Self-identified religious gurus and tea sales

 

A friend recently brought up an interesting subject of discussion, raised initially by someone claiming to be "spiritually advanced" in a Facebook group post introduction.  The problems with this sort of claim and context seems obvious enough:  what if such a person was either making up those credentials, using them for some other type of gain, or wrong about their own assessment of attainment?  The "average cult leader" is someone best avoided.

But then it's all not as simple as it first appears.  How do we distinguish an ingenuine master-type from someone who really has had unique, helpful, and informative experiences, who wants to share perspective deriving from those?  Is the problem only related to someone running a scam, or using that as product or service marketing, or is there a broader grey area to be concerned about?  

This example led into such concerns.  It will be helpful using it as an approach point, so first unpacking what that guy claimed, and what context seemed to relate to making the claims.  Some degree of speculation is involved in any review, so I'll try to be careful about flagging which parts are added by my own intuition, which really is most of it, in this case.

About two years ago someone posted a personal introduction in a Thailand-related Facebook group.  Who it is doesn't matter, or whether this guy really is a scam artist looking to sell something based off false claims, or else a genuine and accomplished spiritual seeker who really would be helpful to others, if one were to seek out further contact.  In the end it does matter, related to his case and actual contact, but this will talk around what goes into making such a distinction, and how different contexts matter.

His back-story was that he had just spent some years meditating under the guidance of a master, as part of an established tradition.  I think it even included reference to an actual cave location, and either martial arts or qi gong, but to some extent those details aren't critical.  It was also associated, if not then soon after, with selling tea.  That's a bit of a red flag, coupling offering spiritual insights with a literal product sales-pitch.  In the initial form it was just an introduction though, not a clear marketing step.

I responded to my friend's question, asking about that context and that guy, in discussing my concerns over such a background, in relation to that person making specific claims about spirtitual-scope accomplishments:

I don't know any stories about him cheating people or anything like that. He was telling stories about training in meditation and something like kung fu (martial arts or qi gong) under a master, claims which are typically problematic, but in some instances there could be validity for that.

Related to the specific subject of spiritual attainment, you could find someone in China to certify that you are anything at all by email, with no background. You could be a kung fu master, tea expert, master electrician, whatever you wanted. Real "spiritual" training and experience typically wouldn't come with titles.

He was promoting himself as spiritually advanced; the reference was to training in a cave under a master, or something such. Taken alone the claim implies a related gap. As I see it he is embracing evaluation of that status in taking up the promotion. Someone offering others advice about some meditation practice in a Buddhism group is one thing; that does imply accomplishment, but only indirectly, towards helping others. Using such direct claims as background to sell tea is something else.

This is the problem with [another similar case of a person using a spiritual role to sell tea]. No one can tell how spiritually advanced he is without meeting him, but he is definitely using a spiritual angle to sell tea, for material benefit. I talked to him only one time, mentioning some background with tea and Buddhism as an intro, and he bypassed any further discussion of both subjects to try to sell me a subscription. He's a salesman. That's fine, but even selling spirituality is problematic, to really serve the other role. It can be promoted, but focus on the sales side and literal profit makes one no different than Joel Osteen.

Probably both guys are decent people, and a good bit of that rejection [mentioned in other comments in more detailed form related to other people's takes] does relate to subculture based expectations. I personally don't care for ego and focus on materialism to adjoin spiritual claimed status; my own negative reaction probably relates to something like that.

It could sound like a contradiction, saying that they are probably decent guys, and that it's ok for people to judge and dislike them. As I see it the positioning as a religious figure or accomplished practitioner is the difference. A Christian minister needs to be more ethical than most people to serve that role. Joel Osteen is fine in relation to the ethical standard we hold stock brokers to, but not remotely ok as a Christian minister. This guy brought up the scope in direct claims, and for sure he's using that scope as part of tea sales business. He implicitly embraces being judged differently, since he is tying a business sales function to an image and a background context. Then the last step about me guessing his personal context based on his claims is a bit thin, mostly just speculation.

The introduction based on spending years in some type of meditation training was probably based on some truth; I don't doubt that part. The next implication of spiritual accomplishment is more problematic.  But I get why some genuine, valid, informative experiences would naturally lead one to try to "bring wisdom from on high" to others.

That clearly left off with the open-ended conclusion that I don't know how this case works out.

One unusual twist here is that the context helps us try to fill in the gap related to knowing how genuine this form of self-identification really is.  Pairing it with selling something is a red flag, but not necessarily a clear indication of the context being false or invalid.  He easily could've had interesting, useful experiences that he really would like to share.  He could also just happen to sell tea.  We have to judge further from other input, or completely suspending judgment is an especially valid approach.

It helps to reference what an "accomplished Buddhist master" actually does look like, but to be clear it won't work to hold anyone who has had any other degree of exposure to the same standard.  The modern paradigms that come to mind are Ajarn Chah (of the Thai Buddhist forest tradition), and Thich Nhat Hanh, of the Vietnamese Zen tradition.  Both are regarded as accomplished, well-informed, personally-transformed and genuine teachers.  The Dalai Lama is along the same line and type, with opinions varying as to whether his political stance and purposes reinforce his spiritual leader role or conflict with it.

Thich Nhat Hanh; we don't have that many genuine spiritual guides like him

Both of these teachers emphasize personal practice, study of core teachings and practices, embracing an unusual degree of humility, and a rejection of materialism.  To be clear I've shifted from Asian spiritual themes in general to focus on Buddhism here; it could be that qi gong practice, or Taoism, within a yoga tradition, or whatever else, doesn't retain the exact same focuses but are also valid.  Equally valid?  Who knows; that's the kind of thing people need to explore on their own personal journey, and decide for themselves.

