Church of the Churchless

The gift of a classmate’s death

Death has a way of grabbing my attention. I can be drifting through life, mindlessly engaged in the mostly meaningless activities of my daily existence, and then…the clear and present reality of the big D—death—jerks me back to where I should always be: living. Real living, not just pretend living.

A few days ago I got a phone call from an elementary and high school classmate, Pam. I’ve talked with Pam just a few times since we graduated from good old Woodlake Union High School, class of 1966.

But as soon as I heard her voice I felt like we were best friends. Like we always had been. Like we always would be. People who are intensely and authentically engaged with life, as Pam is, can make you feel that way.

She started off by telling me about plans that she had heard about for a high school class reunion. I told her that I was interested in the news, yet was more interested in what she was doing now.

“Where do you live?” I asked. “I don’t have a home,” she said. “I’m a contemporary sadhu. For five and a half years I’ve been traveling around the world, Mexico, Central American, India.”

Pam said that her husband died, then their home was destroyed by a hurricane. “I got the message: let go of possessions. I’m into a new phase now. I know that I absolutely know nothing.”

Music to my ears. So refreshing. It was wonderful to be talking to someone who didn’t have life all figured out, who was searching for meaning in the most open fashion, unencumbered either by material things or mental beliefs.

Recently her wanderings returned her to central California, near where she and I spent our youth (Three Rivers). A friend who lives in Visalia had asked her to house sit for two weeks while the family went on vacation in Hawaii. It turned out that the house was right across the street from the home of Brian, a namesake of mine who also was a classmate of ours.

Brian’s wife came over to talk with Pam. She said that Brian was coming home that day from the hospital. He had been treated for a brain tumor. Previously Brian reportedly had been in great health. Happy, productive, a family man.

And then, while backing a horse trailer out of their driveway, he hit a tree. Brian’s wife asked, “What happened?” He said, “I don’t know. Something blanked out in my mind.”

Just a few months later Brian was spending his last day on Earth at home, talking to Pam. He died the day he got out of the hospital. Pam told me, “Everything is a gift.” Amen to that. Her being there in Visalia at that moment was an amazing coincidence.

That word, “coincidence,” doesn’t do justice to this story. As I was listening to Pam talk about Brian’s final hours, I had the strongest feeling that life offers us up these glimpses of what I can only call something more not for a reason, but simply as a gift. Briefly a crack appears in the cosmic egg and we get a peek into what lies beneath the shell of appearances.

I don’t know what it is. Neither does Pam. Maybe Brian does now. I hope so.

All I know is that life is meant to be lived. I’ve always known that, but I often forget it. I forget that each of us—me, you, Pam, Brian—lives on the edge of Mystery. That edge is encountered in many fashions, many ways, many guises.

Death is Mystery’s most dramatic appearance. Death scares us. Death fascinates us. Death attracts us. Death repels us. The faces of death are as various as our understandings of life. For me, death is a mystery, just as life is a mystery.

The day I talked with Pam I worked in our yard, mowing, fertilizing, edging. Usually I do all this robotically, looking forward to being done with these unwelcome chores so I can move on to doing something else, at which point I’ll be thinking about how nice it will be to… And so on.

Pam’s story about Brian had an effect on me. Maybe this was because he shared my name; he was the same age as me; he was healthy before the brain tumor made its appearance, just as I am. I don’t know the reason why I worked differently that afternoon. I’ll just accept it as a gift.

I realized that the moments of the mowing, the fertilizing, the edging—they were never going to come again. Who knows, maybe no earthly moment was going to come again. I could fall dead from a heart attack, or whatever, in an instant.

There are no guarantees that come attached to this garment of life that I’m temporarily wearing. My body can fall apart at any moment and I’ve got no recourse. Complaints to the warranty department will go unheard: “I thought this vehicle of the spirit was good to go for at least eighty years! What gives?!”

Well, what gives is my conceptions about life. What stays is reality, plain and simple. And that’s the place I should be staying in all the time: reality, here and now.

That place is where I am and who I am. Yet much of the time—no, most of the time—I allow myself to be dragged away into a facsimile of reality, an imitation of life that is fabricated from images: thoughts, imaginings, conceptions, anticipations, desires, what-ifs.

Too often I borrow my life from others because I’m too lazy or too fearful to live a life that is truly my own. Just before Pam called I had been reading a book about the Taoist sage, Lieh-Tzu. It advises, “In our short time here, we should listen to our own voices and follow our own hearts. Why not be free and live your own life?”

I’ll share the entire short chapter from which that excerpt was taken as a continuation to this post. It’s a gift: from Lieh-Tzu, from the book’s author (Eva Wong), from me, from the cosmos.

Pam is right. Everything is a gift. Life doesn’t need to be unwrapped, figured out, deciphered, analyzed to death. The gifts are right at hand. We just need to recognize them for what they are.

A particular Way isn’t the only Way

I was encouraged when I picked up the newspaper today and saw the headline, “Pope says church will stress unity.” “Gosh,” I thought, “maybe the new Pope has had a sudden change of heart. Perhaps he’s forsaken his absolutist position that Christianity is the only way to God and Catholicism is the only true form of Christianity.”

