Bill Murray on mindfulness (sort of)

I recently ran across a nice article about Bill Murray that relates to Buddhism, or at least I'm seeing a clear connection.  A quote of the passage, following the link and title:


http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/7-steps-to-living-a-bill-murray-life.html   He says:


You think, Dammit, someone else is trying to be me. ... I don’t have to armor myself against that idea if I can really just relax and feel content ... If I can just feel, just think now: How much do you weigh? This is a thing I like to do with myself when I get lost and I get feeling funny. ... try to feel that weight in your seat right now, in your bottom right now. ... if you can come back into the most personal identification ... which is: I am. This is me now. ... There’s just a wonderful sense of well-being that begins to circulate up and down, from your top to your bottom.


Actually the advice just before that, step 6 of 7 on how to live a Bill Murray life in the article, provided some context:

You have to remind yourself that you can do the very best you can when you’re very, very relaxed. No matter what it is, no matter what your job is, the more relaxed you are, the better you are.


Both of these points relate to ideas from Buddhism, although to some extent Buddhism also relates to ordinary life, so everyday perspective, wisdom, and Buddhism need not be different.  In fact to me to the extent these are separate things, and Buddhism is more about an abstract set of ideas, then in that case it's really not Buddhism at all.

Interpretation section

The context is being relaxed in everyday life, and the second more specific point (step 7) relates to being present in the present moment to help achieve this.  I won't get too far into Buddhist terminology and concepts for this since it really does defeat the points being made, which are probably about as clear without explanation as with one. 

I will reference a couple related concepts but bear in mind these are interpretations of interpretations of individual ideas within a large framework of concepts in Buddhism.  Building the individual ideas up as a system of related ideas helps describe them to some extent, and also drifts off the point in another sense, related to tying them back to actual experience.  In the end it has to be about a simple change to everyday perspective, taking something problematic away, removing conceptual structure, rather than adding a lot of ideas.

not exactly the same but related

What Bill Murray is saying works well as real Buddhism because the context is there, about being relaxed, and also "when I get lost and I get feeling funny." There's no way to really describe getting caught up in ideas and attachments well so that works. About "trying to be me," I'm not so sure, but the general idea of rejecting self and attachments is that unnecessary connections cause problems for people.  This could involve trying to force the past or the future to be a certain way, even though both are out of reach in different ways since we act only in the present, or getting hung up on ties to expectations or self-image.


The part about weight is nice; an easy to grasp and use tie to the present moment.



The apparent connection to self is not as much a problem as it would seem to people without a grasp of what it means to reject self in Buddhism.   As I've been going on and on about in other posts it's a limited form of rejection. It could be interpreted related to people saying absurd things, in effect rejecting the continuity that being a person must involve, or some could see even that approach as a useful tool.

My take is that stating absurdities completely misses the point, except perhaps as a limited thought model (perhaps not the best framing since "thought model" invokes lots of what is being rejected in the first place). Gaining a more developed relation to a continuity of self is the point, not imagining or creating a world where some internal consistent person doesn't exist at all. A relatively continuous perspective is no problem, per Buddhism; interpreting that as what it's not and stressing over what really isn't real is a real problem, and a very common one, part of a conventional worldview.

More interpretation, closer to Buddhist concepts

The cited passage is talking about being in the moment.  Dragging in concepts and relations between them, like non-attachment, doesn't help much, but I will a little anyway.  A rejection of self could be tied in even though this seems to be saying the opposite, the "I am" part, but again that's more about shaking concepts than adding them.

Relaxing is about non-attachment, dropping ideas of self and other imaginary connections that aren't useful, that invoke stress of different kinds.  One useful tool for doing this is mindfulness practice, being aware of the present moment, including one's own mental state and perspective.

Talks on Buddhism regularly provide examples of ways to practice better momentary awareness.  For me spending a few moments watching breathing and relaxing the breathing process works, naturally drifting into more stomach breathing than chest breathing.  Others are a bit simpler yet.  One technique (trick?) a monk described in a dharma talk once as "doorknob zen:"  you can take a single second to check on momentary awareness before opening a doorknob, losing essentially no time out of your day to trigger better momentary awareness.

bumps!  photo credit linked

When I used to snowboard a lot different types of centering and focus techniques really did help me set aside my "self" and get on with the boarding.  It was actually necessary because I loved to ride bumps (moguls, if you rather), and hitting large obstacles and making extreme turns more rapidly than once a second isn't something one can consciously do.


Think about it and you can't keep up, and fall.

this was my house, Beaver Creek; credit Dave Park

I experimented with lots of methods.  One was to focus on my hands briefly on the ski-lift ride up.  Why my hands?  Lots of nerves there, a familiar body part, easy to keep a focus point on them.  On the actual runs sometimes I would "play" music in my head.  To improve the focus before going out I would do some yoga.

In the end I could keep up a very long run of very extreme boarding, indefinite, not really by establishing a rhythm since the rhythm was coming from the terrain, not from me.  Riding in trees was another way to reinforce consistent, effective turns since the alternative--crashing into a tree--would serve as immediate negative reinforcement.

The Razor's Edge

To me this is Bill Murray's best work related to Buddhism, although there is more on the internet comparing Groundhog Day to Buddhist themes (related to cycle of rebirth, of course; more on both here).  There are different references about this movie but nothing seems to really capture what works and what doesn't related to Buddhism (to me), so maybe the Wikipedia summary is as good a stand-in for actually seeing the film as there is.  But it's quite worth seeing.

The movie is interesting for directly engaging Buddhist concepts; his character went to India to find himself, after war experiences led to a personal crisis and reading and introspection didn't suffice.  His character is not exactly portrayed as enlightened, or anything of the sort, but there are explicit references to spiritual insight.  The movie doesn't work as a story about where such insight actually leads, since his character is involved with more difficulties that show the limits of transcending normal perspective.

So why do I bring it up, if the deep insight isn't really there, in the form of a how-to?  It's about as good as story-based movie fragments of Buddhism get, and worth watching, and Bill Murray is the lead.  To me any criticism of the movie is about someone just not getting it, which is fine, no reason why most viewers would have much background knowledge of Buddhism.

The third movie of Murray's referencing Buddhism is Caddyshack, related to his character Carl Spackler, the greenskeeper, who says a little about Buddhism (see some quotes here, or movie background here).  Chevy Chase's character Ty Webb was even more Zen-like and cryptic.  To me it's one of the best comedies ever made but I'm not sure how much Buddhism one could pick up from it.

Rejection of self related to different interpretations of Buddhism

A friend made some good comments about the no-self post related to how this concept relates to both religion and common sense.  I started the last post about context with the short versions, but now I want to rejoin the connection after the last post described how Buddhism can be interpreted in different ways.

