Excellent videos on meditation by a skeptic

From the youtube channel "à-bas-le-ciel":

 

It just ain't fair. There I was, looking for someone who would challenge my beliefs on meditation, maybe have a little debate or somthun.

Turns out, not only does this guy mostly agree with my own notions, but he articulates them better than I can.

The gist of it is that the "interesting" experiences in meditation don't mean shit beyond what they are - experiences.

If you're interested in that kinda thang - enjoy!

---

Here's another one of his:

If I hear him right, he is actually in favour of meditation - as a religious practice - but doesn't see any scientifically vindicated merit to it as a health practice. Now, admittedly I used to think that there are some studies suggesting that meditation can improve some brain states.

Okay, so maybe that ain't so. That's fine. I always thought that those claims were a bit useless, anyway. After all, if a game of table tennis is a worthwhile endeavour that nobody feels motivated to back up by science, then why wouldn't the same go for just quietly sitting around for a while?

I do not claim that meditation has any effect outside subjective experience. I would, however, claim that in my own experience, daily meditation plus a good healthy dose of stoic philosophy, did help me get out of a rut, and does help me create less trouble for myself and others. I have the impression that it became easier, over time, to see things with less bias and to come down faster from an emotional outburst. I have no clue if that works for everyone, or if it can even ever be proven that it works for a few. It's only my impression, is all.

I do think that "getting a little bit of rest" between an impulse and my reaction, is something I achieved through my practice and that, at worst, I am wasting an hour before dawn feeling rather well.

Or I might just be getting older. Well, I guess I can live with that.

To me, the more important part is to not fall for the religious implications assigned to meditation. That there probably is no enlightenment awating just around the corner. That being a bit calmer does not mean that I have some "spiritual achievement", or that I am somehow better than others. It just seems to make my life a bit easier.

Betlamed's wager

You may hear that meditation makes people more calm and happy. You may also hear that it opens the gateway to a demonic dimension and turns people into hell-bound zombies.

Say you rather believe the first one of those claims. So you try it out for yourself. You meditate for a few weeks, every day, and you find it helpful.

Do you know from this that the second claim, the one about hell-hounds, was not true? No, you don't. You place a bet on it. You use your own experience, your intuition, the feedback from your friends, and whatever information you find online and in books, to evaluate your chances.

So, now you feel like you might be about to really, truly, ultimately let go of your ego. Let's assume for a bit that this is actually correct (which it usually tends not to be). So you might turn into an amoral evil being, or into a vegetable, because you lost whatever it was that kept you sane. Or you might walk into the light and become a buddha.

All your experience might tell you that you should do that final step. You might have meditated all your life. You know stuff. You've... seeeen things.... us people wouldn't believe... You might be close to death, so it probably doesn't matter anyway.

But this is still a bet. There is still a chance that you are wrong. The christians might be right, or who knows, maybe the scientologists. You do not know that.

All you can do, is trust your experience, and train your intellect to reject superstition and irrationality, and give things a try if you think that they might be worthwhile.

Above all, know that you could be wrong.

Deepity deepity derp derp!

If enlightenment exists, it is impossible to attain.

If there is a path, it does not lead to enlightenment.

If enlightenment does not exist, then there may be a path that leads to it.

Why I abandoned meditation

This is part of my ongoing series of sermons to myself. Feel welcome to listen in, but don't feel obliged to think that anything I say is not ridiculous.

I started meditation back in, I think, 2003 to overcome my major depression. It worked. I got into zen buddhism.

I completely abandoned meditation, I dunno, around 2010. I did some informal practice in between, but only got back to a real, regular practice in 2017. I've become very serious about it since last fall, and I'm rather convinced that things will stay that way. (One does get older and a bit more stable over the years.)

I stand by my choice to have left the practice. It was a necessary step for me, and I think my current practice is probably in a way "better" for it.

So why did I leave?

I felt I was losing some desires and strong motivations which I wanted to keep.

I was steeped in buddhist ideas and metaphysics, my skeptical mind started rejecting all that. It was impossible to keep up the practice while going through that rejection process. That process turned out to have been very important for me.

It was impossible to maintain the practice, while criticising behaviour in others. Back then, I wasn't quite aware of it, but right now, I think that that is one big issue in my practice, and I think there was some intuition about it back then, too.

We do live in a world. I live in a democratic country. I am supposed to have opinions, and I think I should have opinions. Stuff is going on in my family, I am called to take sides, and I cannot easily just abandon them to have my beloved inner peace.

I find it very challenging to reconcile my practice, developing empathy, being with what is, while at the same time being aware that some things are hurtful, destructive, unwise, unskillful.

