Review of Volume 1 of Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom

Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom - Volume 1 Sutra by Kelsang Gyatso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a good overview and practical manual for learning to walk the Buddhist path. It's similar to The Words of My Perfect Teacher: A Complete Translation of a Classic Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Sacred Literature Trust Series) , but this has more actual examples of meditations to use in daily practice.

(It is Volume 1 of 3, all of which were free on Amazon.com at the time I got my copy.)

If you are even a little interested in Buddhism in general, and/or Tibetan Buddhism in particular (esp. as it has evolved in our time and in the "West"), this is an excellent place to start.

It covers several levels, which I have only found similarly in the Dalai Lama's Becoming Enlightened . Here they are laid out in a way that was more clear to me.

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I Choose to Live in Happiness

Life is too short to get caught up in other peoples' negativity.  Someone will always try to make you feel inferior, to feel like a loser, to feel like you are stupid.  It is up to you to allow these things to make you feel inferior, or like a loser, or to feel stupid.  Your thoughts are what will make you feel positive or negative, angry or not.

You can control your mind and you can train it to be positive in the face of the barrage of negativity from those who believe they are better than you, but are in reality hypocrites, because they don't even live up to their own professed values that they accuse you of failing to live up to.  And, yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition!

I will be happy and I will win!  Happiness comes from within.  I choose to let that happiness have the prominent place in my life.

I will live in love and compassion.  I will help as many other people to find happiness as I am able.  I know that I will not, indeed: CANNOT, help everyone.  But, I will in all cases, be myself.  If you can handle that, I appreciate it; if you can't, I will do it anyway!

I choose a happy life! :-D

Peace!

Too Good Not to Share

I have attempted to tell people this, but they simply do not want to believe it.  Their wrong beliefs regarding other religions are nearly as strong as the beliefs they have for their own.

It seems as if religious faith and open mindedness cannot co-habitate in the same mind--at least in the cases I have encountered.

Don't be closed minded....

Think About It

Agnostic Seeking

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

- Albert Einstein

For awhile now I have called myself an atheist.  I’m probably more of an agnostic, because I still look for something outside myself and something that could be called a “spirituality” (yet, paradoxically without spirits or other super-natural beings).  That being said,  I still believe there are no gods, goddesses, divine beings, spirits, ghosts, demons….  There is no way to be absolutely certain, one way or the other, I know, but from my experience (which is no more than most religious believers use to argue their points for those things), the evidence is stacked against their existence.  So, on my agnostic scale, I lean more toward atheist than theist (in all its many forms). 

Understand, I don't scorn religions, belief systems or faith; and I especially have nothing against believers.  I simply seek; I delve into questions on morality, on good and evil (and what those ideas may or may not mean), on whether there is life after death (e.g. eternal life, reincarnation, metempsychosis), and on why very bad things sometimes happen to seemingly very good (or innocent) people. 

I seek answers to these questions in science, literature (sacred and profane), art, current and past world events, conversations with friends and family, and in movies.  Some questions are unanswerable in our existing state of knowledge and awareness, others are trivial and/or unconvincing. All the same, I still ask the questions.

The Responsibility of Freedom

I tend to lean toward Existentialism in my philosophy of life.  So, when I came across this site: Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency, earlier, I had to let others know about this.  This is not the first time I have felt compelled to remind myself and others of the responsibility that comes with freedom.  As a matter of fact, I wrote a blog post about it, which can be read here. 

It was nice to find others that think the way I do in regards to this.  When I read the opening paragraph, I immediately felt as if someone had reached into my mind and pulled the thoughts out and put them into words:

Freedom, from an existential perspective, cannot be separated from responsibility. With freedom comes responsibility. Yet, it is common for many people to seek freedom while trying to avoid responsibility. While, at times, it appears that people may be able to succeed at this, there remains a psychological consequence. This consequence is often not very noticeable, but may find expression through guilt, anxiety, depression, or even anger.

The website makes a distinction between existential freedom and political freedom, such as the freedom of speech.  However, I think they are closely connected, though many people think of American political freedoms as god-given rights which should not be subject to responsibility in any way.  In my post I discussed comments (which I see as a form and example of the freedom of expression, but also as a violation of this existential idea of responsibility), but, of course, responsibility goes beyond that.  However, from reading comments, one can often get a good idea of the way in which people are shirking their responsibility, while exercising their freedom of expression.  

