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 inReality Wu Project

Beyond awe, beyond mystery, there’s ultimate not-knowing

There's many levels lying on the other side of ordinary knowing. I've been pondering this after writing the recent post, What can we know about that which we cannot even imagine? I hasten to point out that while I'd love to lay claim to such a marvelous title, it belongs to David Wolpert, who wrote an engrossing monograph about the limits of not only human knowledge, but the knowledge of any other species. Wolpert lays out the foundation of his complex and subtle arguments in a single paragraph. This question does not concern limitations on what we can know about…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Wu Project

We don’t know, so live now

Yeah, it's a cliche, dating all the way from 1971. "Be here now." (I have a well-worn 1972 edition of the book.) The book, though, actually doesn't talk a whole lot about the simple act of embracing the present moment as much as possible. Rather, it's filled with a bunch of Eastern mysticism/yoga philosophizing that I used to find appealing, but don't anymore. What I do agree with is that now is a treasure that shouldn't be frittered away by paying undue attention to the past and future. Sure, we have to be aware of what's happened in the past…
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Posted inBuddhism Consciousness Spiritual practice/meditation

Sam Harris shows my meditation is on the right spiritual track

There's many forms of meditation. They all have strengths and weaknesses, pluses and minuses. But only a few forms of meditation lead to an increased knowledge of reality, since most are based on unfounded religious dogma. I'm confident that the meditation I've been practicing for about fifteen years -- after I wisely gave up a religiously-based form of meditation -- has me on the right spiritual track. I explained why in "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self." Here's how that 2014 post starts out. Just as predicted, I'm really enjoying reading Sam Harris' new book, "Waking…
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Posted inAtheism Buddhism Death/Rebirth

Here’s the problem with living: we’re going to die

This isn't exactly breaking news, but I'll say it anyway. Each of us is going to die.  Those seven words are undeniably scary. Life isn't always pleasant. Yet the gulf between having a difficult life and no life at all is more than immense. It's immeasurable. There's no way to compare being alive and being dead, or existence and non-existence. The worst day anyone can have is on a different dimension than not existing at all. Understand: I'm not saying that life is always worth living. Suicide and death with dignity testify to the fact that sometimes people prefer to…
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Posted inWu Project

“Wu chi” and “don’t know” go nicely together

It's funny (I mean, interesting) when you read a book and only one sentence sticks with you. I figure that if I remember it after many years, that sentence must have a significant meaning for me. A meaningful sentence I recall from one of Huston Smith's books came from a Zen practitioner: "I have a new koan: I could be wrong."  Beautiful!  I'm wrong all the time. So I can totally identify with this sentiment.  Lately I've been enjoying using a similar idea as a sort of mantra when I'm going to sleep at night and find that my mind…
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Posted inBuddhism Wu Project

In Buddhism, ultimate truth is an absence, not a presence

Yeah, I'm on an emptiness roll, Buddhism style. Three blog posts in a row on this fascinating subject (see here and here for #1 and #2). Having finished Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness," I ordered a roughly similar Newland book, "Appearance & Reality." Both books are giving me new insights into what Buddhism is all about.  There's very little religious supernaturalism in them, a big reason why they appeal to me. I'm fine with philosophical Buddhism, which by and large is compatible with modern scientific understandings of reality. Once we get into rebirth, omniscience, and additional other-worldly stuff, though, I…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Who do you want to be? Someone, Anyone, or Nobody?

The existential alternatives in the title of this post were named by brain researcher Susan Greenfield. I came across a mention of them in Julian Baggini's intriguing book, "The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to be You?" Here's how Baggini describes the alternatives, based on an interview he did with Greenfield at the 2009 Bristol Festival of Ideas. After sharing these excerpts from his book, I'll add some observations of my own. Where Greenfield gets a little more speculative is when she imagines the variations in types of selves which might emerge if different types of connections become dominant.…
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Posted inScience Wu Project

Best explanation of Schrödinger’s cat I’ve ever seen

Schrödinger's cat is a perplexing animal that seemingly is both alive and dead before an observation is made of it. This thought experiment was intended to show how the weirdness of quantum mechanics could be applied to everyday objects. It's always bothered me that a human, or some other observer, was needed to make the twin potentiality of "dead" and "alive" become a single actuality. Why couldn't the cat observe itself? In Amanda Gefter's book, "Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn," she has the best explanation of the Schrödinger's cat paradox I've ever come across. The implications of this are huge -- a…
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Posted inWu Project

How beautiful it is to do nothing and rest afterwards

This morning I rode my bike around a Camp Sherman, Oregon loop. Cabin to store to bike path to Lake Creek Lodge to trail-through-woods to gravel road to cabin. Along the way, which involved considerable pedaling, I came across a sign which led me to stop and do almost nothing -- except stand, pull my iPhone out, and snap a photo. This seems to be a Spanish proverb. Totally believable. Isn't the siesta a significant part of the Spanish lifestyle? (If not, don't tell me; I'm a habitual napper who enjoys feeling like I've got some Spanish heritage that impels…
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Posted inReality Wu Project

Meaning of life: one damn thing after another

Beginning at age 13, when I wrote my first philosophically-minded poem, until today, age 64, I've been searching for the meaning of life. I've delved into psychedelics (LSD and mescaline); pondered existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc.); for over 35 years meditated hours a day under the guidance of an Indian mystic; done the marital arts and Tai Chi thing; read countless philosophical, religious, mystical, scientific, and spiritual books; explored Argentine Tango and ballroom dancing; walked at night under Oregon stars (and rain) looking into the vastness of the universe -- just as I did at 13; written books about physics &…
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Posted inScience Wu Project

Great free will question: What do we want to be free from?

