Upcoming film "Kumare"

In this documentary, filmmaker Vikram Gandhi becomes a fake guru, and attracts real followers.

Sam Harris on Death and Now

Another talk from my favorite atheist:


Also... a little plug for my old friend Ken Silver. We meditated together with Swami Muktananda's group in the early 80s, with Zen Master Seung Sahn in the late 80s, and in recent years at Empty Gate Zen Center. He's written String Theory -- the Novel, available for Kindle download from Amazon for $2.99. The author pitches it as "Alice in Wonderland meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

Finding Primary Point

From a talk by Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1977:

I often talk about primary point. What is primary point? When you have a
scale and there is nothing being weighed, the indicator points to zero. You put
something on it, and the pointer swings to "one pound." You take it off, the
pointer goes back to zero. This is primary point. After you find your primary
point, then good feelings come, bad feelings come, so your pointer swings in
one direction or the other. But this doesn't matter. Don't check it. When the
feeling is over with, the pointer swings back to zero.

But if you haven't found your primary point, then it is like taking a heavy
object off of the scale and having the pointer stay at "ten pounds." Or the
pointer moves back only part-way, it doesn't go completely back to zero. Then
you have a problem. Your scale does not weigh correctly. Maybe if you put a
heavy object on it, it will break completely.

So first you must find your primary point. Then you must keep it very
strongly.

A taxi has weak shock absorbers, so it hits a small bump and bounces up and
down. A train has strong shock absorbers, so it is very steady. If you keep your
primary point, your mind-spring will become stronger and stronger. You will
meet big problems and your mind will move less and less. A big problem
comes, your mind moves, but soon returns to primary point. Finally your
mind will be very strong; it will be able to carry any load. Then saving all
people is possible.

Transformation

The Skeptic's Dictionary has a great page about Landmark Forum. Landmark is the successor to Werner Erhart's est from the 70s. Swami Muktananda was explicitly influenced by est in creating the intensive weekends in the Siddha Yoga (SYDA) organization, The influence of est can be seen in the many other currently-active LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings), and this Skeptic's Dictionary page sheds some clear-thinking light on all of them.

One simple concept that I found intriguing is this. People naturally go through high and low psychological phases during their lives. Among those who are drawn to an LGAT, people in a down-phase are over-represented, as they have the most motivation for seeking quick transformation. The tendency of people at low psychological points is to eventually regress to the mean. That is, they move from the extraordinarily low psychological point to a more typical one (i.e., they feel better with time). If the LGAT can convince people of its transformational power, then when a better state occurs (for whatever reason), they'll likely attribute it to the LGAT, and become true believers.

Of course there are some people who get extraordinary bliss-states etc, not just relief from a low-point. Surely, the mere fact that attendance of these workshops and seminars gives people an opportunity to ponder their lives, seek new perspectives, question old assumptions, etc, can have amazingly powerful effects. But among the masses who become LGAT devotees, I'd think regression to mean is a significant dynamic.

In a broader sense, many psychologists say that our happiness tends to follow a U-shape. We're happy as children, then struggle as young adults as we adapt to challenging jobs and relationships and life complications. Somewhere in mid-adulthood, most people tend to gain greater mastery of their lives (and/or our lives actually become easier, as we advance beyond shitty jobs, as kids grow up and no longer demand constant attention, as relationships become more solid, etc). The point is that when we experience a natural life up-turn, we tend to project a reason on it, even if it's just correlation and not causation. If we happen to be Christians, we say Jesus is making us happier. If we're into meditation, we credit that. If we value money most, we think that wealth is the cause of this increased happiness, etc.

Our experience is one thing, and the way we interpret it (assigning a cause to our good or bad feelings) is something different.

Drug War Heroes and Villains

Pat Robertson Supports Marijuana Reform
  
George Will: Legalizing drugs may be worth it

Obama's War on Pot

Is it all One? (LSD research in the 60s)

Free Thinking

Long ago, when our species was less evolved, it improved our chances of survival if we stuck in tight-knit tribes. As individuals, we'd quickly starve or get eaten by wild animals etc. It makes sense that DNA would wire us to blindly follow a leader, so we'd all stick together in the tribe, and we'd have a fighting chance to keep nature at bay, long enough to procreate and all.

Evolution is brilliant that way, but it moves very very slowly. After all, natural selection has no tools except trial-and-error. We generate a bunch of offspring, and the ones best designed for survival last long enough to pass on DNA codes to future beings. Amazingly effective adaptions arise, but only over the course of many many generations.

