Buddhism Without Beliefs – 4 Staying with the Question

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here.)  

Today we continue our book series on Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor.  This morning I hope to combine questioning the existence of God with the perils of texting.  Let’s see whether it makes sense.

First, let’s talk about this God thing.  Some people are quite sure that there is a God, in some form or fashion. And other people are quite sure that there absolutely is NOT a God in any form or fashion.  Who’s right?   What did Buddha say about God?  Contrary to many re-interpretations of his teachings after his death, the Buddha did not put forth any position on God, or what happens after we die, or any other belief that cannot be proven.  He simply said those questions didn’t relieve suffering, and since relieving suffering was the Buddha’s only objective, he felt it was a waste of time and energy. 

Most often, when we ask questions, we are looking for concrete answers.  In our linear world, we want to ponder the question for a certain amount of time, collect data, analyze the results and determine the best solution, then be done with it.  Most often, when we think we have found THE answer, we cease to be open to other possibilities; we cease to look for any other alternatives.  We often begin to myopically look, consciously or unconsciously, only for evidence that supports the answer we’re already chosen. 

When we stop being open to new possibilities, we risk missing important information that arises in each moment.  Since the world is an impermanent place, and we are impermanent beings, there is a strong possibility that a new answer might arise; another path could be taken, a new direction might be found.

When the Buddha was asked questions about the mysteries of the universe--where do we come from?  Is there some existence after death?  Is there a God?--He often answered with the following parable:

The story was told of a man who had been shot by a poison arrow, and was taken to the surgeon for removal.  However, he refused to let the surgeon operate unless first it was known who shot him with the arrow, what type of arrow it was, and what type of bow was used.  He insisted on knowing these answers before the arrow was removed.  While spending all his time and energy on finding these answers, he died from the poison arrow.  The Buddha discovered that the relief of suffering does not require a definitive answer about “God”. 

Many centuries after The Buddha’s death, the Chinese developed a form of Buddhism called, Chan, or Zen as it is known today.  Zen practitioners sought to find a way to gain direct insight into the nature of mind and found that questioning itself can be a path to enlightenment.  Many schools of Zen use the art of questioning to develop a deeper level of knowing.  They learn to relish The Great Perplexity.  They ask a question during meditation, and purposely avoid any clever, intellectual answer, using a process that goes beyond the intellect.   Batchelor describes the process in this way:

1. Begin with a question, something like “What is this?”  “Who or What am I?” The words or specific question is not as important as the ability to begin feeling the sensation in your body.  What does it feel like to not jump to an answer but simply sit with the question.
2. The words of the question themselves, can almost fall away; just this sensation of questioning remains.    Feel the question in your body.  In Zen practice, they call it experiencing/practicing “don’t know mind”. 
3. This type of meditative practice includes letting go of any objective or goal.  We are simply sitting with the question and seeing what comes up.  Sometimes expectations arise—we begin to hope for a good feeling or for something interesting to happen, or for some answer to appear—instead we are encouraged to continually drop any expectations whatsoever.  This Zen practice is a meditation with no goal, no expectation.
4. Any time we are feeling certain that we know something for sure, we can ask the question, “Is that true?”
5. Sound can be a very helpful tool in this practice.  Any time a sound is heard, we can listen with a question.  “What is this?”  Not to label the sound but to ponder sound itself. 

Within this context of questioning, think about how most people believe in “God”—whatever definition or description they might use.  In the 2005 Cambridge University research on religious beliefs, they found that about 88% of the world’s population answered that they believe in God.  In the United States, the number of people is 95%.   If we were to interview each person individually, imagine the wide range of answers we would get to the question, “And what is God?”  We can further imagine how sure some people feel about the answer to that question, whether they are believers or non-believers.  One of the reasons that religion is often off-limits for conversation in polite company because MANY PEOPLE AREN’T OPEN TO EXPLORING THE QUESTION.  They only want to defend the answer they are already sure is true.  Knowing something “for sure” immediately limits the way we process the world within us and around us. 

