Posted inBuddhism

Buddhist “emptiness” appeals to my churchless non-soul

When true believers (as I was at one time) start to give up religiosity, often they pass through various stages of withdrawal from their addiction to dogma. For me, one stage is an admiration of Buddhism and Taoism, spiritual philosophies which have an affinity with modern science and secular ways of looking upon the world. I'm still in that stage. I may never leave it. Yesterday I picked up Stephen Bachelor's "Verses from the Center: A Buddhist VIsion of the Sublime," after a long absence. It's Bachelor's interpretation of Nagarjuna's teachings about emptiness, a core Buddhist concept.  Well, non-concept. Because…
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Posted inReligions Science

Subjective and objective: the key to understanding everything!

"Ah, it's all becoming clear to me... so clear... I'm on the verge of grasping The Meaning of It All!" (Mentally insert the sound of cackling laughter, and a vision of a crazed man rubbing his hands together with glee). This is how I've been feeling lately. After fifty years of so of searching for the big "T" Truth through science, spirituality, mysticism, psychedelic drugs, philosophy, dog walks in nature, prayer, pleading, meditation, pondering, athletics, caffeine, and more, it's dawning on me that two words pretty much sum up both the Question and the Answer. Subjective. Objective.  This blog post…
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Posted inBooks Science

Core and extended consciousness. Here and now, there and then.

Today I came to an interesting chapter, Mind and consciousness, in "The Systems View of Life," a book I blogged about a few days ago. One of the main conclusions is an unsurprising one: mind is the brain in action, not something transcendent. Let us now summarize the recent advances in cognitive science discussed in this chapter. The main achievement, in our view, has been the gradual but consistent healing of the Cartesian split between mind and matter. In the 1970's, a few cognitive scientists recognized that mind and consciousness are not "things" but cognitive processes, and they took the…
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Posted inReality Science

No need to choose between Wonder and Science

For about a week I've been reading two books during my morning pre-meditation time. To most people they'd seem incompatible. Or at least, pointers in divergent directions of reality.  But I happily read some of each, using a highlighter and pen (thanks for blank back pages, publishers) to note what I like, and sometimes don't like, about "The Way of Wonder" and "The Systems View of LIfe."  Here's a blog post that includes links to other posts I've written about Haas' books; I haven't finished The Systems View of Life, which is a fascinating, but quite technical, undergraduate textbook that…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Scattered thoughts about mindfulness

These thoughts are powered by (1) a 16 ounce can of Mike's Harder Margarita, which I've never tried before, but surely will again, and (2) a 16 ounce serving of the Sisters blend from the Sisters Coffee Company in central Oregon.   This blend of alcohol and caffeine is guaranteed to produce a magnificently coherent amalgamation of scattered thoughts about this evening's chosen blog topic: mindfulness. In my own mind at least, the only mind I really give a shit about, being clueless about all others. Regarding mindfulness, I started meditating in 1969, so I've got 45 years of daily…
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Posted inBooks

Will Sam Harris’ “Waking Up” do that for me? Probably not.

When I visit the Amazon page for a forthcoming book by Sam Harris, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion," Amazon helpfully reminds me that I pre-ordered way back on March 7.  Ooh, ooh! Release date is September 9! Just 25 days and I'll be on my way to waking up! Maybe. But I doubt it. I admire Harris, because he is a noted atheist critic of religion who also is expert in neuroscience and has a fondness for meditation, Buddhist variety. So I'm confident that I'm going to resonate with his new book. It should sell well, given…
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Posted inHumor

Still profoundly funny: MonkMojo who is now 2020mojo

Back in 2010 I put up a post called "Non-dual cartoons point way to enlightenment (or not)." It started off with... One of the favorite people crazed cartoon characters I follow on Twitter is MonkMojo. I've learned a lot about non-dualism and Zen from reading his clever tweets. Saying that, of course, means that I haven't learned a thing. But who gives a shit? A smile is close to enlightenment, which is one of the idiotic cliches that MonkMojo enjoys demolishing. Here's some sample MonkMojo tweets. (RT means a re-tweet; what follows the || is MonkMojo's add-on). RT @Yojinbo: wasn't impressed w/ the response I got…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

I’m asked a great question. Hope my answer is as good.

Below is an email message from a Church of the Churchless reader. My replies are indented further, in italics. Interesting questions and observations from this person. I tried to make my responses in kind. ----------------------------- Brian, just a few quick lines to let you know how much I (continue to) enjoy reading your blog. Hey, back at you. I enjoy reading your messages and comments. You write very clearly and make a lot of sense. In short, you remind me of me! I’m slowly, very slowly making my way through your archives, as well as reading your more current articles…
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Posted inBuddhism

The Embodied Mind — interesting interview with Evan Thompson

Neuroscience. Buddhism. Meaning. Consciousness. Brain. Body. Culture. There's a lot of threads woven into a pretty persuasive view of things in a Tricycle interview with Evan Thompson: Thoroughly grounded in Western and Buddhist philosophy and learned in science, Thompson has been dedicated to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue between Buddhism and cognitive science for over two decades. Give it a read. The piece is just the right length. Not too long. Not too short. Readable in a single spiritual philosophical sitting. The only reader comment (at the moment) also is perceptive. I liked how Thompson is skeptical about the whole Buddhist…
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Posted inReality

What if reality is completely different from how you think it is?

