Tribes, Part 3

At the end of last year, I wrote two posts on our deep human tendency towards tribal identification. As is my habit, I've procrastinated several months on completing that series, until now.

I started thinking about this a couple of years ago, when I went back East for Passover. Customarily, Jews gather on that holiday for a ceremonial meal ("seder"), making it a traditional time to spend with family. I hadn't done so consistently since I left home at 18, but I was there this time for the sake of seeing my mother, and numerous old, home-town friends from my youth.

As I chatted with a few of these friends, I searched for topics of conversation that I'd find interesting to connect with them about, since our lives had led us to such different experiences and situations and ideas over the decades. I recalled that one of them had practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM) back in the 70s, so I asked, and we talked about that for a few minutes.

That led to her asking me about my history with meditation, since everyone knew about my years with a guru, in an Indian ashram, and practicing at a Zen center. They listened with apparent interest and some questions. Then, one of them asked, "Can you do these things and maintain your Jewish identity?"

The question confused and annoyed me. What's with this "identity" crap? I'd been inquiring into this "self" my whole life, and the one honest and satisfying answer that's appeared is "Don't Know." All ideas about "identity" seem to arise from ignoring the clear and direct experience of not knowing, replacing it with some idea of "self" we're told of by our tribal peers and authorities.

I've always wanted to avoid following the crowd, or believing what authorities tell me. Maybe my particular karma just makes my mind more suitable for doubting than for believing. I never like to follow the beliefs of the group. Even at a rock concert, when the star tries to get everyone to cheer or applaud together, my mind mutters, "I'll not be manipulated!" At sporting events, when everyone is rooting for one team, I root for the other. Hell, when I visited Gettysburg as a kid, I'd secretly root for the South.

It's possible that all of this is an unconscious way to balance a tendency to be a blind follower, if I don't make an effort to avoid it. I say this not just because of the time I spent with an guru. It also comes from watching my mind in group situations. I note, for example, that when I meditate or chant or do some practice in a group situation, it's practically automatic for me to follow along with what everyone else is doing. It's much much easier than following a discipline alone.

I don't have the slightest interest in maintaining a Jewish identity (or Buddhist identity, or any other sort). In fact, I make positive efforts to avoid holding ideas of who I am. Maybe that's why I got so annoyed by the question at the seder. It was like someone talking about beer when I'm in AA.

I've got to remind myself that even if it's my karma to practice "What am I? Don't Know," most people seem to more naturally adopt a tribal identity. And I can understand how nature in it's wisdom makes most people like that; the species not only needs followers (in order to survive), but may well need more of them than envelope-pushers.

I guess the way forward is to continue mixing with all sorts of people, and I'll naturally encounter countless ones who annoy me by advocating a tribal identity. And I'll try to pay attention to how my mind moves when confronted by the issue.

Hawaiian Trip

I'm back from my trip to Hawaii. I hit some of the great tourist spots: marvelled at the view from the top of Mauna Loa (world's largest volcano), gingerly hiked across solidified lava flows, and communed with the fishes while snorkeling at Captain Cook's Cove. I met various old hippies who had "dropped out" to simple farming lives on the island, awaiting the collapse of modern society.

I'm always just as interested in inner travels as outer ones. So I was intrigued to find that the visionary plant Salvia Divinorum grows well in Hawaii. Over the last decade, I've had a number of mind-exploding experiences smoking the herb, which I try to describe on the Salvia Stories page of my personal site. (My little claim to net fame is that if you Google "Salvia Stories," my trip reports come up #1.)

Aside from smoking, an alternate way to trip on Salvia is to chew fresh leaves. Growing the plant isn't so easy where I live, and besides, I've never had the green thumb. So I'd never had a chance to have a good trip with the chewing method, not till Hawaii.

My 3 friends and I gathered in a dim room with a tray of big leaves picked from the plants minutes before. We shared an intention to be open and awake to whatever the plant showed us, and began chewing. I found the taste awful, and holding the Salvia-filled saliva in my mouth (so the magical molecule could get absorbed below the tongue) to be disgusting.

After a little more than 5 minutes, I was ready to give up and spit it out with regrets. Then suddenly the effects took hold. Initially, it was something like a psychedelic, with swirling body feelings, and translucent mandala visuals. That lasted just a few seconds, till it grew into something unique.

I was trying to stay quiet, so as not to disturb my friends' experiences. I'd usually find it easy to be silent and introverted when I choose to be, but in this case, I somehow couldn't stop uttering moans of amazement, even verbalizing a monstrous "WOW!"

As best I can remember and describe... I saw/felt a tangle of sensations and thoughts that make up the sense of being an individual in a body. It's like strands wound together so tightly that they seem like a solid thing. More than that, this sense of bodily existence is so constant and obvious that I ordinarily don't even notice it.

I have a dim recollection of that tangle unwinding, deconstructing. The thoughts and sensations resolved back to some unknowable source, dissolving all trace of a self. After a minute, I could open my eyes and perceive the world with near normalcy... except that identity and separation were noticeably and marvelously absent. The 4 of us spent 15-20 minutes laughing and babbling about the unspeakable space we were sharing.

I vaguely remembered the physical body, but without the feeling it was "me." When my friend lit a cigarette and passed it to me (no, kids, this isn't a good idea), I couldn't imagine how to relate to my body. But somehow, my arm moved and my hand took the cig; it would have been no more amazing if I'd been able to move mountains with my will.

One of the nicest parts of the trip was the interval in which I was aware of my surroundings, but before the sense of self returned. For at least those minutes, I was able to look at my friends and only have concern for them, unfiltered and unhindered by the slightest thought of "me."

Novella for Former Ashramites

I always enjoy how this blog gives me the chance to virtually meet folks with similar interests. Most recently, I got an email from Annie Gauger, introducing her own site. She writes, "I was wondering if you would be interested in sharing my blog with your readers. It's actually not a blog but a venue for fiction. I am publishing a novella in seven page increments every Wednesday. Intended audience: former ashramites and other yogis. Please remember that the story starts at the bottom, not the top."

I'm happy to pass on this link to Annie's site: The Sad Guru & Other Stories.

