Posted inBuddhism Death/Rebirth

Zen’s tiger and strawberry story is about dealing with death

The older I get -- I'm 69 -- the more I resonate with the Zen story of a man who had a bad day when he was chased by a tiger. Which turned into a much worse day when another tiger and a couple of mice showed up.  A man was walking across a field when he saw a tiger. Fearing for his life, the man fled, but the tiger gave chase. The man reached the edge of a cliff, and just as he thought the tiger would get him, he spotted a vine growing over the edge of the…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Mindfulness has become my meditation

Back in my true-believing religious days, when I embraced an Eastern form of mysticism that espoused several hours of daily eyes-closed meditation, I thought that the ultimate aim of life was to experience higher realms of reality beyond the physical. Of course, I had a job to go to, a wife and daughter, worldly activities I enjoyed. But I viewed these as mostly distinct from my spiritual goal of god-realization -- those things were part of my karma; important, yet not what my life's highest purpose was all about. I'm grateful that my eyes have been opened to the flaws…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Can’t stop quoting from “Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide”

Zen, along with Buddhism in general, teaches that nothing is permanent, everything changes. So even though right now I feel like I can't stop sharing quotes from my re-reading of Barry Magid's book, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide, clearly I will at some point.  Like maybe tomorrow, not today. Here's more passages from the book that appealed to my churchless consciousness. Which follow a Zen cartoon. "Karma means "cause and effect," which is another way of describing interconnection and change. Enlightenment is the realization of our being the ongoing product of interconnection and change -- it is…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Great quotes from “Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide”

I'm a big fan of Zen, though I've never actually practiced with a Zen teacher, and I'm turned off by overly dogmatic or religious versions of Zen Buddhism.  Yesterday I was idly glancing at the Zen section of my bookcase and noticed a book that I'd read nine years ago and blogged about in "Search for happiness (and self) called off." I'm enjoying a re-reading of Barry Magid's Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide. Magid is a psychoanalyst with an appealing take on Zen. He founded the Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York City and still teaches there.…
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Posted inBuddhism

What is enlightenment good for?

David Chapman, a philosophically-inclined Buddhist'y guy I follow on Twitter, raised an interesting question: It sure is a reasonable question. But I'd like to go further by ditching the word "practical." Which makes the question, in statement form, Show us some thing this "enlightenment" is good for. Meaning, the way I see it, how would anyone know whether someone is enlightened?  Substitute a wording of your choice for enlightened, if you like. Spiritually advanced. God-realized. Possesses an elevated consciousness. The point is, well, to be able to point to some characteristic of such a person that distinguishes them from an…
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Posted inBuddhism

Donald Trump has some (mild) Buddhist leanings

OK, I get what this guy is saying in "Donald Trump, Accidental Buddhist." Let's just stress the accidental. Have a read on the New York Times site.  Or, the piece is short, so I've shared it below.        Donald Trump, Accidental Buddhist By BEN DOLNICKDEC. 7, 2017 Donald Trump is the contemporary master of a little-used literary device: the narcissistic third person. On the indictment of Paul Manafort: “There’s not even a mention of Trump in there.” On the possibility of Russian interference in the 2016 election: “Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?” Even his very first…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Meditation practices only “work” in specific cultural settings

Some people claim that specific sorts of meditation practices are akin to a science that produces the same results, no matter who is doing the meditating or where the meditation is being done. A thoughtful piece by David L. McMahan, "How Meditation Works: Theorizing the Role of Cultural Context in Buddhist Contemplative Practices," casts doubt on this claim. I came across McMahan's essay in a re-tweet by David Chapman of someone else's tweet: I had to jump through some online hoops to download the PDF file. Here it is: Download How_Meditation_Works_Theorizing_the_Role The general thesis seems totally believable to me. People…
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Posted inBuddhism

No need to have a “calling.” Just live your life.

Someone emailed me a link to a short essay on the Secular Buddhist Association site, "What's your  calling or purpose in life?" I like the author's conclusion: there's no reason to feel that you have a special calling. After all, where would that come from?  The notion of a calling or purpose in life presupposes that such exists somewhere outside of the person's own mind, that somehow we're supposed to identify what we're meant to do with our life as if that was a law of nature akin to gravity or electromagnetism.  Or maybe a better analogy is finding our…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Buddhism doesn’t believe in a soul, which is fine with soulless me

During my religious days I took solace in feeling that I had, or was, a soul that would survive my bodily death. Now, I'm more attached to truth than to fond beliefs, even when they feel good.  So I enjoy many Buddhist writings (just not the ones that talk about reincarnation and other supernatural stuff).  Back in 2012 I resonated with Owen Flanagan's naturalistic take on Buddhism, as I wrote about in "Buddhism says I'm a soulless Heraclitean river. Cool!" So everything is changing. Including me, you, beliefs, brains, selves, Mt. Everest, ants, galaxies, subatomic particles, who is ahead in…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Two books about whether there’s a science of Buddhism

I don't read every article in The New Yorker. But when I got near the end of the latest issue and saw this image, along with "American Nirvana: Is there a science of Buddhism?" by Adam Gopnik, I knew I'd peruse every word.  (The online version has a different title.) Gopnik's piece was a review of two recent books: "Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment" by Robert Wright, and "After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age" by Stephen Bachelor. Naturally I've ordered both books from Amazon. I say "naturally," because I'm a big fan…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

