This morning I turned our TV on, wanting to watch some news while I did my physical therapy exercises, to find that CNN's attention was focused on the Vatican following white smoke coming from a chimney -- the sign, along with bells, that a new Pope has been elected by the cardinals.
I found this fascinating in a theatrical sense.
Meaning, since I'm not at all religious and don't believe in God, who the Pope is only matters to me in a "political" fashion. I liked Pope Francis because he genuinely cared about the poor and downtrodden, a moral quality far removed from Trump's lack of compassion and caring.
But when the new Pope was announced, who shockingly was from the United States, the first time a Pope has been from North America, I was moved by the intense cheering from the large crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square.
When Robert Prevost started to speak -- the Pope name he chose is Leo XIV -- he talked about the need for world peace and loving everyone. Again, this was so refreshing to hear, compared to the crap that issues from Trump's mouth every time he opens it (guess I need to work on loving everybody), that briefly I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
The revealing of a new Pope truly is majestic. Not surprisingly, it appeared that Prevost/Leo XIV was overcome with emotion, though he managed to keep it in check as he uttered his initial remarks as Pope. I'm no fan of Catholic dogma, but I give the Church high marks for putting on a good show.
Turning to the subject I was planning to focus on in this post before the Pope's selection grabbed my attention, I've been looking through Alan Watts' classic little book (152 pages), The Wisdom of Insecurity.
My granddaughter is about to graduate from high school. I had the idea of sending her a book, along with an accompanying letter, that I've enjoyed as a guide and support when life doesn't turn out how I wanted. Which will happen often to my granddaughter, as it already has to some extent, and as it does to everybody.
I find The Wisdom of Insecurity highly readable, well reasoned, and timeless in a certain sense. Watts wrote it in 1951, yet his analysis of modern society and the stresses people feel is just as applicable today. More so, actually, given the current state of technology, social pressures, and constant online stimulation.
Here's some passages from the "On Being Aware" chapter that resonated with me.
To understand that there is no security is far more than to agree with the theory that all things change, more even than to observe the transitoriness of life. The notion of security is based on the feeling that there is something within us which is permanent, something which endures through all the days and changes of life.
We are struggling to make sure of the permanence, continuity, and safety of this enduring core, this center and soul of our being which we call "I." For this we think to be the real man -- the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings, and the knower of our knowledge. We do not actually understand that there is no security until we realize that this "I" does not exist.
...There is no experience but present experience. What you know, what you are actually aware of, is just what is happening at this moment, and no more.
...To say that experience is momentary is really to say that experience and the present moment are the same thing. To say that this moment is always dying, or becoming past, and always being born, or coming out of the unknown, is to say the same thing of experience. The experience you have just had has vanished irretrievably, and all that remains of it is a sort of wake or track in the present, which we call memory.
While you can make a guess as to what experience is coming next, in actual fact you do not know. Anything might happen. But the experience which is going on now is, as it were, a newborn infant which vanishes before it can even begin to get older.
...To be aware, then, is to be aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, and all other forms of experience. Never at any time are you aware of anything which is not experience, not a thought or feeling, but instead an experiencer, thinker, or feeler. If this is so, what makes us think that any such thing exists?
We might say, for example, that the "I" who is the thinker is this physical body and brain. But this body is in no way separate from its thoughts and sensations.
...When you see clearly that memory is a form of present experience, it will be obvious that trying to separate yourself from this experience is as impossible as trying to make your teeth bite themselves. There is simply experience. There is not something or someone experiencing experience!
You do not feel feelings, think thoughts, or sense sensations any more than you hear hearing, see sight, or smell smelling. "I feel fine" means that a fine feeling is present. It does not mean that there is one thing called an "I" and another separate thing called a feeling, so that when you bring them together this "I" feels the fine feeling.
There are no feelings but present feelings, and whatever feeling is present is "I." No one ever found an "I" apart from some present experience, or some experience apart from an "I" -- which is only to say that the two are the same thing.
...We are being aware of the fact that any separate "I" who thinks thoughts and experiences experience is an illusion. To understand this is to realize that life is entirely momentary, that there is neither permanence nor security, and that there is no "I" which can be protected.
...The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the "I" out of the experience.
...Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate "I" or mind can be found.
I’m pleased that the new pope emphasised world peace, much as Pope Francis did, they both appear(ed) as caring people. Although I can’t help to wonder whether their utterances can ever make any real difference to the greed, selfishness and willingness to make war.
