistically based, and repentant of every instance in which we acted out of greed, hatred, or delusion. There is no judgment, only sorrow over the harm we caused others by our noncompassionate action, and a further vow to dispel the sufferings of every single being with whom we come in contact. In the morning, we begin anew, vowing to base every moment of our lives on compassionate wisdom.

1-Minute Contemplation: Before you go to bed this evening, take 1 minute to contemplate your thoughts, words, and actions throughout the day. Were they based on compassion and love? Or were they based on your selfish ego? Maybe your intent seemed compassionate but a little probing reveals that it was simply veiled greed. See the harm you caused others through your egotistical acts and vow to base every action, every thought, on compassion and love. Leave a note for yourself so that in the morning, you remember to rededicate yourself to pure compassionate action in every moment of the day.

[1] Transforming the Mind. His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 2000.

Scribe Jamboree: November 3, 2006

2006-11-03T08:54:00.000-06:00

Welcome to another week of Scribe Goodness!

Two good posts over at peregrinatio:

1. A quote of a poem called "Fundamentalism".

2. A great post on Why Read Dawkins or Dennett, two of my favorite writers. Why, oh why, must Dawkins damage his amazing pedigree of biological writing by writing so ineptly on religion?

Angela-Eloise at Blogickal posted a beautiful photograph she took at sunset.

There was a good post over at Arbitrary Marks entitled Henry Neufield on atheist-Christian discussion which excerpts from, and links to, a deeper discussion on the issue.

Over at The Wild Hunt is a very enlightening post about Samhain.

Over at thinkBuddha, Will writes about Emmanuel Levinas and the influence he has had on Will (and where Levinas's phenomenological theories have shortcomings).

Finally, over at the journey is an interesting post entitled The God of War, about views of the Judeo-Christian god.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Today I am Waiting for a Bus

2006-10-29T13:50:00.000-06:00

A Poem by Ko Un, from "Buddhadharma", Fall 2006:

Some say they can recall a thousand years
Some say they have already visited the next
   thousand years
On a windy day
I am waiting for a bus

No matter what we think we know about the past,
No matter what we believe about the future
This life or the next,
Today is windy. Today we need to ride the bus.

We have two options:
Wait skillfully
Or unskillfully.
We can never experience the future
Until it becomes the present. This moment
Was the future for the infinite past
And will be the past for the infinite future.
To wait unskillfully is to disrepect your
Infinite past and your infinite future,
And wasteful of all the time you spent
Planning and thinking about
This very moment.

Scribe Jamboree: October 27, 2006

2006-10-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Like the Phoenix, The Daily Scribe has risen from the ashes and flies again! I want to wish Shawn well in all his future endeavors and congratulate him on his spiritual rediscovery.

This week, Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn writes about whether ethics are absolutely determined or are only determined by our culture, in a relative manner. I admit this is somewhat of a shameless plug since this is part of our monthly Interfaith Blog Event, to which I contributed an essay as well.

Nathan from Nathancolquhoun.com discusses Exchanging This for That, a very interesting look into Nathan's immersion in the Christian subculture (aka the church life) and its effect on his ability to act and minister to others as a Christian.

At Decompose, Mike writes about Calvary vs. the Emergents - #4, where he delves into particular Christian views on mysticism and Eastern spirituality in the Emerging Church.

Finally, at Panthea, Grian was inspired to write about Whether God/dess Exists after reading a review on Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. (If the link to the blog post doesn't work, go to the main page and find the link in the left sidebar--the permalink wasn't working for me this morning).

Buddhism and the Idea of God

2006-10-26T12:20:00.000-05:00

After replying to an interesting post on Evolution Considered over at Bhikkhu's Blog, I noticed a link he provided to an essay at Access to Insight on Buddhism and the God-idea by Nyanaponika Thera.

I found this essay to clearly describe Buddhist views on theism. The author draws a nice distinction between theism and belief in a creator god, noting how the former can be seen as a type of skillful means in certain circumstances, while the latter is rejected.

I especially like the way in which the author explains that Buddhism does not deny the existence of higher planes that may, in some ways, be superior to our world and type of consciousness. These planes may be populated by beings that are, in some ways, more powerful than human beings--we may call them God, gods, deities, angels, or spirits. But of course that does not imply that they are any wiser than we. These planes probably have their rulers, as we do on our plane. As the author writes, "But like any human ruler, a divine ruler too might be inclined to misjudge his own status and power, until a greater one comes along and points out to him his error, as our texts report of the Buddha."

The end of essay is worth quoting here, verbatim:

These, however, are largely matters beyond the range and concern of average human experience. They have been mentioned here chiefly for the purpose of defining the Buddhist position, and not to serve as a topic of speculation and argument. Such involvement can only divert attention and effort from what ought to be our principal object: the overcoming of greed, hatred and delusion where they are found in the here and now.

An ancient verse ascribed to the Buddha in the Questions of King Milinda says:
Not far from here do you need to look!
Highest existence — what can it avail?
Here in this present aggregate,
In your own body overcome the world!

Interfaith Blog Event #2: Ethics, Intrinsic or Relative?

2006-10-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the second Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

Is there anything you consider to be intrinsically right or wrong? What grounds do you have for that conclusion? How does the concept of morality impact your everyday life?

[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]

Back in the 5th century BCE, Siddhartha Gautama was born in a country immersed in Hindu spirituality. B.K.S. Iyengar states, "In Indian thought, everything is permeated by the Supreme Universal Spirit (Paramatma or God) of which the individual human spirit (jivatma) is a part." [1] Later, he continues, "By profound meditation, the knower, the knowledge, and the known become one. The seer, the sight and the seen have no separate existence from each other. It is like a great musician becoming one with his instrument and the music that comes from it. Then, the yogi stands in his own nature and realizes his self (Atman), the part of the Supreme Soul within himself." [2]

As a prince, Siddhartha's education included detailed study of the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of Hinduism as revealed by the Supreme Being. But after having renounced his royal lineage to pursue the life of a monk, and training with the greatest spiritual teachers of his day, Siddhartha found that such training was highly beneficial, but it did not lead to the highest attainment--ultimate peace, Enlightenment. Specifically, Siddhartha could find nothing within that corresponded to the Atman. Rather, on the night of his Awakening, he personally experienced the emptiness of all things, that everything, and everyone, existed based upon the cumulative effect of other existing causal factors and the proper conditions within which such causal factors may operate. Hence, the animating principle of the Atman was illusory--we existed not because a piece of the great Brahma, the Creator, was injected into us by said Supreme Being, giving us a fully independent existence, but solely based on the existence of other causes.

After his enlightenment, the Buddha met up with some old friends with whom he had practiced for years. As his first teaching as the Awakened One, he taught that, as we observe the world, one thing is obvious: Suffering exists. This teaching had two components. First, it implied that because we were born, we would experience disease, old age, and death, as well as personal hardship. These "unavoidables" often lead us to experience the second component of this Truth--mental suffering. This second component of the First Noble Truth explains that these unavoidables are not suffering; suffering is our mental response to such experiences. We cause ourselves to suffer because of our response to our life experiences.

In his practice, as the Buddha removed the causes of suffering--the mental poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance--he noticed that genuine, perfect happiness arose naturally, replacing the suffering that had existed previously. As a young prince, he had experienced the pinnacle of worldly pleasures. But this new, genuine happiness completely transcended such worldly happiness. It is "The joy which is beyond the pale of the senses which reason cannot grasp." It is "The treasure above all others. There is nothing higher than this." [3] Furthermore, the Buddha observed that all beings desire happiness and avoid suffering. Therefore, combining these two insights, it was clear to the Buddha that the attainment of genuine happiness for all beings, and the removal of their suffering, was the ultimate spiritual aim.

