Hawaii (and the end of the world)

In a couple days, I make my first trip to Hawaii, to visit a friend I've known since my year at Yale 3 decades ago. He's recently moved to Hilo on the Big Island. So firstly: I've got no particular plans on what to do, and welcome any recommendations that readers may have, either by commenting or sending me an email.

My friend is among those who believe that our planet is rapidly advancing towards disaster, what with oil and resources running out, financial crises, Mayan predictions of apocalypse in 2012, etc. My visit is motivated by our long-lasting friendship, my current freedom from employment... and also by his encouragement that it may be now or never (i.e., that very soon there won't be enough oil for such casual globe-hopping).

One of the reasons my friend chose to move to Hilo is his belief that it's a good area to soon buy some land and set up a self-sustaining, off-the-grid retreat. He's got great skills in agriculture and construction and such, so if anyone is capable of creating a survival haven, it's him. Like myself, he's devoted to meditation practice, and all other means of examining the great questions of life. He's looking to connect with others who might have interest in buying/building such a retreat, so again, if readers have suggestions about "spiritual" groups on the island that we might visit, I'll appreciate any feedback.

As for myself, I question whether I have what it takes to live through planetary disasters. I love stories about stuff like Everest climbs... yet when I read a book or watch a movie about the heroic efforts that some people have made to survive in such conditions, I can't imagine myself doing so. I can see myself as more likely to relax into death by freezing, rather than struggling for hours and days to a miraculous rescue. Likewise, if civilization is truly collapsing, I may just go down with the ship, and leave it to hardier souls to play Adam and Eve.

Who knows: when faced with my demise, maybe some biological imperative will take over, and I'll become Survivorman. Still, I can't help but noticing that among friends and acquaintances, there are some who are passionate about living as long as possible through all challenges, and others who are more indifferent, ready to welcome life or death each day as it comes. And the ones who are prepared to die at any moment appear paradoxically happier.

It's interesting to watch my own mind as I hear from my friends who believe that the world will soon end. It certainly rattles my mind to think that I may be unlucky (?) enough to live during the endtimes. I mean, jeez, of all the millennia that human beings have crawled on this planet, is it too much to ask that my own little lifespan won't be the point where it all collapses?

I repeatedly remind myself of Buddha's teaching that everything is impermanent. Don't I realize that this body will most certainly turn to dust within a few short decades? And doesn't that mean that my world, anyway, is headed for dissolution without a doubt? Maybe my interest in apocalyptic predictions is a way to cautiously approach a consideration of my body's mortality. Maybe the end of the world is somehow easier to look at than my own death. (I do have a tendency to, e.g., not want to leave a party too early, since I want to be there in case something particularly fun and interesting happens. In that sense, the end of the universe may be psychologically easier to approach, since at least I'll know I won't be missing anything.)

Ultimately, everything leads back to this very moment as the fundamental truth. Maybe all of this appears out of emptiness, and returns to emptiness, over and over. Trying to hold onto the existence of a self or a world is a hopeless dream, and indeed the source of all suffering. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing to do... except do the best I can to connect clearly and compassionately with "just now."

The Guru Papers (Part 2)

The Guru Papers, written by Yoga teachers by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad in 1993, analyzes authoritarian systems, particularly in the "spiritual" subculture. For background on the book and my thoughts on it, please see my blog on The Guru Papers (Part 1). I've procrastinated almost a year before writing this "Part 2" to that post. Now that I'm unemployed, I've got time to tie up such loose ends.

People who follow gurus (as I did for many years) may become focused on them as the source of positive new experiences and understandings. When we reject that view, as Kramer and Alstad did in this book, we can fall to the other side, over-emphasizing the guru as the source of unhealthy dependence. In either case, we may gloss over the fundamental importance of how we keep our own minds.