I found it hard to understand why the crowds at the Vatican were so happy. It was similar to how people ecstatically wave and cheer when a new political leader is elected to run their country. They feel as though their troubles are over and a new life is emerging, only to find a year or so later that apart from a few changes, their lives are still filled with fears and anxieties – and dead hopes.
Sorry to be such a pessimist but we see such hopes and beliefs regularly around the world. We seem to not realise that man is his own worst enemy. Most of the troubles in the world are man created, or rather, thought created with its countless divisions, all in the name of promoting and maintaining an ‘I’, a ‘me’ that cannot be found – yet which still creates divisions and chaos throughout the word.
But as Watts says, there is no security. And we do habitually tend to base our hopes, desires and wishes on this sense of self in the hopes that what it desires and projects will manifest for us – but instead all it brings is further discord and suffering.
As Watts points out, it is only through awareness that we can see through the illusion, see our minds clear itself of the accumulated dross of years of believing ourselves to be separate, isolated creatures and regain the understanding and unity that we are an integrated part of the whole.
Posted by: Ron E. | May 09, 2025 at 01:56 AM
The leftist "compassion" for the poor is to give em $, let 10 million of them illegally enter the country, and ignore the crimes many of these illegals commit. Like rape. Are the poor stealing? That's OK, let's do away with bail and make any theft under $1000 a misdemeanor. And all while these leftists live in white neighborhoods, faaarr away from those people they claim to love so much.
You can really feel the compassion; it's Buddha-level metta. Well, maybe you can, but the country didn't. The fools elected Donald Trump. But many of the poor say they appreciate a president who wants to give the economy a hand up rather than give the poor hand outs.
Then there's left-wing wisdom. Alan Watts, our hero! Watts was wise, so wise. Watts should be required reading for middle schoolers. Or maybe some other philanderer who drank himself to death.
For some reason, all the heroes of this Church of the Churchless are pontificators who either didn't have their lives together or are grifters, selling watered-down spiritual pap that never helped anyone. Or both.
There's a consistent pathology in these sermons. Whether politics or religion, the message is a delight in failure. I don't know exactly what to make of it, but thank God, at least the country rejected it last November.
Posted by: sant64 | May 09, 2025 at 08:11 AM
Watt's claim that all things are in motion and there is only the"now" is a logical fallacy. Motion requires a sequence of time, of cause and effect, but "now" is only a single point of zero duration. "Now" is a very derivative moment. It is a theoretical point only, and forever inseparable from past and future. You cannot separate these and then speak of Oneness as only the tiny and fleeting fragment called "Now".
We see cause and effect and surmise all things have a cause. Therefore past did exist, and shapes the now. And now shapes tomorrow. Our understanding is limited, but these truths are absolute.
Even the past, present and future are not actually separate. They can't actually be separated. Try as hard as you might, what you think is now is actually in the immediate past. And what you are doing in reaction to that, immediately is unconscious and automatically shapes the future.
Our tiny one point of attention may be attached to it all, but we are not conscious of that.
If there were an observer, often we are not aware of it. We say "I did this", "He hurt me," without any understanding that the body and mind are actually many different things, an amalgamation, and our sense of just being one thing now is largely ignorance.
There may be only One, but we won't get there ignorant of all this, thinking only" I" exist when that is illusion.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 09, 2025 at 09:24 AM
Spence, as you often do, you are misstating what Watts is saying. He is talking about human experience. No one has ever experienced anything but the present. No one. Not ever. No one has ever experienced the past or the future. All we know about the past and future is what enters the mind in the present. So experience is always of the present moment. That's all Watts is saying, despite your attempt to make him say something different through a "straw man" argument where you fashion something in your own words, ascribe it to Watts, and then criticize your own formulation.
Posted by: Brian Hines | May 09, 2025 at 11:26 AM
As usual Brian you are choosing to see what's wrong in my comment instead of understand the truth in it. I get it, you are defending Alan Watts. But he needs no defense. He was a beautiful writer and his story is also very inspiring. Not perfect. Who is? I think he would applaud scrutiny and any advanced thinking that could arise from such.
His tragedy is the tragedy of everyone. His triumph is that he has some insight. He would be the last person on earth to suggest that his view was the end all be all as you are doing.
What I have explained is actually a further truth. What you call now, what you experience as now is a compilation of information filtered and regurgitated by the mind. Every neuro scientist can confirm it. Labeling it 'now' doesn't make it so.
