Posted inMeaning of life Reality

Sam Harris praises reason as the only game in town for strangers to play

Near the end of Sam Harris' conversation with André Duqum, which I've written about here and here, Harris praised reason in a way that deeply resonated with me. One reason I liked the praise of reason is that it's a vitally important human capacity that too often is taken for granted. It's the foundation of every well-functioning society and organization, from the smallest to the largest. Yet too often we only notice the importance of reason when it's missing. As in religious dogma. As in political posturing. As in pronouncements of authoritarians. As in attempts to ban books and decry…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation Vedanta/Advaita

If we’re only happy when life has no problems, we’ll never be happy

After recommending a conversation between Sam Harris and André Duqum after listening to only ten minutes of it, now I can really recommend the conversation after listening to two hours of the 2:20 talk between them. Harris is in fine form here. Having been an avid user of his Waking Up app, I've heard quite a few talks between Harris and some other spiritually inclined person. He tells some of the same stories in the Duqum conversation but much of what Harris says is new to me. I haven't been taking any notes, so will simply relate what I remember…
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Posted inConsciousness Mindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

Don’t watch yourself. Be yourself. In meditation, and in everything.

I usually listen to a daily guided meditation on Sam Harris' Waking Up app. But sometimes I enjoy other offerings on the app, which includes a section called Theory. There's also Practice and Life. Now and then Harris correctly says in his guided meditations that listening to a conversation in the Theory section can be just as valuable of meditating. After all, meditation is about paying attention to what's happening in the present moment. If that thing is an interesting conversation between Harris and someone else, and I'm paying close attention to it, then, hey, that's a form of meditation.…
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Posted inConsciousness

Pure Consciousness isn’t what its name implies

I don't like the term pure consciousness. Or its identical twin, pure awareness. I've written about this dislike in some blog posts: here, here, here, and here.  Obviously I've got no problem with talking about consciousness or awareness, which in my view are the same thing. If we're conscious of something we're aware of that thing. It's the pure that rubs me the wrong way. That word conjures us an image of something absolutely clear and transparent, nothing in it except consciousness/awareness. (From now on I'll just speak of consciousness rather than wearing out my laptop's slash key.) Sure, I…
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Posted inReality Universe

Likely we don’t even know the questions to ask of the cosmos

We all have questions. About all kinds of stuff. What's wrong with my computer? Who will win the next presidential election? Is that lump on my chest anything to be concerned about? Almost always, our questions are presumed to have answers. Maybe not right now, but eventually. The winner of the 2024 presidential election will be known after the votes are counted, not before. Until then all we can do is wait. And hope. That's when I turn a bit religious, even though I'm an atheist: Dear God, please don't let Donald Trump win a second term! But the questions…
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Posted inFree will Karma Radha Soami Satsang Beas

No free will is the secular version of karma

It had to be. During my religious days -- well, make that 35 years -- I wrote two books that addressed the subject of karma. In God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, karma was secondary to my main theme of spirit being the creative power of the cosmos. But in Life is Fair, the whole book was about this spiritual law of cause and effect. Now, when I've become an atheist, I'm fascinated by the strong neuroscientific and philosophical arguments against free will. What's interesting is that no free will is almost exactly the same as karma. Guess I was meant to…
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Posted inMindfulness

A mindfulness lesson in the checkout lane

This afternoon I was in a south Salem Fred Meyer checkout lane. There was only one person ahead of me, so I decided to skip the self-checkout, which I usually prefer as the lines aren't as long. When the person in front of me moved forward, I didn't immediately do the same with my grocery cart. I heard the man in back of me say something. Couldn't make it out exactly, but it sounded something like "you can move now." Anyway, I ignored the comment, unloaded my groceries on the conveyor belt and soon was at the head of the…
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Posted inMindfulness

Mindfulness meditation is like briefly being dead

Whenever I need a heaping dose of reality shorn of unnecessary concepts, my eyes wander to a bottom shelf in my office where the mindfulness books hang out.  This morning I was drawn to pick up a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn that I'd read before, Wherever You Go, There You Are.  I've read other mindfulness books by Kabat-Zinn. As he says in the introduction, his previous book, Full Catastrophe Living, is largely aimed at people akin to those who use his stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center run by Kabat-Zinn. That book had to be quite…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Spirituality is simple without Self and free will

So why do I enjoy pondering the notion that we not only aren't an enduring separate Self (a central tenet of Buddhism), we also don't possess free will (a central tenet of neuroscience)? Though I haven't heard anyone asking me this question, I heard the voice that speaks inside my head asking it, so I'm pleased to answer myself. Note that the "self" in that second sentence isn't capitalized as the "Self" in the first sentence was. That's to distinguish between the metaphysical idea of Self -- often expressed as soul -- that somehow exists separate from the physical body/mind,…
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Posted inAlan Watts

Alan Watts on Vedanta, Buddhism, and Taoism

Though Alan Watts was an Anglican minister and served as chaplain at Northwestern University, in the book he wrote in 1940 when he was just 24, The Meaning of Happiness, three Eastern religions/philosophies garner the most attention and praise. That's because Watts correctly sees Vedanta, Buddhism, and Taoism as being transformational, rather than metaphysical, as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are. Just picture Christianity without Jesus, or Judaism without the history of the Jewish people, or Islam without the revelation of the Koran via Mohammed. Hard to do, if not impossible. But Vedanta, Buddhism, and Taoism do just fine without any…
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Posted inAlan Watts

