Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Can your religion survive without supernaturalism? Buddhism can.

I'm pleased to present another comment from "Appreciative Reader," a regular commenter on this blog, that I liked a lot. (Not coincidentally, I agree with with what he says.) Appreciative Reader makes a point that, while it appears obvious now that I've read the comment, I hadn't thought of before. Or at least, not as clearly as he expressed it.  Namely, that some religions, mystical practices, and other forms of spirituality can function just fine without supernaturalism, while others require supernaturalism in order for their teachings to be coherent. By coherent, I don't mean that the religion or whatever makes…
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Posted inBuddhism

Spirituality comes in two flavors: “That” and “This”

As noted before, what I both like and dislike about Rob Burbea's book about Buddhist teachings, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising, is how marvelously detailed and deep Burbea dives into his subject.  In no way is this a popular Buddhist book, using "popular" to mean a book aimed at people who want to know more about Buddhism but aren't into the farthest reaches of classic Buddhist writings and practices. It's more like a manual for attaining both a full conceptual knowledge and intuitive experience of what Burbea considers the core of Buddhism: emptiness, along with the closely…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

Concepts can’t be avoided and are different from thoughts

I've continued to make my way through Rob Burbea's excellent book about Buddhist teachings, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. As noted before, Burbea goes into considerable detail about his subject, sometimes more than I'm capable of appreciating -- since I'm a fan of Buddhism but don't consider myself a Buddhist. Then I come across some passages that truly do resonate with me. Here's a sampling.  This discussion of concepts impressed me because it fits so well with the modern neuroscientific theory of predictive processing by the brain. Basically this says that the brain is constantly making…
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Posted inBuddhism

Buddhism, pain and pleasure are not the same

I'm personifying Buddhism in the title of this blog post. But really I'm talking about how Rob Burbea viewed the Buddhist approach to dualities in his book, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. As noted in recent posts about the book, I like the way Burbea explains his subject, though sometimes he can be too Buddhist-geeky for my less-committed-to-Buddhism taste. However, today my yellow highlighter kept making question marks in the margin as I read two chapters about "The Dependent Arising of Dualities" and "The Fading of Perception." I found much to like in the chapters, but…
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Posted inAwareness Buddhism

Spaciousness of awareness is a nice thought, but not reality

Buddhism, like all "ism's", can be irritating. But that's the case with everything in life, really. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I resonate with Buddhist teachings. However, as I make my way through Rob Burbea's in-depth examination of the Buddhist notions of emptiness, dependent arising, suffering, and such, some chapters in Seeing That Frees are too Buddhist-geeky for my taste. Burbea, like some practitioners who are really into Buddhist teachings, strikes me as being akin to a car enthusiast who wants to fine-tune every aspect of a vehicle's operation. So his book goes into…
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Posted inBuddhism

It’s best to respond to most problems, not react to them

It's a fitting day to be writing about reactivity, given that at the moment the fate of five people in a submersible craft that was on its way to view the wreck of the Titanic, some two and a half miles down in the ocean, is unaccounted for. Meaning, the craft hasn't been located after it lost communication with the mother ship about an hour and a half into its descent. By this time, it's estimated that if the five people are still alive, they're about to run out of air. That's a truly horrendous situation. It'd be extremely easy…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

More interesting observations from “Seeing That Frees”

I'm continuing to enjoy the book by Rob Burbea, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. (First post about it is here.) It's clear that Burbea knows a lot about meditation, Buddhist variety, and is skilled at communicating his knowledge both to his students in person and to the world at large through his book.  There's so much of interest in the six chapters (out of 31) that I've read so far, I find it difficult to decide what to share in my blog posts about the book. So I'll focus on some of what got special highlighting…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

“Seeing That Frees” — a great book about Buddhist emptiness

Shamil Chandaria's talk on the Bayesian Brain and Meditation that I wrote about recently is a gift that keeps on giving. For on one of his slides there was a small image of a book by Rob Burbea, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. I recall that Chandaria mentioned it briefly, but he certainly didn't dwell on the book. I figured, correctly as it turns out, that the book was in line with the ideas about the brain that Chandaria was talking about, so I decided to order a copy from Amazon. It took a while to…
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Posted inAwareness Buddhism Mindfulness

What if religions are wrong and there’s nothing to find?

In my experience, the most difficult part of writing is the first sentence and the last sentence. With one, there's nothing that comes before. With the other, there's nothing that comes after. So those sentences are unique. I struggled with the first sentence in my book, Return to the One. Until finally, a sentence popped into my head that seemed just right to me. If something has been lost and you're not sure where to look for it, there's good reason to start searching right where you are rather than far afield. Then I spoke about the familiar situation (familiar…
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Posted inBuddhism Mindfulness

Mindfulness: whatever happens is the curriculum of that moment

One of the things that I like about the Buddhist notion of emptiness, where change is omnipresent because nothing possesses an inherent existence, is how much money it saves me on books. For I've found that rather than buying a new book to get some fresh ideas, I can look over the books I already own and reread them. This gives me fresh ideas because I've changed from the last time I read the book, so much of it will seem new to me. Case in point: a few days ago I was looking at the mindfulness section in my…
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Posted inBuddhism Happiness

The appealing notion of “good enough”

