A Deliberate Yoking of the Mind

April 4th, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the series God: From Magic to Motivation

The revived interest in Karma, the notion that one’s destiny is determined by one’s own actions, made people unwilling to blame the gods for the irresponsible behavior of human beings.

The gods were no longer very important in India. Henceforth, they would be superseded by the religious teacher, who would be considered higher than the gods. It was a remarkable assertion of the value of humanity and the desire to take control of destiny: it would be the great religious insight of the subcontinent. The new religions of Hinduism and Buddhism did not deny the existence of the gods, nor did they forbid the people to worship them. In their view, such repression and denial would be damaging. Instead, Hindus and Buddhists sought new ways to transcend the gods, to go beyond them.

The Buddha believed implicitly in the existence of the gods since they were a part of his cultural baggage, but he did not believe them to be much use to mankind. They too were caught up in the realm of pain and flux; they had not helped him to achieve enlightenment; they were involved in the cycle of rebirth like all other beings and eventually they would disappear… Instead of relying on a god, therefore, the Buddha urged his disciples to save themselves. ~ Karen Armstrong, A History of God

Armstrong was speaking of a time approximately 2500 years ago. However, the words of the first two paragraphs seem to fit today’s situation. North America has gone shopping, growing more and more discontent with both the gods and with irresponsible human behavior.

Religious teachers or leaders in the west have superseded a god ever since Jesus, himself serving as a model (an other sons of gods, of course). Something like 1/2 of religious Americans are not in the same denomination or religion as their parents. When dissatisfied by the messenger (or minister), it is common practice to either find another preacher that fits better (or tell the minister to move on).

Armstrong’s insight is quite important –  humanity’s desire to take control of destiny, to control ourselves, is alive and well, though our motivations are still quite mixed. People desiring success or entertainment can choose a megachurch messenger and the prosperity gospel, or a wellness coach and celebrity talk show host. People desiring to relinquish all matters of good and evil over to an authority can join the Catholics. Eastern traditions have planted themselves on the fertile soil of western spiritual dissatisfaction.

These shopping options perpetuate the usual market of spiritual ideas, but they might also generate a measure individual responsibility. Can we find a better control over our destinies through a grocery store selection of spirituality? I’m tempted to make a connection here to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. At the threshold of taking up the journey, a mentor appears to help the hero. This stage in the process is so institutionalized and ‘encultured’ in us that we have a virtual catalogue of mentors to choose from, complete with branding, aesthetics and end goals. But as usual, it’s the hero that has to make the choice, take up the journey.

The future of religions, like the past, might benefit from exercises which help in the deliberate yoking of the mind to something beyond private motivations, regardless of what cultural trappings or dressings are used.

What do you think?

Are we progressing spiritually by focusing on the teachers rather than the gods?

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Belief, Beyond Belief, god, psychology, Religion | 4 Comments »


Signalling Continued

January 26th, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the series God: from Magic to Motivation

Human beings have an infatuation with eyes. My wife likes my eye crinkles. She says she’s always been attracted to eye crinkles. Sometimes when I’m with her I bunch up my face and exaggerate my moods. She pats me on the head and tolerates me.

Some research suggests our infatuation has to do with reading motivations in each other and making sure the social group is acting as a cohesive whole. We look someone in the eye as if it could be a good test to see if they are lying, but we can get lost in a coy bat of an eyelash and a disarming wink. We look loved ones in the eye. We look adversaries in the eye. We watch the outsider and avoid the outsider’s glare.

When I finished school, I wasn’t terribly motivated. In order to find a career, I took a chance on a meeting with a job-hunter. He was real firebrand, full of ambition and certainty. He sat me down in his office before his enormous desk and then sat in his comfortable chair to size me up. At one point my eyes fell from his penetrating stare and I realized his desk was on a rise in the floor. He proceeded to tell me how he wouldn’t stop until he had something for me. He’d wring the very necks of my competition. I was overwhelmed, starting to believe he really would do it. He really meant it.

While giving him some background information I mentioned my father was once a minister. Immediately he asked me:

“Then you know the Lord?”