Which brings me to texting.  Anybody ever gotten a text, and after reading it, you were certain that you knew what they meant, then subsequently found out that you were absolutely wrong in your interpretation?  I myself fell deeply into this exact pitfall last week.  My family and I are struggling with how to care for my mom who has dementia.  My nephew, who is taking care of my mom, doesn’t like that whole “talking on the phone” thing.  He almost exclusively texts.  Last week, I received a text from him, and upon reading it, I felt hurt and angry, resentful and disappointed.  I tried to call but only got voicemail. Ahhhh, that I would have just let it be.  Instead, I decided to call his brother, and discuss this text, to confirm my interpretation.  His brother had a clear confident concise answer himself about what the text meant, and his answer made me feel even more hurt, more resentful, defensive, now outraged!  I was so sure that I was right that I went all the way to righteous indignation.  Righteous indignation is a pretty good sign that you are no longer operating from a loving and kind perspective.  Righteous indignation usually means being completely shut down to all possible alternatives.    Righteous indignation is a clear symptom of the problem that the Buddha warned against.  My stomach churned, I screamed, I yelled.  I clearly made the situation worse by feeling so sure that I knew the truth. 

It gets worse….I’m embarrassed to say that I was getting angry that someone didn’t think I was being a good person.  They disagreed with a decision I had made about my mom.  Screw you!  I’m a really good person!  Who are you to tell me I’m not being a good person?  How existentially hilarious is it that I would raise my voice in order to demand that someone acknowledge that I’m a good person?  This ironic illogical sequence of events actually happened. 

Then, it got worse still.  I stewed on that text overnight.  I awoke the next morning ready for a battle, to get out the hammer of Truth and pummel anyone not on my side.  Then I finally talked to my nephew, and I find out that I was wrong and his brother was wrong.  My interpretation AND his brother’s interpretation were just plain wrong.  I was wrong, and I had exacerbated the situation by being so sure I was right.  It doesn’t matter what you’re sure about.  Being so sure we’re right limits our ability to see new ways of being and knowing. 

So, is there a God? Who knows?  Each of us has the opportunity to simply sit with the question and let go of any answer.

The Kalama Sutra encourages us to question in the following way:

Do not go upon what has been acquired

by repeated hearing;

nor upon tradition;

nor upon rumor;

nor upon what is in a scripture;

nor upon surmise;

nor upon an axiom;

nor upon specious reasoning;

nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over;

nor upon another's seeming ability;

nor upon the consideration, "The monk is our teacher."

When you yourself know: "These things that are unskillful and lead to harming myself or others, abandon them.  These things that are wise and skillful, that  lead to the relief of suffering and happiness, continue with their practice.”

Buddhism without Beliefs – 3 Enlightenment

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here.)  

Today we continue our book series on Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor.  This book was written in 1997, and it continues to be somewhat controversial among Buddhist teachers and practitioners, as it attacks many of the Buddhist institutions that are the backbone of much of Buddhism today.  So, we’re going to go back to the Buddha’s original teachings, and what has been proven to work.  Today we are explorers, willing to take a look at what was taught and decide for ourselves what has value.

This morning, specifically, I want to talk about this idea of enlightenment.  Don’t we all want be enlightened?  Isn’t that what Buddhism is all about?  But what is enlightenment?  When the Buddha was asked what or who he was, he replied that he was NOT a god, or a prophet or a messiah, or anything extraordinary, but simply he said he was awake.  Even the name The Buddha means awakened one.  The words enlightenment and awakened are often used interchangeably, but it can still sometimes be confusing.  Is there a difference between enlightenment and being awake?  I ask you to consider in this moment, what exactly is enlightenment is? What does being awake mean?  What might it feel like to be fully awake or enlightened moment-by-moment?  What words would you use to describe that state?

The story is told that Buddha sat under the tree and boom! He was enlightened/ awakened, and spent the rest of his life in this state.  Stephen Batchelor challenges these accounts of the Buddha’s awakening.  First, he had been exploring different spiritual practices for several years, so he had been preparing for a new discovery.  Then, he was able to put it all together based on this experience of the power of his mind to control his experience moment-by-moment.  This seems to be a key to his discovery—we may not have the ability to control what happens to us in life, but we always have control over how we respond to it.  If someone dear to us passes away, we get to choose how we respond to this sadness, to the process of grieving.  The Buddha taught a set of practices that enables us to create a gap between stimulus and response, and that gap gives us the power to choose how we respond to any experience—whether it’s a situation, a thought or an emotion.  Creating a gap between stimulus and response might not sound as sexy as “enlightenment” but I would offer that it just as powerful, and maybe even the same thing.  My Buddhist teacher jokingly says, “You must be present to win!”  You must be fully aware in each moment to understand how best to respond, how best to relieve suffering and maintain a sense of well-being. 

