Progressive Christianity; stages of faith

I recently ran across an article citing numbers on the increase of people that associate themselves with "Progressive Christianity" in America, rather than other more traditional types (which as I recall they grouped as "evenagelical," but surely any category definitions would be open to debate).

I won't address the changes in percentages of people holding different beliefs in America, or really even address what I think the broad category means, besides introducing it.  My purpose here was to introduce my own past exposure to unconventional interpretation of Christianity, mainly in the form of religion classes I took at Colorado State University.

References:

The following general overview is cited from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Christianity

The characteristics of Progressive Christianity can be summarized as:

• A spiritual vitality and expressiveness, including participatory, arts-infused, and lively worship as well as a variety of spiritual rituals and practices such as meditation
• Intellectual integrity including a willingness to question; distrust of dogma
• Understanding of spirituality as a real psychological or neural state (see Neurotheology)
• Liberal interpretation of the bible as a record of historical human spiritual experiences and ideas rather than of historical or physical facts. Acceptance of modern Biblical criticism.
• Acceptance of multiple understandings of the concept of "God", including God as Nature, as the Universe, as a shared psychological construct, and/or as community.
• Understanding of communion as a symbol of the church community as the body of Christ
• An affirmation of the Christian faith with a simultaneous sincere respect for other faiths
• An affirmation of human diversity
• Strong ecological concerns and commitments

My own study was most interesting related to a specific interpretation presented by a former CSU professor, Dr. Sanford.  He didn't spell out his own beliefs about Christianity, or offer a comprehensive interpretation of what it should include or omit from a traditional interpretation, but instead drew on a non-literal reference, tying Christianity to a lot of completely different types of ideas.  

I'll get into more of what it was and what it meant, but the short version is that the main reference linked development psychology theory to Christianity and "stages" of faith, with an excerpt about what those were following (the "highest" four stages only, the rest is in that reference page):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Fowler  (reference on Stages of Faith)

• Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence; aged 12 to adulthood) characterized by conformity to religious authority and the development of a personal identity. Any conflicts with one's beliefs are ignored at this stage due to the fear of threat from inconsistencies.

• Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings. As one is able to reflect on one's own beliefs, there is an openness to a new complexity of faith, but this also increases the awareness of conflicts in one's belief.

• Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems. The individual resolves conflicts from previous stages by a complex understanding of a multidimensional, interdependent "truth" that cannot be explained by any particular statement.

• Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment." The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice.

Background and interpretation

Note that none of this has much to do with belief in miracles and such, the most literal interpretation, or even to specific points in Christian teachings.  It's not about Christianity at all; really about faith in general, forms of it.  

Refer back to the first reference list of Progressive Christianity aspects:

• Understanding of spirituality as a real psychological or neural state (see Neurotheology)
• Liberal interpretation of the bible as a record of historical human spiritual experiences and ideas rather than of historical or physical facts

That's essentially it.  The discussion is about faith in general, on to how it relates to human experience, not as a set of guidelines or clearly determined beliefs, and the interpretation it points to is non-literal, so to a great extent the actual events or ideas can be seen as representative or even as possibly added later.

Non-literal New Testament interpreation; the idea that the texts changed over time

It's a bit of a tangent, but some other study on the changes in publication order in the New Testament text related to the latter point.  My take-away, based on much more specific findings through literature study, was that the different books in the New Testament were not written soon after the death of Jesus, and were not independent accounts, but some were based on others.  This analysis allowed for a study of the changes in the ideas over time as well, with the general trend that more miracles and more God-like attributes were assigned to Jesus as time passed.  That's definitely not literal Biblical-authority Christianity, in fact it disputes that there even is such a thing.

How could this be possible?  To begin, accepting it could require a lot more study than I conducted, a much closer review of research sources, and it seems likely that someone might end up concluding whatever they wanted to initially, especially if they held strong beliefs one way or the other at the outset.  But to answer the question, it was based on the study of the language used, not the English translation, but the original version.  But the Bible was translated over time, right, and original written texts wouldn't be available, so the study would be quite complicated.

My son and I were just discussing one issue that enables such dating and study; the changes to language over time.  It seems language doesn't change quickly, but at the same time every year new words are added to modern English use, and there is a slower transition from older terms for things to newer ones.  Hard to come up with examples, right?  Sort of, not exactly.  In that conversation with him I mentioned that curtains used to be called "drapes," and pants used to be called "trousers."  Of course I'm no linguist, and it's possible that in England right now someone is calling curtains "drapes and pants "trousers."  The general point remains the same, even if I'm terrible at giving examples.

I remember my Grandmother referring to a couch as a "Davenport" when I was young.  I never really knew the extent to which that was common (seems likely related to the city in Iowa, presumably where couches were manufactured at some point).  It would be a monumental task but scholars could trace the same types of changes in ancient Greek and Amharic texts to try and pin down when certain passages were written two thousand years ago.  