Closely related to this idea is the misconception that has been prevalent in recent years concerning the word “responsibility.”  Somehow, it has obtained the meaning of “the ability to respond.”  Well, it might mean that, but in its truer sense it has a meaning closer to “duty.”  And many people despise that word and that idea.  It sounds too much like work, or worse, slavery. 

Well, all it takes when it comes to our freedoms and the responsibility that goes with them, is a few seconds to ensure that what we say and do does not negatively affect others.  Can you do or say something that will hurt others?  Yes.  But, even if there are not legal consequences, even if they don’t retaliate in some way, you still have consequences.  And as the site mentioned above states, these are often mental or emotional problems. 

I have seen this happen.  I have experienced it in my own life.  I know people who think it is fine (they even brag about it) to just say whatever is on their minds, even if it is hurtful to someone else.  And, yes, they experience anxiety, depression and anger, and even though I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist I am able to tell that they struggle with guilt.  It’s in their speech.  It’s in their behavior.  It’s eating them alive. 

Here is the link to the website again: Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency Please take the time to at least skim it.  It is very informative and useful.

Freedom, Faith and Responsibility - Part 2

To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce.

— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

With this democracy, which I began to look at last time, comes the right to say whatever one wants (within certain bounds, of course). The problem comes from two directions. The first is being faced in the very act of allowing these people to comment and to speak and to flaunt their ignorance and to spread their worthless stupidity all over the place. But, who is to judge what is ignorant or stupid or worthless? Good question? So, those who allow this sort of commenting to continue are trying to show a basic trust in other humans. We should trust each other to do what is right. According to Paulo Freire, without that trust there will never be true democracy.

Now, I want to go back to the American Revolution. They were writing pamphlets and others were writing pamphlets to counter the first pamphlets and there was a serious dialogue happening. The entire process actually helped shape the ideals of the early America. Not that those ideals were complete and perfect, but they were the beginning of democracy in the world and the freedoms that those pamphleteers enjoyed were then written into law so that future generations could blabber away on the internet.

It seems that most people, today, think of the American revolutionaries as quaint old guys and a bunch of windbags that were only interested in not paying taxes. But, they established the very right which allows me to publish this essay on this blog. I have freedom of speech.

There is a cliché that says, “Freedom is never free.” And I believe that, and I’m sure you believe it, too. So, in taking the liberty, not only to write this essay, but to post it for all the world to read, I take that saying into consideration. I do not want to betray your trust and at the same time I have the faith that we as human beings can make democracy the powerful political and social ideal that it has the potential to be. That requires something else, which Paulo Freire mentions: “true words.”

Freire says that true words embody both action and reflection. If action is missing, then we see what we see today on the internet—what Freire calls “verbalism.” Without reflection we get mere “activism.” To truly change things we need both. We need “praxis.” Freire writes, “Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.”¹ So, we have freedom, especially in this country, and every voice should be heard.

Ultimately, it comes down to how we choose to use our voices. We can use them to spread hatred and tension, we can use them to merely throw empty words into empty space where their lack of authenticity will change nothing. Or, we can choose to follow Freire's words of wisdom and we can speak "true words" that engender both action and reflection and thus have power to change our world.

Happy 4th of July! Remember the First Amendment and The Golden Rule!

NOTES:

1.     Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000). 87

Freedom, Faith and Responsibility - Part 1

To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce.

— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Since we're coming up on the month of July, and that reminds me of revolutions, I want to think particularly about the events leading up to the American Revolution. There were people taking the freedom that they believed to be theirs by right and they were using that freedom to write pamphlets.

Today, we are witnessing the largest experiment in democracy that the world has ever seen—the internet. People can comment on just about every news item and if they can’t comment directly, they can save the article on any number of social bookmarking sites. This, is in effect saying to everyone else that this is the news that I think is worth reading.

The problem I have with the democratic, free speech of comments is that many of the comments are irrelevant, degrading to others, disrespectful and some are simply a waste of cyber-ink. But, to take the right to comment away would be worse than if it had never been granted in the first place. So, what is the solution?

Comments are not the only thing. Blogs, “tweets” and status updates on Facebook all share the same pros and cons. It is important to some people to be able to tell the entire world that they just relieved their bowels and are now going out for a night of wild partying. And the next day we get to hear about the hangover!

