Posted inFree will Neuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

“I’m spiritual but not religious” is a stepping stone to “I’m living but not spiritual”

As I've noted before, am noting now, and likely will note again, my life seems to be a reflection of the lyric in a Donavan song, "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." Reportedly this was inspired by a Zen saying. The meaning it has for me is that the first 20 years of my life were marked by a feeling that this earthly existence is the only reality we'll ever know. Then, for 35 years, I embraced an Eastern religion (Radha Soami Satsang Beas) that taught the physical universe is the lowest realm…
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Posted inAwareness Meaning of life Spiritual practice/meditation

Forget what some “saint” says about life and make your own way

In my previous two posts, I've shared quotations from Robert Saltzman's book, The 21st Century Self: Belief, Illusion, and the Machinery of Meaning. In this post I'm going to shift gears slightly and share some quotes from Saltzman's first book, The Ten Thousand Things, which is in the form of questions and answers. I ordered this book after reading some Amazon comments on The 21st Century Self that suggested starting with The Ten Thousand Things as it was a better overall description of how Saltzman sees things.  I'm liking it, just as I like his most recent book. As noted before, Saltzman says things that…
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Posted inAwareness Spiritual practice/meditation

Seeing nothing in the mirror of the self, we get a hint of who we are

At the end of my previous post in which I shared a lengthy quotation from Robert Saltzman's book, The 21st Century Self: Belief, Illusion, and the Machinery of Meaning, I said "The Mirror chapter goes on. But I'll share that going-on another day." This is that day. I loved this chapter. Saltzman doesn't really say anything that I haven't heard before from other writers who also challenge the usual approach to spirituality, but he has a knack for speaking in a way that I find highly appealing. Enjoy. You might want to read that previous post first, which comprised the…
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Posted inAwareness Spiritual practice/meditation

In mirroring ourselves, we lose naturalness in the name of spirituality

Today I read a chapter in Robert Saltzman's book, The 21st Century Self: Belief, Illusion, and the Machinery of Meaning, that ended up so filled with highlighting of passages that I admired, the chapter only had a few unhighlighted areas. That's how much I liked "The Mirror." It addressed a question that has been in the back of my mind (and sometimes in the front of my mind) since I embarked on a spiritual-but-not-religious path some twenty years ago after giving up an Eastern form of dogmatic religiosity. What I've been wondering is whether there's something seriously wrong with my…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

“Never let your mind leave your body” — wisdom from Ajahn Mun

If I come across a few ideas in a book about meditation or mindfulness that make me go "Wow, that's really good advice," I'm a happy reader. It only took me 17 pages of reading Martin Aylward's book, Awake Where You Are: The Art of Embodied Awareness, to find a statement that had a pleasing wow factor. Ajahn Mun, another famous Thai meditation master, used to give the instruction, "Never let your mind leave your body." If that seems too much to ask, then how about this: every time you notice that your mind has left your body really notice…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

Acceptance, says the Mindful Geek, is the key to real growth in meditation

I've meditated almost every day since 1969, when I became studying yoga during my college years under the instruction of a crazed Greek man who blended Christianity and Hinduism in a strange way.  Even so, I still consider myself almost as much of a beginner when it comes to meditation at my age of 76 as I was at the age of 20. (Guess that's why I like the book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.) I have no idea what produces real growth in meditation. But other people do. Like the author of The Mindful Geek, Michael W. Taft. I started…
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Posted inDelusions Spiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Gurus take us into the realm of lost souls

After writing about Steven Harrison's book in my previous post, "Doing Nothing -- a book about ending the spiritual search," below are additional passages that appealed to me. Which doesn't mean that I resonate with everything in Doing Nothing. Some parts are a bit overly New Age'y for me, and I came across a mention of divinity that seems at odds with Harrison's message. But on the whole, I enjoy his blunt assessment of the problem with spiritual searching. Basically, it boils down to a simple assertion that is in line with both neuroscience and Zen: whenever we're seeking salvation,…
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Posted inDelusions Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

Doing Nothing — a book about ending the spiritual search

Back in 2013 I wrote a blog post about a book by Steven Harrison, Doing Nothing: Coming to the End of the Spiritual Search. I was pretty positive about the book in "Doing Nothing. Sounds like my kind of anti-religion," though I hadn't read it. Here's a tip for authors of books in the spirituality, religion, mysticism, and meditation genres: If you want readers to finish your book, don't include a mention of another title like "Doing Nothing: Coming to the End of the Spritual Search." I stopped reading during my pre-meditation quiet time when I came to that mention.…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Here’s the best description of Zen koans I’ve ever seen

Koans are an aspect of Zen Buddhism that I've always looked upon as wonderfully mysterious, yet unappealing. For in traditional Zen writings I'd read about a student being given a koan like "Does a dog have buddha nature?" Then they struggled to figure out what the answer is, periodically having a get-together with their Zen master for him to see how they're doing, where usually he rejects their lame attempt at a response by hitting them on the head with his staff or screaming at them. Not exactly something that sounds either pleasant or productive to me.  But near the…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

I like how Henry Shukman views love

Well, I'm on Day 2 of an approximately year-long journey on what meditation teacher Henry Shukman calls The Way. Pleasingly, I don't have to journey to India or Tibet, nor go on lengthy meditation retreats. All I needed to do was install an app on my iPhone and pay $89.99 for a year's worth of daily talks and guided meditations that comprise The Way. One thing that I like about Shukman's approach is that The Way is unique, to my knowledge, among online meditation instruction with its "no choice" format. I've tried quite a few meditation apps. They all have…
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Posted inBuddhism Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Why general relativity leads me to prefer Zen’ish meditation