A materialist theme was one underpinning thread in what the person was communicating (in the introduced status), but only indirectly.  Adjoining the very limited description of practice background was a context including special clothing, elaborate furnishings, and art-collection oriented teaware.  To be clear I don't see all of these as problematic at all in relation to anyone's personal interest in tea.  It's fine to bridge over to collecting teapots, and statues and figurines, owning unique tables and cabinets that relate to the interest, and wearing traditional Chinese martial arts inspired clothing (or other robes; whatever it is).  Those interests aren't invalid in any way, or even problematic.

a dear friend combines interest in tea, teaware collection, and ceremony, and it completely works

The potential problem is connecting ownership of a lot of "stuff" with spiritual attainment claims.  To me that's a contradiction with that context.  One would typically start such a spiritual journey by limiting focus on ownership of a range of items that expands their self-image definition.  Not right away; setting up some sort of shrine and owning some meaningful symbols would be typical, but pretty soon in focusing on internal versus external connections would come up.

form can seem to overtake function, or maybe this is just an everyday look (photo credit)

The cave context itself works as an example of how we would tend to use intuition to break down what is implied but not directly expressed.  There's nothing wrong with meditating in a literal cave; that could be a quiet, comfortable, isolated natural space.  It could also be seen as a red flag related to a teacher putting image above function.  The same would come up related to actual certifications of attainment.  You might wonder, do such things even exist, would that be common?  There's no tight connection to the rest of this but an interesting tangent comes to mind.

judgement based only on appearances is problematic; his religious practice could be completely valid and useful

I don't want this to be about "naming names" but during the time I was ordained as a monk I went on a retreat to a different sect's meditation center well outside of Bangkok, arranged by my "monk-teacher."  I don't think it was chosen as the best possible location and setting for such a training, or the most authentic source, it was just relatively close, and set up for that kind of visitation.  

That sect was and still is controversial for selling a lot of magic amulets and such, for focus on material gain as a part of the organization context.  Stories about talking statues I heard there were really crazy.  They use that revenue to build larger and larger facilities, a theme that comes up in some US Christian ministries.  I didn't care for the teachings or form of meditation practice, which related to a accepting that the Buddha was alive in a heaven realm (a bit of heresy there), and to "guided meditation" focusing on trying to see crystal angel images and such.  If you said that you visualized a certain thing you would be given a certificate announcing your level of attainment.  All not good, as I saw it.  I didn't want any certificate.

In the end I don't know how genuine or spiritually advanced the guy I'm discussing here is.  Meeting him would help a lot in making that distinction.  It's a problem defining yourself as spiritually advanced, but not the same kind of problem I might seem to be implying.  People do experience shifts in perspective and even distinct breakthroughs in spiritual progress.  If that is what triggered his self-declaration there's a pretty good chance that he's just the kind of person someone pursuing a spiritual path would want to meet, and would be lucky to meet.  Just as likely he has experienced some positive aspects of spiritual pursuit and still wouldn't be helpful, due to not getting far, and not having prior exposure to the right kinds of teachers and practice, especially related to placing unusual experience after it happens.

I may be over-reacting to the coupling of spiritual attainment claims with product marketing.  We always tend to be biased in relation to expecting what we already experienced to repeat, and prior negative conditioning could be steering me in the wrong direction related to this.

I've not really fleshed out a sort of worst-case yet here: what if that guy had unusual, interesting, potentially helpful personal experiences, but then derived a number of relatively inaccurate, unhelpful, and potentially damaging conclusions and personal practice steps from them?  That can happen.  

To clarify context with an example, some people really do believe in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and then it matters whether Traditional Chinese Medicine is a set of valid practices or not, or a complete scam.  Maybe it's in the middle, with forms varying, and to me that seems likely.  If that third option is the fact of the matter then it would be possible to run across better and worse references.  Someone with limited legitimate exposure and information, actual positive contact, could have the best of intentions but still pass on very bad guidance.  Experiences would vary in relation to differing exposure, and the exact same external inputs would affect different people differently, in terms of ingesting rare herb or root supplements or undergoing different practices.

I've met a tea vendor before who also sold TCM herbs as a separate second business, and asked him about that subject (not one of the two people I've already discussed).  He wouldn't say if it was valid or not, but his participation in the business implied that he either saw it as valid or else thought it wasn't but didn't care.  

He implied that it was legitimate, but instead of defending it he pushed the validation step off to other people involved who did the TCM analysis and prescription, roughly fulfilling the doctor's role (in the separate Western medicine context).  He saw himself as more covering the function of a drug store, which doesn't try to validate the use or effectiveness of anything sold, they just offer it for sale.  Fair enough.  If he personally thought it was a complete scam that still seems a bit unethical, but withholding judgment is perhaps still a potential option.  I'm not sure to what extent he was really "bought in," or else was working within an ethical grey area instead.

This paradigm can't really hold for someone advocating meditation / spiritual practices; they would have to be involved, and completely bought-in.  Using that range of experience as a background for unrelated product marketing is perhaps a step closer to a grey area.  Really a tea vendor is either selling high quality, good-value, as-sold tea products or else they're not.  If they cite health claims that they don't believe in themselves or tell mythical stories that they don't think are true that sort of doesn't matter.  No one really knows which health benefit claims are valid anyway.  If it relates to a product-background detail maybe it does, or maybe still doesn't; if the tea really doesn't come from beside a wishing-well where some magic event occurred in historical times.  

It's probably a more common case for a tea to be sold as from a specific village area when it's really from an area next to it, or as a spring harvest version instead of fall, or from young farm-grown plant sources instead of older natural environment tea trees.  The "red flags" sort of matter, because if part of the background isn't real the rest might not be either.

Ideally people should be buying tea for the actual experience of that tea, not as part of a story.  In reality different themes like that do tend to mix.  Spiritual attainment and tea quality and experience might seem an odd coupling but it wouldn't be completely new for them to combine.  Tea experience can take on a meditative form, and the principles and practices found in religious context can support that, and can positively couple with it.  Mixing the sales aspects, and marketing, with spiritual practice scope becomes a little strange; one general theme here in this writing is being aware of potential problems with that.

I wrote about that more directly in a blog post about mixing tea experience and "cult" experience, religious group participation, in a limited form.  It's less of a sweeping critique of anything remotely like that than an initial title summary may imply.  I personally don't see a problem with combing varying forms of interest, tea with mindfulness and religion practice, tea experience with aesthetic interest and art collection, and so on.  Focus on the most extreme forms, which would tend to be more negative, helps highlight the scope of the concerns, but in general limited mixing would probably typically be positive.  Even the more extreme example I mention, related to a contact I've discussed here, is probably experienced generally positively by most people who come in contact with that group and form.  

I'll cite that other blog post for further reading:

On tea popularity and tea cults

Is Buddhism religion or a philosophy?