Her comments, no-self, selflessness, suffering and common sense

Somehow, these concepts made me believe that the core of Buddhism is to encourage people/us to become “Selfless”.  Of course, being selfless is better than being SELF-FULL – selfish.

This concept is good, but it still depends on how we interpret it, doesn’t it?  Should we all become monks and nuns and leave society for the jungle?

Probably not; we still have to live our lives the way we always do among other people who are generally ill-minded, corrupted and selfish in what’s so called society. So, as we’re trying to survive and live peacefully the best we can, what do we fight with? Or what do we fight for?

If you’re to give a radical answer (non-neutral) what exactly does your heart truly believe: NO-SELF or YOURSELF?

There have already been people who believe in “no-self” being, but I don’t know what they do with that belief. I wonder how they see the world, how they live with their spouses, and how they teach their children. No-self is a very simple concept but not so easy to explain -- it’s nothing simple that will make other people easily agree on.

To be honest, to me it sounds like “emptiness”.  No pain – it’s plain; no suffering -- It’s NOTHING.
Since I’m one who cherishes all that defines LIFE -- blessed or struggling -- I still consider it a gift (a chance to live), and not a burden.

So what do you think?  Is it possible that the concept No-self was to help us ease and numb sufferings and pain?

Response starting point

Great input, right?  She is taking no-self to mean something someone would personally apply to their own life and everyday experience, which to me is a great start.  If Buddhism is taken just as philosophy, as metaphysics, then the connection may not be necessary.  But to me that means Buddhism is only applicable to the general realm of philosophers, to scholars, but as I take it that's not at all the original intention (but of course that's just my take).

Also certain religious interpretations limit the applicability to most people.  As she commented "Should we all become monks and nuns and leave society for the jungle?" One interpretation might say that only very few people should do this, and that this teaching really applies mostly to them in a way others couldn't possibly relate to.  This relates to levels of spiritual attainment, meditative states and so on.  Of course it's also possible to accept that all that is valid but a different application to everyday life is also possible.


At first it seems contrasting no-self and selfishness might make too much of a similar term used in a broad set of ways but there's really something to this; it works.  No-self is about not taking the assumptions that relate to a self too seriously, in the end even removing some of them, and selfishness is quite the opposite.  One difference is that no-self isn't exactly a way of being as much as a technique.  Or rather eventually after a process of understanding a general meaning, then practicing it, the concept could become a way of being, but at first not so much.

So as I'm interpreting here, no-self really needs to mean two separate things; relating to the initial understanding and development process, then the final form of actualization.  When she asks "I wonder how they see the world" it's a question about the end point perspective, not about the usefulness for someone starting to make use of the idea.  As I've framed this it would help if I were completely enlightened to answer that question.  Of course that particular concept already brings in a number of assumptions about the end point of Buddhism.  Before I get to those I should move on to how different contexts give different answers.

Buddhism as philosophy

Buddhism can be taken as an abstract philosophy, not as a guide for living.  If it is about everyday life it would probably apply somewhat broadly, even if not to everyone, but as an explanation for how things really are it might possibly be accessible to only a select few, to philosophers.  Of course the "average person"  with an interest in either Buddhism or philosophy and a fair number of philosophers would take issue with this as a flawed divide, and rightfully so.

But given this as an assumed context, that philosophy and everyday life are separate--which is a common way modern American philosophy is interpreted, just not the only way--Buddhism is a description of how things really are.  In reality there is no real self, on this take.  

But what could be the point of even saying that?  One likely meaning is that "self" is being interpreted within the context of common sense as a flawed concept, as a real, abstract entity that doesn't exist.  Instead that "self" is really only an experienced history and set of assumptions, something that must seem to go along with the physical body a person possesses, but which refers to nothing.

Of course a self is already embedded in the use of ordinary language.   "Person possesses" assumes it; or actually just "person" does.  Taken one way--not really the way I would accept in the end--this interpretation of Buddhism and metaphysics and view of self is just a more accurate model of how things are.  "Self" is assumed, but there is nothing to assign it to, so it doesn't exist.  

To give examples of how this might work, today I work at a job, and like tea more than coffee, and define myself as a parent.  All those things will be true tomorrow, but still they sort of hang together as a big set of conditions that don't really need a self as a center. All of those connections could change,  and in fact there isn't one central entity.

Taken this way it almost doesn't matter if someone believes if there is a self or not; there really isn't.  It's even possible that what is being described is a model that is so abstract that when the Buddhist philosopher goes home they had really best get back to assuming that self, even if not real.  It bends the mind a bit, doesn't it?  But it works better than at first glance.  

I could get fired and switch to hot chocolate and any number of other seemingly real ties could change.  History couldn't, right.  In the past whatever happened happened, and we can interpret it or remember it differently quite a bit but not change it.  But now we're drifting away from discussion of an objective self, and not really towards rescuing or rejecting it.

Buddhism as religion

This will take some narrowing down to address in anything less than a series of books, just as with philosophy where I've just let common experience drop at the outset.

Zen would be the natural choice for discussing what no-self means, of course.  I love Zen, although I've not given it much thought for awhile.  I was never a Zen monk, and I'm certainly not going to claim any level of attainment.  So given I've just read some books (many) and took a few classes, and of course meditated just a little, I'll not do Zen justice, but still I'll start there.

Zen is all about rejecting self, in a very pragmatic way.  It's the opposite of an abstract set of ideas that one leaves behind when the theorizing is done.  Zen is really zen precisely to the extent it informs immediate perception, and the ideas that inform the practice of it tend to talk about experience or even intentionally defy logic to point past it.  So how do you "do" this, no self?  It's such a long story that saying anything would be wrong, but saying a long story would be even more wrong.

The idea is to jump past the concepts and get to the immediate experience of not embracing the ordinary assumptions of a self, to just not do it.  Meditation is typically accepted as one practical method, or maybe even the only one, depending on presentation.  But then ordinary life and meditation are said to not be differentiated, so it's not an ordinary case of a practice affecting a worldview.  Maybe that's a good place to change to a different religion.

indoctrinated at a young age

It seems clear enough that similar ideas come up in the contemplative aspects of the Thai Buddhist tradition (an example of Theravada Buddhist practice versus that one Japanese branch of Mahayana).  For the ordinary person or even the ordinary monk in a sense they don't.  Some of the same general context is there but the radical rejection of a self takes a different form.  For a lay-person it's about becoming less selfish, either changing habits or spiritual development, if one prefers.  For a monk it's about embodying the normal and correct practice and perspective of a monk.

The rules and restrictions (precepts) serve to guide appropriate conduct, which radically removes the types of connections that would normally define a self.  Of course how well that works in practice in general or in specific cases is another matter, but that seems to be the general direction.