I was ready to give a “thumbs sideways” to Pope Benedict XVI instead of my previous thumbs down. However, now that I’ve read the entire text of the homily he delivered, the supposedly more inclusive Pope Benedict sounds a lot like the dogmatic Cardinal Ratzinger—which isn’t surprising, since they are the same person. Tigers don’t change their stripes so quickly.

Admittedly, the new Pope reached out to Jews and non-Catholic Christians. He also added, “Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.”

But when you get to the end of the homily, it’s evident that the unity Pope Benedict seeks is for every person on earth to become Christian:

Here I want to add something: both the image of the shepherd and that of the fisherman issue an explicit call to unity. "I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (Jn 10:16); these are the words of Jesus at the end of his discourse on the Good Shepherd.

And the account of the 153 large fish ends with the joyful statement: "although there were so many, the net was not torn" (Jn 21:11). Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that it has been torn! But no -- we must not be sad! Let us rejoice because of your promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the path towards the unity you have promised. Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise. Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter's Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: "Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!"

I don’t hear a genuine call for unity in the Pope’s words. His conception of oneness is limited to the bounds of Christianity, not the cosmos. He isn’t seeking a universal truth that encompasses people of every faith, including those who believe in not having a faith. His message, though eloquently phrased, is still divisive. His theology still merits a thumbs down.

The Pope spoke yesterday to 350,000 people in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square. I gave a talk also on Sunday, to 4 people in the McKinley Elementary School music room. Call me biased, but I liked my “satsang” (an Indian term for a talk about spiritual truth) a lot more than the Pope’s homily.

I started by speaking about how to speak about spirituality, inspired by some guidelines for authors that I’d received from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) Publications Department. I’ve had my differences with the Department, mostly because I have a strong distaste for claims to a singular knowledge of spiritual truth. In the past RSSB has been as guilty as the Catholic Church in asserting that its Way is the only Way.

I find this attitude distasteful. It’s bothered me so much that at times I’ve considered cutting off my ties with RSSB and becoming a genuine spiritual independent, which also happens to be my political affiliation. But I agree with the central goal of the RSSB metaphysical philosophy: uniting one’s personal consciousness (“soul”) with universal consciousness (“spirit”). And I enjoy socializing on Sundays with the people who come to our local RSSB meeting (“satsang”), few though they may be.

So it was heartening to read this new missive from the Publications Department. I’ve often sounded off on similar themes when speaking at RSSB gatherings and have observed a fair number of quizzical looks from audience members after I launched into my favorite “Why would anyone think we’ve got the sole franchise on spiritual truth?” rant. I would imagine that cries of “Heretic! Rabble-rouser! Burn him at the stake!” were going to erupt from the crowd.

How nice, then, to find that the Publications Department now is saying what I’ve been preaching: it’s insulting to people of other faiths (which includes my wife) to come across as claiming that this is the only Way of knowing ultimate reality, God, whatever you want to call it. Hopefully this humble attitude will permeate down into the minds and hearts of everyone associated with RSSB.

Maybe even more broadly, because open-mindedness is a universal virtue. Who knows? Perhaps Pope Benedict XVI is fond of surfing the Internet and will come across this post. For him, and everyone who writes or speaks about spirituality—which includes most people, since speaking to ourselves inside our head is a form of communication—I’ve edited the RSSB guidelines into a form more suitable for universal consumption. Click on the continuation link below to read them. (The unedited guidelines can be found here.)

Thumbs down to the new Pope’s moral absolutism

I have some Catholic qualifications for criticizing newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on moral absolutism: I was baptized and had my first communion, after which I flamed out on Catholicism (around the age of ten) before being confirmed.

At my first communion I had trouble swallowing the wafer. It stuck to the roof of my mouth and I started coughing. I still remember feeling panicky, wondering what sort of mortal sin it would be to spit the body of Jesus onto the church floor. Eventually I got the wafer down, but God had sent me a message that I’ve never forgotten: don’t easily swallow the Catholic faith—or any religious teachings, for that matter.

All I know about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, or Pope Benedict XVI, is what I’ve learned since his election. But this is enough for me to give his philosophical stance on truth a big “thumbs down.” Previously Ratzinger had served as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which used to be called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition back in the not-so-good old days of the 1500s.

Now, I can’t hold Ratzinger responsible for the Inquisition. Yet the absolutist Catholic dogma that Ratzinger strongly supports was the foundation for all of the Inquisitorial atrocities committed in the name of God.

Ratzinger believes that Christianity is the only true religion, and Catholicism is the only means to salvation within Christianity. He also believes in objective truth (I have no argument with him there), yet holds that Christ is the ultimate and definitive reality for men in the world (I do have an argument with him here).

If Christ is the epitome of objective truth, why can’t everyone recognize this? The truths of science hold sway across the world, among trained scientists at least, because the laws of physical reality are known to be the same for everybody, everywhere, irrespective of their personal beliefs. But religious, moral, and ethical “truths” are as much open to question now as they were in the days of the ancient Greeks.

Except in the minds of fundamentalists such as Ratzinger, who mistake subjective scriptural assertions for objective universal reality. There is no evidence, none at all, for the Church’s claims that it alone has a clear understanding of moral truth—for example, that contraception is wrong, gay marriage is a sin, abortion can’t be justified, and capital punishment is a no-no.