Before examining how this aim determines Buddhist ethics, let's examine happiness. The Buddha observed that happiness comes in two forms, relative and genuine. As he experienced as a Prince, worldly happiness is relative--what makes one person happy may cause suffering to another. Consider a person out on a hot day. If the person enjoys hot weather, he will be happy. But if he does not like hot weather, then such temperatures will cause him to suffer. Continuing this example, if the person does not like hot weather and hence enters a cool bath, this will please him. But relative (worldly) happiness is also transient--if he stays in the cool water too long, he will become cold, and hence will begin to suffer.

Contrary to relative happiness, genuine happiness does not fluctuate wildly. Genuine happiness is absolute--genuine happiness to one person is genuine happiness to all people. The principle characteristic of genuine happiness is inner peace [4]. "[If] we can develop this quality of inner peace, no matter what difficulties we meet with in life, our basic sense of well-being will not be undermined." [5] No external factor can create such peace. But how can it be developed? Like everything else in life, it is dependent on causes and conditions. Hence, we must identify its causes and conditions and then cultivate said causes to bring about genuine happiness.

In the 2,500 years since the Buddha first explained these teachings, it has been experienced over and over by Buddhists that altruism is an essential ingredient of genuine happiness. For thousands of years, Buddhists have written of their experiences with altruism--that not only do altruistic actions cause others happiness and reduce their suffering, they also make the altruistic person's life meaningful and happy, and reduces that person's suffering. In summary, therefore, we have discussed the following:

We have observed that all beings desire happiness and avoid suffering.
The Buddha experienced genuine happiness and gave us the path to attain such happiness ourselves.
Altruism is an essential ingredient of genuine happiness.

By merging these three observed truths, we can develop a statement of Buddhist ethics: "An ethical act is one which does not harm others' experience or expectation of happiness." [6]

This definition raises an obvious concern: how does one determine whether an act will harm another's experience or expectation of happiness? Before we consider this question, however, let's apply this definition to isolated examples of the Five Precepts, the traditional guidelines of Buddhist ethics, to gain a better understanding of how to make practical use of this definition. The first precept is "Do not kill." Obviously, killing another being harms that being's experience of happiness and its desire to avoid suffering. Furthermore, it harms the killer's experience of happiness because, regardless of the worldly feelings of exhilaration that the killer may experience, penetrating insight always discovers the ultimate suffering to one's self that killing causes¹. The second precept is "Do not lie." If a person needs to know the truth about something, a lie prevents them from knowing that truth and, hence, they suffer (albeit potentially unknowingly). Lies also harm the liar because he can begin to become entangled in his web of lies, and hence he suffers. The third precept is "Do not steal." Stealing inflicts suffering on another due to their loss. It increases suffering for the thief as well because it enhances the growth of the seed of greed in the thief's mind. The fourth precept is "Do not engage in sexual misconduct." The emotional damage of adultery and other such liaisons is well documented. The fifth precept is "Do not take intoxicants, or engage in their production, nor in the productions of weapons and poisons." One might not be able to stop the production of weapons in the world, but one need not exert one's own effort in their production, whose use ultimately harms many beings. Taking intoxicants is more of a preventative measure in that such use can increase the likelihood of acting unethically.

Therefore, it seems clear that the definition provided by the Dalai Lama provides an effective measure of ethical action in these "ideal" instances. However, life is much more complex than these idealized circumstances. Hence, one must ask how one can determine whether an act will harm another's happiness. Buddhism answers this question through the development of skillful means. The Dalai Lama writes,

We find that in practice, if we are not able to connect with others to some extent, if we cannot at least imagine the potential impact of our actions on others, then we have no means to discriminate between right and wrong, between what is appropriate and what is not, between harming and non-harming. It follows, therefore, that the more we could enhance our sensitivity toward others' suffering, the less we could tolerate seeing others' pain and the more we would be concerned to ensure that no action of ours caused harm to others. [7]

Therefore, it is through the development of compassion that genuine ethical conduct arises. Compassion provides the motivation for ethical conduct, as one cannot bear to harm another. But to what degree can compassion be developed? Buddhism has taught for millenia, and countless examples are described, of people developing compassion to the utmost degree, where their every act is based on their love for others. The Buddha and Jesus are probably the two greatest examples in recorded history.

If compassion provides the motivation, from where, specifically, does the ability to discern harming from non-harming actions come? Every aspect of Buddhist training leads one toward the development of correct discernment. Buddhist meditation develops concentration, which is necessary to be able to penetrate through the illusory surface of experience to know its true nature. Without highly developed concentration skills, our mind gets distracted and, hence, never reaches the true nature of phenomena. Through concentration and mindfulness, wisdom arises. This critical faculty is the key component to determining ethical from unethical actions. Buddhism also focuses on the removal of afflictive emotions such as anger, greed, and laziness, because such emotions obscure one's critical faculties, thereby reducing one's ability to discern harming from non-harming acts. (Recall how clearly you were thinking the last time you were really angry. How many times have you hurt someone through your words when seized by anger?)

Therefore, we must constantly check all of our actions and employ our critical faculties, ensuring that our actions are motivated by compassion. As stated so eloquently by the Dalai Lama,

[Have we] asked ourselves whether we are being broad-minded or narrow minded? Have we taken into account the overall situation or are we considering only specifics? Is our view short-term or long-term? Are we being short-sighted or clear-eyed? Is our motive genuinely compassionate when considered in relation to the totality of all beings? Or is our compassion limited just to our families, our friends, and those we identify with closely? [8]

He continues by admitting that, given the complex nature of our world, all possible alternatives may appear to harm somebody. "Under such circumstances, we must use our intelligence to judge which course of action will be least harmful in the long run" to the greatest number of beings. [9]

He summarizes this train of thought as follows:

The moral value of a given act is to be judged in relation both to time, place, and circumstance and to the interests of the totality of all others in the future as well as now. But while it is conceivable that a given act is ethically sound under one particular set of circumstances, the same act at another time and place and under a different set of circumstances may not be. [10]

Therefore, returning to the question posed at the beginning of this essay, there is nothing I can consider to be intrinsically right or wrong. Because of the infinite variety of situations, causes, and conditions, it seems intractable to consider any act as having inherent value that is not determined, to some degree, by surrounding circumstances. Furthermore, as the ethical system as described herein is not based on decree from a godhead, there is no ground from which to state that any action is intrinsically right or wrong.

Transitioning to the final aspect of the question that began this essay, I refer to the following statement by the Dalai Lama:

It may be worth reviewing the grounds for defining ethical conduct in terms of non-harming. As we have seen, given the complex nature of reality, it is very difficult to say that a particular act or type of act is right or wrong in itself. Ethical conduct is thus not something we engage in because it is somehow right in itself. We do so because we recognize that just as I desire to be happy and to avoid suffering, so do all others. For this reason, a meaningful ethical system divorced from the question of our experience of suffering and happiness is hard to envisage. [11]

In this passage, the Dalai Lama appears to agree with my conclusion regarding the relative nature of ethical conduct. He also makes clear the impact morality has on our everyday lives. Each and every day we attempt to act in a way that increases our happiness and decreases our suffering. Little do we realize, however, that the worldly happiness we chase paradoxically INCREASES our suffering due to its transient nature and long-term effects. Therefore, the better we learn to discern harming from non-harming actions, the happier those around us become, and the happier we become. Buddhism teaches that such training in discernment and compassion comprises the basis for all our true happiness in the world. As such, they comprise practices that we endeavor to employ in every moment of our lives. For Buddhists, therefore, there is never a single moment in time in which morality does not impact our daily lives.

