Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Spiritually speaking, do I think too much? Like, right now.

Thinking isn't viewed very highly by lots of spiritual (or pseudo-spiritual) folks. Especially those on the Eastern side of the religious divide: Buddhists, Advaitists, Neo-advaitists, Non-dualists, Taoists, and such. Of course, a lot of thoughts pass through their minds when they criticize thinking. (See here and here.) Likewise, I always smile when someone leaves a comment on one of my blog posts that says something like, "Brian, you've got to go beyond words," or "Brian, you need to love more and criticize less." Oh, I think, like you're not doing yourself, dude. Scientifically-minded guy that I am, I find it…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religion stifles innovation. Glad I live in Oregon.

Thanks to an email from a regular reader of this here Church of the Churchless, I learned about an interesting article in Mother Jones, "Study: Science and Religion Really Are Enemies After All." Are science and religion doomed to eternal "warfare," or can they just get along? Philosophers, theologians, scientists, and atheists debate this subject endlessly (and often, angrily). We hear a lot less from economists on the matter, however. But in a recent paper, Princeton economist Roland Bénabou and two colleagues unveiled a surprising finding that would at least appear to bolster the "conflict" camp: Both across countries and also…
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Posted inBooks Religions Spiritual practice/meditation

Religion’s false story about the “Great Other”

So here we are in this world, surrounded by the universe and an even greater cosmos beyond the limit of what can be observed in our corner of the space-time continuum. Understanding this is a life's work. Well, many lives. From the dawn of recorded history, and certainly well before that, humans have been extending the boundary of what is known. Of course, as physicist John Wheeler said, "As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance." However, for various reasons religions, philosophies, spiritual belief systems, and mystical practices aren't willing to accept the mystery of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Watts: wanting to clean up the messiness of life IS the mess

I don't believe life is a problem. Sure, there are problems in life, lots of them. Each of us is continually dealing with differences between the way we want something to be, and the way it is. But this is much different from considering that there is something wrong with life itself or with ourselves as a whole.  I've talked about this before.Believing in problems may be our only problemIs there anything wrong with life?When did humans start making life itself into a problem?A few days ago I discovered an Alan Watts book sitting on a shelf that, shock!, I…
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Posted inScience

There was no first human. Which explains a lot.

Today I watched a video called "There was no first human." I found it here. It makes a lot of sense. Also a lot of nonsense.  By "nonsense," I don't mean that this explanation of evolution isn't true. Because it is. The thought experiment described in the video came from Richard Dawkins, someone who knows what he is talking about when it comes to the origins of life on Earth. Here he describes the thought experiment in words. The nonsense reference flows out of the difficulty I have understanding how there can be completely different species along an evolutionary branch…
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Posted inBuddhism

Buddhist “emptiness” appeals to my churchless non-soul

When true believers (as I was at one time) start to give up religiosity, often they pass through various stages of withdrawal from their addiction to dogma. For me, one stage is an admiration of Buddhism and Taoism, spiritual philosophies which have an affinity with modern science and secular ways of looking upon the world. I'm still in that stage. I may never leave it. Yesterday I picked up Stephen Bachelor's "Verses from the Center: A Buddhist VIsion of the Sublime," after a long absence. It's Bachelor's interpretation of Nagarjuna's teachings about emptiness, a core Buddhist concept.  Well, non-concept. Because…
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Posted inReligions Science

Subjective and objective: the key to understanding everything!

"Ah, it's all becoming clear to me... so clear... I'm on the verge of grasping The Meaning of It All!" (Mentally insert the sound of cackling laughter, and a vision of a crazed man rubbing his hands together with glee). This is how I've been feeling lately. After fifty years of so of searching for the big "T" Truth through science, spirituality, mysticism, psychedelic drugs, philosophy, dog walks in nature, prayer, pleading, meditation, pondering, athletics, caffeine, and more, it's dawning on me that two words pretty much sum up both the Question and the Answer. Subjective. Objective.  This blog post…
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Posted inBooks Science

Core and extended consciousness. Here and now, there and then.

Today I came to an interesting chapter, Mind and consciousness, in "The Systems View of Life," a book I blogged about a few days ago. One of the main conclusions is an unsurprising one: mind is the brain in action, not something transcendent. Let us now summarize the recent advances in cognitive science discussed in this chapter. The main achievement, in our view, has been the gradual but consistent healing of the Cartesian split between mind and matter. In the 1970's, a few cognitive scientists recognized that mind and consciousness are not "things" but cognitive processes, and they took the…
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Posted inReality Science

No need to choose between Wonder and Science

For about a week I've been reading two books during my morning pre-meditation time. To most people they'd seem incompatible. Or at least, pointers in divergent directions of reality.  But I happily read some of each, using a highlighter and pen (thanks for blank back pages, publishers) to note what I like, and sometimes don't like, about "The Way of Wonder" and "The Systems View of LIfe."  Here's a blog post that includes links to other posts I've written about Haas' books; I haven't finished The Systems View of Life, which is a fascinating, but quite technical, undergraduate textbook that…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Scattered thoughts about mindfulness

These thoughts are powered by (1) a 16 ounce can of Mike's Harder Margarita, which I've never tried before, but surely will again, and (2) a 16 ounce serving of the Sisters blend from the Sisters Coffee Company in central Oregon.   This blend of alcohol and caffeine is guaranteed to produce a magnificently coherent amalgamation of scattered thoughts about this evening's chosen blog topic: mindfulness. In my own mind at least, the only mind I really give a shit about, being clueless about all others. Regarding mindfulness, I started meditating in 1969, so I've got 45 years of daily…
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Posted inBooks

Will Sam Harris’ “Waking Up” do that for me? Probably not.