Then we got these incredible new tools. Rational thinking allows us to run "what-if" scenarios, and conclude what's best for our survival so much more quickly than the brute force of trial and error. The development of language and the printed word allow us to accumulate knowledge across populations, and pass it on to the future. What to speak of the internet.

Rationality, technology, scientific method bring us to our current condition, in which individuality and independent thinking are a far more effective survival mechanism than they were in our caveman days. When I need food, I pop something into the microwave. Satisfying my needs apart from any tribal allegiance has become a lot easier, compared to when I'd have to live off of dinosaur meat (joking, joking).

The new tools of rationality etc allow at least part of the population to live as free-thinkers. But for many generations to come, this advancement towards personal freedom and independent thinking will be bumping up against the hard-wired drive to adhere to a tribal authority, that drive being a hold-over of a strategy that was more appropriate millions of years ago.

What is This?

Currently in midst of Zen retreat...

I found this on the net a couple days ago. Erik (visiting from Hawaii, and sitting 2 days of this retreat) reminded me of it; we had both seen the comic decades ago. He remembered it accurately, but I recalled the text as "What do you mean, 'What happens next'?" I prefer my false memory to the actual caption.

Ron Paul Speech after NH Primary

The 99%

Say you wanted to build a Movement by appealing directly to the Cult Mind, that part of the brain that most desires to be part of a herd. You'd need a slogan to imply that following a crowd leads to Truth. Such a maxim would suggest that being in the majority, or having membership in the biggest tribe, somehow confers moral superiority. You'd want the slogan to be well-suited to sheep, while scrupulously avoiding any speck of human critical thinking.

I submit that "We are the 99%" fits these criteria perfectly.

For the benefit of readers who have been living in caves: "We are the 99%," or slight variations thereof, is a battle cry appearing on countless posters and placards in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests around the world, and used by its supporters in the media and blogsphere.

"We are the 99%!" is found alongside signs like "Eat the Rich," suggesting anger directed at the top 1% measured by finances. Demonizing the wealthy is hardly a new phenomenon.

It's also common in our history to aim derision at those at the very top of the intelligence/education pyramid. Think of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or of George Wallace referring sneeringly to "pointy-headed intellectuals," those with too much book-learnin'. Anti-intellectual movements gain traction precisely because they're aimed at a minority.

Protesters with a lesser slice of the IQ pie could occupy universities. People with PhDs make up less than 1% of the American adult population; imagine mobs trying to disrupt doctorate programs while proudly shouting "We are the MORE THAN 99%!" How is that any less coherent than the Occupy Wall Street motto?

What's so special about the OWS number anyway? If it's OK to demonize 1%, why not 2%? There's ample precedence for slurring the Jews. Why begrudge anti-Semitic demonstrators the mathematically-accurate claim "We are the 98.3%!"

Where to draw the line? At what magic number is there a moral distinction? Aren't rallies against African-Americans entitled to the motto "We are the 87.7%!" And other than the need for larger signs, where's the problem with anti-gay mobs using slogans like "It depends on which study you believe, but we're confident that we're somewhere between the 87% and the 98%!"

Maybe there are some people carrying "99%" signs with the intention of attacking a relatively small number of people who have cheated larger numbers of people. If that's the case, if they're rallying against wrongdoing like lying or stealing, why not direct energy and anger against those specific behaviors? Aren't we rational enough to argue that a deception or theft causes harm, and condemn it whether the criminal is rich or poor, whether there's one culprit or ten thousand?

It's hypocritical to direct condemnation only at those we consider to be outside of the herd. There's little moral authority in "We're protesting against those who commit violent assaults... but only if they're a lot more attractive (or smarter, or stronger, or richer) than we are!"

Personally, I'd find the 99%ers a whole lot less creepy if they based the protest on a principle... rather than appealing to the lowest common denominator, using a mindless bandwagon slogan that relies on a dubious, self-proclaimed head count.

The Best Zen Talks Never Mention "Zen"

"Of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs said: 'I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.'"

Sam Harris: Reason, Atheism, Spiritual Experience

Belief, Doubt, Then What?

While pondering the posting I made last month re belief, I surfed to a relevant discussion at the Church of the Churchless blog. Someone had written in:

Is there anyone here on this blog who is looking to realise the truth, or are we more interested in realising how right we are, how wrong others are?