Footnotes:
¹This is a topic for another essay.

References:
[1] Light on Yoga. B.K.S. Iyengar. 1979. Pg. 19.
[2] Ibid. Pg. 22.
[3] Ibid. Pg 19.
[4] Ethics for the New Millenium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 1999. Pg. 55.
[5] Ibid. Pg. 56.
[6] Ibid. Pg. 49.
[7] Ibid. Pgs. 72-73.
[8] Ibid. Pgs. 149-150.
[9] Ibid. Pg. 152.
[10] Ibid. Pg. 153.
[11] Ibid. Pg. 147.

Poor Max!!

2006-10-22T16:56:00.000-05:00

Because he hates getting brushed and won't let us trim him, our long-haired alpha cat Max went in for some much-needed grooming today to clear him of his accumulated matted hair. And as expected, he emerged looking pretty comical! :) Without further adieu, here's the new Max:

Memories and the Present

2006-10-21T10:15:00.000-05:00

"He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past." -Thoreau

I hold the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, in extremely high regard. Reading their essays, their poems, their journals, I think they have come as close to the true nature and purpose of living as our great spiritual leaders like the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and Jesus (among others).

In the quote above, Thoreau's point isn't the superficial interpretation that all memory is bad--he isn't part of a group labeled the Transcendentalists for nothing. :) Thoreau is blessing what Buddhists call non-attachment. It is not that we repress our memories in our practice of mindfulness in the present moment. Memories are necessary for learning, for growth: imagine trying to meditate when you can't (or won't) remember the instructions given to you by your teacher! Rather, Thoreau observed that people are obsessed with their memories. They replay painful experiences over and over in their minds, which resubmerges them in the flood of anxiety, anger, or jealousy they experienced. People are just as obsessed with pleasant memories--they relive their last vacation, a beautiful sunset, or their elation when they adopted their puppy.

The question arises, "What's wrong with this? Shouldn't I relive the painful experiences to learn from them and the pleasant ones to enjoy my life through reminiscing?" The answer to that question is yes, with reservations. Reliving painful experiences in search of growth is great, when you consciously choose to do so. Thoreau condemns the unconscious practice that we all fall into in which these memories flash across our mental screens, unrequested, and distract us from the wonder that is our present moment of life. It requires a brutally honest look into your mind to truly see the driver of these recollections.

Reliving pleasant memories is a wonderful pastime. However, if recalling that beautiful sunset of a year ago in Hawaii distracts you from mindfully experiencing the red sun descend below the horizon happening right now, today, then that memory has truly done you a disservice. Or if in thinking about when you adopted your fur-baby, and in the process you miss the adorable, inquisitive way she pokes and prods her favorite toy, you've just lost that moment.

With the manner in which he lived his life, Thoreau showed us that a truly mindful, present, experience of what is happening NOW is life's greatest gift. Choose your moments of recollection, and when you do, make them your present moment. But at all other times, don't grasp at these memories--let them go so that you can form wonderful new memories, untainted by your past.

1-Minute Contemplation: Identify a memory that is distracting you from living right now. It may be a hurtful experience you keep reliving, or a pleasant one that you now see distracts you from your real life, here and now. For 1 minute, analyze that memory. What part of it are you attached to such that it keeps arising? Find the reason inside you that will allow you to unattach yourself from this memory. Know that you can choose to return to it whenever you wish. Whenever YOU wish.

Scribe Jamboree: October 20, 2006

2006-10-20T08:40:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the October 20th edition of Unknowing Mind's Scribe Jamboree! This is where I highlight some of my favorite posts from the past week from my fellow writers at The Daily Scribe.

Will at thinkBuddha gives us a taste of what he's teaching about The Meaning of the Meaning of Life over at Staffordshire University. Very interesting thought process here.

Dan at Yet Another Unitarian Universalist has two related posts I'd like to direct you toward. First he spoke personally about his lack of mindfulness while out on a nice walk in Autumn Watch. His issue is one many of us struggle with: how to let go of our attachment to our jobs, our responsibilities, when we're not directly working on them. He continues the discussion in Nature and City: a preliminary checklist, where he makes the observation that "City isn’t separate from Nature or divorced from Nature; rather, City is an ecosystem (or collection of ecosystems) that is a subset of wider Nature. (Corollary: humans are not separate from Nature, they are an integral part of Nature.)". He then presents us with a categorized list of reminders to help him maintain his awareness of his ecosystem. An insightful comment by Jean extends his list through focusing on sensation, our gateway to the surrounding world.

Oops! Make that Monday.

2006-10-18T19:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, after some discussion, we're moving our posting of the Second Interfaith Blog Event to Monday, October 23, 2006. Please ignore my previous post. :)

Friday is the day!

2006-10-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

This friday will be our second Interfaith Blog Event in which bloggers from three different religious traditions debate a single topic chosen by one of us. I represent a Mahayana Buddhist viewpoint, Jon represents a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner represents a Pagan perspective. Tune in Friday for the excitement!

Is A Physical Expression of Spiritual Practice Necessary?

2006-10-16T19:23:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this topic recently because I've begun to feel that something was missing in my practice. When I first started my Buddhist practice, I was concurrently training in Aikido, a Japanese martial art. While my meditation practice is stronger today than it was then, I'm finding that its effect on my life is reduced. One cause is undoubtedly a more complex life today than I had then. However, the more I examine the situation, the more I see that another primary cause is my lack of a physical expression of my practice.

In Aikido, training centers around control of one's self. Aikido is based on a sphere, with the practitioner at the center. As attackers enter that sphere, aikidoka must maintain their awareness such that they can touch, and thereby redirect--with the minimum possible force--the attacker around that sphere. When one watches high-level Aikido, it often appears as a sort of dance, with the practitioners feeling the attack and moving WITH said attack, never forcefully AGAINST it. Furthermore, Aikido trains you to feel what others are doing to you, and teaches you how to go with that flow to avoid personal injury. If you are about to be thrown, and there is no true way to avoid that, it is healthier to allow yourself to be thrown and focus on protecting yourself than to strain to avoid the throw.

The only way to succeed in such practice is to lose your ego. Ego causes you to think, "Resist! He's not going to get the better of me!" Then when you do, you sprain your wrist in the process. Without ego, you realize, "I've recognized this throw too late for a skillful counter; therefore, I must bend like the willow tree and absorb the throw, landing with minimal injury." Ego causes you to think, "Strike harder! He deserves to be hurt!" Without ego, you realize, "He is striking me out of his ego; there is no need to inflict major injury. Respond with the minimal force necessary." Beyond philosophy, however, you learn very quickly when training in Aikido that when you use muscular force, your moves are ineffective. So not only does Aikido philosophy teach these principles, the physical component provides proof. To be blunt, your Aikido will be completely ineffective and worthless if you respond to force with force, to attack with defiant resistance. In other words, Aikido acts as a physical expression of the value of egolessness, compassion, and wisdom.

Having not trained in Aikido for 5 years, I find that loss to have had an effect on my life. Such physical expression of one's practice helps to bring one's practice "out of the dojo" or "off the cushion" into everyday life. What good is meditation and Buddhist training if you leave your practice in the temple after service? The Buddha did not teach any particular physical expressions of the practice. Therefore, to me this indicates that such practices are not strictly necessary. However, in that they involve the physical body your mind inhabits in this life, I think they provide a skillful means by which to "practice in motion." Walking meditation is often touted as a great means to bring your meditation to physical activity. A lay person's life involves much motion, and if he cannot figure out how to bring a meditative mind to his actions in life, his practice will be worthless.