I keep seeing this type of question in a Facebook Buddhism group that I'm not very active in, and since an answer doesn't really fit in a post comment I'll write a longer one-page version with my own opinion.  To skip ahead to the answer:  to me Buddhism isn't a religion or a philosophy, it's something closer to a practical version of psychology.  Some context applies before getting to that part though. 

I tend to agree with a lot of other answers that come up in Buddhism groups, but the form and tone of those vary a lot.  Input written in a form closer to a koan (logic puzzle) seems less practical, to me.

Of course Buddhism is also a religion; I'm part of a Thai Buddhist family now, living in Bangkok, and there are monks and temples around.  I ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk here once for two month, and was married in a Buddhist religious ceremony.  To be clear this post isn't supposed to be about self-promotion; I wrote about those subjects, so I'll mention them here, but this is about explaining my general understanding of Buddhism.  I studied some philosophy and religion in degree programs too, but I'm not positioning myself as some sort of subject expert here; I'm just interested in Buddhism.

right after the ordination ceremony (with more on that experience here)

my son once spent two weeks as a novice monk once too (which I wrote about in my tea blog)

As I'm taking the question the title question is really asking something else, more specific, if Buddhism at its core, or as the Buddha taught and intended it, is one of these things over the others.  Any answer would be speculation; it would involve that given person's ideological preference and personal understanding.

At this point some Buddhists reading this might naturally claim that Buddhism isn't an ideology, it's more a methodology, a reductive sort of approach to human experience, so it's not fair to call interpretation of the ideas an ideology.  That matches up with my take.  That also folds in some bias for how the ideas are arranged, regardless of how categories work out, so one has to be careful with that sort of line of reasoning. 

Maybe it works to "sweep away" the framework of the ideas by setting them aside as they are practiced and have fulfilled their function, but it's not clearly a given.  Maybe Buddhism is really an odd form of experiential process or approach that tidies up lots of surplus of other ideas, framing, preconceptions, and assumptions, but to some extent that could also be part of an ideology, even if someone is sure they experience it as something else.


Let's back up a bit, and cover how I'm using terms and categories. 

Religion is designed to explain things using variations on conventional forms, first causes (what made the universe), after life schemes (where do we go when we die), metaphysical structure (is there a permanent soul or not), and so on.  Morality / ethical codes factor in; that's essentially always a core component.

a Thai wedding ceremony.  there were monks chanting in a different part.

Philosophy is something else; it uses ideas to examine human worldviews and forms of perception, and essentially assumes that reason can sort things out, to some degree.  Even in forms where reason isn't assigned some all-illuminating role it's still reason that's describing the usefulness and limitations of reason, for example in relation to other aspects of experience (about direct experience, tied to causal issues and themes, framing meaning--whatever else it is).  To some extent even a personal philosophy that wants to limit and tear down the role of reason is still going to need to use the concepts--reason itself--towards that end.  Ethics also comes up here, but the groundwork needs to be relatively rational, or at least functional, not based on external authority.


Buddhism isn't these things, at its core.  To be clear this is just my take, and I won't be citing any scripture to support it, or even delving into ever-lower levels of supporting broad points made with finer levels of explanation.  It's a methodology that lets you simplify how you experience reality.  To some extent there may be some best-case, very simple, and relatively direct form of experience, but at least initially it's as well to not tie up too much goal-orientation or mental energy in figuring out what that form might be like (enlightenment).  It's just a set of tools to help simplify things, and that's enough.  Later on forms of experience would probably vary from initial practices and perspective changes.

The 8-fold path should be familiar; without some core concepts like that to work with it would be hard to put together any starting-point opinion about what might be going on.  While one explores those sorts of ideas it's best to keep in mind that even though some teachings are said to be the original words of the Buddha we've inherited those across time.  Swap out the meaning for suffering (or dukkha) just a bit and you might lose a lot of the original point. 

That's not an abstract guess at how variations might go; I think this is a core problem with modern interpretations.  If you swap back in "dis-satisfaction" for suffering per my take that's going to work much, much better.  Dis-satisfaction is unsatisfyingly vague, but that makes it work all the better as a place-holder, since understanding of these sorts of ideas are supposed to be iterative.  It's all not something one would "completely get" on one read.

It's not so simple to explain how it all works, but why not go there, with the clarification that this will be a limited start, not an explanation. 


One sub-theme is about how reality is really structured.  It's just not a model, more a description of ordinary forms of error (how reality is assumed to be, but really isn't, at least related to certain assumptions not being as functional as they seem).  That makes it negative, in the sense of describing what isn't, not necessarily related to what is bad, which again could be a bit unfamiliar.  It's not so bad thinking that you are made up of a permanent, real self; there's just a lot of function to be had in questioning that and setting it aside, at least temporarily and to a limited extent.  Anyway, to switch back to pointing out general themes here I'm talking about the one part that is made up of the ideas about reality, that one branch.

Then there is mindfulness (momentary awareness practice), and meditation (hard to describe what that's all about in a few words), both of which go along with the ideas, and support them.  Obviously these things are experiential.  A moral code works along with the rest; in some way it makes sense and is functional to observe an externally-derived set of guidelines related to not causing others harm, and so on.  While the first part (the last paragraph) made it sound a little like a philosophy, except for the deconstruction angle, these last three subjects fall a lot closer to religion. 

Mindfullness is a bit of a twist in relation to how Christianity is described in teachings and practiced, but to be clear Jesus did emphasize that the religious practice he was talking about dealt a lot with how people act moment to moment.  It wasn't something you would set aside until Sunday morning, as he was framing it, to have the slate wiped clean again by some religious representative then.

To some extent you have to "buy in" to try it out (the practice of Buddhism), and it's not exactly a rapid process.  Different people would connect to the different parts in different ways, through a different order of engagement, with some parts leading to others essentially for all forms of that experience.  It seemed like that might be missing "valid forms" of that experience, didn't it?  I think if a practice of Buddhism helps someone then it is valid, even if they've skipped parts and have some ideas or themes dead wrong.  Those types of gaps are just definitely not going to help with "getting far" with it (not that it's a contest).  I'll cite an example, nothing so direct, but a subject I've kept coming back to considering.

the temple where my son and I ordained at night

A friend of mine rejected alcoholism to lead a life not based around that drug, only to become a stoner, to replace it with marijuana consumption.  I did the same in my 20s; I had drank a lot and then was stoned a lot.  Her mantra is "progress not perfection," which kinds of works in a limited sense.  It's not supposed to be a statement of Buddhist intention or guiding principle (she doesn't see herself as Buddhist, as far as I know, or influenced by the ideas, practicing theme, etc.), it's just something she says.  It's not exactly a core teaching to not get stoned (that specific restriction), but in most forms Buddhism does get around to mentioning that drug use is not ideal.  Drugs and alcohol cut someone off from directly experiencing their reality; it's them + the drug instead.  More or less Buddhism is about getting out of your own way, not letting preconceptions and abstract ways of structuring ideas remain problematic, and to lighten attachments, in some limited form or range of forms.