Neither Ratzinger nor any other theologian can point to indisputable facts in the world out there that support a stance of moral absolutism. Nature leaves very few clues, perhaps none at all, about how human beings and other highly evolved animals should act. We know a lot about how people do act, yet the philosophical gulf between “should” and “do” is immense.

Given that there are so many differing opinions about what is right and what is wrong, I’m on the side of pluralism. When there isn’t any convincing proof that one set of moral standards is better than another, it makes sense to let people find their own way down life’s multitudinous choices of ethical paths.

However, Ratzinger considers religious pluralism equivalent to moral relativism. He has come to the false conclusion that if people are left to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, chaos will result. Ratzinger thinks that there is only a single source of objective moral truth, the Catholic Church. If you don’t get your morality from the Holy See, you’re trading in counterfeit goods.

By contrast, wiser theologians understand that pluralism isn’t the same as relativism. Here are some principles of religious pluralism contained in the above-linked article:

“1. The religions of the world affirm an ultimate reality which they conceive of in different ways and which both transcends the material universe and is immanent within it.

2. Whilst in itself ultimate reality is beyond the scope of complete human understanding, in its relation to humanity many claim to have experienced its presence in diverse ways, including great individuals in supreme revelatory moments that have given rise to the world’s religions, including the great world religions.

3. The great world religions, including their different and at times incompatible teachings, are as totalities of scripture, history, tradition, paradigmatic figures, rituals, creeds and forms of spirituality, authentic paths to the supreme good.

4. The world’s religions share many basic values, for example, love, compassion, justice, honesty, treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself.

5. There are however forms of religion, including some based in the great world religions, which are misused for purposes contrary to those values.

6. Each person must follow his/her conscience. Therefore the possibility of conversion is part of the human right to religious freedom.

7. In the present century the traditional assertions of an exclusive possession of absolute truth repel rather than attract many people who seek the wisdom that religions, and other explanations of the ultimate meaning of life, have to offer.

8. Hence, from a pluralist point of view it does not make sense in the contemporary world to try through missionary activities to convert the world to one’s own tradition.

9. Interreligious dialogue, as conversations among people who wish to learn and benefit from one another’s inheritance and insights, should be the normal way for religions — and ideologies — to relate to each other.

10. Within this dialogue a paramount need is for the religions to heal any historic antagonisms between them.”

Now, my Church of the Churchless preference is to make reality my religion, which does away with the need for religious pluralism altogether. One reality, no religion. But so long as religions exist, religious pluralism is certainly much preferable to religious absolutism. When there is no objective evidence that any spiritual path leads more directly to God than any other, it’s best to keep your traveling options open.

John Allen, Jr., who wrote the article listing the 10 statements of pluralistic faith, says that “the list, especially points seven and eight, also helps explain why defenders of conventional Christological and ecclesiological positions find the [pluralistic] model worrisome.”

Yes, it is indeed worrisome to defenders of the Doctrine of the Faith that spiritual seekers might dare to think for themselves and come to the conclusion that the key to unlocking the ineffable mystery of God isn’t the exclusive possession of any religion, and that converting to a religion is like picking up a fresh pair of dice at Las Vegas: the odds are still overwhelming that, in the long run, you’re going to lose.

The wisest course of action is not to gamble. Neither with your money, nor with your soul.

Invest your effort in finding the truth about God the only place where it can be found—within yourself. That’s a bet worth making.

Wu chi, empty fullness

I’ve become a big fan of wu chi, a Taoist term for the emptiness from which fullness flows. It is the source of all that exists. Not being anything particular, wu chi is able to become everything. We could call it the One, but it is better not to name it at all.

Dualities—white, black; yin, yang; heaven, hell, true, false—can be given names for they are things. Wu chi isn’t a thing. It isn’t part of being. Wu chi can be considered the state of the Tao prior to creation. As Ellen Chen’s translation of the Tao Te Ching says (ch. 28), it is the unlimited aspect of the cosmos:

“To know (chih) the white (pe),
But to abide (shou) by the black (heh),
Is to be the model (shih) of the world.
Being the model of the world,
And deviating (t’eh) not from the everlasting power,
One again returns to the unlimited (wu-chi).

Chen comments: “Chi in the last line means the extreme boundary, limit, or perfection. Wu-chi as the negation of all boundaries or limits means the unbounded, unlimited or infinite. If t’ai-chi (Supreme Ultimate) in the I-Ching is the ultimate reality of the via affirmativa, wu-chi as ultimate non-being is the ultimate reality of the via negativa…When we transcend the extreme boundary of being, we arrive at nothingness (wu) or emptiness (hsü).”

I first heard the term, wu chi, used by my martial arts instructor. Warren said that he had told his own Tai Chi teacher that, after several decades of training, he had finally realized that there is only one move in Tai Chi. “Oh, very interesting,” the teacher said. “What is it?” “Whatever flows from wu chi [the empty state of rest in Tai Chi].” “Ah, I think you’re on to something,” said Warren’s teacher.

There’s nothing quite like wu chi in Western philosophy or religion. By and large we in the West adore positivity. We want to be filled, not emptied. We want to acquire, not divest. We want to become more, not less. We want to be raised up, not driven down.

