Church of the Churchless

David Chalmer's view of consciousness: naturalistic dualism

Consciousness. It's what we are and know, since reality doesn't exist for us if we can't experience it. Yet it's also the most mysterious thing in the cosmos.

So mysterious, it can't really be called a "thing." Consciousness is utterly subjective. But without consciousness we wouldn't be aware of objective reality. So go figure...

David Chalmers has done a lot of figuring on this subject. He's an Australian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind/consciousness. I've had his book, "The Conscious Mind," sitting unread on my bookshelf for over a decade.

A few days ago I picked it up, stimulated by a mention in another book of how Chalmers doesn't see consciousness capable of being explained by materialism. As soon as I started reading it I realized why it had remained unread for so long: it's freaking dense.

Also, freaking interesting.

And the latter freakiness overwhelmed the former for me. So I've happily made my way through the first four chapters, even proudly skimming the sections in this Oxford University Press book marked with an asterisk -- a "philosophically technical" warning.

Chalmers obviously is brilliant (Rhodes Scholar, bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science, doctorate in philosophy, etc. etc.). His writing is crisp and clear, though heavily intellectual. Not surprising, since I believe "The Conscious Mind" is based on his doctoral thesis.

His approach to consciousness appeals to me. I've been interested in mysticism and meditation for about forty years. I also admire science, and logically rigorous ways of looking upon reality.

Chalmers strikes a pleasing philosophical middle ground for people like me who are attracted to the mystery of consciousness, yet don't want to embrace unprovable faith-based religious, mystical, spiritual, or New Age'y dogmas.

He says that "a being is conscious if there is something it is like to be that being." It's the subjective side of reality. (Almost the same as "awareness," though awareness has more of a functional connotation, since being aware allows us to do stuff -- including reporting what we're aware of.)

Over and over, Chalmers emphasizes the difference between explaining how consciousness works in the brain and what consciousness is. Thus there is an "easy," though still difficult, problem of consciousness, and the "hard" problem.

How does the brain process environmental stimulation? How does it integrate information? How do we produce reports on internal states? These are important questions, but to answer them is not to solve the hard problem: Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?

Zombies are frequently used by philosophers to explore this question. These aren't the stumbling creatures dressed in rags who scare us in horror movies. They're theoretical beings who are identical to us in every fashion, except they lack inner experience.

Every atom of their bodies is just like ours. They act just like us. They're objectively indistinguishable from us. But a zombie lacks consciousness.

How, then, is it possible to say that consciousness is explainable in a materialistic fashion if a zombie is 100% physically and behaviorally identical to a human being, yet lacks an experience of being a zombie, that something it is like Chambers spoke of above?

At first I had trouble getting my mind around this zombie thought experiment. Wouldn't consciousness be necessary to understand that the zombies being studied lacked consciousness? So there couldn't be a complete zombie world, right?

With more reading I began to grasp the philosophical difference between a conceivable reality and a possible reality. Zombies who are just like us but lack conscious experience are conceivable, though almost certainly not possible.

Along the same line, Chalmers talks about how God (hypothetically, obviously) could have created the universe just as it is, yet without consciousness.

So in a much more sophisticated way than I'm relating here, he presents a persuasive argument that consciousness isn't produced by materiality or an integral aspect of it. It is an extra that "God" would have had to add-on in addition to physical matter/energy.

No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.

...It will ultimately be given in terms of the structural and dynamical properties of physical processes, and no matter how sophisticated such an account is, it will yield only more structure and dynamics. While this is enough to handle most natural phenomena, the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about the explanation of structure and function, so a new sort of explanation is needed.

David Chalmers doesn't claim to have a final answer to the problem of consciousness, just some reasonable guidelines for how to approach it.

His basic thesis is "naturalistic dualism." By dualism, Chalmers means there are both physical and nonphysical features of the world, with consciousness being nonphysical. Naturalistic, though, means nonphysical can't be equated with supernatural, spiritual, mystical, or such.

The arguments do not lead us to a dualism such as that of Descartes, with a separate realm of mental substance that exerts its own influence on physical processes. The best evidence of contemporary science tells us that the physical world is more or less causally closed: for every physical event, there is a physical sufficient cause. If so, there is no room for a mental "ghost in the machine" to do any extra causal work.

I need to finish "The Conscious Mind" to learn more about what consciousness might be, if not physical. I do know that Chalmers posits that consciousness could be a fundamental aspect of reality, not reducible to anything else, just as "electric charge" is in physics.

(See this video interview with Chalmers; click on "physical theory" won't do the job to go to the relevant section.)

Chalmers suggests that there are deeper laws of nature, or principles, which connect physical processes to experience. Information might play a key role here. Thus there is more to consciousness than physical goings-on in the brain, but this "more" is natural, not supernatural.

It is psychophysical.

Like the fundamental laws of physics, psychophysical laws are eternal, having existed since the beginning of time. It may be that in the early stages of the universe there was nothing that satisfied the physical antecedents of the laws, and so no consciousness, although this depends on the nature of the laws.

In any case, as the universe developed, it came about that certain physical systems evolved that satisfied the relevant conditions. When these systems came into existence, conscious experience automatically accompanied them by virtue of the laws in question. Given that psychophysical laws exist and are timeless, as naturalistic dualism holds, the evolution of consciousness poses no special problem.

Again, these laws would tell us how experience arises from physical processes. Chalmers doesn't say that consciousness exists apart from material atoms and energy, which for humans is the brain. Rather, there is a lawful relationship between physical processes and conscious experience.

Though this might sound uninspiring to some people attracted to mysticism and meditation (such as me), Chalmers leaves open the possibility that "pure consciousness" of some sort could be experienced by us humans.

(Click on "pure contentless consciousness" in the above-mentioned video index.)

Here's a ten minute You Tube video which provides a good overview of Chalmer's philosophical take on consciousness. A Scientific American piece byChalmers also is well worth reading.
Download Scientific American Chalmers article

   

Pay attention to the world, not thoughts

I don't know why I didn't realize this a long time ago: The outside world is a lot more interesting than my thoughts about it.

Well, I suppose I had realized it, since I find actually lying on a warm, sunny beach much more appealing than merely thinking about that prospect. Ditto with the pleasure of actually drinking coffee compared to pondering the notion of brewing a cup.

But I've failed to pay attention to what I know. And that's a problem most of us have: paying attention in a proper way.

The meaning of "proper," naturally, can be debated endlessly. Which I don't intend to do. I'm simply speaking in a commonsense fashion. There are ways of paying attention which are better than others, because they make us feel better -- and other people too.

Sharon Begley speaks of this in her book, "The Plastic Mind: New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves." (The book's title seems to have transformed itself also, as it's different from my copy.)

The conscious act of thinking about one's thoughts in a different way changes the very brain circuits that do that thinking.

...Without attention, information that our senses take in -- what we see and hear, feel, smell, and taste -- literally does not register in the mind. It may not be stored even briefly in memory. What you see is determined by what you pay attention to.

Everybody has to decide for themselves what they want to see. That is, what their focus will be on during their likely one and only lifetime here on Earth (or anywhere else).

As for me, I'm realizing with steadily increasing clarity that my thoughts about physical reality are a poor substitute for the genuine thing.

This doesn't take away from the importance of thinking when I need to engage in it -- just that I'm finding less and less necessity to overlay thoughts about the world on top of my experiencing of it.

For example...

In my Tai Chi class I don't need to keep up a dialogue inside my head about how I'm moving. I simply need to move. I know the forms (Long Form, Short Form, 48 Form, etc.) that we're doing, or "playing" in Tai Chi parlance. So all I need to do is practice the meditation in motion that is Tai Chi.

During my evening dog walk I don't need to think about how the day has gone, or what I'm going to do after the family canine and I arrive home. I simply need to feel my feet take step after step, sense the air entering and exiting my nostrils, watch Serena sniffing her way from fascinating scent to fascinating scent.

The spiritual teacher/guru I used to believe in was fond of saying, "We aren't human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." (A Teilhard de Chardin quote.)

Well, here's another option: be a human being having a human experience.

Then, maybe -- highly improbable, but a possibility -- after you die you'll be a spiritual being having a spiritual experience. While human, be human. If spirit, be spiritual. Why short-change experience by making it something other than what it really is?