Is the problem clear in this?  The drug is probably limiting her, in some sense; base reality isn't good enough, and it requires adjustment.  As a former marijuana user I have my own understanding of why that's a problem for this case and drug, but it's as well to keep that vague and general here. 

Everyone who went through long term dependence on drugs or alcohol (as I did), or different forms of those, gets that making even a moderate form of adjustment to reality often isn't a stable solution.  Sure, people base their lives around it, and in some cases that goes well enough.   Drinking alcohol a little every other day for the rest of your life is fine, to a limited degree.  To me it's not ideal, but it's close enough to normal and "not negative" that we can set the difference aside.  The other problem is that she is setting up a distinction between things being better than they were 20 years ago, and still never managing to get close to some optimum, which she's not even heading towards.

What would be the problem with this "perfection?"  It's implied that striving towards some form of ideal life is itself an obstacle to be avoided.  Rigid restrictions, removing freedoms, could be worse than any potential gains from removing dependencies; it's something like that.  I get the sense that it's not supposed to make tons of sense; it's just a personal approach to life theme.  Which is fine.  It doesn't match conventional understandings of Buddhism very well but it's not supposed to.

It probably sounds like I'm saying that someone couldn't get stoned every day and be a "good Buddhist," or that if they did try to pair those two directions they would contradict each other.  To me I guess that's true.  It's really not about weed, or whatever else, being so destructive, or counter-productive, its more about a problem with someone heading in two different directions at the same time.  If you walk North-East you'll never really go towards the North or the East, but head out somewhere in between.  If the idea is to avoid going West that's probably close enough. 

To me Buddhism is really Buddhism to the extent that it helps you and improves your life; back to the claim it's practical psychology, or a form of self-help, if one would rather.  It's not so much about crossing a finish line of "being enlightened."  As you get further the form changes (as I've experienced it), and value increases, but then lots of things are like that.  If you exercise a little you barely get past working out how to not get injured, and don't make a start on flexibility or strength improvements, never mind cardiovascular health, or stress reduction benefits.  If you eat fruits and vegetables 2 or 3 times a week that can help, but the rest of your diet remains a much more significant factor.

Maybe there's a contradiction in that take on drug use and how practicing only a little Buddhism is valid, isn't there?  I'm saying that making consumption of weed a priority in your life would run counter to putting into practice the exploration and application of Buddhism, and then I'm also saying that someone doing a little of both could be ok for them.  Different people would take it all in different ways.  My friend is right that setting a distant and seemingly impossible goal as the main driver may not be as effective as embracing ongoing change.  It's a little different to change just a little and then say "this is where I want to be; enough with the self-improvement" related to Buddhist practice making that more continuous.


If you think Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy, versus what I'm describing it as, then you might be inclined to take it in different ways altogether.  If it's taken as something to be "thought out" then momentary practice could be de-emphasized.  If practice of conventional morality is going to be good enough, along with doing some chanting or whatever else, that might work well pursued part-time.  The starting point matters; how one takes it all.  It's probably as well to be open to shifting those underlying premises over time, just in case.  Obviously I'm seeing the side related to experiencing Buddhism as a formal religion.  To be clear I was only a monk for two months, but I do live in Bangkok now, for the last dozen years, a part of a Buddhist family and Buddhist society.

my daughter (now 6) showed me how to meditate ("tam samadhi") recently; it was cool

All of this probably captures enough of how I see it.  None of it is really supported here, by core text citation, or detailed explanation that could be even a little convincing.  I once pursued Buddhism as religion and philosophy in university studies, obtaining two degrees in the process, and it soured me a little in setting it all up like a research paper project.  That's not a bad approach though; it's a good way to sort through a range of different ideas presented in different ways.  It just doesn't make much sense without a lot of emphasis on personal life-practice and perspective.

You either try it and parts work for you or you might as well be reading Scientology (which actually is kind of interesting; it sounds like it should work, but it probably doesn't).  If you put neither in practice you might as well be binge-watching television show seasons on Netflix, or reading about rock climbing without ever rock climbing, whatever it is.  The ideas can be pleasant in some formulations though, so maybe just leaving it as that, as an un-examined form of poetry, could make for an aesthetic experience.  To me that's not really Buddhism then, but in some much more limited sense it still might be.

Buddhism in comparison with Judaism and Christianity

I was just talking with a friend about the differences and similarities between Judaism and Buddhism.  It makes for an interesting starting point in explaining what Buddhism is.  It's too broad, but narrowing back to the points one might cover in such a discussion works.  We spent about half an hour talking about that theme, related to him leaving town (Bangkok) soon after; that's about right for how long such a thing would take.

No matter what writing or other channel one uses setting up an audience perspective, who you are talking to, is very important.  Before you do much writing it seems like talking to everyone, adopting a general listener perspective, would be completely workable.  In actual practice that doesn't work very well.  We are accustomed to communicating things to people in different ways, and "talking out into the world" only works for some subjects.  You have to assume what people already know, for example, or match use of language to what people can relate to.  Doing that "in general" is problematic, especially related to narrowing down a very broad set of ideas to what one might be able to say in 10 minutes or so.  We had a great discussion, and already had a feel for what each other might already understand, so all that worked out.

I'll start with a bit he told me about Judaism, but cut that part short, because it's interesting and somewhat related but not the main part of what I'm trying to share here.  Then I'll cover passing on a short take on what the Christian perspective is.  Odd, right; everyone knows that, don't they?  Maybe not.  I live in a Buddhist country, for example, in Thailand, and for people here it's a foreign religion.

Judaism

It's far from intended as a summary of what Judaism is all about but that friend made some interesting points, which I'll share an abbreviated version of.  The obvious qualifications apply:  I won't get what he meant completely right in my own summary, and he was only breaking off a part of the broad set of ideas that comprise Judaism to share them, based within a fairly limited scope conversation.  I'm not saying this is inaccurate, but a lot more is being left out than included.  Framing these ideas properly within the rest of what hasn't been expressed wouldn't be possible using only assumptions and extrapolation.  It's still interesting though.  I cut the material detail back even further to avoid making mistakes in interpretation, since I'm sure I didn't completely "get" what he was saying, only hearing part of a broad set of related ideas.

A main theme was that it's within basic human nature to desire things, and it's seen as ok within Judaism.  This was framed as a response to his take that Buddhism is really about cutting off all desires, simply eliminating wanting anything to achieve a very unusual form of inner peace.  That's not right, really, but I'll get to that part.  It's partly right.

Of course Judaism sets up plenty of limitations about what you shouldn't want, or shouldn't do, or experience (eating pork, murder, and so on).  We didn't get into all that.  The idea was that an interesting and novel form is set up for framing desires, and for satisfying them.  It's fine to want things, if they aren't prohibited, and fine to experience the things you want to experience, but you have to be thankful and receptive in very specific ways.  It's a form of communion with God and the rest of reality to be given things (with "given" here used in the broad sense, including earning them, in a conventional sense, or granted potential to experiences by chance).  Acceptance of positive things is responded to with a form of prayer, a step that occurs before you have the experience.  Like saying the blessing, right?  Just extended a lot further, across a lot of the scope of human experience.  It almost sounded more like a mindfulness related take on life, to keep track of all positive things as they happen to you, to emphasize self awareness and conscious experience of momentary reality.

To me this is interesting because it frames human experience in a different way.  Prohibitions and ethical guidelines, what you should do, are different kinds of things, and this enters into a different kind of experiential space.  It makes a lot of life experience a holy sort of undertaking.  Not just eating, as I took it many kinds of experiences, or as I took it all positive kinds.  Adjusting the form and perspective of routine activities, or special events and circumstances, frames much more of life experience within the scope of religious practice than occurs within Christianity.  Everything one experiences throughout their lives relates to God's setting things up, in Christianity, but the moment to moment experience isn't framed within religious practices, as it's commonly taken.  Christian teachings are much more active related to telling you what not to do and what general perspective to take up, then moment to moment you take it from there yourself, the form is a bit open.

This has been barely a shell of what I understood him to be saying, but I'll move onto the difference between that and Christianity, as I interpret it, and try to clarify this a little further through contrast.

Christianity

He asked me about the  Christian worldview, how it works out, moral guidelines and restrictions, adjustment of ordinary perspective.  People in the US just assume that everyone knows that, right?  There they kind of do.  Even someone raised to reject it would have some idea what they are rejecting, even if everyone isn't really on the same page about how it all maps out.

I just saw a fragment of an interview with Richard Dawkins, this one, which I may or may not get around to finishing, and it's strange to me how modern atheists seem to take on and reject relatively unsophisticated takes on Christianity.  The most literal forms are a bit absurd:  God looks like Zeus, he lives in the sky, Jesus is his son, you are following rules in order to gain admission to heaven, angels are related in some way, the Devil is out to get you, you can sin all you want, you just have to ask for the slate to be wiped clean and it's all good again.  Dropping out the most absurd half still leaves lots of relatively absurd parts.

To back up, I studied religion in a university program, or in two of them, really.  The second focused only on interpreting limited religious scope as philosophy but the first included actual religion classes, not philosophy-context versions.  To put details to that I studied religion and philosophy, focusing on Buddhism, in an undergrad program at the University of Colorado, and comparative philosophy for an MA at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  And I'm an industrial engineer, which I studied at Penn State, but that doesn't relate.  I've considered different forms of religion a good bit.  Study of Islam came up more than Judaism, but I covered quite a bit on Christianity and focused most on Buddhism.

This gets odd because what I accept as the most sophisticated form of Christianity and that answer to how it defines a standard American's worldview are two completely different things.  Funny how that goes.  The same comes up in Buddhism; the core message and practices I don't see as overlapping much at all with a conventional take or worldview here in Thailand.  Even among monks, to some extent, but I probably won't fill that part in much here.  I was ordained as a monk here once, for two months, with an earlier post here on how that went.  Let's break all that apart then.  I'll start with how I see Christianity as two different things, how people tend to take it, what I see as a more mature and developed form. 

I can't do justice here to the range of how religions are interpreted; that's too long a subject for a 1500 word blog post only about that.  We reviewed a relatively old work on that theme, from 1979, that mapped out some interesting ideas on that, James Fowler's Stages of Faith, described in summary form in this related reference.

In a basic form Christianity is interpreted as a set of rules, an afterlife scheme, and an explanation for things people couldn't otherwise know (who started the world, what the earlier form of it was, what happens after death, is there a soul or spiritual form of people).  Those parts should be familiar to most.  You can pick and choose which parts to take up or leave aside, of course. 

In answering my friend's question this was more or less what I focused on, about how Christianity tends to define an American worldview.  Rules stand out; you should or shouldn't do a lot of things.  Stay within those bounds and in general the more prescriptive parts, about what you should do, or general approach, can be a bit flexible.  It doesn't necessarily relate to momentary perspective all that much.  Ideally of course I think it should; I'll get into more of that related to what a more sophisticated take might be.

Jesus taught about being more compassionate, about seeing yourself as connected to others, as here to help others as much as to help yourself (or more, one might reasonably interpret).  All this works well from a practical standpoint, and not just as a set of rules to follow, when you consider that your connection with your family, friends, co-workers, employment context, country, social groups, and so on really do define you. 

The more you consider all of those ties and demands as important the better a person you turn out to be.  Your own longer term good follows.

Beyond just being external rules to follow, or break, all the different ethical short-cuts also limit your support of and connection to those around you (lying, stealing, treating people unfairly, failing to be empathetic and supportive to others, etc.).  Benefiting others benefits you.  To the extent you are reliable, consistent, supportive, and so on you are a good friend, family member, employee, and social group member and all those connections will be stronger.  Only following a list of 10 or more restrictions doesn't help to highlight that.  Of course that's not exactly where the Old Testament left off, but that is a main difference in the two sets of ideas.

