Posted inFundamentalism Religions

Criticizing Islam isn’t racist

I enjoy getting comments on my blog posts. Many add informative extras to what I was writing about. But sometimes I read a comment that makes so little sense, my only reaction is a bewildered "huh?" Such as this one, submitted in response to "Of all the crazy religions, is Islam the most dangerous?" I was a big fan, but now you lost me. Now you just seem racist to me. Sorry. I'm no fan of religions, any of them, but it's fundamentalists that are the problem. I don't like it when people target any particular group. The Muslims I…
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Posted inReligions

Of all the crazy religions, is Islam the most dangerous?

Reportedly one of the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan, the older brother, became much more fundamentalist in his Islamic beliefs before he and his younger brother killed and injured so many people. [Note: what follows is a great argument for encouraging young men to embrace marijuana, girls, and alcohol rather than strict religiosity.] Once known as a quiet teenager who aspired to be a boxer, Tamerlan Tsarnaev delved deeply into religion in recent years at the urging of his mother, who feared he was slipping into a life of marijuana, girls and alcohol. Tamerlan quit drinking and smoking, gave up boxing…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Don’t tame your wild horse nature. Let it run wild.

It's simplistic to divide spiritually-inclined people into two types. But I love to do it! So I will! There, I embraced my wild horse nature. I thought of a rule that seemed to make sense. I considered throttling my inclination to do something. Then... Screw it. I'll do what I feel like doing.  I don't want to be a well-trained horse. That's a familiar image in some spiritual, religious, meditation, and philosophical circles. The horse is our untamed sensous, craving, lustful, thought-obsessed self. The trainer or the rider is... Well, that's a good question. If the wild horse is one…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Why I don’t like “Our thoughts and prayers are with you”

No, they're not. Not mine at least.  That's what goes through my mind whenever I hear someone say, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you." Which has happened a lot after the bombing attack at the Boston Marathon. I can understand why people say this. But it grates on me.  For one thing, that "our" seems to imply that anyone within reach of the speaker's voice, such as those listening to President Obama on radio or TV, share those sentiments. And if you don't... Well, you must not care about the dead and injured. Not true. Actually, I do.  Yet…
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Posted inUncategorized

Doing Nothing. Sounds like my sort of anti-religion.

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. I wrote down the name of the book for future inspection, then turned to another book that didn't have anything to do with spirituality. Must obey... When I fired up Amazon on my MacBook Pro, "Doing Nothing" seemed sufficiently interesting to justify a buy. Heck,…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Benefits of meditation being proven by science

There's little or no evidence of God or the supernatural. But there's increasing evidence that meditating and being mindful of the here and now can have positive effects. So my feeling is, why not start (and, likely, end) our spiritual journey by focusing on what we know exists, physical reality. Which, of course, includes the physical brain. The brain's activity results in what is called "mind." Mind then can influence the rest of physical reality, including the body integrated with the brain, along with the brain itself.  Pretty cool. Nothing mystical here. Nothing airy-fairy. Nothing beyond the bounds of common sense.…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Integrating reason and intuition in Tai Chi (plus rest of life)

I'm a churchless non-soul. I love reason, science, demonstrable proofs. Yet I enjoy practicing Tai Chi, with all its talk of qi, meridians, subtle energy flows, and such, most of which isn't within the realm of proven fact. No contradiction. When talk in my Tai Chi class turns to a word I can't readily grasp with my hand of reason, such as qi, I mentally translate it into a more accessible term for me, such as "internal energy." I feel that energy. I'm not sure if I feel qi. Maybe they are the same thing. Maybe not. Regardless, I've never…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

To be “spiritual,” get physical

Back in my churched days, I believed that being spiritual meant going beyond the physical. So I meditated countless hours with eyes shut and ears closed off from the material world. In other words, the world.  The only world.  Many would disagree with those italicized emphases, of course. Heck, I would have disagreed with myself not many years ago.  They, which included me for about thirty-five years, believe that God, or whatever divine entity undergirds existence, is only loosely connected with physical reality. Some religions view this world as maya, illusion. Others, as a temporary way station that we pass…
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Posted inScience Universe

There’s no “nothing” to compare with the cosmos’ “something”

Like I said a few days ago, it's absolutely awesome that existence exists. Oh, guess I should add, "awesome, dude... ." Which reflects how marvelously meaningful what I said is. And also how meaningless.  It happened again today. That sudden "bottom falling out from under me" feeling, sort of the mental equivalent of being startled by an elevator going into free fall. I like the feeling. It's the most genuine sensation of spirituality, not really an apt word, but best I can come up with, that comes over me in my churchless way of looking at the world. What it is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Roger Ebert: “I do not fear death”

Roger Ebert died yesterday. When I heard the news, I was a lot sadder than I usually am when I learn someone famous has died. Ebert meant a lot to me, though I never saw him in person. He was a noted movie reviewer here in the United States. For many years watching "Siskel and Ebert" every week was a TV must. Back in those pre-Internet days this was how I learned what movies were worth watching and which weren't. Their "two thumbs up" was all I needed to buy a ticket when a film came to town. Ever since,…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Embrace awe that existence exists, not religion