You are looking at and hearing a pastiche offered up by your mind. A tabbleau of the recent and distant past. You are not in fact entirely helpless to do this, nor are you limited purely to it. To the degree you work through it, you may get a little broader view of the 'now' but generally not without the pain of letting go of some mental filter addiction.
What you reflect upon as "experience" is not as you suggest, outside of your ability to broaden. The view can and does change, in fact several times a day as we move through various levels of conscious awareness.
How deeply embedded you are in the past is entirely up to you. But make no mistake, we are not living in the present. Who could possibly handle all that? But maybe just a little more of it by piercing through our own past conditioning just a bit.
Then you would not call anyone wrong, but appreciate what they were trying to get at. Maybe help them do so with greater clarity.
What you do not understand isn't wrong. It just is different, at least until you fully explore and confirm what was meant.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 09, 2025 at 02:08 PM
When you sit in reverie you are experiencing the past again. When you dream of a different future, there you are.
When does this happen? Like Schroedenger's cat, could be multiple points of time within a small range of time.
The brain has many different clocks for its different functions. When exactly did each being fourth its part of your experience? Never at one single point. Difficult to say. "Now" upon inspection becomes almost meaningless.
Don't worry about living in the "now" . It's beyond your brain's capacity. Live where you really are. Be there.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 09, 2025 at 02:26 PM
Pope Francis was a good pope at heart, and had great compassion for people , shown to the poor children in gaza - he even left his pope mobile to them for good use. Gurinder singh dhillon however, is heartless , and siphoned billions from his own nephews where they got locked up for gurinders own crimes. Why can't the clown gurinder just give a proportion of his billions to help the poor and needy instead of taking a world tour and getting pictures with any Tom, Dick or Harry that looks famous. Further more he had his wife conveiniatly murdered, and many more we don't know of. If pope Francis was the good heart, then gurinder is the evil heart - both are polar opposites. Gurinder even went to the Vatican and kissed the Pope's hand , definitely seeking some promotion or benefit for himself, his cult and his family.
Posted by: Kranvir | May 09, 2025 at 02:54 PM
Nice post.
"For most of my life I have not been particularly interested in who the pope is. And I have had very little faith that the Vatican, which covered up systemic sexual abuse, could ever be a real force for good. But – and I know I am not alone when I say this – the past 19 months has fundamentally changed how I see the world. I used to believe in things like international human rights law. I used to believe that while the arc of the moral universe may be extremely long, it bends toward justice. I used to believe that universities would stand up for free speech. And I used to believe that no matter how craven western world leaders might be, they wouldn’t go so far as to enable the livestreamed genocide unfolding in Gaza. That western leaders wouldn’t stand by and cheer as Israel, whose total blockade on Gaza has entered its third month, starves children to death.
During a time when international law has been dealt a deadly blow, when might is right and decades of progress seem to be unravelling, the late Pope Francis made an impression on non-Catholics like me for his moral clarity towards many marginalized groups and his advocacy for peace everywhere from “martyred Ukraine” to Gaza. Of course, his legacy is not perfect: many abuse victims have questioned whether he went far enough in acknowledging children sexually abused by clergy. But Pope Francis undoubtedly fought for the most vulnerable in society.
Pope Francis also understood what many newspaper editors and politicians don’t seem to be able to comprehend: that there is no “both-sidesing” atrocities. That there are times where you must take sides because, as Desmond Tutu said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/09/pope-leo-xiv-moral-leadership
Posted by: manjit | May 10, 2025 at 01:59 AM
Alan Watts is always worth reading. Here he talks about being aware, the self or I and the present moment. The ‘present moment’, ‘the now’, ‘just this’, ‘what is’, is prominent in the meditative disciplines throughout the world. Through meditation and also logically, the present moment is all we can ever know. The past is but thought forms derived from memory as is the future, also derived from past experience and mentally projected as the future.
Thought is always of the past, consequentially thought cannot comprehend the present moment simply because it is habitually geared toward recalling and overlaying the present moment through the eyes of the past.
Meditation is to see through the activity of the mind, self or me, consciousness and thought. All four are the same thing, the result of processes of the brain represented as mental imagery – whether through words or pictures. Meditation is not to sit on a cushion, breath in certain ways hopping to have wonderful liberating experiences, but is simply to watch and see the activity coursing through-out the mind – all the contents of consciousness which of course includes thought and the ubiquitous self structure.