Buddhism as psychology (self-help, New Age theory beyond yoga, etc.)

Taken as a guide to how to change individual experience, in any number of different forms, Buddhism is a different thing.  Of course this could be exactly how Buddhism is taken as philosophy and religion as well, and in many cases it would be, so the separation I've describe is quite artificial, intended to highlight conceptual differences but not necessary divisions.  I would like to think the average philosopher refers back to real life, and is influenced by their theories, and that most religious people certainly do the same.

meditation face, looking "centered"

How could it start, though?  Self seems so apparent, so necessary in a normal world-view.  How could one stop being a self, stop assuming it?  Maybe it would depend on people, and maybe bit by bit.  Someone inclined to conceptual analysis might try to wrap their mind around the whole set of related ideas and then jump into doing it.  Someone else might try to dilute their own experience of self through use of prayer or other ritual.  

For me a great starting point is the words of the Buddha, much as we have them available to us now.  Or modern interpretations would be an alternate resource, I guess like this blog, but that's not really what I meant.  But there's so much nonsense in the world, isn't there?  Half of what I've ever ran across labelled as Buddhism seems way out there to me.  To look at it more positively, half the rest has seemed to really relate to some parts of it, and a small subset of that has seemed like a great resource.  This blog entry; maybe so-so, nowhere near as clear as what the Buddha is taken to have said.  So read that.

I had an unusual experience when meditating once (which would make for a separate blog entry) after which I experienced changes in myself.  My inner voice went quiet, for weeks.  Maybe I never did go back to normal, or given some perspective I remember from my childhood maybe I wasn't starting from normal anyway (which is not going to be a blog entry).  I'm not claiming that was the point of Buddhism, or of what no-self means, just citing this as one possible unusual related element.  It worked out better than one might think; I was much clearer for dropping the chatter, although other side-effects were a bit odd.

Return to no-self

From the initial set of questions and observations:  

it sounds like “emptiness”.  No pain – it’s plain; no suffering -- It’s NOTHING.  Since I’m one who cherishes all that defines LIFE -- blessed or struggling -- I still consider it a gift ... and not a burden.

... Is it possible that the concept No-self was to help us ease and numb sufferings and pain?


So I'm agreeing, but not with no-self as any sort of nihilism, a rejection of life or almost any aspects of it.  These concepts resolve in an interesting way.  We cause the suffering, by assuming a self, by attaching to certain ideas, not recognizing impermanence for what it is, etc.

I don't mean when it's cold a different perspective will change that we're not at a normal temperature, although I think the way we relate to external factors is much more subjective than it seems.  Of course people can train to endure the cold, but that's also something else entirely.

How I'm taking the concept is that the struggle itself is mostly internal, and dropping almost all of it wouldn't entail dropping what we actually do that's effective.  The opposite would be true; we could endure more of external factors, and make light of it, taking it only for what it's worth.  A lot of ideas add to our burdens that don't need to, at least to the extent they ordinarily do:  the past, the future, self-image, desires, public opinion, expectations, etc.  If you completely drop all that there isn't much left to work with, so the idea is to selectively adjust perspective, with ample access to memory, planning, goals, consideration of external factors, and all the rest.

How to do it--tricky.  Really "attachment" seems to be the more active concept here, not the rejection of self, and attachment isn't being used in any conventional way.  More on that is best left for another blog entry.

Buddhism as religion, philosophy, psychology, or other

The question of what no-self means goes straight to the issue of the context in which Buddhism is being interpreted, which I’ve only said a little about before.  Two friends have made comments that demonstrate this issue:


1.  related to common sense a self must exist in some form, because the continuity of who we are essentially defines one real person as existing, both as a physical and a mental entity, as a relatively continous perspective, history, collection of attitudes and preferences, relationships, etc.  Of course if self is only interpreted as a collection of elements that all change over time that's still sort of the point.  What "real" in "real person" means is the question.

2.  related to other Indian philosophy Buddhism is a rejection of the philosophical position declaring atman is real (or instead asserting "anatman," or that there is no permanent, enduring self).  It's not really different than the first point except that in one case there is a real self observed because of common sense and everyday experience and the other relates to different old forms of Indian philosophy.  Philosophy and common sense don't necessarily need to overlap a lot, though.


Atman is essentially “self,” but maybe that’s not so simple.  The concept of soul could relate here, and exactly what is meant would almost surely shift depending on the way other philosophical concepts are arranged (assuming it's taken to be philosophy).  All of this is complicated from being a debate conducted 2500-2600 years ago, so the modern form is almost certainly not exactly the same.  Western philosophy is something else entirely, itself occurring in different forms, and Western religion something else again.  The short version is that at least in part the Buddha was probably rejecting schools of thought that said self (atman) is real, although in other core teachings he wouldn’t accept either “self” or “no-self” as a good answer.


So before I say more about self and no-self related to these two points, in the next blog entry, I’ll back up and fill out these contexts a little as a necessary background for different answers.

Main branches of Buddhism

It would be easy to overgeneralize Buddhism even taken in different senses since there are several different main branches of Buddhism (three are usually described, but even that may be too simple), and different schools or specific traditions within those.  These would refer back to different core teachings, and mix with cultural aspects and beliefs, and the conclusions or specific teaching points and related practices would therefor vary.


I’m not really the best person to fill in this section since I’m not a historian of Buddhism (I’ll get to the contexts that I have related to) but here is a sketch to show what I meant.  If someone is interested the main Wikipedia article is a decent starting point, with lots to read beyond that.

credit Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

1.  Theravada:  the oldest or original main branch, the division that Thai Buddhism is a part of, along with closely related regional traditions in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.  Sri Lanka is the other notable location for this tradition (but again, what do I know).  One interesting aspect of this tradition is there is a Buddhist cannon, in the main form in Pali language, of received teachings and texts including essentially all we have of direct teachings from the Buddha himself (aside from possible later discoveries, which I really won’t get into).

The tradition was oral for centuries so it seems possible these teachings shifted a bit, but the story is they didn’t, that chanting really is effective word for word preservation.  It’s my impression (based on studying Christianity as religion in school) that those New Testament texts and content changed a lot over the first half a century, based in written works, but it’s hard to say how that informs a likelihood of these early Buddhist teachings as shifting.  An official selected cannon also is likely to have sifted and rejected some content, a process more familiar from Christianity, and it’s very difficult to say what ideas or content was circulating then that didn’t make the cut.