Therefore, I have begun studying Yoga at a highly respected studio here in Chicago, Yogaview. So far--and it's only been 2 weeks--I've already noticed an increase in my ability to carry the mental state of mindful awareness to my motion-filled life. So while I don't think such physical expression of training is required to achieve Awakening, I think if you are disposed to such practice, it can act as a skillful method to improve your practice dramatically.

Jesus Camp

2006-10-14T19:14:00.000-05:00

The documentary itself was very well made, showing little bias towards either the Evangelical or liberal sectors. Therefore it is definitely worth watching. As to the content, it was very informative, and I came out of the theater feeling that these kids' parents do truly want the best for their children, and feel they are giving them that.

That being said, the brainwashing that is occurring in these children across America frightened me more than The Exorcist ever could. At one point, the leader of the camp stated to a Christian radio host that what children learn in their early years determines 90% (or some large percentage--I forget the exact figure) of their beliefs in adulthood, and she gave that as the reason why she focuses on children. The radio host retorted that he sees a clear distinction between learning and indoctrination, which is what she is doing to these children at their ages.

I do think that she truly cares for these children and is doing what she feels is best for them and for her vision of the world. But her actions, in my opinion, are borderline terrorism. Her fundamentalism differs from that of terrorists' only in that she does not place grenades in the hands of her legions of children; she places them in their minds.

A Different View of Spirituality

2006-10-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

Strange that in our time there's so little interesting poetry of religious belief, especially since world events more and more are driven by belief (or the fanaticism of Eastern or Western Fundamentalism). Somebody asks me what I believe. I believe in the suspicion of transcendence, in the capacity of consciousness to imagine a transcendent order as an objective reality. I believe in my own unbelief.
(Poetry. W.S. Di Piero. October 2006.)

I just read an essay in my most recent issue of Poetry, from which the above excerpt was drawn, and found it to be a very creative approach to spirituality that I've never considered. Just some interesting food for thought, and some insight into another's view of life.

Scribe Jamboree: October 13, 2006

2006-10-13T10:15:00.000-05:00

Welcome to another week of Unknowing Mind's Scribe Jamboree! This is where I highlight some of my favorite posts from the past week from my fellow writers at The Daily Scribe.

First from Angela-Eloise at Blogickal, a great post on the mythology of the Harvest Moon. The moon always instills awe and wonder in me, and this year's Harvest Moon was simply spectacular in Chicago. The Goddess truly is alive in such a wondrous sight.

Second, (by the way, these are in no particular order!), Tim at Pop Occulture Blog posted a vivid excerpt from a favorite author of mine, David Abram, on Alphabet Magic. Read the entire article by Abram if you can -- it's an amazing piece of living scholarship on the animistic relationship we have developed with words.

Tim gets third billing too with his post on The Ecology of the Self. This one's based on Abram's work as well, but Tim relates Abram's writings on the true purpose of magic--ecology--to our sense of self.

Fourth, we have a good post at Arbitrary Marks on Counting the Cost of Stories and Beliefs. It's an interesting application of cost-benefit analysis to religious beliefs. At fourth and a half, I'll mention an interesting conversation in which I've been involved regarding worship in a singular setting with pluralistic beliefs. Neat viewpoints being discussed herein.

Fifth, Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn reminds us to Take Time to Pause. Life constantly throws work at us and it's easy to fall into the trap of rushing through doing things that need doing and forgetting to stop, breathe, and come back to yourself in the moment. I'm several weeks into my first class toward my Ph.D in electrical engineering, and I'm struggling with the same thing right now. Thanks for the timely reminder, Sojourner!

Finally, I want to point you to two amazingly detailed and information-filled posts on the history of the number thirteen and of Friday the Thirteenth in particular. Reb Chaim HaQoton posts on Friday the Thirteenth, as does Angela-Eloise. Thanks for your efforts on this fun topic, you two. I never realized how much history underlies this superstition.

Diana Mukpo on the Essence of Buddhist Teachings

2006-10-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

In the November 2006 issue of Shambhala Sun, Diana Mukpo, the widow of Chogyam Trungpa, is quoted as saying in her new book, "Ultimately I think that this is the essence of Buddhist teachings: they are about how to live our lives, intimately, moment to moment."

This is what truly separates Buddhism from most other religions. It's also the reason why many people claim Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy. We don't focus on the philosophical quagmire of gods, spiritual cosmology, and the "afterlife." We work with what we have at our disposal, our minds, with the goal of holding mindfulness at every point of our waking existence and acting out of complete, total, pure compassion. This isn't to say that Buddhism is without said philosophical claptrap. Great sages, including the Buddha himself, have coherently expressed these ideas to bring a "philosophical wholeness" to the religion. However, the Buddha himself taught that such musings were unfruitful. While they might be fun (I certainly enjoy a good philosophical discussion!) and educational, such intellectual exercise cannot bring us peace, bring us mindfulness, or lead us to compassionate action. Only training of the mind can bring out such skillful means.

As Diana Mukpo expressed, the essence of Buddhism is the observation that events will happen to us, some pleasant, some unpleasant, and the only thing of which we can be sure is our response in the present moment. The past has ended--while we can, and should, use it for educational purposes, it cannot help us in the immediate moment. The future is just our worried or egotistical projection of what might happen--again, while it can be used for educational purposes, it can do nothing for the "here and now." The Buddha, before his Awakening, had faith that he could achieve perfect peace, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, through training his mind. And he did achieve perfect peace, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, while resulted in the ultimate happiness. So that we could do the same thing he did, the Buddha taught us "how to live our lives, intimately, moment to moment."

Effort and Critical Thinking

2006-10-08T20:20:00.000-05:00

Josh, in a comment here, raised a good point regarding critical thinking and religion. How many of us have truly thought critically about our chosen spirituality? Critical thinking takes much effort and brutal self-honesty. But if you feel that all the hard work has already been done for you--that others have done the thinking and you just have to follow their lead--then there is little incentive to exert the effort required to think critically.

The big question is whether critical thinking about one's path is necessary. Do we even have to bother? What do our different religions say about this? Some might say it's a waste of time to think critically--you just need to believe what the "experts" tell you is true. Others might place the ultimate importance on critical thinking.

We Mahayana Buddhists, for example, see critical examination of everything as the ONLY means to freedom. One of our primary practices is the Six Paramitas (Perfections). We vow to perfect ourselves in six areas, three of which are Virya, Dhyana, and Prajna, or energy/effort, one-pointed concentration, and wisdom/insight. If we look at these together, they form a triangle of critical thinking. Effort - In every moment, we must be vigilant, exerting effort toward all of our endeavors, especially insight. We overcome all seeds of laziness--a primary obstacle to critical thinking. Concentration - Focused attention is required to burn through to the true nature of all things. Without developing concentration to the utmost degree, our mind will be too easily distracted, preventing us from seeing the Truth. Wisdom - The knowledge of our true nature, insight into the empty interbeing of all things. Without effort and concentration, our pursuit of wisdom will be in vain because we will be unable to see through false truths. And in Buddhism, we can read, or be taught, about wisdom. But until we know it, experience it, for ourselves, it is worthless knowledge. Hence, Buddhism treats critical analysis as the path to salvation.

1-Minute Contemplation: Take a recent experience in your life, perhaps one where you thanked God (or the gods) for it, or one in which you felt that you, through your Will, manifested that experience. Choose any experience that you attributed in some way to your chosen spirituality. Now, consider 3 alternate ways that this experience may have occurred that do not involve your chosen spirituality. Use other religions' beliefs as possible alternatives. For 1 minute each, truly imagine that this alternate pathway was the means through which this experience actually manifested, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you to pretend that your chosen spiritual viewpoint is incorrect. As one example, if you attributed your success on a test to God's gift, pretend with all your heart that it was the Goddess who blessed you with such success.

