Posted inBuddhism

Who the heck is inside my head, talking to “me”?

Last night my wife and I spent a pleasant couple of hours at a holiday gathering hosted by a Tai Chi friend. Meeting some new people, we enjoyed stimulating conversation on a variety of subjects. Including meditation, spirituality, that sort of stuff. At one point, I said something like: A few days ago I had a realization that seemed fresh to me, even after more than forty years of daily meditation. Why do I so often feel at odds with myself? After all, who is there inside my head in addition to me? What's up with my worrying about whether…
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Posted inBuddhism

Creative Zen idea: Our individuality makes universality possible

During most of my spirituality-seeking life, which spans about forty five years, I've considered individuality to be at odds with universality -- feeling one with the universe. The mystical philosophies that I embraced taught that ego, a sense of "I-ness," is what keeps us humans from becoming one with the One which supposedly is ultimate reality.  Not so, according to Zen Buddhism. So explains Kosho Uchiyama in "Opening the Hand of Thought," a book I blogged about recently.  That's a relief. Uchiyama has a take on this whole individuality/universality thing that makes a lot of sense to me. When I…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

In Zen Buddhism, meditation replaces God

I've got a lot of books about Zen. Back in college I liked "The Supreme Doctrine" so much I couldn't bear returning it to the San Jose Public Library, so I kept it.  My attitude toward Zen Buddhism is decidedly mixed, though. I resonate with the philosophical aspects, but when Zen gets too religious and supernatural, that turns me off. Which is why I'm enjoying a re-reading of Kosho Uchiyama's "Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice" so much. On the back cover there's a quote from the book which pretty much sums it up: When we let…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Why I like D.T. Suzuki’s brand of Zen

For me, minimally Buddhist'y Zen is one of my foraging spots when I feel the need to feast on some "spiritual but not religious" food.  Seven years ago I bought "The Zen Koan as a means of Attaining Enlightenment," by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, a.k.a. D.T. Suzuki. (Check here for a recent update on my enlightenment; in brief, it's going great.) Many books come and go in my meditation area. A few are permanent residents. D.T. Suzuki's is one of them. Parts of it are so steeped in Zen lore/tradition, I don't resonate with them. But otherwise I can usually turn…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Why mindfulness is better than concentration

After more than thirty years of focusing on concentration in my meditation practice, I've become a believer of broadening into mindfulness. That is, being aware of whatever is there -- the point of my previous post about my can't-miss meditation approach.  Repeating a mantra is a common concentrative technique. So is following the sensation of one's breathing. Nothing wrong with this. Concentration is good. It's how I'm able to focus on writing this blog post on my laptop while distracting sights and sounds abound in our kitchen as my wife putters around. But here's the thing: I know what I need…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality Science

Happy birthday to me. But is there really a “me”?

Geez, I'm so philosophically minded, I can't even enjoy a birthday without questioning whether "I" am having one. Over on my other blog I mused yesterday about the Beatles' When I'm 64 and the positive side of craziness. Hopefully this will shut up the folks who, after reading my thoughtful ponderings about religion/spirituality, accuse me of being a left-brained rationalist who only lives in my big fat intellectual cranium.  Fire up your skateboard, accustory dudes, and join me on a four mile longboarding jaunt up and down (mild) hills here in Salem's Minto Brown Island Park. Then you'll see another…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality Science

Reality is a circle: nothing is fundamental

Ooh, ooh! It came, it came! I felt like a kid who'd just gotten a long-awaited toy in the mail when I opened our mailbox and saw the New Scientist cover: What is Reality? A User's Guide to the Ultimate Question of Existence. Finally. I'd know. What reality is all about. I stretched out the suspense by waiting until evening to read the cover story. In the bathtub, immersed in relaxingly hot water, a glass of red wine and highlighter in hand (not at the same time). I wasn't disappointed. Right away I liked the concise focus of the "Defining Reality"…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

“No-self” isn’t a spiritual goal — it’s what we already are

Many religions and spiritual traditions venerate selflessness, ego-loss, transcending individuality. Here's the problem with that notion, according to both Buddhist philosophy and neuroscientific evidence: There's no such thing as a "self." So getting rid of one not only is impossible, but the belief that we have such a thing that needs to be done away with, or markedly reduced, perpetuates the delusion -- in much the same way that an obsessive attempt to rid one's garden of fairies feeds this fantasy by all the attention given to it. Another aspect to this problem is the widespread belief in an enduring…
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Posted inBuddhism Personal/Stories

Have I ever had a meaningful, valuable meditation experience?

Yesterday Jesse left a comment on this post which asked me: May I ask if you ever had a subjective experience in meditation that you found to be meaningful or that revealed something of value to you, personally? Not necessarily a RS [Radha Soami Satsang Beas] meditation or any specific lights or sounds but just something that left you in a state of deeper self reverence or lasting tranquility. Good question. Not an easy question to answer. It's a question that got me thinking more about the question than a possible answer.  Meaning, after pondering for a bit how I…
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Posted inBuddhism

How do we know someone is enlightened?