In "The Assault on Reason" chapter (pg 73 of Guru Papers), K&A write:

It is commonly assumed that the nature of spirituality is not only fundamentally different from ordinary experience, but that this difference is vastly superior. ... This age-old separation of the spiritual from the worldly is deeply embedded in all of civilization. We view this split as tragic, and at the core of the fragmentation prevalent in the contemporary human psyche.

The authors' use of passive voice ("It is commonly assumed") is a red flag. Who is assuming this? Each individual who holds ideas about "spirituality" as superior to ordinary life can examine and question those beliefs. Yet over and over, K&A write as if the fundamental source of the problem is a "system" or "civilization." As if we as individuals are victims, helpless to avoid the assumptions imposed on us from outside.

In fact, each of us can look into the matter for ourselves. Examining our own minds, we can discover that the disconnect of spiritual/worldly is made by our thinking. Maybe this strategy is profoundly more efficient than trying to change "society" or "the system" or "common assumptions."

When I heard the authors speak last year, Alstad in particular sounded like a doctrinaire socialist. She spoke of us living in a "class system," meaning that the external circumstances of our birth determine our life situation. This perspective leads to political views that minimize the importance of individual freedom and choice. In the spiritual realm, it's a mindset that focuses on the evils of authoritarian religious organizations, while missing the great power of our personal choices.

The book is permeated with this perspective. From the chapter "Healing Crippled Self-Trust," p. 154:

The most extreme form of mental control occurs when the authority is trusted completely and becomes the center of one's identity. Sadly, society and parents insidiously put out messages from childhood on that others know what's best. Many people are deeply conditioned to expect and hope some outside agency power, or person will solve their problems. Letting go of expecting or even wanting this is difficult, partially because of what one is left with is oneself, and all of one's limitations.

In our earliest years, of course parents encourage our trust and tell us they know what's best. The adults generally do know what's needed for survival, far moreso than the toddler. It's not hard to see why natural selection favors the tendency of children to blindly follow the authority of parents (I've discussed this evolutionary perspective elsewhere). And of course it's difficult to move beyond this child-like view; if mentally maturing were easy, then everyone would do it.

In the fullness of time, some of us do choose to stop being followers, and gradually practice seeing things for ourselves. In this process, is it really helpful to blame our dependency on "insidious" society and parents? Do we really need to depend on our parents or gurus or society to allow us to be free-thinkers? Or do we claim this freedom for ourselves?

This issue arose in February on Rituals of DisEnchantment, a blog that has at times examined abuses in the "Siddha Yoga" organization founded by Swami Muktananda and later led by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. An anonymous commenter on Feb 28 1:17 PM wrote:

It seems that over the years many people only put up with or accepted the steady stream of Siddha Yoga BS because of the intensity of their mystical experiences, and or no other reason.

There's a critical point that's missing in this comment. It's not simply that the followers' intense experiences inevitably led to their acceptance of BS from the guru and ashram leaders. There are several distinct steps in the process. Many of us indeed got amazing experiences. Then the guru and ashram authorities told us that these special meditation experiences were "mystical," and encouraged us to view them as vastly superior to ordinary life. We failed to question what we were told, and consequently believed in this categorization. Our own belief that our experiences were "mystical" and dependent on the guru resulted in our acceptance of all sorts of abuses, deceptions, and BS.

Our own beliefs are the key link in the chain, the link that's most powerful, and most under our control. If we want to escape the BS, we don't need to change the gurus' authoritarian system. We just need to question our own belief in it.

Just as children sometimes need blind faith in their parents, maybe there are millions of people who sometimes want and need an authority to follow. It's not my job to change the system that serves these people. If I encounter someone who's ready to question their dependence on authority, I can try to encourage free-thinking. But ultimately, each individual makes the choice for himself.

I can make my best effort to believe in my own experience, to avoid being a blind follower of others, and communicate these personal efforts as honestly as I can. Beyond that, I can let the "system" take care of itself.

Comic Guru To Make Cosmic Splash

This morning I explored the site of Guru Pitka, alter ego of Mike Meyers in the comedy The Love Guru, due for release in mid-June. Love Guru is pushing the envelope of web-based marketing, with Pitka promoting his fictional self through networks from facebook to beliefnet.

