Buddhism

It's interesting how my attitude toward Buddhism has changed during the course of my descent (or ascent) into churchlessness. I used to find Buddhism wonderfully non-dogmatic. Now, I see it as permeated with an uncomfortable amount of religiosity.A couple of fellow Tai Chi students recommended "The Monk and the Philosopher" to me. With the subtitle, a father and son discuss the meaning of life, how could I resist making a visit to Amazon?Last month I wrote about how when the Monk (Matthieu Ricard) and his Philosopher father (Jean-Francois Revel) discuss karma, I disagreed with the Buddhist notion that Tibetans brought…

While there's much in the realms of religion, spirituality, mysticism, and metaphysics that is out-and-out ridiculous, I've considered the notion of "karma" to be pleasingly quasi-scientific.Heck, I even wrote a book about karma: Life is Fair.  This was back in my true believing days. Now I'm not nearly as confident that much of what I said in the book is true.However, when karma is viewed as synonymous with "cause and effect," it's reality is evident. This is how the world works: causes resulting in effects that produce causes resulting in effects ... and so on ... and so on ...…

For about fifteen years I've been practicing martial arts. "Practice" is the operative word. I've always felt like a beginner, because whenever I've learned something a fresh realization follows almost immediately: there's so much more to learn.What I enjoy the most about martial arts -- I started with traditional Shotokan karate, moved to a mixed style, and now am focused on Tai Chi -- is what they teach you about yourself.There's a deep connection between Zen/Taoism and Japanese/Chinese martial arts. I've understood this better after taking up Tai Chi, which basically is Taoism reflected in movement.This isn't rocket spiritual science,…

I've been thinking about this awareness watching awareness thing, the subject of a previous post. Of course, I've been thinking with my mind. And mind is at the root of the whole thing.So I'm pondering what pondering is about, in much the same fashion as Michael Langford says that awareness needs to watch awareness in order to become aware of what awareness is.Pretty damn confusing. But seemingly important.Because the debate over whether consciousness (and hence reality, since a reality with no one aware of it is non-existent for us) is one'ish or two'ish is central to religion, spirituality, philosophy --…

Got to be fair. Can't play favorites. A few days ago I talked about the best reason why God doesn't exist. Now, here's the flip side: why you, and I, don't exist. This is a central Buddhist notion, anatta, no-self. But my big fat ego has resisted the notion, despite the many times I've read about it. Somehow I just seem so…I don't know…me. Last night, though, I heard myself talking as if I believed that there's no enduring central core to me. Laurel and I went out to dinner with some visiting relatives and two of their old college…

How's this for a sign of how close I'm coming to Buddha-hood? This afternoon Laurel and I, plus another couple, visited the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery in central Oregon. Feeling boundless compassion for all the small trout stuck in boring concrete tanks, I took out two quarters and bought some fish food. Tossing it into the tanks, I enjoyed watching all the thrashing about – the fish obviously much desiring the pellets, not recognizing that desire is the root of suffering (along with biting into a sharp hook). Then we walked past some decorative ponds that I hadn't noticed before.…

I like it when a practitioner says, "There's no point to what I'm doing." Especially when he's talking about a supposedly spiritual practice. For me, this is the dividing line between fake religiosity and genuine whatever. (I tried to think of a better word than whatever, but couldn't). You just do it to do it. Meditation. Prayer. Worship. Study. Whatever. Zen and Taoism appeal to me because they extol uselessness. In "The Tao of Paris Hilton" I said: And let us also learn to appreciate Paris more by studying this passage from "The Book of Chuang Tzu," where a long-lived,…

I'm not a Buddhist. I don't know what I am, belief-wise. So I suppose that could make me a Buddhist. Buddhism isn't big on beliefs. Hakuin, an 18th century Zen master, extolled doubting in a fashion that is worlds apart from faith-based religions like Christianity. If you keep on doubting continuously, with a bold spirit and a feeling of shame urging you on, your effort will naturally become unified and solid, turning into a single mass of doubt throughout heaven and earth. The spirit will feel suffocated, the mind distressed, like a bird in a cage, like a rat that…

My mystical-spiritual aspirations used to be really grandiose. I was going to grasp the secrets of the universe; soar through higher metaphysical regions of reality; get drenched in divine light and sound; merge with the Ultimate until there was nothing of me left but One. Yesterday I managed to pack for a weekend trip and keep my calm. That's what counts as spiritual progress for me now. Call it what you will, it's undeniably real. I could feel the difference between the usual flappable-while-packing Brian and who I was twenty-fours ago. Thank you, Kosho Uchiyama. I've been trying to absorb…

As so how often happens on this here Church of the Churchless blog, a comment to one of my posts diverts my stream of consciousness in a fresh direction. In this case, one that I'd already been meandering toward. Edward's response to my "Flowing with waves while sitting on the beach" made me think Oh, yeah, so true. His comment had a delightful Edwardian neo-Zen flavor to it that led me sit up even while I was lying down (on the sand). Lately, I have been having difficulty seeing some thoughts as unworthy, ("get out of my way,") and others…

At the moment the Dalai Lama and I are on opposite sides of Maui. He's on a two day speaking tour in Paia and Wailuku, and we're condo'ing it on Napili Bay. We're opposites in more ways than that, obviously. Yesterday the Dalai Lama spoke about compassion, saying "Compassion is the universal message of all traditions." I often come up short in the compassion department. Tuesday morning, a few hours before the Dalai Lama's free talk at Maui's War Memorial Stadium, my wife took me to task for being self-centered and (one of her favorite ex-psychotherapist terms) "having a sense…

My wife and I are in Maui right now. I’m sitting on the balcony of our condo, watching the waves roll into Napili Bay. Seems like a good time to think about going with the flow. Of course, thinking and flowing are like oil and water. They don’t mix very well. Still, there’s a certain flow to thought when you just let it happen. It’s conscious controlling that messes the flowingness of anything up. That’s the bugaboo of religious concepts—the subject of my previous post. They’re like rocks in the ocean. As an avid boogie boarder, I know all about…