The endpoint of spirituality is breaking the addiction to spirituality

For a long time, including at this very moment, I've had a feeling that both disturbs and elates me: almost everything that I once thought was true about spirituality actually isn't, which means that what remains when my addiction to spiritual seeking has run its course is what I'm truly looking for.

This is sort of akin to the Zen'ish adage, first there is a mountain, then there isn't, then there is. I alluded to this in a 2015 post, "I don't really know what 'spiritual' means anymore."

Since I don’t see anything other than naturalistic reality as being, well, real, then “spiritual” — a problematic word — must not involve anything supernatural. The question then becomes: what is the difference between being a naturalist, and a spiritual naturalist?

 

Zen, for example, seemingly ends up with no distinction. We chop wood and carry water… after recognizing that a belief in something over and above this leads us astray. The whole “first there is a mountain, then there isn’t, then there is” thing.

We humans have a unique capacity among all the other species with whom we share this planet for abstraction and conceptualization. While this talent has many benefits, it also has downsides. Like making more of life than actually exists within life for those other species.

I feel pain. So does our dog.

But when I feel pain, usually there's some suffering added on, because I have an ability to remember when I didn't feel pain, contrast it with the pain I'm experiencing now, and view the gap between what was and what is as a problem -- which creates mental suffering out of a physical sensation.

Likewise, our ability to come up with notions such as "spirituality" leads us to view life as being deficient because we lack something extra from everyday experience: enlightenment, peace of mind, detachment, boundless compassion, or other qualities valued by religions, mystical practices, and such.

For most of my life I've been addicted to some form of spiritual seeking.

This started in my college years, 1966-71, though I was philosophical before then. Seeing a Greek guy with a black beard doing yoga on the San Jose State College campus led my wife-to-be and me embrace "Yogiraj" and his blend of East and West (Yogiraj drove around in a VW bus with Christananda Ashram on the side), which led to some weird goings-on as detailed in "My strange RSSB initiation story."

For the next 35 years or so, I pursued meditation and associated spiritual practices with great enthusiasm. I was constantly wondering if my spirituality could be improved. I'd vow to make greater effort after attending a meeting (satsang) where the guru of my organization spoke. 

There was never any doubt in my mind that spiritual seeking should be a lifelong affair. Until doubts arose. After that, I felt like I was on a elevator where the "down" button had been pushed and I was leaving behind the floors of religiosity and devotion without knowing where the bottom level was.

Reading Joan Tollifson's writings has helped me identify that ground floor. She's been there and done that when it comes to discarding spiritual baggage. Tollifson is the most skilled communicator in this regard that I've ever come across.

She knows the games spiritual seekers play better than anyone I'm familiar with. In her book, Painting the Sidewalk with Water, Tollifson includes dialogues with people who had just listened to a talk she gave. 

Here's an interchange between a Participant (P) and Joan (J). Tollifson is astute here.

P: So does suffering imply a me?

J: I would say so. But the me is only a thought, a mirage. There never really is a me. It's always an illusion. And there is no "me" who has this illusion. That's part of the illusion. Thought inserts an agent into the picture who isn't really there, and then we have blame and shame and guilt and retribution and all that stuff that keeps us fighting wars and beating ourselves up.

If, by suffering, we simply mean things happening that are hurtful, then there can certainly be suffering without a "me." The tsunami or the earthquake will come whether there's a sense of me or not. And on a certain level you can call that suffering -- people losing their children, their homes, their livelihoods.

But if we say that suffering is what the mind does with all of that after the fact, then suffering requires the mirage of a sufferer. Animals have pain, but humans suffer from their pain in a whole different way, because humans can remember the past and imagine the future.

P: Right away I want to find out how to avoid that. Oh, man.

J: So, there was just a seeing of that desire to avoid suffering as it came up. Beautiful! But then instantly thought slips a sense of agency into the picture and passes judgment on the phantom agent it has just created.

When you said, "Oh, man," it was like "you" had screwed up by wanting to avoid suffering. It had a feel of despair and discouragement and self-blame. Right? [participant nods] But all of these thoughts happen automatically. 

The first layer: "How can I avoid suffering?" and then the secondary layer taking delivery of the first layer, taking it personally and passing judgment on the phantom thinker: "Oh, man. I screwed up again. What a loser I am." It's all a bunch of conditioned, impersonal thoughts arising out of infinite causes and conditions, all of it nothing but a dream-like appearance, a scene in the movie of waking life, gone in an instant. 

But it seems personal because at the center of every story is the core idea that "I" am somehow doing all this. I am responsible for all this. It's happening to me. It's my problem. And it all seems very serious and real. People commit suicide over stories as flimsy as this.

