My Recent Progress...

I write today with a renewed sense of reality. As most of you probably know, I haven't been myself since February when Lindsey and I broke up. There have been a lot of really difficult things that have happened in my life since then, but I've managed to keep it all together for the most part. Still, the past four months have been surreal, causing me to grow and change in some very unexpected ways.

Lindsey's back in town, and we've seen each other a few times, which has been very good for me. It's caused me to think more about what happened between us, why we fell apart, and how it all made me feel. I should have dealt with those feelings before now, I know, but I couldn't quite bring myself to truthfully embrace them. I needed a bit of distance from it all. Now that she's here, I'm figuring out how to get past it, which is giving me a refreshed sense of self-compassion. Thank you, Lindsey.

I also write today with a renewed sense of audience. There have been some times in the last few months that I've been less than respectful to people of some belief systems. Part of this was because I had been hurt and am learning to work through some of my old animosity, but part of it was just out of ignorance, and I'm sorry. It's sad because this is part of what I detested about other blogs, yet I still fell into the same trap of using this blog as a soap box instead of a planting box for my thoughts. Again, I'm sorry. As Derrida commented, this isn't MY blog. This is OUR blog, and my thoughts are completed only when others read them and reflect upon them.

This goes for real life, too, not just the blogosphere. Real life is full of real people, and if you're stuck in pain and self-centricities, you'll never realize that. You'll never be open to who people really are, how much they can love you, how much you can love them back. I've been there the past few months as well, and I don't like it. But I can only get past it by rebuilding myself enough to be able to extend my self-compassion to those around me. I know that.

Which brings me to the actual point of this post. I've been reading a great book a friend of mine from work lent me called "The Lost Art of Compassion" by Dr. Lorne Ladner. It's a phenomenal book that works through Buddhism through the lens of psychology, showing how the brain uses desire as a self-defense mechanism to help cope with death and loss. I'm having a great time with it, and I'm also realizing that though I've heard the Four Noble Truths many times before, they're put into a new light in this book which makes me not only understand them better, but internalize them and come to know the validity of them.

Realizing that only when I fully understand the idea of impermanence can I live fully in the present moment and love myself and others completely and unabashedly, I'm going to spend the next week or so meditating on the propensities of this idea. I'll spend time reflecting upon my death, the death of those around me, the loss of physical and mental attributes over time, loss of material possessions, etc. The whole point is to help my ego understand that everything is fleeting. Pain is fleeting, yes; this is the easy part of the equation to realize. But happiness is just as fleeting unless it takes as its foundation the simple idea that nothing is forever. I am not forever. You are not forever. From there I can cultivate a mind of compassion for the present moment which is grounded in the reality of life, not in the illusions my ego projects for me.

I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes. Have a great day everybody!

Better Late than Never...

So I know it's a bit late, but finals week had me a bit busier than I thought I would be, so I didn't have the time to put up the results of my Eastern Religions and Philosophies project.

I'll start with a brief description for those who weren't directly involved. I sent out a quick questionnaire to a lot of Buddhist bloggers and also posted the same questionnaire on the Buddhist community over on my sidebar ( --> ). The questionnaire had four pretty easy questions:

1. How did you get acquainted with the teachings of the Buddha?
a. If you weren’t a Buddhist your whole life, which tradition did you grow up in? Why did you leave that tradition (if you did)?
2. What, if any, religion or philosophy do you associate yourself with currently? Could you describe your faith a bit?
3. Which of the Buddhist teachings do you find most valuable in your everyday life? Why?
4. Describe your interaction in the Buddhist community. Why do you participate, what brought you to the site, etc.

I ended up getting 20 solid responses which I built my paper upon. Here's a description of the results I synthesized from the responses.

1) Interestingly enough, fourteen of the responses said they came to Buddhism from some Catholic or Anglican background. This statistic is waaay off the demographic statistic for these two faiths. What this says to me is that of all the Westerners who leave a tradition to become Buddhist, Catholics/Anglicans are the most likely to do so. I think this is because of the fact that those traditions (which are very similar) both emphasize suffering, but it is in a helpless, dogmatic way. Instead of saying that we are all suffering but we can take steps to fix it (Buddhism), the Catholic/Anglican tradition says that we are all suffering but it is because we are inherently tainted by original sin. Buddhism offers a more action oriented, less helpless solution which appears to attract Westerners.