As for text dependency, that's a different issue.  One could determine which passage was sourced from another when too much of the content was common for the two to be independent.  Both would be impossible tasks for an ordinary person to really even fully understand but that's how specialized scholarship goes; lots of people work on things that would be nearly impossible over a long period of time, and if all goes well clear and correct findings would emerge over time.

But back to Christianity, or rather perspectives on faith in general, not document dating or revision, but the ideas.

Stages of Faith and non-literal faith; general ideas

The general point that text (Stage of Faith) and my professor were making was that faith can be reviewed in the form it occurs in, not only in being correct or incorrect based on to what extent different ideas are accepted.  The most literal and narrow forms relate to a simpler type of belief, and according to this theory simplest types of belief correspond to people also interacting in the most socially limited forms, and essentially framing the world in simpler terms.  So actually interpreting faith and teachings, rather than trying to accept them in the most literal and simplest forms possible, is a sign of psychological maturity, or in a sense also spiritual maturity.

If anything the whole framework was a bit too tidy, incorporating too many elements into too clear a form to be plausible.  But the basics worked; it seemed clear enough there could be some benefit to reviewing faith forms in general, and that faith could be structured in these ways to some extent, and that to some extent combining the ideas with other psychological aspects might be informative.

Mind you my professor didn't accept this as something he happened across and swapped out literal faith for.  He'd been a Southern Baptist minister for most of his life (per my understanding), and he was quite old when I studied under him, surely at least in his late 60's, so his ideas were informed by a literal lifetime of reviewing faith in very grounded contexts, both as theory and practice.  He'd been a practicing minister and marriage counselor, and it seemed his interaction in reviewing in detail how different people related to each other informed his understanding more than religious doctrine or psychological theory.

Of course I'm not suggesting that I accepted what he said based on faith in him over the literal Biblical teachings.  He didn't present his own ideas so directly anyway; it was convention for professors of philosophy to say as little about that as they could, identifying issues and questions to only lead to consideration by the students directly, and he inclined towards that format, even though he was teaching religion instead.  He would never say he didn't think Jesus came back from the dead, or anything about specific teachings like that.  He presented the idea that accepting faith more or less literally is possible, but not tied to specific interpretations, of his own or others.

Seems the review could get a bit wispy then, doesn't it?  If one wasn't going to embrace a review of what seemed literally true or not how could study progress at all?  One way is by focusing on the source content, a reference like Fowler's work.  Another is by reference to specific examples of different representations of faith, individual people and their beliefs, and by interpreting those.  This was an interesting part of the class, where people came in from different backgrounds, and we analyzed what they said based on a series of questions about faith issues and the form of their own faith, not just Christians but from different cultures.

Conflict of differing faiths; how could that work?

How could it be that both Christianity and Buddhism could be right?  This type of question gets to the crux of it, doesn't it?  

Literally maybe some points need to remain contradictions.  Or do they?  After death, are we reincarnated, or do we go to heaven?  It seems clear that Christianity says one thing, Buddhism another (or the prior Hindu traditional framework another--complicated how that works).  But there are heavenly realms described in Buddhism, so it isn't so clear someone would necessarily come right back.  Some Christians are inclined to accept "recycling" souls to some extent, although from that direction the canonical text background may not work so well.

Really the point is more about teachings either being so literally true or not, so the answer "goes between the horns of the dilemma," or doesn't accept the clear division.  Maybe agnosticism is a part of that, accepting a final destination wouldn't be so clear, or maybe picking one or the other as a personal belief need not be so contradictory related to what others believe or other ideas that could be seen as related or not.

The ethical teaching in both are so similar that contradictions occur less frequently.  On one read Buddhism completely rejects consumption of alcohol, so we could accept that as an example of a difference, but the actual practice and theory isn't so clear.  Of course both religions are going to condemn drunkenness, and most Buddhists tend to drink some alcohol anyway.  Both religions are more similar from there; "doing the right thing" is essentially the same, and not different in Western philosophy for that matter.  That last point gets complicated because there are two main branches for ethical practices basis in Western philosophy, the good of the many versus a logical derivation, to over-simplify, but it's not easy for them to derive to any particular differences in practices from there.

It might sound like I'm saying there is no contradiction between the different sets of ideas.  In a way I am.  Fowler's point was that to the extent someone could integrate very different types of beliefs as exhibiting common elements, and combing them into one worldview--not a simple thing at all--to this extent they had a more mature, sort of "global" perspective.  What is the opposite of this?  Someone that couldn't relate to anyone outside of a very narrow social group, essentially the narrowest being their own family, maybe with the next level being their own village, excluding anyone there with differences in belief as well.  Categories that might also relate are easy enough to cite as examples:  cultural groups, different types of social groups, Christian versus other religions or atheist, related to nationalities, maybe onto gay versus straight perspectives, and so on.