It happened again today. That sudden "bottom falling out from under me" feeling, sort of the mental equivalent of being startled by an elevator going into free fall. I like the feeling. It's the most genuine sensation of spirituality, not really an apt word, but best I can come up with, that comes over me in my churchless way of looking at the world. What it is -- and I'm also struggling to find the right words here -- is awe that existence exists.  (Other attempts I've made to describe that marvelous mystery can be found scattered through this search, by…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

More reasons to doubt Eben Alexander’s heaven and God claims

Eben Alexander's book, "Proof of Heaven," is a best-seller. But that doesn't prove that heaven and God are real.  Alexander has done a great job of cashing in on his claim that while in a coma, he had a vision of heaven that supposedly must have resulted from his consciousness being completely separate from his physical brain.  Only problem is, as I've blogged about before (see here, here, and here), there are excellent reasons to doubt Alexander. Today I got an email from someone who had finished reading "Proof of Heaven." In response to one of my posts, he said: Of…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Before Easter, I escape death. I feel sort of Jesus’y.

Back in the late 60's, the decade, not my age, I looked like Jesus often is depicted. This photo was taken (unposed, I should add) by a friend who had sponsored a gathering where I led a group in some yoga postures and meditation. Not exactly Christian, though my yoga teacher called his ashram "Christananda." Anyway, I share this information to establish an admittedly tenuous relationship between (1) the Christian celebration of Easter tomorrow, which marks Jesus' resurrection from the dead three days after his crucifixion, and (2) my recent celebration of a benign skin biopsy test, the "good news"…
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Posted inHumor

Dogs as ministers. Finally, a religious practice that makes sense.

Today's Portland Oregonian has a religiously-themed story that I actually read: "Four-Footed Ministers program employs a canine to connect to the divine." As far as Portland resident Jerilyn Felton is concerned, it’s no coincidence that the word “dog” is “God” spelled backwards. Felton coordinates a dog-ministry program called the Four-Footed Ministers Pastoral-Care Program at Maryville Nursing Home in Beaverton.  She designed the program while pursuing her doctor of ministry degree at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Felton believes that the presence of dogs can help foster a connection to the divine. The physical connections the residents make by interacting with the animal…
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Posted inMystics Spiritual practice/meditation

What is meant by a “fake” guru?

A few days ago I wrote a blog post called "Kumare: truthful movie about a fake guru." Here I want to do some additional pondering about what it means to be fake.  This is a subject of more than theoretical interest to me. Back in my college years, 1969-70, I studied yoga and meditation with a long-haired, charismatic teacher who looked a lot like the movie's Kumare (even though my teacher was Greek, and Vikram Ghandi, who became "Kumare," is Indian.) My weird story of how I switched from the first guru to another guru can be found here. l…
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Posted inMystics Religions

Kumare: truthful movie about a fake guru

"How do you know I'm not a fake? Maybe I just have the gift of gab." There's a guru in India whom I'm familiar with, Gurinder Singh, who used to frequently say this. Maybe he still does. At the time I was associated with the organization Gurinder Singh leads, his disciples would look upon those statements as a sign of some sort of humility/ Zen'ish koan/ anti-mystical mystic utterance. Which, interestingly, is almost exactly what students who flocked to a genuinely fake guru, Kumare, a.k.a. New Jersey-born Vikram Ghandi, felt when at every yoga class he taught he told them…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Religions

Wow. I’m (finally) polite to some Jehovah’s Witnesses.

My Buddha-nature must be coming along nicely. This morning I was the most courteous I've ever been to the Jehovah's Witnesses who periodically ring our rural doorbell. And I had some reasons to be my usual blunt, ascerbic self. The blueberry-filled whole wheat pancake I usually have for Sunday breakfast had just been put on a plate, butter and syrup applied. I was hungry. Hearing the doorbell ring, my wife said "Who could that be at this time?" It took me about two seconds to make what turned out to be a highly accurate guess.  I opened the front door…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Spiritual Naturalism appeals to my churchless non-soul

Thanks to an email from Alex Szeto, I learned about Spiritual Naturalism. After reading some articles on the website of the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I haven't found much that I disagree with.  But given my often-disagreeable nature, I'm sure if I dug deeper, I would. Which wouldn't bother Spiritual Naturalists, because they embrace science, reason, and such, not rigid dogma, blind faith, and unarguable thou shalt's.  "What is Spiritual Naturalism?" included a nice description of what "spirituality" can mean to someone who doesn't believe in God or the supernatural. Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Why Taoism beats Zen on being non-religious

I can understand why someone who isn't religious wouldn't feel any need at all to embrace a philosophy that has some churchy aspects -- such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism.  However, I enjoy reading books in both genres, and am heavy into Tai Chi, which expresses Taoist principles in movment. It seems to me, along with others much more knowledgeable about Eastern philosophy than I am, that Zen minus Buddhism equals Taoism.  (More or less, at least. We're not talking mathematical precision here.) Buddhism adds in a bunch of religiosity to Zen, which would be more closely related to Taoism…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Taoism’s small and great awakenings

Wake up!  We here in the United States will say that to someone who is figuratively sleeping. Meaning, if they don't understand something obvious, something they're clueless about but should be clued in to, waking up is what we want them to do. Taoism also talks about awakening. In a way that is both similar and different. Hans-Georg Moeller explains Taoism's (or Daoism's) small and great awakenings in his book, "Daoism Explained."  It's one of my favorite Taoist books. Moeller has a fresh way of looking upon Taoism's way of looking upon things. He argues convincingly that many Western interpreters…
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