2) Most of the people who responded mentioned the Buddha's last words, "Be ye lamps unto yourselves," in one way or another. I think this fits in well with the previous point. People aren't looking for dogma or solutions fed to them that says something to the effect of, "this is the truth, and if you don't believe it you're going to hell," which is the vibe that a lot of Christian traditions tend to give off (there is evidence in monotheistic texts that pluralism is a viable option, by the way, but most churches lean more towards exclusivism).

3) In following point 2, most of the Buddhists who responded call themselves some form of "atheist Buddhist," which tells me they shy away from any mystical, speculative form of the religion. Concepts like reincarnation, the five skandhas, store consciousness, etc, are thrown out the window. What is kept are the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path (though this point is arguable), and the deep rooted sense of compassion instilled in the tradition.

4) I think all of these points put together lend itself to the fact that through globalization and the ecumenical blog-o-sphere, we're seeing the development of a new philosophy. The responses people gave were not Buddhism, but some form of Buddhism-influenced secular humanism. People aren't interested in finding their way out of Samsara and entering into Nirvana, but rather using Buddhism's truths as an ethical system to make themselves and the world around them better. The voice I heard in the surveys was a voice of a developing idea based on impermanence, compassion, and suffering, but it is circling more around social justice, equality, and reason than towards the actual religion of Buddhism, which has a lot of mysticism and speculative faith-based parts to it.

I think it was a really cool project, and it showed me a lot. I hope to keep up with everyone's blogs to see how this trend develops and what comes out of it.

Works or Grace?

I've been meaning to post on this subject for a while but the time has just gotten away from me. The topic I wish to discuss stems from Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Living Buddha Living Christ, in which he discusses the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity and how we can better learn to love each other. A very interesting book for those that are up for a light, intriguing read.

Thich Nhat Hanh's theory works from a Buddhist perspective, but I'm not sure about how well pluralism works from a Western perspective, which is what I'd like to figure out. Perhaps there are some beliefs of Buddhism that work well with Christianity (mindfulness, interconnectedness, the detachment from worldly outcomes), but I tend to think that Christianity is more about right belief than right action, which I think is a shame. If it were just about right action, the world religions would all get along for the most part without much worry, but they fight over beliefs most of the time.

In John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the father accept through me." Most Christians rely on this verse to prove that ONLY a belief in Christ will get them to the afterlife, but I think the way it is worded could lend itself to orthodoxy or orthopraxy. The word "through" could mean either belief or action. Saying "the way, the truth, and the life" could emphasize action more than belief. Either way, I think that the verse is insufficient evidence to back up the notion that belief is what is most important in Christianity.

What is a very compelling argument for orthodoxy over orthopraxy is more theoretical. For Buddhists, action and the way we encounter the world is more important because you get an eternity to get it right. No matter what you believe, you've got another shot at it in the next life. Christianity is not the same though. The fact that a Christian life is linear makes belief and grace the only way to go. Not everyone has the same circumstances in life, so it wouldn't be just to judge everyone by their actions due to the fact that not everyone has the same upbringing. In a linear lifetime, the only thing that makes sense is grace and a belief system of forgiveness.

This is just prima facie thoughts on the matter. I'm not sure what I believe or if I'm on the right track at all, but it's an interesting subject. What's more important: right action or right belief? Orthodoxy or orthopraxy? Works or grace? We may never know this side of eternity.

A Major Struggle...

Okay, so I know I have lots of people who have a Buddhist perspective who actually read this blog, so I'm asking for your help. I'm really lost and confused and it's all Buddhism's fault! Here's my dilemma:

I think Buddhism makes a lot of sense. Logically, I can follow it and it doesn't seem to be as contradictory as other things. The idea of anatman is both the most attractive thing about it and the thing that makes me hate it at the same time. I think it's attractive because it captures my intuitions about my Self. If I have a soul or Atman, what the hell is it? How do I define it? What is it made of? Where is it located? I can't explain any of these things. For me, all I can say exists is me as a body and as a thinking substance.