True acceptance is the way out of the vicious circle of duality

I like to read books by Alan Watts. Other people don't like Watts. Some of them visit this blog. So when I write about how I enjoy what Watts has to say, probably they find those blog posts irritating. Such is the play of duality. It's how the world works, generally. Love is inconceivable without hate. Up is inconceivable without down. Absent dualities, we're simply left with what is, reality without a second. But the moment we ascribe human qualities, such as likes and dislikes, to aspects of reality, duality appears. (I'm not saying that reality is completely absent of…
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Posted inAlan Watts

Why I embrace the dark side of me and the world

Looking back, I don't think I ever was a full-on dualist, just a half-hearted one. This was during the 35 years I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious organization based in India whose core teaching was that this world in which we live and breathe isn't our true home but a temporary resting place -- since the purpose of life is to return to higher regions of reality and God through extensive meditation, devotion to a guru believed to be God in Human Form, a vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and drugs, and morality, including…
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Posted inAlan Watts Free will

The whole universe is at work in every thought and action

I'd thought that I'd read, or at least heard about, every book by Alan Watts -- one of my favorite authors. But then I saw a comment on this blog where someone recommended The Meaning of Happiness: The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East. So I ordered it, as the commenter said that Watts had interesting observations about free will, one of my favorite subjects. Sweet! Favorite author plus favorite subject equals enjoyable reading. Watts wrote The Meaning of Happiness in 1940, when he was just 24 years old. Though I'm…
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Posted inBuddhism Free will

Here’s some ways to free yourself of the free will illusion

As noted before, one reason, among many, why I enjoy Paul Breer's books about the illusion of free will and of independent selfhood is that in addition to persuasively arguing why we humans lack free will or an enduring Self he talks about how these illusions can be markedly reduced, if not outright eliminated. His second book, Beyond Self-Realization: A Sectarian Path to Enlightenment, has the greatest focus on "how to." I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but I've come across some tips that make sense to me. Breer was a student of Zen Buddhism for five…
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Posted inFree will

Paul Breer speaks of a selfless experience while in prison

A few commenters on a recent post about how Paul Breer describes the Cosmic View and Local View of enlightenment in his book, Beyond Self-Realization: A Sectarian Path to Enlightenment, have noted that Breer was indicted in 2012 on a felony charge of sexually abusing a relative. I pointed out in my own comment that Breer speaks of being in prison for two years in both of his books about the dual illusion of free will and of an immaterial self or soul. In the first book I read, and liked a lot, he didn't mention what he was in…
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Posted inConsciousness Free will

Enlightenment: the Cosmic View vs. the Local View (I go with local)

Whew. What a relief. So good to know that I was mistaken. After reading Paul Breer's first book about the illusion of free will, The Spontaneous Self: Viable Alternatives to Free Will, I decided to dive even deeper into the Breer waters and bought his follow-up book, Beyond Self-Realization: A Non-Sectarian Path to Enlightenment.  This second book has a different structure that I wondered about when I began reading it, but is turning out to be appealing. The book starts by saying that a local library has announced a course about -- no big surprise -- Beyond Self-Realization.  Eight people…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

“Losers rule” helps explain both the Old and NewTestaments

Being an atheist, it's difficult for me to decide which is the weirdest and most unbelievable religion, because they're all weird and unbelievable. Since I don't know a lot about Judaism, I was drawn to a piece by Adam Gopnik in the August 28, 2023 issue of The New Yorker, How the Authors of the Bible Spun Triumph from Defeat. Based on a review of a book by Jacob Wright, "Why the Bible Began," the article aided my understanding of what makes Judaism so strange. Gopnik says that the Jews were notable losers. The Jews were the great sufferers of the ancient…
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Posted inFree will

Free will is an illusion we’re better off without

Well, at long last I've finished Paul Breer's book, The Spontaneous Self: Viable Alternatives to Free Will, which I've been writing about recently.  I enjoyed it a lot. But then, I'm a big fan of the notion that free will is an illusion that we'd be better off not embracing. In the post I'll explain in my own words some of what struck me most strongly in the book.  Spontaneity. Breer opened my eyes to a fact that other writers on free will don't emphasize much. If we look upon our thoughts, emotions, and actions as not being produced by…
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Posted inFree will India Taoism/Tai Chi

Is romantic love a product of Western culture?

I wasn't expecting to find the "Love and Sexuality" chapter in Paul Breer's book, The Spontaneous Self: Viable Alternatives to Free Will, to be very interesting. After all, he'd already made his arguments for why free will is an illusion, along with describing the benefits of giving up the illusion. But his observations about how romantic love is largely a product of Western culture, and is at odds with Eastern philosophy, were thought-provoking. I'm not sure what to make of them, which is why the title of this blog post ends with a question mark. What do you think? Here's…
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Posted inFree will

We surrender to a higher power when we no longer believe in free will

I like the idea of surrendering to a higher power. I just don't like the notion that this is God or some other supernatural entity, for I prefer my surrendering to be founded in reality, not illusion. I'm not sure, though, if surrendering is the right word. Acceptance seems more accurate, but it lacks the imagery of surrendering -- which for me conjures up two generals negotiating the terms of the end of a war that one has won and one has lost. In this case, what's being surrendered is a belief in free will, the subject I've been writing…
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