Spirituality

Yes, the only Truth, capital 't', I tend to think of is that of a perceptual quality reality seems to possess to me, that of change, spontaneous creation and destruction. When I think of spirit like breath above, I immediately think of Aum or for me personally, the rhythmic rise and fall of my chest as I breathe or the dynamic flicker of a flame surrounded by darkness. But then it isn't the spelling or sound waves of pronouncing Aum or the categorised light waves of the flame, it's the direct experiential nature of it. That is when religion steps in, to offer a suggestion as to better and worse objects or ideas that will take your breath away and capture you in the immediacy of something. The good religions anyway.

Ashers, as far as I'm concerned this is all that you needed to say:
"it isn't the spelling or sound waves of pronouncing Aum or the categorised light waves of the flame, it's the direct experiential nature of it."

Pardon my presumption.

Hi JL,

You know, for all the stuff you and Fresco have said over the ages that I haven't followed, I followed your last two posts very well.

I've had a little more difficulty with Ashers posts, and Hawkeyes are as usual, rather interesting.

JL, in direct answer to the original question of spirituality? If so I think you're absolutely right. That post was still a bit of a reply/continuation to Hawkeye and religion-spirituality though.

I've used different words with different connotations interchangeably at times in those posts, I should've prefaced it a bit more, hope it hasn't caused too much confusion anyway guys.

Harmonizing nicely with the Tao here it seems....

However, you can't write off spirituality as centered upon the concept of God, this is the nature of most of man's spirituality though history. The concept of God is taught by the culture, you are right back into needing to deal with religion.

vikorr - I had trouble with most of what Asher, Fresco and JL have said over the years as well.

I didn't "get it" until I gave up religion.

I'm still in transition, so to speak, due to 40 years of religious conditioning. It makes more sense to me when focusing on spirit rather than spirituality.

Recently I've been "otherwise" occupied, but JL brought attention to my neglect on this forum. Sooo..... I'm back, well sorta.

Spirituality is a hazy term, and isn't used uniformly. There is the "Spirit" of Christmas, or of Giving. There is the house haunted by forsaken spirits. The most common use of "Spirit" is as an incorporeal animating principle. Something beyond the Perceptual World of time and space.

Abrahamic: For most followers of Abraham the Perceptual World IS the Real World defined by faith. Time and space are finite. Without God, the universe would be without animation, and all change would be cold and mechanical. God's great artistic touch was to breath "His" spirit into a special category of creation modeled on himself. Yet humans are not Gods, they are imperfect knockoffs. The divine spirit of God is in humans called the "soul", and it is individual to each person. As God is eternal, so is the soul. Death is end of animation, but the soul continues as a disembodied spirit. While living, individuals are torn between the perfection of God, and temptation to evil (the opposition to God's perfection). Carnality and the corruption of the flesh are immediate and evident, while the perfection of God and the soul are more a matter of faith. As one chooses departure from the perfection of God's spirit, the soul also is corrupted and shriveled. Death is, again, the departure of the soul (the individualized spirit of God) from the body. Whence does it go in a universe defined by in Abrahamic terms? The pure of spirit are rejoined to God, and are rendered whole again and eternal. Those whose choices in life led them away from God will, upon death may be unsuitable for merging back into God from which all things spring. Some Abrahamic sorts condemn those outlaw spirits/souls to an eternity of disembodied separation from God the only source really of wholeness, happiness, and fulfillment. That is Hell, to be apart forever from God. Those souls/spirits who are not reclaimed may from time to time impinge upon the Perceptual World as ghosts. Will such spirits ever be redeemed? Perhaps, there are different answers from different sects.

On the whole, I reject the Abrahamic model of Reality.

Buddhist Buddhism, on the other hand, is more practical. Buddhism teaches that there are two realities, and that we inhabit an illusory Perceptual Reality that arises from Ultimate Reality that is without time or space, and that is indivisible. Ultimate Reality, an analog to the Abrahamic notion of God, is not consciousness and has no intent... it just is. Period.

Unlike the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism is less given to theological abstraction. Buddhism is focused on dealing with a single issue; the problem of suffering. Why do people suffer? What can be done to mitigate or eliminate suffering?

The answer to those questions form the foundations of Buddhist Teaching. The Four Noble Truths are that suffering is endemic, that suffering has a knowable cause, that suffering can be annihilated or mitigated in this lifetime, and that there is a formula for achieving that end.

That suffering is universal isn't relevant to this thread. What is relevant is the cause of suffering. Suffering is due to the illusion that time and space exist. Our subjective belief is that we exist in a world of multiplicity. In that illusory world the "I", the ego is at the center of everything, yet the ego, the self, the "I" are all illusions and do not exist. In Buddhism: "No Gods, No Souls". The mistaken notion of multiplicity is the root of placing value upon differences that exist solely in the illusion. Without differentiation, there can be no "good" or "bad"; no "then","now","later"; no "this" or "that".

