Learning vs. Growth

In my previous post, I explained my perspective that logic and science are not at odds with spirituality and religion.  The me from a few years ago would have responded, "Yeah, so what?"

"So what?" is an often under-appreciated question.  The answer is that we need both.  The way I see it, there is a two-dimensional graph.  By science and reason, one progresses along the x, or learning, axis.  And by action and experience, one progresses along the Y, or growth, axis.  Effective action is the goal, and it lies infinitely to the upper-right.

I've seen people who don't value reason and science rely too heavily on their own narrow and biased perceptions.  About once a week, I see one friend or another post some meme on Facebook along the lines of "All you need is love."  I mean no disrespect to fans of Jesus or the Beatles, but you need more than love.  Action born of love and pure intentions can be dangerous and destructive if it is not directed by knowledge and wisdom, hence the proverbial paving of the road to Hell.  With understanding, we can predict (with at least a little accuracy) the outcome of our actions.  Without it, you just try, and then hope for the best.

Think of a charity giving free food to some hungry villagers.  Short term everyone's happy, but the local economy gets thrown off because the farmers can't compete with free, and then they lose revenue they need for investing in next year's crop.  Or think of an overprotective mother who shelters her son.  She genuinely wants to protect the child from harm.  But when he grows up, he can't function as an adult in society.  He never learned how to manage risk and danger.  He was taught to fear strangers, so he misses opportunities to make new friends, and his social life and career stagnate.  Love is not enough!

But knowledge and wisdom alone are not enough either.  Every employer knows that even the best education is no substitute for real world experience.  But I had a tough time figuring out that the lesson applies to psychology as well.  Without a spiritual perspective and orientation, I found my own views could become myopic, and I lacked the tools for psychological growth.  I found certain concepts easy to comprehend in an abstract, academic way, but difficult to actually incorporate into my life.  No amount of reading and learning can make up for a lack of real growth and transformation.

Think of going to the gym as an example.  If I don't learn to exercise properly, I won't benefit as much as I could.  And with bad technique, I actually risk injuring myself, especially as I progress with heavier weights and more intense workouts.  This is why learning is necessary.  But no amount of learning will actually get me in shape.  If I want to increase my strength, flexibility, and endurance I need to show up and do the work.  This is why growth is necessary.  Effective action requires both dimensions.

Buddhist teachings handle this subject well.  The student is encouraged to read the teachings, but also to question them, to think critically, and to acquire knowledge through observation and empirical investigation.  In this way, one learns.  The student is also taught to practice meditation, generosity, and other healthy behaviours.  In this way, the student grows.  Both dimensions are valued.

For a long time, I mistook learning for growth.  Intellectuals often commit this error.  You can see evidence in the emotionally stunted nerd or genius stereotypes (think Good Will Hunting for example).  People like this may understand there's a problem, but they feel helpless.  Without life skills, they're always victims of circumstance.  On the other hand, I had one friend in particular, who I watched continually mistake growth for learning.  This too is common, and it's why a lot of very spiritually oriented people seem so divorced from reality.  They believe the spiritual insight gained through growth has some external, empirical truth to it.  People who make this mistake generally lack the self-awareness to even see there's a problem.  They are content to let emotion or faith guide their actions, indifferent to the damage they cause to others.  Even with a genuine sense of compassion, they'll rationalize the suffering they cause, saying, "It's God's will" or believing their victims will benefit from it in the end (whether true or not).  As obvious as the distinction between growth and learning may sound, it's quite easy to mistake the two.  I'm grateful that I've finally come to understand the difference and to value both.

So if you are lacking growth, as I was, I humbly suggest you begin to adopt a spiritual perspective, focus on improving your behavior and habits, and continually confront whatever makes you uncomfortable.  And if you are on the other end of the spectrum, please challenge your own beliefs and understandings with skepticism, and learn from people who think and act differently than you.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Mind vs. Spirit

Many people in our culture and throughout the world believe there is a war between religion/spirituality and science/logic.  

Intellectuals can often be dismissive of religion.  And whether it's conservative Christians on the right or new age idealists on the left, many religious people view intellectualism and academia with fear and distrust.  They belief that science attempts to disprove the existence of God.  And people like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss,contend that it already has.

I know there are a lot of people in the Western world who don't fully buy into the conclusions of either side.  But I haven't found many examples of the divide being bridged.  Maybe people are avoiding the cognitive dissonance of engaging the two sides simultaneously, or maybe those that have figured it out are getting stifled out of the conversation by the polarization.

I agree with all premises and arguments made by the intellectual side of the debate.  But despite those positions, I don't agree with the conclusions that God's nonexistence is proven (or imminently will be) nor that spiritual practice is a useless delusion.

You've probably read about primitive people who believed that thunder and lightning were evidence of angry gods.  Today, even staunch religious believers find this idea quaint because we know lightning is caused by static energy in the atmosphere.  Nonetheless even liberal religious people today continue to use the same process of reasoning.  For example, they assume that life could not have spontaneously arose without God, because they can't imagine another explanation.

And right there is the biggest piece of the problem.  Religious fundamentalists and hardcore atheists actually agree on one fundamental premise.  They share the belief that a (or even the) primary function of religion is to explain the phenomena of the world   I won't be the first to argue against the premise, but no one in the public debate is challenging it.

I was watching a Steven Hawking documentary where he implied that God does not exist, when he said that science has no need for God when explaining how the universe works.  But I realized, if you don't defer to religion for its explanatory function, then Hawking's statement can be accepted, without any offense to religion.  Christian theologians who understood science defended religion by explaining that the God they believe in is not the God of the gaps.

