I was wandering the web looking through green sites, peak oil sites and other things and I came across a couple of quotes which I like:

“Of all the qualities in your being, that which is most god-like is creativity” - Pir Ilayat Vilayat Khan

I too think that our creativity is our greatest asset, it’s what makes us both the most brilliant and the most dangerous of animals.

While looking into the story of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan situation, I noticed an interesting piece on Salon.com by Christopher Hitchens linked to from the Wikipedia entry.

This piece is quite critical of the Dalai Lama, having read it and few other pieces by Christopher I’m becoming convinced that he’s performing us all a great service. I find that he is critical of media and public figures, I think that given the way we tend to build up and idolise public figures we need someone playing Devils Advocate to drag them back down off the pedestal.

The problem with building up a person (public figure or not) to huge adoration is that when the things about them that we didn’t previously know become known the adoration swings the other way and people start to feel just as strongly, but negatively.

It’s as if we forget that they are simply human beings with the same imperfections and flaws and foibles as us. I know there’s a sentiment that seems to think that because they’re in the public eye they should somehow be perfect; well sorry, get real, these people are humans too. Why are we so surprised when we find that out?

The problem I have with the adulation these people receive, is that people would be much better off focussing on their own problems and spiritual practices; mainly because, while the opinions of spiritual leaders and many celebrities and politicians are useful and helpful, ultimately we have to settle on our own answers.  If you’re slavishly following the opinions of another person over your own, who controls your development and ultimately your destiny? Not you, that’s for sure.

Or as the Buddha put it before his death:

“Be a light unto yourself; betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.”

I’ve been very interested by a story on the BBC which details the findings of scientists who are studying meditation. You can find the article here. It seems that the days of waiting for hard scientific evidence for the positive effects of meditation may well be over!

As a person who considers meditation to be an absolutely valuable practice this is music to my ears, I notice that they suggest it may help people struggling with substance abuse, and promotes happiness and enthusiasm.

I can certainly relate to that, I know how I feel when I miss my practice for a few days, I feel that my creativity and ability to engage properly with the world declines without meditation.

How do you feel your meditation practice benefits you? Drop me a comment.

I’ve talked about my views on the finger pointing at the moon before, but this was a nice surprise.  I’ve been reading “The Religion of The Samurai”, a treatise on Zen written in 1913 by by Kaiten Nukariya.
There is a section on why scripture is no more than waste paper, which echoes my sentiments, though I personally feel that this sentiment extends far beyond the Buddhist scriptures to all religious scriptures regardless of creed or canon:  They’re a nice place to start, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

This quote is from the beginning of Chapter 3:

“Zen is based on the highest spiritual plane attained by Shakya Muni himself. It can only be realized by one who has attained the same plane. To describe it in full by means of words is beyond the power even of Gotama himself. It is for this reason that the author of Lankavatara-sutra insists that Shakya Muni spoke no word through his long career of forty-nine years as a religious teacher, and that of Mahaprajñaparamita-sutra also express the same opinion. The Scripture is no more nor less than the finger pointing to the moon of Buddhahood. When we recognize the moon and enjoy its benign beauty, the finger is of no use. As the finger has no brightness whatever, so the Scripture has no holiness whatever. The Scripture is religious currency representing spiritual wealth. It does not matter whether money be gold, or sea-shells, or cows. It is a mere substitute. What it stands for is of paramount importance. Away with your stone-knife! Do not watch the stake against which a running hare once struck its head and died. Do not wait for another hare. Another may not come for ever. Do not cut the side of the boat out of which you dropped your sword to mark where it sunk. The boat is ever moving on. The Canon is the window through which we observe the grand scenery of spiritual nature. To hold communion directly with it we must get out of the window. It is a mere stray fly that is always buzzing within it, struggling to get out. Those who spend most of their lives in the study of the Scriptures, arguing and explaining with hair-splitting reasonings, and attain no higher plane in spirituality, are religious flies good for nothing but their buzzing about the nonsensical technicalities. It is on this account that Rin-zai declared:  ‘The twelve divisions of the Buddhist Canon are nothing better than waste paper.’”

This sentiment is why I have little time for religious debates or the technicalities of scripture, stop arguing over trifles in books of dubious authorship, we know we need to progress spiritually … so get on with it!

The Religion of The Samurai is available for download here.

I’ve been a little snowed under technically of late, but now I’ve got Debian Testing installed and rocking, I’m back and I’d like to muse on a post that Lewis made over on A Barefootman about Shadow.

