Category Archives: Buddhist Thinking

Spirituality without Religion

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Many Mushrooms make a great stewIs it possible to follow a spiritual path without the guidance of any organized religion? I certainly think so. But I’ve learned the hard way that there is no easy way. I’ve been wandering around for years looking for clues to guide me. I’ve tried easy fixes, pat little formulas like “Be here now” or “This is It” or “God is Love” or “The Path of Least Resistance”. Nothing makes living with quality and integrity easy. The only real choice you have is how you learn and grow from your experiences.

Organized religion offers a tested path. Sometimes it’s better to seek a known path rather than potentially getting lost finding your own. On the other hand, getting a little lost is a sure way to learn the territory well. As with any solution, one size doesn’t fit all. Perhaps a hybrid mish-mash of the best of all paths would be more adaptable to different needs. My exploration has certainly exposed me to wisdom I would not have “invented” on my own.

What I’ve found in my search for spiritual growth are a few simple rules (patterns*) which have no particular religious affiliation, but which can be found in almost any religious prescription. I like to think they are deeply thought common sense. (*since writing this, I have decided that the word “rules” has too strict a connotation- please allow me to call them “patterns“)

Pattern 1: The existence of a “soul” which lasts after this life is impossible to prove. Yet, though there may be no “spirit” after life, the fact is, our energy is never born and never dies. A cloud is water vapor, which may become rain, then a river, then steam or ice. So there is in fact a continuation of “me”, albeit in a different form. One could even deem this “continuation” of energy a spiritual axiom, though few would find it comforting. Consider this. No matter how important or “everlasting” you wish your personal self to be, your life will inevitably pass into some other form which can never really be known. So the bottom line is that we need to make the best, best, best possible life we can with the one we have.

Pattern 2: The fact is, we are not separate from the rest of the world. Our bodies are only minimally separated by porous skin from the air around us and from the rest of the physical world. Because of this illusion, it is incredibly easy to believe that we are alone and separate from the world. If we believe this long enough, we make it true. Our minds will make it true. Many of us live in this lonely hell. But if we can stay open to the idea that we are part of something greater than our individual self, we can, with lots of patience and persistence, thrive on our intrinsic connection to the world. Everything we do affects more than just ourselves. Caring for our bodies is caring for the world. Caring for a family member is helping all humanity. Caring for a plant or animal is embracing compassion. Helping planet Earth helps yourself. A smile felt from your heart goes to someone else’s heart. On the other hand, anger at one’s self is harmful to the world, and on and on through all the emotions of the lonely, false self. (this rule is the hardest for me to realize, by far, yet it is perhaps the most important)

Pattern 3: Accept your uniqueness and begin by loving yourself. You are the beginning of the rest of the world. Embrace this fact. You cannot love anyone if you can’t love yourself. I do not mean smug self-adoration over all others. This kind of false self love is toxic. It indicates that pattern two, our universal connectedness, has not been noticed. One must be responsible for one’s actions and even one’s thoughts. Only we can monitor our own psychological reality as it occurs to us. Hateful thoughts and words are only a breath away from similar actions.

Pattern 4: Learn from mistakes, yours and others. Life is like music. Becoming spiritual means playing that music more beautifully, with more meaning. Pay attention. No matter how much we read or listen to the teachings of others, we tend to have to “reinvent the wheel” to some degree. Ideas for improving your ability to give meaning to life’s music come from multiple sources: from friends, from books, TV shows, blogs, from a pet’s gentle eyes, a sweet smelling flower, the sound of water, and especially from your own inner voice. Listen to your conscience. A junior High School math teacher once said to our class, “Your conscience is like a pin prick which reminds you of what your gut is telling you. Ignore it long enough and you wear the pins down. Sooner or later you don’t feel the prick.” Don’t ignore your conscience. Don’t ignore your heart.

Pattern 5: Forgive as you go. There is a letting go in this feeling, letting go of impermanence, clarifying your spiritual permanence in a flawed world. Forgive yourself and forgive others, over and over, second to second, day after day. Forgive with each breath. Forgiveness is letting go. Cleanse yourself with forgiveness. If you remain in a constant state of forgiveness, you are much more able to learn from mistakes and to love through suffering. This is a paradox. But the fact is, a clean slate is easier to write on.

As forgiveness soaks through every cell of my existence, an airiness fills me, a porous lightness which allows pain, suffering, fear, anger and resentment to pass through me, leaving more room for growth and love.

The Shape of the Blanks

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The Shape of the BlanksCan we ask oursevles questions without trying to answer with too much finality? In our busy, goal oriented society, it’s considered unproductive. We believe we need to fill in all the blanks.

There are questions which don’t necessarily have clear answers, at least right now. Who am I? What will become of me? Who is the perfect mate for me? What do I really want from life? Why am I like I am? Even questions like, What should I do today? can cause a compulsive filling in of the blank. Most of us would immediately jump to answer these, thinking we know exactly what the answers are or should be. Or perhaps it’s what we want them to be.

The process of being alive, of being human, rarely has a “fill in the blank” simplicity. The answers change. They evolve. Sometimes they are better left blank. Filling in the blanks may actually hurt us. It can create labels which limit us, box us in. If I answer the question Who am I? with “I am a selfish person, because I’ve been told that, and because I tend to take care of myself before others”, I inflict more damage than good. But if I say “I will acknowledge what others think of me, and I will take care of myself, but I know I am aware of others well being. I just don’t wrap my life around it. My way of showing that I care it different.” Then I leave open the possibility of change. The answer is more positive.

Even better is to simply leave the blank empty and watch its shape as we allow our thoughts to filter in and out of the space created by the question. Then more possibilities are allowed into the equation. The blanks can blossom with a creative opening of new answers we had never considered before.

When we face stress, we tend to label the stress as bad, something to be avoided as much as possible, something to minimize. This kind of filling in the blanks creates a gap in our motivation. It prevents us from flowing with the moment and the freedom to process the stressful situation with alacrity. By simply leaving those blanks empty we prevent blocking our own progress with negative thoughts. The shape of the blanks may loom and threaten us, but we can smile and watch as the clouds pass leaving our minds clear to tackle the issues at hand.

Krishnamurti was famous for answering his followers questions with questions. Tonally a question has a lift at the end, allowing it to remain unfinished, open. Rhetorically a question leaves the answer soft and malleable, ready for adjustments, or more questions. Few philosophical questions in life have definitive answers. Why not allow the answers to ebb and flow like the tide, which brings in new answers and uncovers others when leaving?

Thinking Spiritually Outside the Self

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One of the most difficult aspects of spiritual thinking, (thinking which reaches beyond the small, petty self) is grasping how that self is an illusion.

The real Self, with a capital “S”, is the whole world, for our skin is only a thin membrane connecting our inner “self” with our outer “Self”. Yet most of us live our lives basing decisions on that small, illusory sense of lonely, separate, finite existence. No spiritual practice is worth anything without this important premise in its teaching.

For now, I would like to explore how this idea affects our thinking about world problems. We, myself included, tend to be satisfied with accomplishing the tasks set before us to achieve our daily goals, ideally to obtain and maintain health, security, community, career, relaxation and some kind of spiritual practice.

I don’t know about you, but I find myself worn out after doing what’s necessary to maintain my life. I don’t like to face too many new tasks, or at least not ones which seem altruistic, reaching for some “unobtainable” or far distant goal. Yet we have no choice but to commit any extra time and resources to alleviating issues such as hunger, disease, genocide, or extreme poverty.

Of course, there are really no specific consequences to ignoring this truth. We can live our lives, as many do, striving only to better ourselves, regardless of how it affects others. Nothing really bad will happen to us, except we will be ignoring our most precious gift, our compassion, our conscience. After long enough, we forget what it feels like to feel for others. We can rationalize that it was just meant to be that way. Tough cookies. Perhaps this is why religion is still useful in a way. It keeps people guessing as to what their punishment will be if they don’t at least try to act toward some altruistic ideas.

We cannot claim to live fully conscious and ignore those issues on a daily basis. That would mean living in denial, a kind of zombie trance, an illusion of happiness. There’s a hollowness to this kind of living. Often, we try to fill this “hollow leg” with more things, more food, more business, new improved living, even a kind of endless searching for a spiritual practice which “fits” us.