Buddha discovered something new about how to relieve suffering—this practice of being awake, being aware moment-by-moment, which enables us to stop before we respond in habitual, unskillful ways.  I have a great deal of difficulty believing that once you “get it”, that you never “forget it”.  Most likely, he too went through this process of awakening, getting it, then falling back asleep a bit, then remembering again.  He and his followers spent nine months wandering and teaching, then spent the three months of the rainy season on retreat.   In contemporary life, most of us can’t afford the time or money to simply go on retreat for three months each year, but we can look for ways to incorporate these practices of awakening into our everyday lives, and these little things that we do can transform our experience of living.

What happened after the Buddha passed away is that the elders kept moving the enlightenment “carrot” to further away.  When he was alive, it was written that many people heard him speak and “got it” right then, became awakened immediately.  They understood the cause of their suffering.  Then, after he passed away, this hierarchy of elders and the systems for monks and nuns were constructed, and this enlightenment thing, the possibility of awakening, became more illusive.  It began to be said that it required more and more practice--you might have to practice for many lifetimes to get to the point of enlightenment. I think even using the term enlightenment instead of awakening makes its seem more mysterious, more complicated, more not-quite-within-our-reach. 

When we look back at the Buddha’s original teachings, he said that being awake can happen to anyone; it wasn’t something set aside for only the few.  You can become awake right now in this moment.  It might not last forever, but you might have an experience of awakening right now that enables you to realize the possibility of living life in a completely different state.

Lastly, let’s talk about nirvana (no, not the 90’s Seattle grunge band.)  The Buddha described nirvāna as the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from craving, aversion and other afflicting states.  Nirvana was set apart from temporary moments of peace that we each might have.   Nirvana is actually a Sanskrit word that is translated as extinguishment of the flame.  The flame represents the suffering that we all experience as a result of our unskillful responses to life’s challenges.  In this definition of this word, once again, we are given a task that is defined as almost unreachable.  It implies that silly little peace that we might get moment-to-moment is somehow diminished in importance, it somehow doesn’t quite count, unless we can sustain it for ALL TIME.  What Stephen Batchelor proposes, and what I have experienced, is that a little slice of nirvana can go a long way to changing the trajectory of our lives.  Even if you get it for just a moment, that you have a sense of deep peace and well-being just for now then lose it, once you’ve had it, you know what you’re aiming for.  You know what the practice is about.  You’ll know better how to recreate it again and again over time.  Batchelor is encouraging to us that is enough.  Those moment of peace and well-being will help relieve our suffering and the suffering of others.

Stephen Batchelor encourages us that we can make our enlightenment bite-size—the moment you don’t habitually bark back at your partner when they push your buttons, the moment you find a state of peace amidst a traffic jam, the moment you silently and sincerely wish for your boss, “may you be happy”, when you previously would have felt frustration and irritation.  These are moments of nirvana and awakening, and these practices-of mindfulness, meditation and visualization of positive qualities--enable more and more of those moments to occur.  Isn’t that amazing? 

 “Yes, there is Nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to bed, and in writing the last line of your poem.”  -Kahlil Gibran (a Lebanese-American Poet)  

Buddhism Without Beliefs – 2 - The Path

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here.)  

We are continuing our new book series on Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor.  This book was written in 1997, and it continues to be somewhat controversial among Buddhist teachers and practitioners, as it attacks many of the Buddhist institutions that are the backbone of much of Buddhism today.  Buddhism has demonstrated the exact same tendencies of all other “religions”: a tendency to become concretized and institutionalized where the value of the initial questions are forgotten, and power and control are raised up in importance.  So, today we become explorers, willing to go back to the original teachings and find out what was actually taught.