Scribe Jamboree: October 6, 2006

2006-10-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

It's Friday, and that means it's time for the Scribe Jamboree, where I provide links to some of the more interesting posts by Daily Scribe bloggers that I've read this week. So without further adieu...

There was a great post by Brother Maynard at Subversive Influence about the difficulties of conversing with a fundamentalist of any stripe. It sounds like a very interesting panel discussion that he attended. Check out Losing my (Fundamentalist) Religion? today.

Over at The Mindful Mission, Dave posted a link to the '85 Bears Super Bowl Shuffle. Having been born in Chicago and still happily living here today, I just had to point this out. :)

Getting more serious again, over at Reb Chaim HaQoton is posted a very interesting take on the Source of Addiction. What I find particularly interesting is how similar his thoughts are to Buddhist philosophy. He writes that, "all physical pleasures which feel 'good' have some bad mixed into them." Buddhism also identifies attachment (a major category of which is attachment to physical pleasures) as a primary source of our suffering. Obviously, our take on the cause of this (Adam's sin in the case of Reb Chaim, and our own ignorance in my case) differs, but the pragmatic end result is quite similar. He writes, "The Talmud says that there is a small limb in a person -- one's sense of pursuit of physical fulfillment -- which if fed grows hungry, and if starved is satisfied." Again the equivalence to attachment is quite obvious. Additionally, in this case, Buddhist karma comes into play in that feeding that small limb generates a habit-force that has significant karmic potential -- as he so aptly stated, when fed, it grows hungry, when starved, it abates.

Shawn at Lo-Fi Tribe writes what I hope is only the first in a series of posts on Notes on Ethics: Three Components of Moral Theory. I'm very curious to read further exposition of this topic, especially a deeper analysis of the various categories of ethics he specifies (utilitarian, deontological, etc.). Shawn, where did you get the categories of ethics you specified here? My initial thoughts are that Buddhist ethics appear to be most closely related to what Shawn labels Situation Ethics. However, there is also an interesting intermingling of Situation and Utilitarian ethics in Buddhist ethics, as we are always looking to minimize harm to all beings, which is slightly different from, but still highly related to, focusing on the greatest benefit to others as in Utilitarianism.

Finally, Will at thinkBuddha writes on Mindfulness, and the Enigma of Life. He gives a great description of how his understanding of mindfulness has evolved throughout his life, not to mention showing us first-hand the importance true mindfulness plays in his, and all of our, lives. Mindfulness is a topic near and dear to my heart, something I find to be of the utmost importance, and I write on it regularly. Will does a very nice job in this post. Please read it if you have time.

Go Where There Is No Path

2006-09-30T20:58:00.000-05:00

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was a brilliant man and a wonderful naturalist. His essays display a calm insight that is as penetrating as the Midsummer sun. Very few people would argue that blazing one's own trail, as Emerson exhorts above, is excellent advice. But I want to examine it from another angle--can this be applied to spirituality? Are our traditional religions the only beneficial spiritualities? Or can we maximize our relationship to the world, the three great kingdoms (Plant, Animal, Mineral), and our spirit through a path of our own making?

Following a traditional religion has many advantages, the primary one being that they are philosophically sound, having evolved through cultural immersion over thousands of years. They have a certain consistency by which contradictions are rare. That, to me, is quite interesting because we have a number of traditional religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and others, and while they are built upon greatly different underlying philosophies, each is internally consistent and logical. Sometimes they're based on a slightly different system of logic than Western Aristotelian logic, but regardless, they have a logical congruity. An additional benefit of a traditional religion is its track record. These systems of belief have repeatedly proven effective for many of their followers, giving meaning to their lives and a guide by which to live.

But all is not perfect in our land of traditional religion. The primary problem of religions today is dogma. Our traditional religions provide a great backdrop for life. But all too often, followers don't expend the energy to think critically about life and the meaning given to it by their religion. Rather, they fall back on the word of their chosen religious authority figure and close their minds to real wisdom--learning to see for themselves the truth of their religion.

Emerson's quote comments wisely upon our spiritual lives. If you create your spirituality out of your experiences and the meaning YOU see in life, then you will likely have to deal with philosophical inconsistencies. But is that really a problem? I don't think so. We can never know everything from our tiny place on this tiny planet orbiting our tiny sun in one tiny arm of the spiral of our tiny galaxy. We have to learn to accept paradox. And even if you end up in a traditional religion after making your own trail, you will have discovered the truth of your religion yourself, by creating your beliefs through your life rather than accepting them as hand-me-downs from our ancient past. So I argue that Emerson's way is the only way to true spirituality, regardless of where you end up.

The people who come to religion from the outside, who choose a religion and then adopt its beliefs, are in real danger of losing the greatest thing we have on this planet--our capacity for wisdom. Blaze your own trail. Observe your life in mindfulness and see what presents itself. If nature calls to you as divine, sacred, then treat it as such. If God reaches down to you from the heavens and makes contact with your heart, grab hold of his hand and don't let go. If the wonderfully interdependent nature of all things becomes apparent to you, penetrate with unwavering insight their original nature. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Scribe Jamboree: Sep. 29, 2006

2006-09-29T17:07:00.000-05:00

Today's Jamboree is short and sweet. Angela-Eloise from Blogickal had a great post about the holiday of Mabon with lots of great mythology. It is well worth a read to better understand one aspect of a Pagan mythos.

Contemplation to Restore Resolve

2006-09-28T06:12:00.001-05:00

The state of enlightenment is totally beyond concepts. There is no joy or sorrow within it, such as being happy when one is pleased or feeling sad when one is treated badly. The state of buddhahood is beyond all of these. ... The compassion of the awakened state is beyond both partiality and distance. It is like sunshine in that it is totally unbiased. It is not that the sun shines on some countries and not on others; the sun has no concept that "I will shine on that spot and leave this one in darkness." [1]

The Buddha taught that we should not get caught up in philosophical speculation because doing so distracts us from the task at hand—whatever it is that is sitting in front of us right now. There is nothing wrong with philosophizing, per se. We should feel free to engage in such stimulating thought when that is what we choose to do. But when it begins to detract from our practice of mindfulness and compassion, then it has become harmful—unskillful— and we should abandon such thoughts and return to our practice, our training. In this way, our practice acts as our guiding light in life, our refuge, our protection. But the first Noble Truth tells us that suffering exists. Therefore, sometimes life wears on us, and our effort wanes.

Therefore, we need something to strengthen our resolve. To sustain our practice, we contemplate. Contemplation won't help us achieve wisdom or concentration, but it will strengthen our effort and faith in our practice. The quote above is perfect for such contemplation. It reminds us that we can't wrap our intellectual brains around enlightenment— it is beyond such description. Rather, we can only know it by experiencing it. Furthermore, this quote motivates us by showing us how complete our compassion can become. We need only to practice, and regardless of our current level of compassionate wisdom, we can skillfully increase it until it bursts forth from our awakened minds.

1-Minute Contemplation: Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Listen to the most obvious sounds around you. Now soften your ears and listen to the layer of sounds just below that surface layer. Now open your eyes and read the quote above. Contemplate for a minute what it means to you, or what it suggests to you. What avenues might it send you down?