I balked and fumbled through how I was raised in a church, but not from a tradition that talked that way. He pressed on.

“But, you know the Lord?”

He called his assistant (his wife) into the office and she led us through a moment of prayer. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments I’ve ever known, and I knew then I would not trust him. I left saying I would call him with my decision. I never did. I had this terrible feeling; I didn’t know what he was capable of.

He may very well have been able to find me a dream starting-position in some organization. He certainly had the will to do it. But I felt a powerful urge to keep away from him. I didn’t trust that motivation.

The Jains of India have always been small in number but high in reputation, due in part to the high cost of of commitment to their religion. Their efforts towards not being governed by ‘earthly motivations’ has given them a disproportionate number  in high positions of finance, accounting, trade and commerce.(link to a google book). Apparently a lot of Indians trust Jains with their money. Would you trust your financial advisors more if they looked you in the eye and explained their religious oaths?

Over 400 million dollars in rare stones can be traded from one hand to another, as it were, each day in New York’s Diamond District (according to the wiki). An incredible amount of trust is placed in those hands. The diamond dealers are an exclusive community, knowing each other’s families for generations. It is believed many transactions there have finished with only a smile, a handshake and a traditional blessing - mazel und brucha (good luck and good blessing). Could large corporations work under such relationships and good trust?

In feudal Japan, the noble and the samurai were expected to give their life at any moment for their lord, at any whim for their lord. What better way to show your loyalty? But almost paradoxically, there was just as strong a presumption that each and every individual was pursuing the attainment of more political power. It kind of makes sense, culturally, to balance the two. If each member of the ambitious classes has a strong motivation to rise in power and authority, then it’s wise to couple that with a complete commitment to hierarchical loyalties. Go ahead and play games of intrigue and deception and confidence, but know that your lord has the right, and the mood, to ask you to commit ritual suicide whenever the wish arises.

There was another way out. The samurai or the noble, when tired of the game of political advance, could say something like:

I will shave my head, renounce the world, and become a monk.

There is nothing inherent to a shaved head that makes a person peaceful or even disengaged from politics. However, a commitment to Buddhism seemed to signal that it was the end of a person’s overt political career. Interestingly, wearing the robes and taking up the commitment didn’t so much signal a renouncement of the world, but a renouncement of the motivations usually driving a person in that culture. I’m a peaceful man. I don’t mean any harm. I don’t have aspirations of power.

A blogger friend of mine has been telling a story of his time on the run through England, Scotland and Europe. He’s making the attempt at squaring things with (his) god and his own motivations, but it’s a tough road to walk. At one point he did some wilderness hiking and came across an American couple, tourists, struggling through the trails. He joined up with them for a short while, but only after he passed a few questions and tests.

“So you believe in the Lord God, and in our saviour Jesus Christ?” she asked, half apprehensive, half relieved.
I thought about quoting Riddick at her – I absolutely believe in God, and I absolutely hate the fucker – but then thought, that would only lead to more hassle. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her the fully story, was I? So I just nodded curtly and walked on.
(Please read the entire passage.  He has a story we have to face up to if we’re going to get anywhere…)

We are constantly trying to find ways to predict other people’s intentions behind their actions. We understand that a person with enough motivation can move the world, turn our world upside down, even threaten everything we hold precious.

But, who is the outsider now? Who is not part of you when literally anyone in the world can access your social group?

I’m convinced more than ever that our simple signals in body language, our little religious questions and tests, and our complicated cultures are too overwhelmed. And the consequences of all this remain in the realm of the unknown. There may not be any simple answers anymore when it comes to building trust and building community.

I think the only answer is the long one that follows the question:

So, what’s your story?

What do you think?

Is the world ready to listen to that?

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Belief, Beyond Belief, empathy, ethics, humour, psychology, Religion, story | 1 Comment »


Buddhist Lessons from Smart Machines

December 4th, 2010   by   Andrew

More than ten years ago a chess match between Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov created some buzz. The idea of pitting a machine against a world champion created some intriguing questions. How far has computer technology advanced? What will it be capable of in the future? How does the human spirit stand against a cold, calculating processor of electrical impulses?