Universal Religion?

One of my favorite forums for online philosophical discussion is the NonDualPhil (NDP) Yahoo Group. This morning I found an intriguing post about the commonality of all religion. The original source material is a booklet written by Dr. Frank Morales in 2005, entitled Does Hinduism Teach That All Religions Are The Same? A Philosophical Critique of Radical Universalism. "Radical Universalism" here is the belief -- common in Hindu/Indian spiritual groups -- that all religions are equivalent, like different paths to the same mountaintop.

The NDP post quotes Manju Gupta's approving review of Morales' essay, published online a few days ago as Hinduism: The universal religion. Here's the response that I posted to NDP today:

> Manju Gupta wrote...
> It is this radical universalism that promotes acceptance of all
> religions as same in order to lead us to unity behind our
> religious strivings—it is immaterial what religion one follows
> or whether one goes to a church, mosque or a temple.

This type of thinking is better than nothing... but why only a church, mosque, or temple? Why not a supermarket, casino, or whorehouse? It's hardly "radical universalism" if praying in a mosque is considered more True and Holy than, say, a round of miniature golf.

It's why I personally don't relate to much of this Indian-style teaching: the failure to note the Truth of ordinary, everyday life.

> One needs to have full faith in the religion that one has
> adopted to reach the highest truth.

The implication is that our just-now experience is somehow inferior (since it's not the "highest" truth, which must be "reached" through so-called religion). Why hold that idea?

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."

The Difference Between a Church and a Casino

I spent last weekend in Reno, gambling with my buddy Bill. On the way back, we stopped in Sacramento for lunch with Clyde (co-creator of the Do No Harm website/movement). Clyde remarked that in reading my personal site, he'd wondered what the connection was between my interest in various "spiritual" traditions, and my video poker habit. It got me thinking once again about the dynamics of Religion and Gambling. I've long thought that the friction between these two realms comes not from their differences, but their similarities.

Back in 2001, I posted to the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup:

An ex-Mormon friend of mine ... noted that the two states that build the most garish "temples" (Nevada & Utah) happen to be right next to each other.
Religion & gambling are dependent on the fact that life is filled with unknowns ("When you die, where do you go?", "Will the board pair on the river?", etc, etc); since most of us aren't satisfied with not knowing, there's an attraction to such things. Just as movies etc put a frame around life in order to bring it down to a size we can grasp, churches & casinos put a "frame" around the unknown so we can approach it in our individual ways.
Generally, people approach the unknown with awe & reverence in church, or with playfulness in a casino, & often with desire in either location. At higher limits in the casino (or in low-limit religion), this distinction may blur...
It's my chosen belief that the Golden Rule operates in life as clearly as probability operates at the tables. But since there's no frame around our existence, the variance is monstrous, & the long term is longer than we can imagine.

Most people have a similar mind in a casino as in a church. They're ready to make sacrifices, in the hope that some unseen magic force (God or Luck) will ultimately grant them rewards that outweigh the costs. And they have an amazing ability to hold onto this hope, even when all logic and evidence contradict it. The old joke goes: the difference between a church and a casino is that when people pray in a casino, they really mean it.

As with religion, I approach gambling in a way that outwardly appears the same as the majority, but with a different intention. Sure, I'm affected by the roller-coaster of short-term luck, but my focus is on making the best decision in each situation, understanding that in the long-term, fluctuations even out, and you end up with precisely what you deserve.

I have faith that it works the same way for life-in-general: do good action and get happiness, do bad action and get suffering. This clear cause-and-effect can be glimpsed only occasionally, only from the widest perspective. Casino gambling, when done with discipline and mathematical understanding, makes it a little easier to see the ultimate justice of cause-and-effect play itself out. That's because, when compared with life, gambling has a simple and precise way of keeping score. Also, the "long-term," where ups-and-downs even out, requires months or years in gambling, as compared with infinite lifetimes in the real world.

Learning to play video poker with mathematical precision (which allows me to play at roughly even odds) isn't that difficult. Anyone of average intelligence could do it. I've found, though, that large numbers of casino-goers can't even grasp that one can apply critical thinking skills to gambling in a meaningful way. They can't or won't accept that we have some control over our gambling destiny, that there are alternatives to just praying for luck.

All of what I've said about gambling is perfectly analogous to my perspective on spiritual practice or life. As the alcoholics say, we need to have the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and can't control. If I can accept and make peace with the big questions of existence (that I don't know where I come from, where I'm going, why I'm here, or who I am), I can leave the mystery to take care of itself. I can direct all my attention and energy to the one thing that I can control, my true job: responding to this very moment with whatever clarity and compassion I can manage.

Different people do spiritual practices in ways that outwardly look the same. But there can be profound differences in intention. Are we, for instance, doing sitting meditation with the belief that some outside being or force will magically come to our aid? Or do we direct our effort and attention purely to how we keep our own thinking and behavior, moment to moment?

As I once put it in a dharma talk:

... the world is filled with spiritual teachers anxious to tell you their ways to beat the system. They say, "If you follow me and my way, you'll get all sorts of good feelings inside and good situations outside; if not now, then in the future. My way will grant you benefits infinitely greater than the effort you put into it."
In other words, they teach the possibility of getting good stuff that you don't earn, and don't deserve. This is a beautiful idea, and it's given beautiful names, such as "God's grace," etc. I've noticed that the largest crowds seem to form around those teachers who say that small efforts can bring big rewards.
In our school, the teaching different. Dae Soen Sa Nim says, "Big effort, big attainment. Small effort, small attainment. No effort, no attainment." How can someone considered a great teacher get away with promising so little? He also says, "Understanding cannot help you." This means that life offers no tricks or shortcuts; and if you really understand that there are no shortcuts, even that's not a shortcut.
Maybe it sounds awful to give up such beautiful hopes. But when you completely give up hope, you're left with something extraordinary: a clear view of the present moment. What do you see? What do you hear? What are you doing right now? That's much better than hope.
There's a story about this in a Carlos Castaneda book. Carlos is walking with don Juan and stops for a moment to tie his shoe. Just then, a boulder falls from the cliffs above and crashes to the ground a few feet ahead. "My God!" Carlos says. "If I hadn't had to tie my shoe, that would have killed us!"
"That's true," replies don Juan. "And maybe someday you'll stop to tie your shoe, and because you stop a boulder will kill you. You don't know when the boulder will fall, so the most important thing for you to do is to tie your shoe impeccably."