It’s important to see the parts of ourselves we keep in the shadows, the problem is we can sometimes fall into the trap of over emphasising these parts. To use Lewis’s examples, the hedonist. I don’t generally do clubs, but I’ve let that part of myself out of the shadows a few times. Usually I woke up poorer and nursing a bad head and stomach. It can actually ruin a weekend, and they call this “having fun”?

I feel that it’s important to allow these things to settle into a balance, by all means let the intellectual out, but in the proper forum. Let the hedonist play, but don’t get silly.

My own focus on the shadows has pointed at far darker aspects of ourselves, anger, violence, jealousy and others. I feel it is a great loss to a person to deny that these things exist in each and every one of us. These aspects of ourselves can serve to remind us to be mindful, to cleave to the middle path, almost like a form of mental Judo, though of course you have to catch yourself in time.

As part of my ongoing wandering on the Buddhist path, I’ve been considering things and trying to see through the hype. I’m going to go out on a limb here. Recently I wrote about my complete opposition to Capital Punishment, I’d like to return to a quote from that article.

I’ve been reading some of the letters written to newspapers calling for Capital Punishment to be reintroduced, the language is normally very much aimed at the readers emotions, the murderers are always “heinous” and “inhuman” or “monstrous”, I’ll leave my views on the “inhuman” part till another day.

I feel that this is the right time to clarify that quote. Let’s think about animals. Every day in the animal kingdom, there are examples of killing and other acts that would quite rightly arouse the wrath of the law in Human society. The major difference between Humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom (note the words “rest of”, it’s a very important point) is our capacity.

We are possessed of a greater capacity than other animals, we can reach so much higher. In fact our abilities have grown to the point that Humanity could be reasonably be considered a force of nature, which is why I feel we need to pay more attention to spirituality in the moment in a practical sense. My focus here is going to be more on an individual level, our intelligence gives us the capability for reaching much higher altruism, compassion and spirituality are three examples. But capacity goes both ways, we can also sink lower.

So when someone says a particular murderer (for example) is “inhuman”, my response to that is the thought “I really can’t think of any other animal that would commit that act for that reason”. We have acts of murder, cannibalism and infanticide every day in the natural world, but that comes from evolutionary pressure. For example, a lion that takes over a pride generally kills any young he can find, this is to better secure his genetic legacy, not for kicks.

A Human will however, that’s the difference, we can be the best of animals, but also the worst. I feel that for those of us who aspire to the middle path it’s imperative we acknowledge that honestly.

For me, questioning is a large part of spirituality, I feel that an unexamined belief is not worth holding.  That’s a large part of what I like about Buddhism, that spirit of enquiry and examination, in fact I was pleasantly surprised to find a virtual Sangha in Second Life which feels exactly the same way.

The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha is a place for Buddhists (and anyone else who wants to drop in and talk on the subject) to meet in Second Life.   I have to say it’s very useful to have them there, I’m finding that Second Life is a very useful tool for allowing communities to form and interact in a new way that I’ve not quite seen anywhere else.  I’ve been involved in some truly stimulating discussion meetings in the Sangha and have to say it’s certainly helped me along the path.

As an aside, I’m finding Second Life to be more useful when viewed as an enhancement to my Real Life and given a balance with that as appropriate.  I try not to spend more time there than I feel appropriate and always try to bear in mind my reasons for being there.

I had the Buddhist view of the self re-explained to me the other day, it made a bit more sense this way.

The example I was given previously was by Alan Watts and was of a man in a railways station who buys a ticket, sits in the queue and then finally gets on a train and leaves.

The point Alan makes is that at each moment the man has extra experiences, his metabolism has moved on, he’s had extra thoughts about things, etc. So at no point is he a static entity, the man who buys the ticket is not the man who entered the station. The man who waits is not the man who bought the ticket, and so on. A consistent self is not present, as at each stage the man has changed in any number of small ways, and thus cannot present a consistent entity.

So I’m reading “An End to Suffering” by Pankaj Mishra, it’s an interesting read so far. It’s autobiographical and is covering a bit more of the history of the British and European discovery of Buddhism than I’ve seen elsewhere. The Buddhist view of the self is presented here by way of a short story, which uses the example of a chariot.

A chariot, like anything, is made from components. But no one component can be said to be the whole of the chariot.

The question is asked “Are the wheels the chariot?”, and answered “No”. Then, “Are the reins the Chariot?”, again the answer is “No”, and so on. It becomes clear that the chariot is really the relationship between it’s parts, it can only be said to exist when the parts are together.