In one of the games Deep Blue decided on what looked like a simple move. However, when Kasparov countered and put Deep Blue into a new and threatening position, the computer took back its last move and reprocessed the game strategy. This got a chuckle from a few people in the audience. No human would take back a move like that. It would be too devastating to the ego.

The team behind Deep Blue were reluctant to say the machine was using  psychology or even artificial intelligence. It was, however, programmed with a lot of information from the games of past grandmasters. During the games it did make some unexpected moves that had no immediate explanation. After the entire match, one of the team members admitted they had a lot of questions to ask Deep Blue.

Artificial intelligence has a funny history of optimistic dreams, giant visions,  progressively smaller advances and befuddling roadblocks. One important roadblock so far has been perception. Researchers have turned to human intelligence and perception for inspiration and insight. But as useful as intelligence and perception are to us, it turns out we don’t understand them that well. We have a really hard time in agreeing on their definitions. But we use our intelligence and perception every day. Supposedly. Maybe we don’t know ourselves as well as we think, but we sure know how to use ourselves.

The human brain is addicted to visual information. Visual perception is one of the biggest influences on how we understand our world. We don’t use computers to taste or smell or even touch things very much. We use computers to see the world first and then maybe hear the world (is your mute button on or off right now?).

Getting machines to think or at least process information was a matter of  applying logic and getting down to work. However, getting machines to see things and actually perceive the world has made researchers take a move or two back in their thinking.

In our desire for a machine that perceives like us we have had to revisit and re-examine our own perceptions. A traditional view of things would be to say there are objects in the world and we interact with them. We put them into groups like useful to me, or a threat to me, or of no consequence to me. A machine, however, does not have the genetic wiring or experiences to perceive the visual clues of where one object ends and another begins. To a machine, it’s all one. That is, until we teach it to cut and discriminate and think in terms of objects on some level of resolution.

When it comes down to it, nothing has obvious or certain boundaries. Unless you are using human perception and some level of resolution, maybe.

The symbol of an apple with a bite out of it has been the iconic logo for a computer company that has always tried to separate itself and be unique. Not of its competitor’s world. However, in the process of reinventing itself Apple Computers started putting Intel chips in their products. Some scoffed at the move. A step back.

If a chess player without ego can take a move back and eventually triumph over a world champion, then we must be able to recognize the value of the lessons our own machines can give us. Even if it means once in a while returning to a resolution that there are no boundaries and we are all one.

What do you think?


Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Beyond Belief, psychology, Religion, writing | 2 Comments »


Sniffle Meditation

November 13th, 2010   by   Andrew

At one point in time I thought my allergies were under control. My parents have some incredible sensitivities and have been generous enough to pass on the genetic inheritance in different forms to my brother and I. None of the glamourous, high-profile stuff, mind you. Nuts are fine. Bees aren’t that big of a deal. So there wasn’t a fear of death while growing up. But there were a lot of tissue boxes, a lot of noisy noses and a lot of putting up with the annoyances that were our lot in life.

And I really did think I was going to be all right. But life invades.

My introduction to Buddhism was I think an exploration of vocabulary as much as anything else. Words like nirvana, avalokiteshvara,  transcendence and meditation all sound pretty cool and mysterious to a kid. It also helped that it was “Asian”. Might as well be from another world, worthy of exploration by the Star Trek crew (an aside here, but I loved Star Trek as a kid. Only when I hit adulthood did I realize just how much of that show was about our own humanity. Well, that and race. Race seemed to come up in every other episode…).

Eventually I drifted from the stories and vocabulary around Buddhism and got to learning about the practice. I remember thinking, quite early on, “So you just sit and think and breathe? Ok!” Oversimplification and teasing with absurdity – two of my more frustrating inclinations.

Time stretched. School and distractions took the focus for a while. Girls were discovered. Successes and failures came and went.  Tissue boxes got used up, a lot.