Scientists ask how things work, not why.  "Why" is about purpose and value, and that's the realm of religion.  Virtually everyone agrees that science should never even attempt to answer"why" questions.  So why is it so difficult to think that religion should stop answering "how" questions?  If it does stop, the conflict between religion and science pretty well evaporates.

What about Genesis?  Every religion I've heard of has an origin story that explains how the world began and how people came to be.  Does this perspective mean it's all bullocks?  Not necessarily.  As I've learned from Joseph Campbell, religious and mythic stories and texts were never meant to be interpreted literally.  He's not claiming that there was a time when literal interpretation didn't occur.  But I'm learning that myths can reveal things that are spiritually or psychologically valid, even if they are empirically false.

I've heard people of various religious backgrounds say, 'we are all children of God.'  Do they mean that God actually gave birth to each of us or that God literally inseminated our respective mothers?  The question is absurd.  We all intuitively understand that they are speaking of spiritual truth, not empirical truth.  Even a hardcore atheist who disputes the validity of the statement understands that it speaks to a non-empirical realm.

So I've learned to expand that perspective to all religious texts.  When reading religion or spirituality, I don't ask "does this seem empirically true?"  Rather I ask, "is it useful, or does it offer insight?"

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Unlearning and Learning

As I discussed in my last blog entry, growing is not the same as learning.  Even when the two are related, growth often has dimensions that are beyond the scope of thought and knowledge.  Many times, I've been told that spiritual growth requires unlearning.  I've certainly learned that there is truth to this.  Especially in the West, we are taught many ideas and perspectives that inhibit psychological and spiritual growth and prevent an integrated, holistic view of the human experience.

Despite the admitted dangers of overvaluing intellectualism, I've seen people take the idea of unlearning  too far, adopting fearful, dismissive, and hostile views of academic learning and rational thought.  They seem to believe that enlightenment is a regression to some “pure” state of the mind that exists before the polluting influence by earthly ideas.  The implication of this reasoning is that babies are enlightened beings, and perhaps so are animals. 

Babies are able to live more fully in the present moment than most adults are   Their perceptions are not distorted by problematic mental constructs.  And they may resonate to subtle empathetic energies (if you believe in that sort of thing) more easily than most adults who are not empaths.  Despite all this, I do not think babies are enlightened. 

The qualities of presence, unclouded perception, and interconnectedness may be necessary for (or perhaps symptomatic of) enlightenment.  But they are not sufficient.  Most of us have had experiences in our lives when we were fully present in the moment, and we did not achieve enlightenment.  Recently psychologists have been studying flow, but notice this is not the study of enlightenment.  Our perceptions are inevitably distorted by our knowledge, beliefs, and opinions. But these mental objects give meaning and context to our perceptions.  For example if you listen to someone speak your native language, you will have a difficult time focusing on the aural qualities of the syllables and sibilances of the speech.  Your mind will be occupied by attaching meaning to the words and vocal inflections.  If however, you listen to someone speaking an unfamiliar tongue, you will find it easy to focus on the subtle qualities of the vocal sound, but you'll have little understanding of the content of the speech.  Without knowledge, we don't gain much from our perceptions.  Unfortunate as it may be, the informative and distorting aspects of knowledge on perception are two sides to the same proverbial coin.

If learning was not necessary for balanced spiritual practice, then there would be no need for the great spiritual teachers.  Lao Tzu and Gautama Buddha stated that their teachings are only a framework for spirituality, acknowledging that transformation, growth, and experience cannot be taught.  But they apparently believed that teaching the framework was worth their time and effort.

Our perceptions, beliefs, and knowledge are all interdependent on each other, so to some extent, this whole thing might be a bit academic.  But I think it's important to respect the place of intellectual activity in a holistic spiritual life.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

There Is No Try

“Do.  Or do not.  

There is no try.” 

-George Lucas

Yoda's teaching is simple, beautiful, and brilliant, but frustratingly elusive.  I've been given the same advice many times by my more spiritually oriented friends.  What does the this lesson really mean for someone who is stuck trying?

How do I stop trying, and start doing?  There is not much of a logical answer to be found.  The real answer lies beyond the realm of intellect and reason.  As I've tried to overcome depression, I've continuously asked myself and others this question.  And the lack of any coherent answer from anywhere just added to my sense of despair.  I just kept trying.  And then I tried even harder.

But recently, things have begun to change.  I think I am no longer trying, but doing.  Even so, I cannot really tell you the difference between the two.  It’s mostly just a feeling, and a subtle one even at that.  For what little I can say, part of doing is a shift to process orientation.  And instead of tries or attempts, actions can be viewed as practice.  Part of doing is thinking "when I succeed" rather than "if I succeed."  But these are peripheral things.  Most of doing is much less tangible.

Another part is letting go – letting go of the goal, letting go of the self, and even letting go of the action.  It’s like giving up, but it’s also totally different.  And there is where we leave the realm of reason.  To put it into words, into logic, even into thoughts is folly.  I can’t even begin to understand it myself, let alone explain it to you.

For one inclined towards intellectualism as I am, it can be difficult to accept the absolute limits of logic.  But those limits are clear to me, as I continue to run up against them in my journey of spiritual growth.

We cannot understand beauty, only behold it.  We cannot understand how to exist, even though we do it without effort.  There is no algorithm for producing meaning and significance.

