Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Skeptical look at mantras and Transcendental Meditation

I've never practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM). But for over forty years I've meditated daily, mostly using a mantra (a word or words repeated over and over) just as TM does. So I resonated with a "Mantras" post on the TM-Free blog, which describes itself as: Insider information about the Transcendental Meditation™ techniques, the TM movement and its late founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Our bloggers take independent, skeptical and critical views of TM claims and research. We report allegations of deception by TM organizations and reports that some individuals experience harm from involvement. For most of those forty years I used a…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

High-resolution perception brings mindful clarity

I've finished Chade-Meng Tan's "Search Inside Yourself," after calling the book compassionate, scientific, businesslike in my first post about it -- written after I'd only read a few chapters. The book turned out to be more Buddhist'y than I'd expected, but since the author is a Buddhist (as well as an engineer who was one of the first Google employees), that shouldn't have been a big surprise.  Still, Chade-Meng has a pleasingly non-religious, non-metaphysical, non-mystical approach to mindfulness. Which also isn't a big surprise, given that mindfulness is about paying attention to what is here and now, not there and then.…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Science

Sam Harris interview with author of “Illusion of the Self”

Damn! (but actually I'm happy) Another $19.57 has found its way from my VISA account into Amazon's accounts receivable, thanks to Sam Harris' interview with the author of Illusion of the Self -- another neuroscience book that the "I" who isn't me was led to order by largely unconscious brain processes over which the "I" who isn't me has no control. If you're interested in this stuff, but not twenty bucks worth of interested, it'll cost you nothing to read the interview. I'm fascinated by the increasingly evident neuroscientific conclusion that there's no such thing as a Self to be…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

12 Symptoms of a Spiritual Awakening

This morning I came across 12 Symptoms of a Spiritual Awakening on a friend's Facebook feed. I liked them, even though I noticed that they came from a recovery web site. No mention of a higher power or God in the twelve, thankfully.  1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen. 2. Frequent attacks of smiling. 3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature. 4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation. 5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience. 6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.…
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Posted inReligions

A sign that maybe I’m part Jewish

The Western monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- interest me considerably less than Eastern religions, since I've got some fondness for Buddhism and Taoism.  But a passage in a recent TIME magazine story about Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, makes me think that maybe there's some Jewishness in my churchless non-soul. For Netanyahu, the Jews are not so much God's chosen people as his argumentative ones. They don't take things on faith. Abraham, Moses, and Job, he notes, all argued with God. And sometimes won. Like Bibi, they were ornery and maybe had a chip on…
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Posted inReligions

Religious weirdness: treasures worth billions found in Hindu temple

Every religion is weird, but there are degrees of weirdness. For example, I'm not at all attracted to fundamentalist Christianity. Yet I used to enjoy reading the mystical philosophizing of Meister Eckhart, a medieval Christian who, pleasingly, was decried as a heretic. And I also have enjoyed learning about the less religious side of Hinduism, Vedanta, which focuses on meditation, the nature of consciousness, and other esoteric subjects rather than rituals. However, a fascinating article in the April 30, 2012 issue of The New Yorker reminded me that Hinduism also has its more weird religious side. "The Secret of the…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

“Buddha in Blue Jeans.” Kindle cost: $0.00. Worth much more.

If you've got a Kindle, or a Kindle reader, you'll definitely get your money's worth out of a 26 page e-book, Buddha in Blue Jeans: An Extremely Short Zen Guide to Sitting Quietly and Being Buddha. The cost is zero, nothing. $0.00, nada, zilch.  The message is valuable: sit quietly every day. I've been doing that for 43 years. Can't say that I'm a Buddha, but hey, maybe I am. Regardless, my morning meditation seems to have helped keep me from becoming any crazier than I already am. Maybe even a little saner. (Alternative equally valid rendering: My morning meditation…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Your spiritual experience means nothing to me

Experience. A wonderful word. So important. It's all that we have, really. Experience. Without it, we're nothing. Dead. Unconscious.  So saith the Merriam-Webster dictionary. 1 a : direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge    b : the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation 2 a : practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity    b : the length of such participation <has 10 years'experience in the job> 3 a : the conscious events that make up an individual life    b : the events that make up the conscious…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Life lessons learned on a Maui beach

I always feel pleasantly alive when my wife and I visit our favorite Maui beach, Napili. There's just something about a tropical beach that screams (or rather, murmurs) this is what life is all about.  It isn't just the warm air and water speaking. There's also something else. Elemental. Honest. Real. No need to try to name it. But I enjoy trying to talk about it. Last year I blogged about some life lessons I've learned boogie boarding.  -- You can't control the big things.-- You can control how you relate to big things.-- Change is the only constant.-- Don't be afraid of being the only one.-- Rushing…
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Posted inBuddhism

Even Hardcore Zen is too softcore for me

I've come across Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen site several times. I know this, despite my sometimes bad memory, because I always look at the t-shirts for sale. So I remember a repeated feeling of "Seems like I should be the sort of guy to wear a Hardcore Zen t-shirt, but they don't appeal to me." Too Buddhist'y, even with the Buddhist dogmatism and religiosity supposedly removed. I have the same reaction to Warner's recent post, When You Reach Pure Awareness You Will Have No Problems.  He makes fun of Deepak Chopra, which I like. Chopra tweeted "When you reach pure awareness…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Mitt Romney, you’re wrong: this isn’t a Christian nation