Hillary & Barack (& Lyndon & Martin)

I've been recently addicted to TV news shows about the presidential primaries. It's great entertainment, even though I don't have a horse in this race. Come November, I expect to vote Libertarian, regardless of who's running for the Dems and Repubs.

(Since I'm a member of the tiny Libertarian Party, and make small donations to them, it wasn't so surprising that I got a call from the state Party a few months ago, asking if I myself would run for the California legislature. I didn't seriously consider it; running for office -- let alone actually serving -- seems like torture. My only regret is that I won't get a chance to use the perfect campaign slogan: "Vote for Stuart, Because the Entire Universe is an Illusion Anyway!")

When I last registered to vote, I did so as an independent. Most parties don't allow independents to vote in the California primary, so I can't vote Libertarian. The Democratic Party is an exception, so I am considering voting for Barack Obama. Here's why.

In a New Hampshire debate, Hillary Clinton famously said, "Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." I believe her point was that Obama, like Martin Luther King, is inspiring to many ordinary citizens. That's all fine and good (Clinton implies), but such inspiration becomes real only when it's made into law by skillful politicians like Johnson. Clinton is suggesting we support her based on her mastery of these political skills.

Clinton's comment reveals her lack of appreciation that laws are only one way to change society. The federal government has huge power: piles of money, and control of lots of men with guns. When they pass a law, it's an attempt to use these powers, from the top-down, to force citizens to behave better.

A civilized society depends on people refraining from violence, theft, and lies. Just as war is sometimes necessary to control tyrants, we sometimes need the force of law to control the worst elements of society from killing and stealing etc. And like war, the terrible power of federal laws ought to be a last resort, not the first or only option considered.

ML King represents the other way to transform society, from the bottom-up. He helped to change the hearts and minds of millions of ordinary people. King taught and inspired people to look to the content of one's character, rather than skin color. He deserves major credit for the fact that nowadays, there's a solid national consensus against racial discrimination. It's true that many Democrats still passionately support racial discrimination (as long as it's called by a different name), but thankfully that's a minority of the overall population.

King improved society with the power of his words and the example of his actions. His was a non-violent method, inspiring people to change voluntarily. The use of force and threats (as in wars or law-making) may be a very efficient way to get what you want, but it always has negative consequences. To the greatest extent possible, we ought to prefer the non-violent method exemplified by King.

Now consider what Clinton said: "Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." She's suggesting that the top-down force of federal law is more real than the bottom-up power of inspiring the masses. I'm suspicious that after all her years in Washington, she thinks of passing laws as the only way to help society, and is tone-deaf to the possibility of voluntary, non-violent, bottom-up change.

Recall Clinton's attempt to reform health care during her husband's term. She made no reasonable attempt to teach or learn from the public on the issue. It was as if she considered ordinary people too stupid to understand the problem and contribute to the solution. She relied on closed-door meetings to produce a plan that no one understood. If instead she had tried to educate and inspire the citizenry in a bottom-up way, it may not have immediately resulted in exactly the policies she wanted... but in the long-run, it would have been a far more effective strategy.

This issue is well covered by the Jan 28 New Yorker article "The Choice." In it, George Packer writes of Clinton's MLK remark, "Clinton was simply expressing her belief that the Presidency is more about pushing difficult legislation through a fractious Congress than it is about transforming society." He quotes Obama saying that the Presidency "involves having a vision for where the country needs to go... and then being able to mobilize and inspire the American people to get behind that agenda for change." Contrast that to Clinton's reply that the job of President is like that of a "chief executive officer" who has "to be able to manage and run the bureaucracy."

As a computer programmer, my style is to create simple little solutions to tiny problems, then slowly build them up and link them together to produce tools that help users in big ways. I have a natural affinity for bottom-up solutions. And as a youngest child, I'm well experienced in getting pushed around. This leads to my preference for the Libertarian-style of inspiring people through vision, rather than forcing values on us with laws. Neither of the Democratic candidates embodies Libertarian ethics, but of the two, my heart is with Obama.

If anyone wants to leverage their own political power by trying to sway my vote one way or the other, kindly do so in the Comments section. Before Tuesday!

Tom Cruise Scientology Weirdness

There are a few videos floating around the net recently, of Tom Cruise doing his Scientology preaching. They're all pretty bizarre, but for the ultimate, go to the gawker.com Tom Cruise Freedom Medal Award Ceremony page and check out video #4, the one where he's wearing a medal. What do you think? Sometimes reality is weirder than any satire you can imagine.

I've pondered this video for a few days. I can't pinpoint what Cruise says that makes it so creepy. It's less about the words than his overall manner, how it projects such absolute certainty in his righteousness.

I personally try to keep a questioning mind, including the big question: "What am I?" Sincere questioning leads to an honest Don't-Know: I don't know who I am, why I'm here, or what the meaning or purpose of it all is. That Don't-Know is my guide.

The opposite of questioning is absolute faith in one's ideas, opinions, beliefs. It's that blind belief that I see in the eyes of Cruise and the Scientology crowd. People who adopt a belief-system have to fool themselves, by pretending that they know what the meaning and purpose of life is.

A cousin of mine went to UC Berkeley during the social/political turmoil of the 60s. She protested for various causes, probably good ones. Decades later, she'd tell me how wonderful it was to know that she was "on the side of the angels." I'm creeped out by this level of certainty in one's beliefs. People who are certain that they're "on the side of the angels" cause so much suffering. When people think that their ideals are the Ultimate Good... it's a short slide to justifying violence and deception to advance those ideals. We attach too much importance to the belief-system, and not enough to simple, moment-to-moment kindness and decency.