The most mature perspectives on religion develop this, and set aside the mythology.  Jesus was a person but it's not necessary to believe that he performed miracles, or was a divine being in some way, or that he talked to the Devil like my friend and I conversed. 

The mythology is what people like Richard Dawkins tend to attack.  They want to accept that you can just assume the ethics and social connections are important, and take them up and leave aside all the rest.  What they don't realize is that this also works as a mature interpretation of Christianity, that it is really the point, or also the point of any other religion. 

I've taken ethics classes, about the study of morality, and another part they miss is that it's not so easy to derive what Jesus taught as what we should do, as a positive approach to ethics and reality in general.  I'm not getting into all that here, just suffice it to say that it really doesn't work to use a standard approach to get to the same general context (eg. accept Kantian ethics derivation, or Utilitarian / Consequentialist versions instead).  Those approaches take the short-cut of heading for an end point they already accept, basic Christian and Buddhist morality, more or less.  They gloss over that what seems to be a complete and independent derivation really isn't that at all.  You already know what "doing the right thing" is because it's in the air; all that has been an underlying theme in every organized society since prior to known history.  If it wasn't people couldn't collect into an organized society; there would be chaos instead.  That does come up in places from time to time but there's a function in order; it tends to spread.

In the end I told that friend that Christianity asks us to put others above ourselves, to focus on the interests and needs of other people.  To me that is completely consistent with everything else I've said here, even though if what I mean by that isn't clear then it wouldn't seem so.  In the end that's really a pursuit of our own highest good, our own self-interest, because we really are linked in with other people in countless ways.

Jordan Peterson gets all this; the people who reject what he says about religion don't get him.  An example:  he admits that there is an appeal for successful men to have many physical or relationship partners, since they can.  An example like Tiger Woods might come up.  It's obvious enough why that doesn't work out in his own case; that typically prevents a successful monogamous relationship from succeeding.  Someone like Donald Trump might seem to be able to cheat the system, to have a wife and experiences outside that relationship.  But then he has two ex-wives now, and others end up identifying people for who they really are related to their values, as in his case.  It's atypical for an incriminating voice tape to turn up but that would come up in different ways.  It's not an isolated example; practicing generosity or empathy pays similar returns, and so on.

Buddhism

One mistaken take on Buddhism is that it suggests that people should cut off all desire, get rid of attachments of all forms, which will result in achieving an unconventional neutral perspective, and "inner peace."  Taken the right way all that sort of works but it's just as wrong as it is right, and it's much more incomplete than it is descriptive.  I'll pass on how I explained it.

Buddhism is about limiting attachments, about examining parts of a worldview and personal perspective and discarding what doesn't work.  What makes the cut-off or fails to is problematic to describe in broad terms.  The introspection / review process is a methodology, not a form of external mapping of that sort.  There is a good bit of ethical guidance in the core teachings, but that's only one part of a set of 8 main types of teachings.  I have a graphic about that handy:

Ok, maybe it touches on a couple branches.  That's only one broad, general model of what Buddhism is, so relying on that as a complete description only goes so far.  And it only breaks teachings and subject scope into 8 parts, which is of limited helpfulness, since detailed review follows or else it's meaningless. 

A more detailed idea mapping makes things worse than they might really be, since there are a lot of different starting points and relatively equivalent explanations for different parts:

In the end for me Buddhism is really a system of introspection and adjustment of self-definition and worldview, a set of ideas I'll get back to developing just a little more.

Thais don't necessarily take it that way, even though 90% of them are Buddhist.  They take it as explanations for supernatural reality, as ethical guidance, and so on, all a close parallel to how Christianity is most commonly interpreted in the US.  Go figure.  People get it that meditation is a part of it but even their take on meditation and mindfulness practices (two related but different things) tend to not be mature, in my experience. 

They think meditation helps you accumulate spiritual good credit, karma or merit.  Sort of, maybe, but there is also an introspective aspect, which is probably more of the main point.  It's not an ordinary form of introspection, and I can't really do justice to describing how it's different in a short space.  Mindfulness is about staying calm and consistent, being able to apply rules in different circumstances, but it's also a practical tool for clearly observing a layer of reality that usually goes completely unnoticed.  It helps you unpack what is typically only included as subconscious experience.  That should ring a bell, for students of psychology.  Being present in the moment isn't nearly as simple as it seems, and the inputs in how we interpret reality and what we react to aren't simple at all.

One might wonder what parts of self, normal experience, or reaction should be "cut out of" normal perspective and life practices, or at least what I'm claiming.  If Buddhism doesn't reject desire and does reject some view of self what is being retained, and what is left aside?  It's not so simple, but engaging such ideas is critical.  You drop what doesn't work, and keep what does.  There's not really as much clear, external, well-defined guidance for that as one might think.  In a developed conventional religion it might seem that there definitely would be, but to me that's not really what Buddhism is.  The starting point is your own perspective, life experience, and momentary experience of reality--only that.  As you delve into what you think you are, and what you really are, you untangle the knots of all sorts of assumptions.

An example:  it would be easy to define yourself based on what you own, in a consumer oriented society.  It's relatively low-hanging fruit, but examining the role of that within your own worldview could turn up that you've accepted the assumed importance of this as an external assumption, and you could later also drop it. 

An example:  that friend I started out mentioning talking to was moving without owning much; this is a very practical approach to experienced reality.  For some it would be natural to own a lot of clothing, furniture, electronics, collections of goods, and so on, but keeping all that limited simplifies your life.  The desire to always own more only complicates it.  This kind of realization would only work so well in the form of external guidance: "don't own a lot of things."  If someone could unpack what they think about a lot instead, what causes them stress, what goals they serve that can be cut back or simply eliminated, then giving themselves this advice works much, much better.

I'm into tea, and write more about that subject than Buddhism (here), and it comes up a lot related to people collecting teaware (or even tea itself).  Part of that is functional, but it also seems to become just a normal way of relating to things, that you mark out how much you enjoy a subject by how much you own related to it.  It can be a habit to collect things.  It's not exactly a vice but examining why it happens could be informative, and dropping it could free up space for working on something else.  You can only make tea in one device at a time; owning dozens of devices isn't necessarily functional, it's closer to collecting artworks.