Ultimately, the answer is simple. Take daily time to feel and nourish the deep pain of admitting how others suffer. This could be in the form of prayer or contemplation. There are specific practices in Buddhism which offer a structured building of compassion, starting with sending compassionate, loving thoughts to those you love, then to those you don’t love, then to strangers you know, and on to all sentient beings. It’s very healing.

Then, give what you can financially. Be really honest with yourself. Do you need that new CD? Can you spare that money for someone more needy?

When reading Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith, I was amazed to find out that secular societies, particularly those from Northern Europe, give by far the most generous support toward relieving the suffering known to exist in so much of the world. Food for thought.

Learning to Let

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Learning is doing and letting. When we face fear, we learn. To learn we must let. We learn that to let we must trust. To trust we must believe. And so it goes, until we get to experience. When we experience, we find change; it begins to carry more weight. We can see things and admit they are absolutely new.

Sure, there are patterns, familiar repetitions, like spirals and swirls and hatcheted hounds-tooth patterns hovering over the surface of our experience. What I mean here is the raw, visceral newness of the moment, like opening a new box of Cheerios, or like watching a candle burn. Our contribution is our trust in letting it be perpetually new. It’s not necessarily pretty, but it’s magnetic in its truth.

Accepting and opening to everything can be daunting, terrifying even. But it can happen. It must happen to really live. And it needs to be acknowledged and practiced consciously.

Integral Spirituality, Humanist Spirituality

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Another New Age trend? Well, perhaps a New, new age, looking beyond crystals and incense. Why should we think about these ideas?

All peoples from around the world maintain some kind of spiritual practice. It adds meaning and wholeness to their lives. I am included in that bunch. When I started this blog is was about my poetry. Now I realize I was seeking clarity through my poetry. As I age, I need a firmer grasp of the big picture. My search has led me to Sufi poetry, Buddhist thinking, learning Yoga and its philosophy, Taoism, even some mystical Christian poetry, such as Thomas Merton. And it has also led me to read books on consciousness, psychology, biology, philosophy and language.

Religion as it is now ends up creating pockets of belief, quietly held close to the chest, so that only those close to us will hear what we believe. We cannot afford to continue limiting our spiritual practices to these kinds of fenced in beliefs. We all need to look beyond faith to truth; the truth about what all humans need and want.

I want to believe something with everyone else, but history and the current trends of the religious right in the US have forced me to reject the faulty tower of Christianity. Things need an overhaul. Religion in its current state is leaking credibility like a plastic bucket that’s been dragged across a hot asphalt road for 2000 miles. One has to deny to much of reality to believe it. After reading Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, I’m convinced there are no innocent followers of any organized religion based on pure faith and not fact.

So, what am I getting at? I’m not sure. Maybe you can help. Why is it that science and technology, medicine, knowledge, intelligence, education, government, and everything else has progressed with the times, while religion still touts fairy tales? How can intelligent people know so much about the universe and biology and and life and death and psychology and quantum reality and still think there’s a petulant guy with a beard sitting up in the sky wearing white robes watching us and judging and sending some to heaven with harps and some to hell with red horns?

Jesus was a really, really cool guy who wanted us all to feel and know and nourish the incredible gift of consciousness and spirit we inherit, and that we needed some guidelines. But we basically misunderstood most of what he said and eventually blew it all out of proportion for thousands of years, using his teachings to kill and oppress. As for the miracles, there are better special effects these days than any of that hocus pocus. Human spirit is a real miracle, not just the followers of an old book.

We all want to belong. I do, too. There’s a lot of pressure to conform to what everyone else believes. “Can billions of people be wrong?” Heck, yes. The whole planet used to think the world was flat. On a global scale, people want to believe something outside their meager existence, and religion has made VERY good use of that need, and used it to gain incredible power. But there are other options, there really are.

I think Jesus and whatever god there might be would want us to put two and two together and grow beyond the literal words of books written 2 millennia ago by humans, men, with their frailties and limitations, and ‘god’ knows what political power strategies to implement.

We need to move beyond all that outdated dogma into a modern kind of spirituality, one which embraces the human desire to understand the big picture, and one which includes science in that picture. I want to know the larger meaning of my life, how I fit into the universe, why I am alive, what is my purpose. I want answers. I want guidance. I need it. But I refuse to accept that there are no options beyond the current organized religions. I recently asked a very liberal Episcopal Minister why we need to refer to a book which is so full of violence and contradiction. I was told that I just haven’t interpreted the Good Book properly yet. Hogwash. I want a new book.