A thought of something spiritual (supernatural, immaterial, other-worldly) takes place via the physical brain. So it is real, but not of the same sort of reality as the world is.

Thoughts only exist inside our heads until we communicate them, like I'm doing now by having a thought, typing out in English when it consists of, and then publishing this post on the Internet.

Thinking is essential for making our way in the world and relating to other people. However, it's an open question as to how much we need to think about what we're doing and experiencing. Often thoughts are an unnecessary adjunct to experience, such as when I wash the dishes and think "I'm washing the dishes."

Well, duh.

On the other hand, thinking about how to experience something different from what is happening now often is necessary. If my computer won't start up, I need to think about what to do before doing it.

Religions, though, want us to think a lot about imaginary experiences. Prayers, mantras, ritual invocations, and such are designed to place true believers in a frame of mind where the here and now is made subservient to a fantasized there and then.

Sure, all this religious stuff can feel good. Sitting in church, surrounded by people who believe like you do, hearing tales of a heaven that is so much better than this imperfect world -- all this can produce highly appealing thoughts.

But that's all they are: thoughts. Reality is somewhere else, all around the worshipper. The sound of the preacher's voice, the hardness or softness of the pew, the brightness of candles, the sight of an image of Jesus on the cross.

After I left my Tai Chi class, I drove home. I decided to turn off the radio. I wanted to simply experience driving as fully as possible. It was much more interesting than usual, because my attention wasn't divided like it often is.

I felt the bumps on the underside of the steering wheel, as if for the first time. The sensation of turning a corner was fresh, even though I'd done it so frequently before. I realized that the world is where I should be focusing more of my attention, because the reality out there is more substantial than my thoughts about it.

Can't resist some churchless thanksgiving's

OK, I give up.

I've tried my best to resist the onslaught of thankiness here in the United States. Today is Thanksgiving, a national holiday. It has something to do with being thankful (obviously), but even Wikipedia can't explain the origins of what often is called Turkey Day.

For my wife and me, it's Wheat Gluten Day, as we're about to put a meatless Celebration Roast in the oven. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in a traditional fashion. However, there's nothing wrong with keeping "thanks" part of the day.

So, that's what I'll do: say thanks to those who visit this blog and leave comments on the posts.

The Church of the Churchless gets about 700-800 page views a day, with about 350-400 unique visitors. That means a lot to me. I'm grateful to be able to communicate in some fashion with that many people -- even if some simply take a glance, think "not for me" and head off to another thread of the vast worldwide web.

I've been blogging away here for a bit over six years. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing more to say, yet whenever I sit down at my laptop to compose a post, I find that there is.

Because I keep changing, learning, exploring, wondering, questioning, spurred on in some fashion by every comment or email that comes my way.

Whether I agree, disagree, or am neutral about what someone else says, his or her ideas wend their way into my psyche, adding to the ocean of information that my brain churns away on -- largely outside of my awareness.

Eventually fresh ideas and intuitions bubble up to the surface.

So I never (well, hardly ever) get tired of writing stuff for this blog. I can't really tell in what direction my philosophical and meaning-of-life inclinations are heading. What matters to me is the feeling of movement, a sensation that I'm not standing still.

Whether someone else calls this progress or backsliding doesn't matter to me, just as whether anyone applauds or denigrates your own way of living life shouldn't matter to you -- so long as you're satisfied with your choices and aren't purposely hurting others in the process.

Often I use the Google search tool in the right sidebar to find a post that I'd written years ago. Reading through it, I'll continue on into the comments and find that some people who are commenting on this blog now were Church of the Churchless visitors way back when.

"Cool," I'll think.

It's rare that a comment is left on this blog from someone I know personally. More precisely, physically. Because I do feel that I know many commenters personally. We've just never met face to face, only mind to mind.

Over the years I can sense changes in these people, whom I think of as friends in a very real cyberspace way. Like me, they're on their own journey, looking for fresh meanings and better ways of relating to the world.

As with my other friends, I may disagree with them on this or that particular subject.

What's much more important is the common ground we stand on: a commitment to non-dogmatic truth-seeking, spiritual independence, and respect for the mystery that remains when the light of human knowledge is laid against the much larger darkness of reality beyond our understanding.

Every day I learn something through this blog. Thank you, Church of the Churchless visitors, for making that possible.

Spiritual sadness and humor

Sad: a PBS video about the Devadasi practice in India -- religiously sanctioned prostitution.
Funny: a graphic economic argument against the reality of supernatural phenomena.

(thanks, Clare, for letting me know about these)

Enlightenment made simple: it's reality

Back in my true-believing religious days I looked upon enlightenment as something special, difficult to achieve, and rare. Now, I see it pretty much opposite: not unique, easy to attain, and commonplace.

When you read descriptions of enlightenment in the world's spiritual, mystical, and philosophical literature -- and I've read lots of them -- some commonalities start to become apparent beneath all of the bewildering idiosyncratic descriptions.

The basic one is this: loss or lessening of self-hood, egotism, sense of separateness.

Supposedly enlightened people, such as the Buddha, talk about how "I-ness" isn't truly real. We humans aren't ego-encapsulated entities who inhabit our own realm of reality. Rather, we're part and parcel of the cosmos, an integral aspect of the interconnected world.

Well, that's exactly what science says. Also, everyday experience.

So what's the big deal about "enlightenment"? Nothing, really. In fact, that's what much of the literature on this subject says: enlightenment is realizing that there's nothing to be enlightened about, nor anyone to be enlightened.

In short, there's only reality. Seeing things as they are (necessarily, of course, within the confines of human consciousness) is the clearest perception.

Likewise, I suppose we could call wiping dirt off of a pair of glasses in order to see clearly "enlightenment." But since it's really just an act aimed at seeing normally, where's the need for a special word?

In "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" Alan Watts writes about this simple seeing as well as anyone I've read. Last year I quoted some passages in a blog post, Alan Watts tells me who I am: Everything.

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the entire universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals.

Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

...Apart from your brain, or some brain, the world is devoid of light, heat, weight, solidity, motion, space, time, or any other imaginable feature. All these phenomena are interactions, or transactions, of vibrations with a certain arrangement of neurons.

Thus vibrations of light and heat from the sun do not actually become light or heat until they interact with a living organism, just as no light-beams are visible in space unless reflected by particles of atmosphere or dust. In other words, it "takes two" to make anything happen.

Back in the 70's I spent several years in a Systems Science Ph.D. program. Never earned a doctorate, but I learned a lot about interconnectedness. The world isn't made up of discrete entities. Feedback, interchanges of energy and information, looping chains of causes and effects -- this is how the universe functions.

In a chapter, "The World is Your Body," Watts says:

As soon as one sees that separate things are fictitious, it becomes obvious that nonexistent things cannot "perform" actions. The difficulty is that most languages are arranged so that actions (verbs) have to be set in motion by things (nouns), and we forget that rules of grammar are not necessarily rules, or patterns, of nature.

...Yet isn't it obvious that when we say, "The lightning flashed," the flashing is the same as the lightning, and that it would be enough to say, "There was lightning"?

...To sum up: just as no thing or organism exists on its own, it does not act on its own. Furthermore, every organism is a process: thus the organism is not other than its actions. To put it clumsily: it is what it does. More precisely, the organism, including its behavior, is a process which is to be understood only in relation to the larger and longer process of its environment.

For what we mean by "understanding" or "comprehension" is seeing how parts fit into a whole, and then realizing that they don't compose the whole, as one assembles a jigsaw puzzle, but that the whole is a pattern, a complex wiggliness, which has no separate parts.

Parts are fictions of language, of the calculus of looking at the world through a net which seems to chop it up into parts.

There are many ways to come to the understanding Watts speaks of.

Science is one way, since the laws of nature are marvelously interconnected, just as nature itself is. Ecology teaches us that no species is an island, sufficient unto itself. Rather, every living organism survives (and dies) via interchanges with its environment.

Meditation, in the broadest sense of "seeing clearly," is another way. I can intuit that when I feel myself sitting on my cushion, that sensation is a product of nerve endings in my butt, the firmness of what I'm resting on, and how my brain interprets that aspect of bodily awareness.