As a seeker of knowledge and wisdom, I wish I understood the difference between trying and doing.  And I wish I could share the secret with you.  It's a bit discouraging.  But based on my experience, there is little to know.  As such, I fear I have not really learned anything.  But growth is different than learning.  And I am sure that I've grown.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Process Orientation

In my recent readings including Ellen Langer's Mindfulness, I've come across the concept of process orientation a few times.  This seems to be one ingredient to sustainable happiness.

Most of us have a goal orientation in our perspectives and thoughts.  When I was a child, I would ask, “Why do I have to go to school?”  My parents would respond, “So you can graduate and get a job.”  But why do I need a job?  I need a job so that I can pay bills and support myself.  With this line of thinking, every action is done in order to achieve something else.  Nothing is done for its own merits.

Process orientation is training your mind to focus on the process at hand, rather than the goal it will achieve.  It's a perspective, or even a belief, that whatever action you are performing, the action has merit in itself.  The idea is to find meaning and joy in the performance rather than (or at least in addition to) the result.  Process orientation does not necessarily mean abandoning goals, but more a shift in focus.  It means placing more importance on an action than its outcome.  And failure, which is always defined by a goal, is interpreted as meritorious action, as part of a process, and as an opportunity for learning.

Process orientation acknowledges that there is no such thing as perfection.  It is an orientation towards learning, growth, and progress, instead of achievement, accomplishment, and success.

Process orientation is a meditation.  It is a practice of mindfulness, and it requires presence in the moment.  It is engagement in life. 

After learning about process orientation, I could see the benefits, but it seemed like a daunting task to train my mind in this new perspective.  So I kept the thought in back of my mind, but I didn't do a lot with it.

A few months later, I was having a conversation on an online dating site with a woman who told me it’s important that her partner have ambition.  I responded that I don’t aspire to wealth or prestige.  My ambitions are to be happy, to be educated, to be wise, to be a good friend, to live a life of integrity, and to have a positive impact on the world and people around me.  But these are not goals, and by extension maybe not ambitions.  Happiness, wisdom, and integrity have no final end points.  I’ll never say, “I can stop learning now, since I've already accomplished my goal of being educated.”

And I immediately realized that this is process orientation!  Already I've been making that shift in my mind.  It's not complete, but I find comfort and a sense of accomplishment that I am making progress.


Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Who Am I? Part II - Non-Self

To recap my previous post, I tried to answer the question “Who am I?” without referring to my physical form, my personality, my beliefs, my memories, or anything else that is an attribute of or derived from my mind or body.  I could answer ‘I am consciousness’, or ‘I am a child of God’, or ‘I am an immortal soul connected to the Source’, or something similar.  But these answers aren't very descriptive.

Maybe the question, “Who am I?” is not a very good question to ask.  Maybe there is something wrong with the question.  Underlying it are some assumptions.  First of all, the question assumes that the act of being (the singular “am”) is performed individually and separately from others.  Secondly, there is the assumption that the self (or  “I”)  has a significant distinction from other people, or from the universe as a whole.  I think you could debate the merits and faults of these assumptions endlessly.  The third assumption is personhood identity.  Why do we ask “who” rather than “what”?  Let me reword the question to make deconstruction easier.  I am whom?  The "whom" is a question of identity.  But from a soul-centered perspective, identity is something one has, not something on is.  So the question doesn't even make sense.  I instead could ask “I have whom?”  Disregarding how odd the question sounds, it definitely seems less important than the question I began with.

One goal of Buddhist practice is to understand anatta (or non-self).  The self, or the ego, is an impermanent form that we create and recreate continually.  And as marketing professionals can tell you, identity is the strongest attachment that we have.

Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist teachings describe the concept of oneness.  Thich Nhat Hanh put it simply, “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.”  And the doctrine of oneness is more central to Tao and Hindu worldviews than to Buddhism. 

Identity, whether individual or collective, only serves to separate us.  The concept of identity creates a world of ‘us and them’.  This dualistic thinking is one step on a path to arrogance, egocentrism, ethnocentrism, dehumanization,  domination, oppression, conflict, and war.  Some people might point out that the perspective of ‘us and them’ and a sense of healthy competition can be a great tool for motivation.  And they’re probably right.  But what is the cost?  Is there a way to fuel motivation that is less harmful?

I am in the process of trying to disidentify with the ego.  It is extremely difficult, especially for people like me, who grew up in a particularly individualistic and competitive culture.  I have a lot of progress yet to make.  But I believe the benefit for myself and for those around me is worth the effort.

In this post, I've glossed over some very deep concepts in a very short essay.  It took me about two years of learning to be able to write this post and the previous one.  So I don't expect you to agree with or grasp what I've related.  But if you're interested, I encourage you to learn more.  Pick up some books, whether spiritual or psychological that can help you dig deeper into concepts of oneness, non-self, and disidentification with ego.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Who Am I? Part I - Questions of Identity

All of the major religions teach that a person's soul lives on after death.  As a child, I was taught that my spirit would ascend to Heaven, while my body decayed on Earth.  Now I practice Buddhism, which teaches of rebirth.  Regardless of tradition, thinking critically about the soul leads to the same paradox.  All that I know about myself is contained in my brain, but I am also my soul, completely separate and independent from my brain.

If I have a soul or spirit, what is it exactly?  What is its nature?  Can the soul feel and experience things, and if so how?  Does the soul have any memories or knowledge, and if so, how does it store, propagate, and access that information?  Can the soul have thoughts, and if so how?  Can the soul communicate its thoughts and experiences to the mind?  If it can (and does), what is the mechanism, and how can I distinguish between a thought that originates in the soul and one that is of the mind?  If it cannot, then what is its relation to the mind (and to the self that I know)?  What defines and distinguishes my soul from other souls? 