Also, we've been talking about personal identity in my classical problems in philosophy course. From everything we've studied so far, I can make no claims that I have a personal identity separate from everyone else that is distinctly me throughout time. Only a body separates us and makes me me and you you. From that vantage point, it seems like anatman makes sense as well.

Even still, I can't be at peace with it. Here's why:

I feel like by accepting Buddhism, I'm accepting a worse notion of human nature than original sin. If all life is impermanent and suffering, then our existence is a cosmic accident. We are a result of some accidental craving and clinging and the solution to the problem of humanity is to attain Nirvana. It seems like it belittles not just my inherited bad nature, but my very existence to a problem. Thus I enter Nihilism and it seems like everything I do is worthless. All I'm doing is perpetuating the human problem.

Everyone keeps telling me that Buddhism is happy and compassionate, but it doesn't seem that way to me. It seems like it's telling me that I'm worthless and I need to be dissolved. It's really hard for me right now because Buddhism makes more sense to me than anything else I've studied thus far, but in order to fully accept it I feel like I have to become a Nihilist and believe that there is nothing of value. We're all utterly meaningless and worthless in this big cosmic accident.

On a side note, I hate the thing that religions do. They make it so if you disagree with them, you appear to be stupid or eternally damned. From Christianity's perspective, if I don't accept I'm going to hell. From Buddhism's perspectives, if I don't buy into anatman, I have wrong views and am craving and clinging. Dammit!

Nirvana...

I think I've figured something out that I was struggling with. For a while I believed that I had found a hole in Buddhism; that it was wanting to have its cake and eat it too. I think I'm wrong. What am I talking about?! Of course I'm wrong! I'm 19! I'm always wrong! Anywho, I learned something today that made me think about things in a different way metaphysically. First I have to preface this post with two seemingly unrelated ideas that I've been pushing around in my head.

Thought one:
In my Modern Philosophy class, we've been talking about John Locke. Locke started talking about substratum. The easiest way to understand this is to think about an object (a cup, say). Okay, so this cup is metallic, shiny, has shape, extension, etc. It has a myriad of properties. What holds these properties together? Whatever that mysterious substance is is the substratum of that object. Philosophers have struggled for a while with substratum. Locke thinks that substratum is a mental process of assimilating these properties into a single object. We learn it through experiencing the world. I'm not sure, but it's a cool thing to think about.

Thought two:
In my Eastern Religions and Philosophies course, we've been discussing Buddhism. The thing I've been struggling with is the idea of reincarnation, specifically in relation to the skandhas. Buddhism has this belief that a person is made up of five skandhas. When you die, these skandhas break apart and come back together to recreate you in a new form. They are essentially what carries your personality and traits from life to life. The problem I was having is this: What is the substratum of the skandhas? What holds them together after you die? It isn't the self (like a soul or something) because Buddhism rejects the notion of the self. It just felt to me like Buddhism was saying, "It just works! It's magic!" Without resolving this notion, it didn't seem like reincarnation would work for Buddhism in my eyes. It seemed like you had to have some central self, like the Atman for Hinduism, in order to hold all of this stuff together.

Tonight the two issues collided while I was reading for Eastern. The Buddha says, "There is, monks, an unborn, not become, not made, uncompounded, and were it not, monks, for this unborn, not become, not made, uncompounded, no escape could be shown here for what is born, has become, is made, is compounded." When I pair that with the idea that instead of an Atman, Buddhism claims we have Nirvana at our core, and with the idea that Locke says substratum cannot be explained because it has no properties at all, it makes a lot of sense. It seems like Nirvana is the substratum for things in the world. It has no qualities, yet it is at the core of everything. It holds our skandhas together, yet does not add to anything since it is essentially "not existing." It cannot be claimed to exist since it has no qualities at all. Kinda cool.