It doesn't matter whether the belief-system is political or religious or whatever. The Scientology people appear so caught up in certainty: that their Truth is supreme, that their group is on the side of the angels. It's literally part of Scientology dogma that anyone who gets in their way is "fair game" to attack.

The precepts of religions and ethical systems tell us to refrain from lying, stealing, and doing violence. We can't take these rules as absolutes. Sometimes we may have to lie or steal to save someone's life; sometimes we may have to kill in order to prevent greater harm.

But precepts such as "don't lie" still have value. Whenever we find ourselves bumping up against the precepts, that's a good occasion to question our motives. If we find ourselves being aggressive or deceitful in service of some Greater Good... it's time to wonder: maybe we've lost our questioning mind, and fallen into the certainty of belief.

Don't-Know is 10,000 times better than belief. Better to try to help people in small, moment-to-moment ways... rather than clinging to grandiose ideas that God and his angels are on your side.

[added 1/28/08: I just found this half-hour BBC program that investigated Scientology last year. The most revealing thing about the show is the paranoid reaction of the Scientology spokesman to any hint of questioning his "religion."]

God and Perfect Balance

In the Comments section of the previous blog (re: Ken Wilber), Stephen describes his own course as, "rooted in a concern to criticize and perhaps help redefine Christian tradition."

I myself rarely consider the Judeo-Christian perspective, since I've been more interested in Eastern traditions, particularly Buddhism and Zen, for the last few decades. But I can't help bumping into the Christian-style now and then. I mean, that whole "Christmas" thing we've just passed through is kinda hard to ignore.

I was at a holiday party last month, and people were talking about their feelings about The Season. Some felt the holidays have spiritual significance; others expressed a lack thereof (atheism is more popular and acceptable here in Berkeley than in the rest of the country).

Someone in this discussion had seen me in Buddhist robes, when I'd performed a funeral ceremony. Perhaps based on that, in the midst of this party talk, he asked me, "Stuart, you believe in God, don't you? A Higher Power or something?"

My Zen practice is to attend to each moment as it appears, so I don't carry around canned answers to those Big Questions. I deal with them "on the fly." I generally don't think in terms of God or Higher Power... so I had to ponder a few moments about how I could express my perspective in a language that'd connect with the question and the questioner.

I ended up saying something like this: There are times when I get this sense that all of existence is already in perfect balance, harmony, and resolution. These experiences come only now and then, but they're strong enough to color my life at other times. I sense that there's truth in the perspective of perfect balance, whether or not I'm seeing it at the moment.

That was as honestly as I could communicate it. Though I rarely talk about "God," I realized that someone who says, "God is all-powerful and perfect, and He's taking care of everything," is pointing to a perspective that's not so different from what I had expressed.

Beliefs and ideas don't count for much unless they're put into action. (Thinking that you're an environmentalist is pretty empty, until you actually pick up some litter.) So maybe my sitting Zen is a practice of connecting with the perspective of perfect balance. To sit quietly, doing nothing... is putting into "action" a faith that this moment is already resolved.

In his comment, Stephen mentioned Blaise Pascal. One of the few things I know about Pascal is that he famously said, "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Maybe he was referring to the benefit of stopping and being still for a moment, tasting balance and resolution, and letting all things take their own course. (Hell, maybe Pascal meant something entirely different, but that's how it sounded to me.)

None of this means that passivity is better than activity. Sitting still and quietly is a special practice, which can strengthen the habit of accepting what is. Acceptance means there's no need to hold my opinions and push for what I want. "Put down I/my/me" in Zen-language may equate to "Let God take care of everything" in Judeo-Christian language.

It ultimately means that perfect balance and resolution is present in the midst of all activities. It's not an idea, it's the experience of "What are you doing right now?" Efforts and activities don't hinder it... but stopping for a moment and being still allows us to perceive and taste that balance, harmony, and resolution... to get a clearer awareness of what's always there anyway.

One of my big experiences of universal harmony came during a Salvia Divinorum trip. In my mind's eye, I saw all beings, connected to each other, all crawling along a surface, as if struggling to get somewhere, to advance and evolve. And then, my perspective pulled back, and I realized that this surface was actually a globe, and that all this struggle and apparent advancement was really part of a circular motion, around and around. From the wider perspective, all the efforts and struggles and advancements were part of a larger system that was unchanging in its perfect balance.

More on Ken Wilber

Back in June I posted some thoughts on author/philosopher Ken Wilber. Today I found myself at Wilber Watch, a blog dedicated to an open-minded assessment of his work. I'd surfed there from Integral World, where a new posting What Good is Half a Wing? critiques Wilber's views on evolution.

From my tiny exposure to Wilber's work, here's the issue as I see it. Wilber tries to integrate the world-views of science and religion. In the process, he attacks the view that evolution is driven by random mutations. He equates "randomness" with a claim that our existence happens by accident. He mocks this view in his blog with statements like:

Also, as you point out, referring to random chance really means "I have no idea what is going one here"--and that is really what, in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, I call the "philosophy of oops," as you rightly note. This is a huge hole in the mere chance and selection argument.

In the same post, Wilber offers as "the alternative" his view that the evolution of our world must be driven by a force which he calls "Eros."

I say: originally, there's no spiritual and no material, only our just-now experience, beyond words and thoughts. We create distinctions like spiritual/material or scientific/religious with our thinking, and then can struggle forever to integrate or balance the two. But if we put down the thinking that creates the split, then the sky is blue, sugar is sweet, and a dog goes "woof!"

After reading and pondering this debate, I added this comment to the newest posting on Wilber Watch:

I've just read the posting that anony commenter #3 points to. In it, Wilber writes:

... my point lies in a different direction, which is what these critics miss: the necessity of a self-organizing force (or Eros) intrinsic to the universe.

Is Wilber saying anything here? Or is he just playing with words? That is: "self-organizing force intrinsic to the universe" means that there's something that causes this experience we're having. That has no meaning unless we examine what that "something" is. Do we know?

Metaphorically: if you're drinking water, it doesn't matter whether you call it "water" or "aqua" or "H-two-O." Those are just different names that don't touch its nature. What is "Eros" other than a name?