Back in my religious-believing days, I would have viewed this as a sign from God. Now, I just see it as an interesting coincidence. But who knows? Maybe it is a sign from God! Last week I'd scribbled on a large post-it note some of what Sam Harris had said in a guided meditation of his Waking Up app, then stuck the note next to books that I read every morning before meditating. It quoted Harris as saying: The goal of meditation is to realize that consciousness as it is, is good enough. Not waiting for something to happen.  I…
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Posted inBuddhism

Emptiness is the key to understanding Buddha nature

A few days ago, in a blog post about Shunryu Suzuki's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, I said: If you're unsure what Buddha nature consists of, join the club, because I feel the same way. But I have some ideas gained from re-reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I'll share them in an upcoming post. This is that post. Of course, before launching into what I consider Buddha nature is all about, it bears saying that like so many other subjects in Zen, Buddha nature supposedly is beyond words and concepts. OK, no argument there. But so is love, and we…
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Posted inBuddhism

Shunryu Suzuki is a Soto Zen balance to Rinzai’s D.T. Suzuki

Having written about D.T. Suzuki's take on Zen Buddhism in a couple of recent posts (here and here), I figured it would be good to balance my Zen scale by re-reading Shunryu Suzuki's wonderful little book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.  (The book is based on talks by Suzuki. I've written a couple of other blog posts about it here and here.) They share a name, but D.T. Suzuki leaned strongly in the Rinzai Zen direction while Shunryu Suzuki belonged to the Soto Zen lineage. Rinzai believes in instant enlightenment through koan study or some other means, like hearing a sound…
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Posted inBuddhism

A defense of D.T. Suzuki

I was planning to write about a subject other than Zen Buddhism today, but a comment by Appreciative Reader on one of my posts about D.T. Suzuki, a noted author and popularizer of Zen, stimulated me to compose this defense of Suzuki. Which isn't going to be in my words. I've read three of Suzuki's books, each several times. I consider that this gives me a good feel for both the man and his work. But that's just my opinion. Appreciative Reader has its own, though he admits that he isn't very familiar with Zen, nor with Suzuki.  What particularly…
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Posted inBuddhism

Zen is Buddhism stripped down to the spirit

I'm continuing to enjoy re-reading D.T. Suzuki's collection of writings in the 1956 edition of Zen Buddhism, a book that I've had for over 50 years (yeah, I'm old) and wrote about a few days ago in D.T. Suzuki on the Zen Doctrine of No-Mind.  Suzuki is a pleasingly clear author. He also doesn't mince words, as you'll see below where I share some passages about the difference he sees between Indian and Chinese ways of thinking. The chapter I'm writing about today is "Zen in Relation to Buddhism Generally." It helped me better understand why Zen considers itself to…
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Posted inBuddhism

D.T. Suzuki on the Zen Doctrine of No-Mind

I've had this book for a long time, probably since my college years (1966-71) when I first dived into the deep waters of Zen Buddhism. The copyright date is 1956. The cost is 95 cents. Ah, the days when paperback books with 294 pages cost under a dollar. I'm not sure what led me to pull the book out of a Buddhism shelf a few days ago. I guess I needed a hit of classic Zen, since D.T. Suzuki, the author, is described on the back cover as "Zen's chief exponent in English." Of course, since the book was published…
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Posted inAtheism Buddhism Personal/Stories

I might have had a mini-enlightenment last night

Even though I no longer believe in God, I'm attracted to non-religious Buddhism. So even though I don't engage in any sort of formal Buddhist practice, I like the idea of being enlightened.  Just seems better than being endarkened.  Though I can't say with any certainty that the intuitive flash that coursed through my consciousness as I was heading to bed last night was a sign of a mini-enlightenment (I'm way too humble to claim a maxi-enlightenment), I like the idea that it was. So I'll go with that. I was heading down the stairs that lead to the bedroom…
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Posted inBuddhism Vedanta/Advaita

Why I prefer Buddhism to Advaita Vedanta

On Sam Harris' Waking Up app, I noticed there was a lengthy (1 hr 37 m) discussion between Harris and Swami Sarvapriyananda, a Hindu monk and Minister of the Vedanta Society of New York. So for the past few days I'd listen to 10-15 minutes or so of the discussion every morning. Today I finished listening to the whole exchange as I was driving around in my car. It was really interesting. Both Harris and Sarvapriyananda are highly knowledgeable about both Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. Of course, Harris embraces Buddhism and Sarvapriyananda Vedanta, so each of them is more expert…
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Posted inBuddhism Neuroscience

The self, like emotions, is constructed by the brain

I'm continuing to make progress on reading Lisa Feldman Barrett's book, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.  As noted in a previous post about the book, I'm glad that I decided to read it straight through, even though some chapters seemed more appealing than others. Barrett is a good writer. She organized her book well, with interesting topics in every chapter. Before I get to how she views the self, which is pretty much how I also see it, as something constructed, not a given, I want to briefly mention her wise words about jumping to…
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Posted inBuddhism Mindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

Sam Harris and Loch Kelly on nondual mindfulness

Today I set aside my doubts about Loch Kelly's approach in his "The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: A Revolutionary Guide For Living an Awakened Life," and continued on with my re-reading of his book.  I liked what I read, by and large. Then I listened to the daily guided meditation by Sam Harris on his Waking Up app. It struck me as highly compatible with what I'd just read in Kelly's book. Which isn't surprising, since both Harris and Kelly embrace a similar Buddhist approach, that of Dzogchen. Here's my transcription of what Harris said. Just sit comfortably. And close…
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