Even when we claim to aspire to a state of lowly humility and egolessness, the envisioned end result is to be elevated: saved, enlightened, God-realized. I’m not saying that people of the East are less prone to ego, but at least philosophies such as Taoism and Zen—when unencumbered by religious trappings—present to spiritual aspirants a goal of inner emptiness.

Looking within my self during my period of morning meditation, I can imagine that wu chi is close at hand. That’s what I experience, inner darkness, which looks very much like the black circle that symbolizes wu chi on this website.

The problem, though, is that I look upon the darkness as separate from myself. That “emptiness” inside my head isn’t really empty if it is inhabited by a self that gazes upon an inner inkiness and thinks, “Here I am, looking upon nothing.” When there is still a here, an I, a looking, and a nothing, that’s pretty conclusive proof that wu chi is some distance away.

How far? I don’t know. Whether it is a hair’s breadth or a billion light years of consciousness transformation, it’s all the same to me. I’m here and wu chi is somewhere else, though wu is ever-present at the extreme boundary of being. So if I could subtract my being from me, the result of this existential equation would be, paradoxically, infinity.

When confronted with something “far-out” people often say in a derogatory way, “That sounds like something really woo-woo to me. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.” Well, they may be right. However, Taoism suggests that embracing wu-wu is exactly what a spiritual seeker should do.

Wu grammatically is a negative in Chinese, yet experientially it is a positive. It is said, Wu and Tao are equally the mother of all things.” Wu wei in Taoism literally means “not doing.” But wu wei is how nature does everything: effortlessly and harmoniously. Nature isn’t filled with a sense itself; it is itself. One, not two.

I need more wu-wu. A lot more. Until I’m empty of it.

Unitarian Jihad needs to get rolling

Just a day after Laurel and I joined the Unitarian Jihad, Senate majority leader Bill Frist demonstrates why this campaign against religious extremism is needed so badly.

The New York Times reports that Frist, my least favorite U.S. senator (especially after he outrageously dared to “diagnose” Terri Schiavo’s condition from videotapes and medical records) “has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees.”

Senator Frist, I have some news for you: there are lots of “people of faith” who are pleased that the Democrats are preventing a few unqualified nominees from getting lifetime appointments to a federal judgeship.

I am one of those people. It isn’t necessary to be a Christian to be a person of faith. There are many varieties of faith. Some don’t even have a name, not being associated with an organized religion. These might well be the truest faiths.

It’s a strange conception, this notion of Christian right’ies that only people who have a belief in God exactly like theirs have high moral and ethical standards. The New York Times article says that Christian conservatives consider that the battle over the nominees is part of a 30-year culture war.

I don’t understand what culture and religion have in common. I’ve always thought that the eternal God and all things divine were far above ephemeral cultural comings and goings. But if the Christian right wants a culture war, we of the Unitarian Jihad are prepared to fight for truth, justice, and the universal way.

Universal. Not Christian, not Islamic, not Jewish, not Buddhist, not Taoist, not anything with an “ian,” “ic,” “ish,” or “ist” attached to it. The American government represents everybody. Christians are part of that everybody, but just a part. No part should be able to run rough-shod over the whole, even if it is a majority part.

I have no problem with politicians who have strong religious beliefs. I do have a problem with politicians who don’t recognize the relativity and subjectivity of those beliefs, mistaking them for absolute commandments From On High. No, they’re just beliefs. And they have to be rationally defended in the court of public debate just like any other beliefs.

The most annoying characteristic of religious fundamentalists like Frist and his Christian allies is their sense of entitlement. “Because I believe it, it must be so.” No, it doesn’t. Again, your beliefs are just beliefs. You may believe that Terri Schiavo should have had her feeding tube reinserted, abortion is a sin, and gays shouldn’t marry. Fine. Just remember that other people have valid reasons for believing differently. Argue about your differences, but don’t claim that you have a direct line to God.

The first communiqué of the Unitarian Jihad says it nicely:

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

Sounds good to me. Bring on the Jihad.

Centering in on “The Supreme Doctrine”

Today I finished re-reading Hubert Benoit’s classic book about Zen psychology, “The Supreme Doctrine.” I’ve been quoting from “The Supreme Doctrine” in earlier posts, here and here.

Now I want to take a stab at writing about this book entirely in my own words. I’d like to share what has stuck in my mind after making my way through this wonderfully insightful treatment of man’s spiritual psyche. Benoit probably wouldn’t like the word “spiritual” used to describe his book, but now I get to describe it the way I want to.

That’s just the approach Benoit took toward Zen. In a concluding chapter he says that he isn’t sure how the great Zen masters would look upon his work. But he believes that they would approve of his effort to maintain his own personal thoughts in the face of all that has been written about Zen by others.

Breaking the rule I just made for myself (firmly in the Zen spirit), I’ll quote Benoit: “One remembers that Zen master who, seeing one of his pupils pouring over a Sutra [Buddhist scripture], said to him: ‘Do not let yourself be upset by the Sutra, upset the Sutra yourself instead.’ For only thus can there be established between the pupil and the Sutra a real understanding.”

