Buddhism

Proving, or not, that profound insights are found in the strangest places, I'll share some of the lyrics to an atonal song that I made up and love to "sing" (using that word in its absolutely loosest sense) in the shower.I love my dog.I love my cat.Only problem is, I don't have a cat.It's hard to loveWhat you don't have.This is how I also feel about loving God. Or, my self. Except seemingly there's more evidence for a "self" than for "God." Buddhism, though, seizes on that seemingly and runs with it to an intriguing, reasonable, and scientifically defensible conclusion.I…

Often people say that it's hard to tell whether Buddhism is a philosophy or a religion. This makes me give it a semi-enthusiastic churchless thumbs-up. I enjoy the Buddhist way of looking at reality. It's the religious side of Buddhism that gives me pause. So whenever I come across a writer who is knowledgeable about subtracting religiosity from Buddhism, I'm eager to read what he or she has to say.My favorite author in this genre is Stephen Bachelor. His "Buddhism Without Beliefs" is a terrific book. When I feel in the need of some godless inspiration, I pick it up.As…

Oh, yeah, in my true believing days I knew people who were so damn proud of how humble they were. And who acted like jerks while preaching high-minded morality to others. So I could relate to Arj Barker's slickly produced and smile inducing video where he raps out his claim to being the Sickest Buddhist. (embedded at end of this post) You can read the lyrics if you can't understand all of them, thanks to YogaDork. Sample:I’m the illest Buddhist you’ve seenall the ladies wanna meditate with meI look so serene when I bust a lotusbut i don’t have an…

As noted before, I used to be a lot more attracted to Buddhism than I am now. My churchless scientific leanings cause me to shy away from faith-based religiosity, and I've learned that while Buddhism talks a pretty good "spiritual science" game, the actual playing is lacking.Owen Flanagan, a philosopher, explains why in his "The Really Hard Problem," a book I'm enjoying.The really hard problem is how meaning is possible in the material world. To me it's obvious how this is done: each of us makes our own meaning, right here and right now. No metaphysics required.However, religions want us…

My churchlessness must be heading into even deeper irreligious territory, because lately I've been enjoying criticisms of some minimally churchy spiritual systems -- such as Buddhism -- that I used to identify with.The problem I'm having with Buddhism is that it really doesn't deliver on the promise I often have heard from Buddhists: "You don't need to believe anything; just study your own mind and observe what is experienced in meditation."Well, that sounds good. But actually there's a pretty extensive list of preconceptions in this supposedly conceptionless faith.Reincarnation or rebirth. Karma. Non-existence of the self. The four noble truths (including…

Bummer. I thought I was going to enjoy B. Alan Wallace's "Mind in the Balance," since the subtitle points to an intriguing subject: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity.But the book turned out to be a disappointment, largely because Wallace is disturbingly anti-science and pro-religion, which shows that Buddhists can believe with blind faith in weird stuff just as other religious fundamentalists do.Right away I saw inklings of this. A sentence on page 1 had me nodding agreeably with Wallace:What's been hidden is meditation's role as a precision tool for exploring consciousness and the universe scientifically -- that is, using…

A few years ago I laughed my way through an Onion piece, "Search for Self Called Off After 38 Years." Then I wrote a blog post about the notion, saying that some friends and I had just been talking along the same lines.I told them that when I peruse my extensive personal library, searching for some spiritual inspiration, usually the only books I can stand to read have Buddhist, Zen, or Taoist themes. All the rest seem too damn dogmatic now. Buddhists and Taoists don’t waste much energy searching for a true self because they don’t believe that it exists.…

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…