But it’s difficult, difficult because the mind, stimulated by thought, habitually wants to see results, to have absorbing and meaningful experiences. Just seeing what’s arising in the present moment, continually arising and dissolving is only destroyed when conscious thought interferes overlaying what is with what should be or what thought desires or needs to make of the present moment – then it is gone, lost in the vortex of habitual words and images.
That is the only difficulty, staying with the present moment that is continually being swamped with a lifetime of cognitive habits that mainly stem from the need of the self to maintain its structure It’s as though the body’s survival instincts, over many millennia, have been usurped by the mentally project-ed sense of a ‘me’ that desperately needs to maintain its illusive structure. The ‘me’, the ‘I’, actually feels it may die if it’s not continually maintaining and asserting itself.
Where the activity of the self is not understood, meditation can only lead to delusion; but such delusion is continually being justified through the mind’s ability to change what is into what should be, or what the mind desires it to be – typically in the service of the ‘self’.
Posted by: Ron E. | May 10, 2025 at 06:17 AM
Yes, kind of refreshing, an American Pope. ...Would've been even more refreshing to have a black or brown pope, though. Still.
And yes, good that this one takes after Francis, rather than Ratzinger. All of them are participants in fraud, whether via deliberate dishonesty or via delusion: but yes, Francis was a good human being, every which way. If one must have a head voodoo shaman cosplaying at others' expense in medieval costume and pomp, then at least let's have a good decent one like Francis.
Let's hope the new one, Leo, takes after his predecessor in more than just outer form. And let's hope that, as an American, he's able to make some difference to the vileness that pervades in the US with the vile gross orange grotesquerie straddling and befouling the WH, and his vile bootlicking selfserving minions befouling the government.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 10, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Yes, kind of refreshing, an American Pope. ...Would've been even more refreshing to have a black or brown pope, though. Still.
And yes, good that this one takes after Francis, rather than Ratzinger. All of them are participants in fraud, whether via deliberate dishonesty or via delusion: but yes, Francis was a good human being, every which way. If one must have a head voodoo shaman cosplaying at others' expense in medieval costume and pomp, then at least let's have a good decent one like Francis.
Let's hope the new one, Leo, takes after his predecessor in more than just outer form. And let's hope that, as an American, he's able to make some difference to the vileness that pervades in the US with the vile gross orange grotesquerie straddling and befouling the WH, and his vile bootlicking selfserving minions befouling the government.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 10, 2025 at 11:48 AM
"Where the activity of the self is not understood, meditation can only lead to delusion"
Very true, Ron. Less this understanding, meditation --- and even more so religion --- only messes up the confusion even more.
Vipassana is unique, or at least different than most, in proposing two legs to meditation, not one: concentration, samadhi, shamata; and vipassana, insight. ...I think it's best to think of a tripod, with the third leg the intellectual understanding of what it's all really about, basis hard science.
Otherwise, no matter how hard or how well you train your one (or two) legs, you'll never arrive at "true understanding". For that last, you need all three: the calm of shamata, the insight of vipassana, and the understanding of science. (And IMV the last is, arguably, the most important. Good to have all three legs, that's best. But if one must choose just the one, then I say go for the third.)
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 10, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Hi Ron E.
Thanks for our comments. You did a much better job of explaining what I was trying to. Thank you.
Spence
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 10, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Hi Appreciative
The three legs you speak of... Nice. But can they actually support growing awareness?
Can we pull ourselves up from our own bootstraps? Sounds incredibly difficult.
Or can some other force outside ourselves help pull us forward? If we are connected to that, can it keep us aligned and moving in the right direction, the direction of growing awareness? And make the job of disentangling ourselves from ourselves a little easier?
Can we really do it all on our own?
Maybe in addition to the three legs you speak of, there is a rope we can grab onto that pulls us up and out of this?
Then, do we need to worry about the three legs as our only hope?
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 10, 2025 at 12:45 PM
I think yes, Spence. Yes, we can do it on our own. Maybe help each other a bit, but that's about it. There's nothing else out there, than us, as far as we know. No rope of the kind you imply.
We might hope otherwise. One day we may even discover otherwise. But, so far, it isn't reasonable or rational to believe otherwise.