Comments

[777]

Quote of the Day
"Devotion brings faith in us;
faith will enable you to put in effort, and
effort will take you out of this ocean of existence.

Without love there can be absolutely no faith at all,
without faith there can never be an effort at all,
and without effort we can never succeed. "
— Maharaj Charan Singh Ji —

7:
Apart from Dhyan;
The love can be more easily found
by association / interference
listening on X to Divine 432Hz music
because the Love is 432Hz Shabd and will resonate
our chakras

[sant64]

"Whatever you can say about anything, it's at best only half true." -- Katagirl Roshi

This whole trope about spirituality vs. abandonment of spirituality was dealt with 3000 years ago by Shakyamuni. Buddha left us the 8-fold path.

Neo Buddhists like Alan, what? and Tobler-One take a fraction of the 1st fold of that 8 fold path and tell us that's all anyone needs to be totally enlightened.

The 8-fold path or the fraction of the 1-fold path. Who you gonna believe?

[777]

Doing No Harm
U don t need a Path
It s something for the Willing, . . the Urging, . . ; The Loving

777

[77777]

-
also

Those that want to kiss forever

77777

[Appreciative Reader]

Appreciate this post, and its message. But I continue to be deeply skeptical about the byllshytte that is 99.9℅ of Zen.

If this is truly the mainstream Zen view, then why not just clearly say it, clearly and briefly, rather than the endless reams of gobbledygook that can admit of any of like a hundred interpretations? Why make "students" go through whole lifetimes of nonsense rather than clearly spelling this out simply? Why the absurd zazen and mindfulness nonsense (which may, which obviously do, have other great uses, but none of that elaborate nonsense necessary to understand this very simple truth)? Why the hordes of pseudo-wise Zen "sages", freeloaders one and all, filling their bellies and the bellies of their spawn by making monkeys of the gullible? (Has to be one or the other. Either they're themselves confused, and conflate a bunch of tangentially related stuff. Else they're clear about this simple straightforward message, but are beclowning the gullible to ensure a freeloading livelihood for themselves.)

Pardon the intensity of my criticism, but this Deepak Chopraesque bullshytting I intensely dislike. Science is truly complex, very complex. And many good scientists do a great job of correctly, fairly completely, and yet simply, explaining it to us layfolk. And then you have these clowns, the Deepak Chopras and these Zen jokers, who take a super simple message like this, and make it more obscure and more (pseudo) complex than even quantum math. Big boo to that bullshytting.

One of the things I love about the Buddha is the complete lack of BS. A great many things he got right, some things he got wrong, but all of it was explained crystal clear. (Well, okay, except for one thing he kept silent on, I'll grant you that. But again, that wasn't part of his key message. I'm saying, the Zen clowns don't get to eat their cake and have it too. Either this, discussed in this article, is the central realization of Zen, or it isn't. I agree fully with the message; but if it is indeed central to Zen, then all of what I said here. Can't have it both effing ways.)

Again, apologies for the stridency about what's clearly dear to you, Brian, the Zen thing. But I've seen enough bullshytte, and bullshytting freeloading rascals, to be deeply suspicious and skeptical and un-appreciative of these unscrupulous pseudo-wise freeloaders.

[777]

A.R.
So extremely correct
read : JapJi again
777

[Ron E.]

The basics of Zen Buddhism are the precepts of suffering, impermanence and emptiness. Anything else, any elaborations on that seem to be either the inevitable product of later writers’ additions and of course, interpretations and translations. It seems to me that these three core elements are all that is needed to understand the essence of Zen. Of course, after three thousand years and the numerous translations, additions and interpretations – many obscured by the fact that they perhaps only make sense in certain cultural contexts – it is no wonder that confusion exists to the western mind.

Although serious studies of some of the Zen texts, coupled with honest enquiry (whether that’s academic study or contemplative) can throw light on suffering, impermanence and emptiness; such in-sights underline much of the writings and teachings of people like Joan Tollifson.

She steers away from the religious and philosophical trappings of formal Zen and other non-dual teachings to present an entirely acceptable approach to the questions of who/what am I. Amongst the many charlatans and self-promoters in the spiritual circuses, there are quite a few like Tollifson who, if one is lucky or serious enough to stumble upon, are worth considering.

Quite often though, what they say and point to offers little in the way of expectations that the aver-age seeker is hoping or looking for. What it comes down to is that the truth is revealed as ordinary and everyday where the suffering aspect arises through the overlaying of thoughts and desires that are contrary to the ‘what is’ to the actuality of the moment.