Bill Maher Interviews "New Atheist" Sam Harris

I hadn't read/heard much of Sam Harris before watching this interview on Bill Maher's Real Time. Harris' book The End of Faith helped launch "New Atheism" movement... without even using the word "atheism." I enjoyed this Real Time segment and was impressed with Harris.

At the beginning of the interview, Harris says that atheism "has no content." I like how Harris is using the word to mean simply not embracing beliefs based on faith without evidence. He explains that we no more need to learn atheism than we need to learn how to be a non-astrologer.



I've watched a number of videos by fellow New Atheist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is more like a bomb-throwing evangelist for The Cause. This is less in tune with my own attitude. Theists make "God" and then believe in him, while Atheists (using the non-Harris definition) make God and then dis-believe in him. I'm more interested in the option of not making God.

That being said, Dawkins is insightful and entertaining. (A British accent adds fun to just about any lecture.) His site includes fine clips from his talk and Q&A at UC Berkeley. Here's a shorter clip of Dawkins from a Q&A at a college in Virginia:



(My two previous blog postings about Dawkins and Atheism, from last year, are here and here.)

Why live in this world?

A few years back I watched a typically brilliant HBO documentary about heroin users. One addict was interviewed who said that she intended to kick the habit someday, and really thought she was capable of doing so. She had one great worry and fear, though, and expressed it something like this: "If I didn't have to go out and find my fix... what would I do every day?"

Zen Master Seung Sahn would always ask, "Why do you eat every day?" The underlying meaning is, "Why do you live in this world?" Bringing up the question is a way to clarify life-direction. The Zen Master would say that a clear direction is one that's not just "for me."

Traditionally, Buddhism was practiced by monks. They separated themselves from society, and practiced non-attachment to I/my/me-thinking. When there isn't clinging to "I," then life is moment-to-moment; whatever you're doing, just do it.

For lay Buddhists in the modern age, the teaching adds more emphasis on compassion. We don't separate from society; we're constantly dealing with one relationship or another. A not-only-for-myself direction arises from wondering how to help others, whatever beings I'm connected to, whoever appears in front of me just now.

One virtue of the Buddhist goal of "saving all beings from suffering"... is that it takes infinite time to achieve. We thus won't have to deal with the horrifying possibility of actually getting what we want most. The following video clip brings up this issue in all its profundity:

Illusion

Watch what moves (click on image to enlarge):

Dharma Videos

Resident monk Kwan Sahn Su Nim has been keeping the Empty Gate Zen Center YouTube Channel updated with short clips from our weekly public programs. Here's the latest:



Also from YouTube, video of our founder, Zen Master Seung Sahn (aka Dae Soen Sa Nim). It's a collection of clips from teaching talks, interviews, etc, put together for his 3-year memorial in 2007.

With all the stories and quotes I've included in this blog about ZM Seung Sahn, I don't know if I've ever posted any actual video of him before. Perhaps these clips are worthwhile in expressing the spirit behind the words of his teaching:



Finally, in today's web surfing I discovered a couple blogs maintained by Barry Briggs, a brother in both Dharma and Computer Geekdom. I've added them to my links list to the right of this page: Go Drink Tea (Koans for Everyday Use) and Ox Herding (Practice and Daily Life).

Traffic to my own blog (this one) mysteriously up-ticked, doubling the usual number of visitors for a couple days last week. It seems that more people are arriving through simply Googling "Random Thoughts," particularly in Canada. Go figure. I offer the above videos and links in the hope that these extra passers-by will find something useful herein.

Nature's Course

Zen Master Soeng Hyang (Barbara Rhodes, head Zen Master of the Kwan Um School of Zen) just sent an email to the members of the School, quoting this poem from Ryokan (1758-1831):

The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
I don't know others,
Others don't know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature's course.

ZM Soeng Hyang wrote, "What is 'nature's course'? Understanding can not help you."

My Buddhist name is Kwan Soeng, meaning Perceive Nature. A friend I've gone camping with gets upset whenever there are voices in the wilderness: "Screw those humanoids... I came here for nature!" But every wave in the ocean is water; isn't everything nature? What is there that's not nature?