There is one question I've been pondering for the past few years, which I think underlies these others, to some extent.  How does the soul relate to identity?  To put it more directly, if I identify myself as my soul, rather than as my mind and body, then who am I?

My personality, all of my likes and dislikes, my beliefs, my inclinations, and all that I've learned are nothing but neural connections in my brain.  Every thought, every emotion, and every memory exists only in my brain, nowhere else.  Every sensation and experience that I will ever have is filtered through my brain at multiple layers.  Nothing is direct and raw.  My entire identity and everything that I know about myself will be gone the moment I die, if not before.  If I suffer a brain injury, I could become an entirely different person, a different ‘me’.  Just think about Phineas Gage, or think about how long-term lead poisoning can make passive people turn violent.  I’m assuming that brain injuries don’t affect the soul.  But they can clearly affect everything that we define as identity.  By inverse reasoning, we can conclude that the soul plays little if any role in our personality and our behavior. 

So with this understanding, I’ll rephrase a previous question: If my soul plays little or no role in my identity, then how can it possibly be accurate or useful to refer to my soul as me?  From this perspective, the soul that lives on after death cannot be identified as me any more than some cancer cells in a petri dish can be identified as the person, Henrietta Lacks.  My inability to answer this question is a primary reason why I went many years without engaging in spiritual thinking or practice.

Western religions have difficulty with this too.  You can't really engage with this question while believing that Heaven and Hell are anything more than metaphors.  This is a core reason why conflict erupts between religious and non-religious people in the Christian and Muslim parts of the world.

In the East however, Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist philosophies do engage with the question.  They start by inverting the perspective.  As I've phrased it thus far, the body and mind is what I am, and the soul is something within me – something that I have.  Eastern traditions, as I've been learning, teach us to shift our point of view.  I am the soul.  The body and mind are things that I have.  This perspective redefines the entire concept of identity.  Identity is not who I am, it is only a conceptual thing which I possess.  This new perspective is difficult and dangerous.  By dangerous, I mean that a lot of people attempt to see things this way and speak as if they do, but have not truly made the conceptual shift and don't understand the implications.  When they talk about the soul, they either mean identity, or they place the baggage of identity onto the soul.

I asked, "who am I?"  And after deeply exploring the question, I haven't actually answered it. I've only established that from this new perspective, it cannot be accurately answered by the concept of identity.  I am not my personality, beliefs, memories, knowledge, and experiences.  But I still don't know who I am.

I'll be following this post up with a Part II in the relatively near future.  But take some time to think on this first.  For most of us, myself included, it's hard to think of a soul in concrete terms.  And seemingly familiar words like self and identity become slippery and elusive as they're redefined based on shifting perspectives.  I'd imagine this discussion might be easier in some Eastern tongues; English doesn't really have vocabulary or syntax to explain what I'm trying to express.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Being Open-Minded

In 1997 in their song “Nutopia”, Pigface described a generation of people that is “Alive to the universe: dead to the world.”

What does it mean to be open-minded?  What does it mean to be skeptical?  

Generally we think of these two qualities as opposites.  We describe people as being open-minded if they seem generally agreeable when presented with new ideas.  And we describe people as skeptics if they challenge new information and are generally argumentative.  These are bold misuses of the terms, and I’m not just making a semantic statement here.

                                                      

Nearly everyone entertains and accepts new ideas that conform to or align with the views and beliefs that they already hold.  Psychologists call this confirmation bias.  So I don’t define this behavior as being “open-minded”.  It’s just expected; it’s the default.

Likewise everyone is a “skeptic” when it comes to new ideas that contradict their views and beliefs.  This is because of cognitive dissonance, not because of genuine, active skepticism. 

It’s pretty easy, I think, to see a perspective where confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance are really just two symptoms of a single underlying psychological tendency.  One is the positive aspect; the other is the negative.

Someone who is truly open-minded is willing to accept the possibility of ideas that defy his/her current understanding.  And a true skeptic is one who looks for flaws in new information regardless of value judgments, and even seeks to introspectively challenge his/her current understanding.  When stated this way, skepticism and open-mindedness sound like two steps in the same mental process.  They are two sides of the same metaphorical coin.

Open-mindedness and skepticism are not passive attributes of a person, but behaviors that critical thinkers actively perform to overcome the problems of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.

Skepticism/open-mindedness is an intellectual, or rational mental process.  What is one to do, when confronted with ideas that can’t be rationally assessed?  For example, I have friends that use intuitive abilities to arrive at conclusions.  But even if you assume that intuition can lead one to a valid conclusion, you have to accept that the process could fail for a number of reasons.  What should one think if two people, who are accepted to have strong intuitive abilities present conflicting conclusions?  For that matter, how does one assess the validity of one’s own intuitively reached conclusions?   For another example, ff one accepts a given idea as a “spiritual truth”, how does one determine if it is or is not also an empirical truth (assuming there is no empirical or logical means to assess it)?

Rational type people tend to disengage from these questions pretty quickly because we don’t know what to do with them.  The natural inclination is to ignore the possibility that non-rational processes can lead to empirically valid ideas non-arbitrarily.  But that response is derived from cognitive dissonance, not skepticism.  And people that are intuitive by nature don’t typically engage in serious critical thinking.  As I write this, I can’t think of anyone that displays strong intuitive ability and is highly open-minded/skeptical.  Maybe intuitives could do something with those questions, but they don’t ever ask them.  And even if they did, could they explain their thoughts in a way that a rational person could understand?

