Church of the Churchless

Great observations about life in "The Mindful Body"

It was kind of a strange way for me to learn about a book. I usually ignore emails from Strong Towns, an organization devoted to making cities and towns more livable, but this one featured messages from staff members about what they're finding interesting in books, film, and such.

I saw that a woman spoke highly of Ellen Langer's book, The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. Since I'm big on mindfulness, and also liked the creative mention of "chronic health," I ordered the book after reading some laudatory reviews on Amazon.

The cover copy says that Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is known worldwide as "the mother of mindfulness" and "the mother of positive psychology." Okay, I'm willing to believe that, though I don't recall hearing of Langer before in connection with mindfulness. 

(Wikipedia says she's a year older than me, being born in 1947, so that lends some credence to those mother of claims.)

Anyway, I've read the first chapters in her book. Langer is an excellent writer with an appealing style. I'm enjoying The Mindful Body more than I thought I would, in large part because Langer starts off by sharing some perspectives on life that I'd call philosophical, if they weren't based on either psychological research or arguments that strike me as persuasive.

Here's some quotes of what I've liking in those early chapters.

Mindfulness. But mindfulness -- as my students and I have shown -- is instead the simple process of actively noticing things, no meditation required. When mindful, we notice things we didn't notice before, and we come to see that we didn't know the things we thought we knew as well as we thought we knew them. Everything become interesting and potentially useful in a new way.

Mind and body. I believe the mind and body comprise a single system, and every change in the human being is essentially simultaneously a change at the level of the mind (that is, a cognitive change) as well as the body (a hormonal, neural, and/or behavioral change). When we open our minds to this idea of mind-body unity, new possibilities for controlling our health become real.

Rules. In life as in art, although we tend to praise rule followers, I believe that breaking the rules is often necessary. Too often, we follow rules mindlessly. We buy the "right" brushes and wear the "right" clothes and ask the "appropriate" questions. When we approach the rules mindfully, however, we realize they are often arbitrary and don't make sense. You don't need to use that brush or obey the rules of perspective. It's your painting. It's your life.

Continuums not sharp distinctions. An athlete earning a medal by a few milliseconds. A patient barely meets the threshold for a diagnosis. A law student fails the bar exam by one question. Are these people truly substantially different from the medalist, the healthy patient just below the threshold, or the attorney who just barely passes the bar exam?

Everything in the world exists on a continuum, whether in speed, size, virulence, or any other possible descriptor you could think of. Still, we create and mindlessly adopt sharp distinctions, and those distinctions change lives far more dramatically than marginal differences ever do.

Question. When we recognize that rules, labels, and cutoff points are made by people, there is lots of room to question how any situation could be otherwise. We gain a newfound sense of freedom. We expand our possibilities. This is true of our behavior, but also of our health. The key is to question those things we mindlessly accept, to mindfully interrogate all of the descriptions and diagnoses that can hold us back. When we do, we can get better. We can learn to heal ourselves.

Risk-taking. We behave in ways that make sense to us or else we would act differently. When my expectations for success in some pursuit exceeds yours, you see me as a risk-taker. However, if you believed what I did, then you'd probably behave as I did. In other words, risk-taking is really an observer's phenomenon. "Risk-takers" do things that make sense to them, even if the same actions seem inexplicable from someone else's perspective.

Prediction. In this sense, prediction is no different than a guess or a hunch and, as we will see, a decision is also just a prediction or guess... Perhaps we think we can predict because we overlook the many mistaken predictions we make daily. Every embarrassment we suffer is an instance of our mistaken predictions. How often do we push or pull when we should pull or push to open a store door; reach into the silverware drawer for a knife and pull out a fork; unsuccessfully look for the sock in the dryer?

In each of these scenarios we predict that our action will be successful, and we come up short. How many people predicted they'd never get COVID-19? How many of us predict we'll never really lose our strength or our ability to remember? How many of us predict we'll be fine with very little sleep? We predict these things incorrectly all the time. What about our inability to predict the behavior of others? How often have we waited for a phone call that never came, or came a day later than predicted?

Control. In short, I believe that the illusion of control is not always an illusion. While it might lead people to choose seemingly worse gambles in the lab, it can also help us cope with risk and uncertainty in real life. In this sense the so-called illusion is often a necessary psychological strategy. Control is motivating, helping us handle all sorts of unpleasant and difficult situations. After all, if you believe you have no control, then you may become helpless. 

Mindful optimism. I propose we adopt an attitude of mindful optimism. This doesn't mean we should bury our heads in the sand with a certainty that all will be fine. Rather, it involves recognizing that uncertainty is not new. Neither is risk. Everything has always been uncertain, we were just oblivious to it.

We can worry or relax, and things will turn out good or bad. If we worry and everything turns out fine, we've stressed ourselves unnecessarily. If we worry and things turn out to be bad, we're usually no more prepared for it than if we didn't worry. If we relax and things turn out bad, we'll be stronger to deal with it, and if it all turns out to be fine, we can continue behaving adaptively.

The spiritual journey leads nowhere, and that's absolutely fine

My last post was a digression of sorts, as I explained in the opening paragraphs. 

Today I was planning to write a post about a central theme in a book I've been blogging about recently, Joan Tollifson's Nothing to Grasp. I was struck by how Tollifson has come around to viewing reality in simple terms, "as it is." Leaves falling. Birds flying. Pain happening. Dishes being washed.

She came to this outlook after a lengthy period of seeking the Truth of It All via meditation, Zen Buddhism, nondual teachings, therapy, and other means. I wanted to write about how weird and wonderful it is to have sought reality in esoteric teachings, then realize that, hey, it's been Here/Now all that time.

But that intention brought a long-forgotten term to mind: naive realism. I remembered that I'd written a paper on this subject in college. That led me to poke through a stack of folders in a rarely opened cabinet where I keep stuff that I'd written way back when. Amazingly I found it.

A paper I'd written at San Jose State College on December 20, 1968 for Phil. 111 ,a class about epistemology, the theory of knowledge. I titled it, "Psychology, Zen, and the Naive Realist." Reading it, I found that the 20 year old me who wrote that paper sounded quite a bit like the 75 year old me I am today.

I'll take off from that last sentence in an attempt to recapture what was on my mind a couple of days ago before I digressed from it. Though really, the fact that I could see my current self in what I wrote 55 years before points to what I'd intended to say originally.

Which is, basically: the whole idea of a spiritual journey now makes no sense to me, even though I've embraced that notion for most of my life.

I say this for a couple of reasons.

One is that the chance of such a journey leading to a supernatural realm of reality is exceedingly slim, given the lack of demonstrable evidence that anything supernatural exists. Thus anyone who believes that all their meditating, praying, good works, and such is going to lead to God, heaven, angels, or anything else other-worldly almost certainly isn't going to have that belief come true.

Simply put, you can't take a journey to a place that doesn't exist. Sure, you can imagine going to such a place. You can hope you'll go to such a place. But almost certainly the actual journey is a fantasy.

However, this leaves what may be the most common conception of a spiritual journey -- a trip that isn't geographical but psychological. Meaning, the spiritual journey'er sets out to modify their state of mind, their consciousness, their way of looking upon the world, with the goal of leading a more fulfilling life.

It's more difficult for me to find fault with this aspiration, for it seems doable. However, I've come to feel that while we can obviously make discrete concrete changes in our psychology, our fundamental personality usually doesn't change much once we enter our 20s, or thereabouts.

Reading the paper I wrote when I was 20 reminded me of this. Much of it, most of it, really, seemed like something I'd write today at the age of 75. So where have I journeyed to after more than half a century of avid spiritual seeking? Pretty much the same place where I started.

And that's totally fine with me, as it should be for anyone else who finds that whoever they were when they began their spiritual journey is essentially the same person they are now.

This is what I was getting at in my 1968 college paper, where I noted the Zen adage about "first there is a mountain, then there isn't, then there is," as I recall Donavan paraphrasing it. When I was a child, I never had the slightest idea that mountains weren't simply mountains.

(I grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in a picturesque small California town, Three Rivers, at the gateway of Sequoia National Park, so I had a lot of direct experience of mountains.)

Then I go to college, get exposed to new and often radical ideas, experiment with psychedelics, learn yoga, become initiated into a mystical Eastern religion, spend hours a day meditating, read lots of spiritual books, write several spiritual books, become convinced that there's much more to reality than what earthly existence offers, and then... in my old age, now, I realize that all of my spiritual seeking has led to me seeing mountains as mountains again, after so many years of believing that mountains, and everything else in physical existence, were an illusion, a pale reflection of a higher reality.

So in a sense I've come full circle. As, I'd suggest, most spiritual seekers do, if they're honest with themselves. What we seek is right before our eyes. It just takes looking elsewhere to come to that realization.

I've finished Joan Tollifson's engaging little book, Nothing to Grasp. Here's how she puts her own realization in a concluding chapter.