[1] "Buddhadharma," Fall 2006. Excerpted from Devotion and Compassion, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

Mindfulness and Experience

2006-09-25T20:20:00.001-05:00

Therefore I tell you:
Be humble, be harmless,
Have no pretension,
Be upright, forbearing,
Serve your teacher
In true obedience,
Keeping the mind
And the body in cleanness,
Tranquil, steadfast,
Master of ego,
Standing apart
From the things of the senses,
Free from self;
Aware of the weakness
In mortal nature. [1]

There are many ways in which to live our lives. We can coast through, unmindful, and wake up on our 70th birthday and ask, "Where did my life go?" Another option is to train in mindfulness. But of what benefit is all that hard work? Why not just assume we're saved in the long haul, and go about our merry way? I answer that to avoid mindfulness training is to go through your life thinking about, feeling about, and never experiencing. If someone explains to you what an orange tastes like, that might be interesting, but you still don't truly know what an orange tastes like until you, personally, taste one.

Mindfulness training is like getting an infinite return on your investment. Training to be mindful of each and every thought, each and every feeling, each and every action, knowing their true nature, is hard, and sometimes frustrating. But every now and then you have a moment in which every ounce of your being in present in the moment. You see your surroundings, you hear your surroundings. You feel your surroundings. You fully experience your experience, not just think about it, or feel about it. And in that moment, you know that everything is perfect as it is, because it is as it is, now. That moment is the greatest moment you will ever experience. That experience is an infinite return on your effort. And the more you train, the more you are blessed with these moments.

1-Minute Contemplation: Notice how quickly you think or feel about things instead of experiencing them. Look at a flower. Almost instantaneously for most of us, we start making associations, or remember the roles roses have played in your life. But we almost never just see the rose in front of us—not some idealized rose with attached memories or concepts—but the actual rose right in front of our faces. Just see the flower that presents itself to you.

[1] Bhagavad-Gita, Trans. by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. 2002.

This is the Best Season of Your Life

2006-09-23T17:39:00.001-05:00

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Wu-men

How many different things distract us from what is happening in our lives right now, at this very moment? How many different things pull our attention away from the people we are interacting with right now? Is thinking about your reply really more important than giving the person with whom you are speaking your undivided attention? Is worrying about your destination more important than experiencing and appreciating the journey? If you're worried about the destination, you never really experience the journey—you might as well have been asleep. There is a time to plan. Chances are that the amount of time you've already devoted to planning greatly exceeds what is necessary. So why not just stop running through all the possible scenarios and just listen to the sounds accompanying you on your journey?

Daily Scribe Jamboree Sept. 22, 2006

2006-09-22T23:00:00.000-05:00

There were a number of great posts at the Daily Scribe this week. I'd like to highlight two that I particularly enjoyed.

Angela-Eloise over at Blogickal wrote a great little post on Apples and their traditional correspondences. She also included a bonus apple ritual that is a great way to commune with both your friends and the natural cycles of the Earth on this great holiday of the Autumnal Equinox.

Sojourner over at A Pagan Sojourn wrote a nice post on how she celebrates the holiday of Mabon. I always enjoy seeing how others maintain and deepen their connection with the Earth, because living in the heart of a major city (Chicago), I struggle with that sometimes, and I find it to be extremely essential to my physical, mental, and spiritual health. Nothing rejuvenates me more than pausing in my busy life and spending some mindful time in nature. So I love seeing how others accomplish this.

Happy Autumn Equinox, Rosh Hashanah, and of course Happy Friday to everyone!

Sometimes We Just Need to be Reminded

2006-09-21T21:02:00.001-05:00

Sometimes we just need to be reminded.
Sometimes we just need to stop the train,
get off, and look
at the sunflowers alongside the tracks.
Sometimes we just need to breathe. Deeply. In.
Out. Abdomen soft.
Sometimes we just need to feel the chair under
our backside.
Sometimes we just need to look at our partner,
really see him or her again.
Sometimes we just need to be reminded.

Response to My Post on Karma

2006-09-19T10:30:00.001-05:00

In response to my article on Karma, Alan Cook compiled a nice piece at Milinda's Questions rebutting my equation of karma and causation. I have a few short responses to several of his comments, which follow.

For one thing, the law of karma is not concerned with consequences in general, but with consequences which recoil upon the doer of the action, both in the current and in subsequent lives.

So, the author of the book Alan quotes is saying that karma equals causation applied to sentient beings. So far, it's still causality. He continues:

They especially concern its effects on the dispositions, character, passions and desires of the agent, or the creation of invisible qualities of merit and demerit which adhere to the agent. As such, the proponent of the doctrine will be as much, if not more, concerned with the invisible as well as the visible effects of a human action.

Of course. And the "invisible effect" is still an effect of a cause. He continues:

Since the central causal feature of the law of karma is moral, it is not concerned with the general relation between actions and their consequences, but rather with the moral quality of the actions and their consequences, such as pain or pleasure and good or bad experiences for the doer of the act.

But as no theistic ground exists for morality in Buddhism (see Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a well-written explanation of moral grounds), the "moral quality" of an action or its intent is ascertained from its effect. Hence, karma as causality is concerned with the general relation between actions and their consequences (internal, as defined in Alan's post, especially—I'll return to this point with respect to external effects later in this post). He continues:

[W]hereas according to the law of universal causation the production of effects does not depend on the intentions of the agent (except as they are causally related to actions) but on his action, the karmic relation depends upon both.

No. An action (cause) will result in an effect upon the world-at-large. An intention (also a cause) will result in an internal effect on the person with the intention. It is still causality operating within the person himself. Continuing:

[A]ccording to the law of karma like causes produce like effects. Right actions produce good consequences, wrong actions produce bad consequences. However, it is not obvious that like producing like is a characteristic of all causation.

Good and bad are value judgements. Causation is complex, as is karma. In the Acintita Sutta, the Buddha says, "There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four? ... The precise working out of the results of karma is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it." Hence, the Buddha himself expressed that we cannot simplify karma to the degree of "this action will produce this particular result, in all cases." It is too complex to be analyzed in that simplistic fashion. He continues:

[T]he law of causation applies to two events or things that are temporally conjoined, whereas the law of karma states that the effects are manifested at some time in the distant future, either in the next life or in more temporally remote lives. Thus, the immediacy of the temporal relation found in the causal law is absent in the law of karma.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Lonaphala Sutta, for instance, the Buddha says, "There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment." Therefore, the law of karma does not specifically define the temporal relation between a cause and its effect. The effect may occur immediately, or it may occur in the far off future. In this particular sutra, the Buddha is speaking of the physical observability of an effect. Hence, an action's intent does weigh in on the person immediately, but the effect may be so minimal at that time that it does not result in an observable effect by another person until much later. Hence, there is temporal uncertainty. In pure causation, as well, the time relation may be close or far. If I punch a wall, the effect is immediate, on both the wall and myself. But as water temperatures change over the Pacific Ocean, that affects weather patterns that, a week or more later, finally reach the east coast of the United States. In pure causation, as well, time relation is uncertain. He continues:

[S]uch an emphasis on originating dispositions and intentions as determinative of moral quality implies that it matters little what we do. Consequently, with respect to our accumulation of karma it would mean we could do the most despicable acts, so long as our attitude and dispositions were correct.

Nope. There are two problems here. First, with the correct dispositions and attitudes, it is nearly impossible to act in a despicable fashion. More importantly, however, this exemplifies the major problem with the analysis herein presented by the author Alan quotes. The author is examining karma, in and of itself, isolated from the rest of Buddhist philosophy. I'll return to this point at the end, but for now, notice that if a person were capable of performing a despicable act with the most perfect of attitudes and dispositions, the effect on the "world-at-large" would be one of causing pain and suffering, which violates the other core principle of the Buddha's teachings, that of compassion for others. Truly, the Buddha defined the removal of suffering in the Four Noble Truths as his "measuring stick." Hence, to cause another undue pain is grossly flagrant of this teaching, regardless of karmic results. Alan's author continues:

According to the first, karma works through us, creating dispositions and tendencies, merit and demerit, which in turn affect our desires, passions, and perspective on the world.