It came as a surprise to me to find out, when visiting friends’ houses, that people could live without a tissue box in every room. And they could live quite well in otherwise toxic environments. Beatific, chemically-enhanced fragrances combined with yellow smoke and cat dander. How could they breathe in such places?

But they could, and quite well in fact. Plain as the nose before me, stuffed up as it might have been, these superhuman people lived quite happily, all the while sitting, breathing and thinking away in such putrid, inhuman surroundings. In my amazement and stupour, and my desire for physiological calm, I would often enough have to remove myself from the room.

It can be an incredible experience, depending on the severity of the attack. The brain doesn’t function the same as it would normally. It’s in reaction-mode and has no place or space for reasonable considerations. Often enough it is the senses that are directly affected. Eyes run wet and ask to be closed, ask to be rubbed. Mouth-breathing becomes necessary, so a different part of the brain has to wake up and manage those used-to-be automatic functionings. Ear pressure becomes a conscious entity inside your skull. And while the brain and body are accusing each other of traitorous intent, other people may look at you from their serenity. With curious heads tilted just so, they might even ask, “Something the matter?”

I’m happy to have brought such small moments of wonder to such people. But it does irk me a little to know I may never reach that transcendent state without a great deal of control over my environment. There was an ad on TV recently for allergy medication where the tagline was something like, “Achieve peace of mind.” Allergy pills are supposed to be good for 24 hours now. It may be a case of lowered expectations, but 24-hours of breathing normally has sometimes been all the salvation I ever hoped for.

Isn’t it interesting that we have to be in decent physiological condition in order to transcend our physical selves?

What do you think?


Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Beyond Belief, humour, Religion | 2 Comments »


What I DO like about Buddhism…

October 15th, 2010   by   zippy

… is the attitude.

Inspired by some things from Thich Nhat Hanh.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Buddhism, OMGLOLs | Comments Off


Touching Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

October 13th, 2010   by   Andrew

Author

One of my second-year courses in school was called “Philosophy of Peace” and Thich Nhat Hanh‘s book, Peace is Every Step, was part of the reading material. I’d poked around with bits of Buddhism before, but that book was my first real and meaningful introduction.

When Shannon recently became interested in Buddhism I dug out my copy of Peace is Every Step for her. Almost every other month now, a new book by Nhat Hanh has been either added to our bookshelf or appeared by the bedside lamp. For this book review I will be looking at his book Touching Peace, with some asides about the author himself.

We can always get a smile from his picture on the back of his books. Shannon once said, “He’s over 80, but look at him! He’s like a 10-year-old kid!”

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamse Buddhist Monk now living in the Plum Village Meditation Centre in France. He has published over 100 books and has been a prominent spokesperson recognized around the world for promoting peace and religious dialogue.

One of my favourite descriptions of the man comes from Richard Baker-roshi: “a cross between a cloud, a snail, and a piece of heavy machinery — a true religious presence.”

This description is very close to the feeling you can get when reading much of his work.


Technical Bits

Like many of his books, Touching Peace is quite concise and easy to read. It is  about 130 pages in length, each  filled with short sentences and quiet, calm words. Touching Peace has been around for more than 10 years now but it is a good example of Nhat Hanh’s style and purpose. Nhat Hanh is a conversationalist and seems to be seeking ways to make connections between people and between ideas. He doesn’t equate traditions necessarily, but he focuses on overlapping practices and places of dialogue. The book begins with a connection he sees between Buddhist bells and the Christian church bells of Sunday morning:

When I was a young monk in Vietnam, each village temple had a big bell, like those in Christian churches in Europe and the U.S. Whenever the bell was invited to sound, all the villagers would stop what they were doing and pause for a few moments to breathe in and out in mindfulness. At Plum Village, the community where I live in France, we do the same. Every time we hear the bell, we go back to ourselves and enjoy our breathing. When we breathe in, we say, silently, “Listen, listen,” and when we breathe out, we say, “This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.”
. Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle.