Scientists will say that this "something" is "randomness." That's a name meaning we don't know the first cause. A true mystic will say exactly the same thing, that the fundamental cause is a complete mystery. If the mystic calls it "God" and the scientist calls it "randomness," that's no real difference.

For Wilber to call it "Eros" makes no difference either... except that he claims that "Eros" is something he does understand. He has ideas, his "theory of everything," that he claims does capture the fundamental cause with his thinking.

So that's the real point. Do we believe that Wilber's thinking mind has really captured a knowledge or understanding of why there's something rather than nothing? Or is he just too arrogant or too frightened to face the mystery, and instead (like a religious fundamentalist) opts to grasp some speculation and pretend that he knows what he really doesn't?

As Socrates told us long ago, the mark of true wisdom is to understand that you don't know.

Like myself, I believe Wilber has done some serious Zen practice, and for at least one moment, experienced immersion in that unknowable thing. After such an experience, the true direction of the Zen tradition is to recognize that it's not a thing that can be held by thoughts, knowledge, understanding.

Rather, it's something to be recognized fresh in each moment, in this moment, in our just-now experience, before-thinking. And we can also lose it at any moment when we miss that experience in favor of some idea, some "theory" about it. Isn't that what Wilber is making a career out of doing?

Merry Buddha's Enlightenment to all, and a Happy Winter Solstice.

Tribes, Part 2

In Berkeley where I live, there's lots of enthusiasm for what's called Identity Politics. This means forming tribal alliances based on the circumstances of your birth, stuff like ethnicity, gender, and skin color. In elections, about 80% of Berkeleyites have supported the proposition that government should categorize people based on "race" etc. The Jewish identity I wrote of in my previous Tribes posting is similar: an identity based on the group I was born into.

It feels morally wrong to judge others, positively or negatively, based on accidents of birth. But leaving morality aside for a moment, what's the practical effect of this world-view?

I play a decent game of low-limit poker. Poker isn't a game of cards, it's a game of people. It may be possible to live much of life without judging others, but in poker, it's mandatory to judge your opponents all the time.

One option is to judge people based on ethnicity or gender. Women tend to bluff less than men; Asians tend to bluff more than non-Asians. This type of information is better than nothing, but it's inefficient. For instance, a successful female player will confound men's expectations by playing the opposite of how most women do.

Alternately, you can pay attention to what a person has chosen to do. You can get information from just about anything someone does: how they dress, the posture they sit in, how they handle cards and chips, how they make small talk, etc. This gives much better insight. As the great American guru Dr. Phil has taught me, "The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior." You get closer to the heart of someone by considering the things they've chosen.

Maybe we could say that there are two types of tribes. There are tribes we're born into, and tribes we choose. The poker analogy hopefully explains why I find tribes based on choice so much more interesting.

Adopting a belief-system is one type of choice. These days, I don't like holding any beliefs. The world is always changing, and beliefs are a hindrance to adapting to each new challenge and opportunity. The Zen group I practice with could be considered a tribe. I can handle that one, since the group is 100% defined by what we do together. Quite pointedly, I can practice with this group, without thinking like anyone else, or believing in anything.

Inside or outside the Zen group, the main thing I appreciate in a friend is an open, questioning mind. Maybe it's OK for most people to follow the herd, to adhere to unexamined beliefs or conventions. But those aren't the people I find most interesting.

Questioning seems more and more natural to me. When we emerge from the womb, we know nothing, so what else can we do but question and be curious? As we grow, though, we start to believe in something. Consciously or un-, we draw a line, and allow our wondering, doubting, curious mind to go only so far.

I'm drawn to people who keep their beliefs small, and their questioning big. This has some connection to humor. Everyone thinks they have a good sense of humor, but we differ in how widely we allow our humor to wander. In other words: if I believe in something, if I treat it as sacred, then I sure can't make fun of it. But when I throw away beliefs, then nothing is sacred (which is precisely the same as everything being sacred), and then humor is everywhere.

Here's a Jewish story I learned as a kid. A gentile approached the great rabbi Hillel, saying that he'd convert to Judaism, but only if the rabbi could teach him the entire Torah (Jewish scripture) while standing on one foot. Hillel responded with a version of the Golden Rule: "That which you hate, don't do to others." He said, "That's the entire Torah. The rest is simply an explanation. Go and learn it!"

Great story, huh? I appreciate Hillel's words, maybe moreso than the people who taught me this story did. When we look for direction in life, all we need is the intention of being kind and helpful to other beings. Everything else can be thrown away. Nothing else is sacred; the rest of it -- beliefs, traditions, ideas, opinions -- is just a playground.

On a recent visit to my home town, I talked to friends that I hadn't seen in decades. Even if they had no understanding of Zen or Buddhism or meditation or anything like that, I still felt that our minds could meet. It was because they'd maintained that same attitude towards life; we could share our wonderment at how mysterious it all is. We could share the joke of how absurd it all is.

Maybe I could define my current tribe as those people with whom I can share deep questions and humor about life. I won't say this is good or bad... but at least the borders of this tribe are porous. Unlike tribes defined by ethnicity or dogma etc, anyone is free to join my tribe any time, whenever they open their minds.

I've gone off on a tangent, and haven't gotten to what I originally was going to blog about: the sticky issue of how to deal with people who are attached to tribes. I'll get to that in an upcoming post. I'll also explore why so many of us get drawn into tribes defined by superficial factors like ethnicity and unexamined beliefs. Does our DNA, our genetic predisposition, make us behave like herding animals? Even if that's so, maybe humans can go beyond those biological tendencies.

Tribes, Part 1

I was playing video poker in Las Vegas, sitting next to some stranger. I could see he was a knowledgeable player (a rarity in casinos), so I struck up a casual conversation. We chatted about gambling strategies, since that was the only obvious thing we had in common. Then, out of the blue, he asked me, "Are you a member of the Tribe?"

My mind stopped. It was a total "What the fuck?!" moment. I had never heard that expression before, and didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. What shadowy society was he referring to?