Buddha discovered what he saw as a way of living, called The Path, or Dharma Practice.  Dharma as we say at the beginning of each session is the Truth about reality as transient, unreliable and contingent.  Another helpful definition to understand is that The word "Buddha"is translated as The "Awakened One"—not the savior, not the messiah, not the prophet--just simply awake.  A key component of Buddhism that is distinct from other religious practices is that Buddha never claimed to be anything other than an ordinary person who learned an extraordinary thing, that anyone can learn and practice.  This is one of the four aspects of Buddhism that makes it unique—you must take personal responsibility for following the path—no one can bless you with enlightenment, no one can cause you to become enlightened.  Teachers may help point the way, but only you can awaken.  You can’t ask someone to awaken for you. 

In the book, Batchelor quotes The Buddha from the Kalama Sutra, by saying,

“Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures with conjecture or with logical inference or with weight of evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else’s ability or with the thought, “The monk is our teacher.”  When you know IN YOURSELF: ‘These things are wholesome, blameless, skillful and being adopted and put into effect they lead to well-being and happiness,’ then you should practice and abide in them…”  

The teaching in the Kalama Sutra is arguing against blind faith, encouraging us that we have personal responsibility to come and have a look, but to continually question if it makes sense, if it works, by trying it out.   It is often questioned whether Buddhism is a religion at all.  The word "religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a social aspect, beliefs enforced often by peer group influence (or pressure!)  So, I challenge each of you here to decide for yourself whether Buddhism is a religion at all or simple a set of practices that we can do alone and together, without demanding a belief through blind faith.  The only “faith” you must bring to the practice is, as we discussed last week, a curiosity as to whether this particular set of teachings is of any value. 

The fourth component of Buddha's first teaching, the Four Noble Truths, is the Eightfold Path.  The Path a this clearing that was made by those before us, and that we are keeping the path clear ourselves by continuing to walk it.  When we can’t find a path, when it feels like we are wandering without direction, we feel lost, in samsara (perpetual wandering).  We want to feel like we are “going” in the right direction, in some direction with meaning.  So, we can explore this path, which is essentially a clearing away of what is not working. 

Three components of a path:

·         A direction

·         Moving freely

·         Part of community

This path is about exploration, a willingness to see ourselves and the world in a different way, a curiosity to ask what is really going on here?  Most of us find that our thoughts and emotions seem to be driving us.  They seem so real, so concrete.  And even though there are thoughts and emotions that torture us as at time, those thoughts and emotions are all that we have known, so for me to sit here and say, don’t believe them!  That might be a scary possibility.  What would happen if we DIDN’T respond to our thoughts and emotions in habitual ways?  We each have a standard reaction to thoughts and emotions about how the world works—sometimes thoughts like the world is a scary place, or that we must fight for what we want because if we don’t, we won’t get our piece of the pie.  It’s me against you--perhaps these are the thoughts you have grown up with as well.  So, we are often stuck in the cycle of samsara— stuck in a unskillful reaction to a common recurring thought and emotion.

Buddhism is about getting off the merry-to-round of our knee-jerk reactions.  We can decide to step off and take a fresh look.  You can ask yourself the question, "What path might provide the most happiness and joy?"  It might seem scary to not respond in an old conditioned way.  I was at home this last week, and I began to have a very strong emotion of anxiety.  I wasn’t sure where it was coming from—I was just sitting at my desk reading.  And yet, I felt consumed by this sense of anxiousness.  I wondered, “Was there a cause?  Was I worrying about something specific?”  It didn’t seem to have any particular cause.  I had the urge to want to fix something, to do something to make this uncomfortable feeling go away.  But, instead of my usual myriad of distracting coping responses, I decided to just sit with it, to become curious about it.  I’m going through menopause, so having the arising of weird and crazy emotions has become somewhat normal for me.   I always hated to admit that we women have emotions that arise out of nowhere—you men might have already witnessed this.  But, I’m not letting the guys off the hook.  There is that curious thing called testosterone that some of you may be aware of.  Have you ever fallen in love or in lust with someone for all the wrong reasons, someone you know wasn't right for you?  Ever made a fool out of yourself for love or for lust?  I'm hoping we can all relate to emotions that may not be based on the reality of the situation.

What does anxiety feel like?  I sat in this discomfort, trying not to resist, wishing for it to pass, but doing my best to just be curious.  Stephen Batchelor points out that our cravings and aversions are what are driving our unskillful thoughts, words and actions. We crave pleasure and hate pain.   The Buddha discovered that we always have a choice about how to respond, we do NOT HAVE to respond in unskillful ways.  We have a choice to take a different action, or no action at all. 