I know! I don’t have to read these things, but they are there. This is why comments are especially bothersome; one has to read through all the garbage to find one useful or even meaningful comment. People cannot refrain from replying to the first idiot commenter and so the stupidity soon begins to fly and before you know it there are pages and pages of worthless bantering about which President is to be blamed for the color of toilet paper in the bathroom of some backwater gas station. It is asinine and annoying and democratic!

NOTES:

1.     Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000). 87

Sacred/Profane/Spiritual/Secular

Sacred and profane are not mutually exclusive.  If you read sacred literature closely, you will see how it is often the profane that is set aside for destruction, i.e. set aside for the deity.  The meaning of "set aside for destruction" is to "make sacred."

Spirituality and secularism are exclusive.  Or are they?  I have often pondered this question.  I consider myself secular, humanist and atheist, but I also have an aspect to my way of seeing and being that I cannot label anything other than spiritual.  It's not that I believe in fairy tale creatures or deities or ghosts or anything else supernatural.  It is more like a connection to Jung's collective unconscious (a term I find amusing, because to be unconscious is like being, you know, passed-out/fainted/...errr, unconscious).  While I'm not sure how much I hold to this idea, I do have a need to spend time in quiet contemplation, which could be equated to the spiritual practice of meditation -- which I am also interested in.

But, and this is a big-O but, I don't believe that we are genetically spiritual.  Some scientists have found "evidence" of spirituality in the brains of subjects.  I think a good experiment to follow this, is to have atheists go through similar tests, but to use non-spiritual language, images, etc., to see what kind of result they come up with.

No 'God Spot' In Brain, Spirituality Linked To Right Parietal Lobe

“We have found a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but it’s not isolated to one specific area of the brain,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions. “Spirituality is a much more dynamic concept that uses many parts of the brain. Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate individuals’ spiritual experiences.”

There should also be the caveat here: spirituality does NOT by default mean YOUR specific brand of spirituality.  If there is a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, that does NOT mean there is a basis for a deity.  It is non sequitur to reach such a conclusion from this data.

I believe that people can have a form of, what could be called, spirituality without having recourse to deities or spirits.

I also believe that atheists can hold things as sacred.  What do atheists deem as sacred?  Sacredness usually connotes holiness or has a spiritual aspect, but can it not simply mean "set apart"?  They might hold their families as sacred, their friends, their intellect, even science.  They may hold the quiet beauty of the deep forest, or top of a mountain as sacred: not because it is inhabited by a spiritual being, but because it is a place where they can reach the deepest parts of themselves.

Atheists still have faith, right?  So why not sacredness?

Think about the things you consider sacred/profane; and about your outlook: is it more spiritual or secular?

NOTES:

Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Sacred - 1. a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity <a tree sacred to the gods> b : devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) <a fund sacred to charity>

Reading Genius

"The genius of our brain's construction is not that it contains 

a lot of hardwiring but that it doesn't." 

- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows, 31.

It's not bad enough that television kicked our attention spans' collective asses, but it prepared the way for an all out annihilation to it, which has come in the form of the internet.  Email, social media, IM: these all play a part in distracting our minds from whatever productive task we have on our TO DO lists.  Cory Doctorow, as quoted by Carr, writes that "leaving your IM running is like sitting down to work after hanging a giant 'DISTRACT ME' sign over your desk, one that shines brightly enough to be seen by the entire world."  When I think of the telephone ringing, the doorbell sounding, the dogs barking at something only they can hear, the thought of having another potential distraction is more than irksome.

I'm going to say that Carr, in The Shallows, makes some rather sobering points regarding the internet's changing of the human brain.  And, as he passingly mentions, the answer is obviously not to stop using the internet at all costs.  Luddites have a difficult time uniting, with their lack of technology, which is the reason their way of thinking is an exception to actual social acceptance of the  technology they fear and loathe. But I, for one, don't want my brain to be changed in such a way that I am unable to read long, difficult works of literature, and I hope you don't want that for your brain, either.

A good idea, then, is to follow the Buddha; i.e. follow the middle path.  Use the internet to skim information, to grasp the main points of knowledge and to share our own knowledge with others; but, use books and other less distraction prone media for developing depth.  Old fashioned books for depth; new fangled internet for breadth.

Otherwise subsequent generations' attention spans won't be as long as their eye-blinks.

LINKS: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction