Category Archives: Spirituality - Page 2

The Worlds in Our Heads

This is where I realise, with some shamefaced embarassment, how long it’s been since my last post.

I have spent some time over the last few weeks, discussing things with fellow secularists and some Jehovah’s Witnesses we have the acquaintance of.  The discussions are relating to God, Creationism and Evolution; the usual, in other words.  I do try to keep things as polite and civil as I can, I try to make my points gently and without causing offence.  But I do begin to understand why many secular people get frustrated when dealing with true believers, so I’d like to open the can of worms here; at least part of the way.

I write from the perspective of a Secular Buddhist, and my understanding is this.  Our problems stem from the fact we do not see clearly. We clutch after things we believe are solid and permanent without realising that they are changing and impermanent, our illusions blind us to the basic impermanence of the world and also of ourselves.  This is why you’ll sometimes hear Buddhists referred to as believing the world is an illusion, that’s because the world most of us inhabit is; it’s an illusion that exists only in our minds.  The trouble starts when we respond to this illusion as if it were concrete reality, then we start storing up trouble for the future (think Karma).  There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll save it for another time.  Believe it or not, I’ve expressed the above to an Anglican and a Jehovah’s Witness and both have agreed with the sentiment that responding to our illusions as if they were real is nothing but trouble.  I can’t imagine that either would agree with what I have to say next.

When expressing ideas to believers, I’ve found that no matter how well you put things or how you back things up with proof, there is a wall.  You can get so far, then you’re up against faith and you can get no further.  From what I can see, the whole position of ‘supernatural’ religions would seem to be exactly the problem I describe in my last paragraph; they have their beliefs from their book and regardless of the evidence will stick to those beliefs with varying degrees of rigidity.

The level of intellectual evasion can be quite breathtaking at times.  I’ve seen false dichotomies and strawman arguments presented confidently as fact in articles sourced from around the Internet and thought “Why?”, “Why distort things like this, when it undermines everything you’re trying to do?”  I can understand defending a cherished belief, I can genuinely empathise, but if you can’t defend it honestly then why is it worth defending at all?

But it’s when I see believers taking these things and accepting them as accurate logic without a peep, not even a murmur; when I start to realise how many people are doing this, and not bringing even a shred of critical thought to bear on these things, it’s then that I start to get a glimpse of the sheer enormity of what the Buddha meant.

The Importance of Withdrawal

I invested in an Amazon Kindle a few weeks ago, it’s certainly been a good choice and I have rediscovered the pleasure of reading through it.  It allows me to carry a large library of books with me, and the screen is every bit as good as they claim it to be.  I can recommend the Free Software ebook manager called “Calibre” for use with it, as it allows easy conversion of ebooks between all sorts of formats.  It also allows the downloading of RSS feeds and will collate these feeds into a book for you.  I consider this to be a killer feature, absolutely brilliant!

I’ve started reading my feeds on the Kindle and have discovered that it makes reading them much easier than on a computer screen.  I pondered why, aside from the better Kindle screen, this should be.  Then I realised that it’s the fact that the Kindle does one thing, and one thing only, it reads books.  As someone who owns a smartphone with various communications options on it and has numerous little programs that can chime in and demand attention on his PC, I have been finding it very difficult to focus.  Not only to read but to write and to create.

This chimed in with something that the tutor said at the Buddhist Vihara last week; the necessity of withdrawal, of shutting out the world and getting some time and space to focus.  We withdraw to create a place that is sacred and spiritual and that is peaceful, that is not of the everyday world.  Yet, what is the place we go when we read; when we really engage with a good book, is that place entirely of this world?  I realised that this is why Kindle makes it easier to read, there are no interruptions and no possibility of such things.  If I read on my phone, I can be texted, IMed, Facebook messaged, emailed, or (looks shocked) …. phoned!  Throw in all the little toy apps that you can get and what chance is there of any peace?

It seems to me that these things take the control of our time away from us, it seems that we are interrupted at a whim and a response is demanded there and then.  But where is the control in that?  There are our devices, our tools, yet we seem to jump to their tune.  This makes time away even more vital than it ever has been and it it makes me question whether all of the advances in our communications abilities are necessarily for the better.

As a self confessed geek, this is a strange place to be it seems.  Am I taking an anti technology stance here?  No.  I am advocating a measure of moderation and also a realization that we don’t need to be plugged in all the time.  I started reading my news and my blogs on a daily ebook rather than as they come in, and if anything it improved matters.  By taking these things and making a specific time and place for them, it seems to unchoke everything else.

An afternoon out

On Sunday I paid a local Theravada temple in Birmingham a visit.  My practise has been done virtually till now and I felt it was time to take the next step.  The lady I was talking to was cheerful, energetic and happy and helpful and was at pains to explain impermanence and the view that Buddhism is psychology.  As a trained psychiatric nurse, she could get right behind this and I hope I get the chance to talk to her in more depth about it.

I listened and took this chance to reboot my understanding, it’s so good to come to things with a beginners mind again.  We get so wrapped up in knowing this and that, with how much we know and understand, we wrap our understanding round us like armour.  No wonder we get upset when it’s challenged.

It’s this sort of thing that moved me away from the local skeptical community, I was all ready to start going to meetings, but on closer inspection and reading of blogs it all started to taste a bit sour.  I started to get the distinct feeling that the point is to be seen to be right, I felt that I saw a lot of ego and little desire to understand.  There was no empathy.  One day I’ll expand on this in more depth, but not right now.

So, I had a nice afternoon and also got to try a Tibetan Prayer Wheel for the first time.  Let’s see where this new chapter leads…..