2.  Mahayana:  a later tradition or wave of Buddhism.  Why waves, or branches, why the discontinuity?  That’s yet another good question I won’t really answer.  But we see how modern Christianity has shifted over the last half a century and extrapolating that it’s easier to imagine that a tradition could change, or split, or even go relatively dormant and then start again in a different form.  Chinese Buddhism (Chan) and Zen, the closely related Japanese branch, are the forms we’re most familiar with, but then these relate to ideas mixed with other traditions, especially Taoism (which is nice).  My understanding is that this branch originated within India, as the first branch did, and there are lots of great stories about what different emperors or individuals did related to the developments.

A religious historian could say a lot more.  It seems as well to at least mention Bhodidharma, for being such an influential, interesting and semi-mythical character, who deserves further reading in Wikipedia type sources or any number of other places Google turns up.

http://faculty.luther.edu/~kopfg/referenc/buddhist.html

One might naturally wonder how the two branches relate, and how the new context could tie back to anything but the same original teachings.  My impression (versus an informed understanding) is that there was a substantial break related to new teachings re-surfacing, but don't take my word for it, read up a bit.

Also one needs to bear in mind that the way Buddhism is structured any one enlightened teacher is a completely valid reference source, so if someone made claims from that stated context to re-interpret Buddhism in a modern form (now one that’s something on the order of 800 years old, but modern awhile ago) then that still does work.  More on all this in a later section on Buddhism as religion versus other interpretations.


3.  Vajrayana:  More of the same from Mahayana; new texts can be found or drafted, with new Masters, new interpretation, and spread to new places.  Under this branch we get a very interesting tradition in Tibet, with lots of different mystical connections (like Tantra—a few nice twists there) and a return to an academic philosophical tradition in addition to a monastic based religion.


4.  Other:  really seems there should be some way to capture how the last few centuries have progressed, doesn’t it?  In a way the whole point of those branches seemed to be the emergence of major traditions though, and what’s going on with New Age in America or elsewhere really isn’t that (no offense intended).  All the same I’m sure there are interesting other groupings or interpretations out there, or else I wouldn’t have just written a “4,” even if I’ve got nothing substantial to say here.

Buddhism as religion, philosophy, psychology, other

This is really my main point for this post, so I'll try to get on with it.

Buddhism as religion

That’s what those branches essentially were, broad groups of religious traditions.  But different people were interpreting Buddhism as other things at the same time, even related to those traditions and some of the same content.  “Popular Buddhism” must surely be a new thing related to how we are taking it, ideas that mix in, but surely not new related to someone going in that direction.  It’s hard to say what the Buddha intended because he seemed to be presenting ideas in different contexts, which would be quite appropriate since surely there wasn’t just one main context to work within at his time either.

Wat Pho, where I ordained!  (credit www.bangkok.com)

In my own experience, relating only to the Thai tradition, and not intended as a summary of that tradition, a lot of the focus within a religious context is on the rituals, moral codes, meditative components, and other practices that are derived from the teachings.

In case you weren't believing that last claim...

A monastic tradition is the main sub-set of that here (in Thailand), but of course it all relates back to everyone else that is Buddhist as well, or most people here.  It might sound like I’m saying philosophy or everyday interpretation drops out, and of course I’m not; that’s part of it.  But to the average person those are secondary to the acts of going to the temple for ceremonies or advice and how everyday observances relate, for example the degree to which they follow the five precepts (main restrictions, for example not to kill).


The philosophy does tend to get minimized for the average person that accepts Buddhism as their own religion (per my experience).  They don’t struggle to learn the background of early Indian philosophy, competing schools, and all the core concepts (Pali terms that come up, like atman or vasana), although the general background does come up.  Christian awareness of the New Testament and how it relates to the older teachings is a good parallel; who really studies all that.  Some do, and it informs more of the perspective of priests and ministers and such, but what the average person works with is a bit general.  That's not such a bad thing, until they seem to have lost track of even that.

Buddhism as philosophy

I should start by saying I had some bad experiences with modern analytic philosophy education (philosophy as logic puzzles or arguments that don’t relate to ordinary experience at all) so I could be a bit biased against this general direction.  It wasn’t just a bad class either, or several, but I’ll leave that personal history aside for now.

Philosophy is an interesting subject.  For us in the West it started with the Greeks asking questions about the meaning of life and more specific questions about the nature of reality and self.  Plato telling us his take on Socrates' teachings (who didn’t write them down) is the main starting point, but that was based on a number of Pre-Socratic sources and schools of thought, which we have only fragments of now (like“you can’t step in the same river twice,” by Heraclitus), but there must have been a lot more development we’ve just lost track of given the dating (roughly the time of the Buddha, or way back).

Indian philosophy is a different thing.  The emphasis on different historical schools of thought is different, and their use of formal logic was a bit developed compared to Western ideas, which did get around to that more later.

This is where I might say a number of random sampled ideas from different positions except the last class I took on Indian philosophy and last books I read were a long time ago.  Suffice it to say they argued about things like if the self is real or not real.  What they meant by self would have depended on lots of other context, the way they arranged lots of other ideas.  It wasn’t exactly religion, and not exactly meant for guidance of an ordinary person making ordinary life decisions either; it was abstract—philosophy.  One might argue that assumptions of this sort underpin everyday worldview (a philosopher might), or a different philosopher might be fine with completely separating the two.

I have no idea how integrated the two different scopes were 2500 years ago in India, or how religious beliefs and contemplative traditions (meditation) interrelated.  It’s really not that interesting to me either; that reconstruction project would seem unlikely to ever circle back to my own everyday experience.

The modern Western division is more about two different main schools setting up different approaches and frameworks for ideas (Analytic versus Continental; but why read up on that, watch it explained on YouTube).  To some extent there is a parallel debate on particular points about Realism versus Nominalism, or how “real” some abstract ideas of entities really are.  What is meant by “real” is quite diverse and complicated, even mind-numbing, so I’ll leave it at that (no link; knock yourself out on Google-searched articles if you like).

Related to Buddhism and Indian philosophy, as these relate to Western philosophy, and referencing back to the earlier chart of main branches, only some parts of these are seen as having philosophical components that relate to modern philosophy.  Strange, right?  It means most aren't formulated in terms of logic and arguments.  The main one usually referenced is the work of Nagarjuna in the Madhyamika school of Mahayana (really interesting stuff, if a bit abstract and technical).  Yogacara is likely to also have components that are framed in terms Western philosophy could appreciate and work with but might have just not been as fashionable in relation to people taking these up, or it could be something about what they actually said.

Tibetan Buddhism is another interesting exception here.  In that chart it's listed as "Tantric," which invokes images of Hollywood stars participating in exotic sex practices, and that must be part of it.  There is also very technical, logical, and developed Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, nothing about seemingly sordid mystical practices, and of course the Dalai Lama ends up writing popular books that aren't really examples of either.