What I find myself doing, even still, is using the name "nirvana" to describe nothing. I think it's strange that in my mind I imagine "nirvana" holding these things together, when in reality it is nothing. What I wonder is whether nirvana truly is nothing, or whether it is something which cannot be described or have attributes and qualities ascribed to it. Perhaps it is not "nothing," but only an "indescribable something." Another interesting though.

Belief vs. Action...

So an idea has been running through my head lately, and it has been brought to the surface by a book I'm currently reading titled, "Letter to a Christian Nation," by Sam Harris. Sam Harris, who also wrote "The End of Faith," is an atheist writer (a cohort of Richard Dawkins) and is intent on proving Christianity false and ridding the world of religious dogma. On this idea, I have two general side notes I'd like to discuss this evening.

First, let us assume that there is no God, that all religions are inherently lying to their followers, spirituality is a human construct, and positivism reigns supreme. Would it still be wrong for people to believe in these religions and cling to them?

This is one of the main problems I see with Harris's arguments. Even if Harris's atheism is correct, why would you try to stop people from believing in something bigger than themselves? At their very hearts, every religion is built upon the Golden Rule and learning to love others more thoroughly. It is a code of moral ethics in order for us to better cope with this world and the people in it. What is wrong with that? Why would you try to rid the world of a system set in place to create more morally responsible beings?

Here, I'm sure I'm being overly optimistic and unrealistic in my views of world religions, which can also be used for base purposes, but I'm being intentionally idealistic. I think that the core of world religions is idealistic. In practice, it never works out to be quite so noble, but the ideal is there for people to follow and try to become better through it, no?

The second thought that Sam Harris's book brings to my mind is more of a question than a point. Harris spends a great deal of time talking about how these moral codes that Christianity professes and claims as their own (the ten commandments) are basically implanted into human genetics. We're born with a basic sense of right and wrong, and that helps us propagate our species. It serves a purpose.

Here's what I have a question with in that regard: Is salvation based upon believing in something, or in acting it out properly? Suppose a Buddhist monk works hard her or his entire life to become an exemplary person and succeeds to that end. Now imagine a convict in prison for killing his or her entire family, but this particular convict claims to believe in Jesus Christ. Clearly, the Buddhist monk, who has worked his or her entire life to cultivate compassion and love, is actually living out the precepts of Christianity better than the convict, who clearly does not follow Christ's teachings, but claims to be Christian.

Which is better? Do you think Jesus was more concerned about people living out a faith in HIS name, or living correctly, no matter whose name the follower professes, Buddha or otherwise?

It's hard to have this conversation with myself and not find myself completely smothered in dualism. I'm pretty sure this isn't a black and white conversation, but starting it out as a black and white conversation is a great way for the two to come together under the banner of discussion and create something closer to reality, right? Either way, just some food for thought.

Random things I've been thinking about....

Recently, in my Harry Potter book, Harry talks about looking up in a house and seeing a bewitched ceiling that looked like a beautiful night sky, shooting stars and all. Would its beauty be belittled simply because he knew it wasn't real? What if we were to realize that this reality isn't real? Would it belittle the beauty of what surrounds us knowing that it isn't the true reality?

I feel like seeking enlightenment is very selfish. Sure, one can meditate for their entire lives and perhaps glimpse the reality of life, but would your life have been better served moving to Africa and helping orphans of AIDS virus?

I feel like so much of life is what we make it to be. If we're looking for racism in our everyday life, we'll find racism. If we're looking for God's voice in life, we'll hear God's voice. Your mentality towards the situations you encounter has so much to do with how you encounter your situations. Oh goodness. I sound so post modern it scares me.

I've been struggling with the character of Jesus Christ lately. Christianity is the only faith, to my knowledge, that claims to have an absolute grip on the afterlife ("no one comes to the father except through me"). So, logically it would make sense to be a Christian. If you're wrong, you get another chance. If you're right, you go to Heaven. Is there another religion that stakes its entire claim on a man that walked around on this planet as God? It just seems interesting to me.