In short, "merit and demerit" are descriptive terms to help form an understanding of the effect of actions. Buddhist karma is NOT a bank account into which meritorious and demeritorious deeds accumulate in the credit and debit columns.

According to the second, our karmic acts affect the instruments of our experiences, from our own bodies to the world around us. They help determine, among other things, the kinds of bodies with which we are reborn, our social status, and how other persons and things in the environment act on us. These instruments mediate properly determined karma to us, so that one can say that we deserve what happens to us. Here the samskaric account by itself is inadequate.

First, the concept that we "deserve what happens to us" is true to a degree, but not completely. First, "deserve" implies judgment, which is absent from karma. But more importantly, accrued karma affects how I view the world, and affects my perception of the world. My karma does NOT cause a hurricane to come and destroy my house. That happens due to the causes of various weather patterns, water temperatures, etc. My karma does affect my automatic response to such a disaster. But since my karma does not cause such destructive environmental effects, the samskaric account IS adequate.

Alan wrote, in conclusion:

"True, and well said, but as I read it that still doesn’t fully include the objective, phala-producing aspect of the traditional doctrine of karma."

This is the problem inherent in attempting to philosophically dissect Buddhist karma separate from the complete Buddhist teachings. The Buddhist philosophical system functions as a whole and, when separated into component parts, is incomplete. The Buddha's Four Noble Truths focus completely on the ending of suffering. This is truly the central path of Buddhism. But to discuss the objection raised by Alan above, the Buddha's teachings on compassion reflect the Buddhist view of the phala-produced effects of our actions. We know that all beings experience pain, and we know that all non-Buddhas (just about all of us) experience suffering based on that pain. Hence, it is our prime job to avoid causing others pain because we know that they will then suffer. The karmic "demerit" arises from the effect on us, internally, from our intentions. The external phala-effect of our action violates the central tenet of Buddhism—that of removing suffering from all beings.

Thanks, Alan, for such a thought-provoking post!

Thank You Guest Bloggers!

2006-09-18T21:11:00.001-05:00

I'd like to offer a great vote of thanks to Angela, Jon, and Sojourner for their guest blogging efforts while I was on vacation. There was some excellent discussion generated from these posts, so if you haven't done so, read through the comments; it will be well worth your time.

The picture at the top of this post is a picture of a picture at the bed & breakfast I stayed at while I was in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. This is the second time I've stayed there, and I would highly recommend it. For those who are interested, check out General Boyd's Bed & Breakfast.

Religious Diversity

2006-09-17T20:39:00.001-05:00

"How do you feel about religious diversity? Is diversity important, or would a single, or no, religion be more beneficial for our world today?"

Thanks Mike for this opportunity to be a guest blogger. I apologize if this entry is rather short. I have had a very long day. I am an evangelical protestant Christian, which ends up being complex set of lables that merely says I attempt to follow Jesus in my everyday life. As such, I consider myself a congenial exclusivist. I am convinced that the particular set of spiritual and practical benefits that Jesus offers are only offered by him. There simply is not any source to experience what Jesus offers to all humans, dealing with our basic human issues, other than the way he has provided which is to trust personally in him.

That being said it may surprise you to know that I encourage and accept the concept of religious diversity. I am strongly convinced that human beings must make a decision for or against Jesus on their own, personally, individuals in community, without being coerced into that decision by manipulative means or by any kind of force. Any other commitment to Jesus would not be the sincere kind of relationship that he desires to have with people. Theologians call this concept "soul competency." That means simply that we each are responsible for our own spiritual decisions before God, and that those decisions should be made freely.

I am convinced that when Jesus' teachings are presented in a "free marketplace of ideas" that he will draw to himself those who are to follow him. All that I look for is a "level playing field" on which to present Jesus' teachings and claims. A few years ago we were planning as a church to have a book discussion in a bookstore that is part of a large chain. The store decided we could not discuss the book (even though they sold the book) because it was religious in nature. The fear of lawsuits eliminated healthy conversation on spiritual issues. Another national chain book store was across the street. They figured they had a Jewish discussion group, and a pagan discussion group, so why not allow a Christian discussion group. We had an excellent time, to this day we still occasionally host discussions there, and I purchase a lot more books from them than I do from their competitor.

Spirituality can be dealt with in societies in a number of different ways. You can use the power of government to insist on a particular system, or to squelch all such conversations, but in the the end the healthiest method is to allow basic liberty to all to discuss and pursue such topics within the basic limits of human behavior (i.e. no human sacrifice). Even most of us who believe in the uniqueness of our system affirm the rights of others to pursue other systems. While in the end, exclusivists as myself believe the options will fade away in the dawn of eternity (the time for discussion eventually will end), in our temporal world we strongly support religious liberty. In fact, many of us note that often intolerant societies persecute us first.

It has been said before that one should not discuss religion or politics in polite conversation. Unfortunately, that would relegate most polite conversation to worthless small talk. Most of the things that are important to us in life are controversial, and those are the very things that I celebrate the freedom to discuss. So perhaps if you disagree with me on everything else, this one thing we hold in common: everyone should have the right to express their opinion and believe what they want to believe. Based on that simple consensus of tolerance our society was built, and it indeed is the most healthy (and from my perspective beneficial) stance for society to take on religion and spirituality today.

Thanks again for letting me take part in this dialogue, I am excited to read and respond to your comments. For more on pursuing "mere Christianity" in a postmodern urban culture check out my blog: Jesusfollowers.

Religious Diversity

2006-09-17T18:56:00.001-05:00

Hi, I'm Angela from Bold Contemplations! Before my post, I just wanted to thank Mike for the opportunity to guest blog! I hope you enjoy all the guest posts, and hope that a thought provoking discussion will ensue!

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I believe that throughout history, distinct groups of people developed the concept of god and religion in order to provide a means for explaining and understanding life’s unanswerable questions and events – historical and natural – which seemed to be out of human control. As I see it, traditional religion is indeed the “opium of the masses.” Each individual religion is the narration of a particular culture’s myth -- its interpretation of history as shaped and molded over numerous generations in response to changes in the culture’s circumstance. For this reason, it is obvious why numerous religious schools naturally developed throughout history in lieu of a single global religion.

We continue to utilize the concepts of religion and god in similar manners today. Religion is the glue that holds many people’s lives together. It continues to provide answers (albeit some arguably outdated) to many of life’s most unanswerable questions. What is the meaning of life? Why must we experience trials and tribulations? What happens when we die? Religion also continues to provide principles and tenets (again, some arguably outdated) by which a person should abide in order to live a “good” life – one that would make their god proud. Some people are extremely religious during good times and bad, while others only embrace religion in times of emotional distress and need. Religion gives many a sense of purpose in life and provides the motivation that many need to live by the golden rule (who wants to suffer eternal damnation?). Given the extremely personal nature of the emotional needs that religion addresses, many people today search for the one (or none) that they most identify with. It is for this reason that I feel that religious diversity is important as it allows everyone to find the “truth” that they feel most comfortable calling their own. Actively identifying with a religion tends to provide a sense of purpose and belonging to the believer.

