Posted inReality Science

In living, focus on “differences that make a difference”

I've come across this phrase quite frequently in philosphical and scientific writings: a difference that makes a difference. It's appealing.  What good is a difference that doesn't make a difference? In fact, is it even really a difference, if nothing about it makes a difference? These are deep epistemological waters. I'm not competent to dive into them. I just enjoy pondering Gregory Bateson's definition of information, which seems to apply more generally to other areas (of course, it could be reasonably argued that information is the essence of everything). Consider the mind-body problem. Or in some religious circles, the mind/soul-body…
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Posted inMystics Science

Spiritual sages were clueless about how the brain works

Almost every religious prophet, mystic guru, spiritual sage, revered master, elevated yogi, or other supposed knower of what lies beyond everyday appearances shares a common denominator:  They were essentially clueless about the human brain with which they made their pronouncements about divine reality.  So they had no idea about how the knower of their purported knowledge works. I'd realized this before, but the factiness of this fact hadn't really hit me until I started reading Patricia Smith Churchland's "Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy."  In the Introduction, Churchland reminds us how neuroscience has only come into its own very recently. By contrast,…
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Posted inReality

Scott Adams: “We’re living in a computer simulation”

Makes sense to me. Of course, that's what I've been programmed to think. By whoever is running the simulation we call "life." Scott Adams, the simulated human which believes it created the comic strip "Dilbert," also believes that it is highly likely we're living in a computer simulation.  I like his reasoning. One feature of our so-called reality that makes me scratch my head is the consistency of the rules of physics. One might expect a "natural" universe - one that came from an explosion - to be nothing but randomness on every dimension, including the rules of physics themselves.…
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Posted inBuddhism Science Taoism/Tai Chi

The self: a trick your mind plays on not-you

Here's some good news, and some even better news, from the current special issue of New Scientist: "The Great Illusion of the Self." You're being tricked by an expert! And who doesn't like amazing tricks? Even better, the trickster is your own mind! You're your own magician.  Well, you would be if you existed. But almost certainly you don't. At least, not in any way close to how you feel that you do. In 10 pages, several New Scientist stories -- "Who Are You?," What Are You?," "When Are You?," "Where Are You?," "Why Are You?" -- persuasively present evidence that an…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Alan Watts in a nutshell: each present moment is eternity

Man, I dig Alan Watts. I just finished re-reading my favorite Watts book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity." He wrote it at a time, 1951, when "dig" was becoming part of the lexicon of the Beat Generation. But Watts' cogent understanding of what genuine spirituality -- for lack of a better term -- is all about: timeless. And so simple. Here's how the basic message of the book, as summarized in the final chapter, Religion Reviewed, flows. Watts' quotations are indented. My words precede the quotes. We long for security. For absoluteness. For something unchanging. But reality isn't like that. Living…
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Posted inHumor

Mindful equals moral. And I’m a 4/10 Hipster.

I'm not a big fan of rigid commandments. So when I came across "Ten Things that are Bad for Us that Can be Good for You if Practiced Mindfully," I figured it would fit with my loose moral inclinations. I was right. Nothing astounding here; just a good reminder that Buddha got it right about that "middle way" stuff. Here's what the author, Waylon Lewis, said about mindfulness itself: Spirituality and religion can help us to be kind, and patient, to learn, to connect with community—or they can become fixed, dividing, materialistic dogma. Mindfulness itself can be meditation, at its…
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Posted inScience

Don’t understand the brain? You can’t understand spirituality.

Here's a follow-up to my "Spirituality without neuroscience is bullshit" post. Since I wrote it I've been pondering ways to convert religious believers to what seems to me to be an obvious truth: if you don't understand the brain with which you do your understanding, your understandings are going to be shallow. I'm not saying that everybody has to be expert in the anatomy and functioning of the brain. But without basic knowledge of what lies within the cranium of each of us, how we look upon the world is going to be skewed by our ignorance. Let's consider an…
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Posted inBooks Science

Spirituality without neuroscience is bullshit

For most of my life I've been an avid reader of philosophical, spiritual, mystical, religious, and otherwise what's it all about? books.  I've mentally devoured ideas that were way out there. Well, usually they also were way in here. Meaning, those notions concerned our innermost core being: soul, pure consciousness, Buddha-nature, atman... that thingless thing goes by lots of names. My evolution into churchlessness has changed my appetite for books that I once found delicously tasty. I'm much more attracted now to readings which accept reality as known to modern science, while delving further into the many mysteries lying beyond the…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Eyes shut spiritual escapism: the trap of “going within”