Forbidden Lies, and Fart Apps

Two facinating, totally unrelated things I came across today.

On Showtime, watched the documentary "Forbidden Lies." This wonderful movie explores a literary hoax, and touches on big issues of truth and deception.

Also, caught this clever bit from The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
iFeud
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Insight into my Blog Visitors

I happened upon a site today that allowed me to see the top 20 seach-engine phrases that had resulted in visits to my blog (this one) in the last year. Hey, maybe if I use all 20 of them in a single post, it'll boost readership. Ya gotta give the people what they want. Here goes, these are the top 20, for real:

adi da dies, adi da death, trippy+patterns, adi da dead, trippy+shrooms, death of adi da, baba muktananda, trippy+mushrooms, trippy+swirls, trippy+visuals, trippy+marijuana, trippy+animated+gif, trippy+mushroom, mushroom+trip, death of Adi Da, adi da is dead, adi da blog, mushroom trip video, Death of Adi Da, Adi Da death

Higher States

(Thanks to the Guruphiliac blog, where I initally found this video.)

For poker fans...

The 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is complete... except for the final table of the main event, which is delayed till November to build suspense and marketing opportunities. It should be an exciting finish, with super-star Phil Ivey among the remaining nine contenders.

Recorded coverage of the action so far begins tonight on ESPN. The WSOP was over a month long, with different tournaments played every day, culminating with the "main event" (no-limit hold-em with a $10K entry fee). The winner of this final event is informally consider the world champion of poker for the year. Top prize is over $8 million. Ivey is rumored to have several side bets and promotional deals worth tens of millions more if he wins.

New Media, Old Teachings

At Empty Gate Zen Center, new resident monk Kwan Sahn Su Nim is getting a few more videos onto our YouTube channel. Below is an excerpt from the weekly Q&A with Zen Master Bon Soeng (Jeff Kitzes):



KSSN is also maintaining our active presence on Facebook and Twitter. Here's a recent tweet, quoting from old Chinese Zen Master Nam Cheon:

Understanding is illusion, not understanding is blankness. If you understand the way of not thinking, it is like space, clear and void.

To get some context on this quote, here's a right-to-the-point Dharma Talk from Zen Master Dae Kwang (Abbott of the Kwan Um School of Zen, friend and frequent visitor to Empty Gate).

Andrew Cohen

Andrew Cohen is a moderately popular teacher/figure in the spiritual subculture. His rise to fame began with a visit to India in the mid-80s, where he met guru Hari Lal Poonja (aka Papaji). Andrew had some big special experience; Papaji looked in his eyes and declared the young man as his enlightened spiritual successor.

After a period of gloppy devotion to Papaji, Cohen rejected his former Master, and set out a-guruing on his own. He attracted his own mother as a disciple. Mom eventually concluded that sonny had gotten a bit full of himself; she left his group and denounced Andrew in her book Mother of God. (When your Jewish mother stops supporting you, you know there's some seriously bad weirdness going on.)

These days, Cohen has been partnering with author and self-aggrandizing philosopher Ken Wilber. Wilber has a history of glorifying authoritarian teachers, having gushed for years over bizarre guru Adi Da. Wilber refers to Cohen as a "Crazy Wisdom Teacher," which I believe is spiritual-speak for "He's an a**hole."

Cohen has been credibly accused of all sorts of deception and abuse of his followers (see the wonderful memoir Enlightenment Blues for details). Recently, the blog WHAT enlightenment??! has re-opened, for former students to reveal secrets and criticize Andrew and his org. Below are the comments I contributed yesterday to this blog's discussion. For context, see the original posting for these comments, The Truth Will Set You Free.

George said... the fact is just about everyone around him has those experiences.

It's not that Andrew demonstrates the power to reliably induce big special experiences. It's not that he could, for instance, take a randomly-selected group, move them into his community, and have them all report stunning experiences after a few days or weeks.

