Buddhism

I'm enjoying my re-reading, or re-re-reading, given the highlighting I've done to this book, of Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness: Tsong-Kha-Pa's Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path." It's a brilliant discussion of a core Buddhist notion, defined as the sheer nonexistence of intrinsic nature. In other words, nothing is intrinsically itself. Everything depends on other things for its existence, us naturally included. Nothing stands on its own, an island unto itself. Interconnectedness and interdependency is how the cosmos works. So Buddhism is unique among the world's major religions in not positing an eternal soul. (Because it isn't really…

As I said in my previous post (My #1 problem with Steve Hagen's 'The Grand Delusion"), the teachings of a ninth-century Zen master, Huang Po, shouldn't be given more credence than modern neuroscience. After all, Huang Po, along with everybody else in those pre-scientific times, had no understanding of how the brain works. Naturally people knew how their mind seemed to work, but seeming is a long way from actuality.  This is why Huang Po could claim that conception is totally different from perception. Now it is known that both conception and perception are founded on complex goings-on in the…

Recently someone who asked if I'd like to be a guest on her podcast (I would!) responded to an email I sent her which said, in part, "I’m sort of in the spiritual-but-not-religious camp. However, I’m not sure if 'spiritual' has any meaning for an atheist." She replied, saying, "The intersection I think we may intersect is this kind of secular spirituality pursuit. Would you say that's a phrase you kind of resonate with? That's the sense I get from your writings." Sure. Typically secular means not-religious, not-spiritual, not-sacred. But I like the idea of mixing two seemingly contradictory ideas…

It's usually rather simplistic to start off by saying "There are two kinds of...", because generally nature, or reality, doesn't come in two well-defined flavors -- like vanilla and chocolate. Instead, there are many flavors, many shades of gray between black and white. That said, in general I consider there are two views of meditation, dualistic and non-dualistic.  Dualistic approaches typically see us humans as being comprised of an immaterial soul and material body. The goal of meditation is to detach the soul from the body, which enables it to return to god, or merge with god, as in the…

I've finished reading Steve Hagen's book, Buddhism Plain and Simple. As noted before, I found it much more agreeable than his previous book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense.  Yes, Hagen's conclusion is the same in both books. It's just that I like how he got to that conclusion better in Buddhism Plain and Simple.  Basically, Hagen takes the very Buddhist'y position that nothing stands by itself. Everything is interrelated, interconnected, interwoven. So when we abstract out some particular thing -- like our own self -- if we see that thing as separate and distinct, naturally it won't…

What a difference a second book makes. I found most of Steve Hagen's Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense very difficult to read. As I said in a critical blog post, it was that book which didn't make sense to me, not the world. The end of the book was decidedly better, though. So that encouraged me to order a book Hagen wrote some seven years later, Buddhism Plain and Simple. As befits its title, I'm enjoying the much more straightforward style of this book. Back in 2004, when I started this blog, it took me less than…

Recently I wrote a post about how much I disliked Steve Hagen's book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense. But I pressed on and managed to finish the book, continuing to dislike it until I reached the final pages. I don't agree with everything Hagen said in his concluding chapters. However, I resonated with those chapters considerably more than the rest of the book. If Hagen had switched things around and put what I've shared below at the beginning of his book, that would have helped me understand the otherwise mostly incomprehensible early chapters. It turns out that…

So why do so many people, billions really, believe untruths about God, heaven, spirit, soul, angels, devils, and other unseen entities of which there is zero proof of their existence? Because of the Cognitive Revolution, according to Yuval Noah Harari, a historian who has written three compelling books, Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (I've read all of them). The February 17/24 issue of The New Yorker has a lengthy story by Ian Parker about Harari. Here's an excerpt from "The Really Big Picture."  I think Harari is absolutely correct about religious belief being an example…