Here/Now is the Beloved that we long for. We are attracted to the Beloved, drawn to the Beloved, and this attraction, this longing actually comes from our own Heart, our own True Nature, but we don't realize this at first.

We search for the Beloved "out there" in many different forms -- in an intimate relationship, a teacher, a guru, an enlightenment experience. And finally, in a moment of awakening, we pass through the gateless gate.

We realize the Beloved is Here/Now, and in love, we find there is no separation, that the Beloved is all there is, the emptiness bursting forth as clouds and trees and pencil sharpeners and thunderstorms and light bulbs and concentration camps and meditation centers and words on a computer screen.

Here/Now is formless, and yet it is appearing as every form. It is invisible, and yet it is visible everywhere. It is as subtle as space, and yet it is more solid than the ground beneath your feet. No word can capture it, and yet every word is only it.

It's not a particular experience or state of consciousness, it's not an object or a substance that can be seen or grasped, it's not a conceptual formulation, it's not some mystical essence or transcendent reality apart from the messiness of ordinary everyday life. It is just this, exactly as it is.

When we are awake, our whole spiritual journey loses its seriousness. It melts away like a cloud formation. No one was actually running from a tiger, and no one was actually saved from the danger. The whole problem never really existed. It was only a dream.

To realize this is to be totally intimate with the world as it actually is (and not as we think it is), open to everything, holding on to nothing.

Here's what I wrote about Zen and naive realism when I was 20

Today I was planning to write a post about a central theme in a book I've been blogging about recently, Joan Tollifson's Nothing to Grasp. I was struck by how Tollifson has come around to viewing reality in simple terms, "as it is." Leaves falling. Birds flying. Pain happening. Dishes being washed.

She came to this outlook after a lengthy period of seeking the Truth of It All via meditation, Zen Buddhism, nondual teachings, therapy, and other means. I wanted to write about how weird and wonderful it is to have sought reality in esoteric teachings, then realize that, hey, it's been Here/Now all that time.

But that intention brought a long-forgotten term to mind: naive realism. I remembered that I'd written a paper on this subject in college. That led me to poke through a stack of folders in a rarely opened cabinet where I keep stuff that I'd written way back when. Amazingly I found it.

A paper I'd written at San Jose State College on December 20, 1968 for Phil. 111 ,a class about epistemology, the theory of knowledge. I titled it, "Psychology, Zen, and the Naive Realist." Reading it, I found that the 20 year old me who wrote that paper sounded quite a bit like the 75 year old me I am today.

Is that good or bad? Not for me to say. Probably neither. It just is what it is. I was a decent writer and thinker in 1968. I'm a decent writer and thinker now in 2024. What I found interesting was that views I hold today were foreshadowed in the views I had back in college. I adored Alan Watts and Hubert Benoit then. I still do.

Here's the portion of the paper where I talked about Zen and naive realism.

Naive realism is what the name implies: how reality appears to us is how it is, because we feel that we see the world objectively. Phenomenology is the notion that phenomena should be described as they appear to the subject. (I had to retype this part of the paper because back in 1968 I necessarily wrote with a typewriter and carbon paper on rather flimsy paper, which wouldn't make it easy to create a PDF file out of the paper.)

Let us speak of Zen Buddhism now. Zen recognizes that everyone carries within him the Knowledge of the Way. We possess realization even in the natural state in which most of us spend our lives. But this realization, although already present, must be recognized and the barriers which we have erected that prevent us from achieving true knowledge must be broken down.

This is not an easy process and requires one to exert the utmost concentration and awareness in order to realize what one already possesses. For the state of realization (Satori) is essentially a state of absolute naive realism, although in a different dimension from naive realism as we commonly experience it.

One must start from a solid belief in common experiential naive realism, but then should seriously question the premises of this assumed naive realism, for only when we experience a condition of doubt regarding the validity of the natural base of our existence can we move toward the attainment of the Way.

For the natural state of man is not his Absolute state; complacency and satisfaction with one's natural way of perceiving things will doom one to ignorance rather than knowledge, even though one does possess a certain knowledge of reality of the natural world.

Let me give an example in mixed epistemological and Zen Buddhist terms. The naive realist is correct in believing that he perceives the natural world directly, for he must, being a part of the world himself. He is correct in rejecting the phenomenalist's view that one is somehow separated from physical objects by a barrier of some sort; this is positing a dichotomy of man and the natural world which does not exist.

However, the unenlightened naive realist does not go far enough. He leaves himself directly perceiving the natural world and he rests contented. But he fails to consider the possibility that (in an anthropomorphic sense) the world is perceiving him at the same time, and that there is actually no process which he regards as "perceiving" going on in his nervous system at all.

Watts says, "There is not the external world, and then the state of nervous system, and then something which sees that state. The seeing is precisely that particular state of the nervous system, a state which for that moment is an integral part of the organism."

Watts further elaborates on this point:

Let us suppose, then, that the false reflex of "I seeing my sights" or "I feeling my feelings" is stopped by such methods as the ways of liberation employ. Will it not therefore become clear that all our perceptions of the external world are states of the organism? The division between "I" and "my sights" is projected outwardly into the sharp division between the organism and what it sees.

Just such a change of perception as this would explain the feeling, so usual at the moment of liberation (satori), that the external world is oneself and that external actions are one's own doing. Perception will then be known for what it is, a field relationship, as distinct from an encounter.

The natural man, as a naive realist, must question the foundations of his naive realism. He must continue living as he does in the world to which he is accustomed, but he must learn to perceive this world in a different manner. The world of the naive realist and the enlightened man are but a hairsbreadth apart; they are the same but for an undefinable, though very real, change in consciousness. This change is aided by one's constant awareness of his relationship with the natural world.

But first one must doubt the reality of his ordinary manner of awareness, and this is where the question of perception (among others) in regard to naive realism which epistemology raises is of value. It may help to jolt the natural man out of his inactive acceptance of illusion and cause him to seek something beyond his natural, unrealized existence.

It is the questions, the doubt, which the epistemologist raises in regard to naive realism which are of value, not the abstract answers which it tries to supply. The techniques of phenomenalism, the critical awareness of the nature of the physical world with which phenomenalism is concerned, may serve to help guide the unrealized naive realist onto the path which leads to the Way.

This process which leads to enlightenment may be thought of as consisting of three stages. The first corresponds to the state of the natural man, the pure unconcerned naive realist in epistemological terms. When one has left this natural state and has attained a partial awareness and perception of his true being, then he may be said to have entered the intermediate stage; he rejects naive realism and seeks to find the real Truth.

This seeking involves great effort and intense conflicts as one leaves the familiar state of illusory awareness for the "Great New ?". This intermediate stage at its height has been described as a "mental state of complete confusion without form (confusion so complete and so lacking in form that it is in no respect a state of chaos and resembles the transparent purity of an immense crystal behind which there would still be nothing.)" [Hubert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine] This state of Great Doubt just precedes the attainment of Satori.

In the words of Benoit, "The idea of the three successive stages of which we are speaking is found also in this passage of Zen: 'Before a man studies Zen, for him the mountains are mountains and the waters are waters; when, thanks to the teaching of a good master, he has achieved a certain inner vision of the truth of Zen, for him the mountains are no longer mountains and the waters are no longer waters; but later, when he has really arrived at the asylum of rest, once more the mountains are mountains and the waters are waters.'"

The naive realist has come full circle: from naive realism, to a phenomenalistic state of mind, and back to naive realism. But this final state of naive realism is characterized by a change in consciousness which makes it ever so different from the natural state of naive realism, although it appears to be the same to the unenlightened.

I am using epistemological terms in a sense for which they are not exactly suited, however. The way of Zen considers of much, much more than the simplistic analogies I have drawn here. But then Zen is simple, although inexpressible, so epistemological parallels might be said to describe its nature as well as anything else. I have played an abstract intellectual game in fusing some domains of Zen and epistemology together, a game which may or may not be valid to others.

For myself, I have gained some insights into epistemology and Zen, and, more importantly, into my Self. I realize the fragility of the analogy which I have manufactured between such dissimilar areas as Zen and epistemology, but there is, I believe, some worth in it. All things are reconciled in the All, even these.

"Whoever understands the first truth
Should understand the ultimate truth.
The last and first, 
Are they not the same?"

"Words cannot describe everything.
The heart's message cannot be delivered in words.
If one receives words literally, he will be last,
If he tries to explain with words, he will not
     attain enlightenment in this life."

           ...Zen poems

Don't idealize spiritual teachers or put them on pedestals

There are thousands of religions in the world. But I believe that the one I belonged to for thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), which is headquartered in India, could have the most grandiose conception of its spiritual leaders of any religion.

For the RSSB teaching is that not only is the organization's guru God in Human Form, but the guru is greater than God, since the guru manifests on our planet to initiate "marked souls" and guide them back to the highest supernatural level of reality, while God just sits up there, letting the Perfect Living Master do the work of saving souls.