Of course that's just an example.  In different individual cases different coarse findings would turn up earlier on, then more and more subtle levels of understanding and adjustment could occur.  The past and future are particularly fruitful areas to consider.  Regrets, worry, and even anticipation can cause people a lot of stress.  It's easier to say "just live in the moment" than it is to let the past and future go, and only deal with what is actually occurring in the present.  The tools of meditation and mindfulness help with this; they turn up what is simmering beneath the surface in your mind, and what is weighing down present moment perspective, in two different but related sets of ways.


I could keep going in lots of directions from there but that covers the main point, fleshing out what a friend and I talked about over the course of a half an hour or so.  Buddhism isn't about rejecting any normal view of reality, just uncovering what goes into one and improving it, little by little.  It's a negative process in the sense that things are removed or dropped, instead of added.  The end point is kind of a funny thing; eventually one gets to a purer form of more direct experience.  I'm not so sure about "enlightenment" or that process ever being completely finished; I guess that has to be a real thing.  It's generally as well to not worry too much about that.

So a Buddhist could definitely have a family, or own things, take up hobbies, exercise, and so on.  They would generally try to be positive and helpful to others, and take a leaner approach to material things, to not focus on them.  Really it's more about perspective than it is material ownership or following rules though.  It would be better to have more stuff and keep the perspective lighter, or really to do both, to focus more on positive forms of experience and less on piling up things and accumulating status.

Disproving God, levels of atheism

Atheism is a funny thing, isn't it, trying to reason out and prove that God doesn't exist?  There's something strange about that project.  It's came up twice recently so I'll mention it here, really just to keep track of some interesting discussion. 

The first time was a Quora question answer, and the second related to a Facebook post about levels of atheism (or I guess agnosticism really is mid-level atheism, put on that sort of scale).

Quora answer

I answered the question on Quora, What's your proof that God doesn’t exist?:


With a background in philosophy and a good bit of formal study of religion I should put an answer to some form of this question here somewhere. I don’t think that’s the best way to frame such a question, but since I wasn’t looking for any version of the question I’ll just go with this one.

Of course it can’t be proven that God doesn’t exist. How can you prove that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist? You can explain the origins of the story, and build a strong case for that tradition only relating to earlier forms of culture-based stories shifting to become that particular story, but checking satellite images to confirm that no one really lives at the North Pole is almost as good a counter-proof as that. Proving a negative is tough. Even in this case, when parents have a conspiracy going that involves none of the presents actually coming from some mythical entity, we buy them instead, all of them.

It’s more productive to look at what religions in general are really doing, and then map how Judaism and Christianity work onto that. It’s no small project. It works well enough as a counter-argument that if a minority of people are really Christian, and the literal take on Christianity is that all non-Christians go to hell, then that particular God is ok with most people going to hell. I guess as with really sorting through who might live at the North Pole that gets problematic. Maybe Santa really lives in Antarctica, and the stories got that wrong, and maybe that Jewish / Christian God isn’t splitting people into the heaven and hell-bound groups in that way (or maybe a majority really do go to hell, and then there’s purgatory, etc.). An argument from evil comes up too; why would such a God create this particular world, one in which someone could spend all day pointing out horrible aspects that people and other creatures experience, all sorts of death and suffering.

Again it works better to take a different approach, to dig deeper into what religion really is. To me—only my take—it doesn’t work well to use religions as explanations for first causes or afterlife destinations, even though those are two very common purposes for the story-lines. The conflict between the different versions is one obvious problem, but it’s sort of not about that. More mature takes accept that important patterns in societies are encoded in religions, in the teachings, rituals, social roles, and practices. One good example: if there was no form of morality at all in a society then it wouldn’t be orderly enough to be functional. Reasonably consistent social roles and practices wouldn’t stick; there wouldn’t be enough consistency in behavior and perspective to base laws on, or consistent economic practices, and so on.

It’s a good question if there could be a completely irreligious society, if the same types of principles could conceivably evolve without religion as an input. In one sense I don’t see why not, in another sense absolutely not. Let’s start with the latter, the negative version: people evolved into organized civilizations based on religious practices and religion-based worldviews over the past few thousand years, or at most 10 or 20 (most likely; maybe it’s a lot more complicated than that). There is really no way to initiate a reset that starts a civilization or society completely from scratch, to not build on some of that prior foundation. Here I’m claiming that at the least organized societies and religious principles evolved together, interwoven, although the claim in the sentence before this one was framed as stronger than that, with one underlying the other. Either way conjoining the two still seems to work.

Communist regimes have attempted this, to try and systematically eliminate religion, but even if those had been more successful in some sense they would still be drawing on the assumed structure and general perspective that came before, whether they wanted to acknowledge that or not. In the other more shallow sense why not; a society could retain some of the functional structure of common-ground understanding that evolved along with prior religions while at the same time shedding the literal forms of those beliefs. It wouldn’t be necessary to try to re-form a system of ethics—the underlying assumptions, the detailed principles, etc.—but people could do that, to describe the function, and then to say that’s still a necessary cultural element. Various forms of consequentialism are this type of thing, structures of ideas that say we “do the right thing” because it’s functional to follow those sorts of patterns, that people as a whole benefit from that.

Why would someone want to prove that God doesn’t exist? I guess one answer could be to get to the facts of the matter. Or if someone was concerned about that hell-afterlife possibility maybe a set of arguments could put their mind at ease. But it would be quite difficult to move past the types of general lines of thought that I’ve just described to eliminate the possibility of an entity that served as a first-cause as a possibility.

Some type of creator God could definitely exist. This is where atheists use a bit of slight of hand, it seems to me; they reject the forms of creator Gods that we’ve been proposing, waving away the most absurd aspects, and in the end rely on probability related to their take on a first take. It’s very unlikely that Santa Clause does actually exist, even though we can’t disprove that he does, and if we can flesh out a clear story for what religion is doing as we did with “Saint Nick” stories then we can sweep away the conclusion for existence of a literal God in a similar fashion. It just doesn’t work nearly as well in the case of religion. If there is a creator God we wouldn’t be able to relate to what that entity is like (unless “it” is as chatty as the Old Testament version, or happens to be some living person’s literal parent, then maybe so). So the idea is to reject something beyond our own comprehension instead, some broad category of possible things we couldn’t have much understanding of, which is going to be problematic for argument forms to dispel.