Just as Matt Damon's Rounders in 1998 heralded the poker boom, Love Guru may foretell a surge of mainstream interest in the Eastern spirituality subculture. We'll see in a couple months. Meanwhile, I'd say it's worth a moment to visit the site for its laugh-out-loud satire, technical virtuosity, and psychedelic visuals that gave me flashbacks to old Salvia trips. Let us know what you think.

Publicity for Meyers/Pitka will be goosed by controversy. As reported in today's Guruphiliac blog, defenders of Guruism are urging theater owners to "stop distributing or screening the movie till Paramount has made necessary changes to the movie, so that it will not hurt the feelings of the worldwide spiritual and Hindu community."

Therein lies the more profound side of the story. I see meditation as a process of curiosity and exploration, of unconditionally questioning all my ideas and opinions. If I'm sincerely questioning my ideas, only then can I laugh at them. Only then can I see what a great joke it is to assume that Truth can be contained by ideas.

Everyone engages in inquiry, right up to the point where it bumps into deeply-held personal beliefs. Inquiring and believing are mutually exclusive. An ancient sage (or maybe it was Woody Allen) said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." I'd add to that, "... or tell him your beliefs."

In a live-and-let-live society, we must defend individuals from assault, threats, and deliberate deception. But there's no fundamental right to be free from hurt feelings; questioning dogmas will always ruffle feathers. Laughing at beliefs reveals them for what they are: no more than beliefs. It loosens our grip on what we think we understand; it leads to recognition of how profoundly we simply don't know. From that perspective, all pretensions of knowing what it's all about... are pretty damn funny.

Electability

I've got a special connection to yesterday's Pennsylvania primary, having grown up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. My family still lives there, and some of them are close to Governor Rendell. As I wrote in a previous posting, I'm a Libertarian voter myself, but as I follow the Democratic contest, I'm rooting for Obama.

Why am I so viscerally on Obama's side? One thing I've noticed as I watch my mind: I'm revolted each time Clinton or her supporters argue that she should be nominated on the basis of "electability." As best as I can figure, here's why:

Imagine that you're going to a party, hoping to connect with someone for friendship or romance. There are two strategies you could follow. (1) You could speculate about, e.g., what most women are looking for in a man. Then you try to conform yourself to what you think they like. Or (2) You could express your authentic, natural personality, and let the rest take care of itself. If someone is attracted, it'll be to who you really are, rather than to a mask you're wearing.

Same thing when applying for a job. You can imagine what an employer is looking for and then try to fit yourself into that mold. Or you can simply communicate what your real talents are. If you're really qualified for the job, simple honesty is enough to get you hired.

Is it too much to ask of our candidates, that they take the more honest path? That they truthfully tell us about their skills, values, and insights... then let the chips fall where they may? Campaigns should be based on honest communication, at least as a default position! If you're a candidate with ideas that you believe in, and insights you think are good for the country, shouldn't you be concentrated on articulating them? Sharing sincere ideas with the population is beneficial regardless of whether you win this particular election. Indeed, championing ideas may be more important than your personal success.

Every time Clinton opens her mouth about "electability," it comes at the expense of communicating ideas and information about what's best for the country and the world. I don't give a damn if you're "electable"; I care what you stand for!

Buddhism teaches that all things are constantly changing. This means that no one knows who is or isn't electable. The best anyone can do is examine public opinion and voting patterns of the past, and then make assumptions about how they'll apply in the future. It's a guessing game. (God knows that if Clinton were really so skilled at judging electability, she wouldn't have lost so many primary contests so badly.) There's just one matter that candidates can speak to with absolute authority: their own beliefs and values.

In the midst of this world of relative morality and situational ethics, one value that I still find worth supporting is honesty. Also, I've got some person history with politics-as-psychodrama. I voted in 1984; I was 24, and it was my first US election after years in India. I had no enthusiasm for either major party candidate, but in an effort to support the lesser of evils, I voted for Mondale. When he lost 49 states, I felt sick. I had voted for someone I didn't believe in, and didn't even get the satisfaction of a close race. I decided to base my politics purely on conscience (which usually means voting Libertarian), rather than speculating about who'll win.

There's a whole branch of Yoga based simply on acting each moment without attachment to the results. My life goes better when I focus only on which action is correct, rather than what I imagine will be immediately popular. I'll trust a politician who articulates what he/she feels is true and beneficial, and leaves it to God and the pundits to worry about who gets elected.

The Crisis of Disappearing American Jobs

I’ve been a computer consultant for decades. During the “tech bubble” of the late 90s, when programmers like me were in great demand, I started working at the San Francisco corporate offices of Gap Inc. Ever since, they've paid me well to design MS Excel spreadsheets, automated with vba code. Aside from a couple of short intervals between contracts, these assignments have been my consistent meal ticket.

A new management team has decided to cut costs by outsourcing all programming work to India. My last day is a week from Friday. Aside from being a possible milestone in my own life… the movement of jobs off-shore is a big issue in the current political debate. I’ll be blogging about the political, economic, and spiritual significance of the phenomenon. It may take a few postings to do so, but I’ll at least get started today. Anyone who disagrees with my views is always invited to comment, letting me know where you think my thought-process has gone wrong.

By sending the work off-shore, Gap is losing my proven skills, and my years of experience with their specific needs. They’re losing my availability to present my work face-to-face, with no language barrier. Due to these factors, it may take 3 or more workers in India to replace me. But since the Indians work for a fraction of what I get paid, Gap can hire several of them to replace me, and still save significant money.

The city of San Francisco requires local businesses to provide certain benefits to all employees, such as sick leave and health benefits. This translates into a few extra dollars per hour in costs that get passed on to the Gap. So even if multiple Indians working long hours run up combined salaries that rival my own, the cost of these mandates could tip the balance, making outsourcing the rational choice for my employer.

Why are the Indians willing to work for so much less compensation than I am? If I demand $50/hour to write computer code, why are they doing it for the rupee equivalent of $10? Mustn’t we conclude that their lives are far less comfortable than my own? That the $10 is more vital to them than the $50 is to me?

A little examination reveals that the correlation between money and happiness is non-linear. (Even the Bible says something like that, though in less precise terms.) For someone struggling to provide a family with the most basic necessities of life, each dollar earned is a meaningful boost to his happiness (or decrease to his suffering, if you prefer). But once we get a beyond having to worry about paying the rent, greater earnings, perhaps surprisingly, have little to no effect on happiness.

To be honest, I don’t expect this job loss to downgrade my lifestyle at all. But who knows. Maybe I’ll never find another job at this level. Maybe I’ll have to spend time and effort learning new skills, making myself more productive and useful, in order to get a new job. While I’m retraining, maybe I’ll have to give up a few trips to Vegas, or downgrade my Netflix subscription. It’s highly improbable that the effect will be much more serious than that.

I may lose some luxuries, while a few Indians get help climbing out of poverty. Who could possibly be such a narcissist, such a jingoist, as to consider this a bad thing??

(Yes, of course, many Americans getting laid off are worse off financially than I, and they must give up more than luxuries. That’s irrelevant to my point, which is that the typical working-class American losing his job is wealthy compared to the Indians who are gaining them.)

So what’s with the furor in the US, particularly among Democratic primary voters, against globalization and outsourcing? Why are the candidates demogoging about free trade causing jobs to “disappear”… as if those jobs cease to exist when they leave our borders? (Tangentially: at an Obama rally, a supporter actually ranted that NAFTA is responsible for his job getting outsourced to India… and Barack had to gently remind him that India isn’t in North America.)

Kindly contemplate this issue, and I’ll share more of my own thoughts in an upcoming post.

[In an unrelated matter: I have a sneaking suspicion that some readers of this blog may be interested in a new documentary, “Peyote to LSD: Psychedelic History,” airing on the History Channel, Saturday April 19 at 10 PM.]

Is Enlightenment a Brain-State?

Spiritual and philosophical forums are buzzing about the story of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, has dedicated her life to brain research, inspired by her brother's schizophrenia. As irony would have it, she herself suffered a rare form of stroke in 1996. In addition to severe physical and mental damage, the brain hemorrhage seemed to temporarily short-circuit the sense of a separate self. At moments on the day of the stroke, she literally couldn't perceive a boundary between her body and the world.

Taylor recovered and wrote My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. Last month, she gave a talk about the experience; the 20-minute video is freely available on Google, the TED site, and elsewhere. Her description of the stroke has striking similarities to tales of altered states of numerous meditators and mystics.

And there's the rub: what does this tell us about those big, special experiences that so many of us in the "spiritual" sub-culture treasure or strive for? I sense that many commenters are afraid that acknowledging the similarity between Taylor's stroke-induced state and others' meditation-induced epiphanies... will somehow negate the holiness or transcendental value of spiritual/religious practice.

It's much like the ongoing debate about whether states induced by psychoactive substances can be equated with mystical awakening. Hell, now or in the near future, scientists can stick some electrodes into your brain and reliably create religious ecstasies. Maybe, just like the oil companies are hiding the patents for gas-free cars, the Catholic Church and other threatened powers are keeping this brain-electrode technology from the masses.

I've been contemplating all this in the wake of 4+ days of intensive Zen sitting retreat earlier this month. I'd pondered how much has changed in the direction and intention I bring to these retreats, since I did my first one 20 years ago. Back then, Zen was a matter of throwing every ounce of my energy into piercing through ordinary life, into ... I dunno, something else. Something with more meaning, more profundity, more understanding. Like pornography, I figured I'd know it when I see it.

I've met so many "seekers" who cultivate this striving for enlightenment or awakening or whatever. So many teachers and traditions encourage an intense desire for liberation, claiming that you'll find it only when you really, really want it, to the exclusion of all else.

Meditation is different for me now; it's like just sitting. If Zen means anything to me, it means keeping a mind that explores, examines, questions everything. Questioning the most treasured beliefs, the most obvious assumptions. Asking what this thing is that's seeking "more." What is this mind that thinks, "I want to get something"? Formal sitting practice is an ultra-simple situation for perceiving this moment. For inquiring into why I do whatever it is I'm doing. For what? For who?

It's less like trying to win a prize or achieve a goal, and more like looking into a mirror. You generally don't look in the mirror with the idea of getting something. Rather, you're just taking a moment to see things as they are. Pausing to look and wonder -- it reveals a perspective that's different from the merry-go-round of constantly wanting something.

Middle-aged people like me sometimes walk into a room... and then completely forget why we went there. Isn't life itself like that? We can get so entangled with the mechanics of our needs, wants, and habits, that we disconnect from our original reason for living. When I do something... why do it? Keeping that question has become my intention and direction.

Practice doesn't have to be about getting a special state or experience, about trying to fix or improve life. It can simply reflect life.

It's like being in a train station, and deciding to hang out there for the day. After a while, you get absent-minded, and end up boarding a train that takes you here or there. Eventually, you realize what you've done; you never intended to ride the train, you were just sitting at the station. So you go back to where you started, stay there for a while, till again you lose your focus and find yourself riding a train somewhere, and once again realize it and return to the original point.

Again and again, returning to just this. "Mystical" doesn't necessarily mean striving for a special mind-state through any means. Maybe you follow the striving for years; as long as wanting appears, there's no sense in denying it. But it's not mandatory to always want something more or different or better. At any moment, we may pause and look into ordinary, everyday life. Into that unspeakable thing that we're experiencing right now.