Turns out he wanted to know if I was Jewish. In fact, that is how I was raised. My family didn't hold any particular religious beliefs, attend synagogue, or follow any of those tricky rules like keeping kosher. And yet I was taught that it's vital for me to maintain something called a "Jewish identity."

Surely everyone faces this issue in some way. Either you were encouraged to feel a part of an ethnic group, or religion, or sub-culture, or political affiliation, or extended family or clan, etc. Whatever I say here about my tribe, please translate it to whatever tribe you come from, so we can all relate.

There were soccer games I missed when I was a teenager, because my mother wouldn't allow me to play on a Jewish holiday. Then as now, rationality dominated my thinking, so I tried to negotiate. I'd tell her that I'd fast or feast or pray or whatever you're supposed to do on that particular holiday... I'd just do it the day after the game. What difference could it make?

No go. These memories persist, because I was so struck at how Mom could hold values with such fervor, and yet have nothing to support them in the way of reasoned explanation. I chalked it up to something that I'd probably understand when I became an adult, and I'm still waiting.

In my 20s, I spent 5 years living in ashrams with famed guru Swami Muktananda. There I experienced a different tribal identity. We constantly reinforced in each other the idea that we were a special group. A chosen people, if you will. We had access to a higher truth, or spiritual experience or some such, that set us apart from the common masses.

This dynamic resulted in us believing, on thin evidence, some outlandish things (e.g., the perfected, God-like status of the Guru, his magical energy and miraculous powers etc). It didn't matter that each of us individually didn't have the direct experience to support our beliefs. It didn't matter that the beliefs were rationally problematic. Since everyone else saluted these same beliefs, repeatedly spoke about them, and were applauded for doing so... surely they must be true.

I wonder if the power lay in our attraction to being part of the tribe, moreso than the content of what we said or did or believed. Indeed, many of my fellow travellers eventually left Muktananda's group, but straight-away joined up with another tribe. Maybe a different guru, maybe a group sharing some psychological or political belief-system. Some rejected spirituality entirely, then became members of an "anti-cult" tribe.

Here's why tribal dynamics strike me as so profound. The great question of life is "What am I?" It's my practice to watch my thinking, observe the different ideas about what "I" am, and let each one pass by without clinging to it. But if one does hold some idea of who they are, won't this inevitably lead to some sort of tribal identity? If I hold a thought of who "I" am, then that itself defines the group that's most "like me," as opposed to the outsiders who are less "like me."

A tribal identity must be the counterpart to some idea of self, and Buddha's great insight was that "self" is nothing but a mass of insubstantial thinking. Maybe identification with a group can be a stepping-stone towards breaking free of ideas of self. We start with the smallest sense of self: attachment to the body. The first step is to expand this identification to include your family. Then it gets still larger, becoming loyalty to your community, then to your country. If the circle keeps expanding, maybe it'll eventually embrace all beings, and the us/them separation will disappear.

I dunno. In any case, if the circle that defines your tribe stops expanding, and you get stuck at, say, intense patriotism, the troubles that arise from tribe vs tribe are well known.

I'm certainly not saying that tribal identity is a bad thing, but rather that its benefits and curses are both extreme. Consider some of the great ills of society: sick people with no one to help them, poor people who can't afford a home, old people left to struggle alone. If you look at close-knit tribes like the Mormons, the Amish, or ultra-orthodox Jews, these problems are in some cases completely solved. The community always, without fail, helps any member who needs it.

Yet the price is high. The very reason that the community sticks together is their shared behavior and beliefs. What if you're a non-conformist, or a free thinker? Then tribal life is hell. In any such tribe, it's like everyone is spying on each other, making sure that no one strays too far from the norms that define the group.

I went camping with a friend, along with his llamas (the animals, not those Tibetan guys). We hiked to the middle of nowhere, with the llamas carrying our gear. We set up camp at night, and tied up the llamas to a tree. I asked him what would happen if one of the llamas got loose, and he said that it wouldn't run away. Their herding instinct was so strong that one wouldn't go anywhere without the other. Ahh, herding instinct. I suddenly understood human beings much better.

If you look at the progression of evolution... ants, birds, sheep, llamas, chimps, us... it seems that each step moves away from group cohesion, towards more diversity, individuality, independence. Likewise the direction of our growth as humans, from kids entirely dependent on the family tribe, then the peer group tribe, then maybe sometimes to standing on our own feet. Likewise the direction of human history, away from tribes and kingdoms controlled by autocratic rulers, towards more individual liberty.

In religion: maybe traditions like Judaism and Catholicism, which emphasize group unity based on birth, rules, or beliefs, are on the wrong side of evolution. Are people moving away from monolithic groups, towards more individually-motivated spirituality? In politics: perhaps it's not an accident that Communism, with its ideal of "the People" moving in lock-step towards a single goal, has now entered the dustbin of history.

When I'm with a friend or family member, there's nothing more important to me than how I relate to him or her. It's all about how I feel about each of them as individuals, rather than shared membership in a tribe. But isn't much of the world driven by group loyalties? It makes me curious, since I don't quite "get" tribalism. There are, for instance, people who declare a strong Jewish identity, to the point where they passionately express the opinion that anyone who was born Jewish should feel that same way. This attitude isn't universal in the tribe, but it's not uncommon, and it can be extreme.

It's not that tribalism is a personal problem these days; friends and family don't give me grief about being too Buddhist or not enough Jewish. But it's been a bit of an issue in the past. And certainly among people I know, there's been big suffering generated when they didn't embrace the level of Jewish identity that their relatives desired. Is there any way to mitigate this type of suffering?

Kindly translate all this to your own situation, and let me know if you relate. Next time, I'll have more to say about the nitty-gritty of how I navigate inter-tribal interactions.

Autobiography of a Boo Boo. 10: Epilogue (Up to Your Ass in Analogies).

This series of blogs explains how I've come to my current Zen-style meditation practice. I'm calling the series Autobiography of a Boo Boo, in homage to the Hanna Barbera cartoons of my youth, and in recognition that I've never been good enough to be called a Yogi.