Ever eager to cram together two seemingly highly separate subjects into a profound (or pseudo-profound) blog post, here's my take on relativity theory and Zen. I got to pondering the connection after two events in my life today tilted me in that direction.  Event #1 occurred when I read an article in the August 6, 2022 issue of New Scientist that I'd dug out of the bottom of a forgotten pile of unread magazines. In it Chandra Prescod-Weinstein, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire, described why general relativity is known as a background…
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Posted inNeuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

Great Vox article: How meditation deconstructs your mind

Recently I came across two articles on the same subject -- how mindfulness is just the tip of the meditation iceberg, and how advanced meditation approaches can be described scientifically. Here's the introductory passages from "Beyond Mindfulness" by Matthew Sacchet and Judson Brewer in the July/August issue of Scientific American. Millions worldwide practice mindfulness meditation, not just for their mental health but as a means to enhance their general well-being, reduce stress and be more productive at work. The past decade has seen an extraordinary broadening of our understanding of the neuroscience underlying meditation; hundreds of clinical studies have highlighted…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Breathing exercises can calm a frazzled mind

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to breathing when it comes to meditation and relaxation. The don't interfere approach, which I generally use, advises that we simply notice inhalations and exhalations with close attention without trying to change our breath. This makes the breath an object of awareness, thereby focusing the mind. The breath exercise approach, which I also enjoy, advises that we follow certain patterns of breathing to achieve desired ends, like relaxation, increased energy, and such. This makes the breath akin to a muscle that benefits from exercise. Today the Washington Post had a story that caught my…
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Posted inBooks Mindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

“The Mindful Geek” is a meditation guide for secular skeptics

Do I really need another book about meditation? No, I've got lots of them at the moment and have read many more over the 55 years I've been engaged in daily meditation. But do I want another book about meditation? Absolutely. That's why Amazon delivered The Mindful Geek by Michael W. Taft to me recently. I was in the mood for a meditation guide that was based on secular non-religious principles that were in accord with modern neuroscience. Taft has a strong background in various sorts of traditions. His first paragraph is: From Zen temples in Japan to yogi caves…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Mindfulness

Mindfulness is focused attention plus peripheral awareness

In December 2018, six years ago, I wrote what seems to be my first (and only) post about a book I'd just started reading, The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness. A few days ago something spurred me to pluck the book from a bookshelf where it had been languishing after I'd read about half of the 415 pages, then put it aside. I decided to re-read it, since the book methodically describes ten stages of Buddhist meditation and I wanted to start at the beginning rather than jump right into…
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Posted inNeuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

Manifesting comes in two varieties: scientific and New Age

Before I started to write another post (this one) about James Doty's book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything, I Googled "critique of manifestation" to see what critics of this fad were saying about it. And fad it is, something I hadn't realized. I'd figured that after The Secret had been decried by thoughtful people as a New Age book full of cosmic B.S., where you can get whatever you want by aligning yourself with the esoteric Law of Attraction, people had stopped believing in this crap. But no, the crap has made a comeback…
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Posted inNeuroscience Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Mind Magic is a science-based book about manifesting what you want

If I hadn't read a review in New Scientist of James Doty's new book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything, the title and subtitle would have turned me off, since "manifestation" sounds New Age'y, and "how it changes everything" sounds over-the-top. But the review stressed the neuroscience part, which I liked. And after the book arrived via Amazon a few days ago, I really liked the first sentence of the introduction, along with the entire first few paragraphs. THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. It may not sound like it, but this is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Is meditation about feeling better or about knowing what’s true?

I just came across a piece of paper where I'd jotted down some thoughts about meditation that could serve as the basis for a churchless blog post.  I have no idea how long ago those thoughts came to mind. Must have been a while, since I have no recollection of doing this. No matter. I'll make use of them regardless. My first thought was, "Is meditation like learning to play music, where you practice and get better and better, or is it openness where beliefs about how things are is let go in favor of how things actually are?" The…
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Posted inPsychedelics Spiritual practice/meditation

Lessons for meditation based on psychedelic experience research

As a long-time daily meditator -- I've been doing this for 55 years -- I found an article in the October 2024 issue of Scientific American interesting both for what it says about the use of psychedelics like LSD, ketamine, and psilocybin, and meditation that doesn't involve any psychoactive substance.  The title of the online version of the article by Gary Stix is provocative: "What Makes a Psychedelic Experience? Not Always a Drug, it Turns Out." I'll share a PDF file of the article for non-subscribers.Download What Makes a Psychedelic Experience? Not Always a Drug It Turns Out | Scientific…
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Posted inConsciousness Spiritual practice/meditation

If consciousness is immaterial, why does ultrasound boost mindfulness?

I realize that those who believe that consciousness is immaterial are pretty much immune to the evidence that it is a physical phenomenon.  That evidence is ubiquitous, as I've pointed out many times in blog posts. Anesthesia makes us unconscious. So does being hit on the head with a baseball bat. Caffeine makes consciousness more alert. MDMA ("Ecstasy") makes consciousness feel more loving.  The October 2024 issue of Scientific American has a short article that presents more evidence for the physical nature of consciousness. Being a daily meditator for most of my life -- I started meditating in 1969 --…
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