Personally, I don’t believe that one must embrace a particular religion in order to live a purposeful and fulfilling life – in my opinion, a sense of spirituality is much more important (a topic for another time). Historical events (perhaps purposefully) have perpetuated the need of humans to search outside themselves for explanations of life’s events and to provide motivation to treat their fellow inhabitants of the earth with respect. As long as this continues to be true, religious diversity will be important as it will allow the needs of diverse masses to be met. However, history as well as current events have proven that religious diversity can have just as many negative implications as positive ones.

The numerous labels we continually impose on ourselves only serve to divide humanity. History has proven that humans are masters at using the differences among its members to segregate and divide itself, to perpetuate hate and prejudice. Many of the out-dated teachings of the traditional religions add fuel to this fire. The majority of wars, past and present, are rooted in religious differences and the world’s current events indicate that this trend will not end any time soon. Therefore, I believe that in order for humanity to survive and thrive, we must begin to shed out-dated traditional religions and move toward acceptance of religions and schools of thought which strive to work towards the common good of all humanity and all earth’s creatures, in addition to re-connecting humanity by celebrating and embracing our differences.

Religious Diversity

2006-09-17T09:05:00.001-05:00

When Mike asked all of us to be guest bloggers, he proposed this question as our topic:

How do you feel about religious diversity? Is diversity important, or would a single, or no, religion be more beneficial for our world today?

Religious diversity is a tradition that goes back many years in our country's history. From Religious groups fleeing their country of origin because of persecution to the start of religious tolerance, the U.S. has a history of embracing diversity. In the last 30 years, according to the Pluralism Project, this penchant for religious diversity has become more pronounced.

I see religious diversity as an asset to society in that it creates dialogue between people of different beliefs which in turn opens doors for religious tolerance. I find that having the option to learn about other religions helps me to understand my own beliefs in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise and also helps me to strengthen my views on religious issues. When we have the opportunity to experience religious diversity, we are better able to find the system of belief that is best suited to our beliefs.

As to the question regarding whether we would be better off having just one (or no) religion, I would have to say that it would not be beneficial. Having the ability to explore other viewpoints on religion opens up the possibility to incorporate new ideas into a religious path. I believe that this prevents a religion becoming stagnant.

Guest Blogger: Sojourner

2006-09-16T10:12:00.001-05:00

Hello! I'm Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn. I write about a variety of topics ranging from aspect of Pagan religions to religion in general to thoughts about my own religious journey. I started my blog as a way to organize and keep track of the information that I was learning regarding Paganism. Please feel free to stop on over.

I am a non-traditional psychology student at a major university in Minnesota and currently plan to go on to grad school to obtain my PhD in cognitive neuroscience starting in the fall of 2007. Although my educational background is in psychology, I have a great interest in different religious traditions, history and perspectives.

Thank you, Mike, for asking me to be a guest blogger while you are on vacation. I look forward to this opportunity.

Interfaith Blog Event #1: Karma

2006-09-14T08:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the first Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The first topic we'll be discussing is the following:

How do you view karma, the thought that your actions in some way determine your experiences, in your spiritual path?

[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]

Buddhism is about relationship: relationship to others, relationship to self, relationship to all sentient beings, and relationship to all insentient beings. Primary to Buddhism’s experience of relationship is what Thich Nhat Hanh terms interbeing—all of us, and by "us" I mean sentient as well as insentient beings, are interconnected. Nothing can exist without something else existing to comprise it. Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

If we look into this sheet of paper, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. ... You cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil. ... Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. [1]

Since everything inter-is, nothing exists in and of itself, independent of all else. Hence, everything exists based on prior causes and conditions. Interbeing forms the basis of Buddhist karma.

What is Buddhist karma? It is often summarized as "This is, because that is; this is not, because that is not." In the same way as all things come into being based on causes and conditions, all of our thoughts, actions, and feelings arise based on causes and conditions. In other words, if you're raised in a household in which your dad responds in open anger to many things, you are likely to develop the same trait. Or if you learn that feigned kindness gets you what you want, you'll repeat that behavior; and the more you repeat it, the more deeply a feigned kindness response will be embedded in your psyche. In psychological terms, you could say you learned this behavior through Skinner's operant conditioning. In Buddhist terms, you've accrued negative karma.

Karma does not imply predestination, however. Technically, Buddhist karma is nonlinear. Note, however, that by "nonlinear" I do not mean that future events affect the present in a circular fashion. Rather, present input—your current thoughts, behavior, and intentions—feed into, and thus combine with, past causes and conditions to affect the next moment. This present input makes karma nonlinear according to systems theory, as it (karma) is not based solely on past causes. The existence of the "present input" also eliminates predestination because we can affect, and even change, our next thought, action, or speech that our past would have made most likely.

In other words, in every moment, we will be predisposed to certain thoughts, actions, and speech. If we act according to this predisposition, we strengthen it (i.e. "greed begets greed"). But we also have the ability to be mindful of this process and act differently from our predisposition, or at least consciously choose to think or act or speak according to our predisposition. Hence, our present thoughts, speech, and behavior can work to support our karmic predisposition, or counteract it.

I should note here that the terms "positive" and "negative" karma have no absolute value. These can only be relative terms because with no godhead to decree right from wrong, no absolute basis exists from which to dogmatically define "good" versus "bad." The question that cries out to be answered is, therefore, how do we know which behaviors, thoughts, and speech will develop what we might call "good karma."

In short, the answer is observation and analysis. The Buddha observed for himself that certain thoughts, speech, and behaviors generally led to a decrease in suffering, both in himself and others, and to an increase in inner happiness. It was on the basis of these observations that he developed the precepts not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to use intoxicants, and not to lie. He did not intend for the precepts to be dogmatic rules to be followed unswervingly because, as previously noted, they contain no inherent value, good or bad, in and of themselves. Rather, he observed that when one kills, one's underlying mental state is such that one's suffering increases, in addition to the suffering clearly inflicted on the killed being. Related to this, he also observed that when killing became abhorrent to a person, that person's underlying mental state was one that reflected true inner happiness, peace, contentment, and love. Additionally, not only did this reduce the suffering of other beings (since they were not killed), it also increased others' happiness because of the manner in which our non-killing person now interacted with those beings around him, in his loving, peaceful state. Similar observations underlie the remaining precepts.

In a sense, the Buddha was an early proponent of the scientific method. He observed that all beings suffered. He developed the hypothesis that suffering could be ended and true, complete, inner happiness achieved. Then he began experimenting. He trained with many great teachers of his day, and though he found value in their Hindu thought, they did not confirm his hypothesis—they did not eradicate suffering completely, nor result in complete inner happiness. Just as importantly, they did not invalidate his hypothesis because he was successful in reducing his suffering and increasing his inner peace.

Finally, after 6 years of experimentation and testing, while meditating throughout the night under the Bodhi tree, he personally experienced the affirmation of his hypothesis. He obtained direct knowledge that suffering could be ended and true, complete, inner happiness achieved. And he directly determined the path that leads to this result.

The process of karma has been shown to exist by the great psychologists of our day. Freud showed us how our experiences in childhood directly affect our thoughts, actions, and speech in adulthood. Jung showed us how archetypes function in our unconscious to predispose us to certain responses. Skinner and Pavlov gave us the means by which we actually learn many of our responses via operant and classical conditioning, respectively. Even our everyday common sense tells us that a karmic process operates in our lives. How many times have you thought, "Oh, that runs in our family!" The Buddha, however, not only observed the functioning of karma in our lives, he also personally discovered that suffering is caused by karmic influences. Through experimentation and observation, he obtained direct knowledge that we could end our suffering and achieve total inner peace, love, happiness, and compassion. And he taught us the path so that we could achieve the same.

The Heart of Understanding. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1988.