To me, that is where stoicism comes in. It helps me try and phrase my objections to actions instead of people, and to try and find formulations that are not hurtful. I find that one very simple, non-"spiritual", woo-free, pragmatic question very helpful: What is really under my control? Your actions are not under my control. If you decide to do something that I find immoral, then you sure have your reasons for it. But I can help you decide what actions to take, if you are prepared to listen.

If I encounter a situation where I think I must object, I will not try not to voice my objection. That would violate my ethics. I will not even try to be especially soft or persuasive about it. I will just try to be as logical as possible, laying my arguments out on the table; and I will try to let go of the idea that I can make the other person act or think the way I want.

Meditation and Mindfulness

People often describe mindfulness as "paying attention to whatever is happening in the now".



I think that this is a good example of how describing things from one's own experience, and then encoding them in religion, can lead to unfortunate results. (On the other hand, if you would like to preserve some "knowledge" that you deem worthy at ca 500 BC, man, what'cha gonna do?)

After all, when you're completely absorbed in your "monkey mind", then that's what you experience here and now, isn't it?

Just a few scattered remarks:

1) Mindfulness does feel like "paying attention to the here and now" to me - kinda/sorta.

2) Meditation is not the same as mindfulness. When we define mindfulness as above, then meditation might be the training ground. We practice a very specific (and deceptively simple) type of focus. This leads you away from identifying with your thoughts all the time, from being driven by that hodgepodge of melodramatic and emotional self-talk that (yes! from my experience, definitely yes!) we all engage in all the time. It makes sense to think that this leads you to a calmer mind (many people attest to that), which in turn might enable you to see things more like they really are (many people think that this is the case)... but is that necessarily true? Ugh. I don't know.

3) It is certainly true that whatever I experience now, including every thought, is precisely the "here and now", so why go look for it elsewhere? (There are people who think that liberation lies in realizing precisely this... look up "advaita vedanta" and nondualism.) But there is also the strange fact that we can look at our own thoughts from the outside, which is, in a way, what we do in meditation. So, maybe, we just build up an alternative way to look at ourselves, which might be practical or not, but probably can't hurt as long as you don't obsess over it.

4) Obsessing over it, ascribing way too much to it is one big mistake that is made all to often in "spiritual" flowery-powery newey-agey circles. And in buddhist circles, I guess. Some people do think that there is super-power in enlightenment.

5) Many people get into meditation by way of religion, often buddhist or hindu. Even without it, there are often "spiritual" overtones. So people go into it with certain expectations, and what they get out, unsurprisingly, tends to coincide with those. (Rare is the buddhist who got converted to Islam by her daily meditations. Not that they don't exist, I'm sure there are a few...)

6) "Seeing things for what they really are" can have a very specific meaning in buddhism which does not necessarily have a lot to do with "being in the here and now".

7) I do know that I am way less anxious, way more focused if I meditate regularly. I think I'm friendlier, and I definitely engage in fewer online fights. It is easier to eat good healthy food now, and I do my daily workout with joy instead of resistance. So, yeeey. (Could be shared cause instead of direct causation, of course.) I cannot deny that I sometimes think about "enlightenment", I do sooo like to dabble in half-buddhist thought, and sure would like to attain "it" - but I'm reasonably certain that that is bullshit, the brain does not allow for it, and one should give up on nirvana or anything of that kind.

8) I reject reincarnation, karma, and all that junk.

9) My favourite expression for my own goal wrt meditation is: I want to stop falling for my own bullshit. I have the impression that it does actually work.

10) If you want to try it, try it. If you don't, don't. If you try it, and it works, keep it. If you try it, and it doesn't work, then stop trying it and look for something else.

11) Enlightenment is shit on a stick.

I am enlightened!

It is done. The work is over. Everything falls into place.

Truly, the world does not really exist. I am but a part of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There is no more suffering. Not for me, man. I'm done with it.

We are all interlinked. Panta rei. Everything is connected to everything else. Discursive thinking is blahblah, duhduhduh, monkey minding monkey mind. You and me are all the same, that's the name of the rhyming... um... frame.

There is reason and purpose in the universe. Everything is exactly as it should be. You are perfect.

There is no self. No, not really, but there is not a self. There is not-self. And there is not not-self. And all of these, and not quite, but almost. The All is the One is the None. And I am enlightened.

Things are without essence, impermanent, unsatisfying.

Just let your thoughts pass. Let them go. The Buddha says what the Dalai Lama says what Thich Nhat Hanh says (and Thanissaro Bhikku, too, and basically Eckart Tolle) what I say what I like to be said by old sages. Some of whom can't defend themselves any longer on account of their being dead and rotten.

Oh, and Jesus, of course, says the same thing too. Basically.