Part of the joy of living is that each of us, we get to choose the path we’re on.  Batchelor encourages us to explore this new path of Buddhist practice.  There is a clearing away of the stuff that obscures our way.  Thanks to those that came before us, we can move freely in this new direction.  And the path becomes more clear as our fellow travelers keep going in the same direction, and we are keeping the path clear for those that come after us.  We are adventurers; we are explorers; we are path clearers.  This is the tremendous role you can choose that helps not only yourself but those around you, and those who follow.  I encourage each of you to consider having the courage to try this new path, because courage is contagious.

Buddhism Without Beliefs – 1: Stay with the Question

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here.) 

Today we begin our new book series on Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor.  This book was written in 1997, and it continues to be somewhat controversial among Buddhist teachers and practitioners, as it attacks many of the Buddhist institutions that are the backbone of many Buddhist traditions today.  Sometime, people come to Buddhism after having been disillusioned by their religious upbringing, thinking that Buddhism is fresh and new and different.  While it is different in many ways, Buddhism has also demonstrated some of the exact same tendencies of other religious faiths: to become concretized and institutionalized where the value of the initial questions are forgotten, and power and control are given greater importance.

What Stephen Batchelor has attempted to do is extract the dogma and doctrine that has been painted over the original Buddhist teachings, then we can decide for ourselves what works for us and what doesn’t.  “Dogma” often seems like a bad word these days—we don’t want to be told what to do, right?  But in some ways, we do.  How comforting it is for someone to tell us just do these ten things, and you’ll go to heaven (or don’t do them and you’ll go to hell).  It would make life very simple, very easy.  However, from the perspective of the original Buddhist teachings, no one can tell you what to do in all situations.  One size does not fit all.  There can be certain guidelines (try not to kill, or lie or steal, etc.) but we must be fully present in each moment, to know the wisest response.

In Buddhism, we are encouraged to begin with the understanding that there is a certain vulnerability of living.  Batchelor calls it “the transient, unreliable and contingent nature of reality.”  The Buddha was not a savior but a physician—diagnosing the illness most of us have fallen sick with—of not living fully in each moment, of sleepwalking through life.  We try to concretize life so we can handle it, instead of waking up to what is really happening, to realize that riding the wave of living is the best bet for happiness.  Batchelor points out that by clearly seeing life in all its vulnerability, life becomes the doorway to compassion--for ourselves and for all others.

So, he begins by encouraging us to live life as a question.   Come and have a look... We can train ourselves to stay open, vulnerable, curious about the questions, instead of focusing on what someone else says is the answer.

Charles Fillmore was a co-founder of the Unity Movement and he often said that he reserved the right to change his mind.  Sixty years after his death, there is now a group of people who describe themselves as “Fillmorians”.  If Charles didn’t say it, they believe it has no place in a Unity church.  It appears that falling into dogma is a common pitfall of any spiritual movement.  Once we concretize our beliefs, we cease to explore other options, let go of seeing things from a fresh perspective, and tend to “see” only that which reinforces our own belief.

So, here we are in this moment.  How amazing is it that we can come together on Sunday morning, and not necessarily believe the same thing.  We can sit here together, perhaps each person believing something somewhat different, or having a different experience of each moment.   Yet, how wonderful that we can all still benefit from practicing moment-by-moment awareness together.

Batchelor begins this exploration by encouraging us to stay present with the questions of living—who or what is having this experience?  Who or what is aware?  It’s okay not to be quite sure of the answer.

Religion is like going out to
dinner with friends. Everyone
may order something different,

but everyone can still sit at the
same table.

H. H. The Dalai Lama

A life-time is not what's between,
The moments of birth and death.
A life-time is one moment,
Between my two little breaths.

The present, the here, the now,
That's all the life I get,
I live each moment in full,
In kindness, in peace, without regret.

-  Chade Meng, One Moment  (Author of Search Inside Yourself)

You’re bound to become a Buddha if you practice.
If water drips long enough
Even rocks wear through.
It’s not true that thick skulls can’t be pierced;
People just imagine their minds are hard.

- Shih-wu (1272-1352)