Tag Archives: religion

Buddha's Fingerprints

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I was midway through “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book” by Daniel Ingram and decided that I really couldn’t finish reading that book. It wasn’t because the author or what he wrote was difficult to understand or really any concrete reason honestly, however as I was reading there was a mounting feeling that continuing to read the text would somehow damage my recent spiritual explorations. This isn’t the first book that I’ve cracked open on the subject of Buddhism, and it isn’t the last book that I have either slogged through out of some sense that if I start something I really ought to finish it or in the rarest cases, stop reading half-way through.

I’ve also run my toes through other books, most notably some core Zen books that I found free online. I didn’t really get along with Zen either as I didn’t have the chops for it. As I read along with the Zen teachings I discovered that a large part of the foundation of Zen is wound up with cults of personality and pretty hardcore physical abuse. Teachers are pseudo-deities and they are fond of beating their students to a pulp. Uh, no thanks.

So it brought me back to this book by Mr. Ingram. The writing style of the book was very conversational, very colloquial, and around page 140 or so it became exceptionally particular and rather obnoxiously dismissive. What struck me in the earlier chapters was this feeling of threat from this particular book. Not the general threat in the sense that the words were in themselves threatening, but threatening to my own spiritual development. I started to feel a kind of chafing as I was reading about how there were all these steps, and these stages and how everything was so meticulously laid out. It started to upset me, in a very deeply spiritual sense. That any random persons spiritual journey can be laid out with such rigor, such structure really repels me. That people are just machines playing back music and that the music never ever changes from person to person. I suppose I was chafing against dogma, and that dogma was of the core teachings of Buddhism which I don’t necessarily ascribe to. I’m all for the cessation of suffering and a lot of what the Buddha had to teach makes sense, but it’s one thing to see the morality as waymarkers versus seeing the morality as a pair of manacles tied to a chain and led through a machine.

It comes down to reading a buddhism book and not believing in buddhism. I suppose any book and faith could switch places. I have no interest in the Koran because I have no interest in Islam. I have no interest in the Torah because I have no interest in Judaism. And really, why exclude the 800 pound gorilla in the corner? I have no interest in the Bible because I have no interest in Christianity. The big three are stultifying. So rigid, so structured, so planned out. There is no soul in these faiths. Nothing to explore, nothing to discover. Everything is safe, paved, prepared and many of them have little rest areas in which you can get off the road and have a snack. Even as it appears Buddhism is very much like this as it turns out. Everyone reads the texts and then goes about mindlessly following because, really, what else is there? So you learn all these new words and vocabulary and you notice names that ring dim bells in the other texts you have read and over time you come to the stark realization that the author is beating around the bush and in a way, brought on a crisis of faith in a religion that I don’t believe in. For Buddhists it’s all about being and not-being, ultimately the realization of Nirvana by becoming enlightened. It’s all very important sounding but my problem is I know too much about the structure of the Universe. I have more than a passing idea about QM, Brane Theory, M-theory, String Theory, GUT, TOE, the list goes on and on. Ontology and Cosmology and, well, lets face it, I’m too smart for my own good. I’ve dabbled too much. I’ve in a way, seen too much and imagined too much. When I read about the cessation of dualities I can’t help but think of Bohm’s Implicate Order, and when I think of that I think about the potential of living in a holographic universe, which then brings up threads connected to the Everett Interpretation for QM, that each observation causes a split so that every potential possibility is realized. The raging undercurrent of all of it is, that as I read about the experiences this man, Mr. Ingram has with meditation I think about his brain. About how it processes information, so up along with this goes what I know of behaviorism, Jungian analysis, and the real thorn-patch of quantum neurodynamics. So I see all these learned sages going on and on about attaining this and that and getting teachers to teach you this and that and I find myself wondering "Don’t these people know that what they are seeking is actually extending their consciousness into the quantum foam that exists between their synaptic clefts?" And then I imagine David Bohm looking all sternly at me and giving me a ‘tsk tsk tsk’ gesture. If it wasn’t for anything else, I have Tielhard de Chardin on my shoulder like a little angel whispering in my ears about the noosphere. Perhaps Eckhard Tolle is a little devil on the other side, I haven’t made up my mind. But this is what gets me. How can anyone know what another persons spiritual path is going to be? Just because 2500 years of people all referring to each other and repeating each other lends some small credence that there is something worth exploring, there is a part of me that blanches when told that this is how it really is and that in a way I could obtain a map of what is to come and follow it.

I suppose in this sense, following a map is what dogma is all about. If you reject the map, or you don’t follow it, then you should feel bad or foolish because you aren’t doing it right. You aren’t doing it the way 2500 years of much wiser people have done it in the past. And how dare anyone buck a 2500 year tradition? Uh, well, hate to break it to you, but I’m kind of a pain in the ass if you haven’t noticed yet. I’ll ignore 2500 years of learned thinking if it means I get to explore on my own.

And so we get back to faith in a central pillar of spirituality. I knew when I lost my faith in Christianity, when I was 8 in the library of my grandmothers Presbyterian church, that my faith, that my entire spirituality would have to be formed not from things I could find to follow but made up of the experiences of my life. That the only really honest faith, the only true spiritual path I could ever know and feel any amount of strength in would have to spring up from deep within myself. I can’t hear God from without, I have to hear him (or more entertainingly, her) from within. And when I mean God, I don’t mean some objective father(mother) figure in the sky, somehow judging me as I lead my life, but really God as a handle for really what can only be regarded as my own soul. In that way I am a proud secular humanist. Secular in that I reject all faiths, humanist in that the only faith left is whatever I find when I turn my sentience inward. So in a way, coming back to this book, I had to stop reading it because it was pushing me too hard, offering a map, dogma, too strongly.

So I have questions, and the answers I seek seem at least on first glance to shimmer on the horizon like a mirage in front of the Buddhism banner, but then as I approach the mirage falls apart and I find myself wandering around again. Funny how much real human spirituality includes the notion of wandering around in a desert for a very long time. For that we can blame Moses, who apparently needed a map! Getting back to it, the best way for anyone to find, well, actually, I haven’t the foggiest idea what they should do. I know what I should do, and for me, more specifically and clearly, it’s exploration that has to continue forward without structure, without a map, without dogma. So I can’t read that book any longer.

Does that mean I will stop meditation? Absolutely not. There are answers in meditation, I just know it. I can feel it. But like everything in life, nothing comes free and easy. This pursuit will take me probably the rest of my life, but in the end I can sit back and laugh and notice that it was right all along because it was mine. True, it’s a frankensteins monster made up of things I’ve picked up from wiser men than I, but at least it’s my monster. This monster not only sings “Putting on the Ritz” very well, but also dances. I couldn’t very well leave out that reference, now could I?

This also pretty much concludes any other readings or pursuit in the direction of the banner of Buddhism for me. It’s not for me. While I respect Buddhists more than the other faiths, they all are hamstrung in the very same way. Too much structure, too much plan, too much dogma. In a way, when I ask myself “Am I doing it right?” the only honest answer is “Absolutely, because it can’t be any other way.” Now when I say I won’t follow the Buddha it doesn’t mean I won’t raid his tent for neat ideas and shiny bits. I rifled through Jesus Christ’s footlocker, I have no compunction with dashing the Buddhas tent and sorting out his goodies. It’s just, I’m drawing my own map, and I’m drawing it as I walk along, french curves, spirals and mad meandering squiggles all.

Faith is like a fingerprint. No two are alike. Dogma is meaningless because of this one central idea. How can you share what can’t be standardized? What you need is 30 kiloqualms over there. What is a kiloqualm? That’s a silly question! It’s obvious! (to me) 😉

On Death and Dying

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My experience with Death is limited to the loss of both my paternal and maternal grandmothers. I have stood witness to their passing as well as the ramifications that sprang from those events.

Both of their passing, and my curious individualistic faith has formed the basis for my perceptions and thoughts about death and dying. I lost my Christian faith many years ago. I was raised as a Christian protestant, in the Presbyterian tradition, but I have developed my own unique viewpoints as I have lived my life and experienced it.

There is no real death in this world. The death that we know is one integral step we must take on our path. Each life is filled with steps, and they all lead somewhere, we are born, we grow up, we lead our lives, and eventually we die. I approach death both with metaphors and metaphysics. My metaphorical approach to death is the bowling analogy. Life is like a game of bowling: the shoes to rent, the ball to fondle, the lane to look down and goals to reach. Our lives are lead as the bowl hurdles down the alley, precariously streaking along a certain path, never one we think we selected but the path that was meant for us, one that could reach the pins or reach the gutter. When the ball strikes the pins, we die. While the pins knock over, they do not stop existing, they are gathered up, reassembled, and the ball is returned for another game. We are the pins, we are the ball, our death is when the ball strikes the pins and the gathering up and reassembly is the job of God.