So here’s my take on four themes that stick in my mind after reading “The Supreme Doctrine.” They’ve stuck because Benoit’s analysis of the human condition and the spiritual pursuit rings so true to my own experience. The minds of Homo sapiens' work much the same, no matter in what bodies they function. Frequently I’d read a passage where Benoit describes an introspective experience and think, “Why, he's just like me!”

Self and not-self. At the root of every thought and action, says Benoit, is the primal distinction between self and not-self. This rings absolutely true for me. I’m constantly evaluating how the world is affecting me and how I’m affecting the world. There’s a constant give and take between what seems to be “out there” and what seems to be “in here.”

When the world affirms me, my spirit soars. When the world denies me, my spirit sinks. My self is constantly at risk of being annihilated by the not-self, which is ever so much bigger and more powerful than I am. I’m just a teeny-tiny speck compared to the vastness of even just planet Earth, not to mention the inconceivable expanse of the entire universe.

Now, if I was nothing and the world was everything, then obviously there would be no problem. My self couldn’t get anxious about the prospect of being obliterated if I didn’t exist. However, this isn’t an appealing solution to my chronic anxiety about how the relationship between my self and the not-self is going, because what I’m anxious about is not existing. If the prescribed treatment is becoming nothing, then the cure is worse than the disease.

So how about if I become everything? That sounds a lot more appealing. I get to preserve my individuality. Even better, I get to expand my self so it encompasses the entire world. My Brian ego finds it easy to smile at that prospect. The only problem is how to accomplish this ballooning out of me. Obviously it can’t be attained physically—it isn’t possible to devour the Earth—so the solution has to be psychic.

Compensations. Which gets us to a word with psychoanalytic connotations that Benoit uses a lot (no surprise, since he was a practicing psychoanalyst), and I don’t claim to fully understand: “compensation.” My understanding of this term is that the self has to somehow compensate for the tremendously greater power of the not-self.

I couldn’t function if my ego recognized how insignificant I am compared to the cosmos. I’d be overwhelmed, crushed, psychically smashed to smithereens. Thus I conjure up some defenses. My mind, like all human minds, finds ways to make itself the center of the universe around which all else revolves.

Since everyone else is doing the same thing, we end up with a crazy quilt of overlapping compensations that produces the ever-entertaining dynamics of interpersonal relationships and intrapersonal psychology. My main compensative mechanism is identifying myself with what is not me. I assuage my anxiety about what the not-self might do to me by psychically bonding with as much of not-me as I can. And so do we all.

Attachment to my marriage partner. Patriotic commitment to my country. Devotion to my religion. Adherence to my ethical values. Belief in my core philosophical concepts. Engagement with my community. Appreciation of my natural surroundings. Interaction with my friends, pets, acquaintances, strangers on the street. Scientific understanding of my world and universe.

All of these attempts to build bridges between little me and the infinitely larger not-me (the above-mentioned obviously are just a sampling) have the effect of maintaining the integrity of my existence in the face of what otherwise seemingly would be a cold, cruel world. When they function as they should, my compensations nicely compensate for the fact that, crudely but accurately put, the universe could wipe me off its butt and flush me down the cosmic toilet without losing a speck of anything valuable.

This indeed is what will happen when I die. And seemingly it would happen before I die if my compensations fail me. If I let down the barriers between my self and my not-self, why, it would be like opening up the hatch of a submerged submarine. I’d sink like a stone to the bottom of an existential abyss. Or so I believe.

Imaginative film. My compensations are beliefs. My anxieties are beliefs. My hopes and fears for the future are beliefs. My understandings of myself are beliefs. My dreams are beliefs. My conceptions of God, heaven, and hell are beliefs. Virtually everything that I do and am is a belief embedded on the film of my imagination. It is through this film that I perceive the world. Not as it is, but as I imagine it to be.

“Imagine” may seem like an excessively strong word to describe all my thinking and emoting. Indeed, thoughts and feelings appear to be closely connected with what I consider to be objective reality. I see a beautiful sunset and think, “Ah, what a beautiful sunset.” Our dog wags her tail when I enter her room in the morning and I feel a burst of affection for this beloved canine companion.

And yet. The sunset doesn’t have any genuine connection with my thoughts about it. Nor do my feelings about our dog truly reflect the nature of her. The contents of my imaginative film are vitally important to me, the Brian “in here,” but to the world “out there,” they make not a whit of difference. If I vanished, the sunset and our dog would still exist. Less dramatically, if my imaginations vanished, the same would hold true.

Indeed, Zen teaches that things outside in the world would be more real for me if my internal world wasn’t filled with so much that is purely of my own making. If I could simply sense what is actually there, without adding on to that “is” all the thoughts and feelings that I customarily plaster over reality via my mental imaginative film, then I’d be much closer to the truth. Satori. Enlightenment. Salvation. Wisdom. Whatever you want to call it, I’d be nearer to it.

Thus, Benoit says, it turns out that all my efforts to defend my self against the inroads of the not-self actually end up making me less safe. For what I should be fearing isn’t the world of not-me, but rather the continuance of an illusory ego that maintains the fiction of a distinct difference between the self and the not-self.

A difference there is, but it is more like an ever-shifting boundary line between two similar entities—such as a small inlet and a vast ocean. At high tide the distinctions are erased; at low tide each is separate. Waves and water are fluid, though. You can’t draw a firm line between a inlet and the ocean to which it is connected.