I know that Buddha acknowledged the importance of both rational and non-rational faculties.  But I have not heard of any instruction on reconciling the two.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Contemplation on Meaning

Existence cannot be revealed in symbols, and knowledge cannot be revealed without.

Throughout human history, the search for meaning is a constant.  We ask the meaning of almost every characteristic, object, and event, from the profound to the mundane.  What is the meaning of life?  What does it mean to be a 34 year old white male in the United States in the early 21^st century?  What is the meaning of the dietary information on this pint of ice cream? 

What is meaning, and where does it come from?  Meaning simply comes from us, from our own individual and collective psychology.  “Signs and signifiers can be appropriated and reappropriated in an endless chain.  Thus meaning is rarely predictable and never fixed.” –Diane Raymond,

People with theistic beliefs may protest and say that some type of fundamental meaning can come from God.  But even if that is true, and certain things have divinely granted inherent meaning, we have no access to it.  To illustrate my point, assume that the fabled Holy Grail is real, it has been found, and it has inherent meaning endowed by God.  Now assume that a Christian recognizes its meaning.  The Christian is not observing the inherent meaning of the object.  He is only observing the meaning attributed to it by his religious texts, his culture, and his own beliefs.  The fact that his meaning of it matches the inherent meaning is an arbitrary coincidence.

Now some might protest further, citing that the Grail may have supernatural properties that are empirically evident, communicating the object’s inherent meaning.  But this does not contradict my claim; it only transmutes the object of the question.  The old question, “what is the meaning of the Holy Grail?” becomes the new question, “what is the meaning of its supernatural properties?”.  Some people might believe that the supernatural properties mean divinity.  Meanwhile others, believing it is a false grail, might believe the supernatural properties mean witchcraft, conspiracy, or hoax.

We constantly create, alter, annihilate, and recreate meaning.  The human brain seems to have an overwhelming, if not compulsive, hunger to find (or create) meaning.  We endlessly create, disseminate, and consume stories of all sorts, from fairy tales to sports reporting.  We do this because narrative is the vehicle for meaning.  If you ask me, this quest for meaning is part of what it means to be human.  Along with things like survival and procreation, meaning is a fundamental driver of human activity.  Also, meaning and narrative can provide context for our suffering and give us comfort when we face obstacles and hardships.

Conversely though, I’ve been learning that, meaning and narrative are the causes of much suffering.  If a house is destroyed in a fire, does that cause me to suffer?  No.  But if that house belongs to me, then the answer changes.  I’m not upset because the house is lost  I grieve because of the meaning that I’ve attributed to that house in particular, as opposed to the thousands of other similar houses nearby.

I’m learning the practice of mindfulness, to observe things as they truly are, without the baggage of the meanings that the mind wants to attach to them.  As I do this, I keep coming back to some fundamental questions about this path and its destination.

Can we take advantage of narrative's ability to give us hope and comfort when facing adversity without creating attachment and identification (ie. without suffering the negative consequences)?

If the pursuit of meaning is a fundamental part of ‘being human’, what does it mean to let go of or see beyond meaning? 

According to many spiritual teachers, mindfulness leads to a “higher” consciousness.  But how is this higher consciousness different from a simpler animal consciousness?

Even if equanimity or englightment is achieved, I don’t think meaning ‘goes away’.  So what is it like to see meaning for what it is and still engage with it, without attachment to or identification with it?  Or to rephrase, how does one’s relationship with meaning change as one becomes enlightened?

I want to understand things on an intellectual level.  That is my natural inclination.  But it is not lost on me that these questions are likely flawed, due to the very paradox of their nature.   As Lao Tzu so eloquently put it, “The Tao that can be described is not the true Tao.”  The true Tao transcends not only language, but rational thought.   In that sense, maybe the true Tao is the ability to discern the meaning inherent in a thing, at least in the case of existence.  But if it can't be put into words, I don't think it will answer any questions.

Thank you for reading.  Use the comment tool to post any thoughts or questions.  And please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

On Mystical Experiences, or the Lack Thereof

I've been on my spiritual journey for about six months now - probably not long as these sorts of things go.  But it's easily long enough to lose what little faith I started out with.

I've learned a little bit from my experiences, and I've learned a lot from books and from discussion with others.  But I often find myself questioning the benefit of it all.  I have trouble incorporating the knowledge into my daily life.  And I struggle to understand things on a non-intellectual level, which is very important for practices like Buddhism and Taoism.  Many days, I feel I'm still in the exact same place where I started.

A friend of mine, knowing that this whole endeavor feels quite unnatural to me, said that he was surprised I've kept on my spiritual journey.  But partially, I keep on because I have nothing better to do.  I keep walking this path, because I don’t see another that looks any more promising.

I've read accounts about and heard people describe powerful mystical experiences had during prayer, meditation, and other spiritual practices.  They've found great pleasure and bliss from these experiences, and I hoped that I might find the same.  Indeed the Buddha explained that all can and will experience joyful epiphanies during meditation on the path to enlightenment.  But I don't think it's that simple.

It seems clear to me that some people are naturally oriented toward the mystical and spiritual.  I hypothesize that these tend to be the sorts of people that fall in the ‘Sensing’ and ‘Feeling’ areas of the Myers-Briggs spectrum.  For these people, I'd imagine that strong mystical experiences are relatively likely to occur.  For those, like myself, who are naturally oriented toward reason and analytical thought, I believe that such mystical experiences may be less common and/or more subtle.  I've experienced moments of joy during meditation, but they were orders of magnitude less intense than those I've heard described.  Maybe I just need to get further along the path.  And maybe by healing and empowering the third-eye (Ajna) chakra, I and others like me can open ourselves more to the mystical dimension.  But I've not experienced this and cannot say.