Progression of faith; how could that work?

How to get from one range of exposure to the next, to go from narrow to broad?  In short, increased exposure.  Someone with broad exposure to differing perspectives could expand their range of beliefs to address contradictions and incorporate more complex forms of understanding.  Or maybe they wouldn't; it would depend on how they assimilated their own experiences, in addition to that exposure.  

Me currently living as an expat serves as one possible example of broad cultural exposure; I live within a different culture.  It took years to adapt to this culture, and I don't feel fully integrated now, or that I ever completely would be.  On the other extreme some people never get very far from their own starting point.  On a visit home this year we went to see someone in a social group designed for a very limited exposure to outside influences, in the Amish community.  Of course it could sound as if I'm criticizing their faith, or form of it, or psycho-social development, but I don't know much about being Amish, or what they believe and accept, it's just an example.  I do know people from the more rural areas in my home area and some really don't have much exposure to different worldviews, so issues like foreign cultures or minority races are still a complete mystery to them.  Fowler or my professor might well claim this could limit their faith-form development.

But of course it's not so simple as that.  It depends on what an individual person accepts within their own worldview more than the general boundary of social exposure.  Someone could live in a place where they are in direct contact with people of other beliefs and still have absolutely nothing to do with integrating those beliefs into how they see things, even expats, or in their own domestic environment.

My professor gave an interesting example of how he felt college fraternities could potentially limit this type of development at a critical stage of a young person's life.  Let's go back to the original stages citation for an introduction to what I mean, or what he meant:

• Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings. As one is able to reflect on one's own beliefs, there is an openness to a new complexity of faith, but this also increases the awareness of conflicts in one's belief.

Right about at this stage, or just prior, someone in their very late teens or early twenties would often be exposed to the most social diversity they had been up to that point in going to college, or in a corresponding change of environment aside from education.  But according to that professor one aspect of life in a fraternity could be that someone joins a group based on others having a very identical perspective, with a screening process and isolated living environment and social exposure limitations in place to assure this.  In short, not necessarily a good thing.

I couldn't help but think back to this later when I lived with a roommate that had been a member of a fraternity that was one of the most socially isolated people I've met.  He wasn't anti-social--quite the opposite--but absolutely could not relate to our third roommate, or seem to connect with many other people outside of a narrow range of settings.  In response he focused more on a limited range of activities than others, sticking to spending a lot time in the gym versus the range of outdoor sports that were popular where we lived, and found a social "home" in a group of people he worked with.  I don't think he was unhappy but he did seem to feel a bit alienated by unusual perspectives, which were kind of the norm in that place and time (a Colorado ski resort in the 90s).

Per my professor's description moving to the highest levels of broad awareness typically had a "hard-won" aspect; this could only happen based on interactions and demands that wouldn't necessarily feel like natural or easy transitions.  The very highest level might be the hardest to relate to.  Of course Jesus or the Buddha would be on this level, but their own perspective is only available through close review of their teachings, and these seem inclined to be adjusted and distilled to rules and simplified points that don't really capture the essence of their intention.  

Or at least that was a general theme that came up; maybe it's not so simple to get to how that works, or final conclusions.  Really maybe that was more a point; if a set of ideas could be reduced to a dozen bullet-points then it wouldn't be a description of a general perspective, a worldview, a specific "stage of faith."  

Maybe a modern example would be easier to work with; someone like Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa might be cited (although the general intent was never to use someone as an example of the perspective or how to get there).  How could someone really adapt themselves to accept MLK's perspective on race identity?  It helps that American society generally integrated what he was saying 50 years ago as a change in overall perspective; races aren't seen as so distinct now, at least in America.  Or maybe for some people they still are, in much the same ways as back then, so I mean in general.  

Of course the point is more about a general perspective (I keep saying that, right), not specific views on culture, races, social groups, or specific ideas from religions.  Going further towards "New Age" instead of literal Christian faith wouldn't be the point; believing people of different races are just the same wouldn't either.  Understanding how perspectives differ within social groups or religions systems of beliefs and integrating that to a more broad personal perspective would be.  

So in the end "did Jesus come back from the dead" ends up not being the right line of questioning.  Someone might well accept that he did or didn't, based on a range of types of worldview, or might accept that maybe something really interesting or unusual could have happened related to that.  For me I'm agostic; how could I know.  That alone doesn't seem to necessarily indicate a level of maturity of perspective either. 

Is what I'm talking about essentially the same as modern Progressive Christianity, or a variation of it, or similar but relatively unrelated, a tangent, or not related at all?  I'm not really sure.  It may not be so easy to judge that, since Progressive Christianity seems to be a broad category of things, a general approach, which may overlap quite a bit with these other ideas, or may be relatively different.  It would seem similar, at least related parts of a larger whole.

the meaning of intelligence

I sort of am talking to myself on this blog, and something reminded me of a subject to talk to myself about:  intelligence.