The non-existent self, believing in its existence and importance, places values on things, forms attachments and desires as if the Perceptual World was "real". We want what we can not have, and suffer. We lose what we treasure, and suffer. We crave pleasure, and find that it is never enough to satisfy nor will it presist without end. We are anxious an fearful, and out of control in a world that is constantly changing. We are envious of those we think have more, or better "things" than we have. We are angry when our desires are thwarted, or our attachments severed. All of these things lie at the heart of suffering.

Perceptual Reality is illusory. That can't be said too often, because it is essential to understanding how one can mitigate suffering. Once we understand the futility of placing a non-existent self at the center of an illusory universe, we can transcend it. We can scale back or desires and attachments, knowing them to be without substance. Living more modestly, and without eternally seeking more, better, we can finally accept our limitations. Knowing our limitations we are less "hurt" by misfortune and failure. Understanding the nature of Perceptual Reality, mitigates suffering and improves the quality of our own lives and the lives of those around us. The Eight Fold Path, designed for monks and priests, is a methodology for living the Middle Way, and way of living that greatly reduces the amount and intensity of suffering.

One doesn't have to be a erudite theologian to practice Buddhism and receive its benefits. The guiding principles are pretty simple, straight forward, and effective. When the Buddha was asked theoretical questions, he generally sloughed them off as of little importance. A thousand generations of Buddhist monks have sought the Enlightenment experienced by the Buddha, and some of them have found it. What appears to be the same transcendental experience and insights have also been reported by folks who haven't the least knowledge of Buddhism. That experience is Life's Peak Experience, far more intense and satisfying than any other. It is useful in understanding and living Buddhism, but it is not essential. Modern Buddhism has evolved from the relatively simple Teachings into complex theologies that define the major Buddhist Schools and Sects. Those theologies were the product of often brilliant minds discussing and arguing the abstract consequences of the fundamental Buddhist Teachings. The conclusions aren't always congruent.

Modern Buddhism also has evolved to include folk beliefs that have little, or nothing to do with the central Teachings of our religion. Buddhism is practiced by people, and people aren't generally theologians. Lay people are heir to cultural traditions and ways of looking at the world that they are reluctant to abandon, and so those folk beliefs get incorporated into their sect's way of presenting the Buddha's Teachings.

Here in the West, we have a strong tradition of splitting hairs, and counting sexless angels as the cavort on the head of a pin. We love to argue and have a vested interest in formal logic. The Abrahamic traditions and ways of looking at the universe are bred into us after thousands of years. We value intellect and believe that we can reason our way to undeniable conclusions. As Abrahamic religion has struggled to reconcile Faith and dogma with a world transformed by Newtonian, Einsteinian, and Quantum Physics, many in the West have cast about for some alternative religion. Buddhism fits the needs of many, though understanding of Buddhism in the West has lagged.

Well, gotta go now and take care fo business...............

Hi Asherman, thank you for your post - I much appreciated it for the insight into Buddhism.

That said, I do have a nitpick on something that doesn't sit quite right with me.

That is a Western Bias...the western sculpture maker tries to make what he wants out of his block, the eastern sculpture maker chips away what does not belong. Negating suffering and promoting joy are the same thing, gotten to from two separate directions around the circle.

I would nit pick the cause of suffering....it is attachment. Attachment to the illusion of self, attachment to the transitory perceptual reality. Once we learn about the absolute plane of existence and learn to live in it we can break the cycles of suffering, at least some of the time. Christians exhorting their followers to focus on God (or Jesus) and not themselves aim for the same goal, though they do tend to get attached to their perceptions of God. The joy that the Jesus nuts claim to have is real.

Hi Hawkeye. I would disagree. My objection to the phrasing of the question is not about western culture, but one of psychology - the mind is directed by the question.

If your central question is what causes suffering, then you are not concerned with joy. You may find joy, but it is not the primary goal. And it is a limited question.

In cultivating joy as the central question, it is absolutely necessary to ask 'what causes suffering'...but it is also necessary to ask yourself much more than that.



I would agree with this on a spiritual level...hmmm...although physically, if I were tortured...well, I guess you could say I would suffer because I have an attachment to being pain free

I got that the question leads the mind, and you are right about that. This is not were we disagree. You are thinking linear, you have suffering at one end of a pole and you have joy at the other, so if you want to get to joy you must go towards joy. However, suffering and joy are not two separate points of a pole, they are two points on a circle. You start in between suffering and joy and you either go towards complete joy/no suffering or towards complete suffering/no joy. These two points, complete suffering and complete joy, are right next to each other. You can either get to joy by going towards joy, or you can get to it by going through suffering. This is why you hear me on the relationship forum telling people to delve into their pain, let it teach them what it is supposed to teach them, this is the way out of pain. Why do people in BDSM like to be beaten....are they nuts??? No, they are finding joy through suffering.

In the west the assumption is that one needs to go towards what is wanted, in the east they have a more complex and useful understanding of things.

The pursuit of pleasure is itself a cause of suffering. Pleasure is a chimera, and will not slacken the thirst anymore than a desert mirage. It retreats before us more quickly than we can follow, and it is snatched from us before we can grasp it.