At the end of my first retreat, Zen Master Seung Sahn (ZMSS, aka Dae Soen Sa Nim) gave a talk. He said that we refer to the intensity of a retreat as “hard practice,” but more accurately it's “hot practice.” The mind is sometimes like ice. It’s not flexible; you can’t wash your hands in ice. We do “hot practice” to melt the mind, so it becomes like water, freely taking the shape of any situation whatsoever. The final words of his talk were, “Don’t make anything; just do it!”

Water flows anywhere; it doesn’t attach to any thing or any idea. That’s what it felt like after the retreat, not clinging to anything. But… maybe I could make one tiny exception. The sense of clarity that arose so strongly during the final retreat days… couldn’t I cling to that? The wonderful feeling of freedom, the beautiful understanding that everything is insubstantial… if I held onto just that much, and made it into something special… that wouldn’t be cheating too much, would it?

I heard an analogy about “spiritual addiction” (from “non-dual” teacher Ayashanti). Imagine that for your whole life, you've thought you were very poor. One day, someone tells you, “You’ve got diamonds in your shoes.” You don’t believe him, because you know you’re poor.

Eventually you get desperate enough. You’ve exhausted all other hope, so what the hell, you take off your shoes and check inside. Holy shit! There really are diamonds in your shoes! That moment when you discover that you’re not impoverished (and really never were) is extraordinary. “Spiritual addiction” is clinging to the feelings you get from the discovery. The value of diamonds isn't in those feelings. It's in spending the diamonds, using them in a way that helps all beings.

Here’s a cruder analogy. Growing up, I chewed Bazooka bubble gum. Inside each 1-cent pack, there’d be a little comic. In one of them, Bazooka Joe sees his friend hitting himself over the head with a hammer. When Joe asks why, the friend explains, “Because it feels so good when I stop!”

My peak experience in the Zen retreat was something like that. For most of my life, I’d been holding these delusions about my “self” as a substantial thing. When that delusion disappeared in meditation, it was wonderful. The magnitude of that wonderfulness was equal to the magnitude of the delusion. If I wanted to hold or repeat that wonderful experience, what was I going to do? Build a new, even bigger delusion, so I could feel so good when it disappeared?

ZMSS had called the retreat “dry-cleaning your mind with don’t-know soap.” Indeed, it felt like I’d taken a mental shower that left everything pristine. But no matter how thoroughly you take a shower, you can't do it once and be finished. Every day you get dirty, so you make a habit of regularly cleaning the dirt away.

In addition to practice in day-to-day life, I do a day or two of sitting retreat, every month or so since that first one. These are retreats headed by different teachers in ZMSS’ school. During the first year, I was still processing the special experience of my first retreat, and discussed it with these teachers.

When I told Zen Master Su Bong about it, he asked, “Do you want to get that experience again?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Then you can’t have it.”

Zen Master Soeng Hyang’s advice was even simpler. The words may seem harsh in black-and-white, but they were delivered very gently. Here’s what she told me: “Just forget about it.”

ZMSS talked about the need to “digest” understanding. I pondered that word for years. If you’ve got an apple in your hand, it’s obviously separate from your body. After you eat it, for a while it’s still there in your stomach. When it’s digested, though, the apple becomes one with your body, and otherwise it no longer exists.

Was I holding the experience and understanding from the retreat, as if it were a thing that I’d gotten? Over the years, maybe I’ve digested it, but who knows. How can you tell if something’s completely digested? You’d have to examine what you excrete, and who wants to do that?

Damn, this analogy has turned way too disgusting. Forget I said anything.

THE END

Autobiography of a Boo Boo. 9: Why?

This series of blogs explains how I've come to my current Zen-style meditation practice. I'm calling the series Autobiography of a Boo Boo, in homage to the Hanna Barbera cartoons of my youth, and in recognition that I've never been good enough to be called a Yogi.

I've been writing about the 7-day retreat in 1988 that inspired my decision to practice Zen. For the first part of the week, I'd painfully struggled with the big question, "What am I?" Then during one sitting session, it had all dissolved into emptiness, punctuated by insubstantial thinking that came and went without hindrance. It felt amazing, as I described in the previous two entries.

Now it was the next day, and time again for my formal interview with Zen Master Seung Sahn (ZMSS, aka Dae Soen Sa Nim). I had no plan to discuss my meditation experience with him. It's not like I understood what had happened anyway. It's not like I had anything coherent to say about it. Even without words, though, maybe ZMSS' lifetime of intense practices would give him some special insight, allowing him to see that my mind was different. Or maybe my shit-eating grin at that point was so obvious that any idiot would notice.

ZMSS' manner was more stern and intense than in the previous days. For his first question, he demanded, "Why do you eat every day?" I mimed putting food into my mouth, like a hungry person. That said it all, didn't it? Each moment comes and goes naturally. When it's meal time, you eat. What more could there possibly be to life?

"No good!" shouted ZMSS. "That's like a dog. A dog just eats when he's hungry. A human being's job is different from a dog's job. Why do you eat every day? Why do you live in this world?"

I don't remember exactly how ZMSS explained it at that time, but here's the gist as I understood it. Our thinking is like scribbles on a blackboard. Sometimes, maybe with lots of effort, we erase all the scribbles and have a completely clean blackboard. That may bring a wonderful feeling of freedom.

But you don't leave a blackboard empty. What are you going to write on it? It's like a calculator after you hit the clear button and return to zero. One more step is necessary for the blackboard or calculator to function correctly. In ZMSS' teaching, it's loud and clear what he tells us to write on that blackboard: Help all beings.

The Buddhist direction of "Save all beings from suffering" has at least one great virtue. If you accept that as your goal, you don't have to worry about ever reaching it and having to find a new one. Beyond that, this teaching turned around my view of what practice was about. I'd always looked at meditation and such as a means to getting some special experience, or insight, something like that. ZMSS seemed more concerned about intention. Why practice, why eat, why live? For what? For who? Whatever you got, good or bad, if it was for me, it'd bring suffering. If it was for all beings, then no problem.

The final day of the retreat arrived, and I returned to ZMSS's room for the last private interview. His first question to me: "Today is the last day of retreat. What have you attained?"