I agree, though, that to rely on the third leg alone, is sub-optimal. Best to work on all three. But if we must choose the one --- no reason why we should, but if --- *then* it's best to go with the third, is what I'm saying.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 10, 2025 at 01:03 PM
Also, Spence: Even if it is the case that we cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but can only try to make things a bit better, is all: Even that does not make the case for your "rope". Neither desperation, nor deep unhappiness, nor wishful thinking, nor prayer, can make the case for your "rope" --- only for the need for one (if that, and at best).
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 10, 2025 at 03:04 PM
Hi Appreciative. Great points.
Perhaps the rope is just the influence of a good friend who may see things we do not, yet.
That happens all the time.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 10, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Hate to sound churlish, Spence, but no.
You'd suggested some force outside of ourselves pulls us forward. That was the context in which you brought in your "rope", as offering some hope beyond the three legs.
What you're now talking about, even though you continue to use the same term, "rope", is simply what I'd suggested, that we might help each other a bit, is all. This is squarely about one person helping another with one or more of those tripod legs. It is very different, completely entirely different, than what you'd suggested to me in your previous comnent.
I'm glad if we're truly in agreement now. But we emphatically don't agree about what you'd suggested earlier to me.
Again, apologies if this comment sounds churlish, given your agreement. Couldn't not point this out, in the interests of clarity.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 11, 2025 at 09:39 AM
Hi Appreciative!
I'm not sure it's either or.
Perhaps both.
At our level, the intervention of a friend may help us course correct, so we can then, calmly, see what we didn't before.
From that point on you see what you hadn't seen before.
If you continue calming the mind and focusing on the reality inside and around you, at some point, and for this conversation it's Theoretical, you may actually witness the connections between all things, and that they are all different shapes of the same water.
Where does belief, faith, hope and reality overlap in that venn diagram of finding truth?
Definitely a goal of truth certainly helps, whatever symbolic form that takes.
But it's just a symbol to focus our attention. Then IMHO, we really have to attend to what is there, what our outer and inner senses are reporting.
You may have to quiet one to see and hear the other. Like a good slueth, working to understand all that's actually coming in. And in doing that our perceptual tools become sharper and our conscious awareness grows. That's where we connect, or realize the connectedness. It's a beautiful thing.
It's what makes it possible for an Isaac Newton to also be a devout Christian. Or a mathematician to become the new Pope. Think Venn, baby. These things intersect.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 11, 2025 at 01:31 PM
Heh, you're doing your thing again, Spence. And from your tone I gather you're doing it deliberately this time, as a joke, in that last comment. ...I'll take it in that spirit, then, and appreciate your meta humor, that riffs off of some of our past comment discussions. Cheers, Spence.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 11, 2025 at 01:47 PM
Ehh, correct me if I got that wrong, and if despite the light tone you actually meant that seriously, Spence. I'll address this accordingly in that case.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 11, 2025 at 01:50 PM
Hi Appreciative!
I wasn't being facetious, but I wasn't being very specific either.
You and I divide things up differently. Hope and love, belief and devotion, even facts and fantasy are real things to me. But they are also representational symbols to anyone else. And this fleeting projection we call physical reality that is so real to so many is false, IMHO.
Most things that can be conceptualized are derivative of some deeper reality that exists beyond thinking. Thinking and conceptualizing are filtering and pattern recognition functions, at best descriptive of reality but definitely not of themselves real.
So I don't take them too seriously. If you experience directly, then no words adequately describe it.
We think we must think to understand. But I believe we must experience to understand.
Now, an experience, passed through the filter of thinking, can be taken out of context and misrepresented. We can think it wrong.
But to experience directly, that is never wrong, even if we don't conceptually understand.
Making labels can be fun, but generally filled with errors. We never, speaking for myself, get the labels quite right.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 11, 2025 at 02:19 PM
Hey, Spence.
I don't quite see what that has to do with what we'd been talking about?
Okay, quick recap:
1. Ron observed that if we don't understand the nature of self, then meditation can end up leading to delusion.
2. I agreed, and generalized that further, and in fact drew from the two legs of Vipassana tradition, and extended it to add a third leg: and suggested a balanced tripod comprising, one, shamata, two, insight, and three, a clear selfview and worldview grounded in science.
3. Which comment of mine you appreciated, but suggested, first, that the tripod, while balanced, is a difficult thing to pull off by oneself, maybe impossible, and that the solution, or at any rate an extension, or at least an alternative, might be a force outside of ourselves that pulls us in.