I believe that people who have profound mystical experiences use them to fuel their spiritual journeys.  During difficult times, they can find comfort and encouragement as they remember the bliss they had once felt in their practice.  For the agnostics - for those for whom the experience is subtler, I think the journey will be much more difficult.  When we are overwhelmed by obstacles, we must find the inspiration to continue from external sources or from grit and raw determination.  For this reason, I highly recommend that any skeptics travelling a spiritual path find a community to share in and support their practice.  I am thankful to have such a community at the Indiana Buddhist Temple.

A spiritual journey can be overwhelming for a true believer.  For a skeptic, it is even harder

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Practicing Generosity - Listening

Generosity (and I mean generosity without expectation of reciprocity and maybe even without expectation of appreciation) is something that all major religions teach that we should practice.  And I think we can agree that in our culture, it is something that is a bit uncommon.

It's easy to look at the wealthiest among us and say, they should give more.  And it's well understood that the least wealthy are already the most generous with their money, their time, and their labor.  But true as it may be, there is little benefit in thinking that another individual or group of people could do more.

I often find myself thinking, what can I do to help those around me, whether it's friends, strangers, or the larger community.  The first problem that I often run into is thinking too big.  I'm not in a position to change the world, or even change my community.  That's the way things are.  It does me no good to focus on what is out of my control.  So I try to focus on things that are within my power to do.

The second problem that I,encounter is figuring out what I can do to help.  It's easy to go through a day, and not notice how I can be generous, even if I'm specifically looking for opportunities.  But I've learned that one simple way we can be generous is by truly being present for those around us and listening.

Be honest.  Ask yourself how often you're in a conversation, and instead of listening, you're thinking about what you're going to say when it's your turn to speak?  For most of us, myself included, the answer is 'very often.'  But that's something that can be changed.  It takes time and effort.  But I've seen improvement as I try to be mindful of this and to listen generously.  Each time I catch myself focusing on my response before the other person finishes speaking, I think 'this is a learning experience.'

One of the most excruciating experiences that we can have as humans is to feel that no one is listening to us.  By actively listening to someone (making eye contact, ignoring distractions, etc), we validate his or her humanity.  We give that individual an opportunity for expression and self-actualization.  That is some really powerful stuff!  

I hope this goes without saying, but in case it doesn't - Practicing generosity through listening implies genuine respect.  If you listen to someone, and then respond in a way that diminishes, attacks, disputes, devalues, or undermines them as an individual or what they said, you are not being generous.

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

The Difference between Faith and Certainty

As an agnostic and a skeptic, I used to find the idea of faith perplexing.  How can people be so certain of something for which there is no proof, or even overwhelming evidence? 

To me, the whole business of faith seemed naive.  I was raised Christian, but I had never seen any evidence to support the existence of the Trinity.  I thought, what is the difference between an adult believing in Jesus and a child believing in Santa Claus?  As far as I could tell, the child actually had more evidence.  At least there were presents beneath the tree on Christmas morning. 

Some people believe Jesus is the only way to Heaven.  Others believe that the only way is through Islam and the teaching s of Muhammad.  These two beliefs are mutually exclusive.  Even if one of them is right, that means the other is not.  And it’s quite possible they’re both wrong.  I did a thought experiment a few times where I believed in Jesus, and I had great faith.  Even in this case, I would still be uncertain.  My faith would be disturbed by the equally strong convictions of Muslims who believe that Jesus is not the son of God.  It seems to me that if either side has evidence to support their beliefs and dogma, the opposing side likely has equally convincing evidence to the contrary. 

So I kept asking myself, what is wrong these people of faith?  How can the Christians and Muslims be equally convinced that they are right, and the other is wrong?  I struggled with trying to understand this for years and got nowhere. 

I've recently learned that the biggest obstacle to my understanding was a semantic one.  I thought that faith and certainty were analogous (at least in the context).  That is absolutely wrong.  And this problem does not result from my skepticism.  In fact, it’s a bigger problem when people of faith make this same misconception that I did.

Certainty and faith are not only different things, they are mutually exclusive.  If you are certain of something, you don't need faith.  To have faith is to acknowledge uncertainty, and choose to believe something regardless.  In this way faith is a choice, and it can encourage engagement in the mystery of life.  Certainty is a refusal to accept that an alternative can even exist.  To be certain is not to make a choice, but to assume that there is no choice to be made.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.” 

–Socrates

What Socrates is saying, in a very definitive way, is that to be certain of anything is unwise.  Likewise, the Buddha teaches us to question everything.  Why?  This can be difficult to really comprehend.  We immediately think of ‘perfectly reasonable’ things that we are certain of.  I’m certain the sun will rise tomorrow in the East.  I’m certain that Ronald Reagan has not recently risen from the dead.  But essentially, these certainties are born of mindlessness, a lack of engagement.  For example, many such certainties are held because we've not seen evidence to the contrary (and not because evidence could not exist or arise).  To be fair, mathematical proofs may be a genuine exception, but I’m not going to discuss that here

And you might argue that there is a sort of pragmatism about certainty.  To act as if tomorrow's sunrise was genuinely in jeopardy would create a lot of very practical problems for individuals and for society.