Flexible improvisation is a better way of living than rigid religion

Rules are fine. Except when they aren't.  For me, one of the most enjoyable things about giving up on the ridiculousness of religion is no longer having to comply with rigid rules, dogmas, commandments, rituals, and such.  Every religion has its own peculiar absurdities. Of course, what is absurd to an outsider will make sense to an insider. At least if the insider doesn't think about what's being required too much.  Here's an example: the mystical meditation path I followed for about thirty years demanded that followers be vegetarians. This wasn't a problem for me, since I'd stopped eating meat…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Eating, drinking, shitting, fucking — the most “spiritual” aspect of our reality

Religions typically disparage our animal and vegetative nature. They urge us to embrace soul, mind, spirit -- whatever immaterial essence supposedly lies within us and connects us with a higher divine reality. Re-reading the first chapters of Hubert Benoit's marvelous book, "Zen and the Psychology of Self-Transformation: The Supreme Doctrine, " I was struck again by how brilliantly Benoit talks about Zen. His outlook is pleasingly fresh. In The Existentialism of Zen chapter, Benoit says that we mistakenly value living more than existence. We aren't content with just being an integral part of a much larger reality. No, we seek…
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Posted inBuddhism

Meaningness site well worth an (uncertain) read

Back in 2011 I discovered David Chapman's "Meaningness" writings. In a blog post I praised Chapman's dizzying thoughts about what life is, and isn't, all about.  And shared what I said to the person who turned me on to the Meaningness site. Thanks a lot for the link. 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 has a great sense of humor. I'm an instant David Chapman fan. Since, I've gotten Meaningness…
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Posted inBuddhism Wu Project

In Buddhism, ultimate truth is an absence, not a presence

Yeah, I'm on an emptiness roll, Buddhism style. Three blog posts in a row on this fascinating subject (see here and here for #1 and #2). Having finished Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness," I ordered a roughly similar Newland book, "Appearance & Reality." Both books are giving me new insights into what Buddhism is all about.  There's very little religious supernaturalism in them, a big reason why they appeal to me. I'm fine with philosophical Buddhism, which by and large is compatible with modern scientific understandings of reality. Once we get into rebirth, omniscience, and additional other-worldly stuff, though, I…
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Posted inBuddhism

Buddhism: the illusion of life is believing in a fixed reality

For many years -- decades, really -- I believed that the everyday world in which we live was an illusion. Meaning, there was an unseen truly real realm beyond the bounds of ordinary consciousness.  Changeable matter and mind weren't part of this ultimate reality. Only the eternal unchanging soul, our true self, was able to be aware of it.  Now, I understand that I had things completely backward. Such is how science comprehends the world. Also, Buddhism. As noted in my previous post, the Buddhist notion of "emptiness" is that nothing -- including us, and even emptiness itself -- has…
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Posted inBuddhism

Emptiness is ultimate reality: nothing, including us, has an intrinsic nature

I run hot and cold about Buddhism, depending on what sort of Buddhist writing I'm reading. Religious Buddhism turns me off, but I like philosophical Buddhism that doesn't fall prey to unfounded supernaturalism.  Recently I've been re-reading Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness." It's a clear and persuasive description of the core notion in Mahayana Buddhism, emptiness.  In the first few pages of his book, Newland explains what emptiness is all about. First, he speaks of the suffering that arises because we wrongly believe that we are something we're not. We suffer unnecessarily because we do not know ourselves. Like addicts…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality

Asked to say something about love, I’m pretty much speechless

Yesterday I got an email message: Dear Mr. Hines , Your blog is very honest and nothing is more beautiful save love itself. Please tell us more about self-less and mutual love  and your views on the subject. Sincerely, __________ Reading those words, I realized that I haven't written much explicitly about love during the eleven years this blog has existed. This will be post # 2,140. When I used the search box in the right sidebar to see what popped up when I put in "love," almost all of the Google results for my two blogs were on my more…
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Posted inBuddhism Morality

Tantra vs. Buddhist ethics (Tantra is a lot more fun!)

I don't know much about Tantra. I've had the impression that Tantra was all about wild spiritual sex -- which might have some truth to it, but possibly just a little. David Chapman, though, knows a lot about Tantra. The real Tantra. Also, Chapman is an expert on Buddhism. So he's just the guy to write a post called "Buddhist ethics": a Tantric critique. The post, like all of Chapman's writings (I'm a fan), is clear and nicely composed. Still, it will strike people not into this subject as rather Buddhist-geeky.  Which isn't a criticism. Just an observation.  I read…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

30-plus days into Headspace meditation, I’m liking it a lot

A bit over a month ago I discovered Headspace, which was founded by Andy Puddicombe, a British guy who trained as a Buddhist monk before starting this online meditation site. My first free trial experience on July 7 led me to write "Yikes! I actually like a guided Headspace meditation." I'm not a big fan of guided meditations. Usually they irk more than relax me. I get annoyed with the (usually) New Age'y tone of the person doing the guiding. Hey, if anybody is going to annoy me while I meditate, I'm perfectly capable of filling that role myself. After about…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Yikes! I actually like a guided Headspace meditation

I'm not a big fan of guided meditations. Usually they irk more than relax me. I get annoyed with the (usually) New Age'y tone of the person doing the guiding. Hey, if anybody is going to annoy me while I meditate, I'm perfectly capable of filling that role myself. After about 45 years of daily meditation, that's one thing I've learned from contemplating the workings of my mind. (Maybe the only thing... but at least that's one thing.) A few minutes ago, though, I actually enjoyed a ten minute guided meditation. Listening on my laptop while sitting outside on our…
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