Enlightenment. It's an appealing notion. There I am, clueless, ignorant, unsatisfied, then bingo!, an enlightenment switch is flipped. Now I know what life is all about. I go around with a Buddha-smile for the rest of my days, blissed out because I'm no longer floundering blindly in cold cosmic darkness, but rather am basking on the always-sunny beach of enlightenment. Only problem is...some questions.  Does enlightenment exist? Could I tell if I've got it? Is it possible to know whether someone else is enlightened? Are there various types of enlightenment?  Short answer: nobody knows. Opinions abound. Demonstrable evidence is lacking.…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality

How consciousness is related to Buddhist “emptiness”

When I wrote a recent post about the Buddhist notion of emptiness, I noted how Guy Newland defined an important concept: intrinsic nature: an essential nature whereby something comes to have an independent way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. The sheer absence of this is emptiness. Even though I'd just read Newland's fascinating book, "Introduction to Emptiness," I didn't really understand the reference to the force of consciousness when I typed those words. So I suspect others would be equally mystified by what he meant. I'll let Newland explain: Therefore, at bottom, to understand emptiness…
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Posted inBuddhism

Religious belief: a delusion about an elephant in the house

I'm damn sure there isn't an elephant in my house. I know what elephants look like. I know how large they are. I've checked every area where an elephant would fit. So it's reasonable for me to say "There's no elephant in my house." But not if I thought like a religious believer. Because then I could argue, "Yes, there's an elephant in my house, because..." It's an invisible elephant.I'm the only one who can see it.I can sense the elephant even if no one else can. Its disguised as an ordinary object.  There are other possible delusions that follow the…
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Posted inBuddhism

Why Buddhism doesn’t believe in self-realization

For a long time in my spiritual seeking career -- about 1968 to the present -- I thought "self-realization" was a worthy goal. I knew people who were active in the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Yogananda. I followed a meditation practice that taught "self-realization before god-realization." I avidly read books by people who has supposedly found their true self. Now, I'm much more inclined to the Buddhist viewpoint: there's no such thing as the self, so self-realization isn't possible. This differentiates Buddhism from other religions, spiritual philosophies, and mystic paths which hold that we humans have (or are) a soul…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Lineage means little in science and art. Why so important in religion?

When you learn about an important scientific discovery, does it matter to you what "line" of scientists the researcher is associated with? When you listen to a scintillating musical performance, does it matter to you what "line" of musicians the artist is associated with? No. At least, not much. Likely not at all.  Recently the Oregonian had a story about a classical guitarist who is going to play in Portland. It was mentioned that Scott Kritzer was the "grandson" of famed guitarist Andres Segovia, because his teacher was a Segovia student. But that fact has no bearing on Kritzer's reputation as…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Pay attention to your life as if you had to testify about it

It's strange how some things stick with me, and so many don't. I've forgotten so much about what happened to me during my childhood, while remembering surprising details. LIke my mother, an avid reader, telling me about what a noted novelist of the times (can't remember his name) said he did when he heard something unexpected late at night. He'd glance at his watch to see what time it was. He'd listen for other sounds. He'd focus on anything else that seemed out of the ordinary. The novelist wanted to be prepared in case what he heard was connected with…
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Posted inBuddhism Personal/Stories

Extreme is good. Be spacious in your extremeness.

Often we're advised to embrace moderation. Don't be extreme. Stick to the safe middle ground. Edges are dangerous; cliffs await.  Most religions, forms of spirituality, mystic practices -- they like boxiness. Commandments keep devotees' actions within certain bounds. Rituals are well-defined and repetititve. Prayers, meditative practices, worship... stay in control, sit in your seats, listen and don't talk back. For God's sake, don't yell, scream, object, or in any other way do your own unfettered thing. Here's some countervailing thoughts about going to extremes. Two personal stories, one link to a Tantra-related blog post. I'd almost forgotten about the Groupon…
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Posted inBuddhism Universe

There’s no answer to “Why does the world exist?”

Here's the sort of spoiler alert that irritates me when it pops up in a movie review -- a warning about a giving away of the key plot element that's so close to the spoiler itself, I can't help but see what I'm not supposed to see if I want to keep the movie's meaning a surprise. Ha-ha! If you read the title of this blog post, it's too late. You know. There's no answer to "Why does the world exist?" Hope this doesn't ruin your day. Probably it will, if you're a religious devotee, because likely you think that…
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Posted inBuddhism

Anxiety stretches between real and unreal

This morning I came across some great passages in Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special -- Living Zen." Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be. Anxiety is something that stretches between the real and unreal. Our human desire is to avoid what's real and instead to be with our ideas about the world:  "I'm terrible." "You're terrible." "You're wonderful." The idea is separated from reality and anxiety is the gap between the idea and the reality that things are just as they are. When we cease to believe in…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

What Zen practice is… so simple…

I've been reading Zen books since my college days, forty-four years. I go hot and cold with Zen. Never have heated up enough to study it formally. Never have cooled off enough to lose interest in it entirely. When an author throws too much Buddhism into the mix of Zen + Buddhism, I get turned off. I like my Zen to be as non-religious as possible.  Which explains why Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special" appeals to me so much. I learned about the book from an interesting blog post by David Chapman with the same name.  I took the title…
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Posted inBuddhism Death/Rebirth

Uncertainty: the key to dealing with death and non-existence

Last night I had another of my Holy shit! I'm going to die and not exist forever! moments. I wrote about these disturbing experiences six years ago in "Death and the primal fear of non-existence."  I’ve come face to face with not-existing. It’s scary. Really scary. I’ve never experienced anything scarier. I can call it “fear,” but it’s more than that. Worse than that. Regular fear arises when something bad is happening or could happen. But primal fear is looking into the maw of nothing happening to you, because there will be no you around for anything to happen to. Do you get the…
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