I don't have strong feelings or ideas about this subject because it relates to Buddhism (which is supposed to be the central theme of this blog).  I really don't see how it does relate.  The Buddha essentially taught that different people have different spiritual paths (more or less; I suppose that's a bit loaded as concepts go), and it's possible that more intelligent people might take a more analytical approach. Or who knows; maybe the opposite would happen.


An article someone posted got me thinking about the subject, which rarely comes up for me.  I'll post most of it here since it's source-cited and no one reads this blog anyway.

Article on dating and Mensa

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/25/what-im-really-thinking-member-of-mensa


I’m almost certainly smarter than you. That’s not a boast, it’s a fact. I’m smarter than most. I can think and make connections, and spot discrepancies, too.

I’m a member of Mensa and I know what my IQ is (164). I’ve never held a high-powered job, I don’t have a string of qualifications. I don’t do terribly clever things in my spare time, although I enjoy the odd pub quiz. And I don’t tell many people. If I do, then if I say or do something stupid, there is glee and sarcasm: “And you’re a member of Mensa?”

At primary school I was fast-tracked a couple of years, which seemed like fun, until I ended up as a 12-year-old brat in a class of cool teenagers, who ignored or bullied me. I left education after A-levels, because I was bored. I could do most school work without a thought, so when subjects came along that needed hard graft, I gave up (although I’ve graduated through the Open University since. They let you work at your own pace, which for me means fast).

Relationships were a problem, as there aren’t many men who like smart women, but I did find some. I’ve stayed gainfully employed, but I wouldn’t say I’ve done anything remarkable in any job.

I tried socialising in Mensa. I don’t any more. Being intelligent doesn’t make you empathic or honest. Mensa was full of intellectual point-scoring. It’s an organisation for the smart-ass rather than the wise.


Oddly going back to find the article I ran across a recent Mensa dating site development, just for their members (kind of contradicts her findings, that it doesn't work):

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/23/tech/match-mensa-singles/


Already these are three different subjects, right, intelligence, then Mensa, then dating related to both.  This post will need to circle back to intelligence or it will just wander.


But I'll start with a few problems with what she is saying.


1.  her IQ is 164:  tests might give a number, but IQ isn't really set up that way, it's not like taking an SAT.  Unless I'm mistaken it's based on standard deviations, 110 is one standard deviation off average, and at over 6 from the norm that's lots of 9's after the first 99.xx.  Someone is that intelligent but it seems unlikely, and testing in that range is about math problems someone would need to train to do, not basic problem solving (which doesn't match the rest).


2.  she's not boasting:  being in Mensa is about associating with being intelligent (it is boasting), and so is bringing it up in conversation, which she mentions, and writing articles about it (this).  Relationships would only be a problem related to her being intelligent if she made it a point somehow; it's not as if other people couldn't possibly understand what she was saying (something vaguely related could come up, but not as she mentions).


3.  she was bored in school:  really who isn't, even if it's not easy for them.  Skipping grades isn't so simple, and a child wouldn't initiate that, or teachers in any school system, so her parents had to be behind it.  Again she makes being intelligent sound normal, like she's not really "doing" it, when these ideas add up to her family seeing it the opposite way, singling her out as exceptional, and pushing for others to go along.  Who really knows how this plays out in dating, for her, but it seems the main problem might be letting it just drop.


Already I'm implying I know all about all this, right.  Maybe I should come clean and admit some of the same was true of me.  Of course not the 164 IQ part, but I tested high as a child, I was in a special program and all that.  If Mensa is supposed to be the top 2 % lots of people would be in that range (2% of close to 300 million is 6 million in the US; a good bit less to narrow the age range to younger adults, but not that rare).

http://www.iqtestexperts.com/making-genius.php

There are a riot of qualities and characteristics that go into the making of a genius. But IQ scores presents one of the most feasible and reliable barometer for grading the intellectual horsepower of people. A normal intelligence quotient (IQ) ranges from 85 to 115 (According to the Stanford-Binet scale). Only approximately 1% of the people in the world have an IQ of 135 or over. Genius or near-genius IQ is considered to start around 140 to 145. Less than 1/4 of 1 percent falls into this category. Here are some common designations on the IQ scale:

• 115-124 - Above average
• 125-134 - Gifted
• 135-144 - Very gifted
• 145-164 - Genius
• 165-179 - High genius
• 180-200 - Highest genius

I was still curious about the percentages, which I looked up on another table (following).  There are two different IQ scales (I'm no expert on all that; read further if you like) but 164 relates to 99.999 percentile or else 99.997 percentile, or one out of every 30,000 to 100,000 people.  High enough.  At an IQ of 200 you're essentially the most intelligent person in the world (can't be easy to test for that).