When our lives end, when the ball strikes the pins, we do not simply cease to exist. There is a part of us, the part of us that is aware of awareness. It’s more than simply our consciousness, as consciousness fits within the crib of our sentience, it is the part of us that is just as permanent as the rest of the surrounding Universe. This part is our soul. When we die, the soul is released from the body but it does not just evaporate into nothingness. The soul is purpose. The soul is both the selector of the path and the path itself.  In each of our lives our souls are driven to experience a certain path, and we take that path whether we are conscious of it or not. For most people, they remain asleep to their souls and consider the events of their lives to be chaotic and random. Other people who are on the path of awakening to enlightenment understand how their live is structured and respect and have faith in the path.

This touches upon Good and Evil. The path selected is a means unto itself. People attribute valuations of “Good” and “Evil” to explain events that defy logical or rational description. It is because the consciousness cannot apprehend true reality that we are lead to make this fundamental attribution error. We don’t know, and without any further proof to the contrary we affix a label to events, calling them “Good” or “Evil”. Then we rail at a God who allows “Evil” into our world. In each situation the “Evil” serves a purpose that we cannot apprehend with consciousness. There is no real “Good” or “Evil”. There are only souls being and making paths for our bodies to follow from lifetime to lifetime. Death is not “Evil”. Death is merely a part of the path, one step that leads to another. It is pointless to upset oneself over “Good” versus “Evil” as any upset to a souls path never is permanent, the soul will select a path to follow that it must, irrespective of free will to the contrary.

The matter of enlightenment still remains. When consciousness awakens and expands it can break free from Maya, the illusion of reality, and catch glimpses of the reality the soul exists in. The rewards of awakening are immediate: you can catch a sense to your path, you are filled with the serenity of knowing you are where you are supposed to be and that you are doing what you are meant to be doing. That you are on the path, your path. I can only imagine that when a person achieves true enlightenment, true awakening, their consciousness has a full view of their souls, an incredible thing to contemplate.

I also approach death analytically. I see the body as a very fragile yet exceptionally complicated tuner. When we are born, we don’t have the biological complexity required to fully ‘tune in on’ our souls, so from birth to about 3 years old we are wholly indistinguishable from our nearest evolutionary progenitors, the chimpanzees. After our 3rd year, our bodies show enough raw complexity that tuning the souls attached to our bodies can begin. This tuning goes on throughout life, constantly getting more and more refined. The soul uses the body at that point, it’s a type of symbiosis. As we age the soul begins to dominate the relationship. Our bodies aren’t immortal, they were never meant to be. They have accidents, become damaged, and erode. When the body is damaged or begins to die, the soul begins to depart the body. Death is not a pinnacle moment, it is a process – we call it dying and when people are dying, their souls gently slide out of tune with their bodies. Considering everything, this is quite possibly the most merciful part of life, especially when the body is trapped in extreme suffering. When I saw my loved ones progressing along the route of the dying I have seen this ‘tuning out’ for myself. The soul moves on, it cannot die because it is not physical – it is energetic. I have seen my loved ones alive and animate, and I have seen their bodies dead and inanimate. The dead bodies closely resemble my loved ones, but they appear different, without the spark of the soul, the body is just a shell. The connection of the soul to the body actually looks like something, when the soul is gone, you know it, when the soul is departing, you can see it go.

Death is not the end. Death is a step, a transformation, the soul released so it can discover a new body. It has been my experience that souls do not flit about like fireflies, but rather tend to ‘flock’ together with other souls. From lifetime to lifetime through reincarnation each of our souls touch each other over and over. The roles, the genders, the relationships, they are always in flux, but the souls always find ways to be reborn together, to ‘flock’ together, if not by selecting bodies that are near each other, they arrange the path to bring the bodies together over and over. Our human drama plays out over and over, we dance with the same people we’ve always danced with, from lifetime to lifetime.

So then what is the purpose of it all? Christians believe that death is the route to the afterlife. A place of perfection and perfect happiness. My experiences, even my past-life memories which I do have possession of, indicate to me that the afterlife is not the destination. It may be ‘a’ destination for some, but at least not for me and the souls that I recognize in this lifetime. I think instead that the purpose of life is experience. That souls enjoy Maya, they enjoy the challenge, the struggle and in some ways they enjoy the suffering. I believe it to be more a matter of a fascination with experience, the new situations and the learning that drives life.

If death isn’t the end of existence and souls are born together over and over again, then there is absolutely nothing to fear and death should be regarded as just another adventure in living. It is a natural and unavoidable destination for the body and a chance for your soul to continue on to find new ways and new experiences. It shouldn’t be full of sorrow, it should be a celebration of a life lived well. Paths selected, existence experienced, love enjoyed.