Having given up a belief in resurrection, physical immortality, eternal soul, or living on through my works, I've settled on another approach for dealing with my eventual demise: Not being me.  Now, some will say, "That's Buddhism 101." Sort of true. Anatta, not-self, is indeed a core Buddhist concept. But I'm lazy. Buddhists, including those of the Zen variety, go through a heck of a lot of effort to realize that the entity striving to become enlightened doesn't exist. My feeling is, why not simply begin and end with the nothing-much-of-anything that I am?  Done. Finis. Enlightenment trophy, please. There's no…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi Wu Project

Zhuangzi’s (Chuang Tzu’s) delicious weightlessness

I like the idea of floating free, weightless, able to move here, there, in any direction, with little or no effort, unbound. Even better... for this not to be an idea, but experience. Which helps explain, as I blogged about before, why Daoism/Taoism resonates with me. There's a freedom, a playfulness, a whatever in Daoist philosophy that mirrors the difference between relaxed Tai Chi and the hard-edged traditional Shotokan karate I spent nine years training in before I switched to what can be called Daoism-in-motion. Daoism is difficult to put a conceptual finger on. I've been reading and re-reading various…
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Posted inWu Project

Getting down to absolute nothing

Fans of nothingness (I'm one, and enjoy the company of Nothing'arians, but it's difficult to organize a fan club around nothing) should enjoy this letter in a recent issue of New Scientist.  It's in response to a special issue on the nature of nothingness that I blogged about last month. From Dave HowellsI found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p. 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum, and the noble gases. Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an…
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Posted inScience Wu Project

Nothing is the heart of reality

There's something fascinating about nothing. Yes, that's a paradox. Necessarily so, because "nothing" is an abstraction, an impossibility. If nothing actually existed, it wouldn't be nothing. And even if somehow there could be nothing, no one would know about it. A recent issue of New Scientist largely was devoted to exploring the nature of nothingness. In one page, physicist Brian Greene summarized the main themes in "Nothingness: why nothing matters."  SHAKESPEARE had it right, even in ways he couldn't have imagined. For centuries, scientists have indeed been making much ado about nothing - and with good reason. Nothing, or rather…
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Posted inWu Project

How “Nothing” is the key to a meaningful life

I've never watched an episode of Seinfeld, but the theme of the show -- "nothing" -- appeals to me. In one way or another, this is what attracted me to my Wu Project, which is still bubbling along in its nothing-much fashion. Here's the thing, though: "nothing" still is something, when this notion is viewed as something special, something to be attained, something waiting around a meaning-of-life corner. Zen folks have a lot to say, via words or silently, on this subject. But I don't think there's any unique understanding of "nothing" here either, since Zen (and Buddhism in general)…
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Posted inBuddhism Science Wu Project

We all may be living selflessly

Usually we consider that being "selfless" means acting altruistically. This casts the word in a moral sense, which is how most religions see it. We're supposed to put God and others before ourselves. But there's a scientific side to selflessness that I'm finding increasingly intriguing: the notion that nobody has a self, so we're all selfless -- including the greediest, most egotistical, and me-centered among us. Recently I wrote about a book where noted thinkers talk about what they believe, but cannot prove. I quoted psychologist Susan Blackmore: It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Vastness might be us, not a separate self

Somebody in my house picked up Suzanne Segal's book, "Collision With the Infinite, " this morning. Outwardly, it seemed to be me. But inwardly, it didn't feel that way. Even though I've got a bunch of books in my meditation area that were ripe for reading, I was drawn to move into an adjoining bedroom and look over the contents of a couple of bookcases. My right hand followed my eyes after I spotted the book. Holding it, I didn't have a sense either that I'd made a decision, or that a decision had made me. Something simply had happened.…
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Posted inGod Reality Wu Project

“God” is the absence of “me”

I don't believe in God, not as this word is commonly understood. I don't see any sign of a personal divinity who created and oversees the universe, nor any indication of an omniscient and omnipresent universal consciousness. Here's the newest news about proof of God's existence: there isn't any. Isn't it more than a little strange that precisely zero progress has been made in the thousands of years of recorded human history toward conclusively resolving The Big Question: "Is there a God?" Yet I'm akin to Mike, a regular Church of the Churchless visitor, who has commented, "I'm a diehard…
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