Well, you can. Yet it would be an imaginary line, existing only as a concept, not part of real reality. Similarly, if we want to know the cosmos as it is, in contrast to how we imagine it to be, the contents of the imaginative film that normally obscures our perceptions have to be set aside. Somehow we need to perceive our self in relation to the world as that relationship is naturally, before we added on all of the extraneous thoughts and feelings that, though undeniably a part of being human, prevent us from realizing our divinity.

Buddha nature. Original self. Soul. More words to describe the wordless. Those words, those descriptions, they don’t help us see clearly. Rather, they are part of the imaginative film that has to be scrubbed clean of concepts before consciousness can look through an open window onto what is really there—not what is imagined to be there.

Humility. People who aspire to being spiritual usually consider, correctly, that humility is central to their pursuit. However, Benoit cautions against any sort of forced effort to be anything other than what we truly are. Reality, he says, will produce in us the perfect proportion of humility, for when we understand truly how self relates to not-self, there isn’t much of us left to be excessively proud about.

Further, it is self-evident that the self is virtually powerless against the not-self. Even without the just-mentioned understanding, life lived as it is at every moment screams at us a message that cannot fail to be heard: “The individual is nothing compared to the all that is everything.” Whatever I do, whatever I think, whatever I feel—the world proceeds on its own way, heedless of my actions, thoughts, and emotions.

I will drive myself crazy if I continue to believe that I am separate and distinct, that I exist as a firmly defined bubble of Brian, bobbing on my own in the otherwise fluidly connected ocean of the cosmos. The walls within which I have enclosed myself are of my ego’s own making. When they fall, my existence won’t be obliterated, but my imagined life that has Me at the center of the universe will.

I can’t will that will, however, for such an effort would simply sustain my erroneous belief in a self that acts independently of the rest of the world. Benoit says that genuine self-realization or satori isn’t caused by all of my efforts to bring it about. Rather, it follows those efforts. Not casually, but sequentially.

The cause isn’t under my control. All I can do is prepare myself for the cause—what Benoit calls my Principle—to work its way within me. That’s a humbling thought.

And when the thought of the humbling goes, that’s when the real humility has a chance to appear.

Maui musings on the Pope's passing

Fairly brief Maui musings, for Laurel and I leave tomorrow to return home after our vacation here on the shores of Napili Bay. We haven’t experienced any grand spiritual visions while lying on the beach, boogie boarding, snorkeling, and shopping. However, it has been interesting to reflect upon the Pope’s passing from our more detached perspective here on Maui.

More detached, that is, in comparison to our habitual immersion in cable news, two daily newspapers, and talk radio. We have followed the Pope’s death and mourning period only via quick reads of the local newspaper’s front page and glances at CNN prior to heading to the beach.

What is jarring to us, immersed as we have been in the natural rhythms of sun, wind, waves, tides, is the strange spectacle of more than a million people lining up to gaze upon a dead body. And buying Pope mementos—trinkets. It’s like Woodstock without the music. Or the fun.

It’s all so unnatural. A man died. Yes, he was the Pope. But he was just a man, not God. God doesn’t die. Only men and women die. As Trey Smith noted on his The Rambling Taoist weblog, Christians supposedly believe in the immortality of the soul, and in the superiority of spirit over matter.

So what is the big deal with viewing the Pope’s body? Life and death are part of the natural order of things. Every day we have seen fishermen catching some of the sea life that we enjoy looking at through our snorkel masks. Bodies live, then they die. Pope bodies, fish bodies, all bodies.

There is something deeply disturbing about all the attention being given to the Pope’s death. Indeed, any death. I felt the same way when President Reagan died. Way too much is being made of the passing of a single person.

What this indicates, I believe, is how deeply unspiritual most people’s spirituality actually is. Few of us have come to terms with death, no matter how religiously devoted we claim to be. Further, few of us have come to terms with our own ego, no matter how humble we may claim to be.

So a fear of death and attachment to ego combine to create a perfect storm of overwrought mourning when someone special to us dies. For we too want to be special, and we don’t want death to interfere with our specialness. Thus we have these spectacles of countless mourners projecting onto the Pope their own hope for glory after death.

Does anyone really think that the Pope would have wanted all this fuss made over his dead body? If he did, then his own spirituality was a sham. If he didn’t, and was as humble as he seemed to be, than the Catholic faithful who streamed to Rome are being disrespectful of his wishes.

Either way, from our perch here in Maui, it seemingly would have been much more fitting to have a simple burial or cremation, marked by an equally simple headstone.

Religious people are far too attached to men just like them and much too little attached to god, who mystics of all creeds say is utterly unlike all that we know now. The Pope’s death has strengthened my conviction that most modern religion has become nothing more than outward show, lacking inward realization.

Lighter shades of ego

Love supposedly makes us selfless. Yet, does it really? Or is what we call “love” almost always just another form of ego, a lighter shade of self-interest that, nonetheless, has nearly all of the negative qualities of a honestly dark “all I care about is me” attitude?

This is the position of Hubert Benoit, whose wonderful book “The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought” I continue to happily read each morning before meditating while on vacation here on Maui.

