Posted inWu Project

The joy of nihilism

Nihilism has a bad rep. For many the word signifies anarchy, destruction, meaninglessness, bombs thrown by black-garbed acolytes of Nothing. (I copied these images from nihilist web sites; it’s nice not to have to worry about copyright laws; nihilists don’t sue, I assume.) I have a “nihilism” wrist band. I don’t wear it very often, but when I do it gives me a good feeling when I glance down at it. Free. Independent. Open-minded. That’s what nihilism means to me. I like the definition offered by the Catholic Encyclopedia: “a Nihilist is one who bows to no authority and accepts…
27
Posted inMystics Spiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Adyashanti bursts my orgasmic bubble

Just as I predicted, I’ve been enjoying Adyashanti’s “Emptiness Dancing.” But I was disappointed when I read this morning that enlightenment isn’t going to be something like an infinitely extended orgasm. Well, to be more precise Adyashanti left open at least a slight possibility that this could be the case. So I won’t let my hopes die entirely. He did say, though, that orgasmic enlightenment wasn’t his experience. And since his breakthrough occurred after 15 years of Zen meditation, I’ll take him at his word. However, my experience of enlightenment was simply the demolition of everything that I thought it…
1
Posted inMystics Wu Project

St. John of the Cross: “nothing, nothing, nothing”

This afternoon I came to appreciate the wisdom of St. John of the Cross’ emphasis on “nada, nada, nada.” And I didn’t even need to be given a koan by a Zen master. A worthy substitute, I can assure you, is trying to install a Linksys wireless router. My old one had inexplicably stopped working. The new one wouldn’t start to work. My first call to India-based tech support led to a koanic download that supposedly would solve all my problems. Nada. It didn’t. What I kept getting, after dutifully connecting the router as instructed, was an error message that…
4
Posted inGod Science Wu Project

Science shows God does not exist

Ah, excellent! More support for my Wu Project. Physicist Victor Stenger has concluded that “beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God.” This quote is from the Amazon description of his forthcoming book, “God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.” Provocative title. I’m stoked. Amazon has gotten my pre-order. Just need to wait for January 2007 to have my faithless faith invigorated. Stenger came to my attention recently when I read a review of his “The Comprehensible Cosmos” in New Scientist. Since I found…
7
Posted inBuddhism Religions Wu Project

To find God, get off the mind road

Churches are big on mind roads. That’s what they want you to travel on. In the church’s theological car, of course. Propelled by faith that you’re eventually going to get to God. Driven by the savior, mediator, master, guru, or prophet who supposedly knows the territory. Problem is, nothing travel-worthy is apparent apart from the belief that there is. That’s why it is a mind road, not a real road. The pavement is cobbled together from passages found in holy books, words heard from the mouths of holy teachers, images seen by eyes that have gazed upon holy places and…
3
Posted inMystics Spiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

The glory of being spiritually lost

If you feel like you’re spiritually lost, be thankful. Smile. Laugh. Dance. Your lucky star is shining brightly on you. You’re way closer to the mystery we call “God” than those who believe that they’re on a well-marked path to the divine. There’s no such thing. I’m not confident of much when it comes to religion and spirituality. But I’m quite sure that the road to God doesn’t have any white lines down the middle of it. You can’t see, feel, hear, smell, or touch it. The surest way to know if you’re off the track is to say, “Ah,…
7
Posted inReligions Wu Project

Religious knowledge totals exactly zero

Zero: it never fails to astound me that this is the sum total of genuine religious knowledge accumulated throughout human history. There have been so many worshippers, so many devotees, so many seekers of divinity. And the demonstrable metaphysical facts that have been accumulated from all of this effort? None. Absolutely none. There is not a single shred of objective evidence that reality consists of anything more than the universe we know now. If there were, such a fact would have been trumpeted in banner headlines across every newspaper in the world. Core scientific theories would have had to be…
3
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Let go. Then let go of letting go.

