Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Open presence meditation

The story in “On Buddhist meditation practice” about meditators not being startled by a tree trunk crashing or heavy hail falling reminded me of a chapter in Matthieu Ricard’s “Happiness.” Ricard is a long-time Buddhist. He’s participated in scientific studies concerning the neurological correlates of meditation. I suspect that the subject he’s talking about is himself. He says that the startle response is one of the body’s most primitive reflexes. It responds to activity in the brain stem and is usually not subject to voluntary control. “The stronger a person’s flinch, the more he is inclined to experience negative emotions.”…
7
Posted inGod

We are all atheists

"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." “We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others." These are two well known quotes from Stephen F. Roberts. On his Without Gods blog, Mitchell Stephens cites a quotation from skeptic par excellence Michael Shermer along the same lines: Christians today might say, I don't believe in Zeus, that was a silly superstition. Yet for many people that was a real…
2
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Balancing Sant Mat faith and doubt

Recently I received some emails from a fellow initiate of Charan Singh, a Sant Mat guru who belonged to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas branch of this movement. I enjoyed what this person had to say and got permission to edit the messages into a postable form. Like my correspondent, I too resonate with the Buddhist outlook. And I similarly try to retain from the Sant Mat teachings what works and makes sense. The rest is eminently discardable. Here are some thoughts about balancing faith and doubt. I found them interesting. Hope you do too. -------------------------------- “I realized at the…
24
Posted inPersonal/Stories

I go to a Hollywood medium, Marcel Cairo

Yesterday I lost my medium virginity. During a visit to Hollywood to see my daughter Celeste and her husband Patrick, Marcel Cairo was kind enough to treat Celeste, Laurel, and me to a reading. Marcel is an afterlife medium and spiritual therapist. (Check out Marcel’s website for more info). Last Tuesday I got an email from Marcel that said, in part: I came across your site and really got a kick out of it. I like how you present thought provoking concepts with a sense of humor. I kind of take the same approach to my work. I am a…
13
Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Jesus Camp: turning kids into Christian soldiers

Jesus Camp. Only in America. Well, also in Pakistan. But they’re called “madrassas” there. And it isn’t Jesus the children are being trained to die for. However, in fairness to the camp director, Pastor Becky Fischer, I heard an interview with her on the Ed Schultz show. She said, convincingly, that the Jesus Camp documentary didn’t include all of her “radically laying down their lives for the Gospel” comment. (Which you can see here, if you have broadband). Fischer said that what she means by “lay down your life” is dedicating yourself to Jesus 100%. Makes sense. I really don’t…
4
Posted inWu Project

The joy of nihilism

Nihilism has a bad rep. For many the word signifies anarchy, destruction, meaninglessness, bombs thrown by black-garbed acolytes of Nothing. (I copied these images from nihilist web sites; it’s nice not to have to worry about copyright laws; nihilists don’t sue, I assume.) I have a “nihilism” wrist band. I don’t wear it very often, but when I do it gives me a good feeling when I glance down at it. Free. Independent. Open-minded. That’s what nihilism means to me. I like the definition offered by the Catholic Encyclopedia: “a Nihilist is one who bows to no authority and accepts…
27
Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

The Pope isn’t infallible. Oh my god!

Well, another religious bubble has burst. The Pope makes mistakes, just like the rest of us. So much for infallibility—though the Catholic Church is smart enough to attach conditions to infallible Papal statements, leaving themselves an out when he makes a mistake. Which I’d say he did in his recent speech to a German university, parts of which seriously offended Muslims. But I don’t think it was a mistake to quote a medieval emperor, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to…
17
Posted inMorality Science

The virtue of a Playboy philosophy of life

No, I don’t read it just for the articles. But frequently Playboy does feature thoughtful articles on one of my favorite subjects, the relation of religion and science. For example, the April 2006 issue had “Faith & Reason” by philosopher Michael Ruse. Several other writers threw in their two cents on the subject. My favorite was comedian Lewis Black, who offered up some pithy advice about how to handle intelligent design believers. The concept of evolution doesn’t take away from the concept of God. You’d have to be out of your mind not to see through the bullshit. You can…
4
Posted inMiracles Science

Million dollars says there’s no evidence of the supernatural

Almost every time I write something like “There’s no proof of anything beyond the physical” I get challenged by believers in ESP, astral projection, life after death, or other supernatural phenomena. That’s fine. I love challenges. If I wanted to have everything that I say accepted without question, I wouldn’t be a blogger. Nor would I have been married for thirty-five years. But here’s the thing: when I say “proof” I mean proof. The real deal. Scientific confirmation. Controlled studies. Replicated studies worthy of being published in a major journal. Proof that makes skeptics into believers. The James Randi Educational…
23
Posted inReligions

Americans see four faces of God

Step right up and choose your God: Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical, or Distant. A major national survey of American attitudes toward religion has found that an Authoritarian image of the Almighty is the most popular at 31%. Distant comes in second at 24% with Benevolent not far behind, 23%. Critical brings up the rear with 16%. This finding goes a long way toward explaining why our country is so screwed-up. Almost half of our citizens go through their days believing that an authoritarian or critical god is looking over their shoulders, judging them for every moral misstep. When I read the…
7
Posted inBooks Buddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Taoism’s Secret of the Golden Flower