I'm not sure whether ultimate reality can be known. Heck, I'm not even sure whether limited reality can be known.  Meaning, there may be no such thing as reality. This might just be a word we humans use for our way of looking upon the world, a subjective viewpoint which has no resemblance to the way the world really is, because there is no really beyond the subjective viewpoint.  Alternatively, perhaps reality really exists, but it is nothing like our thoughts about it. Religious dogmas have it wrong. Mystical teachings have it wrong. Philosophical notions have it wrong. Scientific theories…
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Posted inReality Science

Modern science demolishes archaic “as it is” views

Whenever I read a book about Buddhism or mindfulness, I've got my highlighter poised to make a skeptical marginal question mark when (usually not if) I come across mention of perceiving reality "as it is." This is an absurd pre-scientific notion, as I've discussed here and here. With so many interesting ideas to choose from, I'll take the easy way out in this post and share some of what I read this morning about how humans attribute what actually is within to without -- the world outside our craniums.  Frequently I take issue with those who claim it is possible to know reality "as…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Personal/Stories

We will die one day. Good or bad news?

Religions thrive because people are afraid of dying and not being alive anymore. If death didn't exist, I doubt religions would either.  People can deal with other problems without religion. What gives life meaning? What is right and wrong? Is there an inherent purpose to the cosmos? But death... that's a problem with no solution. Everybody dies. Everybody. No exceptions.  So those who want to live on after their body dies have only one choice: fantasy, imagination, wishful thinking. Religions fulfil a desire for immortality which can't be met in any other way. Well, it can't be met through religiosity…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Don’t be Big Brother to yourself, “I” watching “me”

Non-religious Buddhism and neuroscience agree on this: there is no such thing as a "self." Meaning, there isn't an "I" who is separate from "me," a soul separate from body, a mind separate from brain. Understanding this -- no, more, intuitively experiencing the truth of this -- cuts through mountains of religious, spiritual, mystical, and philosophical crap. It also makes life way simpler.  It's crazy that we humans look upon ourselves as if we are an object to be manipulated, like a smart phone or chainsaw. We're always asking ridiculous questions like, "Why don't I feel better about myself?"  There…
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Posted inBuddhism

I’m liking Chögyam Trungpa’s take on spiritual materialism

Somehow I'd read a lot of books on Buddhism without ever becoming familiar with Chögyam Trungpa. I'd heard the name before, but had no idea who the guy was. Recently one thing led to another, which led me to buy his "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism." I'd read a short essay of his in a book on mindfulness. That spurred me to Google him, where I found that Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master who, among other things, had sex with students, abused alcohol and cocaine, and had other endearing qualities (to someone irreligious like me). So I bought the above-mentioned book.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

Believing in God is hard work (since God isn’t real)

Thanks to a David Chapman tweet, I came across an academic article about religious belief. Interesting stuff. Below I've chosen some excerpts from Pascal Boyer's piece which capture, pretty much, the gist of his commentary on another scholar's book, "When God Talks Back." Since for many years I was a member of an India-based organization, led by a guru, which believed it was possible to communicate with God in a supernatural fashion, I was intrigued by how similar the basic process used by Christian evangelicals is -- when they try to convert their "reflective" beliefs into "intuitive" experiences of God's…
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Posted inGod

I don’t believe in God, but I am SO saved

I'm feeling pretty damn good about my afterlife. Mostly because I don't think I'll have one. So almost certainly I won't be feeling anything at all after I die, which takes away worries about what will happen. Notice that almost certainly, though. I'm open both to the possibility that my consciousness could survive bodily death, and God could be waiting to greet the soul I don't believe I have. In that event, no problem. I'm confident that my encounter with divinity will go just fine. Here's why I'm so sanguine. Nobody knows which sort of God, if any, exists. Broadly…
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Posted inReligions Science

Physics and religion are both weird, but in different ways

I'm an avid consumer of physics books aimed at the general public. "Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn" and "The Island of Knowledge" are my most recent reads.  What comes through loud and clear in both books is how freaking far out modern physics and cosmology have become. Believe me, this isn't the sort of science I remember from high school, where the teacher had a model of an atom that looked like a miniature solar system. That way of looking at the atomic realm was recognized to be wrong even back then, of course. Quantum mechanics demolished the old way of…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

I’m asked about my RSSB meditation experience

Today I heard from someone who discovered this blog by accident and has been enjoying my early posts. (The person is starting from the beginning, in 2004, and reading onwards.) At the end of the email message I was asked a question. Apart from generally saying hello, I thought I'd ask you something as well.  You've been following the RSSB system quite a few years (quite a few decades, more like).  You haven't found your "answer" there, as you've made clear in your blog : but I was wondering if you'd be comfortable sharing what, if anything, you've experienced in the…
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Posted inReligions

Religious freedom in the name of discrimination is crap

Let's do away with religious freedom. There's no need for it. For lots of reasons it makes no sense. Let me explain. I'm fine with people being free to believe whatever they want to. So let's simply have believing freedom. After all, religious belief is just one form of believing. Some people believe in God. Others believe in playing golf, in listening to rap music, in eating meat -- none of which I believe in. So be it. Each to his own. Beliefs, that is. If we all looked upon life the same way, we'd be identically programmed robots. Boring.…
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Posted inReality

A desire for something, infinity, doesn’t prove it exists

I used to think that my intense longing for God, heaven, divinity, higher regions of reality -- whatever you want to call it -- meant that such existed. After all, I feel thirsty because water exists; desirous because sexuality exists; hungry because food exists; sleepy because sleep exists. So if I have a craving for the supernatural, doesn't this prove (or at least strongly imply) that something beyond the physical exists? Actually, no. Alan Watts does a good job of explaining why in his marvelous book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity."  Under these circumstances we feel in conflict with our own bodies…
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