I’m attracted to simple spirituality. That’s probably because my mind is complex, like most people’s minds are. I need to balance myself out. Yin and yang. So when I come across a believable one-sentence summation of spirituality, it catches my eye. And my heart. This is from Thomas Keating’s wonderful “Open Mind, Open Heart,” one of my favorite books. I think it can be said that the essential point of all the great spiritual disciplines that the world religions have evolved is the letting go of thoughts. Yes. On this Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Taoism can agree. (I’m not…
4
Posted inReligions Wu Project

Tuning in to religion-less religion

A few days ago I used the term “religion-less religion” in a "I'm working on my Wu" post. Over at the Yoga Loft, they’re asking, “See It Three Times, Is It More Than Coincidence?” I don’t know. Could be a cosmic synchronicity. Could be a random happening. Could be something else. Regardless, I enjoyed what the Yoga Lofter had to say about religion-less religion. The first time this term came up was in a conversation with his or her mother. We agreed that all the world's problems seem to stem from people trying to stick the concept of God into…
2
Posted inWu Project

I’m working on my Wu

Maui is a good place to work on my Wu Project. “Wu” is a Chinese term that means no, nothing, nada, negation, not. That pretty much describes me on the beach: a lump of nothingness that is content to do…nothing. Except, what I almost always do. Think about the nothing that I’m doing. I mean, even when I’m just lying on my mat, staring blankly at the ocean, stuff is going on inside my head. I’m aware. I’m perceiving. And, I’m judging. A cell phone rings a few feet away. I think, “Good god! Cell phones should be banned from…
4
Posted inPersonal/Stories Wu Project

An old koan rises from my past

So, yesterday there I am re-reading my long ignored copy of “Zen in the Art of Archery.” I turn a page and find a rent receipt from August 1968 stuck in the book. College days. Beginning of my junior year at San Jose State. Had recently gotten back from Europe, where I’d spent the second semester taking classes in Zadar, Yugoslavia. I’d rented an apartment with a couple of other hippie potheads. That explains the reference to three cleaning deposits. I idly turn the receipt over. Find some handwriting. Mine. I read: “There will be light when there is no…
6
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Spiritual emptiness: it’s a good thing

Most people consider spiritual emptiness something to be avoided. After all, if we’re not filled with the love of Jesus, Buddha-like compassion, the fear of God, or whatever (and there are lots and lots of whatevers) then we’re empty. Isn’t emptiness a bad thing? When the gas tank is empty, your car stops running. When the cupboard is empty, you’ve got nothing to eat. When the bookshelf is empty, you can’t do any reading. But what about when your spirit, or mind, is empty? Is there really nothing there, or is there more there when nothing is there than when…
10
Posted inPersonal/Stories Wu Project

Best answer often is “None of the above”

My manly self-image isn’t based on mechanical aptitude, so my ego is letting me share these stories. Then I’ll turn to my area of real competence: analyzing the anecdotes. Saturday morning I sold our old generator to a guy who saw my ad in the classifieds. He said he’d come by around eight. I figured that the sale would go more smoothly if the generator would start. Sometimes it’s a terror to get going when it hasn’t been started for a while. I don’t run the generator very often, so I got out the manual and reviewed the start-up procedures.…
4
Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas Wu Project

Tracking the trajectory of my Wu Project

Here’s documentation of my first original quasi-spiritual insight. Today I dragged this piece of paper out of my “treasures box,” where I keep various memorabilia from my youth. I wrote the poem when I was 13 after gazing up at the stars one night from the backyard of our rural home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It goes like this: Look up to the heavens What is there? Tiny pinpoints of light But is that all? Look past the stars Into the blackness of the void. What lies there, waiting for man’s first faltering steps Into the…
3
Posted inWu Project

Wu or Mu? I talk with a cow fancier.

Two days into the Wu Project, I’m right on track. Of course, the great thing about this project is that there’s no way I can be off track. Since the root meaning of Wu is negation, you’re most Wuish when you’re doing the least. Such is the essence of wu wei, a Taoist term that can be roughly translated as “effortless action.” Wei means to do or act. Stick “wu” in front of it and you’ve got not-doing. Or better put, doing without doing. So I’ll be taking it slow and gentle with this Wu Project of mine. Which, I…
3
Posted inWu Project

The Wu Project

I’ve decided that it’s time for me to formally kick off the Wu Project. First, I need to point out a few things that the Wu Project is not. It doesn’t have anything to do with an Oregon congressman. Nor, with a well-known rap group. We’re talking here about the real Wu. Which, because it signifies nothing, is pretty darn hard to say anything about. Nonetheless, I’m drawn to try. And even more perhaps: to be. It’s a dream of mine. To be Wu. Not the Chinese character. Not the various Wu-associations Wikipedia talks about. Something else. What remains when…
12