Rather: The people who encounter Andrew are a self-selected group who want special experiences. The price that Andrew demands (in money and subservience) insures those with the most desperate wants are the only ones that stick around.

Suppose that 1 in 20 people who come to Andrew indeed get a big experience. The other 95% soon wander off. The 5% from each new wave of arrivals accumulate around Andrew (the secret is volume). Eventually, there's the illusion that Andrew induces big experiences in most people who meet him. This is not the case… though it does require some careful critical thinking to see through the superficial appearance.

Carlos B said... Mata Amritanandamayi… It seems to me to be the perfect justification for Cohen's behaviour - particularly later in the article where she talks about the need to discipline her followers and the requirement of absolute obedience to the guru.

It’s not for nothing that Amritanandamayi has her followers call her “Amma” meaning “Mother.” All of us start out life as blind followers of our parents; otherwise, we’d have little chance of surviving childhood. As adults, we gradually learn to think independently. We do so to different degrees, and at different paces.

A percentage of the population look to rekindle the dependency, devotion, or absolute faith that we had for our parents as kids. They'll seek and find someone to play the role of a perfect parent. Either it’ll be an Andrew-like or Amma-like guru, or another person, or group, or belief-system, used with similar (if unconscious) intention.

Simon said... make no mistake, meeting a truly enlightened being is major catalyst for spiritual exploration.

We have no definition to use in determining who’s a “truly enlightened being,” so I don’t know how helpful this concept is.

True, many people have big special experiences when in the presence of an explicit guru (a person on a big chair, dressed in a fancy costume, speaking beautiful words, surrounded by like-thinking followers, accompanied by an attractive environment with tinkly music etc). Many many other people get big special experiences from a mind-stopping situation that doesn’t involve any enlightenment-claiming guru. In the US, most people who get transforming special experiences find them in charismatic churches, without any Indian-style guru involved.

Carlos B said... shouldn't love and compassion always be at the very center of a spiritual practise rather than speculative, self agrandising attempts to explain life, the universe and everything?

There’s no universal authority to tell us what the center of a practice (i.e., our life-direction, the thing we hold as most important) should be. So it’s our privilege/burden to decide for ourselves.

Should the most important thing be clarity and compassion towards each being we encounter? Or should it be a self-aggrandizing attempt to gain superior understanding or become more "evolved" than others? We can experiment with both paths, and see how it works out. We can be aware that it’s our own choice to make.

Anonymous said... What I would encourage you all to do is file a class action law suit against this creep and sue him for all the pain and suffering he's caused you… Just shut him down so he isn't continuing to do these things.

Or... we could focus on our own lives, our moment-to-moment thoughts and actions. If we don’t want to follow Andrew, no one is forcing us. If other people choose to follow Andrew in spite of readily-available warnings, we can leave them alone. People have their own ideas and situations; it’s not mandatory to force anything on others (by suing or shutting anyone down).

Maybe the most effective medicine is for each of us to think independently… rather than believing that the cause of suffering is rooted in some external evil.

philip said... [those who] doubt the intelligence and/or strength of character of those who [follow Cohen]: read those studies by Janis, Milgram, Asch and Zimbardo.

Many guru-types claim to have magical energy, or “shakti” that gives people special experiences. Superficially, followers can feel the energy flowing from the guru’s body, or photo, or from objects he's touched.

In controlled testing, there’s never any support for these magical claims. Desire, expectation, and belief (especially with group support) have been proven effective in inducing special experiences. But no guru's claim of magical energy has been supported by evidence.

There are people who are intelligent in some areas, but lack the skills to critically examine and test such claims. Critical thinking (a learned skill) does make a difference. You don’t have to be a Physics PhD; a basic understanding of scientific method is enough to detect the BS. People who lack this understanding/skill... can develop it with some effort and attention.

you must conclude you are probably more conformist than you like to think. The vital finding from those works is that the sense of independence westerners are so fond of entertaining is rarely put to the test, and largely illusory.

On the contrary… in Milgram’s experiment, most people sheepishly followed authority, but others refused to obey. There were those who were guided by their own independent thinking and ethics, and rejected the orders.