And it's really a process, and nobody can describe it, and the Buddha and Jesus and Eckart Tolle didn't mean it that way at all, quite regardless of how you phrased it, you're always wrong, right from the start.

This is stream entry! Yippee. It's the first jhana. Let us jump into the flow!

I am an enlightened being.

All of these did I find. All of them, and then some. And yet, none of them at all.
All of them did I find in my meditation.

And I came out of my meditation, same old me, with my scars and fears and anxieties.

All of these, did I find them in meditation?
It would seem so, when I sit down and when I gather myself up again.

But who did say what, who said what first? Did I honestly find it in meditation? Or did I just take it with me into my sittings, and then pretend? When I first sat down, did I not go in with an expectation already established? Is it any surprise that I found just precisely what I had read in the books?

If I found that the self is eternal, that discursive thinking is the only reliable path to truth and math describes the universe perfectly, that things are eternal and solid and real, that the Buddha was wrong and Ajahn Brahm was a big fat liar... now, THAT would have been a surprise, and it might have had some significance.

If Siddharta Gotama himself had come out of his final enlightenment experience, telling everyone that the sun consists largely of hydrogen, or that there was no reincarnation, the Jews were right all along, and karma was a false teaching - now, *that* would have been significant.

As things are, I only managed to solidify my beliefs and get my hopes high. And so did dear Siddharta. Or not?

I am so fucking enlightened, it's not even funny.

(Sorry for my little ruse. I hope you saw through it right from the start. If you didn't, I hope you were able to get a bit of a healthy shock out of it.)

The long list of things I tried

Sometimes I'm amused by the sheer number of pseudoscientific and religious woo that I was involved in, or that I at least gave a chance, at some point. Especially seeing that during most of that time, I thought of myself as a somewhat rational person... After I wrote the list below, looking at it, I found it quite impressive and more than a bit shocking, really.

• Fundamentalist christianity (of the catholic charismatic variety). Nothing to add here, really, we all know it's bullshit.
• Satanism. I never actually believed it, but I was quite fascinated with Crowley for a while. I still think he's a very charming fraudster.
• Kabbala. I never believed in it, but I read a lot of the literature and went to a lecture by the Kabbalah Centre once. I even gave a few talks on the history of it.
• Tarot. I really wanted to believe that one. I even gave a few readings for money, until I learned about cold reading and realized that I had been doing exactly that all along, purely by intuition.
• Wicca. I attended a wiccan ritual at some point, with high priestess and all. It was all very friendly and polite, but it felt incredibly shallow and noncommital. Coming from fundie religion, it just felt somewhat ridiculous. (Nobody was in the nude, by the way.) Oh and I had a little "temple" at home, consisting of a large cloth on which I had painted some symbols.
• Buddhism. That one I'm still kind-of into. Over time, I learned to extract the meditative practice and reject all the metaphysical nonsense. I visited a real sangha a few times. I thought it was a valuable experience. I didn't crave any form of religious community at that point, so I never went back. I liked how the "sermon" was really more of a discussion with the whole group in one of those.
  
• Tantra. Duh, you knew it had to be coming. By now I know how to distinguish between what's real and what's religious woo, so I can keep on practicing without fear of getting into anythng bad.
• NLP (and other assorted communication teachings). That was the most expensive, by far. I did my self-hypnosis, which is one of the few things out of that whole mess that I would still recommend. It helped me give up smoking. But apart from that, it's just crap that turns people into monsters.
• Pickup. Yes, been there done that. I never paid for any bootcamps or anything. I did get a few "lays", but I learned to see how destructive and inhuman it all really is, and I never overcame my "approach anxiety" in the long run.
• Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Yoga etc. I would still recommend all of these, strictly as a physical workout. I practice some of it still, though I'm utterly incapable of performing any serious Tai Chi.

Just to show that I'm not completely cookoo, I never believed in: Astrology, crystals, pyramids, alien abductions, conspiracy theories, anti-vacc, Ouija boards, tachyons or Desteni.

Acceptance, not Passivity!

Every once in a while someone in a thread about buddhism and all that, ahem, stuff, mentions the importance of acceptance. Predictably, someone points out that we cannot simply accept ISIS, Trump, the Republicans, climate change, whatever.

They always get downvoted into oblivion. But... Isn't this the most obvious objection?

It certainly is one of my first thoughts, every time I hear or see a comment like that.

We all have stuff that we simply cannot accept. And that very fact is, in my view at least, the most important thing to accept. Political matters, relationship matters, family matters. Very important stuff. Stuff that needs to be addressed.

To me, currently, it's mostly about family, about the way my mother and sister treat my father after his stroke. The point cannot be to simply "let it go" and do nothing to help my own father. To revel in my own helplessness and dress it up as spiritual enlightenment. No siree, sorry.

The point is not that. That is moronic ideology, pop psychology, newey agey happy deppy thinkie pinkie winkey horsecrap. I wholeheartedly reject that, with no acceptance at all.

BUT.

I do challenge myself to really feel my own resistance. To first find out what this has to do with me, what it does to me, what exactly it is that makes me so angry, and what my intention truly is. I try to get to a point where I don't have to react to my own anger, where I don't have to blindly lash out against them -- against the persons involved, as opposed to the problems we're facing together. I want to reach a point where I can react to the issue itself, in the most effective and helpful way possible. This simply cannot be done if I am a slave to my own rejection.

In an odd way, I am at a good place for that practice. I tried reason, I tried anger, I tried lashing out, I tried interventions with people who I thought might have an influence... all to no avail. So the only place left to change is indeed myself.

To do that, I first have to set up my own limits. That part is extremely important. I cannot get there if I constantly feel like I'm under immediate threat. I have to realize that, right now, I am not there, and there is a chance that I never will be. So there have to be defences. For some situations, that might mean moving out, limiting contact, in some cases legal action. (Possibly even war? I honestly don't know.)

Those defences might come down in the long run, of course, but I have to be compassionate to myself first, if I want to enable myself to be compassionate to others.

And then... well... lots and lots of mindfulness, practice, training, meditation, I guess. Not become a poser in the process. Not try to project that I am sooo enlightened and accepting when deep down I'm the opposite.

This is a huge challenge. To me, to you, to everyone.

Please let's never lose sight of the fact that, for the most part, we are not there yet, and acting as if we were, won't do at all.

Obligatory link to my reddit comment on that matter.

"Seeing things for what they really are" in Buddhism

Don't be fooled.

When buddhists talk about seeing things for what they really are (as they are wont to do), they do not mean anything the pesky nonbuddhists might imagine. Such as, seeing the sunrise in all its glory, or seeing the beautiful woman in the street as a real person instead of a sex object (hey, it's summer, guys, I'm just as horny as you!).

The phrase means to see things as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and void of self. These are called the Three Marks of Existence. They are directly connected with the Four Noble Truths and are fundamental axioms of the buddhist philosophy.

You may or may not subscribe to this worldview. Fine if you do. Fine if you don't.

I urge you to remember that this is a religious doctrine. Every valuable spiritual experience in buddhism is supposed to confirm it. If you come out of a meditation session with the revelation that things are permanent and very satisfactory indeed, you'll probably be escorted, very gently, out of the sangha. Or at least seen as a very odd kind of buddhist.

This ties into what I said earlier about Experience and Religion. The truth is, there is no way of directly experiencing all things as afflicted with the Three Marks. You simply don't have the experience of all things.

The Anicca part is the least problematic of the three. We all seem to experience that things start end end. Meditation makes it very apparent that this is the case for our emotions and thoughts, and it does so in a highly productive way. But if you jump from this experience, as universal as it seems to be, to a global assertion about everything in all possible universes, you're committing a fallacy of induction. All you can really say is that it is true, with very high probability, of everything you will ever experience.

Anatta suffers from the same problem, but on top of that, it is rather hard to define what a self really is, and whether this is not just a repetition of Anicca from another perspective.

Dukkha is a different beast. It doesn't fit in with the other two. Anicca and Anatta are ontological axioms, whereas dukkha has an element of psychology to it. Lumping it together with the other two seems inconsistent. It has little to do with "how things really are", and more with "how I relate to things".

In conclusion, I believe that buddhism asks you to take a few key assertions on blind faith, and then reassert them with every "experience" that you have. Buddhists do not experience the Three Marks, but they take them for granted, and then use this framework to interpret their experiences. The experience itself, I maintain, is anonymous. It might be better if we tried not to interpret it at all.


It is a religion. Don't be fooled.

Instead, meditate.

Experience and Religion

Assume you start out with meditation.

Presumably, you first read a book on buddhism, or attend a retreat or a yoga class. Then you sit down and do your thing.

Surprise, surprise! You find out that all thing are empty and void of self, that life is dukkha, and nothing is permanent.

The big question is: Looking inside, focusing on your breath -- what would you have found out, had you not read that book first?

========================================================

This is a real pickle. You can never be sure whether the insights you purportedly gained from your own experience are really yours, or just something you learned from others.

In buddhism, the experiences you have in meditation are always interpreted as evidence that the dharma is true. That is religious bullshit, in all its devastating glory.

Do you REALLY think that everything is impermanent etc.? Does that REALLY follow from your own experience? In almost all cases, I'm fairly confident that the answer to that is a resounding "no". At the very least, it would probably not lead to ideas of karma, reincarnation, and  boddhisattvas in bright robes...

You can derive, from the very same experience, that there is an eternal, albeit anonymous, self that watches everything. You can also derive that you are a brain in a vat.

I think that it is highly important, eventually, to liberate yourself from the teachings, and start to actually look at your own experience.

I wonder what this means for religions other than buddhism, too.

What actual insight stems from meditation?

I woke up this morning with a lot of anger. There was no reason for it, I didn't even have particularly bad dreams, it's just one of those days.

I'm sure there is a secular, physical explanation. Hormones, the male period, whatever.

It makes me wonder.

2500 years of buddhist meditation alone, which supposedly not only calms people down, but gives them insight into "how things truly are", and what really goes on inside. Direct insight into the mechanics of the mind. Direct observation of emotions and thoughts.

Assuming that, in all that time, not everyone was a phony posturing jerk such as myself; assuming that a few of those people were close to "enlightenment" (whatever that is), there should be some useful advice gained from all that meditation, right?

Advice which does not boil down to the boring repetition of a religious doctrine. Advice for people who would never ever meditate, who wouldn't assume a lotus position if their life depended on it. Advice that actually helps.

I have a hard time finding that advice.

My Enlightenment

I distinctly remember the moment. It must have been 8 years ago, and I can still remember the subway station and the escalator I was riding.

I was deeply into buddhism and self-improvement back then, and I was trying to meditate or at least working on my mindfulness every second I could spare.

That moment on that escalator, I was enlightened.

Of course, a few moments later, the experience was over. I tried to get back into it, but to no avail. On the other hand, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that this was actually it, the real thing. It had lasted a little longer than those experiences usually used to, and it had felt as if it actually were to last this time.

There is a certain humor in buddhist books when they talk about enlightenment experiences, a kind of humor I tended to enjoy, and which I still think provides a certain safeguard against fundamentalist idiocy. They talk about how nibbana is not a state of being, and how reifying it is itself a block on the road to nibbana. They revel in the paradox, and that's fine and very appealing.

But still, I did believe that enlightenment was a real possibility in some way, a goal to be reached at some point.

Looking back, I think that this is a huge problem, but nog quite in the way the buddhists say. It is a problem because, from what I have read in the meantime, and from what I see in the world and in my own life, I gather that enlightenment is just not possible. Our brains just don't seem to be wired in a way that would allow them to overcome their own illusory self. The oh-so-bad discoursive monkey mind will always kick back in.

Looking back on what you might call my "spiritual journey" (blargh), I think that this change of mind has proved to be a good thing. Very good indeed. Now I judge my mindfulness - and boy, do I judge it! - based on whether it is useful to myself, my life, and probably the lives of people around me.

I think that this is way more down to earth, realistic and mature. It certainly has me use less of the jargon, even in my internal monologue (I always tried to avoid it in public anyway). Less attachment to enlightenment. It was an act of letting go, disentanglement, un-identification, de-attachment.

It has me pretend less, see more of how things actually are. And that's ultimately what enlightenment is about, isn't it?

A Very, Very Brief Story Of Enlightenment

This is how I envision that it probably might have come to pass (*):

One rainy afternoon back in 525 (or so) b.c.e., a well-respected member of a well-respected family in ancient India sat down and admitted to himself that he was deeply dissatisfied with his life. He left the safe surroundings of his home, and he ventured to study with the foremost spiritual leaders of his time and place, to find lasting peace of mind.

Now, this man, who would later be called the buddha, was surely a clever fellow. Not only was he able to participate in, and master the techniques he learned, at an amazing speed - he also came to realize that they did not work. Not as advertised, anyway. They gave him peace, yes, and bliss, and deep mental states full of visions and tranquility - but all of this did not last. The blissful states lasted for minutes, probably hours at most, and then he was back to his old little self-loathing limited normal self.

So he sat down and had a long, intensive discussion with himself. It seemed that all those methods had one thing in common: They were incredibly complicated. And also, they were highly elitist, suitable only for the initiated, for the rich, for the True Believers; covered with layers upon layers of superstition and guru worship and... all the things that our clever young hero despised.

In short, they did not alleviate suffering. Like sex with someone you don't care about, they gave you a short kick, and left you with an emptiness even deeper than before.

But he also had an inkling that, hidden within all that superficial spiritual materialism, an incredibly valuable gem was to be found.

So, maybe, all he had to do was strip away the unnecessary. Much like a later genius would say - you only have to carve away the stone that hides the statue.

So he took all that those methods he learned had in common. The result was shockingly, and quite deceptively, simple: Sit down, breathe, focus on breathing. When thoughts arise, let them pass, and gently move your focus back to breathing.

And that was what he did. He sat down under the bo tree, snakes came and went, the veil of Maya was torn before his eyes, and he could see. Really see. And feel, and smell, and taste... his mind explored past lives and future possibilities, and he stopped being limited by his own ego.

In short, he had discovered the secret.

Soon after, an old man came along, and asked him what he was doing. And the buddha told him. The man started to meditate, and found some peace of mind. Not quite the kind of peace the buddha had, mind you - but then, the old man had never meditated in his whole life, so the practice would probably take some time with him.

At any rate, the man felt so much better that he started spreading the word. And others started to follow the newly enlightened being. As he started teaching, he also discovered that he had a way with words. With ever more people attending his lectures, ever more disciples listening intently, he was on a roll. As his disciples got into the habit of practice, they, too, experienced great states of peace and tranquility. Plus, they provided the buddha with food and drink and, even more importantly, veneration.

It seemed as if there was no stopping the newborn movement. Years passed, during which the disciples discussed the intricacies of their spiritual advancements, and - deeply rooted in the fecund soil of the buddha's teachings - the sprout of a new doctrine began to bloom. A king had announced his arrival. A king! Everyone was overwhelmed. The buddha, who was now used to having a certain effect on people, managed to keep his cool. After all, this was what was expected of him.

And yet, at around that time, a few nagging doubts clouded his enlightened mind. It had been two years since his adventure under the bo tree, and none of his pupils seemed to have been enlightened. Moreover, they began to quarrel and quibble and fight about minor points - how to sit, when to sit, what to eat - that really had nothing to do with his message.

Maybe he had been unscrupulous in his choice of words. Initially, he hadn't given it much thought. In his delighted state, it had seem like such a minor problem! What he had experienced had felt, to him, like what the scriptures described as moksha, bodhi, kensho, metanoia. So that was what he talked about. And now it was too late to stop. Within the new sprout of buddhism, already religiosity was claiming its place, suffocating the roots, poisoning the mind.

At a sunny afternoon, back in 505 (or so) b.c.e., two Venerable Disciples were sitting in the long grass. They were venerable indeed, Followers of the First Month, trustworthy and truly devoted to the cause. One of them was the Venerable Disanjali, with long hairs and a wild beard; the other, younger one, was the Venerable Assamphuti, blond and fair.

As they sat, Disanjali said: "Venerable Assamphuti, I am annoyed by the newest converts. They talk about enlightenment as if they were entitled to it. As if the practice was somehow an automatic machine, a vendor, selling enlightenment for a little practice. As if it was something that they could have, without putting in the hard work, as we do."

To this, Assamphuti sighed, and replied: "Venerable Disanjali, they are greedy and cheap. They also say that some of them should be enlightened by now. Some of them even say that The Master might be wrong."

Disanjali shook his long-haired head: "It saddens me deeply. We might have to expel some of them."

"Yes, we might. But then again... haven't you secretly been having similar thoughts, from time to time?" He looked up, and hastened to add: "Not that those thoughts should be taken seriously, of course."

"Of course not."

They were silent for a bit. Then Disanjali said: "Maybe we should ask The Master about it."

"Are you crazy?" Assamphuti exclaimed, and then instantly returned to his well-disciplined, calm voice, such as was suitable for a Venerable Disciple of the First Month. "You are essentially saying that The Master is wrong. That He might not be enlightened. That He might..."

"Lie to us?" That was the dark, solemn voice of the Very Venerable Disciple Attamuno, who had been secretly listening in. Blushing deeply, the two of them looked at him in astonishment. He sat down in the grass, dropping his long walking-stick to the ground, and said with a soft smile: "Oh you youngsters. You have it wrong, you know. I've been giving the thing a lot of thought, pondering night after night, sitting awake in the pale moonlight. The answer is there, right in front of your eyes, and yet you don't see it."

He made a long, artistic pause just to add to the thrill.

Then he continued: "We know that The Master cannot be wrong. He has proven it over and over. And yet, we also know that enlightenment doesn't come to us, regardless of how much we try. So, my friends, there is only one possible solution... "

Again, a long pause. This time, Assamphuti couldn't bear it, and urged him to speak on.

"Isn't it obvious? We are misunderstanding The Master. He's talking figuratively, He's talking in images and similes. He's expressing something that we, the unenlightened, are not able to understand."

He paused again. Only this time, it was not for effect. He fell into a grave, thoughtful silence.

"And what, my friend, might that be?" asked Disanjali then.

"Well, my Venerable Brother Disanjali. I don't understand it either. After all, I'm not enlightened. But I think that, in a way I'm not completely sure how to explain, and that I think is really an unsolvable riddle, enlightenment ultimately is not."