Note that word, Perfect. The RSSB gurus are considered to be just that, notwithstanding their evident human flaws, such as the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, being embroiled in a financial scandal that reportedly has enriched he and his family with hundreds of millions of dollars.

So when I read a chapter this morning in Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp, that included warnings about viewing spiritual teachers as way holier than they actually are, I thought, "So true." I've seen plenty of problems with people looking upon the RSSB guru as infallible, never to be questioned, beyond criticism. 

Actually, Dhillon is just like everybody else: flawed, imperfect, with strengths and weaknesses. Here's what Tollifson had to say about spiritual teachers.

There is a widespread tendency to idealize spiritual teachers and put them up on pedestals, especially dead gurus. And many living teachers are only too happy to accept these projections and pretend to themselves and everyone else that they are beyond all forms of human error, uncertainty, confusion, or unhappiness.

But whenever teachers start insisting they never make mistakes or get upset anymore, or that anything scandalous they do is some form of "crazy wisdom" that they are doing for your benefit, hide your wallet.

It's completely possible to be fully enlightened in one moment and totally deluded in the next. In fact, that fluctuation is the very nature of life.

...The thinking mind loves to rank and compare, and you'll hear some people insist that their teaching, or the teaching they identify with, is the highest, most advanced, most profound, most radical teaching of all. There are those who claim to have reached a stage of enlightenment that surpasses anything previously known to humankind.

If such talk sounds suspiciously egotistical, dualistic and reminiscent of the most competitive aspects of society-at-large, it may be because it is.

This is not to say that every teacher is equally clear, or that all paths are identical or that they all lead to exactly the same place, nor is it to deny the relative reality of evolutionary development. But I'm always wary of those who claim to have risen to a level never before reached by anyone else.

The clearest teachers I've met are the most ordinary. They have humility, not grandiosity.

They don't claim to possess something that the rest of us do not possess. They empower those who come to them to be their own best teachers rather than encouraging dependency or the tendency to idealize authority figures and put them up on pedestals. The best teachers throw you back on yourself.

...Liberation doesn't mean having The Answer. It doesn't mean that we've figured out how the universe works, but rather, that the itching need to figure it all out dissolves. The bubble of separation and encapsulation pops and there is simply this inexplicable happening, just as it is.

There is no one apart from it trying to figure it out, control it, fix it, or get something from it. There is simply what is, as it is. This is not an achievement. It is the recognition of what has always been so.

The most deeply enlightened figures in Zen are often portrayed as carefree fools holding on to nothing at all. They see clearly that there is nothing to grasp and no one to grasp it.

Joan Tollifson's Pathless Path to Here/Now

For thirty-five years I was a member of an organization, Eastern religion variety, that taught how to pursue a spiritual Path. That word was capitalized, because it was no ordinary path, but a Path from the illusion of the physical world to supernatural realms of existence. 

It feels great to be free of that fantasy. 

Here's passages from "The Pathless Path to Here/Now" chapter in Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp. She beautifully captures the wisdom of giving up the notion of a Path in favor of experiencing the reality of what is what right before us at every moment.

As you walk the spiritual path, it widens, not narrows, until one day it broadens to a point where there is no path left at all.
      -- Wayne Liquorman

The pathless path from here to here is an imaginary journey, somewhat like Dorothy's journey from Kansas to Oz and back. Like Dorothy, we end up right where we started. In reality, we've gone nowhere, for Now/Here is all there is.

But the stories and beliefs that confuse us into thinking otherwise have become transparent, allowing the ever-present obvious to emerge to emerge into full awareness.

When we think back, there appears to have been a journey over time or maybe a sudden moment of awakening sometime in the past, but all of this is a kind of dream. It takes memory and imagination to conjure it up. 

We haven't really gone anywhere. We've always been right here. It's always been now. And in fact, "we" are only a mirage.

Often we have the idea that the spiritual path involves working very hard to cleanse and purify ourselves. We think our goal is to get rid of anger, depression, confusion, anxiety, addiction, laziness and everything we consider "negative" and "unenlightened."

We think that we must strive to become somebody who always feels awake, happy, zestful and expanded, someone who exudes loving-kindness and who never gets upset or defensive. We're trying to turn "The Bad Me" into "A Good Me," which works about as well as trying to turn Chicago into Los Angeles.

We imagine spiritual practice to be a kind of policing operation in which we endeavor to control, improve, polish and perfect ourselves until finally we achieve our Ideal Self, the Enlightened Me who is perfectly me-less at last. We want to become somebody who has no self and no flaws. 

But this whole endeavor is a total misunderstanding of the pathless path. This approach leads to momentary highs (often accompanied by uptightness, self-righteousness or grandiosity) followed by frustration, disappointment, discouragement and the story of being a failure. 

Trying to be in any particular experiential state "all the time" is suffering. It doesn't work.

Instead of focusing primarily on the differences between one experience and another, we may begin to notice what is the same in every different experience, whether it is a contracted experience or an expanded experience, whether there is thinking or no thinking, whether we are washing the dishes mindfully or doing them on autopilot, whether we are making love with our partner or yelling at them, whether we are watching a crime drama on TV or sitting in meditation -- the beingness, the here-ness, the now-ness, the suchness is ever-present, like the water in every wave.

...As we walk the pathless path, the dividing line between "meditation" or "satsang" and "the rest of life" gradually dissolves, along with any notion of what is "spiritual" or "not spiritual."

We are no longer trying very hard to be mindful as we wash the dishes, or trying very hard to identify ourselves as awareness and not as the character, or trying very hard to observe and "be aware" and not get caught up in our drama. All of that spiritual efforting disappears. 

There may still be a devotion to presence and an interest in seeing through illusion. We may still meditate, go to satsang or read nondual books, but it happens without gaining ideas, without expectations, without any added purpose other than simply doing it because it is the happening of life.

Special experiences may happen, but they are not important. This isn't about having experiences. Nor is it about philosophy. Nonduality is not a philosophy anymore than the taste of coffee or the sound of traffic is philosophy. This is waking up from philosophy.

If thought pops up and says, "I only have an intellectual understanding, not an actual, direct experience," this is a thought and it tells a story.

If this story is believed, immediately we begin seeing some special experience other than the one we are actually having right now. But who is it that has this problem? Who is this "me" who supposedly hasn't had a direct experience yet? And where would we find this experience other than Here/Now?

Is there not an undeniable direct experiencing right now (hearing, seeing, sensing, awaring, breathing, being)? 

Be aware of how thought pops up and creates the imaginary problem and then tries to solve it. This isn't about having some special experience that you've never had or that you remember having once years ago, but rather, it's about noticing the actual experiencing that is Here/Now, no matter what form it takes.

That takes no effort because it is already the case. It's simply the falling away of the idea that "this isn't it."

Does liberation or enlightenment or awakening take effort and practice? Maybe, maybe not. It takes what it takes to realize that nothing is needed to be what you already are.

The trick is that this realization is not a belief that we can arrive at intellectually and then superimpose upon life, but rather, it is a present moment seeing through of the thoughts that create the illusory problem -- thoughts like "I'm not there yet," or "This isn't it," or "If only I could stop getting caught up in all these false thoughts, then I'd be enlightened."

Seeing the false as false is the spontaneous activity of Life itself.

I hear from someone who experiences mystical sound and light

Recently I got an email from a man in Austria who started to experience mystical sound and light, even though he had no connection with a teaching that claims to produce such experiences. Since, we've exchanged several messages.

I asked him if I could share his messages on my blog. He asked that I remove some of what he said that wasn't germane to what he's been experiencing, which I've done. You'll find his email address at the end of this post, as he'd welcome being contacted by anyone who has experienced something similar.

Enjoy...

I came across your critical perspective on Sant Mat during my research, and I would like to seek your advice on it. My story is a bit strange; although I have always been somewhat interested in spiritual matters, I had little experience with meditation, except for a bit of Zazen and Buddhist Tantrism years ago.

 

But now that my children are older, I thought I could spend some of my free time meditating, mainly to reduce stress. At the end of September 2023, I sat down to simply count my breaths when suddenly I heard (church) bells in my head loud and clear. I couldn't make sense of it and thought it might be a mental disturbance, but then I began to research. Initially, I also came across Nada-Yoga, in which such phenomena are quite common.

 

The experiences then became more clear and light phenomena were also added. The process was extremely intense, as it was also very physical, feeling like my body energy was changing. As I know now, I had one of the promised experiences of Sant Mat – only, I was never initiated into the system nor have I ever even heard of it. In my further research, I came across Sant Mat and the different groups.

 

My problem is: I don't believe in a guru system, as it often leads to abuses of power and, unfortunately, in many cases, sexual abuse. I also can't comprehend how Westerners simply surrender their entire thought process. I don't believe in all the stories of journeys to distant astral worlds; it just sounds like Indian mystical tales, their version of Superman comics.