In the decades since Milgram’s experiment, society has moved further from blind conformity (pushed along by Vietnam, Watergate, counter-cultures, and free-flowing information). Were the experiment repeated today, maybe there'd be fewer blind followers.

Milgram proved that some people have a strong tendency to obey authority, while others do not. There are skills we can develop that affect which group we fall into. The lesson is not that we’re helpless against persuasion techniques. It’s that some people think and act less independently than others.

ordinary people who... assume immunity from manipulators like Cohen.

Metaphorically… beer companies put out highly attractive commercials, which induce some people to become drunks. But mostly we’re not helpless in the face of intense persuasion. We can learn to think independently in the face of authority, persuasion, and group-think. Rather than focus exclusively on “manipulation” by gurus or groups or beer commercials… it may be more efficient to examine our own minds, to see what’s at the root of our desire to believe and obey and follow. We can perceive the roots of gullibility in our own thought-process. Then we begin to have more choice as to whether we ultimately believe in authorities and groups and belief-systems… or in ourselves.

Pulling a Geographic (Part 2)

Finishing up my thoughts on traveling and nomadic life (which I began in June's Part 1 post)...

I first heard the phrase after I'd returned from my time in India and was settling into the Bay Area. The local paper used the AA term "pulling a geographic" to describe people who wanted to relocate in an effort to fix/reboot their lives. For decades, the prime destination for Americans pulling a geographic was the San Francisco region. Since globe-trotting often fails to alter deep life issues, this resulted in the abundance of therapists, spiritual groups, etc, hereabouts.

At the time, there was speculation that Seattle was taking over as the place to P a G. Who knows. I do seem to encounter an unusual number of nomadic people where I live. Maybe it's that California has so many folks who grew up in the East, and traveled in an effort to get as far away from their home towns as possible (without having to swim or get a passport).

Maybe I just get attracted to such people because I find the adventurous spirit interesting. Maybe it's that people attracted to new places and experiences are more likely to show up at the Zen Center I frequent.

In Korea, some Zen monks are called "floating clouds," since they're always wandering. Others are called "blue mountains," since they stay in one place. Maybe some of us get attached to familiar surroundings, and can work on this by travelling. Others may be attached to avoiding the challenges and commitments of long-term connections, and face that by being stationary. The outside situation is a tool to work with, but the bottom line isn't coming or going. It's how I keep my mind this moment.

Years ago, a friend told me that his "ace in the hole" for dealing with difficult relationships was to move to a new town. He's not around here any more... but he did end up getting married and having kids. The "floating cloud" mind does seem to be more prevalent in youth. Maybe there's something genetic about our urge to spread ourselves around the planet when we're young, and that tendency wanes as we pass prime procreation age.

Me, I'm approaching two decades living in the same apartment, and it's not just because of biology or rent control. Lots of my youthful travels -- certainly to India -- were driven by the sense that there might be some special Experience, some higher Truth, to be found out there. The more I appreciate the Truth that's always right in front of me, the more I honor the job of relating to whatever being/situation has appeared just now... the less I feel a desire to be elsewhere.

Zen Master Bon Soeng on "Roadtrip Nation"

Back in January, I posted about Zen Master Bon Soeng (Jeff Kitzes) appearing on the PBS show Roadtrip Nation. Here's a 6-minute clip:

Pulling a Geographic (Part 1)

Last week, the local paper ran a story under the headline The latest travel trend? Becoming a nomad. The article references the book American Nomads, as well as numerous blogs maintained by people who've chosen a life of continuous travel.

The idea of long-term wandering has always fascinated me. I had a perfectly nice childhood in a suburb of Philadelphia, but still I'd dream about the day I'd be old enough to set out and have adventures around the country or the world.

As a teenager, this desire manifested as an interest in books like Kerouac's On The Road. Kerouac himself was only on the road for a short time, but the grand and romantic way he fictionalized the experience made it feel like more. I recall looking at the cover of my paperback copy, which showed a drawing of a long, deserted stretch of highway leading towards distant mountains, and feeling an ache in my heart about what it would be like to be there.