Buddhism as psychology

To me this is where it gets interesting.  Buddhism can also be interpreted as a description of how reality works, not really in the sense of a set of abstract ideas being interpreted against other dominant sets of abstract ideas, but in terms of experienced reality.  This gets closer to modern psychology, how we see the ego versus id or superego, and on from there and to later forms and models.

One interesting difference is that the Buddha—in some teachings—was quite clear about limiting his teaching to what was useful, and leaving aside parts of theories and explanations that wouldn’t really apply in practice, so he didn’t seem to be sketching out any sort of model of reality, be it philosophical or psychological.  He also said a broad range of different things, so everyone can make of Buddhism what they like and find some early teaching justification for that.  Since a lot of the vast Pali cannon isn’t translated into teachings that can be accessed in English, or other modern languages, that process will just keep unfolding over time.

Just starting with the idea of no-self, only a little, not in detail yet, we see how a positive model, a description of what is, might not be part of the approach at all, at least related to that one concept.  One more nice blog link gets back to that subject, no-self,, but I'll return to it again myself later.  There are other parts of other teachings that do go more in that direction, describing reality a little, but to me it’s also possible to drift towards a general interpretative stance that accepts the teachings are to be practical guidance, not a model, an idea that is very plainly stated in some early references.  This leads to a final category of what Buddhism can be taken as, although there could as easily be others.

Buddhism as self-help

www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/the-thought-manifests-as-the-word/

I’ve intentionally embraced a context description here that reaches towards a lot of diverse ideas in modern times, some of which are a bit fuzzy or even of dubious purpose.  Buddhism wasn't exactly ancient self-help, of course.  Which to reference as an example of the modern adjusted forms: cults, accepted popular authors, or something like Scientology?  For each tree is known by its own fruit, as they say (Luke 6:44),  so unless people are committing suicide or attacking other unrelated independent thinking it seems best to just let them be, but also as well to be careful about the sources, what comes from what.



The idea of real versus non-genuine Buddhism is a different thing than someone offering their own thoughts on interpretation of general concepts, of course.  In the fake quote cited in the previous picture, the sentiment is fine but it just wasn't a teaching of the Buddha.  Per that author, Bodhipaksa:  We can be fairly sure the Buddha never said this, although we can be equally sure that he said things like this.  The actual passage is so nice that although it's not a real quote of the Buddha, and doesn't have a lot to do with this blog content, I'll repeat it here anyway:

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.


I'm definitely not trying to put words into the Buddha's mouth in this blog, or create definitive interpretations.  I'm just talking around some ideas, my own limited understanding.  It doesn't hurt to compare Buddhism to self-help, there's just limitations in context analogy in doing so.


The next related question might be about the form of what the Buddha intended; was this a set of teachings for the masses, or only for monks and other contemplatives?  Or both?  Did it need to be tied to a complex description of reality to function (a metaphysics), or did it not?  To what extent to the branches of the eightfold path represent parts of the same journey one person would need to take to find the value, or to what extent could someone “walk” one branch and not the others?  To that last question it seems like some degree of mixing must be required; how know what the practical aspects mean without some theory, or how to lead a life of appropriate practice without embracing some element of the moral code, and so on.

I’ll cut this short but clarify this is generally how I’m trying to interpret Buddhism; as practical guidance that applies to everyday life and can help modify an ordinary worldview.  It’s about introspection, and changing perspective, or at least that seems clear enough to me.  That’s not really the most common take on Buddhism, and for many it’s more or less completely invalid, or else at least missing a lot of the point.  So be it; maybe I’m dead wrong.  Per my wife that would be consistent with my approach to a lot of other everyday subjects, and my conclusions.

My wife is Thai, and Buddhist, by the way, but has nothing at all to say about core teachings.  She learned all that in a class in grade school but it’s essentially gone now.  Buddhism here ties to religious rituals, and the daily life practices should relate to the lay-person precepts (funny how that works out), and they do see the contemplative aspects as relevant to both monks and lay-people to some extent, so the theory creeps back in there a little.  Monks are sometimes very familiar with core teachings and the Buddhist cannon, or some others not so much.

"Smorgasbord" faith (not a description that's derogatory to everyone):  how to pick which parts to embrace

Just by reading fuzzy and personal interpretation themed blogs like this one one could hardly pull together what aspects should be relevant or not, never mind what was original.  Personal preference also doesn’t seem like a great guide, since past bias towards some context may turn out to be a start mostly in the wrong direction.

An example might help here:  Christianity is often interpreted so that faith is one main aspect, or even the main aspect.  Taken one way, what you do can be seen as secondary to what you believe, because God or Jesus can forgive any lapses in actions but not a limited faith (acceptance of certain ideas).  Of course all this could be seen as a bit less relevant since I'm claiming Buddhism could possibly be valid as religion, or as a few other things instead.

Of course this analogy with Christianity is open to debate, and Christians definitely wouldn’t generally see it that way, that actions are relatively irrelevant (or most probably wouldn't).  All the same if this type of context or approach is translated to Buddhism the limited scope of applicability seems to not hold at all, for any of the different contexts I’ve described.  Buddhism as religion would be more likely to accept that effective rituals are more important, along with a sum of actions, so that merit and karma relate to what you do, not what you think.  Philosophy is obviously about what you think, and to some extent psychology, while the “self-help” context sort of depends on how one is taking it.  Regardless of emphasis all wouldn't seem to claim one is "doing Buddhism" without more than one part involved, part of the original message.

Seems like I may have dropped out even a glance at what “New Age” contexts are about but I suppose it’s not my place to say.  As I take it those really do generally share my own take on trying to make Buddhism apply to everyday life so I’m sympathetic, even if I have to be skeptical of the effectiveness of crystals or wary of angels creeping back into the set of ideas, or even worse, aliens.  But I’ve been to Sedona a few times so I can meet people in the middle a little with all that, I’m just equally agnostic about a lot of ideas, reincarnation / rebirth and others that are less mainstream.

In the next entry I’ll get back to how I see no-self as being a different issue in these different contexts.

No-self in Buddhism by way of concept of vasana

The Buddhist rejection of the concept of a real, independent self would normally be considered one of the main core concepts in Buddhism.  But what could it mean?  Of course to some extent I really do exist as a consistent being; I'm here today, as yesterday, tied to a physical body that changes make-up some (entirely over time), but it all is somewhat consistent.  This entry will be my own take on what it means, simplified.


That said no harm in citing some core concepts, not from memory but instead as cited from a modern source and further described in Wikipedia, the source of all mostly correct knowledge:


Taken together with the perceptions of anicca (impermanence) and dukkha (imperfection), anatta (not self) perception is the last of the three marks of existence, which when grasped strategically, leads to dispassion (nibbida). Dispassion then causes the mind to naturally tend to the deathless, and this is called release (vimutti).^[2]

"Selves & Not-self: The Buddhist Teaching on Anatta", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013,

Self as soul

Self might somehow relate to the concept of a soul, in which case the teaching is rejecting that, or maybe it's not that simple.  Of course it's not nearly the same concept in Buddhism as Christianity since your soul doesn't go to heaven or hell when you die.  Or does it?  It's a long side-path but some Buddhists really do believe that, even though everyone knows the core teaching is about reincarnation or rebirth, that people come back as someone else.