4. Well, that's where I disagreed. Whether such a force exists, that is fundamentally outside of the tripod scheme, is a matter of factuality; and while such a thing may be very helpful, or even necessary, but thst does not speak to whether it is actually a thing.
5. At which point you redefined your "rope" in more mundane terms. And I agreed, because in fact this I'd suggested myself earlier, and it's a straightforward matter of one person helping another. But given your ambiguous phrasing, and particularly your redefinition of your "rope", I pointed out that while we agreed on this, but this is entirely different than what you'd suggested earlier.
6. And that's where we're at now. Sure, we may Venn out the many different kinds of help a friend might render to us. Sure, we may actually experience what Aurobindo technically describes as Grace, and goes into great detail about.
But, and this is key, that this apparent Grace is a thing different than the elements of the tripod --- which is what you'd claimed, Spence, even though you try to obfuscate it now, when challenged, rather than simply walking it back --- is a matter of factuality; and, as such, not a reasonable thing to believe in absent evidence.
Again, it was you, Spence, who started out "labeling" this pull from without, this Grace, as lying outside the tripod. That's the part I disagree about.
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As far as what you said just now, like I said I found it a non sequitur.
And I'm afraid I disagree even with this standalone. Because first, your disinclination to label and organize and clearly understand, is no more than a predilection, and cannot and should not be attempted to be generalized on to others. And more: this isn't even true: you do indeed label and organize and understand (after a fashion), like in speaking with me you labeled this pull from without as beyond the tripod: it is just that you retreat to this I-don't-label stance when your particular labeling is challenged, as now. And finally, and most importantly: labeling, and in general structured thinking, isn't just "fun", and while it's true it can incorporate errors, that's not the essence of it: the fact is our entire structured understanding, our selfview and worldview, are predicated on such. It isn't so much whether we do it or not, it is the case that we all do it, you no less than anyone else: it's simply a question of whether we do it rigorously, and do it right, and can defend it when called on to.
I'm fine with your discussing your experience sans the labeling, in fact as you know the subject interests me personally: but only when subtext like this, that wouldn't stand up to direct scrutiny, is not slipped in by the back door as it were, like you've tried to do here again.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 12, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Hi Appreciative
I think I may see the source of difference. It is likely just a communication gap.
Your freedom from delusion tripod, as you described it...
"For that last, you need all three: the calm of shamata, the insight of vipassana, and the understanding of science."
I've got some questions about this...
1. Is this calm environmentally dependent? Does it require that people treat you well or at least leave you alone? Does it require that you are physically well and financially secure?
Or is it anchored to something independent of these things?
In other words, is this calm any pathway to freedom at all? Or just a reflection of your current freedom from want or burden?
If your life were in trauma would this state of inner calm be persistent, or wavering to some degree from the worldly situation you find yourself?
And if it is not, then what is it?
On a similar vein, the insight you speak of, is it particular to your experience, place and time? Or do you claim some broader insight... To what? What circumscribes this insight? Concept, experience or? What do you see you didn't, and what is the mechanism? Or is this some idea you learned from others? Is your insight real knowledge? Based on environment, dependent upon environment or dependent upon what? From whom? From the concept of Alan Watts? Or? Which teacher's concept are you referncing? Whose agency are you referring to?
Finally, science. Science is a symbolic representation of a small portion of reality.
What about all the things outside of science? Does science define the range of freedom for you? When our founding Fathers wrote that all men are created equal, science does teach us that all life, genetically, is quite similar. It's this what you mean?
Do you use science to help you determine what is fact and what is not, and what is simply unknown? To what extent do you depend upon science for this insight and peace? And does science itself help you maintain some independence from delusional thinking? Does it help those other two tripods in any way? What are the culture bound teachings of science in this age?
"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions have been exhausted."
Arthur Miller
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 12, 2025 at 05:31 PM
Those are technical terms from Buddhistic/Theravadin tradition/teaching/methodology, Spence.
The tripod draws, like I said, from the two kinds of meditation in Theravada, the latter (and the combo) being the Buddha's particular innovation. Shamata, or calm, or concentration, or absorption, leading to Samadhi, is what most traditions teach. Theravada does that as well, for instance via Anapana, or other such devices. In addition, Theravada teaches Vipassana, or Insight meditation, of which mindfulness is an element.
The two legs of Theravada. While any one leg can yield remarkable results, as meditators across traditions might attest; but it's akin to a bodybuilder focusing on upper body and arms, and left with spindly legs and problematic fitness overall. It is the balanced combo that makes for ...well, balance.