That week had been far and away the most astounding experience of my life. But I was clueless as to anything I could say about it. Keeping silent wouldn't do either. If you ask a rock a question, it can be silent, but a human being ought to have something more than that.

Maybe I should show the mirror-like clarity of my mind by reflecting that moment? "The wall is white," I said. ZMSS shook his head, rejecting the answer.

Uhhh... maybe he was looking for that compassion thing he'd talked about? "How can I help you?" I offered. ZMSS swept that answer aside also. Jeez, not even that?

Typically, Zen teachers won't give away answers, waiting instead for the student to find it himself. But ZMSS came to Berkeley only once a year, and maybe he thought I needed to understand something before that. After I repeatedly failed to give a satisfactory answer, he eventually relented: "Now you ask me."

"OK," I said. "Today is the last day of retreat. Zen Master, what have YOU attained?"

He gave me a one-sentence answer that made my jaw drop with its elegance. A response that met the question, and did so without even a speck of I or no-I, attainment or no-attainment. A response that clearly demonstrated not making anything.

The retreat ended, and I returned to ordinary, everyday life. I'll write one final blog in this series, an epilogue to talk about how that's been going.

Autobiography of a Boo Boo. 8: Buddhism.

This series of blogs explains how I've come to my current Zen-style meditation practice. I'm calling the series Autobiography of a Boo Boo, in homage to the Hanna Barbera cartoons of my youth, and in recognition that I've never been good enough to be called a Yogi.

In the last entry, it was the 4th or 5th day of intense sitting, my first Zen retreat back in 1988, and I'd had a big breakthrough in meditation. Just afterwards, during the pre-dinner break, I’d gone on a walk through the U.C. Berkeley campus, still enraptured with this perception of all things appearing and disappearing without hindrance. A young woman approached me, and I had a strong suspicion that she was a Jesus Person. That is, she had in her eyes the look of a True Believer, someone who'd stop strangers on the street to preach the Gospel and save souls.

I had a history of frequently being accosted by Jesus People. Maybe I had the aura of a seeker, or a lost soul. Maybe it was my Semitic appearance. Do Jesus People get extra points for converting a Jew?

Allow me a short tangent here to tell the story of my favorite encounter of this sort. At another time, there’d been this Jesus Person who was trying to get me to attend a weekly religious worship that his group held. The conversation went like this:

Jesus Person (JP): C’mon, this is very important, you really need to come to our service.

Me: I’m not sure… Tell me, what do you do?

JP: I told you, it’s a service.

Me: Yeah, you said that. But I’m asking: what do you do?

JP: We pray. We sing hymns. And we read from the Bible.

Me: Listen, it’s nice of you to invite me. Maybe some day I’ll stop by; I really do like to try new and different things. But I'll be completely honest with you, right up front. I don’t like the Bible.

JP: Would you like a Miller Lite?

(My mind reeled. I’d misjudged this guy totally! My head was filled with images of a church service with an open bar. Of a Bible discussion group that degenerates into drunken partying. Could this be real?)

Me: What?!?

JP: I said, “Would you like Eternal Life?”

(I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I just couldn’t stop laughing. Eventually I was able to blurt out, “No, no, no, I’m not interested in that,” and JP left me alone.)

OK, back to our story. The young woman on campus, the one I was sure was a Jesus Person, did walk right up to me. “Hi,” she said, “I’m a Buddhist!”

The universe has such a great sense of humor. I just love its ironic timing. For the first and only time in my life, I was about to get proselytized by a Buddha Person! What are the odds?

“Me too!” I gushed. “I’m a Buddhist too!” Maybe all those hours I’d just spent with my ass on the cushion had qualified me for membership in the club. Or maybe my mind at that moment was sufficiently mirror-like that I’d have responded the same way, regardless of what she’d claimed to be. If she’d said she was a Methodist, I’d probably have said, “I’m a Methodist too!” Likewise if she were a communist. Or Satanist. Or philatelist.

It turns out that there’s a huge variation among people who call themselves “Buddhist.” This Buddha Person (BP) explained that "Buddhism" to her meant congregational chanting of a mantra (something like “Namyo Ho Rengye Kyo”) in order to get whatever you want in life.

I think that chanting mantras is great... but how long can you do it? An hour a day? I prefer repeating mantras silently, since I can do that while commuting on the train, or other times when my mind isn't otherwise engaged. But even then, it's hardly a 24/7 practice. For much of my day, I'm at work, where I need to focus on computer code, not mantras.

I didn't like BP's definition of Buddhism. Why not practice something that's available everywhere, all the time? I tried to explain:

Me: What do you do for a living? You probably can't be chanting mantras while you're working, right?

BP: Right. I teach high school math during the day. I do my chanting after work.

Me: But even while you're working, you can still practice Buddhism...

BP: Oh no. It's a public school.

Me: That's not what I mean. If it's your job to teach math, and you're doing your best to help your students learn... that's Buddhism!

At the time, the words were just coming out of my mouth automatically. In retrospect, I realize that I'd gotten this kind of speech from the teacher at the retreat, Zen Master Seung Sahn (ZMSS), aka Dae Soen Sa Nim. Days earlier, he'd given a talk and Q&A, and it had included one of my favorite interchanges from him ever.

One of the questions had been from a Zen student who was a father. He explained to ZMSS that he'd been trying unsuccessfully to get his daughter to come to the Zen Center. His daughter had a friend who'd taken her to church, so now, the daughter preferred Christianity over Zen. "So my question is this," he concluded. "How can I get my daughter to understand Buddhism?"

In a flash, ZMSS replied, "Your daughter understands Buddhism better than you do!"

"I don't understand," said the father.

"True Buddhism," ZMSS explained, "means moment-to-moment, when you're doing something, just do it. If you go to a church... and when it's time to stand up and sing, you stand up and sing... and when it's time to kneel down and pray, you kneel down and pray... that's Buddhism!"

Anyway: it was time to say good-bye to the BP and make my way back to the Zen Center for dinner, followed by evening chanting and sitting. There were two days left in the retreat. In the next blog, I'll receive some more great pointers from ZMSS. And then there'll be an epilogue to try to bring this story full circle.