 

But on the other hand, I still have very mystical experiences during meditation. I hear different sounds (from thunder to bees and flutes), see light in various forms, and my body feels completely asleep during the sessions while the mind is extremely awake. By the way, I wouldn't have thought this possible or considered myself a freak before that September mentioned.

 

In my personal experience, the process seems to work on its own once you attune yourself to the sound. Initially, I must admit, I had quite a bit of fear as extremely sexual energy from the lower energy centers made its way upward, and my body would start to breathe rapidly and assume peculiar positions.

 

During this time, I meditated for up to three hours a day, simply because the process was so intense that I had to. Fortunately, in this phase, I met a very kind woman from a Sant Mat group who assured me that at least I wasn't going crazy. Later (and especially now), it became much more peaceful, and I am now confident that there is a kind of inner guidance that takes you through the entire process. An outer Guru is not necessary, at least I am not seeking one.

 

But, of course, a question arises: Why me? I had never heard of Sant Mat; I'm just an ordinary guy living in Vienna, Austria, with my wife and two children. I am not chosen, and no special grace of God has been bestowed upon me.

 

I have only one explanation: Three years ago, my father died of cancer, and my family more or less entrusted the entire process to me, and I also became his legal guardian. In the end, I had to decide whether he would continue therapy or not. I chose against it and had to explain this to him during one of his lucid moments; it was a truly terrible time.

 

After he passed away, I developed hypochondria, which became so severe that I sought psychological help. I ended up with a therapist who practiced Brainspotting. With this method, unresolved unconscious traumas, which we probably all have, can be addressed. It resonated with me to the extent that I worked through almost every trauma of my life over 1.5 year long period.

 

I came upon this idea when reading a book, I believe by Kirpal Singh, mentioning that the Guru takes on the karma (which I don't believe in) during initiation. If someone truly believes this and consciously and unconsciously releases all their traumas, then the path may open up to them. Or that someone, while reciting the names of God, opens up and releases these blocking traumas. That's the only explanation I could come up with.

 

I now believe that while my experiences may seem supernatural, they are not truly so. The perceptions are simply part of our psyche, to which we have lost access for whatever reasons. Once the process has started, one just needs to allow it to unfold because one can't actively contribute to it, except by listening.

 

The most important question now is, of course, how to gain access to it. I don't think the guru activates the third eye during initiation; otherwise, everyone who receives it should have experiences like mine. I believe it is either (as in my case) that the psyche undergoes a purification process and then simply has access to the Sound and Light, but in the majority of cases, it might be a placebo effect.

 

The psyche is capable of incredible things, so I think it can initiate the process simply because it is convinced, through initiation, that it now has access. As I mentioned, I consider this to be a part of our reality to which we have lost access, but is entirely normal. However, I now also believe that the process could ultimately lead to a mystical union with God, which I have not yet experienced.

 

I would be very pleased to connect with individuals who have had similar experiences to find out if there might be a way to access the Sound and Light without having to be part of any specific group or have a guru. If anyone would like to reach out to me, I welcome it: [email protected]

 

Maybe the biggest problem with life is believing there's a problem with life

It sort of feels to me like a rapidly descending elevator. You know, when it seems like the floor is falling away beneath you even though you're standing on it. Except in an elevator you know what the lowest level is. 

I'm not sure how much further I have to sink. And that's okay with me. At least I'm moving in the right direction: away from the heights of religious supernaturalism toward a grounding in here-and-now reality.

Reading Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp, has made me more aware of that descending elevator feeling. For she ably undercuts what I used to hold onto with such fervor in my true believing days. Gurus. Dogmas. Commandments. Goal-seeking meditation. Altered states of consciousness. 

But that's just the beginning, the upper floors that my personal Meaning of Life elevator has been leaving behind since my deconversion from a religion, Eastern mysticism variety, about nineteen years ago.

Once I let go of overt religious precepts, I was drawn to what I view as "halfway houses" in between my addiction to a highly organized religion and a complete disinterest in what usually is called spirituality, for want of a better term.

Those halfway houses, where I could dwell for a time before moving to lower levels via the Meaning of Life elevator, were Taoism and Buddhism. I was attracted to both philosophies -- which they really are, rather than religions -- from an early age. 

Here's what I said in "Taoism isn't mystical. It is natural."

Taoism appeals to me.

I started to add "because..." to that last sentence.

But I'm reluctant to try to explain why I enjoy reading Taoist books and practicing Taoism-in-motion, Tai Chi, so much. When I was about twelve years old, I visited San Francisco's Chinatown for the first time. I spent my allowance on buying cheap scrolls of what I now realize were images of Taoist wanderers in Chinese nature scenes. That artwork decorated my room until I went to college. 

At the time, I had no knowledge of Taoism. I don't think I'd even heard of that term. Now, some 50 years later, I still don't know much about Taoism. Great news! I may be a Taoist sage!

In college, Zen Buddhism grabbed my attention. It appealed to me more than non-Zen Buddhism, which has much more structure to it, what with the Eightfold Path and logical analyses of why and how suffering arises. 

But whether it was the Eastern religion (Radha Soami Satsang Beas, or Sant Mat) I became initiated into in 1970 and stuck with for 35 years, or the much looser Taoism and Zen Buddhism philosophies that I enjoyed so much, I still was driven by a desire to reach an end point.

Enlightenment. Satori. Peace of mind. Oneness. 

I'd given up the idea of finding an end point on the upper religious floors that the Meaning of Life elevator was connected to. However, I had a sense that lower down, in the realm of naturalism rather than supernaturalism, I could still achieve a goal that would make me feel, "Ah, this is what life is all about."

Well, I'm having increasing doubts that this is either desirable or possible. It's a weird feeling -- the notion that after some sixty years (age 15 to 75, roughly), of believing that I was on a Path to Somewhere, now I'm inclined to believe that I'm going nowhere.

And that's absolutely fine with me. 

Joan Tollifson is just the latest in a string of people who I think of as non-spiritual writers about spirituality. Meaning, they not only undermine the foundations of religion, but also, to a greater or lesser degree depending on how radical they are, the very idea that life is a problem that needs fixing.

I've been preaching that same message on this blog in various ways for quite a while. Except, it's been more along the lines of a question: sure, there are problems in everybody's life that need attention, but is life itself a problem?

Buddhism says "yes." Life is suffering. Here's an approach to ending that suffering, or at least much diminish it.

Taoism basically agrees, though not so obviously. Taoism doesn't have anywhere near the structure that Buddhism has, but Taoist teachings still encourage us to learn how to be more in accord with the Way of Tao.

Zen Buddhism, though, is similar to Tollifson's point of view: the only problem with life itself is believing that life itself has a problem. That perspective has always been sitting there in the Zen literature, in the Zen stories, in the Zen koans, in the Zen teachings. 

Until recently I didn't see it very clearly.

Which isn't surprising, because Zen Buddhism is notoriously reluctant to spell things out, preferring subtlety, misdirection, paradox, poetic metaphor. Or, maybe not. I readily admit that after all those years of embracing Zen, without ever actually practicing Zen, I may have failed to grasp what was always within reach, but didn't appeal to me.

Namely, that there's nothing to do, and besides, there's no one to do it. All there is, is doing that happens naturally by life and existence itself -- no doer required. 

Is this the ground floor? Maybe, but probably not.

Likely the whole idea of levels, of floors, or greater or lesser distance from reality, that's all just spiritual/religious mumbo-jumbo. A bunch of words and concepts that appeal to billions of people, definitely including me, yet not only aren't necessary for a satisfying life, but actually interfere with a satisfying life.

Well, I love to say to myself, "Don't know" and "Could be wrong." So I'll end with those sayings.

Our choosing just happens. It doesn't spring from free will.

It's such a beautiful way of looking upon the world. I didn't choose to write this blog post. You didn't choose to read it. Yet here we are, a blog post having been written, and a blog post having been read.

This is how the entire world works. Things happen, yet there is no one making them happen. 

As bizarre as this may seem, it makes good sense for a couple of reasons. First, free will is an illusion. Second, the notion of an independent self capable of freely choosing also is an illusion. 

So choosing just happens. I love those words. So I'll repeat them. Choosing just happens. The proof that it happens is that I just said it, twice. I could have said something else, but I didn't. You could be reading something else, but you aren't.

More proof that choosing just happens. If you need additional convincing, here's some passages from the "Choice and Choicelessness" chapter in Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp.

In this chapter, Tollifson talks openly and honestly about her personal problems. I find this marvelously refreshing. Most writers about spirituality either explicitly or implicitly convey the impression that they've got their act together, and they're going to tell you how to follow in their evolved footsteps.