To which I added the third leg, riffing off of Ron's observation.
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If you're not familiar with Insight meditation, and what it entails, and how it differs from the shamata meditation of different traditions, then while that can make for a very interesting discussion in its own right, but for the purpose of this specific discussion now, we might simply ignore that distinction, and revert to Ron's more fundamental formulation of experiential meditation on one hand, and an understanding of the nature of the self specifically, and one's broader worldview more generally. A two legged table, with both legs necessary for best results: but again, if one goes with just the one for some reason, then I'd say go with science. I agree with Ron that, meditation, sans a clearheaded rational selfview and worldview informed by science, is a recipe ripe for delusion.
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As for science, and a scientific worldview, and the rest of it, you well know my views, Spence. We've discussed it threadbare over many tens of pages of comment discussion here on specifically this subject. Those questions you ask have already been addressed, in great detail, many times over, conclusively I believe. No sense rehashing them all over again now, surely.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 13, 2025 at 01:17 PM
Hi Appreciative
Thanks for your clear answers.
My understanding is that Shamata is akin to queting the mind, while Vipassana builds upon that to consider the now without judgment. So one would be a platform to build the other upon. First quiet the mind through focus, and then attempt to just be the observer, and experience the present, letting insight arise on its own.
Vipassana : Mindfulness, equanimity, self-observation and insight.
With Shamata being one method to quiet the mind through focused attention that supports Vipassana.
I think these dynamics are applicable to a range of methods.
Science only has a place in judging what is presented to us. But that doesn't happen in Vipassana, as far as I can tell, IMHO, although through pure observation, insight does arise. I think insight inhabits us. That's quite different from our deciding which observations are "true" and which are "false."
Can anything be false? It just is what it is, as it presents itself. That would be beyond our tiny mental capacity to discern.
Now, as to things that someone tells us our we hear our read, that would be external to Vipassana and subject to our best judgment, including what we can learn from the sciences.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 13, 2025 at 04:51 PM
"Science only has a place in judging what is presented to us. But that doesn't happen in Vipassana, as far as I can tell, IMHO, although through pure observation, insight does arise. I think insight inhabits us. That's quite different from our deciding which observations are "true" and which are "false."
Sure, Spence. Hence, like I suggested, a separate, third "leg", that is based on factuality, and guided by science.
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"Can anything be false? It just is what it is, as it presents itself. That would be beyond our tiny mental capacity to discern."
Depends on the range of that "anything". If it includes our concepts and ideas, including our worldview and selfview, then yes, they can be false, indeed oftentimes they *are* false. And it is up to us to make them as true as we are able to.
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Incidentally, Spence, a small correction/clarification, if I may:
Your understanding was: "With Shamata being one method to quiet the mind through focused attention that supports Vipassana."
Shamata isn't *one* method to calm the mind through focused attention. It is the catch-all term for all such meditation techniques ---- which would be most/all techniques, across traditions, bar Vipassana.
The Buddha's innovation was more than just working out a new technique. It was about working out a whole new *kind* of meditation, that, coupled with Shamata, makes for all-round balance.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 14, 2025 at 07:15 AM
Hi Appreciative!
Nice clarifications.
Thanks!
Spence
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 14, 2025 at 08:01 AM
Hi Appreciative
You wrote
"Shamata isn't *one* method to calm the mind through focused attention. It is the catch-all term for all such meditation techniques ---- which would be most/all techniques, across traditions, bar Vipassana."
Would that include devotion to an idol? If it is 'all such methods across all traditions' ? Wouldn't that have to include every method of focused attention that results in calm, tranquility and clarity?
When I wrote," Is anything false? " I was speaking of experiences. Concepts are symbolic representations of something else, like mathematics, a derivative symbolic creation.
If you dream a nightmare it wasn't this reality. But it was the reality of the dreamer at the time. It was a symbolic experience that was not false for what it was. Something real caused it, though that truth is hidden behind the mask. Anyone can say it was false, but no one can take away from the reality of the experience, until the dreamer laughs it off, or forgets. Perhaps that is what we will do on our last day here.
For the dreamer still dreaming it us very real, can be very emotional. And how many years of dreams and nightmares have we forgotten? How much suffering has disappeared from memory?
For the person who has awoken, it is not part of their reality. But for them they know it was a real experience within their dreaming life. But for the one who observes all dispassionately, they accept it is real to the one who is going through it. And they may even pity those who have suffered so much but have no memory of it.