Whenever it seems that my self is a discrete independent entity, I'm not viewing reality accurately. I've narrowed my vision to focus on this or that aspect of the cosmos. That's fine, but every "figure" needs a "ground" to be perceptible.

The figure always defines the ground and the ground defines the figure. They are inseparable -- you can not have one without the other.

Everyone recognizes this. But often we forget this fact, or fail to pay attention to it.

"Enlightened" people simply do a better job of attending to reality. And I suspect that how this attending occurs plays a big part in whether someone is revered as an enlightened sage, or just appears to be a normal human being.

Meaning, some people will have a stronger intellectual or cognitive understanding of the universe's interconnectedness. Others, a stronger experiential or emotional understanding.

I suspect that these two varieties of understanding (which doesn't exhaust the varieties of "enlightenment") aren't as discrete as is often supposed. Thinking about how I am connected to the world likely will lead to different emotional states; I may feel less anxious, more compassionate, and such.

Yet as Watts said, "Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated 'egos' inside bags of skin."

Fortunately, reality has a way of winning out.

Modern neuroscience is showing us the falsity of believing in a separate self that somehow inhabits our psyches distinct from the brain. Studies of the effects of meditation are offering up clues about how mindfulness can help heal the illusory rift between ourselves and the world.

Our understanding of enlightenment is steadily growing. So much so, I suspect that one day that word will go out of use. We'll just speak of knowing reality.

More bad arguments for the existence of God

Earlier this year I wrote a post about Rebecca Goldstein's book, "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction," citing several arguments that religiously-minded visitors to this blog often like to use.

Each has flaws, which Goldstein points out clearly and entertainingly in an appendix to her book. They can be read here in their entirety. (Scroll down past the book excerpt.)

I'd been slowly making my way through "36 Arguments," not finding the story all that engrossing. I liked the philosophical discussions, though, so decided to jump to the climactic debate between a religious skeptic and true believer.

Then I made another jump to the appendix and read the 36 Arguments straight through. Well, not exactly.

Because I've done so much other reading on this subject, most of the arguments were both (1) very familiar to me, and (2) spectacularly unpersuasive. So I didn't spend much time on these lame attempts to demonstrate that God exists.

A few, though, grabbed my attention. These also had come up fairly frequently in Church of the Churchless comments when people challenged religious skepticism in more than a simplistic Believe! manner.

Here are the two best arguments, in my opinion. Which turn out to be pretty bad -- just better than the rest of the thirty-six. I've summarized both the argument and the flaws Goldstein finds in it.

(33) The Argument from the Unreasonableness of Reason

Our belief in reason cannot be justified by reason, since that would be circular. So this belief has to be accepted on faith. Since faith provides good rational grounds for a belief, given that even a belief in reason requires faith we are justified in believing that God exists. This allow us to live coherent moral and purposeful lives, just as a belief in reason brings similar sorts of benefits.

Flaws. The attempt to justify reason with reason is not circular, but, rather, unnecessary. One already is, and always will be, committed to reason by the very process one is already engaged in -- namely, reasoning. Reason is non-negotiable; all sides concede it. It needs no justification, because it is justification. A belief in God is not like that at all.

Also, if the unreasonability of reason was taken as a license to believe things on faith, then which things should one believe in? A single God who gave his son for our sins? Zeus and all the other Greek gods? The three major gods of Hinduism? Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?

If one says that there are good reasons to accept some entities on faith, while rejecting others, then one is saying that it is ultimately reason, not faith, that must be invoked to justify a belief.

(35) The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe (Spinoza's God)

All facts must have explanations. So the fact that the universe exists, this universe, with just these laws of nature, has an explanation. In principle, then, there must be a Theory of Everything that explains why this universe, with these laws of nature, exists. The only way the Theory could provide this explanation is by being true. So the universe would be shown to exist necessarily and explain itself -- which is a definition of "God." Thus the universe is God, and God exists.

Flaws. It is not at all clear that it is God whose existence is being proved. Spinoza's God, which is identical with the universe, is sharply at variance with all other divine conceptions.

Further, the premise "all facts must have explanations" cannot be proved. Our world could conceivably be one in which randomness and contingency have free rein, no matter what the intuitions of some scientists are. Maybe some things just are ("stuff happens"), including the fundamental laws of nature.

Spinoza's argument, if sound, invalidates all the other arguments, the ones that try to establish the existence of a more traditional God -- that is, a God who stands distinct from the world described by the laws of nature, as well as distinct from the world of human meaning.

The mere coherence of The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe, therefore, is sufficient to reveal the invalidity of the other theistic arguments. This is why Spinoza, although he offered a proof of what he called "God," is often regarded as the most effective of all atheists.

[Note to above: Naturally I was thrilled to come across the phrase "stuff happens" in such a thoughtful book just a few days after I wrote my "Stuff happens -- meaning of life in two words" post. Clearly this is a message from God...Spinoza's God, a.k.a. reality.]

Stuff happens -- meaning of life in two words

I'm not sure what I'd make of me if that wasn't who I am: me. But isn't that true of everyone, you included? (Who is the "me" to yourself, whereas I'm your "you.")

By which I mean, if I saw myself from the outside rather than the inside, I'd likely think, "Wow, that dude is weird." That indeed is how I often look upon people, both dudes and dudettes. Yet to them, they're normal and it's other folks such as me who are strange.

Today I sent off an email to a neighbor. I added some lines that had little or nothing to do with my subject. They just were on my mind after some pondering during my morning meditation time.

I've spent most of my life trying to figure out the meaning of life. Currently my theory is pretty simple: stuff happens. Then other stuff happens. Until we die. Then, maybe, or maybe not, other stuff happens. I really don't think we can control that "stuff." Just deal with it the best we can.

Now, those words make a lot of sense to me. Yet if I put myself in the shoes (or better, mind) of the person who got that email message, I'd view me as having a pretty damn depressing nihilistic philosophy of life.

That isn't true, though I do have a nihilism wristband that I wear occasionally.

I don't see "stuff happens" as negative. Rather, it is an affirmation of reality and the mystery that looms when we try to understand its depths (notwithstanding how the most famous popularizer of that phrase used it).

I'm not sure why what has already happened to me, did. I'm not sure why what lies in the future for me, will be. I'm not sure why this present moment, is.

The chains of causes and effects -- including what appears to be randomness -- linked to even the simplest event are breathtakingly beyond the complete comprehension of even the smartest people in the world, or the most advanced computers. 

Yesterday I picked up some pants from a seamstress who had shortened the hems. Chatting with her as she got the bill ready, she said "You have an accent. Where did you come from?" I told her that I was born in Massachusetts, but moved to Texas early on, so maybe when I learned to talk I was influenced by accents of both east and west.

However, there's other possibilities to consider. I dimly recall speaking Spanish with a Mexican housekeeper when I was little. Perhaps my long-forgotten foray into another language affected how I talk now. Who knows?

The point is, stuff happens.

When pressed by ourselves or others to explain it, we provide stories that make greater or lesser sense depending upon the situation. If I've got a bandage around my finger and someone asks what happened, I can reasonably say "I hit myself with a hammer."

But I'll leave out "...while thinking about something other than the nail." Because once I start down the route of why's and wherefores, there's no stopping until I get to the big bang and the beginning of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

Recently I finished reading Susan Blackmore's Ten Zen Questions. I enjoyed how seriously and energetically she dives into first-person experiencing of those queries, including "How does thought arise?", "What am I doing?", and "What happens next?"

I don't think I could ever enjoy full-blown Zen retreats such as the ones Blackmore decribes, though. Way too much ritual, rules, restrictions, and bowing before the Zen master for me. I like Zen philosophy, but Zen practitioners tend to look upon life as a koan to be solved rather than a joy to be embraced, or a mystery to be marveled at.

Nothing wrong with solutions, satori'ish or otherwise. I just have come to doubt that the meaning of life is a puzzle meant to be solved.

Which isn't much different, though, from how Blackmore sees things. Here's some quotes from the end of her book.

Things just are the way they are. Whether they could have been different I do not know, but I suspect that even asking this question does not make sense. Stuff just happens.

Indeed the fingers are typing here right now. No one is acting. I am not doing anything.