Although there's lots to say I'll just leave the next life out of this, as if the discussion doesn't need to go there.  The Buddha surely was saying there is no self, that was clear, but he also rejected speculations about next lives.  At least in some teachings where he didn't mention next lives instead he said that; it's all not so consistent.  That was probably for different reasons, but for now we can say because he taught different things to different people in relation to what was most useful to them.

Self as assumed continuous being, the "real me"

I think this gets closer to the point.  We each have a persona, a set of ideas and assumptions about who we are, related to preferences, ways we respond to things, tied to our worldview and history, etc.  For me I'm male, an American, an expat, I've got a profession that defines me, and habits, I'm a parent, I have likes and dislikes, and so on.  All of that is "who" I am.  Or is it?  What if all of that is just habit, a tendency to repeat what I've done, at least what seemed to work out, with a good bit of randomness thrown in from what's happened to me.  In a psychological model maybe that would be an ego, or maybe that's more just self-image, but then that model brings along with it other different divisions of self that might just complicate any useful comparison.

In general I'm going to steer this blog well away from foreign concepts and Buddhist theory because it's supposed to be about my own understanding, but I'll break form related to that for an aside, with a definition from Wikipedia and a citation there from a modern Tibetan Buddhist source about the concept:


Vāsanā (Sanskrit; Devanagari: वासना) is a behavioural tendency or karmic imprint which influences the present behaviour of a person  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/vasana]

Sandvik (2007: unpaginated) states that:

... bag chags, in Sanskrit vāsanā. This word is used a lot in presentations about karma. It means habitual tendencies, subtle inclinations that are imprinted in the mind, like a stain. For example, if someone smokes, there will be a habitual tendency for an urge to smoke every day, usually around the same time. There are bigger picture bag chags, such as why some people are kind by nature, and others are cruel; it's the tendency to behave in a certain way that will trigger similar actions in future, reinforcing the bag chags.

Sandvik, K. (June 7, 2007). 'bag chags'. Jigtenmig - Classical Tibetan Language Blog. Source: [2] (Accessed: Sunday November 1, 2009)


Lots to work with there, right.  Although there's no way I could delve into both that one concept and the range of background ideas that make sense of it, a range of different Buddhism interpretations contexts, I'll treat that cited content as relatively self-explanatory, even if it's sort of not. 

The next step seems clear enough; there is no real self tied to these types of habits.  Whether there is or not seems a bit pointless at first, right, like the kind of thing only philosophers would argue about, something meaningless.  The "self" is such habits, in one sense, and clearly they do exist.  But we suppose it's something more, that those are aspects of a real me.  That could derive from a belief in a soul but really it doesn't need to; it's just common sense.  I do exist as a body, for sure, so why isn't there a real me, an inner self, as well.  Maybe better to jump next to one possible answer, a reason why not.

What if no-self?

What if we turn it around and assume there is no self, what happens?  We've got a strange idea in our mind, one that is inconsistent with the rest of our worldview, but I mean what else.  Surely that wouldn't mean that we drop every single habit or preference, that I stop coming to work, forget about my kids, stop preferring cereal in the morning, or whatever else.  The idea could be a tool for examining what these preferences, habits, and self-definitions really are.  It's likely we wouldn't get to any new assumptions quickly, or that we could somehow become a lot more flexible about such things.  It's hard to imagine it would help someone quit smoking.

Maybe that's not such a bad example.  I smoked for some time, and had trouble quitting.  It wasn't that it was tied to a definition of self, but it did relate to a physical, chemical addiction, and also to habits.  I associated smoking with a lot of things; eating, waking up, relieving different kinds of stress.  It was a bit ironic that it relieved stress from not smoking for whatever periods of time, from the effects of the addiction itself, so to that extent it was both the cause and the cure.  My grandfather, being a good stubborn German (mostly), told a nice short story about him quitting.  He just got tired of it and said that was it; he would never smoke again, and he never did.  I love that kind of resolve, and the simplicity.  To some extent I was really physically addicted; to another extent it was all habit, just in my head.  Both ties gave me some trouble but I quit soon after that, and haven't smoked any cigarettes since, many years later.

www.fakebuddhaquotes.com

As I take it Buddhism isn't about quitting smoking but to some degree the example can inform about views of self that aren't useful.  I take the Buddha as saying that a relatively radical and serious consideration that everything is impermanent and no real self exists can be practical and informative.  But how do we do it?  More theory definitely helps, but it's also easy to get lost in the ideas so that it never leads back to the place it should apply, everyday perspective.  To me it really should tie to simple introspection, perhaps along with some other strange practices and mystical theories, if one goes in for such things.

To tie it back to the last entry on suffering, this is one place to bridge the different concepts together.  It doesn't take a lot of meditative insight to realize which factors cause someone the most unhappiness.  To just pick a couple, maybe it's stress at work, too much politics, or to another a lack of a family, not finding that right person as a spouse and having kids.  The second is all something that doesn't already exist, right, a perceived lack.  It might be an important goal for someone but it really is possible taking that goal the wrong way could lead away from that outcome instead of towards it.  It's been my experience that someone is best able to be part of a stable relationship once they are able to be independent rather than co-dependent, so that they can join the other as a whole person and not a set of unfulfilled demands.  But then I'm no relationship guru, and that's leading away from the point. 

What about stress at work?  I'd be lying if I said I can cure that with a few abstract ideas applied correctly, for myself of someone else.  But here expectations definitely come into play, and adjusting them instead of changing the external conditions (other people) surely is one possible strategy.  One easy mistake to make is to get hung up on how things "should be," to not focus on things as they are.  Maybe in a service company someone feels the customer and services should be the main priority, and somehow financial goals and company image are much higher priorities (just hypothetical).  A proper perspective would be able to balance all these as separate and relevant factors, and whatever else comes up as well.  It wouldn't be a constant source of stress that ideas contradict, since contradiction is already a basic part of human and corporate nature anyway.  Conflicting demands are another thing, but when the conflict is clear the next step is also clearer.  To some degree choices must be made without a knowledge of outcomes but with the right perspective, and enough information, a person can take the "best guess" and next step without sweating inconsistencies.  