The page results of a Google search and this already clarify 2% relates to around 130, 135 to 1%.

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx

IQ

15 SD Percentile

Rarity: 1/X

16 SD Percentile

Rarity: 1/X

164

99.9990072440%

100,730

99.9968313965%

31,560

More on what this means

Really this starts to get into my own ideas, which I didn't pull off a website, about how this table is wrong, on the same page as the first citation (so a bit strange):

Today, most cognition and neurology scholars would contend considering a person a genius merely because of his high IQ. Genius appears to have at least as much to do with creativity, referred to by professionals as "divergent thinking", as it does with the suite of reasoning, computational, and symbolic manipulation abilities called "intelligence", or "convergent thinking". Arguably, though, a person who has exceptional convergent and divergent thinking abilities is likely to be a genius. From this it could be said that genius is as genius does.


So genius is about what you do, not some measured capacity for learning or analysis.  I'd say the same is more or less true for intelligence.  It's a bit odd the first passage, about intellectual horsepower, and the second seem to contradict each other quite a bit, with the second essentially saying it's not nearly that simple.

Maybe one could do lots of things with a higher intelligence, learn abstract concepts like math, figure out puzzles, or even catch onto complicated movie plots (not Hollywood then, I guess).  But for the most part it just wouldn't matter, until you get around to rubbing other people's nose in all that.  Less intelligent people would hardly know someone is so much more intelligent, or likely even care, and other people of above average intelligence would likely care even less.

But then maybe not.  She tried to date intelligent people, right, and Mensa set up a restrictive dating website, and the whole point is selective inclusion.  They seem to care.  I guess that really would depend on people.

Is there any reason someone would be more comfortable around people of a similar higher intelligence level?  Seems not, to me, but again it could depend.  I'd think that would relate more to ego, seeing yourself a certain way, valuing it, then getting acknowledgment back for being part of some sort of grouping, formal or not.

Intelligence and ego, sort of back to Buddhism

The Buddha was pretty clear about rejecting ego, although he said a lot more about self.  Long story, but the two concepts are pretty closely linked, lots of overlap.  That woman may stay single because she's too intelligent to date "normal" people, and somehow can't really relate to more intelligent people either.

If she's in the 99.999th percentile just turning them up on a comparable level would be a problem.  It may be more of a problem testing them out to tell, then competing over being so smart all the time.  Sounds awful, smart or not.

It would seem better to just let it drop.  She has related to her job and her hobbies (she says), but it sticks with her in terms of self image.  She doesn't tell many people, but she does tell some people--the "if I do" part, and the guys in Mensa she was dating out of knew.

But then maybe she's not Buddhist, and I've just assumed the Buddha really is telling us the easiest way to live, how to be happy (to end suffering, per some starting points, but it works both ways).  Of course he wasn't giving dating advice, that I ran across at least.

I always wondered if I'd somehow match up with someone really intelligent, and couldn't help but at least consider it related to the women I dated.  Some seemed quite bright.  It wasn't a priority but some aspects of that was cool, it could relate to a shared perspective, to some extent.  I didn't include that as a factor related to dating my wife, and she's probably in the normal range (but then who knows about such things, really).

It seems almost scary how bright my kids are, so nothing was lost there.  I'm not sure I'd want to see them a lot further along that spectrum anyway; it's not exactly all positive.  But then maybe all that is another story.

Reverse culture shock

Visiting back to where I'm from recently,  Pennsylvania,  I had the unusual experience of reverse culture shock.   That's when one's own native culture seems unfamiliar due to acclimating to another culture,  from living abroad (see Wikipedia description; as usual pretty decent).

This diagram, from a blog post about culture shock, covers a number of separate stages including initial and reverse culture shock phases (which I won't really go into):

from www.deborahswallow.com; follow link for more details

Not exactly Buddhism,  right.  It is an unusual indicator of how expectations factor into normal experience though, a subject common to Buddhism.   Normally such a frame of reference is transparent,  especially if one only travels a normal amount,  perhaps with the occasional week or two in another country and culture.  With a longer stay in a very unfamiliar culture lots of small differences can be hard to deal with, but this is normal culture shock, not the "reverse" kind of adjusting to one's own native environment.   A few typical examples might help.

What is culture shock:

Asians never wear shoes in their houses, and it was hard for my wife to adjust to seeing it happen in America.  One might imagine the instinctive revulsion this could trigger but without sharing it someone couldn't completely relate to it.   For me it was hard to adjust to the Thai culture trait of saying what is expected rather than an edited version of one's actual thoughts.  A normal expression relating to complete disagreement in Thailand might be a silent smile, but in America at most someone would say something noncommittal,  and smiling is reserved for being happy or intentionally appearing so, not as an expression of politeness.