What, then, is the point of it all? What's the point in doing anything?

No point.

...Experiences and their experiencers will arise wherever and whenever there is a body capable of sensing things, and a brain capable of analyzing them, and they will last some time and disappear again.

They are now here, now there, now coming and going. I seem to be here now; but then I'm not. Something else is, and has been for some time.

...When this body dies there may be a lot of pain, a horrible last illness, the sadness of not having said all those things I wanted to say to people I loved, projects not completed, a fantasized future not to be.

But will I be snuffed out like a candle?

Yes, just as I have been a thousand, million times before. Just the same. Being born and dying again is how all life is. Birth and death are not a problem; the cycle of illusion is broken; they are just how it is.

Focus... focus... focus... Happy!

Happiness, it seems, lies on the other side of a wandering mind. To enjoy life it doesn't matter so much what we do, as how focused we are on whatever we're doing.

This is one of the conclusions of research I blogged about yesterday in a HinesSight post, "When mind wanders, happiness departs." A New York Times story said:

Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing.

Meditation is supposed to help people learn how to concentrate, and thus, seemingly, be happier.

However, the researchers found that the top happiness rating was given to (no big surprise) having sex, followed by exercising, conversation, listening to music, taking a walk, eating, praying and meditating, cooking, shopping, taking care of one’s children and reading.

Often religious believers consider that activities associated with their faith lead them to be happy. But probably focus is the real reason why worship, rituals, and such are so satisfying. Along with sex, of course.

As I said in my post, when the wandering "monkey mind" is zeroed in on a single thing, we tend to feel happier -- no matter what that thing is (I"ve found that even when I go to the dentist, embracing the experience for what it is makes me feel better than when I try to distract myself with thoughts of non-dental this and that.)

I talked about going shopping with my mental monkey more under control.

This afternoon, though, inspired by the wandering mind = less happy research, I did better while grocery shopping. I consciously focused on each step I took from the parking lot into the south Salem Fred Meyer store.

Then I had a sense of slowing down, selecting one item at a time, being mindful of the details of choosing bananas, checking the expiration date on organic lettuce mix, finding an unfamiliar brand of hair conditioner that my wife had put on the list.

I really did feel happier shopping in this fashion. It struck me that external reality is considerably more interesting, by and large, than my thoughts -- which tend to be repetitive.

After loading the groceries into the back of our Hybrid Highlander and starting to drive off to the next shopping stop, I got another lesson in the value of mindfulness.

Still engaged in focusing on external reality, rather than my own mind, I saw a gorgeous young woman -- willowy, shapely, graceful -- walking through the parking lot. If I'd been zeroed in on what my psyche was chattering about, instead of what was sensuously present in the outside world, I could have missed her.

Over on the Progressive Buddhism blog, Adam Miller was writing about something similar on the same day. I resonate with his thoughts about Scale.

When we're always looking for some grand experience, whether spiritual or secular, the marvelousness of what is right in front of us escapes our gaze. Miller says that we need to focus on a finer scale to really appreciate reality.

I want to hew close to the bone of life. I want to press myself right up against the grain of its pulse. I want to tongue life's live nerve.

This business is fine-grained. It's going to require a shift in scale. I'm going to have stop living life in chunks of weeks and months, even in terms of hours and days. This is too far from the action, six steps too removed. I'm going to have to live life at the scale of minutes and seconds - at the scale of fractions of seconds if I'm able.

I'm going to have to practice. This is hard to do. I'm going to have bring myself back - again, again, again - to that which is so common, so ordinary, so insignificant as to flit by at life's own breakneck pace. I'm going to have to practice a finely-grained humility that is so modest as to register whatever is given at however small a scale as worth my attention.

The modesty of the scale is hard to swallow. I had bigger plans in mind for myself. I was going to be a contender.

A breath? Really? An itch in my big toe? Really? A breeze tickling the rim of my ear? A brush of a kiss from wife's chapped lip?

Why not? What was I hoping for?

A missionary's deconversion by a "primitive" tribe

One of the most annoying aspects of Christianity is how this religion feels a necessity to try to convert people. Not every religion does. For example, by and large Judaism and Hinduism are content to let their faith speak for itself.

So it's enjoyable when the tables are turned and a missionary finds himself deconverted by those who he sought to turn into Christians. Yesterday I learned about a You Tube video, "Christian missionary deconverted by tribe." (Thanks for the email, Clare.)

Around the seven minute mark, Daniel Everett speaks of how his evangelizing to a South American tribe ended up changing him.

It was becoming clear that the message I had staked my life and career on did not fit the PIrahas' culture. They didn't feel lost, so they didn't feel a need to be saved either. They are firmly committed to the pragmatic concept of utility.

Surprisingly, all this resonated with me. The Pirahas' rejection of the gospel caused me to question my own faith. There was so much about the Pirahas that I admired: their quality of inner life, their happiness, their contentment.

The Pirahas had built their culture around what is useful to their survival. My faith seemed a glaring irrelevancy in this culture. It was superstition to the Pirahas. And it began to seem more and more like superstition to me.

I began seriously to question the nature of faith, of believing in something unseen. Sometime in the lagte 1980s I came to admit to myself that I no longer believed in any article of faith, or in anything supernatural.

I was a closet atheist.

Take a look. It's an interesting ten minutes, well worth your time.

 

Is it possible to meditate and "go inside"?

For about thirty-five years I belonged to a spiritual group whose core teachings included the importance of "going inside." Not a house, or any other building, but one's self.

When I was trying to do this by meditating several hours a day, I never gave much thought to what "going inside" really meant, or if it was possible. I simply accepted the notion on faith.

Which entailed the belief that another realm of consciousness exists in addition to what we're already aware of. Supposedly a person could focus his or her attention solely on internal processes of the psyche and thereby leave the material world behind, opening a "door" that led to higher spheres of reality.

I've never come across anyone who makes a believable claim that they've been able to do this. And there's good reason to be skeptical that the whole idea of an "inside" separate from "outside" makes any sense.

In her book, "Ten Zen Questions," Susan Blackmore asks Where is this? Great question, with no obvious answer. She sets out to discover where some sprigs of bright yellow winter jasmine flowers are.

They're in her meditation hut. That's one answer. But...

What is wrong with the idea that the yellow flowers are right there, where they seem to be, about two feet in front of my face? Actually, quite a lot, now I come to think of it. Philosophers have argued for centuries over the location of experiences -- are they in the brain that creates them, in the outside world where they seem to be, or without any location at all, as Descartes believed?

...I realise I have made some kind of an object out of the flowers, as though it is independent of my experience. But the question was 'Where is this?' and 'this' is my experience of the flowers.

...Here is the problem. The colour yellow is not really in the flowers at all because it only appears to be yellow when a particular sort of visual system looks at it. If a bee flew over that flower now, for example, it would not perceive it as yellow like I do.

...The yellow, then, is not out there where it seems to be, in the petals of my beautiful flower. It takes me, and my particular eyes, and my particular brain, as well as the flowers, to make this yellow.

Blackmore goes on in this vein, which stimulated my own Where is inside? thoughts in me.

I (or anyone) shut my eyes and settle down in a quiet meditation spot to investigate what is inside my head, as opposed to outside. But to quote Blackmore, "here is the problem."

Everything is inside my head. All the time. Without exception. Including all of my experiences of the supposedly "outside" world. It isn't just colors that arise from how the human brain processes certain phenomena. It is everything.

So here comes an unbidden thought, emotion, or intuition. Here comes a flash of light or ringing sound that seems to arise from nowhere material. Here's a feeling of being in a state of higher consciousness, separate and distinct from everyday life.

All that is happening courtesy of my physical brain. I'm not inside another realm of reality; I'm inside my body, just as I always am. Except, to say I'm "inside" implies an "outside."

Where would that be? Where is the outside of my bodily experience as a brain-equipped human? Likewise, where is the inside?

I seek to find the inside of my self. If the body is my outside, seemingly there should be an inside. But inside my cranium, the brain is still part of my body. And we've seen that the mind/brain is responsible for how I experience everything, no matter whether I call it "outside" or "inside" stuff.

It turns out that the notion of going inside isn't as simple and clear as I'd thought for those thirty-five years.