Here at home I'm an echo chamber. I have lots of things that I think about and nobody to rebound my thoughts on and have conversation. I'm isolated. Often times before I have time to put my thoughts onto my blog, I forget about them or dismiss them as childish and stupid.

Yesterday I was on my daily bike ride. When I was looking around at the houses in my new town (I recently moved into the deep ozarks of MO), I realized how poverty stricken my town is. Here I am riding a $1k bike with my iPod strapped to my arm through this poor community, and I feel like I don't appreciate, or even deserve, anything that I have. This makes me appreciate everything even more, knowing that I don't deserve it. I stood up on my bike and rode it up a grueling hill harder than I thought I could just to prove myself worthy of this equipment I own. It all sounds kinda stupid, but I felt terrible. It's really late, so I'm probably not making any sense.

Means to an End...

Lately there have been a lot of questions in my mind, like from the post about koans, that are really interesting to ponder. The answers aren't as important as the questions in most cases, and you really can't tell what the answer is if you wanted to. Such things like, "Does anything exist outside of my mind or is this all just in my head?" Thanks again, Lindsey. ;)

My question for the day is this: What is the end and what are the means? Why are we good? Are we good just for the sake of being good here and now, or are we good so that we can say that we were good here and go to heaven later? Do the intentions matter, or is the only thing that matters the action and not its motivation? I mean, I guess as long as you're doing good things, you're doing good things, right? Hmmmm

I think Mother Culture of modern-day Christianity is trying to tell me that the ends matter. We're good so we can go to heaven. God has a huge blackboard where He is keeping tally of the good things I do in my life so I'll have a cooler set of wings and a shinier halo when I get up there, right? I really detest this idea, though. My inner Buddhist/Taoist is saying that focusing on the future and doing things in order to store up for the future is the wrong idea. Be here now.

Well actually....

I'm pretty sure Jesus would disagree with Mother Culture here too. I think that is one of the lessons he tried to teach people that they didn't quite get. Teaching to a very rules-based Jewish community, it was difficult for him to get the point across. Being good here and now is a good thing just for the sake of being good here and now.

Perhaps that's why heaven is such a difficult place to get to, according to the texts. You have to forget about it in order to reach it. If you're focusing on heaven, doing good things is meaningless. You have to be doing good things just for the sake of helping people, to develop love, to be a humanitarian. Once you forget about heaven, you'll have achieved it.

Kinda like enlightenment and nirvana. One cannot meditate with nirvana and enlightment in mind. You'll never get anywhere.

The lines are all blurring in my mind....

It's highly probably that this post sucks. I'm kinda tired...

On a different note, today I came to terms with my move and with changes in general. I'm always looking for metaphors for my life that I find in nature. The seasons change, animals don't long for possessions, stuff like that. My realization today came from a beautiful sunset I saw. It was gorgeous, peering out from behind some dark clouds in complimentary shades of purple, orange, yellow, and red. Perfect...

So I was thinking about how stupid it would be to say as the sun was setting, "Don't set yet!!! Stay here with me a little longer!!! You're so beautiful! I want to hold on to you!" No. You just love it, let it be a part of you for a while, and then let it go with the memory you've just made. You realize that tomorrow there will be another sunset with its own unique beauty.

Life is a lot like that. Stages and times in life will come and go. Instead of holding onto them and mourning the loss, just go with it knowing that something just as beautiful is only a day away. Everything happens for a reason. Today's sunset means that the sun gets to rise again tomorrow. I'm okay with that thought.

Reincarnation...

I was working today with one of my best friends, Noah. He's a deep thinking kind of guy that took a few religion classes and is just fun to have discussions with. Not to mention he and I can just be goofy and weird together, which is a great tension breaker when you have twenty frappuccinos to make in a row. Anyway, we were sitting outside on our lunch break discussing some Buddhist stuff and it made me think a bit.

Suppose I kill flies all day because they're pissing me off and buzzing in my face. I've planted some bad karma and might come back as a fly for the next hundred lives or so. I can understand the punishment aspect, the lessons being learned from the lives you will live as a fly, etc. Here's what I can't grasp: What was I in my last life? Because I don't know what I was in my last life, I can't get behind the idea. Here's why.