Are we into defending our beliefs and condemning others for theirs?

The blog-master responded:

Speaking for myself, and I'm pretty sure this holds generally for churchless folk, I gave up blind faith because I wanted a clearer view of reality. My motivation for ditching dogma was to find a better path to truth, not to give up the search for it.

Here's the comment I contributed:

My Zen teacher would say that of all the buttons on a calculator, the most important is the Clear button. If you don't press that "C" and return to zero, then whatever calculation you try to do will yield the wrong result.

If we start off with a dogma (a belief we won't doubt or question), then even if we analyze rationally, our conclusions will be colored by that dogma. If we can, for a moment anyway, question everything... then we can return to zero, and from there we have a chance of seeing clearly.

So why doesn't everyone embrace doubt? Because while certainty clouds our vision, uncertainty can be so... unpleasant.

We all start out with a clean slate, but as children, we can hardly prevent developing a blind belief in what our parents tell us. As we mature, we learn to question these childhood dogmas. When the doubt becomes too uncomfortable, we grab onto some replacement dogma: religious, political, whatever.

It seems to me that this process is generally repeated. We become churchless by doubting one set of beliefs. Our motivation may be the recognition that clinging to those beliefs prevents a clear view of the world. At that point, there's nothing stopping us from trading one dogma for a new one. The new beliefs will be less blatant, more subtle... but if we're holding any unexamined beliefs, our inner calculators will produce skewed answers.

Surely, sometimes we leave aside a dogma with the intention of clearing the calculator, and in fact the leaving-aside brings us to clarity/zero (or at least close to it). And at other times, we end up (intentionally or otherwise) discarding one dogma, and adopting a new one just as rigidly.

Maybe that means that it's not sufficient to question and reject a dogma, then rest on our laurels. Maybe clarity is reached by continuously questioning what we still believe in now, and repeating that questioning over and over, with each new "certainty" that arises.

Hey Mr Natural, what's it all mean??

Ya Don't Gotta Believe!

The recent CNN.com article Religious belief is human nature huge new study claims begins, "Religion comes naturally, even instinctively, to human beings, a massive new study of cultures all around the world suggests."

This is no surprise if we consider our distant ancestors. Cavemen who failed to see tigers in the bushes often died too early to pass on their genes. Those who saw tigers even when they weren't there may have been stressed-out, but they survived and procreated just fine.

Evolution must therefore favor those who perceive patterns, whether they really exist or not. (If you have any doubts of this, look up at the clouds and see the duckies.) Perceiving patterns leads to perceiving meaning and purpose, where they exist and where they don't. Hence, the natural and instinctive "religion" that CNN reports.

Buddhists -- not to mention Existentialists -- would say that originally there's no meaning or purpose. If we want them, then we make them ourselves. This view can be learned and practiced, but it doesn't come instinctively to us from the get-go.

There's evidence all around that religious belief is inherent. Consider the May 21 doomsday scare. Ordinary-appearing people devoted their lives to a belief in end-times prophesy, based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Or watch Sister Wives on the TLC cable channel. Perfectly functional people, risking arrest by following a polygamous belief-system. God bless 'em, it's horrific that the government harasses them... but how can these otherwise intelligent people follow a religion that defies simple arithmetic? (If men have multiple wives, but no women have multiple husbands, it simply doesn't add up.)

The majority of us follow religions that are obviously silly; this is solid evidence that we're hard-wired to believe. Yet it's possible to live and learn. As I go through life, I find less and less interest in holding beliefs, and more and more in questioning, watching, wondering.

Often I've encountered people proclaiming beliefs unsupported by logic or evidence. Many seem to embrace a belief purely because it's old, or popular, or written in a dusty book, or asserted by charismatic people in fancy costumes. I ask the faithful why they choose to hold their beliefs, and have repeatedly heard responses like, "You've got to believe in something. You can't live without belief."

A while back, in the ayahuasca-soaked web zine Reality Sandwich, Charles Eisenstein wrote:

Last time I wrote about this, a commentator suggested that we not “believe” anything. I find this position disingenuous, akin to certain misunderstood Eastern teachings about non-attachment. We are born into the world of flesh and dust, and are not meant to be aloof from it. We are meant to experience the joys and sorrows of attachment. If you want to build a bridge, or a relationship, you have to believe something and act accordingly. You believe the steel will hold. You believe someone will do as she has said. Life in the world is built of beliefs. The world is built of stories. We enact them and live in the world that they create.