In fact, it doesn't seem to be a notion that reflects reality, since it isn't possible to separate insides and outsides when it comes to human experience.

Thanking an unknown "God"

Neuroscientific researchers tell us that it's natural to personify impersonal phenomena. Our brains essentially are hard-wired for a "supersense" which discerns supernatural forces even when there is no evidence for them.

As churchless as I am, and as science-loving as I am, I still find myself talking to the cosmos as if someone could hear me.

(I also talk to our dog as if she could understand me, and when the #1 Oregon Ducks football team was gritting out a 15-13 victory last Saturday, I entreatied the television as if the players could hear me -- even weirder, I'd recorded the game and it was long over!)

No problem. I'm aware of what I'm doing. I simply enjoy verbalizing feelings that spring spontaneously out of psychological depths which I'm not able to fathom. 

Tonight our evening dog walk was through the woods and around a neighborhood lake. It was an unusually warm night for mid-November in Oregon, 55 degrees or so. The moon was half full. Even when rainless clouds obscured it, the countryside still was bathed in a mild moon glow.

I could hear geese honking at a nearby wildlife refuge. Lights from houses which ring the lake were reflected in the water like mini-moons. A breeze blew across my face, probably a harbinger of colder weather and rain on the way.

I found myself saying what I often do at such moments.

"Thank you."

I have no idea who or what I'm talking to. Nor, of course, whether that entity exists -- whoever or whatever it might be, if it were.

No problem. I realized that I most likely was talking to myself. (There's fairly good philosophical and scientific reasons to argue that I always am, but going down that road would take me too far from the point of this post.)

It just felt right -- almost necessary -- to express my "thank you." The universe, and this world, is amazing. It is. That blows my mind. Along with the fact that I am.

If I was religious, I'd feel that I was thanking God. Now, I simply thank. The big bang. The laws of nature. An alien artificial world simulator. Could be anyone or anything. Or no one and nothing.

No problem. It's the thanking that feels real, not an imaginary thankee.

Meditation makes your cells healthier

Good news for us long-time meditators: a study shows that meditation is linked to psychological well-being, which in turn is related to higher telomerase -- an enzyme that makes cells healthy.

The study participants had one-third more teomerase in their white blood cells than controls. However, this was only after they spent three months in an intensive meditation workshop that entailed six hours of personal meditation a day plus a couple of group sessions.

I have a feeling that this would drive me nuts, rather than healthy, but I could be wrong. Regardless, I'm hoping that my current 20-30 minutes of daily meditation along with regular enervating boosts of maxi-scooter riding and red wine drinking will have the same effect.

(Thanks to Ira for letting me know about the study via an email.)

Matter is as mysterious as spirit

Those who like to delve into the interface of science and spirituality should check out David and Andrea Lane's "Mysterium Tremendum."

I haven't read it closely enough to be able to talk about the essay thoughtfully. But a quick look-through showed me that the Lanes' piece makes a lot of wise observations about the overwhelming mystery of matter.

Often religiously inclined people think that science takes the magic, mystery, and wonder out of living. Not true. Attitudes like that simply show how little those folks know about modern science.

Here's some excerpts from the the essay:

Therefore, a very strong argument can be made that the real problem with materialism (the idea everything that arises is nothing but permutations of matter) isn’t that it is the exact opposite of spirit or that it somehow diminishes human consciousness, but rather that we do not properly appreciate what the word actually means and what it entails. To say something is “just” matter is akin to say something is “just” light (which matter, by the way, also contains).

...What this means is that even if we forego religion and spirituality and opt for a purely materialistic understanding of what surrounds us, we are still touching moment to moment a mystery that transcends our ability to grasp it. And, ironically, the dilemma isn’t between matter and spirit, but the persistence of wholly inaccurate and misleading definitions of them.

To echo the immortal words of Ludwig Wittgenstein, there isn’t a philosophical problem inherent in this supposed dualism but a confused use of reifications embedded in our languages. Simply put, our use of the term matter is mostly a linguistic confusion and as such has blinded us from the radical mystery to which it consistently points us towards.

The implications here are enormous for spiritual disciplines which wish to be viewed as promoting a scientific outlook. Any meditational discipline that wishes to be seriously taken as a science must ground itself in the very thing it wishes to transcend. But as I wish to make crystal clear, nobody transcends matter as such. Instead what is transcended are bad definitions.

Why politics and fundamentalist Christianity shouldn't mix

Here's a great example of why personal religious beliefs should be kept out of public policy debates: Illinois Congressman John Shimkus citing Genesis in support of his contention that global warming is nothing to worry about.

 

He's standing by his remarks, made in 2009, that everything will be fine because God promised He wouldn't destroy the Earth after Noah's flood.

The Illinois Republican running for the powerful perch atop the House Energy and Commerce Committee told POLITICO on Wednesday that his understanding of the Bible reaffirms his belief that government shouldn't be in the business of trying to address rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"I do believe in the Bible as the final word of God," Shimkus said. "And I do believe that God said the Earth would not be destroyed by a flood.

Truly bizarre. Even more astonishing is that many Americans undoubtedly feel it's perfectly OK to base vitally important national policy decisions on myths from a pre-scientific era.

Well, we're in for a rough couple of years in Congress if Republicans allow legislation to be based on weird religious beliefs rather than solid facts. Openly debating the science of climate change is one thing; sticking one's head in the sand and spouting scripture is wholly/holy different.

Like I said before, and surely will say again, "Religious values have no place in politics."

Killing the false Buddha, Gotama lives truly

As my churchlessness has evolved, I find myself interested in a steadily smaller portion of the spiritual landscape. I used to devour writings by (and about) Rumi, Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and various Hindu/Vedanta mystics.

Now, I mostly nibble at Buddhist and Taoist teachings when I feel the need for some "what's life all about?" philosophizing that isn't annoyingly religious. Only problem is, even with these offerings I have to be careful what I put on my reading plate.

In the Buddhism category of this blog I've written about what I like and don't like about Buddhist meditation. Basically, I'm turned on by Buddhism's practical focus on the human condition: how do we deal with the distress and stress of everyday life?

And I'm turned off by the religious'y side of Buddhism: veneration of the Buddha as a divine being, prayer wheels, unfounded faith in past lives, reincarnation, and other supernatural dogmas.

Not being a Buddhist scholar, it's been difficult for me to pin down exactly where Buddhism goes wrong, and why. Thankfully, those with wiser understandings, such as Stephen Bachelor, are able to enlighten me as to why enlightenment isn't what religious Buddhists consider it to be.

Now I can add Glenn Wallis as another experienced Buddhist practitioner who can cut through the dharma crap and get down to the essence of what Buddhism is all about.

Which isn't the Buddha, as Wallis says in his "Buddhist Manifesto." It's Gotama, the real man behind the mythical "Buddha."
Download Buddhist-Manifesto

The more time I spend regarding Buddhism, the clearer it becomes: the basic teachings of the Buddha are in dire need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation: to return to health, to restore to a former healthy condition, to return to normal. Re-habilitate from habilitas, ability; so, re-enable. Gotama’s teaching, like the human face of the teacher himself, is vanishing. It is disappearing behind the Oz-like curtain — as shimmering and alluring as a Tibetan prayer flag fluttering in the sun — of religious Buddhism.

...My overarching premise is this: Gotama was an unsurpassed scientist of the real. He expounded with lucidity and precision (1) our human situation and (2) an effective means for awakening to that situation with clarity and equanimity. Gotama, as Emerson said of Plato “knew the cardinal facts.” He is the arrival on the human scene of an uncanny precision and intelligence; he accurately divided and defined the categories of human existence. And like all good scientists, he kept it simple.

The 13-page "Buddhist Manifesto" is well worth reading.

Wallis talks about how supernaturalism isn't part of Gotama's core message, and indeed is at odds with it. Meditation is the main way Gotama advised us to come to grips with the cause, and hopefully eventual cure, of our distress (a.k.a. suffering).