Maybe this is why people with absolutely no moral compass seem to be the most comfortable among us, to some extent, because there isn't this sort of contradiction.  They do what they want; easy.  That's also definitely not in keeping with the Buddha's message, though.  He is recommending someone move past these types of issues in a different way, to see the big picture and self more clearly, free of not seeing personal factors as an input, but not necessarily by dropping them.

But wait, that is it, isn't it, dropping self?  Maybe in Zen meditation it is, but to me not exactly so in Buddhism.  I need to keep most of the same goals and inputs I have right now, regardless of how aware of them I am or how grounded in a real permanent self I see them.  I could take them more lightly, and benefit from examining them, or even dropping some, but in the end I'd have to act in many of the same ways as if there was a real, permanent self.  Except I'd really not need to get depressed if I wasn't married with a child; why would that help, when taking steps to resolve it would do more than depression or anxiety.  And I could make some peace with chaos and conflict at work, even unreasonable demands, contradictions, and bad outcomes, and so on.  I wouldn't need to become the soulless guy that follows no principles but self-interest to do that, but some assumptions should shift a bit.

How does it work, no self, how do you do it?

Map of interrelated Buddhst concepts, credit existentialbuddhist.com

I've just said a little about how I interpret what it is but not how.  Of course I'm no authority to put in any final word so this blog is just what I think, a few ideas on that.

So far I've mentioned it could relate to quitting smoking (definition of self as a smoker), stress at work (definition of expectations related to external consistency), and dissatisfaction related to not having a family, a spouse and children (expectation of having those things at a certain time, or even in general).  Based on these diverse examples what I mean seems to not be so clear or unified.  Even if someone could work past that it's not at all clear how changing expectations really relates to there being a self or not; it's just about expectations, interpretation of how things go, even just about response to them.  There's not clearly a "no-self" here.

This is where it gets tricky.  Assumptions about self are really tied to a very general and broad set of ideas, not really something someone is usually completely clear on.  One might be proud of a job or status in a hobby, so I could be proud to be a parent, or an IT professional (or not; maybe I'd see that as neutral, or could be something to move away from), and could have been proud to be a snowboarder (before, when I did that).  In those cases--the affirmative version--I might openly accept those things as good examples of what define "me."  A lot of other things would be much more vague, just kind of there in the background.  A car commercial might imply a person really defines themselves by what car they own but maybe a lot of people don't.  It's funny how using an IPhone, Android based phone, or feature phone is so often accepted as self-defining now, but I'm drifting a little here.

To get back to the "how," how would you use this to adjust definition to feel happier (less suffering, more appropriate worldview, etc.).  For me it's tricky but not that difficult.  You use some form of introspection, studying yourself, to see which of these triggers is giving you a problem.  The phone issue probably isn't, but then you never know.  Some people might be spending an hour a day fretting over their next phone purchase, reading up or whatever, with that concern running in the background the other 23 hours.  Work stress is probably on the list for almost everyone.  Seeing how it works is a big part of the resolution process.  Meditation might actually help at this step but I'm not seeing how a deep trance-like state is critical here.  Just chilling out about the phone might be enough, but it might take a more rational acceptance of the issue to really be at peace with it.

For me this is possibly why the Buddha put it in such an unconventional format; because you really need to start from the ground up to get to a clear picture of all of it.  If you can really grapple with and accept that "self" is only a collection of habits and preferences, along with a history that caused them, and expectations that fold in, then you can really unpack all that.  If not then you're stuck at trying to relax, and you'd likely not get past people saying happy truisms, like something about accepting the things you can't change.  That won't help.  If there are dozens of separate things stressing you out on a daily basis, lots of crazy assumptions, desires, regrets, and expectations, then just relaxing isn't even close to the solution.

One might ask, did this work for me.  For me, sort of.  Except I'm not enlightened or elevated above the normal human condition; nothing like that.  I did drop the smoking thing, but not really through the Buddha's insightful advice.  I try to look at the big picture, to not sweat details.  I really did cut ties with needing to own a lot of things; I just don't care about that.  I've got a phone (Samsung Note, quite mid-range) but as far as all the rest I just don't need it.  Of course it helps being an American related to looking shabby.

What about life as a monk, no self there?

Might as well mention this since I've done a little with that.  In order to keep this short I'll stop short of any general statements here about monks and schools and the rest; more in another post, here just about my own experience as relating to no-self.

In a way it's easier for a monk because the role is defined by lots of rules, wearing those particular clothes, fulfilling a well-defined role in terms of actions and manner, and not being tied to many types of conventional definitions.  Money essentially drops out but that part still gets to be a long story.  Next one might say "wait a tick; those are still definitions of a self, just a different sort."  I suppose so.  It might counter that a little that it's clearly not supposed to act as a "self-image," but maybe not much.  Monks still have titles and such, job roles, so some of those things transfer over.

I was only a monk for two months so my experience was all about adapting, not living within the role.  For me the radical change of context also shifted my concerns, so there wasn't much going on related to what I owned or any other personal preferences.  Complete abstinence is part of the deal but really nothing I could say about that would be informative; different people would likely relate to breaking that habit differently, or the longer term.  Short term monks generally weren't so concerned about the deeper goals or even meditative practices, in my own experience, and I suppose long term monks less than you might think.  So of course it broke all the normal cycle of expectations and self-definition by radically changing circumstances, but something a lot more mundane might do much of the same, like joining the military.

I'll close this before it's a book and rejoin it later under the next Buddhist concept that occurs to me.  I'll close by citing one of countless references that go further into doctrine and more standard explanation, but googling "Buddhism no self" turns up scores more:

http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2010/09/self-and-not-self/

The meaning of suffering in Buddhism

The four noble truths are seen as the main teaching of the Buddha, the core ideas that all other ideas relate back to, just presented in different ways.

Those truths are (roughly):

1.  that suffering or some type of dissatisfaction is an aspect of normal life (dukkha in Pali, but I won't refer to "original" concepts here throughout this),

2.  that there is a cause for it (attachment),

3.  and a resolution for it (enlightenment, although the teachings get odd on this point),

4.  and that there is a way to reach that (the 8-fold path).

image credit:  ieet.org

Lots of online references or even Wikipedia would fill in more details about all that, with the rest here just about my take on what is meant by suffering.

The concept wasn't clearly originally meant as suffering, or at least not in the same group of senses the English language expression is used.  We wouldn't really know what the original meaning is for sure for a few reasons.

Why the original meaning of "suffering" is not available:

-most notably, because use of language changed over time.

We get the most direct source references in Pali, transferred from an earlier chanted tradition, probably translated before that from a local dialect language (but again, do lots of research to get the full story of speculation about the Buddha's native language if you like).  English expressions and concepts change a lot over the course of a century, and language in general is like that, so even the Pali step alone isn't necessarily consistent, and "suffering" always was just a ballpark guess at a summary.

