Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

Flexible improvisation is a better way of living than rigid religion

Rules are fine. Except when they aren't.  For me, one of the most enjoyable things about giving up on the ridiculousness of religion is no longer having to comply with rigid rules, dogmas, commandments, rituals, and such.  Every religion has its own peculiar absurdities. Of course, what is absurd to an outsider will make sense to an insider. At least if the insider doesn't think about what's being required too much.  Here's an example: the mystical meditation path I followed for about thirty years demanded that followers be vegetarians. This wasn't a problem for me, since I'd stopped eating meat…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

The truth of who we are lies without, not within

For about 35 years my daily meditation practice was aimed at "going within." This was the teaching of the Indian guru I followed, Charan Singh.  The assumption was that there is an unchanging conscious essence within us that could be termed soul. By leaving aside both impressions of the outside world and mental images (thoughts, emotions, and such), what remained in closed-eye meditation would be revealed as Who We Truly Are. Well, my ideas have changed.  I now realize that this was a highly limiting view of what spirituality and self-knowledge is all about. It was a notion founded in…
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Posted inPolitics Taoism/Tai Chi

A Taoist approach to coping with the presidential election (and everything)

November 8 can't come soon enough for most of us. The presidential election campaigning feels like it has been going on for years. Because, really, it has.  We're stressed out. Whether someone is a Clinton fan, a Trump supporter, a third party embracer, or a "none of the above" advocate, this 2016 election has gotten most Americans into a frazzled state of mind. Me definitely included.  I obsess over the latest poll results. I worry whether I've done enough to help my favored candidate win the White House. I fret about what will happen to this country after the election…
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Posted inBooks Science Taoism/Tai Chi

“Incomplete Nature” shows how life is based on absence

Demonstrating some spousal exaggeration, my wife has been saying that she fears being crushed by a pile of books I've read that are awaiting my blogging attention. (I made sure to include a chair in this photo for scale; unless Laurel shrinks to two feet tall, I think she has nothing to worry about. However, I will admit that there's another pile behind this one, so combined they could possibly be a risk to wifely health.) The top light green book, 600 pages thick, seemed like a good place to start on reducing the pile. It is Terrence W. Deacon's…
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Posted inBooks Taoism/Tai Chi

Lessons for living from a fictional assassin: the “Gray Man”

Here's how far down the churchless rabbit hole I've burrowed: I'm able to find existential "spiritual" meaning in a book series about an unstoppable assassin, the Gray Man, a.k.a. Court Gentry.  Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man – a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there is no gray area…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Tai Chi “sensing skills” — a good guide to harmonious living

I'm a dozen years into learning Tai Chi. Which just means, I'm not a beginner. Tai Chi, an internal-style martial art, is so exquisitely subtle, most practitioners never feel like they have come close to fathoming it.  But every class I take, I get further insights into what Tai Chi is all about. Which really is what life is all about. (Links to my previous posts about Tai Chi can be found in "Me and Tai Chi -- eight blog posts about 'Taoism in motion.'" Last Thursday I experienced a better understanding of the key notion of sensing skills. Robin…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

My new affirmation: softer, slower, smaller

I've been practicing Tai Chi for about eleven years. Before, I was into hard style martial arts -- traditional Japanese Shotokan karate at first, then a mixed style focused on Korean karate.  Soft-style martial arts like Tai Chi (a.k.a. internal styles) take considerably more time to learn and, perhaps, master. External styles are centered on punching, kicking, blocking, and such. What you're supposed to learn is pretty much open to view. Sure, there's a mental side to karate, but by and large the emphasis in training is on what your body is doing, not your psyche. With Tai Chi, there's…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

What is seva in the RSSB organization?

Here's a provocative piece by Osho Robbins, a frequent commenter on this blog who emailed it to me. He writes about a recent experience where volunteers ("sevadars") acted in a high-handed manner at a large gathering of RSSB (Radha Soami Satsang Beas) followers -- an India-based group that I was a member of for many years. What is seva? What is selfless service? Great questions. What is seva in RSSB? by Osho Robbins This is an interesting question for an RSSB follower to contemplate. It is just (a) following orders given from those above you? Or is it (b) using your…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Me and Tai Chi — eight blog posts about “Taoism in motion”

Today a friend expressed some interest in Tai Chi, so I sent him info about where I've been taking classes for the past eleven years.  I included links to eight blog posts I've written about Tai Chi. After finding them via a Google search, I thought (not surprisingly), Hey, these are really interesting! I'd forgotten about most of them and was pleased to be reacquainted with my own creations.  Tai Chi is an intriguing blend of Taoist philosophy and martial arts practicality. The posts cover both bases, and then some. I've shared an excerpt from each. ------------------------- Ten reasons for guys…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Between theism and atheism… Taoism?