I found a shorter version of Wallis' thesis on his website in the form of a 6-page journal article, "Gautama vs the Buddha."
Download Gautama_vs_the_Buddha

I have given up on the Buddha. That is to say, I have given up on the Enlightened One, the Blessed One, the omniscient Lord of people and gods who works miracles, knows unknowable things, and continues to exert his power from beyond. When I ask Buddhists to explain why I should accept their revered sage as a modern-day life-adviser, I am typically offered only articles of faith (claims to be believed in or rejected) and rarely good (that is, examinable and testable) reasons.

...But along the way, something unexpected happened. I met one of the world’s most gifted teachers. He is Gautama, the human figure behind the fanciful facade of the Buddha. Like the Stoics, Epicureans, and Platonists in ancient Greece and Rome, Gautama instructed in the manner of a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. He taught and modeled a viable way to human flourishing, and did so rooted firmly in everyday life.

There's nothing wrong with religions that can't be made right by stripping religiosity out of them. Of course, in most cases what's left is pretty thin gruel, not enough to satisfy.

Remove Christ from Christianity, or Allah from Islam, and what do you have? Nothing substantial. With Buddhism, though, it's the opposite. That's why kill the Buddha is an adage that makes sense to Buddhists like Wallis.

Also to me, though I don't consider myself a Buddhist. (I do have a $1.99 Zen Timer iPhone app, which shows my commitment to enlightenment through Apple technology.)

Instant enlightenment. Guaranteed. Just read this.

Before I proceed to enlighten you through a few well-chosen paragraphs, side-stepping all those ridiculous disciplines, such as meditation, that usually are regarded as necessary to achieve this elevated understanding, my inner attorney demands that I add some metaphorical fine print to the title of this blog post:

First, you should indeed soon be enlightened as to the ultimate nature of the cosmos. However, don't expect that this will be, well, what you expect.

Second, my guarantee is related to my just-mentioned "first." Have no doubt that my words will take you to the furthest reaches of reality. But if you anticipate what this experience will be like, I can't guarantee that my guarantee will match yours.

That said, let's get on with the saying.

Which begins with some seeing and hearing -- the first few minutes of a You Tube video, "Carl Sagan on 'God' and 'Gods," that I came across courtesy of Pharyngula.

 

Sagan points out that if we ask how the cosmos came to be, and someone claims God created it, the next question is "And what created God?" If the answer is that God has always existed, then why not save a step and simply say, "The cosmos always has existed"?

Which brings me to my promised enlightenment.

All you need to do is this: ponder the fact that existence always has existed. That is, something always has existed.

Even if you're scientifically minded and envision universe particles popping out of a cosmic quantum vacuum, "quantum" and "vacuum" are something, not nothing.

Don't be half-assed with your pondering.

Stick with it until you reach a brain freeze, an existential brick wall, the place where your train of thought crashes into an abyss of What the Fuck?! and you find yourself in the engineer's seat staring straight at an unfathomable black hole of pitch black mystery.

Get to that place.

Feel what it's like. Doesn't matter for how long. A milli-second will do. That sensation of Ahhhhhh... Ohhhhhhh... Ooooooohh... or whatever -- that's enlightenment.

Guaranteed.

Because you've grasped what the endpoint of knowledge, of experience, of living, of dying, of reality, is. It doesn't matter that you haven't traversed all of the territory in between here and there.

You've gotten an intuitive feel for Existence exists. Amazing! If that feeling came to be continous, you'd be continuously enlightened.

In some traditions, "enlightenment" is said to be the recognition that there's no such thing as enlightenment. That fits well with how I see the situation.

Enlightenment is like Wile E. Coyote running into a rock wall while chasing the Road Runner, something he did a lot of in the cartoons that I avidly watched in my childhood.

He'd get flat as a pancake. Then slowly peel himself off the wall and pop back into his three-dimensional self.

Existence is that wall. Enlightenment is that pancaking. It's the realization that, in the end, there's nothing to realize.

Existence is. Just as we are. Existence always is.

Whether we are also... that depends on how we view "we." The atoms and energy which comprise "me" likely always will exist in some sense, since there is no place for existence to depart to (given that any possible destination would exist).

Early on every human is conditioned to see causes and effects operating everywhere. Positing "God" is a way for us to feel that we've figured out the ultimate cause. Yet as Sagan says, this is an illusory explanation. On the other side of "God" is stark existence, causeless and effectless.

If this sort of pondering leaves a chill in your spine, bodily or philosophically, this is a sign of your enlightenment.

But even if you feel nothing, you're still enlightened if you appreciate the mysterious beauty of boundless existence.

This can't be experienced, understood, or known. All we can do is know in a knowledge that is beyond knowing, This can't be experienced or understood.

 

Reality is the only guru we need

After many years of searching for spiritual truth, about forty, most of which were spent following the teachings of a supposedly God-realized guru,  I finally feel like I know what this truth is.

Reality.

Which isn't spiritual at all. Nor otherworldly. Or supernatural, mystical, mysterious, secret, hidden from the unitiated.

In other words, the big "spiritual truth" is that there isn't any.

Everything we need to understand how we relate to the cosmos is right before our eyes: everyday life. Whatever you did today, and whatever you're doing right now, contains the wisdom of the ages.

We just need to set aside our blinders and see what reality is all about. Freshly, clearly, scientifically.

Recently I came across a You Tube video, "Science Saved My Soul," which offers one way of looking at what is real, and what isn't. The whole fifteen minutes of it is terrific, but after the eight minute mark we hear the most inspiring part.

 

Understanding what science knows about the immense scale of the universe should make us feel exceedingly small and insignificant. What are we compared to the several hundred billion stars in our galaxy, which is but one of a hundred billion or so galaxies in the universe?

Yet science also tells us that we are all of this.

The matter of which we are formed can be traced back 13.7 billion years to the big bang. Primordial elements, helium and hydrogen, evolved into stars. These stars eventually exploded, casting heavy elements into the far reaches of space.

So the truth is that we are all made of stardust.

There is no difference between us and the cosmos, hence no reason to bow down before a supernatural creator. The universe is our home, our reality, our sustainer.

Now, I realize that even rather poetic paeans to science such as this video leave some people wanting another way to grasp the message that what we seek is right in front of us, not in some distant heaven or level of consciousness.

I fly both ways myself, being attracted almost equally to solid scientific facts and inspiring philosophical/psychological insights.

For me the two converge pleasingly in Zen, at least when the religious aspects of Buddhism are purged from the reality-seeking side of Zen. My favorite Zen book of this sort is Hubert Benoit's "The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought."

(See here and here; it looks like the book has been republished under a different name.)

Every time I re-read "The Supreme Doctrine" I'm blown away by how brilliant and insightful Benoit is. And as quite a few reader reviews on Amazon say, it takes multiple readings of Benoit's masterpiece to grasp what he's getting at.

(You can get some glimmers, though, from my previous blog posts about this book: here, here, here, and here.)

Below is an excerpt from the last post, which was about humility -- a subject I touched upon again a few days ago. (The last two paragraphs are Benoit quotes.)

Benoit says that our efforts to rise up spiritually are doomed to failure. As are our efforts to sink down. Any effort at all is counter-productive, though we have no choice but to attempt such futility until the light of satori dawns.

What we should seek is equality, not higher or lower. But that’s too damn scary for an ego that depends upon separateness in order to keep feeling that “I” am something distinct. “I am humble; I am nothing” and “I am proud; I am everything” are both preferable to the equitable obliteration of “I am, along with everything else.”

"I believe that I am separated from my own ‘being’ and I am looking for it in order to reunite myself with it. Only knowing myself as a distinct individual, I seek for the Absolute in an individual manner, I wish to affirm myself absolutely as a distinct being. This effort creates and maintains in me my divine fiction, my fundamental pretension that I am all-powerful as an individual, on the plane of phenomena.

…I train myself never to recognise the equality between the outside world and myself; I affirm myself to be different from the outside world, on a different level, above whenever I can, below when I cannot….I see myself as conditioning the outer world, or I see myself as not succeeding in conditioning it, but never can I recognise myself as conditioned by it on a footing of equality."

Does life always give us what we want? No. Do our actions and efforts make a difference in what we get from life? Yes.

This is reality. Pretty damn simple.

We are part of life, of the world, of the universe. Yet we are not the central part that our egos consider ourselves to be. Religions proclaim that we can rise beyond our purely human nature, soar to heaven, ascend past mortal limitations and failings.

