Posted inBuddhism

“The White Lotus” show raises question about Buddhist truth

First, unrelated to the primary subject of this post I wanted to mention a You Tube channel, No Nonsense Spirituality, that someone recently pointed out to me via an email, as he liked this woman's style. It's worth a look, based on my quick browsing of some videos. Here's what's said about a Welcome video: Welcome to No-Nonsense Spirituality! If you're feeling lost in a world filled with competing beliefs and overwhelming choices, you’re not alone. In this video, Brit Hartley, an atheist spiritual director with advanced theological training, guides you through the process of deconstructing your beliefs about God,…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality

This is all there is, says David Chapman. But what is, is extraordinary.

David Chapman is a really interesting guy. I've followed his writings on Buddhism, artificial intelligence, and other subjects for quite a few years. Meaningness is his main web site, and well worth a look. Chapman describes his form of Buddhism this way: I am, somewhat reluctantly, a Buddhist. Of an odd sort: “the opposite of whatever you’d expect” comes close. That sort of Buddhism shares central themes with Meaningness. I explain it elsewhere: A window has recently opened for Buddhist innovations that can address new cultural, social, and personal problems. Vividness explores possible futures, based on Buddhism’s history and its…
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Posted inBuddhism

Nirvana basically is reducing our habitual reactivity

Nirvana is a word that often conjures up visions of an otherworldly paradise, sort of like heaven. But the literal meaning in Sanskrit is "blown out," as in blowing out a candle -- which points to the extinguishing of passions that lead to suffering, as desires are endless and so cause us to continually chase them, much as the proverbial donkey drawn to walk fast in an effort to get the carrot dangled in front of the animal's face that grabs its attention but is impossible to reach, though the donkey doesn't know this. In Robert Wright's book, Why Buddhism…
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Posted inBuddhism

I enjoy Buddhism’s Pure Land tradition, but I don’t believe in it

Is it possible to enjoy a religious tradition without believing in it? Absolutely. In a sense that's what Christmas is like for many people. You don't have to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and is God's beloved son to like the Christmas season. All that's needed is to keep the parts of Christmas you can accept, and reject the parts you can't accept. Same goes with any religion.  That's how I explain my enjoyment of the Pure Land tradition of Buddhism, which I mainly know about from reading Taitetsu Unno's book, "River of Fire, River of Water."…
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Posted inBuddhism India Religions

Classical Indian philosophy makes little sense to me

Well, I gave it a try. Today Google News, in its Picks For You section, presented me with a link to an Aeon article, "By the light of brahman: Ideas from classical Indian philosophy help illuminate the enigmas of selfhood, consciousness and the nature of reality." I decided to read the article, albeit quickly, because I hoped it would live up to the title by illuminating those enigmas. I did learn something: that classical Indian philosophy makes little sense to me. Of course, since this philosophy is the foundation of Hinduism, it isn't surprising that atheist me would find little…
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Posted inBuddhism

I love this Zen saying, though it’s difficult for me to grasp

I've been reading, and enjoying, Zen literature since my college days about 56 years ago. That explains how I was able to write a blog post in 2005 called "The Supreme Doctrine," thirty-six years overdue.  “The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought” is one of my favorite books. When I checked it out from the San Jose Public Library while I was a San Jose State University student, I couldn’t bear to return it. It’s now thirty-six years overdue. I’m pretty sure I paid the library the $1.65 replacement cost. That’s a heck of a lot cheaper than 5…
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Posted inPolitics

Stock market drop shows peril of following a cult leader, Trump

Here in the United States the big news since last Wednesday afternoon, when President Trump unveiled his so-called "reciprocal" tariffs on most countries, has been the precipitous weekly drop in the stock market, almost all of which occurred on the two trading days after Trump's announcement (which occurred after the stock market had closed on Wednesday). The Dow has lost 7.2%, the NASDAQ 7.8%, the S&P 500 7.8%. Stock market futures are down 2.5% to 3.9% at the moment, presaging another steep decline tomorrow, Monday. I've lived through big stock market drops before. Two fairly recent ones come to mind.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Some scholars view the Gospels, and Jesus, as familiar stories about demigods

For me, the Abrahamic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam -- are the most difficult both to read and to understand. The Bible's Old and New Testaments, along with the Koran, just don't appeal to me. There's no coherent philosophy or even theology that is readily apparent.  Obviously observant Christians, Jews, and Muslims find much inspiration in their holy books. But when I've read them, they seem boring and poorly organized. Which isn't to say that Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist writings are exemplars of clear writing. They aren't.  However, while I have to work at it, these Eastern religions (or philosophies)…
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Posted inAtheism Religions

It’s perfectly fine to be a religion of one (or a non-religion of one)

I really like the idea of being a religion of one, for reasons laid out in "If you become a religion of one, your worship will be effortless." After all, since there already are thousands of different religions, why not add one more: your own personal faith. That's why when I started this blog in 2004, it took me just a few seconds to come up with the tagline at the top of this page: Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence.  Not surprisingly, Ross Douthat, the author of Believe: Why Everybody Should Be Religious, differs with the whole religion of…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Mindfulness