A dream began with something real, though it also may be invisible to the day to day reality. Yet it was experienced.
But that whole world is derivative.
To paraphrase Samual Clemmons
'I have experienced many terrible things, but most have never happened.'
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 14, 2025 at 09:13 AM
Hey, Spence.
Glad you appreciate my fumbling, fallible, and off-the-cuff efforts to explain!
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"Would that include devotion to an idol?"
Absolutely, yes.
Devotion does lead to absorption, I can attest to that from experience as well as theory. And yes, that's shamata.
For instance: ISKCON literature describes devotion directly leading to Samadhi, without necessarily sitting down ever to meditate formally. But that's Samadhi, and squarely shamata.
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"When I wrote," Is anything false? " I was speaking of experiences."
Well, experiences per se are neither true nor false, they simply are. They aren't "false", agreed --- well, assuming they aren't fabrications. But they aren't "true" either. They simply are.
But any formulation, concept, structure we build around them, those are what are true or false. And it is in building such that science helps us come up with the best/truest/closest-to-reality possible concept and structure.
If we're content to merely experience something, and leave it at that, without building up any kind of structure around it no matter how tentative, then, well, the experience just is. It's neither true nor false. (Again, assuming it isn't a fabrication.)
...But as I type this last, I remember having said this exact same thing, back during our protracted discussion about a scientific worldview. ...Let's not rehash that all over again, right?
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | May 14, 2025 at 01:39 PM
Hi Appreciative
Yes I agree entirely. Good points.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 14, 2025 at 02:31 PM
I know a lot of people who voted for Trump who do not like him. The reason they voted for him? They hate the Democrats (and people like you) more.
Posted by: Gene Debs | May 15, 2025 at 02:29 PM
Hi Gene
The cause of the problem is hatred itself. It's a disease, a form of suicide that destroys other lives as well.
"Indulging in hatred is like drinking poison and thinking the other person will die."
Dalai Lama
Politics has become the arena of complaint. Our most successful politicians have no answers, but are master complainers. When it comes time to actually fixing things, they only know destruction. They sow distrust and reap destruction.
But once in a while someone comes along who thinks differently about politics. They don't see government as a cabal but as a public servant, capable of lifting humanity into the future and by helping, assuring each human being has complete freedom to fulfill their highest potential. They see government as a general agreement for the "commonwealth".
In different eras different waves come through society and we see politics become a saint or a devil, either in the hands of those who have stolen it, or in the hands of those valiant enough to protect it.
Posted by: Spence | May 16, 2025 at 09:02 AM
What are these freedoms government is uniquely qualified to give and to protect? Freedom from want and poverty; freedom from homelessness; the unique freedom created by a full and complete education; freedom from tyranny and the fear of persecution; freedom from hate and prejudice; freedom to prevent illness with better available choices, and freedom from poverty when illness requires medical attention; freedom to do the work that calls out to us, and to do so with our peers on great and noble projects that benefit everyone.
Freedom to see, to hear and to be heard. Freedom to openly respect others and to be respected not simply for what we agree upon but for the beautiful diversity in all life, including human life, including what we disagree upon. The value of unity among incredible diversity, of the One from the Many, honoring both.
The freedom to stand dumbstruck by the awesomeness of life and this world, and the freedom to join together to protect it, and in so doing protect each other.
The freedom that comes from equality of opportunity and fair play, and a society that actually achieves this through great effort and our enthusiastic participation.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 16, 2025 at 09:18 AM
Freedom to parrot Zionist lies and Zionist justification for the slaughter of infants, WHILST they're being slaughtered, in their thousands.
Freedom to accuse those horrified to the depths of their soul by the inhumanity of man towards their fellow man, nay child, "anti semetic".
Freedom to be utterly devoid of integrity.
Freedom to talk utter 🤢
Posted by: manjit | May 17, 2025 at 01:35 AM
Yes Manjit, even the freedom to make false accusations against innocent people; even the freedom to legitimately decry criminal behavior by one government as an excuse for defending the horrors of terrorism.
Yes, Manjit, the freedom to hate so deeply that you hate the good with the bad blindly, until hate consumes you.
Where there is light you will find very dark shadows.
But the fact that light is also there is a reminder that darkness does not exist by itself nor is it inevitable. It's a choice.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 17, 2025 at 11:53 AM