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if what we were looking for in life is what we are? After we strip away what we are not, that is. This is the central message of “The Secret of the Golden Flower,” a delightfully simple book that could take a lifetime to grasp. Thomas Cleary translated this classic Taoist guide to meditation. In his introduction he says: The golden flower symbolizes the quintessence of the paths of Buddhism and Taoism. Gold stands for light, the light of the mind itself; the flower represents the blossoming, or opening up, of the light of the mind.…
2
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Gaining an ear for religious disharmonies

I’m not at all musical. But I’ve got a pretty good ear for theological inconsistencies. These are statements that, when I hear them, sound like an obvious off-key note. Like a loud whaaaap! in the midst of an otherwise harmonious composition. During my many unquestioning devotional years, I was able to sit through Radha Soami Satsang Beas “sermons” (a.k.a. satsangs) and pretty much tune out the disharmonies. I could do the same thing when my daughter briefly, blessedly, tried to learn to play the violin in elementary school. When you’re attached to someone or something, you tend to overlook sour…
4
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

The best one-sentence metaphysics ever written

Here it is. My absolute favorite sentence. It’s wise. It’s profound. It’s deep. It’s practical. It’s spiritual. Best of all, it’s true. Drum roll, please. Pregnant pause for dramatic effect… A little longer…(don’t peek! don’t look below!) OK. I can’t stand the waiting, even though I know what I’m about to say. From Philip K. Dick’s “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” (1978), ninth paragraph: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. Here’s the entire paragraph: It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked…
33
Posted inMystics Spiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Adyashanti bursts my orgasmic bubble

Just as I predicted, I’ve been enjoying Adyashanti’s “Emptiness Dancing.” But I was disappointed when I read this morning that enlightenment isn’t going to be something like an infinitely extended orgasm. Well, to be more precise Adyashanti left open at least a slight possibility that this could be the case. So I won’t let my hopes die entirely. He did say, though, that orgasmic enlightenment wasn’t his experience. And since his breakthrough occurred after 15 years of Zen meditation, I’ll take him at his word. However, my experience of enlightenment was simply the demolition of everything that I thought it…
1
Posted inMystics Wu Project

St. John of the Cross: “nothing, nothing, nothing”

This afternoon I came to appreciate the wisdom of St. John of the Cross’ emphasis on “nada, nada, nada.” And I didn’t even need to be given a koan by a Zen master. A worthy substitute, I can assure you, is trying to install a Linksys wireless router. My old one had inexplicably stopped working. The new one wouldn’t start to work. My first call to India-based tech support led to a koanic download that supposedly would solve all my problems. Nada. It didn’t. What I kept getting, after dutifully connecting the router as instructed, was an error message that…
4
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

If a religion can’t be wrong, it surely is

According to Daniel Dennett’s new book, here’s a surefire way to tell whether a belief system is a religion: is it invulnerable to disproof? In other words, is there any way to tell whether the beliefs are wrong? For example, Jesus is the Son of God. We know this because the Bible tells us so. The Bible can’t be doubted because it is the Word of God. So is Jesus, according to St. John. Thus we have a skeptic-proof system operating here. If you doubt the truth of the Bible, you lack faith in Jesus, without which you will never…
8
Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

What’s up with worship?

Yesterday my wife had a epiphany. Laurel was driving by a church and saw a sign about Sunday Worship. “Suddenly,” she told me, “the whole idea of worshipping God seemed so ridiculous. How do we know that God wants to be worshipped?” Excellent question. Which presupposes that there is a God at all. So the notion of “worship” is doubly dubious. The good Christians who attend that church believe in a God for whom there is no demonstrable evidence, and they also believe that this God whom they are clueless about loves to be worshipped. Why? Because the Bible tells…
9
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Yes, there are agnostics in dentist’s chairs

Most everyone has heard the expression, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” This assertion has been challenged by the Atheists in Foxholes organization, which points out that many in the armed forces identify themselves as “no religion.” This morning I proved a related assertion: there are agnostics in dentist’s chairs. Now, I’ll admit that having some crown/bridge work redone isn’t quite as dramatic as being in a Vietnam firefight, as this atheist in a foxhole was. Nonetheless, when the drilling starts and you don’t know how much pain there will be, you’re looking for support from somewhere. During my devotional…
22
Posted inHumor

Get your Armor of God PJs

It must be a sign from God. Two days after my Tai Chi buddy Eric tells me about the Armor of God PJs, I watch Bill Maher’s HBO show and praise the Lord!, I see them again. The message was clear: Rush to armorofgodpjs.com and order a pair. I don’t wear pajamas, but hey, if God tells me to jump, I’ll come down with both feet inside those silky-looking bottoms. Sadly, I was crushed to learn that all they have are boys and girls sizes. But the website says that Armor of God blankets are coming soon. I can hardly…
6