Non-attachment, acceptance of the cards we are dealt is neither pleasureful, nor painful. How we choose to play those cards, and the values we project on to them, is an important variable that will determine the suffering that will result. The illusory world is characterized by time and space, multiplicity and change. It is a bubble in a stream, imagining itself the whole. So long as the illusion endures it is "real" to the dream creatures who play out their little roles within it. A punch in the nose hurts, and it bleeds, whether the punch occurred in waking or in sleep. It does help to know when the injury is dreamed, but it hurts none the less.

So long as multiplicity "exists", both time and space follow. Why is it that the Great Ineffable, Ultimate Reality, God dreams diversity? We can not know. Being an illusion that arises from the indivisilbe, all times and spaces imaginable, an infinite number, might begin and end... exist in the same same non-space/time. Does this sound a bit like Quantum Physics? I believe that it does, but that it isn't important to the purposes of Buddhism. If Buddhism can mitigate suffering in the least, for even a few, then it is worth pursuing. However, Buddhism has a long history as an effective prescription for individual and corporate suffering. The fundamental tenants of Buddhism are accessible to all, regardless of where or when the sentient being is struck by them in an independent Transcendental Experience, or hear them as transmitted by a Buddhist teacher.

Hi Asherman,

I would like to clarify something - just because I think the Buddhist central question wasn't phrased quite right, doesn't mean that I don't think it useful - I think it very useful. It would help the world greatly if more people had an understanding of it's insights.

In regards to the pursuit of pleasure, I would agree with you. I was speaking of joy.

Not so, you can make money and build things with out being attached to them just as you can continue to live as vikorr even if you know that that which you call vikorr is an illusion.

Zen teaches that one must neither grasp for nor defend against what is. Zen is the middle path, we let what is infuse us. Therefore, we neither take the illusion of the self very seriously nor do we reject the self . We endeavour to be what Alan Watts called "genuine fakes" According to Zen you are an actor on the stage of life, only you don't know that vikorr is your stage name, you don't know that you are not him. I know that I am not hawkeye, still hawkeye lives day to day, with the same struggles that vikorr experiences. I put the same effort into making hawkeye the best hawkeye possible just as you try to make vikorr the best vikorr possible, but I live unattached to the illusion in a deep sense. Because I know that hawkeye is an act i am without fear, and I can find joy in life even in the most ugly places because I am enjoying the process of life.

The criticism that Zen denies humanity is as old as the hills.

Hi Hawkeye

Your middle description of Zen sounds a lot like what I've come to think.



I didn't say it couldn't be done that way (though I think it would take longer that way), rather, that it wasn't done that way :wink:

The 'criticism of Zen' wasn't aimed at Zen per se, but rather at the concept of 'the illusory nature of conceptual reality' being all of human reality. Human nature (specifically the 'gift' of perception) needs to be acknowledged, because it's never going to go away.

Is it necessary to equate pain with suffering? Pain is just pain, but the desire that the moment be other than what it is, perhaps what buddhism means by suffering, and just as "bad" as pursuing pleasure and not wanting pleasure to end.
Neitszche touches on "buddist" wisdom, I think, when he prescribes a total acceptance of whatever is--amor fati.

I wonder, what IS the illusion to which Buddhism speaks of though? In a dream, we don't say that the sensation, experience or feeling of it was not real do we? Rather it's the way we frame the dream in context with everything else. The dream is an illusion in terms of it's relation to waking life. You would be under it's "spell" if you mistook it for waking life. Likewise I wonder if the idea of reality being an illusion is more to do with how we conceptualise and structure our notions of it. So an example I've seen before is about a mirage of water in the desert being real . . . a real mirage, it's illusion is in the mistaking it for real water. So the notion of reality being an illusion could be thought of less in terms of, it's all rubbish and behind the curtains is nothingness (maybe :wink: but we never experience this do we...) and more in terms of how we identify with what actually IS. The analogy of the mirage in the desert might also take on greater meaning if we think we can get something out of reality, based on misguided ideas, that it cannot provide. I'm just trying to think of this from the Buddhist perspective.

Some crave "knowledge"; most crave pleasant illusions. That, as far as I can see, is what fundamentalist religion is about.

Agreed and they're not even very imaginative illusions either, I mean, virgins? Come on! I like what Bill Hicks said about life being a ride but in particular about what he would like to see us ALL do (and what the fundamentalist rejects with all his/her being, see the bolded part):

I have never thought that zen was claiming that all of our perception is a dream, mirage, illusion, act. I think it is that our operation out of the belief that we are self contained ego directed entities is what is in error, which throws error into everything that we believe to be true. According to zen all of life are separate parts of the same living entity, only it is not obvious when looking at it. It is much like when all of the mushrooms for miles around can be thought part of one large living thing because they all share the same genesis, though to all the world each mushroom appears to be a separate being. Science calls each mushroom a "fruiting" of the fungus, which lives also underground and in rotting trees and is sometimes many square miles in size. I believe it was Alan Watts who said that each birth of a living thing is in fact a new "fruiting" of life, in a sense each one is an individual organism, but it also is not.

Zen is from the Chinese mind, and the Chinese are nothing if not practical. Zen has no use for "pleasant illusions"