Reverse culture shock is an odd variation of these.  Immediately people seemed too forward and friendly when I first arrived back, actually engaging me in conversation when they didn't know me.  Just the way people looked seemed odd, so different,  even though I had been quite familiar with that range of appearance and looked relatively similar myself.  One subtle point could be lost here; it seems possible to have trouble adjusting to experiencing one's own traits in other people.  In Thailand I'm as direct or reserved as I see fit to be, for example I'll do the unthinkable and offer help to visitors that seem lost, but someone I don't know initiating conversation would seem odd.

Even talking to family could seem unusual, although since I had remained in more close contact with my parents the experience didn't really relate to them.  It could be that other aspects seemed unfamiliar instead, how people that don't know each other relate, or other types of experiences.  It was odd that this overlapped with a sense of nostalgia,  which was triggered by just seeing different streets, or a drug store or grocery store interior.

It seems I should be able to leap to some insights about expectations in experience but it's hard to summarize any points on a lower level.   The range of behaviors, appearance,  and communication patterns we expect varies more and runs deeper than is easy to notice,  but it's hard to say what that really means.   In some branches of Buddhism, like Zen, the communicated goal seems to be to notice underlying patterns as a function of self and minimize these (in extreme forms eliminate them,  but it seems more accurate to say notice and minimize them).  But it's not so clear this really makes sense, removing expectations and relationship patterns, in general or related to culture and culture shock.

It seems if others around you are drawing on and utilizing this layer of assumptions even if it was possible to minimize them one cost would be seeming odd to everyone else.   Or it may be possible to make these more clearly understood and to communicate using them more consciously,  but not drop them.  Speech without levels relating to social role or familiarity would seem impossible.  It's interesting how foreign language study makes this clearer, and how these ordinary functions of a native language wouldn't be nearly as transparent as it would first seem.  Maybe an example again would clarify, and a bit of the tangent about languages.

Language use variation and culture differences:

Languages tend to have different ways built in to contain level of formality, to the extent that you can't simply leave it out.  Words like "hello" or even "eat" can be expressed in far different ways with essentially the same semantic content (meaning) but quite different context, variation in how one says things or to who.   In English it's common for this to occur in using whole sets if roots in different ways (per my limited understanding;  I'm no linguist) so that over time the Latin and Germanic variations can serve as different levels of formal or informal speech.

I don't experience it directly but I have read that Thai language does the same thing related to words based in Khmer origins versus Pali or other sources.   All this is drifting a bit from the related points I'd meant to make originally but it seems the far distant past  generally includes spheres of influence that help define this, and it sticks long after those connections would seem relevant.  By this I mean that the way Latin and Germanic derived English words are used would tie back to how different regions related to England as English evolved to a relatively modern form.

Thai also includes explicit and  literal additions to adjust tone, something English language generally doesn't.   Since it doesn't no good direct example works but in a similar way adding "sir" at the end if a sentence includes almost no actual content but does change tone.  There are a number of vaguely related words in Thai that are not actually any sort of title, they just adjust tone.

In Buddhism it's common enough for the ideas to be practical.  Even if all I'm saying is clearly how perception and interaction works there needs to be some relevance to applying that, or it's not really in the scope of Buddhism.  It would need to improve self awareness in some way that increases general satisfaction with life experiences,  or put the opposite way something that removes sources of dissatisfaction.  Self awareness is an important component of Buddhism but really only when it's practical.

Practical culture shock, reverse culture shock

So can it apply in such a way, can noticing the experience of culture shock be useful?  Again I'm not sure.   Normal culture acclimation can take years and I guess to some extent greater awareness could speed up the process.  Reverse culture shock is mostly re-acclimation, with a limited experience of adjusting to changes over time.  I was just back in Pennsylvania and everything seemed a lot more normal in a week.   Of course something unrelated could've been a factor,  like jet lag, or other changes in personal relationships brought on by people I know aging.

So I'll leave this without saying exactly what it means, or how to use it.  Someone could try to experience something related directly during foreign travel but in my experience it doesn't work that way.   The "shock" part is about immersion within a culture and two weeks of seeing tourist theme attractions doesn't entail that experience.   Even spending a day with a local family wouldn't cause it,  although a little of the awareness function might trigger.

Reverse culture shock is a bit counter-intuitive because even though cultures can shift slightly over time the problem is re-adjusting to a familiar one, not so much those changes (in my experience).  It is strange when new habits of new word use comes up (like people always messing with phones), but then to some extent such changes would be likely to have been encountered in the other culture, or in personal discussion or through media coverage.  As I've experienced it the odd part is not having the same perspective as in the past, not about external changes.  I think I could probably re-acclimate more quickly than I have here in Thailand (many years in I'm still gradually integrating), but then my experience with "going home" in a more complete sense is still limited, so maybe not.