That isn't Tollifson's style. She's my kind of spiritual writer: open, honest, humble, outspoken, unafraid to let the reader know who she really is. There isn't a trace of "holier than thou" in what I've read of her writings so far.

In her 20s, Tollifson drank a lot. Way too much. She sought help and made progress on stopping drinking, finding a therapist who believed that it was possible for a drunk to cut down drastically on their consumption of alcohol, yet still have a drink occasionally.

She writes:

After a few years of drinking this way off and on and being effortlessly aware of the whole thing as it happened, a decision emerged not to drink anymore. This decision felt entirely different from all the previous decisions that had failed.

It seemed to come not from the thinking mind, not from the part of me that was in conflict with my drinking, but rather from nondual awareness, the unconditional love that has no problem with anything. This was not the dualistic, fear-based desire to stop rooted in the thought that "I" was in trouble and needed fixing. This came from an absence of conflict and separation.

There was a felt difference that I cannot entirely articulate, but the hallmark of it was a certainty, an absence of doubt that I could never have manufactured or engineered. It was exactly the same kind of experience I'd had back in 1973 when I first sobered up.

I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt when I met my therapist for the first time that something had completely changed. It was different from all the times when I had tried to stop before and failed. I knew I wasn't going back. No one can manufacture this kind of certainty or make this kind of shift happen. On both occasions, it was clearly not my doing.

Tollifson uses her experience with smoking and drinking as an illustration of how choices occur.

Like many people, I have seemingly made a choice to abstain from smoking and drinking. But what inspired and enabled me to make these "choices" when I did? Why did it work when it did and not on previous attempts that had failed?

What shifted when the decision felt like it came from nondual awareness and had that doubtless certainty about it? What allows me to stick with these choices in any given moment of temptation? Why was I sometimes able to have one glass of wine and sometimes unable to resist pouring myself a second?

If we look deeply, we find no single cause, no easy explanation. If anything, there is an infinite and untraceable web of causes and conditions.

This passage closely echoes the core message in Robert Sapolsky's book, Determined, where he brilliantly argues that free will doesn't exist in the light of modern science. Tollifson also has a problem with finger biting, a habit that she hasn't been able to break.

More and more, brain science is revealing that many of the things we have long considered to be psychological, spiritual or moral strengths and weaknesses are in fact the result of genetics, neurology, hormonal and neurochemical changes, problems with the endocrine system, undetected brain conditions, and a host of other factors including diet, early childhood experiences, socioeconomic conditions, our moment in history, post-traumatic stress, exposure to electromagnetic fields or toxic chemicals, and all kinds of seemingly random things that you would never imagine might be having an impact on your "choices" about something such as finger biting or smoking.

For example, the shape of your throat and your airway may lead to undiagnosed sleep disorders that have recently been linked to such things as depression and attention deficit disorder, and those in turn might trigger a desire to engage in some kind of comforting, addictive, self-soothing behavior.

Because choosing just happens, there's little or no room for judgement of ourselves of others. Sure, we all do this. But that doing also just happens.

We judge ourselves so harshly for being the way we are -- for not making enough money, for not being neat enough, for eating too much, for being too fat, for not being a better mother or a better daughter or a better husband, for not being able to stop smoking, for being depressed, for not being able to snap out of it, for not being present or "in the now" enough, for thinking and daydreaming too much, and on and on -- as if there were some single entity called "me" inside this bodymind who could and should get it together and do a better job of steering the ship.

But no such entity can actually be found. One neuroscientist has recently compared the brain to a "team of rivals," and much of what drives us is below the level of conscious awareness. No one is in control -- not God, not Zeus, not "me." Those are all mythological characters (unless we understand God in a very different way).

Maybe this sounds negative to you. Actually, it isn't. Sometimes seemingly good things just happen. Sometimes seemingly bad things just happen. It is all just happening.

And yet, if we are hurting ourselves and others, there is a natural desire to find a way to stop. This desire is the movement of life itself, as is the apparent process of going into a recovery program, taking up a meditation practice, doing a Feldenkrais lesson, studying yoga, attending talks on radical nonduality, or whatever life moves us to do.

Sometimes the cure works. When the right conditions come together, sobering up happens, or waking up from the dream of being a separate person happens, or being able to meet hatred with love happens, or dissolving into boundless presence happens. 

When other conditions come together, getting drunk happens, or believing in the mirage of separation and encapsulation happens, or meeting hatred with hatred happens, or being totally hypnotized by thoughts and ideas happens.

It all happens to no one. No one is in control of what remedies we are moved to try and what outcomes they seem to bring about. When we see how choiceless it all is, there is compassion for ourselves and others when it doesn't go the way we think it should.

There's boundless potential for change. In us. In other people. In the world. This is possible because there's no one choosing changes. They just happen in accord with the goings-on of the universe.

I've experienced first-hand both the relief of recognizing that there is no one in control and the relative value of such things as therapy, meditation, marital arts training and somatic awareness work in opening up new possibilities. I've seen how the bodymind -- the brain and the nervous system -- can learn new ways of functioning.

In addition to uncovering many previously unsuspected causes for behaviors previously considered to be spiritual or moral weaknesses, brain science has also discovered that the brain has great plasticity -- it can change in ways we never imagined before.

Of course, no independent agent is in control of any of this change. We don't learn these new ways of functioning on command by some act of will. In fact, much of this learning and transformation happens outside of conscious awareness. But learning does happen (when the necessary conditions come together).

So radical nonduality doesn't mean we have to renounce all such activities. It simply means they are a causeless happening of the whole universe. Nonduality recognizes that there is nothing we need to do (other than exactly what we are doing), but it doesn't tell us that we need to do nothing. There is a big difference.

Buddhist emptiness isn't nothing, it is everything

I'm a fan of emptiness, Buddhist variety. Though this really is a simple notion, it took me quite a while to appreciate what "emptiness" means from a Buddhist perspective. 

One reason is that in everyday usage, emptiness points to the absence of something, like an empty glass or an empty bank account. Though this isn't really how Buddhism uses the term, I frequently see people speaking of Buddhist emptiness similarly, as if it is a nothingness.

That's incorrect. Actually Buddhists view every entity as failing to have a quality of inherent existence.

Meaning, it doesn't stand alone as an independent reality. Instead, things are empty of inherent existence, for they only exist as a part of the whole, where everything belongs to an intricate web of interconnected relationships.

Though I'm not really surprised by this, given the depth of knowledge Joan Tollifson has about Buddhism, it still was pleasing to find that her book, Nothing to Grasp, speaks correctly about emptiness.

Our usual understanding of impermanence is that the world is full of things, like tables and chairs and you and me, and that these things are all impermanent. But in Buddhism they say that the true understanding of impermanence reveals that there is actually no impermanence because nothing ever forms in the first place as a persisting, separate, independent "thing" to be impermanent. 

There is only thorough-going flux, seamless unicity -- this ever-present, ever-changing Here/Now. This is what Buddhists mean by emptiness and what Advaita calls the one, immutable Self. When this is seen clearly, there is no fear of death, for there is no one separate to die. And there is no "me" to be unworthy or to fail. 

There are lots of implications that go along with emptiness. For example, dualistic ways of viewing the world don't make much sense in the light of emptiness. At least, when we view things from a broad holistic perspective rather than a narrow thing-centered perspective.

Tollifson writes:

Hearing wind in leaves, there is no persisting form, no division, no "me" apart from the wind, no listener apart from the sound, no sound "out there" apart from the listening presence. Without thoughts, there is simply the immediacy of whooooooosh!

Thought comes in afterwards and says: "I hear wind in leaves." Instantly, a whole conceptual picture takes shape in the mind like a mirage, a picture in which we suddenly seem to have subjects and objects, causes and effects, and actors who exist independently of their actions.

In this conceptual mirage, "I" am worrying about getting enlightened, and thought insists that there must be something more to Ultimate Reality than "just" that whooshing sound. That can't be enough! 

Thought begins chasing something bigger and better to fill the sense of lack and uncertainty that it has just created! It imagines "Ultimate Reality" as something it hopes to find, a final understanding, a special experience, something other than Here/Now. 

Round and round the thinking mind goes on its treadmill, chasing the imaginary carrot.

But the nondual absolute is that simple, immediate, conceptual whoooosh. And eventually we see that even thoughts and the mirage-worlds they spin are also a kind of energetic whoosh, and that nothing is outside that boundless totality. Even the mirage of solidity and separation is nothing but whooshing. 

...We learn to think of ourselves as a separate, persisting individual encapsulated inside a bodymind, somebody apart from this world who was born into this world, somebody who "looks out" at the world and who lives "in" it.

But this separation is conceptual. When we look for this "body" or this "mind" or this "person" or "this world," all we actually find is thorough-going flux and ceaseless change, in which everything is inseparable from everything else.

Religious believers are in love with concepts, not reality

I find it amusing when religiously-minded people accuse atheist skeptics like me of thinking too much, of not being in touch with direct experience, of being in love with abstract concepts.