Levels of disbelief in God

A Facebook friend posted this scale of levels of atheism recently:

My initial response was this:

This whole scale seems to imply that one uniform interpretation of God somehow makes sense. If God has to be the chatty, opinionated, divisive Old Testament version or the slightly mellowed out New Testament Christian version he / she / it probably doesn't exist. If God is either some vague type of cause or origin for the universe involving intention or a possible underlying linkage between different forms of life then it's harder to judge.

Of course that didn't really work for the person who posted that; they wanted a number, and they interpreted the question framework as making sense.  To me this is why atheists seem to be talking past anyone interested in religion who is not really so concerned if the typical, literal, personal type of god exists.  Per my experience people who study religion move past that type of superficial take at the outset, and atheists tend to stick with it, and work around it.  Then they say "it doesn't matter," as if it really doesn't, all the while building up arguments and analysis that really use that form or something quite close to it as a crucial starting point.

I'm not sure that point ever became clear, and it's a bit of stretch to map out what religion is really doing in Facebook post comment, but I did answer further about how the question isn't well formed.

That online friend (or contact; however you use those concepts) explained that he thought the question made sense in this way:

While there are a multitude of different ways people follow faith and drastic differences in what those systems or beliefs may lead to in the actions and ethics of different people, this scale's utility lies in lumping all together based solely on what level of adherence one might have to their beliefs. Do you wobble or hesitate with what you believe in, or are you unflinching in your trust? It doesn't matter, in this specific instance, whether it is something innocuous like merely thinking there is some kind of connecting energy inside or between beings, or if it is thinking doing actions in life like feeding the homeless or blowing up nonbelievers will augment some sort of afterlife/reincarnation. In this instance they are all explicitly equivalent with thinking there are supernatural sentient beings that created everything or thinking drinking kale juice will make you lose weight or cure cancer. 

This scale doesn't distinguish between what you believe, what that entails, or what it might lead to in your actions throughout life - it just deals with what level you trust in those beliefs. If you think it more likely that what you "know" will stay the same, you are a lower number. If you are perfectly ambivalent, you are pure agnostic. If you think it is more likely that what you "know" will/can be overturned via empirical evidence, you are a higher number. 

Interesting; not bad as analysis goes, but this still doesn't seem to work.  I explain why I think that as follows:

To me this is asking for an answer to the wrong question. I get what you're saying; as framed it doesn't matter what the type of answer, it's really a question of degree. If someone says "I believe all things are connected in some way; I don't know the form," the question can apply to how strongly they believe that. It sort of doesn't work though, the # 2 relating to "I cannot know for certain but I think that "all things are connected in some way" is probable." This person isn't believing in any God, so per a different and more direct read they're really a #5 or 6. If you assume God or not God, or maybe God, you've already made all the interesting decisions prior to answering the question within the framing, and have already begged the question. 

To me this is like the problem in asking the question "what is the meaning of life" according to philosophy. It's kind of the wrong question, in the sense that there are much better questions to start on. One could ask what types of assumptions and context frameworks tend to support an implicit meaning of life. Generally that's too broad a question for either Analytic or Continental philosophy, but it works much better for the latter. In either broad-school context at least you are more directly asking what you are really asking, not skipping over it with assumptions.

Conclusions / analysis; what atheists are doing

I think we're narrowing in on the key problem with atheism and arguments related to atheism here; in one form or another they set up a straw man to reject, that very literal form of God.  It's not them that postulate that God initially, it's organized religion, in some forms of interpretation, but they do adopt it in the process of rejecting it.

They say they're doing the opposite, that their arguments work to reject any God, not just the relatively angry one in the Old Testament, or the ass-kicking version that some Muslims take up, or the more compassionate and vague version Jesus talks about (who of course is a bit paternal, in that form).  But really God has to be a super-person in those systems, in the form atheists tend to reject "him."  A bit of sleight of hand, as mentioned in that Quora answer, is involved in mixing between personal God and first-cause minimum level type of agency.  But this only makes the problems worse, rejecting a selected continuum, without really digging deeper into the function of religion.

If you don't think it through religion is all about solving the first-cause problem and the after-life problem, and deriving morality based on an appeal to authority.  I think the main function is much closer to the latter, but the draw, the personal appeal, is perhaps coming from that first set of two purposes.  This really would run long if I tried to explain what I think religion is doing, and it would be a personal take, there is no way that one person can explain a narrow range that's really it in a nutshell.  

But in a one paragraph version, I think religion codifies guidelines for how people should live in ways that support the development of an organized society.  It defines a system of morality that makes people working together in social roles possible, and helps define those social roles, to some extent.  Monogamy makes for a good example of both; identifying an institution of marriage, the concept of marital fidelity, and a stable family structure works as a basis for society.  That can even extend into non-traditional interpretation, eg. gay marriage, but problems can occur if a society doesn't gravitate towards defining family as some sort of valuable construct.  I'm not saying that a single parent can't possibly raise a child, and of course they can, instead that it's functional for there to be a norm that two people set up some form of contract towards the shared goal of raising children.  The project takes a lot of work even with two people on it, and the nearly two decade commitment time-frame is a bit extreme.  Other examples of the function of religious teaching relating to respect for personal property ownership or honesty also work.  It just gets complicated to flesh out how any one norm plays a clear role in grounding a society, and how real-life interpretation, codes of conduct, and exceptions tend to play out.

It might well seem that now I'm proposing some sort of interpretive slight of hand, that instead of discussing if there was an agent that caused the universe I've shifted to the function of teachings of a religion as the main point.  I would agree, that I just did that, except for not agreeing with the part that it's in error to do so.

Oddly a lot of the ideas I'm proposing are coming directly from a derivation of Christianity, from progressive religion interpretation from the second half of the 20th century.  Essentially within that tradition they were discussing how God as a super-person really didn't make sense, that this was a superficial form the ideas can take that has little relation to the actual function of a religion.  I suppose the earlier post here on Stages of Faith a bit earlier fills in more details on that.

As far as me answering that question goes, where I fall on the atheism scale, I suspect that all things are connected in an unusual way, at a deeper level than we can tend to experience.  Since that's not much of a personal God it doesn't work well to use that scale to reject or embrace one.  I suppose if you force that online contact's interpretation I hold that belief at the level of #3 (I cannon know for certain but I am inclined to believe that in some deeper sense things are connected), it just doesn't work as well to map that back onto a more literal theism / atheism.  

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.