The same is true of a person that we are truly the relationship between our physical and mental parts. My appendix for example, is not me, just one part of me. If I have my appendix (or tonsils) out, then I am certainly not the being I was before as I am minus some parts, but those parts cannot be said to be me.

Again the point is that my “self” is really the relationship between the constantly changing components of my body and mind, not anything concrete. But there is another dimension that the author has not touched on yet, which I think underpins Buddhist ethics. It’s something I’ve mentioned on here before, the South African principle of “Ubuntu” or “I am who I am because of who we all are”.

A very important part of the relationships that make me who I am is my relationship to my environment, the society I live in and to other people within those. This makes the precepts and the eightfold path even more urgent, as they not only change my body and mind relationship, but they directly change my relationship with these external things, thus not only changing who am I am, but ultimately who we all are.

I was wandering on my lunch hour and found a post on Drops of Water that made me stop and think ‘how true!”

She writes of a person who has attained the Tao, you can put her in any company, no matter how low. She’ll be touched by it, but unstained. An image she gives is of a lotus growing in mud.

This is an image that resonates with me, my belief is that spirituality must be workman like. Yes, there is spirituality in a lotus or a meditation cushion, but that spirit is just as present in the dirty and profane places. I also feel that this imagery makes the important point, by association, that we should not use the fact that we are spiritual or religious as a reason to cut ourselves off from the world.

I feel that spirituality must start in the mud to be of use, that’s one of the reasons I identify more with Zen, the enlightenment they espouse is something that must survive the rigors of day to day living, not sat aloof in a monastery.

Allow me to refer to the Taiji symbol, I’ve said before that I consider the profane and darker side of the things to be as conducive to spiritual development as the sweet light side of things. I think this, because we all have a dark side and I consider it to be very dangerous to deny this side in our spiritual practice. If we do, how can our spiritual development ever be truly complete?

I was thinking a little about dualism the other day, carrying on from my previous post a little. Dualistic thought is covered early on in the Tao Te Ching, and from what I’ve seen around the internet and in my own writings and views, can be given negative connotations.

I’m coming to another viewpoint now, put simply, that dualism in neither good nor bad in itself; it simply is. We can’t get by without it, and it is vital to our existence that it’s there. We make value judgments every day in order to function and survive, for these judgments we need dualistic thought. The problem, as I see it, is when we get so caught up in our world of dualism that we forget that it’s only a set of arbitrary concepts.

Consider light/dark, it’s a great dualistic metaphor for things, not least good or evil. In the Taiji symbol it gets used to point out the mutual dependence of things, night and day, etc. But it’s a bit lost on a person who was born blind, similarly, a dualism based on silence and noise is lost on a person who was born deaf. As soon as you start factoring in people who don’t experience the world quite the same way we do, it all starts to get a bit more iffy.

Our dualisms can be biased by our subjective viewpoints; hot/cold is another dualism, but the exact definition varies from person to person. It seems to me that each time we “define” a dualism, we simply rope of a chunk of grey area and hope for the best.

I used to think dualistic thought was a negative thing, then realised that this was itself dualistic thought. I have to admit, I found that quite amusing for a while.  So this leads me to my current contention; Dualistic thought is necessary, not particularly desirable or undesirable, just there. The most important thing is to see it for what it is, necessary, but ultimately an illusion.

Why is it so hard to be still?  The other day I compared my Tai Chi practice to my gym practice, I have to admit that it’s more demanding to do Tai Chi.  Not so much in the aerobic way we associate with many western exercise methods, but in the manner of self observation and the level that it happens at. 

It’s interesting how little prepared all this gym and exercise business makes us for stillness, I was meditating the other night, paying more attention to my posture than usual and found that some of my back muscles were starting to complain.  For all our strength and cardio training, slowing down or even stopping is so challenging. 

Amusing, isn’t it?  Not fit enough to sit still….

I went into my local city, Birmingham, on Saturday afternoon.  It was as packed as always, crowds everywhere and an air of restlessness that almost gave me a headache.  The experience reinforced my belief that we live in a restless society, unable to slow down, or stop fidgeting, always rushing round in haste, but where to?

As everything is impermanent, I have to question our wisdom in rushing round breathlessly after temporary, illusory goals.  Wherever you’re rushing to, the things that you’re after are impermanent, is the stress really worth it?

I have a pet theory that if we slowed down, stopped rushing and noticed what’s round us a bit more, the world would change irrevocably and immensely, simply from the fact that we’d be more present in the moment.  We’d actually stop and think and notice things, and maybe we’d enjoy life a bit more as well.