Getting back to Socrates though, we don’t actually know the things we know.  We assume the things we know.  I've found that acknowledging that my assumptions are only assumptions, and not knowledge, has opened up my mind to a universe of possibilities and wonder.  The word assumption has a negative connotation because one thinks an assumption can be wrong.  But a certainty can be wrong as well, so what's the difference?

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” 

–Stephen Hawking

By acknowledging my ignorance and assumptions, the “knowledge” that the sun will rise tomorrow becomes faith that it will.  And I have faith that Zombie Ronald Reagon is not walking around somewhere eating brains.  But I allow that there’s an outside chance that he could be.

So earlier, I asked a question which I have not answered yet.  What is wrong with these people of faith?  I used to believe that faith was the problem.  I thought that faith made people, especially fundamentalists and extremists believe and behave irrationally.  But now I understand that certainty is the problem.  Religious fanatics call themselves people of faith.  But they are people who have abandoned faith in favor of certainty.  I now believe that faith is not the problem, but the solution.

If the chaos and unpredictability of life is a roulette wheel, faith is not about knowing whether the ball will land on black or red.  And it doesn’t need to be about deluding yourself into believing you know.  Faith is about walking up to the table and placing a bet.  Faith is a perspective that the reward is worth the risk.  And maybe faith is a belief that playing the game is more important than winning or losing.

I’ve always believed that the best way to engage in the mystery of life is by questioning.  And I still believe that.  But faith can be another vehicle for engagement.  I’m not preaching that anyone should have faith in anything.  But I want you to know that faith is a choice.  Recognize it as such, and then choose for yourself.

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Embracing Chaos

When you're facing change, uncertainty, and chaos, you can see danger, and you can see opportunity.  I think most of us tend to see more danger than opportunity, and we become anxious and scared.  I know I have.  But life is dynamic and unpredictable.  And even if you assume there is a governing order, whether by God's will or by laws of physics, we can only grasp at the edges of understanding it.  So to fear change, uncertainty, and chaos is to fear life itself.  And it seems to me that every religion is (or could be interpreted to be) teaching us not to fear.  Christianity teaches that our struggles through hardship and suffering will be rewarded with salvation.  Islam and Buddhism teach us (through very different perspectives) to let go of our illusion of control.  I think the idea is that if you stop deluding yourself that you have control, you'll have less anxiety about not having it.

I discussed in my first blog entry how faith is the antidote to this sort of fear and anxiety.  But I want to look at this a little more.  In reading Brene Brown's book "Daring Greatly," I was really stunned by her suggestion that we should embrace uncertainty.  I had to stop and think about that.  It sounds life-changing.  With that in mind, I want to look into chaos and not just have faith give me courage to face my fears.  But I want to look into chaos and see potential opportunities more than dangers.  I want to learn to embrace chaos, not just accept it.

So how do I make that happen?  How do I create a paradigm shift in my psychology from a perspective of fear and danger to a perspective of hope and wonder?  I don't exactly know - that is the purpose of the journey.  And it's the purpose of this blog.  I want to share with you how I get there.  I believe the process involves mindfulness, gratitude, faith, open-mindedness, learning, intuition, and recognition of the interconnection of and the divinity within everything,  And thanks to the gift of neuroplasticity, I believe such a shift in thinking is possible.

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Letting Go of Truth and Justice

I've always had an interest in knowledge, specifically knowing capital 'T' Truth(s).  And I've always had a desire to understand the nature of all the injustices in the world.  These two topics are often addressed directly by religion.  Despite my agnosticism, I've always had a fascination with religion and spirituality.  But it was generally through the lenses of these two topics, and mostly an abstract or academic interest.  So a lot of what I read about religion, philosophy, and spirituality was concerned with trying to understand how different belief systems dealt with Truth and explained injustice.

For example, being raised with Christian dualism, I was quite interested in theodicy.  Despite the paradox of a benevolent God, countless people throughout history have believed in the tenants of Christianity.  And at least some of them had to be reasonable, rational people.  So I learned about it.

To skip over all the messy details, there is no explanation for the suffering and injustice in the world that will satisfy the skeptics.  There is no perfect defense of God, Christian or otherwise, hence the consistent and infuriating chorus of “God works in mysterious ways.”  And even if you assume this to be true, it still doesn't answer or resolve anything.

As I began to develop a deeper, more direct interest in spirituality, questions of injustice and Truth kept coming up.  Why should I put faith in a God who is quite content to let me suffer?  I’m perfectly capable of suffering all on my own without God in my life.  And unless God would grant me Truth through divine revelation, welcoming God into my life will get me no closer to that goal either.

After quite a while of struggling with these dilemmas, I decided to let go of my pursuit of Truth.  And I decided to choose a spiritual path despite the injustice that may occur in my life and the lives of those around me.  Letting go of these pursuits opened the door to spirituality for me.  Once I did this, I was able to begin my journey.  I started finding synchronicities and developing my chakras.

I've experienced so much growth and learning over the past few months that would not have been possible if I had not let go of these questions.  When I say I let them go, it doesn't mean I’m no longer interested or that I don’t still ask the questions.  It means I accept the reality that I’m not likely to get answers.  With this acceptance, I've found it’s possible to travel a spiritual path while still being perfectly grounded and still maintaining a healthy sense of doubt and skepticism.

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy

Overcoming Anger

I am writing today about overcoming anger.  So many people seem to be struggling with anger.  It is a very dangerous and destructive emotion.  Some people direct their anger outward.  They harm people around them, psychologically if not physically, and they may destroy inanimate objects.  Others direct their anger inward.  These people destroy their own self-esteem, willpower, and identity.  This results in much suffering and an inability to be a good and loving friend to those close to them.  These two groups are not mutually exclusive.  I tend to fall in the second group.  Although I’m not immune to anger, perhaps my story and the progress I have made can provide inspiration or an example for others.