"What?" Both of his fellows exclaimed in unison, thinking the older monk had gone insane.

"It is, and yet it isn't. It's not here, not there. It's not a state. It is nothing that can be expressed in words. You cannot explain it to the unenlightened. Thus, when The Master speaks about enlightenment, he's talking from a perspective of enlightenment - a perspective we cannot hope to understand, unless we are, ourselves, enlightened. Which we are not. Which we cannot really 'be', because, as I said, it is not  a state."

The two of them sat in stunned silence, while Attamuno was slowly caressing a flower.

"You're right", said Disanjali after a while.

"Yes", said Assamphuti. "He's right."

And so it was. The new doctrine spread like a wildfire through the sangha, keeping a lot of followers in the group that might otherwise have turned away, binding the tightly-knit community even closer together, so that, even after the buddha died, they were able to move on. They prospered.

True, the wildfire also burned down a few remnants of self-esteem. But such was to be expected. It was only collateral damage. What mattered was the sangha, the dharma, the buddha, not some selfish concerns a few youngsters might have.

After all, the doctrine flourished, and it helped keep the peace in the land. Over time, it got a lot more intricate, convoluted, confusing. Ironically, that served even better to keep people in their place. Whenever somebody asked or had doubts, it was only because they were not there yet, hadn't read enough of the scriptures, had a few thousand more lives of suffering before they could reach... well, not reach, really... a state of non-state, the realization of form and emptiness... ach duh, you can't understand it anyway! Stop asking those stupid questions! You're such a child!

Patient teachers explaining the same points of Truth with high confidence, over and over again. Now and then, some teachers were not quite so patient. Some even slept with their students. That, however, was a totally different story, utterly different and unrelated indeed.

Coalitions arose: first with kings, then with tyrants. On the very top of that great mountain of confusion, a wonderful temple was built. Inside of it, priests developed increasingly complicated rituals, while peasants were plowing their fields, happily giving whatever they could to the priests for a chance of enlightenment only a few thousand reincarnations later. Children were starving, monks were meditating, priests were discussing important matters, such as whether women were able to reach enlightenment, or what was the karmic punishment for stealing from the temple. Lots of good was done in the name of the dharma. Lots of bad was done, too.

By and large, the world was at peace.

----------
(*) very obvious historical inaccuracies and propositions inconsistent with intricacies of 2500 years' worth of interpretation and exegesis notwithstanding

Let's Turn It Into An Art Form!

It just dawned on me... in all my attempts at dealing with my own emotions, all the personal-development stuff I've tried, with whatever success... one thing was missing all that time.

Just look at it. Picture me dealing with some "difficult emotion", whatever it is.

The buddhist doctrine will tell me that it just "is what it is", and then to focus on my breath and meditate.

The NLPers will say that I have to break it down into its various sensory qualities, then create a new feeling from scratch, anchor that, yadda yadda yadda.

Tony Robbins will tell me I have not yet succeeded in making "feeling better" a MUST, that I should shift my pose and focus on the right things. Father Barron will want me to rejoin the catholic *cough*cult*cough* church, and Steven Pylarinos will make another video.

The psychoanalyst will try to find the root cause for a few years, the christian will find my lack of faith disturbing and tell me to pray nonetheless, Marshall Rosenberg will offer four stages (not three! not five!), the advaitin will say that there's nothing to learn anyway...

And they all have exactly one thing in common: They offer me one (or maybe two or three) recipes, based on a few ideological premises that are to be accepted. When you cut to the chase, there is One True Way, and by necessity the others are false, or at least not the best way.

There is a certain... fearful timidity to that approach. As if my inner life was like an ancient chinese vase about to fall and break into a thousand pieces!

Do you, my dear reader, share my impression that the best things in life generally tend to make you feel free, spontaneous and creative?

If so, why don't we start being creative about our own emotional development? There is this troubling feeling. I can yell at it to go away. I can consciously choose to identify with it. I can name it, externalize it, picture it as a color. I can breathe into it. I can dance around the room, or at least visualize myself doing so. I can try and add warmth to it, or else push it away and make it appear smaller and in black-and-white. I can focus on my breath. I can come up with a few fun affirmations...

I have all those things to try, and then some.

Doesn't that feel tremendously more empowering than sticking to one method devised by some clever guru? Even if that guru be the christ, or the buddha himself...

Let's reclaim our own relationship with ourselves! Let's turn our self-appreciation into an art form, our self-love into an eternal dance, a fire of passion, creativity, unabashed recklessness. Some things will make us feel divine for a short time, some things will help us in the long term, and some attempts will blow up in our face like a big old jack-in-the-box. Let's learn from our experiences, mistakes and successes, and let's share our insights.