-context change:  specific ideas are presented within the framework of a culture-based perspective, so if a modern American says something and a modern Thai person says a nearly identical thing the different contexts still can shift the meaning a bit.  Since the Buddha was talking about ideas that may or may not have been from a mainstream religious, psychological, or "philosophical" perspective (and what philosophy means is really inconsistent over much shorter time frames) we can't have any idea about that context, or how it changed.  What we call Hinduism today, earlier versions of a diverse set of ideas, were part of that, but even today it would be hard to summarize, and completely impossible to trace back to one time and place 2500 years ago.

-interpretation change:  Buddhism interpreted today, and 50 years ago, and 100 years ago are all relatively different things, and you couldn't simplify it down to one interpretation per a time anyway.  It would be interpreted as religion by one, psychology by another, as differing forms of philosophy by others, mixed with other ideas, rituals, practices, or cultural aspects by some, and so on.


All that said what follows will be my take, not any other objective reconstruction.  I won't bother to defend it against other main interpretations to save time and avoid endless regression of possible ideas.  To me it's as well not to pin this down to one specific concept because to me part of Buddhism is figuring out what the concepts and guidance and review process means related to your own life and perspective (worldview), but all the same for the sake of discussion I will.

My take on "suffering":

I think this really works best as a family of concepts, to be sorted out by the individual related to their own experience.  To keep it unified and general "dissatisfaction" might work but as I see it for different people lots of different specifics might apply:  stress, unfulfilled desire, unhappiness, even shades of other less general and specific emotions and statuses like anger, hatred, jealousy, etc.  To some extent these could be broken down as the causes of some feeling of discontent (the way the concept is framed in that original structure) and then the way it is exhibited in a particular circumstance (those emotions or perspectives).

image credit www.perasonaltao.com

In some interpretations people have tried to turn it around and see how a goal of happiness works instead.  That's backwards from the original structure, right, but it still might work, or at least could be informative.  All the same in this particular teaching the Buddha was saying you can remove a perspective element that causes unhappiness (or whatever interpretation), and what you are left with is happiness.  But why put it that way, backwards?

One reason proposed by some is that the structure is set to match what a doctor does with an illness or disease:  identify the condition, identify the cause, propose a cure, then implement it.  Also it may be informative to turn around the pursuit of happiness in the first place, since in a way it's obvious that seeking it directly couldn't work.  It's more typical for us in modern times and Western culture to associate states, activities, and ownership with happiness so we might seek out all sorts of conditions related to being happy:  to eat good food, to own something, to have a good career, or financial stability, to do any activity one likes, or be in a certain relationship, and so on.  Or maybe to seek out a balance of just some of those.  In rare cases we would turn it around and look for removing obstructions (illness, job dissatisfaction, using different self-help approaches, etc.), but usually  it's the other way around.

How is the Buddha's message different than a conventional approach

So the general direction is different, not looking for happiness and related conditions, but what else is different about all this?  Actually it seems closest to either psychology or self-help, when looked at from this perspective.  In those endeavors one is looking for either a cure or at least a different approach.  Usually in other cases it's not like that; the current worldview, perspective, desires, etc. are all accepted as the starting point, essentially implicitly but there all the same.

Also the Buddha is saying this can be conducted by an individual, to some extent, leaving aside the need for external guidance, additional explanations of teachings, meditative practice guidance, etc.  It starts from ordinary perspective.  Unhappiness, or something like it, is a condition the individual is causing through their own assumptions, related to specific desires and specific views of self (which starts into other teachings a bit).

Immediately I'm reminded of posts you see on the internet that seem to echo this, but in a sense which are such different and light versions they somehow seem completely different.  People find lots of ways to say that they can be happy if they can just find contentment within themselves, and not worry about what other people say, or not embrace fear, and can control their own expectations, and so on.  So what is different here?  These teachings seem a bit more specific:  the concepts aren't completely simple and clear to us, but it doesn't seem to boil down to a half-dozen such feel-good slogans.  Also the eightfold path goes on to suggest a lot of hard work, not just a simple perspective shift, lightening up.

As my grandmother used to say, other people's complaints or problems are like water off a duck's back to her, it doesn't matter.  But that seems to only capture some of what's going on here.  The Buddha goes on to suggest re-evaluating an implicit concept of self, a personal code of morality, to take up meditative practice, and to read further in other teachings.  That's not just lightening up.

Enlightenment:  really?

picture credit:  www.highexistence.com

What about this difference; a completely different end point than a person that is just relaxed and not self-absorbed, or doesn't desire a lot of things they probably won't have, like owning a lot of things, or supermodels.  It's as hard as any other step in Buddhism to say what Enlightenment means, although of course a lot of different people drawing on a lot of teachings will do just that.  

For many it's something that will happen in a much later life, only after many lives as a monk or something such.  A little seems to get lost here because the goal sort of drops out, and the general direction with it.  Others find elements more grounded in this one life experience, but some of these in stages that relate to meditative attainment, levels of Zen meditation training and such.  If that's the actual right answer--and there may not really be one--then it only applies to people into such things.  An interesting take in Thai culture is that it is a distant goal (not in this life) but accumulating religious merit is a factor, so the religious ceremonies and good deeds and in particular alms given to monks are all practical contributions, steps towards it.

What about a more practical interpretation, what if we try to bring it back to a simple, everyday concept?  That may be out of place, arguably.  But if we try to do that it could simplify to the degree to which we can eliminate certain types of unhappiness, based on certain types of perspective problems.  In particular it might relate to desires, expectations, views of self, and relation to time, to confining experience more to immediate awareness and not getting caught in stress related to the past and present (again all dipping into other teachings).  Someone wouldn't need to be completely enlightened for that kind of interpretation to work, not a "Master" you do an apprenticeship under, not really even the Buddha.  You wouldn't really need milestones for this to work either, not to be half-enlightened, or at certain other types of markers.

Real self-awareness would relate to each person having some idea of the extent to which it was working, if not a clear understanding of further steps and specific goals.  There probably wouldn't really be a stopping point, although one might expect a leveling off of the work on such a thing, and the gains.  It would seem likely it would be ongoing, forever, a work in progress, sort of how life itself works.

Steps to Buddhist practice

This I really can't answer, of course.  There was the eightfold path, in the teaching version (summary image earlier in this entry).  It wasn't so clear someone could do all of that, although it seems to some degree following up on all parts would be required, and to some degree an individual practice may well emphasize just one part.  Without some additional reading up and information it's hard to imagine the other parts would work (for example, "practicing" only through moral practice or meditation without knowing any more background, the wisdom step).  Those are three of the eight parts of the path, by the way, so it's nothing too exotic.  I should probably drop this for now and rejoin it for more on other practices and approaches.