This feeds into our reality-denying inclinations. Everyday life tells us you're nothing special. Religiosity says, you are meant to be God (or at least sit in his/her/it's presence).

Zen points us toward the marvelousness of simply doing and being what is right here, right now. Chop wood. Carry water. Drive car. Operate cell phone. Whatever.

Our wanting something more and different is the problem, not the solution. Benoit:

The penetrating thought of Zen cuts through all our phenomena without stopping to consider their particularities. It knows that in reality nothing is wrong with us and that we suffer because we do not undertand that everything works perfectly, because in consequence we believe that all is not well and that it is necessary to put something right.

...To the question "What must I do to save myself?" Zen replies: "There is nothing you need do since you have never been enslaved and since there is nothing in reality from which you can free yourself."

Agnostics and atheists are better than believers

Since I turned churchless, I've become a way better person. So I can testify to this truth that has been been revealed to me by the grace of absolutely nobody but myself:

Agnostics and atheists are better people than believers, by and large.

Note the "by and large," which protects my truth from being challenged by someone pointing out that agnostic/atheist human X is a world class asshole, while religious human Y is a marvelous example of what us Homo sapiens can become.

I shall now engage in one of my favorite blogging activities -- demonstrating with impeccable logic and crisp prose why my viewpoint is correct. So be warned: if you are a religious believer, a central foundation of your faith is about to be demolished.

Namely, that God or some supernatural higher power guides those who worship Him/Her/It to develop much better personal qualities than the fallen like me, who once were relgious but now are not, or the permanently felled who have never believed at all.

Untrue. False. Wrong. Here's some examples why.

Humility. We agnostics and atheists don't consider ourselves to be the center of the cosmos, as believers do. We don't consider that God takes a special interest in us, while condemning others to suffer hellfire, bad karma, rebirth as a slimy slug, or whatever nastiness supposedly awaits the unchosen people.

We see ourselves simply as ordinary humans living ordinary lives, which is pretty damn extraordinary given that the vast majority of people on Earth see themselves as privy to divine truths inaccessible to the vast majority of people on Earth (echoing Garrison Keillor's description of Lake Wobegon as a place where all the children are above average).

Courage. We agnostics and believers face life head on. We don't sidestep problems by pretending they're something other than what they are: challenges. We refuse to believe that God or some other invisible higher power is pulling the strings behind the scenes, guiding life's events in mysterious ways.

Instead, we set out to do what needs to be done without imagining that a divinity is walking along with us. We don't waste time praying for success; we simply work for it. When we fall down, we get up as best we can, as quickly as possible. We don't wait for a sign from God, or support from a fantasized supernatural presence.

Faith. We agnostics and atheists don't worry about whether the cosmos is going to treat us fairly. We don't feel a need to petition or pray to whatever/whoever is running the show of this universe. We accept that what the laws of nature bring about (which naturally includes our own efforts) is what is supposed to happen.

Accepting that we can't be sure about the next moment, much less about what will or won't happen after our own last moment, we do our best to accept the reality of death -- not sugarcoating it in a fantasized fashion -- in accord with the lyrics, "whatever will be, will be, the future's not ours to see." We trust reality; we don't entreaty it.

Compassion. We agnostics and atheists don't see ourselves as separate from our fellow human beings. Since we don't consider that anyone is headed to a special heaven after death, we're committed to making this world the most livable place possible, for as many people as possible.

When someone is suffering, we don't say "it's God's will" or "they must have done something wrong in a past life to deserve this." We step forward to help them, recognizing that there's no higher power producing goodness on Earth other than what we humans muster up.

I could go on in this vein, but I feel like I've made my point. No matter what moral quality religious believers espouse as their special province, us agnostics and atheists have excellent reasons to argue, "No, we're better than you on that... by and large."

I realize that I might have undercut my humility credentials by being so outspoken about why churchless people like me are so cool. Well, if you've got it, there's no reason not to flaunt it.

I'm just telling it like it is: there's no desirable human quality that agnostics and atheists don't manifest more fully than true believers, because we don't dilute it with religious crap.

Susan Blackmore's Zen'ish theory of consciousness

Combine a Zen master and a psychologist interested in neuroscience. Bingo! You've created Susan Blackmore, or someone very much like her.

I've finished reading her Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction. I'm fascinated by consciousness, because it's what I am. All I am, really, since whatever I'm not conscious of doesn't exist for me.

So whatever consciousness is, or isn't, seemingly would tell me a lot about who I am, or aren't. I used to believe in supernatural notions of consciousness, but now I'm much more interested in scientific theories.

After all, I'm a body with a brain. Or a brain with a body. My consciousness isn't something other-worldly; like everybody else's, it is part and parcel of neurological functioning.

(If you're mystically inclined and don't agree, try some experiments: have someone knock you out with a baseball bat, or more gently lose awareness through anesthesia. This will show that the physical brain controls what some people mistakenly consider to be non-material consciousness, often called "soul.")

That much is obvious. What isn't clear, though, is what consciousness is, why we have it, how it is experienced, and other questions that bridge philosophy and science.

Blackmore doesn't have firm answers to the Big Questions of Consciousness. However, she has a basic stance that fits with her interest in Zen: human conscious experience is an illusion. Or, delusion.

This paper of hers, "There is No Stream of Consciousness," is pretty dense and academic. Her overview, though, is fairly simple.

What is all this? What is all this stuff around me; this stream of experiences that I seem to be having all the time?

Throughout history there have been people who say it is all illusion. I think they may be right.

...We must be clear what is meant by the word 'illusion'. An illusion is not something that does not exist, like a phantom or phlogiston. Rather, it is something that it is not what it appears to be, like a visual illusion or a mirage.

When I say that consciousness is an illusion I do not mean that consciousness does not exist. I mean that consciousness is not what it appears to be. If it seems to be a continuous stream of rich and detailed experiences, happening one after the other to a conscious person, this is the illusion.

I wish I could clearly explain what Blackmore means by this. I can't. I've read the final pages of her short book several times. That section, The Future of Consciousness, echoes what she says in her longer academic paper.

So the rest of this post is less an explanation, than a pointing to what I find fascinating about Blackmore's theorizing, which remains a mystery to me -- perhaps because I'm as firmly immersed in the illusion of what it means to be "me" as everyone else is.

First, Blackmore says that we have to throw out this idea:

...that the "you" who is now conscious of reading this book is the same one who went to bed last night and woke up this morning.

OK, I kind of get this notion. It's firmly Buddhist. Also, neuroscientific.

There's no self inside my head who is separate and distinct from all the going-on inside the brain. (I almost said "my brain," but this would imply that there's a "me" apart from the brain.)

The next throwing out is tougher to understand, so I'll quote it in its entirety.

The second assumption is that experiences flow through the conscious mind as a stream of ideas, feelings, images, and perceptions. The stream may break, change direction, or be disrupted, but it remains a series of conscious events in the theatre of the mind.

The bottom line here is that if you ask "what is in Jim's consciousness now?", there must be a correct answer, because some of Jim's thoughts and perceptions are in the conscious stream while the rest are not. This has to be thrown out.

Wow.

Mind-blowing, in much the same way Zen koans are. If you answer one way, you get a dozen hits with a stick from the Zen master. If you answer the other way, same thing happens.

Blackmore says that the grand delusion of consciousness comes about because we humans can ask ourselves, "Am I conscious now?" Because we always get a "yes" answer, we assume that we're always conscious in each waking moment.

However, we also see that the refrigerator light is on every time we open the door. If we try to open the door very quickly to catch the light being off, we can't. It always is on... so far as we know. But in reality, it isn't.

When I had a colonoscopy a few years ago, I was warned that the anesthesia could have some side effects -- like forgetting things after the procedure was over. I went home and felt fine. In a few hours I was attending to my normal "to-do's."

Later in the week I phoned to request a vegetarian meal at a luncheon meeting. The woman who answered said, "You've already done that. You called a few days ago."

Wow.

I came home from the colonoscopy, seemingly fully conscious and aware. But there was at least one blank spot in that so-called "stream of consciousness." I'd dialed the phone and told this woman that I wanted a vegetarian meal -- without any awareness afterward that I'd done this.