Spiritual DVD Reviews

Last month, I watched a couple of "spiritual documentaries" on DVD. Aliens From Spaceship Earth, though available from UFOTV, isn't about space aliens. It's a collection of video clips from a wide range of famous gurus from the 70s. I got it from Netflix. Closer Than Close films seven friends who meet to discuss their quest for enlightenment 'n' stuff. Their discussions are intercut with footage of a few teachers who seem to think they've found It. The DVD is available from PoetryInMotionFilms.

Aliens From Spaceship Earth, filmed in 1977, is peppered with music, graphics, and narration that are beyond cheesy. Folk singer Donovan strums his guitar, walks down a beach, gushes about the world's great spiritual awakening, and introduces segments on lots of big names: Muktananda, Satchidananda, Guru Maharaji, Hare Krishnas, and on and on.

If you can stomach its dated style and terrible production values, Aliens is absolutely wonderful as a "time capsule" of that sub-culture. It took me back to a time and mind from my youth. I spent four years with Muktananda, and this DVD has rare footage of him from his early days in the West. For each of the teachers included in this doc, there are talks and interviews with the guru, and clips of their swooning followers and "scene."

I guess I'd forgotten how much different things were in those days. Everyone was so spaced out and hippy-dippy. Almost as if these meditation traditions were viewed as strictly a means to get high.

The segment on Ram Dass was a highlight. I saw him in person in the mid-80s, but here he's shown in an earlier persona, much more stoned-out. Whatever else you say about the guy, he was a remarkable speaker. Elizabeth Claire Prophet was another standout. Her teaching is incomprehensible, but she's captivating in her creepiness.

As for the followers of these gurus: they're goofy, irrational, and naive. Still, I have to respect them for being the advance scouts for the big wave of Eastern spirituality hitting America. They made embarrassing mistakes, like all pioneers. They were like the first troops to land on D-day, taking huge casualties, but making it easier for those who came later.

Aliens swallows the gurus' claims whole, as so many of us did in the beginning. It exemplifies the blind adulation that led to so many human train wrecks in America's spritual underbelly. In the decades that have passed, maybe we've moved a bit beyond such blind faith.

Closer Than Close illustrates this change in the spiritual zeitgeist. The seekers in this DVD are professional and college student-types, soberly discussing enlightenment and the meaning of life. They speak of "enlightenment" as some special state to be sought in the future, rather than what's already appeared in this moment. I don't share their views... but there's something moving about the sincerity that these subjects bring to the filmed discussions. I can respect them for simply stopping to question what life is or should be about. Maybe that willingness to question is the important thing, and the rest is just details.

The "teachers" profiled in Closer were less impressive. It was initially interesting to hear the stories about how meditation and inquiry had connected with their lives. But they each seemed to go on too long, and get too theoretical in attempting to make sense of the experiences they'd had. It sometimes came off as lots of talk trying to explain the unexplainable. It was sometimes unclear how their stories connected to practical, ordinary, everyday life.

There was subtle "spiritual materialism" in how these teachers described their big experiences. I wondered if this was connected to their paths being too solitary. It's strange for me to say this, because I always look at meditation practice as a matter of personal intention. Most important is believing in ourselves, not following a guru or group. And yet the teachers on this DVD may suffer from being unconnected to a tradition.

We don't need a tradition to get moments of wonderfully clear mind. My formal meditations are personal, simply devoting myself to "What am I?" But each time we discard old concepts and identifications, and find a moment of clarity... we can always fall into newer, subtler attachments. We give up some material wants, but hold onto spiritual wants. We get less attached to stuff, but more attached to beautiful concepts. Or to stillness, or to freedom. Or to "enlightenment."

We can find truth and clarity on our own. Yet maybe working with a teacher has helped "keep me honest." That is, each time I get an idea that I've attained something, there's someone there to "hit" that attachment, helping me to return again and again to simple questioning. To just this moment, to "what am I doing right now?" The teachers in these videos sometimes seemed to have awakened from some common human attachments... only to fall into ideas of "I've got something."