This is a classic case of, as the saying goes, the pot calling the kettle black. Meaning, as that Wikipedia article points out, psychological projection has taken over, and the accuser claims that someone else has the attribute that actually they have. 

For there's nothing more tied to thinking, indirect experience, and abstract concepts than religious belief.

The reason is obvious: since there's no demonstrable evidence that the entities assumed by a religion actually exist, the only way to bring those entries into being is through acts of imagination -- concepts unmoored from direct experience.

What sort of reality would these entities have if they weren't kept alive by the thoughts of those who believe in them? God, Soul, Heaven, Hell, Angels, Divine Grace, Holy Spirit, Enlightenment, Astral Plane, and so many more.

Absent human thought, none of these things would exist at all.

And even with human thought, they exist only as abstract concepts without any grounding in here-and-now reality that other concepts like money, gravity, and sadness have. I got to thinking about this today after reading another short chapter in Joan Tollifson's book Nothing to Grasp. 

One reason I'm enjoying this book is that even when I disagree with something Tollifson says, this doesn't bother me much, because whether or not I agree with her, I like how she makes me think more deeply about issues that lie at the heart of non-religious spirituality.

Here's some excerpts from the "What is This?" chapter.

Take a moment once again to stop reading and to simply appreciate the happening of this moment. Be fully present to the sounds, fragrances, aromas, visual images, somatic sensations -- not these labels, but the happening itself, this undeniable and utterly immediate present experiencing. 

What is this?

The thinking mind instantly wants to supply an answer. It wants to figure this out -- label everything, categorize it, explain it, understand it, analyze it, capture it, frame it, get control of it.

This is the function of the thinking mind, and it serves us well in certain basic survival situations such as food gathering, shelter-building, or navigating our way through new terrain. It has gotten us to the moon and to the top of the food chain.

Our conceptual maps are functionally necessary and not to be discarded, but no matter how accurate the map is, it is never the territory itself. And yet, we have a deeply conditioned tendency to mistake the map for the territory. We do this without even realizing we are doing it.

Some of our most commonplace concepts are so ubiquitous and pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that they are actually concepts. "The world," "the body," "the mind," "the self," "consciousness," "awareness," "nonduality" -- we throw these word-concepts around without ever stopping to wonder what we are actually talking about.

And next thing we know, we're lost in some conceptual confusion, very much akin to wondering what willl happen to me if I step off the edge of the earth. That's an imaginary problem, as all of us in the 21st century realize, but for people in earlier centuries, it seemed quite real.

...When we try to figure out "the meaning of life" or "the nature of reality," or when we try to come up with a conceptual understanding of Consciousness, Totality, God, or the Ground of Being, we inevitably end up frustrated and confused. 

Any conceptual picture of reality is always subject to doubt, and no metaphysical formulation ever satisfies our deep longing for Truth.

What satisfies that deep longing of the heart is the falling away of the attempt to make sense of everything. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't still make relative sense of things in a functional way in daily life.

But we stop trying to take hold of Totality, or grasp the Ground of Being, or figure out the meaning of life. Instead, we relax into simply being life. We learn to recognize (to see, to sense) when we're beginning to grasp or fixate, and in that recognition, quite naturally there is an ability to relax and let go.

When we stop trying to figure it all out, we discover that it doesn't need to be figured out, and in fact, can't be figured out! When we stop desperately trying to get a grip, we find nothing is lacking and there is nothing to grasp.

...If we say, "This is it," the words create the very split they attempt to point beyond. If we say "All is One," it is one too many. If we call it "nothing," it seems to deny the undeniable presence of everything. If we assert that "there is nothing to do," it seems to overlook the necessity of doing whatever we are moved by life to do.

If we assert that "there is something to do," it makes it sound as if something else is required in order to be what we already are. 

...The illusory bubble pops. We see that Here/Now is always unobstructed, boundless and open. It is open enough to include even resistance and contraction. Contraction is simply another form that formlessness is momentarily assuming, another fleeting appearance with no inherent reality.

Nothing needs to be different from how it is. We don't need to define or explain this present happening, and in fact, we can't! The only real answer to "What is this?" is to be awake and see.

What we do, think, and feel comes not from us, but the cosmos

The title of this blog post, though a statement, actually is a proposition, a hypothesis, a possibility. It fits with a heck of a lot of spiritual teachings, and it fits with a heck of a lot of scientific teachings.

I've been pondering the source of my actions, thoughts, and feelings more intensely now that I'm reading Joan Tollifson's provocative book, Nothing to Grasp. She's a spiritual teacher and writer, with a background in Zen.

But below I'll share some passages from her book that are closely akin to a central message in biologist Robert Sapolsky's book, Determined, where he expertly demolishes arguments in favor of free will from a scientific perspective.

Sapolsky considers, with good reason, that our behavior today flows from influences acting on us seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, and even longer ago -- potentially going all the way back to the big bang some 14 billion years ago.

So it isn't crazy, from either a spiritual or scientific perspective, to say that what we do, think, and feel comes not from us, but the cosmos. 

I find this to be an uplifting and optimistic point of view. It's something that not only appeals to me, but also something that reflects how I am. More and more, I don't worry as much as I used to about whether I'm doing the right thing, making correct choices, being a good person. 

I feel that my intentions are just the tip of an iceberg of influences acting upon me that is much vaster that my conscious awareness. I'm increasingly comfortable with not planning my life in any sort of detail, since whatever will arise in my future is only slightly of my own doing, and much more in the hands of forces much larger than me.

This is closely related to a sense of no-self. For the more I feel like an isolated individual with a well-defined identity who necessarily has to make his own way in the world, the more pressure I feel to have that way turn out well.

On the other hand, when I relax into a sense of being a minute piece of the unimaginably vast machinery of the cosmos, that pressure and stress is considerably diminished. That's why I enjoyed reading these passages in Tollifson's Nothing to Grasp.

If we look closely, we discover that thinking happens by itself. Waking up from thoughts and fantasies happens by itself. Paying attention happens by itself. Making decisions happens by itself. Even what appears to be deliberate, premeditated, intentional action happens by itself.

Thoughts arise, impulses arise, interests arise, action arises. Everything is one whole movement -- the clouds, the street traffic, the thoughts, the blood flow, the galaxies deep in outer space, the infinite subatomic universes on the head of a pin -- all of it is one undivided choiceless happening. 

There is no actor apart from the action, no doer apart from the deed, no thinker apart from the thought, no "awarer" apart from awareness. 

There is a functional identification with a particular form, a thought-sense of identity and location that coalesces and appears intermittently as needed (and sometimes dysfunctionally, when not really needed). 

...As Jane Doe, you appear to think things through, make choices and perform actions. That appearance is part of the functioning of life. You know whose name to answer to, which mouth to put the food in, how to cut the carrot and not your finger. 

If you had no functional sense of identity as Jane Doe, none of this would be possible. But this functional sense of identity, which appears intermittently as needed, is not the problem. The problem -- the source of our human suffering -- is overlooking the bigger picture, the context in which this functional identification is occurring. 

We suffer because we imagine that we really are Jane Doe and nothing but Jane Doe, that what "I" truly am is a discrete unit of consciousness located inside a perishable and vulnerable body, located on one side of the room and not the other, struggling to survive as this separate fragment.

We overlook our true identity as the awake space that is beholding and being both Jane Doe and Tom Brown and the entire universe, the seamlessness from which nothing stands apart, the unborn and indestructible boundlessness that is our True Nature. 

...This mirage-like appearance of being a separate person is, in fact, absent much of the time in ordinary, everyday life.

For example, as one is absorbed in reading a good novel, or driving down the freeway, or washing the dishes, whenever there is no thought-story about "me" playing in the mind, there is simply the happening of the moment: pages turning and the plot-story of the novel unfolding in the imagination, or cars and landscapes rushing past on the freeway, or soapy water sliding over dishes -- sounds, sensations, movements of the bodymind all happening effortlessly.

The "me" shows up only with the arising of a thought that posits a subject, for example, "I need to wash these dishes more quickly," or "I don't think I really understand the meaning of this novel." Prior to those thoughts, there was no "me" in the picture, but this me-less experience in between thoughts is so ordinary that it is easily overlooked. 

Joan Tollifson's "awakening" seems to be mindfulness, basically

I'm continuing to enjoy Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp. As noted before, she has an approach to spirituality, and life, that resonates with me. Simple. Clear. Non-dogmatic. 

But I'm coming to believe that as distinctive as her views are, they seem to boil down to a familiar subject: mindfulness.

Since Tollifson doesn't use this term in her writing and speaking -- at least, I haven't come across it yet -- at first I thought that her worldview was founded in the disciplines mentioned on the back cover of Nothing to Grasp in an "About the Author" section: 

Joan Tollifson has an affinity with Advaita, Buddhism and radical nonduality, but she belongs to no tradition.