In the Wikipedia article I referenced earlier they claim that for reverse culture shock "the affected person often finds this more surprising and difficult to deal with than the original culture shock."  An expat I met from South Africa, living in the United States, expressed this opinion, claiming you can't really go back, so in a sense you won't completely fit in anywhere.  Of course the related diagrams assume you can completely adjust to a new culture or re-adjust, and the different articles conclude it works out differently for different people, and some do adjust--in different ways--and others don't.

The role of narrative themes in everyday experience

This topic isn't exactly Buddhism, but at the same time essentially based within the same set of ideas.  It seems likely to me that if some of the most related themes in Buddhism (on duality, or rather non-duality, for example) were developed more in contemporary writings it might seem more so.

The rejection of self is seen as a more common starting point, or the aspect of experience of suffering.  Non-attachment also tends to come up more, and to me that's fair as a critical concept at the core of Buddhism.  In modern writing Zen emphasizes a potentially improved perspective when  ordinary thought and experience relate to not over-analyzing reality, taking things as they are, but I've not researched how these are derived from earlier Buddhist concepts and teachings.

Some of these general themes remind me of mindfulness teachings.  One of my favorite references is Mindfulness with Breathing, by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, so this is tying back to the Thai Buddhist tradition and early Buddhism.  When you read some of the content (like this introduction) there might seem to be no connection to narrative themes in experience at all, or perhaps even just a focus on meditation without a clear connection to everyday experience.  But it goes in that direction later, and the effect on everyday experience is really the point, not accumulating merit or a vague and general "inner peace."

At any rate this take is sort of my own, for what that's worth.  It's only here because it's close enough that I won't start another blog for psychological observations that relate to Buddhism but don't clearly map onto core teachings.

It's based on personal observation, just my take on things, so there are no Pali-based concept references.

Role of narrative themes in everyday experience

So what is the role?  We like to think that what we do makes good sense, that we are rational, and that both ideas and actions in our life are based on a logical framework of how things make sense.  To some degree this is true, and for some experiences it's not as relevant.  Something like a change of employment should relate to a lot of reasoning; a favorite ice cream flavor not really at all.  But my point here is instead that we tend to map most of what we experience into a series of narrative themes, regardless of whether that is functionally required or not.

Assuming I had established that to be true--the next part--we might wonder, so what?  Is this really related to Buddhism, or is it a good or bad thing, or not really functional or non-functional?  To what end do we do this, or just as habit, not towards an end.  But then I'll get to that after some more background.

How we organize events into narrative themes should be apparent to everyone with a worldview and life experience, to everyone, but then for the sake of argument I'll have to assume that some aspects of experienced reality aren't really apparent to everyone.  Put another way, that different people "do" introspection to different degrees, so that it could make sense for me to explain it all.  Of course sometimes I wonder if I'm really making any sense, but that's a separate issue.

One starting point for noticing this came when I noted that I tended to organize days into good or bad days, that early in the morning things seemed to be going well or not well.  "Luck" was invoked to explain why a train might have a long queue, for example.  Some of the same ground might be covered by the concept of "getting up on the wrong side of the bed."  That wouldn't relate to the timing of trains, or traffic patterns, but it would set a positive or negative tone for the earliest part of the day.  But then I could be more superstitious than most, right?  Or maybe I was caught up in explaining things that didn't really need to be explained, as much as really doing those things myself (meaning maybe the tendency to categorize was as much a function as the tendency to examine and explain, as it was a "real" thing).

A separate aspect of this general theme relates to noticing patterns in your own mind, how events match up with more general series of events.  Of course any version of this is essentially what reason was originally for.  My later thoughts on this have turned towards the role social media plays in this, how a decade ago we might have described these many small events to someone else in conversation, but now we do so in short messages in lots of different places online.

I'm not sure if this means narrative theme means more now than it would have a decade ago, or if it is experienced differently now or not.  Surely conversation would have covered a lot of the same ground in the past (the distant off-line-experience past of 25 years ago), just not as frequently, and not as documented in text.

Back to Buddhism

Seems a good place to circle back to why I see this as related to Buddhism at all.  The connection reference might be clear already; it's about the Zen directive towards direct experience.  Now more than ever we experience our own reality through our own commentary of it.  As a lot of commentary has it to an absurd degree, so that talking about our lives in messages becomes more of what we do than actually living it.  But then that perhaps that separation is artificial; it might be as well to say that one of the main components of life experience is commentary on life experience, or perhaps small talk that doesn't even relate to much.