I suspect that the commentator he's referring to is me. Whatever. To the above assertion, I replied thusly:

The point isn't believing vs not-believing. It's whether or not you recognize belief for what it is. When you embrace a belief, do you recognize it as your own creation? As a choice that you can examine and question? Or do you assume that your chosen beliefs represent substantial truth (as "religious" people do)?

The use of the passive-voice "meant to be" belies our own power to examine and question beliefs. Who or what is it that "means" for us to do this or that? Are we assuming there's some God or Force that decides that we're "meant to" feel this or that? Or do we take responsibility for how we choose and create our own meaning?

You could say, e.g., "I choose to see myself as living in a world of flesh and dust, and I want to be attached to the joys and sorrows of this world." Wouldn't that be clearer than speculating about what's "meant to be"?

To question your chosen beliefs is hardly being "aloof" from the world. Indeed, taking refuge in a belief-system is a common strategy to avoid engaging with the living experience of each moment. When these joys and sorrows appear... how much are you present for the experience itself? How much are these experiences filtered through a belief-system?

Putting It All Down

Zen Master Dae Kwang, at Empty Gate Zen Center of Berkeley:

Eschatology

I've been seeing the occasional billboard, and bold advertisements on the side of RVs, heralding the end of the world on May 21, 2011. See Huffington Post, Believers Warn Neighbors of Impending Doom. Apparently, the prediction comes from "Biblical scholar" Harold Camping.

Judgment Day is coming May 21, 2011 -- not sometime this decade, not sometime this year, but precisely on May 21.

Jeez. It's almost three years since I first blogged about a rise in apocalyptic warnings. Back then, it was penciled in for December 21, 2012 (Mayan calendar/I Ching stuff). At the time, it made me ponder how believing in the end of the world could be a zig-zag way of considering our own mortality.

As a youngest child, I sometimes felt left-out of the activities of my older siblings. In those pre-DVR days, I'd have to go to bed at 9pm, and endure the sounds of the rest of the family watching Hawaii 5-0 episodes that I'd never see. As a result, my fear of death is entangled with bitterness that other people may be enjoying a futuristic earth while I'm stuck in the ground (or in some Whatever realm). Thinking about the End of Time can thus be easier than facing the possibility that Time will go on without me.

In any case: I wish the doomsday folks would come to some sort of agreement re what the date will be. This is the type of thing that requires some advanced planning. Perhaps some enhanced risk-taking behavior is in order, maybe even hedonism.

In one of the articles I've read about the May 21 Doomsday people, a follower mentioned that he was on a diet, and of course the journalist asked Why?? I'm not sure what I'd do if I really believed that the end was so near, but I sure as hell wouldn't be counting carbs.

Update... The Christian end-times warnings now have resulted in a competing billboard going up in Oakland:


Breaking news: the world failed to end on May 21. There was, though, a little 3.6 earthquake in the Bay Area around 6pm, which made me nervous for a few seconds. Camping has rescheduled The End for October 12.

Buffoons and Bimbos

Last night I watched the finale of season 3 of Jersey Shore. Season 4 will be filmed in Italy.

Italian-American interest group UNICO opined: It will not only hurt Italians but all Americans … their outrageous, reprehensible behavior will make us look like buffoons and bimbos.

Read about it here. And more on Snookie here.

Artificial Intelligence is Gaining on Us (Jeopardy! part 2)

I watched the first 2 episodes of the Jeopary! challenge between former champions and an IBM super-computer. Humanity isn't fairing well.

We may live long enough to watch the debate in Congress over whether computers should get the vote (once they become indistinguishable from humans). Kurzweil points out that when we build a machine as intelligent as we are, it'll be the last machine we have to build, since the machine itself can create all future machines. This means that if we allow robots to vote, they'll simply overwhelm us by replicating, and then exploiting the power of "one 'man' one vote." Wouldn't this make universal suffrage for all beings (whether bio or techno) impossible in practice, even if philosophically or morally imperative?

(We could e.g. legislate that all beings that are exactly the same get just one vote collectively... but that'd piss off a whole bunch of identical twins!)

Even now, human groups with high birth-rates eventually gain more power at the ballot box. This doesn't create immediate crisis, since humans are so slow and inaccurate in our efforts to reproduce ourselves. When computers can do so without friction -- making their replicas quickly and flawlessly -- it'll be a different matter.