Being the devout monk that he is, Nhat Hanh does dip gracefully into some of his traditions’ sacred writings. But it is more in passing, part of the illustration he is making rather than justifying its truth or authority. He makes mention of the Avatamsaka Sutra and then explains the idea of interbeing by talking about how the many are in the one and how the one is in the many. By seeing things in transition rather than in particular, isolated moments of their existence, we can start to understand interbeing. He mentions the Maharatnakuta Sutra but then illustrates how we are all teachers and bodhisattvas , even with our anger, our frustration and our desire to make the world right.

He uses “we” and “us” a lot in his sentences. “We must stop destroying our body and soul for the idea of happiness in the future.” (p.20) “When someone in a community is unhappy, the whole community is unhappy. For us to stop suffering, we have to help the other person stop suffering.” (p.67) “If we want a better government, we have to begin by changing our own consciousness and our own way of life.” (p. 75)  As a result, the reader is drawn in to the conversational advice from the voice of a caring, calm Uncle Monk (a name given to Nhat Hanh discussed in another book).


Commentary

Nhat Hanh’s message is fairly uncomplicated and as a result many of his books share similar ideas and teachings. For the most part he is updating his illustrations while maintaining his message, which is fine. That’s how the publishing world works sometimes. But since my theme for this group of book reviews has been Change, I want to pick out three things that shine as useful changes in how we do religion in the world.

1. On page 47, Nhat Hanh talks about a one-year course called “Looking Deeply” for young couples. After completing this course each individual would have some practice thinking about themselves, their ancestors and society. Most important of all, the person would recognize the positive and negative aspects about his or her own character. Only at that point would each individual be qualified to get married and embark on that journey of mutual discovery at the heart of marriage.

I like this idea. The period of time is potentially long enough to get over the infatuation phase in relationships. It levels out the fairy-tale crap and introduces an element of realism to marriage. It reminds me of the long ago good ol’ days when you had to work for something if you wanted it (even citizenship had to be earned at one point in time…). And finally, although I have no evidence of this, I suspect the divorce rate would decrease.

What do you think? Is it worth thinking a bit before getting married?

2. Nhat Hanh spends a part of his book explaining a mental Diet for a Mindful Society (chapter 8). He goes through Five Mindfulness Trainings which are all part of the Buddhist teachings, but what caught my interest was his explanation of a translation issue. He used to use the word “precepts” (shila in the original texts), but he has since learned that the word “precepts” has strong feelings attached to it. Breaking a precept is shameful, bad. However, the word “trainings” (shiksha in the original texts) was commonly used as well and isn’t so emotionally charged. Haven’t got it down pat yet? That’s fine, just do some more reps, do some more training. So he uses “trainings” now.

If the point is to be better people, and if the original texts may not have the exact right word in every right place, we can look mindfully at the literature and change our translations into today.

What do you think? Is it worth thinking a bit about the consequences of word-choice?

3. While saying good-bye in an airport, a friend of Nhat Hanh’s asked if she could get a hug. Such public affection was not what he had grown up with and he realized he was a little uncomfortable in the hug — a curious experience for a Zen teacher. Later, he decided that if he was going to work with people in the West, he would have to understand the culture better. So his answer? He invented something called hugging meditation.

Hugging meditation is a combination of East and West. According to the practice, you have to really hug the person you are hugging. You have to make him or her very real in your arms. You don’t just do it for the sake of appearance, patting him on the back two or three times to pretend you are there. You are really there, so you do not have to do that. You breathe consciously while hugging, and you hug with all your body, spirit and heart. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, he is so precious to me.” While you hold him and breathe in and out three times, the person in your arms becomes real, and you become very real also. When you love someone, you want him to be happy. If he is not happy, there is no way you can be happy. Happiness is not an individual matter. [my emphasis] True love requires deep understanding. If you do not understand, you cannot love properly. Without understanding, your love will only cause the other person to suffer. (p.57,)

What do you think? Is it worth looking at a hug as a meditation?

I will continue with Touching Peace later this week with some quotations, recommendations and final thoughts.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Beyond Belief, book review | Comments Off


« Older Entries