Then there were 60s and 70s TV shows like Route 66 (two guys in a convertible, finding new adventures each week as they rode down the highway) and Then Came Bronson (exact same plot, but with one guy on a motorcycle). I ate up all those nomadic stories.

I even watched The Littlest Hobo. This time, the on-the-road hero was a dog. I felt that same ache when the theme song came on:

Traveling around from town to town.
Sometimes I think I'll settle down.
But I know I'd hunger to be free.
Rovin' is the only life for me.

Wanderlust played out in my own life between the ages of 18 (when I first left home for a brief stint at college) through my mid- to late-20s. I was part of Swami Muktananda's "3rd World Tour," a travelling meditation show in New York, Florida, and California. It was much like joining the circus. Then my most extreme travel experience, a couple years in India. Later, I tripped across the US, hitting spiritual hot spots. I've spent months in Arcata (Humboldt County, CA), and a year dealing blackjack and roulette in Vegas.

I don't know what to make of the travel/wander bug. It seems to cut both ways. In Buddhism and other Indian traditions, monks may frequently travel from place to place. The idea, I'd guess, is that this type of homeless, "floating cloud" life teaches non-attachment to the constantly changing names and forms of this world.

On the other hand, constant travel can be an escape mechanism. Alcoholics Anonymous speaks of "Pulling a Geographic"... the deluded belief that you can solve entrenched life problems by simply moving to a different location. A review of American Nomads (the book referenced above) calls it "a meditation on the urge to be elsewhere." This makes the nomadic life sound like the antithesis of Buddhism, which would teach us to attend to the Truth right in front of us, rather than cultivate fantasies of greener grass.

In my next post, I'll think some more about why I had this nomad urge when I was younger, and why it seems to have evaporated over the last couple decades, as I've stayed put in Berkeley.

Zen Motivational Poster

Found at http://mojo1000.com/:

Tweet?

Empty Gate Zen Center has taken some further baby steps into the new millennium, with both a Facebook page and a Twitter thingie. Along with the Yahoo Group, we'll use Twitter to send out Center news and (daily?) Zen aphorisms.

Which reminds me of visits to my father's father (we called him Zeyda, which is Yiddish for grandfather). This was 40-some years ago, and I was too young to be curious about the facinating life Zeyda had lived. Let alone to be grateful for his courage in crossing continents and oceans from Ukraine so that his lucky descendants could be born in America. I did notice how out of touch he seemed to be about the modern world, calling a refrigerator "the icebox" or a car "the machine."

My sage brother would explain that just about everything in the world had changed since Zeyda's childhood. And (my brother would whisper to me) the world changes faster and faster, so the day would eventually arrive when I'd find myself even more clueless than Zeyda was then.

Twitter reminds me of that long-ago prediction. Not only do I fail to figure out Twitter technically... I can't even grasp the concept of wanting the world to know what I'm doing minute to minute. But I got my own Twitter account anyway. I don't expect to send out much; I still haven't worked out how to connect it to my BlackBerry.

Why did I bother to join Twitter? Because it's what all the kids are into; it appears to be the Biggest New Thing since levitating ping-pong balls. So maybe my membership at Twitter will magically and mystically forestall that fateful day my brother whispered about. Besides, I do enjoy following some of the "Tweets" that others send out, like: 2012 is for people who were disappointed with Y2K (from Guruphiliac) and Looking for the meaning of life is like looking for the square root of purple (from Duhism).

Mind Over Matter (coming this Christmas!)

A great article at WashingtonPost.com heralds the release of new toys that run on "mind control over matter." Here's the link: Brain Wave of the Future.

Surely this is The Next Big Thing. It addresses the age-old conundrum of mental/physical duality, and by Xmas it'll be on the shelves of Toys 'R' Us (for ages 8 and up). Here's the gist: you attach an electrode to your forehead, it reads your level of concentration, and translates it to levitation of a ping-pong ball.

Think of the possibilities. The new technology is a likely cure for ADHD and senility, and will allow paralyzed people to control appliances with their minds. But why stop there?