If I don't know what I was in my last life, how am I supposed to be learning a lesson? I don't know what I did wrong, so it seems unjust that I am being punished for it in this life. I hear Buddhists on a discussion blog that I read every day talking about how unjust the Christian God is for sending people to hell for their lives. How is this any different? I don't think that being turned into a fly is fair if when you're a fly you don't remember why you were turned into a fly.

This leads me to a little more thinking.

Does the fly get bad karma for bugging the hell out of you? What if the fly bugs humans aaaaaaaall day because he hates humans? Will he come back as a human in the next life? Then what is punishment and who defines it? I'm kinda lost and the whole thing doesn't make sense to me.

Some of my Buddhist friends tell me "don't bother why hypotheticals. Just live in the moment and worry about yourself!" Well, you know what? Hypotheticals are my life. They strengthen my faith. If a faith can't stand up to hypotheticals and explain something, it seems to lack credibility. People that say, "Just believe and go with it!" really bother me. Blind faith is a really poor way to live in my personal opinion. Life is still good, I just had to vent out that paragraph.

A lesson learned on forgiveness...

Last night I was confronted with the cold reality that forgiveness is essential to my existance and contentment on this planet. I've heard professors and advocates of eastern religions state that the one of the main differences between eastern religions and christianity is the view of the human soul and the need for forgiveness [and perhaps they are correct on a more general basis, such as original sin (which, curiously enough, wasn't a precept of christianity until Augustine stuck his nose into theology)], but I am here to say that all men and women of all creeds must rely on forgiveness in order to acheive contentment, the goal of existance.

I have done things. Things which I regret. Things which I wish I had not done but have done in selfishness and lack of self control. Even years after the even has transpired, I have yet to feel whole again. There are parts of me I have left behind in rage and disgust, in fear and trembling. The forgiveness which I am most discussing here is the need to forgive and be forgiven here on earth by those whom we have transgressed and who have transgressed us. I cannot be fully myself, I cannot have those pieces of myself I have left behind, until I have asked for them back from people I have wronged in the past.

It is a wonderful act of selflessness, to ask for forgiveness, for most times it is selfishness that led one to the predicament in the first place. To ask for forgiveness means losing one's pride, fear of rejection, inhibitions, etc. The christian emphasis on asking for forgiveness is a regular practice in losing huberus, on losing one's sense of self, on becoming one with those around us and creating harmony in ourselves, our neighbors, and the community in which we live. My buddhist, taoist, confucian, and possibly even a humble agnostic friends can agree with me on these points.

I have two main difficulties with forgiveness. The first is that it needs to be sincere. If one does not truly understand their transgressions and feel sorry for what they have done, the acquisition of forgiveness is worthless. You have to lose the pride that stands in your way and humble yourself to the idea that you are not perfect, that you have screwed up, that you are not always correct in your actions, and that you have a wish to ammend that wrong. Without this criteria, I'm not positive it can be called "forgiveness." It is definately empty. I even debate with myself as to whether the God of christianity grants forgiveness to those who ask but do not feel with their hearts. I don't believe God does, but greater theologians than I would disagree. Perhaps we won't know on this side of eternity.

This brings me to my second main problem, which is the fear I have that when I ask for forgiveness, it will not be granted to me. You see, forgiveness is a two way street. Perhaps I have hurt people in ways they are not strong enough to overcome and forgive me. It scares me that my transgressions have permanently impaired me. The people I have hurt will not allow me to be whole again. This is something I have no control over, just think about.

The religions of the world have so much in common. I wish people would stop looking at difference and start looking more at similarities. In practice, there is very little difference between buddhism, humanitarianism, christianity, taoism, confucianism, hindu, and the like. We all have the same actions, just slightly different motives. The problem arises when people poorly follow these faiths and pawn themselves off as masters, but that is a different post for a different day. For now, let us embrace forgiveness as a practice of losing one's self and pride and trading it in for contentment and peace.