Over the past many years, I've made three cognitive changes that drastically reduced my level of anger.  Firstly, as a generally analytical person, and with an education in social sciences, I learned to view the preconditions, causalities, and intricacies in human interactions.  With that perspective, I began to more accurately observe the complexity of events that upset me.  Secondly, as an agnostic I actively worked to rid myself of a dualistic worldview and adopt a monistic one.  Thirdly, as a Buddhist, I learned to view each person with compassion and empathy.

As a teenager, I was generally unhappy.  Accordingly I had a lot of anger.  Much of my unhappiness and anger came from sexual frustration.  For reasons I understand much better today, I was extremely unattractive to girls.  Of course, many reasons that I was not attractive resulted from my unhappiness.  I’ll spare the psychoanalysis to arrive concisely at the point.  I had entered into a vicious cycle where my anger and unhappiness resulted in social problems, and my social problems engendered more anger and unhappiness. 

--- Dependent Origination ---

So my first step to reducing anger was to view situations that upset me in a more nuanced and holistic way.  Unfortunately, that the vicious cycle was a huge obstacle to actually doing this.  I found that while I’m acutely angry, I cannot accurately view the object of my anger.  I must wait until the anger naturally subsides a bit, and I can get a more impartial perspective.  Then I can analyze the situation retrospectively.  And in my experience, anger does naturally subside, at least to a point, all on its own, given that I remove myself from the offending situation and that I do not nurture my feelings of anger. 

Once I was able to break out of the vicious cycle and began observing the complexities and preconditions of the events that upset me, I realized that I could not blame a single person or event for any misfortune.  My anger was, at the very least dissipated, and in many situations reduced.  For example, if someone mocks me and makes jokes at my expense, I could respond with anger toward that person.  But instead I try to understand that person’s motivations.  I might intuit that he or she has low self-esteem and is acting out to try to impress others.  Understanding this, I realize the negativity is only directed at me arbitrarily; it’s not personal.  Knowing that the jokes are not personal, I’m less angry about them.  For those interested, this general concept is described in Buddhist teachings as dependent origination.

--- Monism ---

As a Christian and as an American, I was raised with a dualistic worldview.  As I turned away from Christianity, I also began to abandon the dualism that accompanies it, which is much more difficult.  To stop being a Christian, one just stops believing.  To stop thinking dualistically, one must make a complete paradigm shift, unlearning fundamental cognitive constructs and replacing them with completely new and foreign ideas.  Dualism was linked to thousands of other ideas and memories in my brain, and each one of those neural connections needed to be broken before I could genuinely view the world monistically.  For those that have not done this, and are interested, it will likely take lot of effort and a long time.  And by long time, I mean it took me many years.  But it was absolutely worth it. 

A dualistic perspective allows us to easily place blame and avoid fully engaging with the world and people around us.  For example, I used to observe the suffering around me and in the world at large, and I would blame the rich and the powerful.  If only the plutocrats and oligarchs would act with more benevolence and altruism, the world would be a better place, I thought.  I saw the ruling class as self-interested and greedy; I saw them as evil.  But now I understand that it’s not black and white.  Aside from true sociopaths, people almost always intend to behave in a moral and ethical fashion.  They often fail to live up to their own moral code for many reasons which can be understood.  For example, many people refuse to acknowledge the negative impacts of their actions.  But even this denial is not immoral.  It may be a lack of psychological fortitude.  Or it could just be simple ignorance. 

Dualistic thinking allows us to dehumanize and vilify anyone we view as ‘the other.’  And the dehumanization encourages anger, hatred, and generally destructive and irresponsible behavior.  Ridding myself of dualistic thinking alleviated much anger in my life.

--- Compassion ---

Compassion is the polar opposite of vilification.  Both Buddha and Jesus recommended approaching every person and every situation with compassion.  I’m not too familiar with Islam, but I think Muhammad taught this as well.  As fundamental as this message may have been to Christ’s teachings, it seems it does not resonates within his churches.  Essentially, this is a monistic message and conflicts with Christian dualism.  So I learned the message from Buddhism.

I’ve found that in the same way that dualism encourages anger, a general attitude of compassion discourages it.  To be compassionate toward a person is to directly think in a way that diminishes anger.  If I view a criminal without compassion, I will want to punish the criminal.  But if I view the criminal with compassion, I will seek to learn what problems led to the criminal acts.  I will then want a psychologist or social worker to resolve the underlying problems.  And I understand that if the causes of criminality are erased, then crime will generally cease.  Understanding the complex conditions that led the perpetrator to commit crimes, I find it easy to forgive, even when anger does arise. 

***

All three steps that I have described are in a way, three different paths to the same conclusion, three different ways to view the same understanding.  These three cognitive shifts allowed me to greatly reduce anger in my life.  But based on my anecdotal observations, the biggest obstacle that many face in overcoming anger is a complete lack of desire to do so.  I see many people nurture their anger.  They derive self-righteousness, confidence, and a sense of power from their anger because they have not learned to nurture confidence and empowerment from within.  They make excuses, telling themselves that their anger helps motivate them or to focus their energy.  But even for those people, if they follow the steps that I have, their anger will subside even if they don’t intend it to.

One last thought: your anger is more corrosive and harmful to yourself than it will ever be to the person with whom you are angry.

Thank you for reading.  Please share my blog with others who might find value in it.  May you be well and happy.

-Andy