The typical take in Zen teachings is that this isn't a good thing.  The thinking goes that direct experience is the main defining aspect of our lives, so constant talk about actual experience (the non-verbal, non-logical part) is noise, except in the other cases where the higher order message is necessary.  For example, you need to resort to abstract verbal constructs to order lunch.  During lunch you don't need to talk constantly or keep typing text messages, or surfing feed images.  Then again it's hard to imagine how looking around, or focusing on the actual experience of eating, could be so much better than those things.  In a McDonald's it probably wouldn't be, but that doesn't necessarily contradict Zen teachings, that in general people probably should drift towards eating decent food in more pleasant surroundings.

This "ought" might not be clear still.  What's the problem with observing story lines in our daily life?  To start, it's really not clear any tenet of Buddhism should be interpreted this way, or that any "should" really applies.  It's a possible connection I'm discussing here, because it's an interesting line of thought to me.  To most people, even those interested in Buddhism, it might not be.

To clarify further, let's assume there is some potential problem with seeing every single life event as part of any number of individual story lines.  Put the opposite way, let's assume there is some benefit to not doing that.  What is it, or what is both?  I'm proposing that life really isn't like that, that many things are just random, with no point, and no connections to other series of events, and it's a waste of time and an improper use of logic to keep linking them.  I guess this starts to overlap with a critique of superstition, although it's still a different thing.

I can't really say I notice this is a huge problem in how I experience reality, so some of the "what if" related to suggesting a problem doesn't work.  I have noticed that my mind can tend to get a bit noisy as a matter of habit, and that in the past steps I've taken to quiet it down have been positive.  In general I can't suggest an easy way to do that, since I've had mixed results with meditation, and the only thing that really did work was spending a few days alone in nature.

Continuity versus change in narrative

The function of the stories is really to put an order to things, to measure out real patterns for what they are.  One could easily overdo primitive human references but it's obvious enough how in the distant past gathering food and avoiding danger would draw on recognizing continuity in what happened before related to the present.  Of course we're not exactly in those circumstances, so as well to not make too much of all that.

In the present one type of narrative one might follow could relate to patterns of how a spouse or significant other is helpful / not supportive / etc.  Or related to work, or hobbies, or any number of social circumstances.  Drawing on the continuity in those patterns would sort of be the point, even though there would be regular variation.  What if a significant other or job or whatever other subject altered between positive and negative, between desired outcomes and positive correlations and the opposite?  Our own read would be inconsistent, always changing.  This seems to be how experienced reality actually works.

Not necessarily a bad thing, of course.  One could say the degree to which we rise above the ups and downs to measure it all well we are actually rational.  Or maybe that's going too far.  There is a tendency for people to accept that men want to be more rational, and women are better about accepting that ordinary experience isn't about reason, so there is a natural gender-based tension related to both the nature of reality and reason.

Being married it's easy for me to pin inconsistency on my wife, for not stepping back and weighing out what individual variations in experience mean.  She comes across as "crazy."  This definitely doesn't relate to writing out too many text messages, of course.  If she wrote a lot more or a lot less I think the end result wouldn't be so different.  We tend to add our interpretive biases to those messages, and within the conversations they are a part of, so the narrative themes are already there.  Someone I send messages to would already expect my wife to be crazy, and for me to be whatever the messages would say I am, as often not supportive or the like but related to negative triggers for communication.  So goes married life, or at least mine.

What alternative, direct experience?

This part I'm not so clear on.  It seems we have to keep doing this, that human experienced reality really does depend on it.  I recently took a break from my smart phone and it is possible to not send messages or check feeds but I still can't say how it actually changes experience.  Maybe it did seem slightly more direct.  Here there seems to be two related but different considerations:  by typing messages or updates into a phone a few times every hour we seem to condense our off-line lives into commentary more consistently, and then also life experience seems to be conditioned by including that ever-present element, so that in a way we never completely leave there.  Still hard to condense all that into a "we shouldn't."

It would help to have a "Buddha" as a reference, someone experiencing reality in a different way, one that somehow seems clearly better.  Unfortunately even the people that claim to have taken a limited step towards that are typically selling something, or just a bit out there.  I've interacted with a lot of monks in the last 8 years (in addition to having been one, briefly) and there's not much direction from there either, no higher perspective to draw on.  Even people that just talk about Buddhism seem to be all over the map, more often simply repeating cryptic, archaic references than making useful points (as likely myself included, just with less references).

A long time ago it seemed that to the extent I was able to notice the nature of my own experienced reality that I could also change it, experience it in a more direct and consistent way.  Maybe to some extent I'm still doing that; maybe not.  One could as easily argue this direct experience should be about noticing less, not doing so in a different way, but really who is to say.

I try to be aware of my own immediate reactions (the mindfulness part) and also keep an eye on the interpretive themes I'm adding, and maybe to some degree that helps me work with what I've got.  For me it's also helpful to keep in mind that not everything means something, that to some extent relatively random things can also happen, so there's no need to organize or manage or make sense of a lot of things.

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.