Benoit, a psychiatrist, says that love projected outward is idolatrous. All of our previous self-love is transferred to another being, yet the limited qualities of that love remain. The only thing that has changed is the direction of our egotistical self-interest: from within to without. He writes:

This is idolatrous love, in which the ego is projected on to another being. The pretention to divinity as ‘distinct’ has left my organism and is now fixed on to the organism of the other. The affective situation resembles that above [where the Self is loved and the Not-Self is hated], with the difference that the other has taken my place in my scale of values. I desire the existence of the other-idol, against everything that is opposed to him.

Benoit’s astute—and to my mind, entirely accurate—observation came to mind when I checked my email last night and read a message from a man who has been diligently translating my first book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” into German. Though I sent him a shortened and simplified revision of my book, the time and effort required to produce the translation was considerable.

The man was performing this service on behalf of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a spiritual organization based in India which publishes metaphysical books in many languages. He wrote to tell me that he was disappointed to learn that RSSB had changed its mind and now wouldn’t be publishing his translation, even in a rough manuscript form.

I was sorry for the aggrieved translator, but not surprised. For I too have experienced with RSSB what normally would be considered a “breach of contract” if the literary service I was performing wasn’t being done with no expectation of monetary reward.

What is happening here with these broken RSSB commitments, in the case of both the translator and myself, is exactly what Benoit warned about: the ill effects of idolatrous other-directed “love” that is as self-serving as love directed inward. The same ego, oblivious of its negative effects on others, operates equally in both circumstances.

The translator and I both were let down by people we trusted to stand by us. In my case, I can speak more strongly and say that I was deceived by people holding a high rank in what is, for all intents and purposes, a religious organization. Though breaking one’s word can’t be equated with sexual abuse of children, a qualitatively similar breach between espoused ethical standards and actual actions is evident both in RSSB and the Catholic Church. Hypocrisy permeates religious organizations whether they be of the East or West, of India or the United States.

In the case of RSSB, those higher-ups in the hierarchy who broke their word would claim that they are doing so on behalf of the guru, or living master, so this excuses everything. As Benoit says, all of the narcissistic demands of the ego still remain when love has been projected onto another person—their apparent locus merely has been transferred from the individual’s own self to the self of another entity. Instead of the ego basking in its own light—which is appealingly honest and direct—the ego enjoys a reflected glory by illusorily submerging itself in another.

“Illusorily” is the operative word here. For what difference does it make if before I thought that I was the center of the world around which all else revolves, and now I have totally identified with some other person, being, concept, or cause who assumes the same egocentric position? Benoit says:

As for the rest of the world, I hate it if it is hostile to my idol; if it is not hostile and if my contemplation of the idol fills me with joy (that is, with egotistical affirmation), I love indiscriminately all the rest of the world.

I still am exalted; I still am special; I still am favored above lesser souls. All that has changed is the felt location of my ego. Before, I knew that it was mine, which made it possible for me to deal with it. Now I imagine that it has largely left me, so great is my devotion to the other through whom I now fulfill my needs for affirmation, respect, reverence, feeling special.

When someone in this deluded state acts wrongly, it can be easily rationalized: “I am acting not for myself, but for God/Guru/country/whatever.” A person can break commitments without any qualms because he or she feels that whatever is being done is in the service of a higher cause.

All can be excused when a person imagines that he or she is acting on behalf of the All.

However, Benoit says that in some people the falsity of maintaining the unenlightened ego by imagining that it has been given over to another divine being begins to be perceived for what it is: a lie.

This man loses little by little his ‘positive’, ‘altruistic’ sentiments. His understanding sees through these clever counterfeits and leads him back will-nilly towards the fundamental egotistical state in which he has always hated that which is not his Self; the state of ‘night’ and of solitude…This man, robbed little by little of all possibility of cheating inwardly, sees himself hounded towards the task of realisation.

The true spiritual quest, in Zen as in other paths, isn’t to become another. It is to become one’s own self, the Self that is identical with the essence of the cosmos. Such can’t be faked. It doesn’t matter what words, concepts, or imaginings I use to try to paper over the gulf that exists between me and what is not-me.

I can say, “I am doing God’s will” or “I am a humble servant of the guru” until my throat is hoarse. And I will still be uttering a lie.

We don’t become pure by painting over ourselves a lighter shade of ego. It’s honest transparency that is needed, a genuine selflessness attained by letting go entirely of the illusory self.

"The Supreme Doctrine," thirty-six years overdue

“The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought” is one of my favorite books. When I checked it out from the San Jose Public Library while I was a San Jose State University student, I couldn’t bear to return it.

It’s now thirty-six years overdue. I’m pretty sure I paid the library the $1.65 replacement cost. That’s a heck of a lot cheaper than 5 cents a day, times 365 days, times 36 years, which is what I would have owed by now.

This is the only library book I’ve ever kept permanently. I brought it on our Maui vacation (where my wife and I are now) because I haven’t re-read it for a long time, and I was curious to see if what attracted me so strongly to “The Supreme Doctrine” when I was twenty-one still was a spiritual magnet for me at the age of fifty-six.

It is.

Hubert Benoit, the author, was a psychiatrist and practicing psychoanalyst. I saw “was,” because “The Supreme Doctrine” was first published in 1951 and I assume Dr. Benoit is dead by now. I was a psychology major when I came across the book. I also was reading a lot of Zen literature at the time. So Benoit’s ability to translate Zen insights into a psychological framework fascinated me back then.