For many years, decades actually, I practiced a form of meditation aimed at "going within." Meaning, within some supposed realms of consciousness distinct, and higher than, the physical world. This practice was part of a Sant Mat teaching. As Wikipedia says: The basic teaching of contemporary Sant Mat, as described by its Masters, is that everything lies inside us and that God is within. The outside world is only an image or a reflection of the inner reality. So, in pithier terms, what's outside of us is worthless crap; what's inside of us is precious divinity. This world-denying notion is…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

How far down the rabbit hole can an unbeliever go?

I know something about rabbit holes. I've been down quite a few -- of the psychedelic variety and otherwise.  Graduating from high school in 1966, I headed to college in the San Francisco Bay area just at the time Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane wrote "White Rabbit." I still get a chill up my spine (tiny LSD flashback?) when I watch a video of her singing it. Speaking as a proud Flower Child babyboomer, Man, they don't make music like this anymore. Suffer through the brief ad at the start. Two and a half minutes of Jefferson Airplane are…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Beliefs are not a substitute for seeing

Reading today's Sunday Oregonian, I came across a nice Q & A in an interview with poet Mary Szybist. What do you believe about the world? I like what Flannery O'Connor has to say about beliefs. She advises writers: "Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing." I am wary of fixed beliefs because they can and sometimes do become "substitute[s] for seeing." I'm also wary of cynicism. Perhaps a belief can be a "light by which you see." I begin "Incarnadine"…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

When you die, that’s it: no heaven, hell, or rebirth

I love to get straight-talking churchless email. Here's a message that recently zoomed in from cyberspace. Thanks, Nancy, for letting me share it. Hi Brian, Came across your website "Church Of The Churchless" and I give it 2 thumbs up! Yes, religion is all man-made bullshit trying to give meaning and purpose to human existence. I have delved into Hinduism and meditation and honestly, Hindus are way offtrack with such nonsense as reincarnation. No person comes back as another human to work out past karmas nor are they sent to planet earth to suffer in the next life. This I…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

Beyond humanism and absolutism… mystery

What is real? Great question. Just the sort of question to tackle in a blog post. Such is the hubris of bloggers.  Hubris is a word that's used a lot in David E. Cooper's "The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility, and Mystery." Wikipedia clues us in to the meaning of hubris. Not a good quality to have if you seek to know the nature of reality. Hubris (pron.: /ˈhjuːbrɪs/), also hybris, from ancient Greek ὕβρις, means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Experience is all we are — no “experiencer” inside our head

Showing my age, I'm digging a re-reading of Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity." I'm on a blogging triple-play with the book, previous posts being here and here. What Watts did masterfully, way back in 1951, was bring a sort of core spirituality down to earth, shorn of superfluous lofty religious, mystical, and supernatural abstractions. It's a purified philosophy of living -- ageless wisdom trimmed of dogmatic theologies. So simple. So, so simple. What we're looking for has always been right before our eyes. Also, our nose, mouth, ears, hands, and every other part of us.  Here's how I'd encapsulate…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Alan Watts on “I” versus “Me” — a crazy battle

Sometimes -- well, more often than that -- I wonder whether our dogs are considerably more enlightened than I am.  After all, I never catch them wondering whether they're doing, thinking, or feeling the right thing. But I question myself a lot. Our dogs don't. Whatever they're up to, they seem to experience it unhesitatingly. Even if that "it" is hesitating before an open door, wondering whether they should go out on an upstairs deck on a cold, rainy night. They don't worry about indecision; they just stand there, thoroughly indecisive. Like I said in my previous post, I'm a…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

I love Alan Watts’ “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” Here’s my love notes.

Some books I read once, and never look at again. Others become frequent companions, picked up whenever I need a, well, pick-me-up (non-liquid variety).  Alan Watts' wonderful "The Wisdom of Insecurity" is one of those books. It's my favorite Watts writing. Every time I read it, the book speaks something fresh to me. Not because the words between the covers have changed. Because I have.  Which is the central message of the book. Life is nothing but change. Scary! We don't know what's going to happen! Things could spiral out of control! Death... disease... disability... despair. And that's just some of…
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