So how do I know that I was conscious of doing it at the time? I don't. This is a personal experience, or lack thereof, that appears to point in the direction of what Blackmore is speaking of when she says:

The truth is that when we are not asking the question ["Am I conscious now?"], there are no contents of consciousness and no one to experience them. Instead, the brain carries on, doing multiple things in parallel -- as in Dennett's multiple drafts theory -- and none of them is either in consciousness or out of it.

Indeed, the whole idea of brain activity being conscious or unconscious can be dropped, and with it the problem of the "magic difference" between them.

Consciousness, then, is a grand delusion. It arises through asking such questions as "Am I conscious now?" or "What am I conscious of now?" In that moment of questioning, an answer is concocted: a now, a stream of experiences, and a self who observes it all appear together, and a moment later they are gone.

Next time you ask, a new self and a new world are concocted, backwards from memory. If you go on to believe that you always were conscious, and construct metaphors about streams and theatres, then you only dig yourself deeper and deeper into confusion.

I can believe that.

This might well be the basic human condition: having become not only aware, like my dog is, we're also self-aware -- which means that we can ask questions which have no answers and create existential problems which can't be resolved.

Because they are founded on unreality, on illusion, on delusion.

Blackmore holds out hope, in line with her Zen interest, that its possible for people to "drop the illusions and experience the world without them." Hey, me too.

Those who practice certain kinds of meditation or mindfulness claim that we can. They say that the ordinary world falls apart and there are just experiences with no one experiencing them.

...Indeed, there are already some scientists who practice this way, and practitioners who study the science.

This holds out the hope that science and personal practice might eventually come together to let us see clearly -- dropping the delusions, penetrating the illusions of self and other, and leaving us with one world -- no duality, and no one asking the question. 

Another great Duhism

I'm a daily reader of Duhisms. Here's a recent one that I enjoyed.

The proof of spiritual attainment is shown by transcending "I." Is anyone else made a wee bit suspicious that "I" believe this?

Along this line, after I watched about half of The Advaita Trap cartoon I figured out that the dark brown creature must have written most of the books that I've bought about non-duality.

Check it out. I confess that once I got to the five minute mark my head felt like it was going to explode, so I didn't watch the rest.

 

I've stopped having spiritual experiences

I can't remember the last time I had a spiritual experience. Well, more accurately, the last time I had an experience that I called "spiritual."

I used to have lots of them.

I've been to India twice, each time spending several weeks at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas headquarters in the Punjab. Seeing the guru, who is considered to be God in human form, seemed deeply spiritual to me.

Ditto with having a feeling that I should take I-205 rather than I-5 just before crossing the Columbia River into Oregon -- I was driving home after seeing the guru give talks in Vancouver, B.C. Some RSSB friends from Salem and I met up at an I-5 rest stop. I said, "take I-205."

They didn't, and got stuck in a big traffic jam. I did, and zipped home. I considered my intuition a message from God/guru. Hence, "spiritual."

Now, none of those experiences seem deserving of the name I gave to them at the time. They were simply experiences, no adjective required. But if one is desired, "meaningful" would be a better word choice.

This is the advice of Eric Maisel in his book, "The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods." (Which I blogged about last year here and here.) I picked it up again a few days ago, wanting some churchless inspiration.

And read...

You are going about your business, making meaning, making ethics, and living as authentically as you can, and suddenly, out of the blue, you are grabbed by the thought that the universe is completely different from the way you had supposed it to be.

A second ago you had conceptualized it as meaninglessly running its course; but now, for no reason that you can name, you no longer feel confident about your former belief. Out of nowhere and for no reason, you sense something "oceanic" or "psychic" or "mystical" or "transcendent" and stand dumbstruck and confounded.

These are the kinds of experiences that cause many atheists to want to keep the word spiritual in their vocabulary. I think that this is a grave mistake, second only to allowing god-talk to stand unchallenged. It is better to stand consternated and not understand an experience than to commit our version of the supernatural error.

It is far wiser not to sprint from a momentary feeling to a complete revision of our basic understanding of the universe. If we do not stand firm here -- with ourselves -- we are in serious danger of backsliding into inauthenticity.

When we backslide this way, we begin to identify certain pursuits and moments as spiritual and others as drab and ordinary. We dub our meditation practice as spiritual. We imagine that climbing in the Andes would prove a spiritual adventure. We spiritualize -- that is, romanticize -- activities like writing in our journal.

But a meditation practice is not a spiritual thing; it is just an ordinary human activity. Journaling is not a spiritual thing; it is just an ordinary human activity. Climbing in the Andes is not a spiritual pursuit; it is just an ordinary human activity.

The second we internally (and unwittingly) announce that traveling in the Andes is spiritual and having a cheese sandwich with our daughter is not, we have devalued our time with our daughter and inflated the value of an Andean adventure.

Nicely said, Mr. Maisel.

I just took a break from writing this post. I filled up the bathtub, poured a glass of red wine, and settled into reading the latest issue of People magazine with a trickle of hot water dripping onto my foot.

I do this every week. I love my ritual. It's deeply meaningful to me. Previously I might even have called it "spiritual." Now, it's just something I like to do.

I feel deeply connected with the cosmos in the bathtub, particularly the part concerned with Famous People Gossip. (I just learned the secrets of William and Kate's royal romance, and how Camille Grammer says Kelsey betrayed her.)

I also have a meaningful (not spiritual) experience every morning before I meditate, when I fire up my iPhone's solitaire app and play a game of Klondike. There's a certain amount of skill in recognizing what cards to play, but mostly winning or losing is determined by the random draw.

Playing the game is a mindfulness exercise for me. I find it interesting to observe my emotional reactions to how the cards play out, and whether I can make it through an entire game without uttering "damn it" or "yes!" inside my head -- simply playing the game as best I can without being attached to winning or losing.

A final example: my wife and I only know a few Hustle moves (a.k.a. "disco" dancing) but we love the dance. The few lessons we've had in this style were a lot of fun. Last Friday we did our Hustle thing at a Halloween dance and enjoyed ourselves a lot.

I've got a Hustle instructional DVD. I intend for us to learn all the cool moves. Check out the video preview to see what I'm aiming for.

I have some disco music on my iPhone. Whenever I listen to "Funkytown" I realize that even though I'm a 62 year old white guy, I "gotta move on" and "gotta keep me groovin' with some energy." (Rest of lyrics here, but that's most of them.)

Spiritual, meaningful...who cares? If I feel great while dancing the Hustle, that experience speaks for itself. Labels don't add anything to it; they're only useful for describing to others the feelings that I know directly myself.

So why do people (including me at one time) like to call something "spiritual"? Habit, perhaps. Conforming to cultural norms, perhaps. A bit of oneupmanship, perhaps (ha-ha, I had a spiritual experience while you just had a plain old experience).

Here's some final thoughts from Eric Maisel:

Whenever you have an experience of a certain sort, you get to name it. If an experience puts you in mind of your own humanness, your connection to a vast network of natural phenomena, and to mysteries that can't be solved, you can call that an existential experience, or you can call it a spiritual experience.

Both these words are available to you. The first returns you to your path of personal responsibility, meaning-making, ethics-making, and authenticity. The second leads you down the primrose path to supernatural enthusiasm.

This is the difference between staring at the Ganges River, feeling something powerful arise in you, and returning to your fight against dysentery, on the one hand, or carving a totem to Ganga, the Hindu goddess of the river, on the other.

If you call your powerful experience existential, you are likely to return to your meaningful work as a research biologist. If you call it spiritual, you are likely to fall to your knees and perpetuate mythology. The experience is exactly the same in each case: rich, powerful, human, and motivating. But how you interpret it and what it motivates you to do are completely up to you.

It is always easier to call such experiences spiritual, because that softens them and moves them in the direction of heavenly featherbeds and mysteries that unravel into happy endings.

You have that choice; since there are no gods, no one can stop you from choosing the soft spiritual way. You could let a flower's beauty warm you, as if that beauty ratified a hidden world of purpose and goodness; or you could let a flower's beauty both warm you and steel you to the fact that you are the moral beauty in your life.

You can travel by metaphor in any direction you choose. Be firm and go existential.