Death is the best encouragement for mindfulness I’ve come across

Typically it isn't easy for me to stay focused on the present moment without having my mind conjure up all kinds of unrelated thoughts. This happens not only in my morning sitting meditation, but also in my Tai Chi classes (Tai Chi has been termed "meditation in motion"). Today in class I was doing my best to pay close attention to my movements. That worked for a while. Until it didn't. Then I found myself contemplating what I was going to have for dinner, whether I was going to get rained on when I walked back to my car, and…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Why the amazing stories we tell about our life aren’t really all that special

We humans are natural story-tellers. Being a highly social species, we love to tell other people tales about how our life came to be what it is, and usually those stories find a receptive audience.  Everybody likes a good story. But I've been thinking about a fatal flaw that strikes at the heart of many stories: though they often, if not usually, feature some special event that was, if not exceedingly unlikely, at least out of the ordinary, a more detached perspective calls such specialness into question. This gets at our tendency to put ourselves at the center of our…
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Posted inNeuroscience

Pressure is off, according to neuroscience: there’s no “real you” to be found

For about 35 years, during the religious phase of my life, the Eastern philosophy I'd embraced had a sort of mantra: self-realization before God-realization.  Meaning, first we disciples needed to discover our true self as Soul, a drop of the spiritual ocean. Then we could proceed to the next step, becoming one with the ocean of God. Or at least as close to oneness as is possible for a soul-drop.  The basic notion, which is shared with other spiritual approaches and also some psychological theories, was that there's a "real you" hidden inside each of us. Through meditation, prayer, introspection,…
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Posted inAtheism Consciousness Neuroscience

More reasons why I’m liking the modular mind theory

As I continue reading Robert Kurzban's book Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, I keep coming across ideas that make me pleased I forked out $16.97 to Amazon. The book is well worth the money. Here's some additional points from Kurzban that appealed to me. Press Secretary versus President. Most of us like to think that basically we're in charge of our thoughts and actions. Maybe our emotions also, though they seem more out of our control. In other words, we're the President of the entity we call "myself." Kurzban has a different view. He…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, reportedly off the job as of April 1

Here in the United States, and in quite a few other countries, April 1 is April Fools' Day. That's when people engage in practical jokes and hoaxes, which are sometimes close to believable. I doubt that the news of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization that I belonged to for 35 years, giving up all of his official duties as of April 1, 2025 is a hoax. But all I know for sure is that Osho Robbins, who comments occasionally on this blog, emailed me a link to a video that…
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Posted inConsciousness Neuroscience

The conscious “you” isn’t your self any more than unconscious parts are

The good news keeps on coming from my reading of Robert Kurzban's book Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind.  In my previous post I talked about how Kurzban persuasively argues that the modular view of mind shows that there isn't a singular "I" inside our cranium, just a multitude of "We's." This makes our human nature hugely more interesting than if each of us were a single entity.  As the poet Walt Whitman said: Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.) Most of us try so hard to…
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Posted inNeuroscience

The modular view of mind says there is no “I”, just a contentious “We”

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the being each of us calls "I" didn't really exist, at least not in the way most people think it does, as a coherent unified self?  I think so, though I realize this is a disturbing thought to those who depend on the "I" hypothesis to give their life meaning. Given my Buddhist proclivities, I view the situation much differently.  The way I see it, the "I" I've considered myself to be for most of my life is the cause of many problems. For example, anxiety, because "I" wants things to go the way "I"…
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Posted inBuddhism Mindfulness

We impose meaningfulness on the world through our stories

Yesterday my increasingly buggy blogging service, Typepad, kept generating a "503" error message all day long, so I wasn't able to write a post for one of my other blogs. I just did that, composing "My fall into a creek shows why doing one thing at a time makes sense."  That post includes a mention of my recent post here about human cognition being amazingly slow, so it's worth a read. You also can see photos of an attractive creek that runs through our rural property. Plus our electricity is off at the moment, owing to some downed power lines…
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Posted inConsciousness Neuroscience

Human cognition is amazingly slow, about 10 bits per second

I came across a fascinating article in the March 2025 issue of Scientific American, "Brains produce thoughts surprisingly slowly." (Online title: "The Human Brain Operates at a Stunningly Slow Pace.") You can read the article via this PDF file.Download The Human Brain Operates at a Stunningly Slow Pace | Scientific American Often you hear that the human brain is the most complex entity in the known universe with its 80 billion or so neurons tied together with trillions of interconnections. That may be, but this impressive product of evolution works much slower than the smart phones most of us carry…
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Posted inBuddhism Personal/Stories

Theory of mental modules made me feel better about my many failings

I love it when after reading something in a nonfiction book, it doesn't just make sense to me intellectually, but deeply touches me emotionally.  That's how I felt after reading a chapter in Robert Wright's Why Buddhism is True book, "How Thoughts Think Themselves." Before describing the wonderful feeling I had, I'll share some of the intellectual side of Wright's message -- which is based on a blend of Buddhist teachings, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience.  He says this about the theory of mental modules in relation to mind wandering: Though the trains of thought that carry you away from direct…
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Posted inBuddhism

For Buddhism, taking the “red pill” means more than just mindfulness

It's been quite a while since I've watched The Matrix. You know, the movie where really real reality is very different from how things appear to those trapped in illusion -- which in this case is being confined in a pod, hallucinating that what you're dreaming is actually true. Robert Wright starts off his Why Buddhism is True book by using the red pill/blue pill choice in The Matrix as a metaphor for what Buddhism seeks: the truth about life. The prison is called the Matrix, but there's no way to explain to Neo what the Matrix ultimately is. The…
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