(By the way, her web site says that she currently lives in southern Oregon, my state. Good choice, Joan.)

However, Tollifson's favorite notion is Here/Now. That's decidedly mindful. She also favors sensory experience and action over thinking as much as possible. That's decidedly mindful. And she says that everything Here/Now is to be embraced, pain as well as pleasure, sadness as well as happiness, and so on. That's decidedly mindful.

This passage illustrates what I'm talking about. It's more flowery than most writings on mindfulness, but Tollifson has a poetic sensibility.

The so-called journey of spiritual awakening is not about arriving somewhere else or acquiring anything new. It is about recognizing what is most obvious, and seeing through (or waking up from) the false ideas and mirage-like imaginations that seemingly obscure what is right in front of us most intimate, closer than our breath, impossible to actually avoid or overlook. 

When we hear words like awakening or enlightenment, we tend to imagine that "I" might one day cross some magic line in the sand and become an "awakened person," forever after established in some perfect (and hopefully permanently pleasant) state. This is fantasy and illusion. This way of thinking is precisely what awakening wakes up from.

In fact, awakening or enlightenment is always only about Here/Now. This is the jewel beyond all price. This jewel is inconceivable and unimaginable not because it is something mysterious and esoteric and far away, but because it is so close, so all-inclusive, and so seemingly ordinary.  Although this aware presence is invisible, it is visible everywhere! It is the whole universe, and it is what remains when the whole universe disappears.

Is the mind trying to grasp what that is? Is there a thought that "I don't get it"?

To awaken is to see through this movement of the thinking mind, and to simply be awake here and now, hearing the traffic sounds and the bird songs, breathing, seeing the colors and shapes of this moment. This is effortless because we can't not be here, present and aware, doing whatever we are doing.

But thought has the ability to convince us that we are separate from our experience, that we are a fragment lost in an alien world, a ship on the ocean in danger of sinking. One very common way of seemingly overlooking the jewel is by searching for it "out there" somewhere. 

Thus they say in Buddhism that if you see the Buddha on the road, kill it. In other words, if you imagine that Ultimate Reality is something outside of you, something you can objectify, something you find or lose -- a person, an event, an experience, a state, a memory, an idea, an understanding, a belief -- then you must kill it.

You must wake up. When you wake up, there is nothing outside of you. You are no-thing and everything.

If you try to pay attention to awareness or to the One Immutable Self, you objectify it -- you make it into something outside of you. Whatever you imagine you see or find or experience is some subtle conceptual object. This same thing happens if you try to identify "yourself" with awareness. You objectify both "yourself" and "awareness," divide them (mentally) into two, and then try to merge these two (imaginary) objects and make them identical.

This takes lots of mental efforting and imagination. And whatever experience of unity and expansion you manage to have, it inevitably disappears, leaving you with the belief that you've lost it and then the frustrating task of trying to recapture it.

On the other hand, if you stop all such convoluted efforts and simply relax to what is effortlessly occurring -- hearing, seeing, sensing, breathing, awaking, being -- then you realize you already are present as this whole undivided happening Here/Now. 

So instead of trying to get this, or do this, or identify as this, simply be this, which actually you can't not be. Even if a train of thought captures your attention and a mental movie unfolds in the imagination, this too is simply another movement of this undivided happening.

I'm inspired by Sam Harris' sharp attacks on religion

Like all of us, Sam Harris has changed over the years.

Following the publication of his acclaimed The End of Faith in 2004, Harris became well known as an eloquent advocate for atheism against the foolishness of religion, joining other noted atheists -- Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett -- who were known as "The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism."

Since, Harris has written additional books and has fashioned a vibrant online presence through his Waking Up app and Making Sense podcast. He still bashes religion, but appears more concerned with other subjects, such as helping people experience the notions of no-self, emptiness, and lack of free will that are compatible both with Buddhism and neuroscience. (Harris has a Ph.D. in neuroscience.)

I was reminded of the old-time Harris when You Tube kept displaying to me a video called "Sam Harris: Arguments Against Religion - Part 1." This is a compilation of highlights from talks and debates Harris did after The End of Faith came out. 

I've been listening to the video while I exercise. It's inspiring stuff. Well, unless you're religious. Then you'll think this is blasphemous disgusting stuff. Harris doesn't pull any punches. He hits hard at the ridiculousness of religion, using facts and logic to make his case.

There's a quote in the Amazon listing for The End of Faith that reflects how I feel when I watch the video. 

"The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."―Natalie Angier, New York Times

Truth-telling has tremendous power.

Harris isn't a comedian, though he does make humorous remarks, but this video has something in common with an edgy stand-up comic. We laugh because the comic is fearless about making fun of "sacred cows," forbidden topics, that usually aren't talked about in polite company. 

In Harris' case, it isn't so much laughter that he elicits from me (though sometimes that happens), but a sense of "Oh, yeah, that's just how I feel, but for some reason I've been reluctant to say it as directly as Harris does." Well, one reason is that I'm not as knowledgeable as Harris is, or as eloquent.

Can't do anything about that. But I can try to be more honest about how I genuinely feel about certain subjects, following in Harris' truth-telling footsteps. For example...

Harris spoke about the insanity of allowing Iron Age myths found in the Old Testament and Jewish lore to inform 21st century warfare and politics. A large proportion of Israelis believe that God gave the Jews territory in the Middle East, so they're now entitled to it. Lots of Christians in the United States believe the same crazy thing.

As Harris notes, a belief is a statement about reality, truth. It's different from a hope.

It isn't crazy for an Israeli to think, "I hope my country can keep control of the West Bank." I don't share that hope, since I favor a two-state solution where Palestinians have their own country. However, it's a lot more acceptable than a bizarre belief that God, the cosmic real estate agent, bequeathed land to Jews.

There's zero evidence supporting that belief, just as there's zero evidence supporting any other supernatural claim religions make. Yet religious people usually aren't challenged about their fact-free beliefs in the same way someone would be if they claimed the moon landings were faked, or that Donald Trump had the 2020 presidential election stolen from him.

Since Harris was speaking not long after the 2001 9/11 attacks by Muslim terrorists on the United States, he was blunt about the Koran -- which he correctly calls not the word of Allah, but one of the world's most boring and poorly written books. Of course, Muslims believe it was dictated to Muhammad by an angel, so every word in it is true.

That sort of religious dogmatism obviously is highly dangerous. Islamic martyrs believe that they'll head to paradise if they die killing infidels. Clearly they're wrong. But that's no comfort to those who lose their lives in the name of Muslim terrorism. 

I'm not as familiar as Harris is with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim history. I do know that he's absolutely correct about how the Bible in no way is divine, but purely human.

The content of the Bible has changed a great deal over the centuries. Some parts of it have been deleted, with other parts added. Editing has altered the meaning of passages to make them conform to how Christians want to spin the story of Jesus, whose supposed miracles aren't unique at all, but were taken from myths floating around the Middle East long before Jesus supposedly existed.

In short, all religions are B.S. (The only exception is non-supernatural Buddhism, which is highly psychological and thus open to confirmation or rejection.) This includes the Eastern religion I was a member of for thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

The hour is late and I don't feel like pointing out all the absurdities taught by RSSB, many of which I never really believed in. So I'll limit myself to one absurdity that comes easily to mind: the belief that Kal, the negative power (think Devil, more or less) who oversees the lower realms of creation, got his position by impressing God with an impressive display of athleticism. 

Here's an excerpt from my 2009 post, "A dialogue about Radha Soami Satsang Beas." The dialogue was between me and Shiloh, who wrote to me because she was concerned about her sister being sucked into a cult. Shiloh asked me some questions about RSSB, which I answered, then got comments on those answers from Shiloh.

(5)  Are Kal and the mind used to dispel the disciple’s rational assessment of the master and his words and actions?

Brian: Absolutely. Questioning is supposed to happen before initiation. Afterwards, the initiate is warned to beware of Kal, the Universal Mind who stood on one foot for eons and earned the right from God to rule the lower regions of creation. (Shiloh: Great heavens! How spiritually athletic!)  Kal's job is to keep souls here, and the mind is his means of doing so.

Shiloh: I rest my case. The above-mentioned attitude nullifies the checks and balances ingrained into our very souls to guard against deception. Willfully giving up the critical mind must indefinitely commit one to labor, with dwarfed mentality, through a spiritual never-never land where the only hope of eventual rescue is through painful disillusionment. Since my sister defensively denied that there was any such requirement, she obviously knows, deep down, how dubious this is.

Beautiful: how Joan Tollifson sees life, and us.

Having received Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp, I wanted to share these passages from her opening chapter, "Life." The more I learn about how Toliffson views things, the more I like her perspective.

How do we make sense of all this? What's it all about? Is there any way out of our suffering or the world suffering, or any way to live through it without falling into destructive mind-states like despair, anger, hatred, and self-pity?