Since I'm now a regular contributor of essays to the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I've been perusing the posts of other people who share their writings on the group's web site. Thomas Schenk's "Fertile Ground Between Theism and Atheism" is an interesting take on Taoism. Here's how the piece starts out. The two concepts, “God” and “Tao,” have much in common and significant differences. The concepts “Tao” and “Atheism” also have much in common and significant differences. By examining these commonalities and differences I hope to show that there is a fertile ground between theism and atheism.    In this fertile…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Directionless, I feel like I’ve found my way

Nice title of this post, if I do say so myself. Which I did about a week ago -- choosing to use those words, "Directionless, I'm feel like I've found my way," as the name for my first essay written for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, where I'm now a contributing writer. You can check it out on a Society page. Or read it below. Directionless, I feel like I’ve found my way For thirty-five years I was on a spiritual path.  I felt like I knew where I was going: back to God. I felt like I knew how to…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Check out “You might be a Taoist”

Of all the "ism's" in the world, I consider Taoism (or Daoism) to be one of the most appealing. Partly this is because I've studied Tai Chi for about eleven years, which can be viewed as Taoism in motion. Not the religious sort of Taoism. The philosophical sort.  Back in 2013 I mentioned the You Might Be a Taoist site in a blog post comment. Today I saw that another commenter left a link to that site, which got me to looking at it again. The "you might be a Taoist if..." statements are pretty accurate, in my view (the…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Oh, no! Claiming Taoist enlightenment, I’m asked to define it

Damn! Somebody has made an entirely reasonable request of me -- to define the naturalistic Taoist/Daoist enlightenment that I talked about in "Daoist enlightenment: much ado about nothing," and indirectly claimed to be attaining in "How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me." In a comment on the first-linked post, Appreciative Reader said: What exactly is Daoist enlightenment, Brian? It may be no more than just a wild story with no basis in fact, but what exactly is the story? Daoism is something I know little enough about. Mostly what I’ve read in your blog here. I do know by now, I…
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Posted inFree will Taoism/Tai Chi

Great Taoist view of free will and determinism

Free will fascinates me. I don't believe it exists. Yet it sure seems like I have it. Of course, if the cosmos has determined that I shall believe in free will, even though it is an illusion, I have no choice but to feel like I have free will. (Type "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar to find my many blog posts on this subject that I couldn't help but write.) Today I was re-reading a chapter in one of my favorite books, Raymond Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent." Below are some excerpts from Is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

With the physical, we can’t fool ourselves about the “spiritual”

So I was rolling along this afternoon in my Tai Chi class as we were doing the Yang Long Form, feeling good that I was in the flow, having left behind the garden chores and civic activism emailing that had occupied me for most of the day previously. "I'm really in the moment," I thought to myself.  At which point, unsurprisingly, I left the physical reality of the Long Form moment and entered a mental moment where I was praising myself for being in the moment. The effect wasn't horrible. Barely noticeable to others, in fact. Instead of doing the…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Daoist enlightenment: much ado about nothing

One of the things I like most about my Tai Chi practice is Wu Chi (or Wuji). Basically, it means doing nothing. It's the ready, relaxed stance you're in before you do something.  Tai Chi, being Daoism (or Taoism) expressed in motion, reflects the more cosmic principles of Daoist philosophy. I wrote about Wu Chi in a 2005 "Wu chi, empty fullness" post about a year after I'd started practicing Tai Chi. I’ve become a big fan of wu chi, a Taoist term for the emptiness from which fullness flows. It is the source of all that exists. Not being anything…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi Vedanta/Advaita

Why an experience of “pure consciousness” says little about reality

As I said in a previous post, I've dug David Loy's book, "Nonduality," out of a forgotten book bag and have gotten back to reading it after a several-year break.  A few days ago I read his chapter, The Mind-Space Analogy. Pretty damn brilliant. Of course, this book is based on Loy's philosophy doctoral dissertation, so I guess the brilliance isn't surprising. Below I've shared Loy's analogy in his own words, albeit condensed. I've left out F and G of his analogy, which are another form of Mahayana Buddhism and Theism.  As you'll see, what Loy has done is imagine…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Nothing special: lucid dreaming and mindfulness

I dream a lot, as we all do. Lucid dreaming, though -- very rarely. That's when you're aware that you're dreaming, while still in a dream. Maybe I've had a couple of lucid dreams in my entire life. Three years ago I blogged about a semi-lucid dream experience in "I dreamed within a dream. Felt a lot like reality." The title of that post points to a notion Evan Thompson talks about in his book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being." It's the familiar philosophical conundrum: how can we be sure that we're not dreaming in everyday life, since dreaming while we're asleep…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Are you a spiritual wanderer, or traveler?

As I become more and more churchless, the notion of wandering seems more appealing than traveling. So I guess I could be called a spiritual wanderer, though I don't like the word "spiritual" any more. So even though I put it in the title of this post, let's drop it. I'm a wanderer, not a traveler.  Meaning, I used to believe in paths. For over thirty-five years I considered myself to be on a spiritual path. For most of that time I also thought I was on a career path. Ditto with a marriage and family path.  I liked the…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Without religion, no need to try to transcend the natural world

As I've observed before, for me churchlessness isn't an event but a process. Meaning, it isn't a sudden jump from being religious to being non-religious. It is a lengthy path with many twists and turns. I keep recognizing shadows of my former religiosity where, at first glance, I thought there was only secular light now. For example, I still have a tendency to believe in some transcendent truth. Not God. Not divinity. But a power or presence that stands apart from the natural world. This may sound religious, yet really it isn't. After all, Platonism and its philosophical offshoots consider…
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