It still does.

Zen, along with Taoism, are wonderfully non-religious spiritual pursuits. So they continue to be mainstays of my Church of the Churchless faithless faith. Benoit’s discussion of Zen involves a bit of abstract metaphysics, but mostly he speaks directly about the immediately obvious human condition—just as Taoists do.

Religion, by and large, leaves me cold. It is too detached from my conscious reality, the world inside my head where I live my daily life. So far I’ve only re-read the first four chapters of “The Supreme Doctrine,” yet already I’ve been reminded why this book speaks so truly to me. It is as if Benoit knows my mind. Of course, I would expect nothing less from a psychoanalyst.

He says that Zen teaches that all of the false efforts to deal with the evident reality of human misery don’t reach the root cause of our problems:

At the back of all that there is the following simple-minded reasoning: “Things are going badly with me in such and such a way; very well, from now on I am going to do exactly the opposite.” This way of regarding the problem, starting from a form that is judged to be bad, encloses the searcher within the limits of a domain that is formal, and as a result, deprives him of all possibility of re-establishing his consciousness beyond all form.

Maybe that passage sounds rather intellectual to you. It doesn’t to me. I know just what Benoit is talking about. For most of my life I’ve believed that in order to be spiritually free, it’s necessary for me to confine myself within the bounds of a spiritual system. That doesn’t make sense to me now. Confinement isn’t freedom. Confinement may be followed by freedom, but the two states can’t be present at the same time. Either you are confined or you are free.

Benoit says that we always are free. We just don’t realize it. We are dreaming a dream of confinement. Virtually everything we do to escape this illusion just keeps us more tightly encased within it.

All my apparent ‘trouble’ derives from the sleep of my faith in the perfect Reality; I have, awakened in me, nothing but ‘beliefs’ in what is communicated to me by my senses and my mind working on the dualistic plane (beliefs in the non-existence of a Perfect Reality that is One); and these beliefs are illusory formations, without reality, consequences of the sleep of my faith.

In short, everything appears to be wrong in me because the fundamental idea that everything is perfectly, eternally and totally positive, is asleep in the centre of my being, because it is not awakened, living and active therein.

So let’s say that we agree with Benoit that something within us—call it “soul,” perhaps—needs to be awakened, enlightened, saved. What then? He says that we aren’t out of the frying pan; we’ve just jumped into another hot spot of illusion in our desire for salvation.

All the determining, enslaving reality which man attributed to this or that ‘temporal’ enterprise becomes the most determining, the most enslaving that can be imagined. Since realization signified liberation one arrives at the absurd paradox that man is subjected to the coercive duty to be free. Man’s distress is concentrated then on this question of his salvation; he trembles at the thought that he may die before having attained his deliverance.

Most spiritual seekers submit themselves to an external authority in hopes that they can become liberated from pain, suffering, sin, illusion, maya—whatever you want to call the fallen state that most of us believe we are trapped in. Yet Zen says that this very belief in the reality of being trapped is the true trap.

Benoit says that my desire to be someone unique, one of a kind, a “me” unlike any other, is the root of all of my problems, both spiritual and worldly. Yet here I am, seeking personal salvation, when the egotistical belief that I am a special person who needs to be saved is what I need to be saved from.

I’m afraid of existing, Benoit argues. I believe that existence is a mere foundation for the really important thing: living. He writes, “ A man declares: ‘My life is insipid and monotonous; I do not call that living; at most it is existing….According to my fiction of personal divinity, to found my sense of life on my vegetative phenomena and the actions which serve them is absurd, while to found this sense on actions which tend to affirm me as separate is sensible. This view is profoundly rooted in the mind of man. It is evident to anyone who thinks about it impartially that it is this opinion which is absurd.”

Why? Because my emphasis on the importance of actions that only I can do places me at the center of the universe, whereas Benoit correctly says that only the First Cause (or what I’d call Ultimate Reality) can be that center. So according to Zen I would be much closer to the truth if I could tune into my pure and simple existence, my being, rather than all my doing.

I’ll probably share more from “The Supreme Doctrine” after I’ve re-read additional chapters. Apropos my current near-vegetative Maui beach life, here’s a nice Zen story from Benoit’s book that should make you feel better when you don’t feel like doing anything.

"Once upon a time there was a man standing on a high hill. Three travelers, passing in the distance, noticed him and began to argue about him. One said, ‘He has probably lost his favorite animal.’ Another said: ‘No, he is probably looking for his friend.’ The third said: “He is there only in order to enjoy the fresh air.’

The three travelers could not agree and continued to argue right up to the moment when they arrived at the top of the hill. One of them asked: ‘O friend, standing on this hill, have you not lost your favorite animal?’ ‘No, Sir, I have not lost him.’ The other asked: ‘Have you not lost your friend?’ ‘No, Sir, I have not lost my friend either.’ The third traveler asked: ‘Are you not here in order to enjoy the fresh air?’ ‘No, Sir.’

‘What then are you doing here, since you answer ‘No’ to all our questions.’ The man on the hill replied, ‘I am just standing.’”