Like many others, I looked in different directions for answers to these questions. I tried alcohol and drugs, psychotherapy, political activism, meditation, satsang and radical nonduality. 

Finally I arrived at the place I had never left: the simplicity and immediacy of Here/Now -- this that is ever-present and utterly complete in spite of what happens in the movie of waking life and never because of what happens. 

I still experience moments of heartbreak and discouragement, bursts of anger, waves of depression or anxiety, and periodic flare-ups of addictive and compulsive behaviors. Perhaps these things happen less frequently, less severely, and for shorter duration, but they still happen. And the world at large is still full of suffering and injustice.

What does seem to have changed is that there has been a falling away of the thought-sense that I am a separate person in charge of "my life" who is going to eventually perfect myself or the world. 

There is the realization that life includes the whole show, the light and the dark, that none of it is personal, that all of it is happening effortlessly by itself in the only way possible, and that none of it has any solidity or permanence. 

There is also clarity about what the unnecessary exertion is that gives rise to so much of our human suffering and confusion, how we make ourselves miserable. As this has clarified, there has been a decrease in gullibility when the siren song of delusion appears.

When I find myself thinking that something is lacking or that the fix is "out there" somewhere, there is a greater ability to relax into Here/Now, the place I have never really left.

Instead of trying to intentionally fix or improve "myself" or "the world," I am more open to allowing everything to heal itself in its own way, in its own time, as it does anyway. There is a devotion to the immediacy of life exactly as it is right now, without superimposing any kind of spin.

This bare intimacy is neither an effortful, goal-oriented, improvement-seeking exertion, nor is it any kind of passive or fatalistic resignation. It is an energetic aliveness, an openness that includes everything and sticks to nothing.

It is not something "you" achieve or acquire, but simply the boundlessness, the bare being that is always already fully present right here, right now.

It is a great relief to realize that in this undivided happening, there is no perfection apart from the imperfection, that the light and the dark arise together like the crest and trough of the wave, that they cannot be pulled apart, and to appreciate the holiness of everything, exactly as it is, warts and all.

The firm conviction that I know what's best for the universe seems thankfully to be evaporating. And when it does show up, it has more of an endearing quality -- oh, look, there goes Joan doing her little dance of concern again.

I've discovered that there is no end to problems. When we cure one problem, a new one emerges. But this only becomes a source of suffering if we imagine it should or could be otherwise. In fact, the turbulent, cloudy weather is as integral to the whole as the clear, sunny weather. And it's all a matter of perspective and point of view what we consider sunny.

...The whole show is one seamless, ever-changing, ungraspable happening: subatomic particles waving in and out of existence, planets circling the sun, hurricanes sweeping across the ocean, birds migrating, ants building tunnels and hills, white blood cells battling an infection, humans clear-cutting a forest, building a meditation center, writing books, shopping for groceries, driving to work, falling in love, getting angry, waking, dreaming, daydreaming, waking up from daydreaming, thinking, remembering, imagining, hearing the traffic, reading these words.

Only when we think about this seamless flow and put it into words, does it apparently get broken up into subjects and objects, nouns and verbs, causes and effects, before and after, good and bad.

Only when we think, does there seem to be an unfolding narrative happening in time with "me" at the center of the story, an apparently separate unit of consciousness (a mind) encapsulated inside an apparently separate body, someone who must make something of myself, use my gifts to help the world, be a success, do the right thing, and perhaps get enlightened.

But if we look backward with awareness for the source of any impulse, thought, desire, intention, action or reaction that occurs, no point of origination can be located or found.

We have no idea what our next thought will be. Recent brain research indicates that by the time a thought such as, "I need to feed the cat," shows up in consciousness, the action this thought appears to initiate is in fact already underway in the body.

In the blink of an eye, the forms of this moment vanish into thin air, replaced instantly by an entirely new universe. When we look closely at any apparent form (a chair, a person, a thought, a feeling, a sensation), it's obvious that none of what appears has any substantial, persisting reality.

Everything is changing, dissolving into something else. It is all a shimmering, dream-like appearance, vanishing as soon as it appears. Everything is changing, and yet paradoxically Here/Now is ever-present.

...We typically imagine ourselves to be an enduring, independent entity with free will, a separate fragment apart from the whole, struggling to control our life and survive as this conceptual form called "me" that we think is real.

We fear death and hope that "my" consciousness and my story will continue on in some kind of hopefully pleasant after-life. But this picture of our situation is as ill-conceived as the one our ancestors had not that long ago when they feared they might fall off the edge of the earth if they sailed out into the ocean. 

When we truly see that there is no separate, independent, persisting form of any kind -- that no actual borders or seams exist between subject and object, self and not-self, birth and death -- that there is only this ever-changing, ever-present boundlessness -- then there is no body and no mind apart the totality.

Just as there is no edge to the earth, there is no independent or persisting someone who is born and who eventually dies. There is only this inexplicable thorough-going flux or boundless presence, just as it is, from which nothing stands apart -- vast emptiness flowering into this ever-changing appearance. 

 

For me, the real spiritual quest is to stop searching for spirituality

A few days ago I wrote about how discovering Jean Toliffson was a gift not only for myself, but for the readers of this blog. Since, I finished listening to her interview with Sam Harris on his Waking Up app, which made me even more appreciative of Toliffson's naturalness and humility.

She's a spiritual teacher who doesn't actually believe in either spirituality or teaching. At least, not as how those words are generally defined and used in Zen, Buddhist, Advaita, Nonduality, and similar pursuits.

That's what made her discussion with Harris so interesting. I like and respect Harris a lot. But compared to Toliffson, he comes across as much more traditional in some respects.

Over and over, Harris would express a view of his, and Toliffson would gently but firmly say something like, "I understand where you're coming from, Sam. What you're saying has value. I used to believe much as you do. However, now I don't find this perspective to be useful."

One of her favorite words is Here/Now. Toliffson is all about embracing what is happening here and now, which she correctly says is the only place and time anything can happen. For thoughts of the past or future can only occur now, and thoughts of another place can only occur here.

So what's the place of goals in spirituality? Well, to begin with, Toliffson isn't big on the very idea of spirituality, from what I can tell. I say this because "spirituality" is an abstraction. You can't experience it with your senses. This concept only exists in the human mind, not anywhere in the natural world.

Okay, but regardless of what we call it, isn't there a place for goals aimed at making us a better person? I certainly have believed in this for most of my life. Listening to Toliffson, though, it seems clear that she views goals as contrary to her view of living.

Toliffson is a practical person. She realizes that intentions, plans, goals, and such  are necessary in everyday life. Today I had the goal of doing our grocery shopping. I achieved it. Now I have the goal of writing a blog post. Likely I will achieve it.

However, this is different from viewing Life Itself as needing goals.

Like, enlightenment, self-realization, mystical experiences, discarding negative emotions, higher state of consciousness. Toliffson sees these as distractions from Here/Now, especially when they're idealized as necessary components of a "spiritual" life.

Toliffson finds value in all kinds of teachings. She just doesn't view any of them as must have's for a particular person.

When Harris would talk about how he gained a lot from a certain Buddhist teacher, Toliffson would respond with something like, "That's wonderful, Sam. You got what you needed from this person. However, different people need different things at different times. What benefitted you wouldn't appeal to someone else."

This is an obvious observation. But often what's obvious gets overlooked. Of course, people differ in what they need to be content. Yet we tend to universalize our personal experience and try to fashion it into a recipe that everyone should cook up in their own minds. 

I do this. Most people do. Maybe not consciously, but it is reflected in my judgments about other people when they don't adhere to some standard that I've set for myself as a desirable quality. Well, it is desirable. For me. Not for others.

I'm not setting Toliffson up as some sort of guru for those of us who don't believe in gurus. She clearly doesn't want that job. I just look upon her as a example of the sort of person who appeals to me in my increasingly non-spiritual form of spirituality.

Non-dogmatic. Open-minded. Humorous. Humble. Down to earth. Flawed. Imperfect. Human. 

In a way it's crazy that I have to be reminded of how pleasant it is to manifest those qualities, whether in myself or as perceived in another person. This is simply the way lots of people are naturally. They don't have to spend years studying Zen or, like me, years studying the people who study Zen and similar practices.

But to some extent I'm still recovering from my thirty-five years of immersion in a religion, Eastern style, that taught this world is a place to escape from with the aid of a guru who was considered to be God in Human Form.

For those three and a half decades I wasn't into Here/Now. I was heavy into There/Then, as most followers of dualistic religions are, since their goal is to attain a state of consciousness far different from that of ordinary life.

Now I'm pleased to just be an ordinary person. As is Toliffson. Which helps explain why I enjoy her so much. By the way, check out her list of recommended books with reviews. Wow. Really extensive. I've read many of the books, but not nearly all of them. Very impressive list.