On the other hand, some of the lessons in the Bible are still valid today. For example, the gnostic Gospel of Thomas intrigues me. It shows Jesus telling us “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you” And…”the Kingdom of God is within you…” Good. I’m bringing forth what’s within me now.

Let’s use these teachings, and add more modern, up to date spiritual answers for the new problems we have: the threat of extinction, overpopulation, global war, destruction of the environment, lack of social connectedness, lack of spiritual unity, lack of morality, hypocrisy, corporate monopolies causing injustice and destruction of cultures and land.

Let’s begin the discussion, or continue where we left off 2000 years ago. What would Jesus do? What would Buddha do? What would Mohamed do? I don’t think they’d approach todays world the same as they did then. Do you?

Who are the living leaders in these religions? I’ve given up on the Catholic Church, so steeped in its own gilded power as to be paralyzed to any change, let alone evolve. And the loudest religious leaders in the US are also hopeless, soaked to the bone in their own volatility, ready to immolate any second, flambé in their own vitriol. We won’t even mention Islam at this point, who’s spiritual goodness cowers behind twisted righteous dogma. The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh are one hope. Their teachings are the most evolved spiritual guides we have in living people today. But to most people, they’re just wishy washy monks from Asia. That’s about it.

I plan to explore new approaches to the problems of spirituality today. I will share my readings and findings here on my blog. So far, the best description of what I am looking for is Humanist Spirituality, or Integral Spirituality.

Here is an interesting sermon on humanist spirituality by Rev. Bill Gupton of the Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church in Cincinnati, OH. I also just read an outstanding talk, Humanist Spirituality: Oxymoron or Authentic Path to Enlightenment given by Doug Muder, who’s blog is Free and Responsible Search. He reasons that a new kind of spirituality can offer in terms of connection to reality and liberation from its limitations. It is a worthy read.

A blog which explores alternatives to mass religion is IntentBlog. There’s a good article on Empirical Spirituality where the writer, Judi Rall, says “I am an empirical spiritualist because the only way one can know truth is by experience. Observing with our eyes, sensing with our intuition, feeling with our emotions: these are all necessary parts of discerning truth. We must trust them. That is how God communicates with us, by providing emotional, visual and intuitive information cued to the empirical experiences of nature.” Along those lines, I think Pagan Spirituality gets a bad rap from everyone. For the past 2000 years, the Church as been stealing pagan rituals as their own and destroying their credibility, using smear tactics which rival the US Republican Party!

One book which popped up in my searches is Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. He, along with many others who wish to foster a new kind of spirituality, emphasizes the mystery and wonder of the natural world, both inner and outer, and how science has helped amplify the beauty of the unknown, rather than mythologize it. Of course he’s been lambasted by those who feel threatened by the possibility of bringing spirituality up to date. Edmund O Wilson is another truth teller who’s being swamped with venom from small minded thinkers.

More and more people are claiming to be “spiritual but not religious”. What does this mean? Is it possible to feel the pulsing vitality of a great joyous, creative Spirit within ourselves without going to a church and reading an old, self-contradictory book? What do you think? Really, I want to know! If you don’t agree with me, tell me why. Perhaps these new, freethinker, human spiritualists are misguided and will be trapped in some dead end teachings, following a false slimy guru who has a taste for purple koolaid. Perhaps. But that’s why I’m here asking and wondering how and why we might unleash a new of direction in spirituality, something focused and appealing, real and mystical, sensible and enticing. In this age of brilliant advertising and research into mass appeal, I’m sure we can come up with a well researched, sensible, powerful, constructive spirituality.

It is possible to imagine a spiritual tradition where the focusing practices of Buddhism and Buddhist thinking can join with the physical balancing of Yoga and The Alexander Technique, which can then be guided by some moral teachings from Jesus and Mohammed, updated to reflect the rich depth and expanse of modern science and cosmology, (for a REALLY cool, fun, educational tour of the big bang go here) add a dose of climate and ecological responsibility, a heaping spoon of sane technoprogressive perspective, a dash of Steve Pavlina for focus and direction, and mix it all up to form something really useful and relevant to our complex and overcrowded world.