Consider all the spiritual/religious groups that hold up super-concentrated states (meditation, contemplation, prayer, etc) as The Goal. Their Spiritual Leaders make unsubstantiated claims about achieving one-pointedness, and demand blind faith in their abilities. Now we have a technological solution, a way to actually quantify who's got the best concentration.

Think of Yoga cults, where Swamis claim superior God-realization. Why not subject them to the test, and make them surrender their seats to anyone who can levitate ping-pong balls higher? Or when a Dalai Lama dies... why make the Lamas go through that tiresome process of seeking his reincarnation? They can just hold a contest to measure mind-over-matter skills, and declare the winner as Supreme Meditator.

When Benedict XVI dies, I'd like to see the College of Cardinals all hooked up to electrodes, and the ping-pong balls will reveal how intense their prayers really are. Wouldn't that be a more efficient way to select the next Pope? Put it on pay-per-view, and maybe the Vatican can pay off some legal bills.

Hippies!

Yesterday I attended the Happening at People's Park. (What to call it... a concert? a festival? It was officially billed as An Afternoon of Music, Memories, and Magic.) It marked the 40th anniversary of the riots that gave birth to the Park, attracted the attention of the nation, and made my little town of Berkeley the center of the exploding 60s counter-culture/protest movement.

What can I tell you. It was a beautiful day in Berkeley, and it was just a short walk from my house. Besides, People's Park has a special place in my heart, as the first place I bought LSD in the mid-80s. The music was free, as was the food provided by Food Not Bombs. My buddy and I wished we'd set up a competing booth and called it Bombs Not Food. Or at least Drugs Not Hugs.

It's incredible to people-watch the crowd that appears under such conditions. Where do all these middle-aged hippies come from? Where do they hide themselves between jam fests? How do they make a living... it's impossible to imagine some of those folks in any conventional job.

The scene can't be described in words, so I've devised a little game. Below are a few photos and videos. Each was either taken by me yesterday with my trusty BlackBerry... or is entirely fictional. Can you tell the real from the imaginary? Life is strange, particularly in Berkeley; distinguishing fact from fiction isn't as easy as you may think!

Sniff Swig Puff

From the 70s: Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur sing an ode to recreational drug use.

Am I doing it right?

I lead the Tuesday and Thursday evening practices at Empty Gate Zen Center. Zen isn't terribly popular, particularly since the 70s. Nonetheless, an attendee or two generally shows up at these sittings. One such young woman, a university student who's a Thursday night regular, even started a group that sits on a different night, in the International House dorm where she lives.

Last week, someone in the I-house group asked her, "How do I know if I'm doing it right?" (I assume the reference is to sitting Zen.) She wasn't sure how to answer, so she asked me. I first gave her my gut response: "You don't know. You just try."

Zen tradition isn't so big on explanations. But my American society... particularly the sub-culture I swim among in Berkeley, one heavily influenced by psychoanalytic theory and such... is awfully big on explanation. I'm sometimes torn when it comes to gut reactions vs thought-out ones.

Whatever. After I'd considered it for a few minutes, I said to her, "If someone's wondering if they're doing it right, it means that they're holding some idea about 'right' vs 'wrong.' It means that they want something, so they're concerned about whether or not they're gonna get it. When thoughts like that appear, it's a really great opportunity to examine them closely, question them, see them for what they are."

I don't want to have canned answers to the Big Questions. I want to -- to some extent anyway -- respond freshly and flexibly, according the particulars of the situation. This question (Am I doing it right?) comes up constantly with beginning Zen students. How could it not? A couple decades ago, a new student had asked me, and I told her, "It's called sitting. If you're sitting on the cushion and haven't fallen off, then you're doing it right. And if you have fallen off, that's OK too."

I dunno. That answer may have been good or bad, or both, or neither. In any case, I enjoy the irony of the question. We've all been sitting, no problem, practically since we were born. Then we visit a Zen center and formally learn to "sit," and all of a sudden, we're not so sure any more that we know how to do it right!

If any reader has any thoughts about how I should answer this type of question, please speak up.