When I visit the Amazon page for a forthcoming book by Sam Harris, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion," Amazon helpfully reminds me that I pre-ordered way back on March 7.  Ooh, ooh! Release date is September 9! Just 25 days and I'll be on my way to waking up! Maybe. But I doubt it. I admire Harris, because he is a noted atheist critic of religion who also is expert in neuroscience and has a fondness for meditation, Buddhist variety. So I'm confident that I'm going to resonate with his new book. It should sell well, given…
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Posted inHumor

Still profoundly funny: MonkMojo who is now 2020mojo

Back in 2010 I put up a post called "Non-dual cartoons point way to enlightenment (or not)." It started off with... One of the favorite people crazed cartoon characters I follow on Twitter is MonkMojo. I've learned a lot about non-dualism and Zen from reading his clever tweets. Saying that, of course, means that I haven't learned a thing. But who gives a shit? A smile is close to enlightenment, which is one of the idiotic cliches that MonkMojo enjoys demolishing. Here's some sample MonkMojo tweets. (RT means a re-tweet; what follows the || is MonkMojo's add-on). RT @Yojinbo: wasn't impressed w/ the response I got…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

I’m asked a great question. Hope my answer is as good.

Below is an email message from a Church of the Churchless reader. My replies are indented further, in italics. Interesting questions and observations from this person. I tried to make my responses in kind. ----------------------------- Brian, just a few quick lines to let you know how much I (continue to) enjoy reading your blog. Hey, back at you. I enjoy reading your messages and comments. You write very clearly and make a lot of sense. In short, you remind me of me! I’m slowly, very slowly making my way through your archives, as well as reading your more current articles…
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Posted inBuddhism

The Embodied Mind — interesting interview with Evan Thompson

Neuroscience. Buddhism. Meaning. Consciousness. Brain. Body. Culture. There's a lot of threads woven into a pretty persuasive view of things in a Tricycle interview with Evan Thompson: Thoroughly grounded in Western and Buddhist philosophy and learned in science, Thompson has been dedicated to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue between Buddhism and cognitive science for over two decades. Give it a read. The piece is just the right length. Not too long. Not too short. Readable in a single spiritual philosophical sitting. The only reader comment (at the moment) also is perceptive. I liked how Thompson is skeptical about the whole Buddhist…
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Posted inReality

What if reality is completely different from how you think it is?

I'm not sure whether ultimate reality can be known. Heck, I'm not even sure whether limited reality can be known.  Meaning, there may be no such thing as reality. This might just be a word we humans use for our way of looking upon the world, a subjective viewpoint which has no resemblance to the way the world really is, because there is no really beyond the subjective viewpoint.  Alternatively, perhaps reality really exists, but it is nothing like our thoughts about it. Religious dogmas have it wrong. Mystical teachings have it wrong. Philosophical notions have it wrong. Scientific theories…
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Posted inReality Science

Modern science demolishes archaic “as it is” views

Whenever I read a book about Buddhism or mindfulness, I've got my highlighter poised to make a skeptical marginal question mark when (usually not if) I come across mention of perceiving reality "as it is." This is an absurd pre-scientific notion, as I've discussed here and here. With so many interesting ideas to choose from, I'll take the easy way out in this post and share some of what I read this morning about how humans attribute what actually is within to without -- the world outside our craniums.  Frequently I take issue with those who claim it is possible to know reality "as…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Personal/Stories

We will die one day. Good or bad news?

Religions thrive because people are afraid of dying and not being alive anymore. If death didn't exist, I doubt religions would either.  People can deal with other problems without religion. What gives life meaning? What is right and wrong? Is there an inherent purpose to the cosmos? But death... that's a problem with no solution. Everybody dies. Everybody. No exceptions.  So those who want to live on after their body dies have only one choice: fantasy, imagination, wishful thinking. Religions fulfil a desire for immortality which can't be met in any other way. Well, it can't be met through religiosity…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Don’t be Big Brother to yourself, “I” watching “me”

Non-religious Buddhism and neuroscience agree on this: there is no such thing as a "self." Meaning, there isn't an "I" who is separate from "me," a soul separate from body, a mind separate from brain. Understanding this -- no, more, intuitively experiencing the truth of this -- cuts through mountains of religious, spiritual, mystical, and philosophical crap. It also makes life way simpler.  It's crazy that we humans look upon ourselves as if we are an object to be manipulated, like a smart phone or chainsaw. We're always asking ridiculous questions like, "Why don't I feel better about myself?"  There…
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Posted inBuddhism

I’m liking Chögyam Trungpa’s take on spiritual materialism

Somehow I'd read a lot of books on Buddhism without ever becoming familiar with Chögyam Trungpa. I'd heard the name before, but had no idea who the guy was. Recently one thing led to another, which led me to buy his "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism." I'd read a short essay of his in a book on mindfulness. That spurred me to Google him, where I found that Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master who, among other things, had sex with students, abused alcohol and cocaine, and had other endearing qualities (to someone irreligious like me). So I bought the above-mentioned book.…
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