There are lots of reasons for people in the United States to vote for President Obama rather than Mitt Romney in November. Romney's sucking up to evangelical Christians is just one reason -- but an important one. In a recent speech at a hotbed of Christian'ist fundamentalism, Liberty University, Romney told the assembled believers in an imaginary God the untruths they wanted to hear. In the same week that President Obama galvanized his base by endorsing same-sex marriage, Mr. Romney’s message was that evangelicals could count on him to operate as president under “a common worldview,” including his position that marriage…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

Physics knows more about “nothing” than theology or philosophy

It's amazing, how much can be said about nothing. Nothing always has been a favorite topic of theologians and philosophers. Now physicists are getting into the Nothing Game, big time (see here and here). There's a basic dispute between fact-focused scientists on one side, and concept-obsessed thinkers on the other: is "nothing" a something that can be investigated, or an absolute absence of anything? (including "absence") I've read a bunch of books and articles that argue both sides of this question, which is central to the classic Why is there something rather than nothing? question. More and more I favor…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

“Magic” of Sant Mat guru-hypnotists explained

Hypnotism works. Sadly. Otherwise I would have spent the past forty-two years believing that I looked just like a young Paul Newman. Below you'll find an email message I received a few days ago from someon who persuasively argues that what Sant Mat gurus do is take advantage of quasi-hypnotic suggestibility. Devoted disciples are told, over and over, that the guru has divine powers. They're also told, over and over, that they will experience certain mystical lights and sounds under the guru's direction. Not surprisingly, some disciples say they've had such experiences. Then those tales get added to the store…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

“Search Inside Yourself” — compassionate, scientific, businesslike

I've got a new favorite book: Chade-Meng Tan's Search Inside Yourself -- the unexpected path to achieving success, happiness (and world peace). It didn't take much searching inside myself to realize that I liked Tan's approach to mindfulness, meditation, and all that stuff. Just reading the forewords by Daniel Goldman and Jon Kabat-Zinn, along with Tan's first two chapters, had my inner self saying "Yes, yes, yes" this morning. Here's one Yes passage: In learning and teaching meditation, the good news is that mindfulness is embarassingly easy. It is easy because we already know what it's like, and it's something…
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Posted inScience

Neuroscience says people aren’t things. We’re processes.

Who am I? That's a big question. For the ancient Greeks, and many others, it's the biggest question. "Know yourself." An imperative. Modern neuroscience is casting factual light on this philosophical issue. Well, not only philosophical. Religon, spirituality, mysticism -- they also have explanations of what essential human nature is. Usually, dualistic. Meaning, supposedly there's the human body, which includes the brain. Then there's a mysterious something else. Soul, mind, psyche, spirit, some thing which inhabits, connects with, or otherwise associates with the body while we're physically alive. But since that thing isn't physical, usually it is believed to survive bodily death.…
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Posted inScience Wu Project

Great free will question: What do we want to be free from?

Having given up a belief in resurrection, physical immortality, eternal soul, or living on through my works, I've settled on another approach for dealing with my eventual demise: Not being me.  Now, some will say, "That's Buddhism 101." Sort of true. Anatta, not-self, is indeed a core Buddhist concept. But I'm lazy. Buddhists, including those of the Zen variety, go through a heck of a lot of effort to realize that the entity striving to become enlightened doesn't exist. My feeling is, why not simply begin and end with the nothing-much-of-anything that I am?  Done. Finis. Enlightenment trophy, please. There's no…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Profound significance of “blowing Willie Nelson” joke

Last night my wife and I saw humorist David Sedaris at Salem's oh-so-cool historic Elsinore Theatre. There's a lot to like about Sedaris. He's gay, liberal, funny, ironic, cynical, profane, and a really good writer. Also, thoughtful. Many of his jokes make you think. They've got layers of meaning. Here's my favorite joke, which I tweeted after the show, minus Sedaris' entertaining set-up to it. What's the last thing you want to hear while blowing Willie Nelson? "I'm not Willie Nelson." (Note to those who aren't conversant in American slang: "blowing" is synonomous with "giving a blow job," which is synonymous…
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Posted inGod Religions Science

Analytical thinking weakens religious belief

This is one of those scientific findings that cause me to say, "Well, yeah, of course!": analytical thinking leads people away from religious believing. TIME magazine has a good summary of the not-unexpected research conclusions. We all fly both ways, on the complementary wings of intuition and analysis. These basically correspond to "fast thinking" and "slow thinking," the brain's System 1 and System 2 in the parlance of Daniel Kahneman (see my blog post, Don't mistake God for your intuitive brain speaking. Sometimes it makes sense to intuit; other times, to analyze. As the TIME article says, both brain capabilities…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

David Chapman: “There are no spiritual problems”

I knew I'd like David Chapman's most recent blog post when I saw the title. There are no spiritual problems.  Amen to that, brother David.  I don't usually say "brother," but it seems fitting here. Recently I was thinking bloggishly along the same lines in My new Major Life Project: don't have one. Except, as noted before after I first came across Chapman's writings... I've read several posts/chapters and am blown away by this guy. He's like a more intelligent, more scientific, more coherent, more wise version of me who also can write a heck of a lot better. And…
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