I'm not a broken vase. I am my own art project.

Ego and Self

One metaphysical approach to psychology that I particularly enjoy is the following:

There is ego, and there is self.

None is better or worse than the other, both just are. Ego is about setting boundaries, affirming yourself, being your own (wo)man, independent and strong. Self is about being connected, in tune with everything, at one with others and the universe as a whole, interdependent and without any need for boundaries, endless, loving, unconditional.

Most metaphysical "spiritual" systems seem to have some bias for self over ego. Modern western psychology, on the other hand, mostly doesn't.

(The problem is, I suspect, ultimately unavoidable: The sentence above - "both just are" - is itself an expression of self, not of ego. It's an expression of nonjudgment over judgment. Perfect balance seems impossible. So, the best we can do is be aware of the issue and not, as my usual motto goes, fall for our own b.s.)

Basically, what I think is that you just naturally go from one state to the other, and back again, several times every day or even every minute. It's fun to realize in what state you are, right now, and there are visualisations that can help invoke one state when you need it.

In fact, those visualisations are so obvious and unexciting that I hasten to name them. Strong roots that connect me to all the world? My crown chakra completely open to the whole of the universe? A strong, white, glowing like that surrounds me like a vigorous armor and protects me from outside influences? The knightly warrior, ready to strike?

I'm sure you catch my drift and can come up with your own images for the two states, if you so decide. It's a fun little exercise to evoke those states, perfect for a rainy day, and probably of some use in more serious contexts, too.

The most important bit here, though, is the realization that you do change your state over time. When you're completely disconnected from everything, wrapped up in anger and rage, you're in a state of ego. Now is probably not the time to go bargain for that raise. But you know that you will be in a different stage, a few minutes or maybe hours later. So you just have to wait, or if you're impatient, practice changing states.

Note that this is precisely the opposite of an "esoteric typology": These are not character types, but rather states or functions of the mind. This has nothing to do with being a "left-brainer" vs. a "right-brainer" (oh how I abhor that nonsense!), analytical brainiac vs creative artist. Even your most hard-headed businessman depends on his empathy, if only for acquiring new customers. I find those typologies extremely limiting, because they tend to see a human being as static, fixed, unable to change. When you feel that you're too analytical for your own good, or that you need to set up more and stronger boundaries, well, change it, focus on the aspect that you want more in your life! Just... don't forget that the other part is equally important and necessary for your wellbeing.

Well and of course, please, never forget that this is not "true". I guess we can show different states of mind with MRIs or CATs or something like that. But I highly doubt that "ego" and "self" can be shown in the brain. It's just a rough approximation of personal experiences that seems to work for many people.

I find this to be tremendously relieving.

It Happened So Fast... (A Word of Warning for Aspiring Meditationists)

When I got into buddhist meditation, I was in a major depression. Regular meditation practice helped me with that - it made me a lot calmer. And for quite a while, it was good. Very good, actually.

Now, most buddhist writers (and speakers) place a lot of emphasis on being here and now, not blindly following the fantasies, slowly disidentifying from the "monkey mind", the "mindless mind chatter".

So, ever so slowly, while becoming calmer, I also got more disengaged from some of my old thought patterns, some of my old feelings. That was good, because it was bad feelings and destructive thoughts that got me depressed in the first place.

But at some point, I realized that I had gotten more than I had bargained for. I had lost some of my desires. But did I actually WANT to lose them? Among those desires was my desire to write good literature (in my mother language, of course, don't you worry!). But I didn't realize that there might be a connection; I just assumed that it was one of those naturally occurring periods in which I didn't fancy writing so much. And writing had often been connected with intense suffering, so actually, that felt pretty good, too. So I had no motivation to change that, I assumed that it would just come back at some point (as it always had), and anyway since I didn't know what was going on, I had no way of changing it either.

A while later, I got into tantra. I learned how to create ecstatic feelings at will. And for quite a while, it was good. Very good, actually.

Now, tantra places a lot of emphasis on being here and now, not blindly following the fantasies, instead focusing on deep breaths and utterly slow motions.

That was good, because it made me feel happy, and there's rarely a guy out there who couldn't use some slowness and endurance in their sex.

But at some point, I felt my sexual desire floating away. Not that it felt bad - it was just weird, and slightly astounding. (Maybe I should tell you that I'm basically horniness incarnate. I cannot remember any time before that - after hitting puberty of course - when I didn't want sex. Not. One. Day. Seriously.) I thought it might just have to do with getting older and thus, less flooded with hormones. So there wasn't really a lot I could do about it, and as I said, it did feel really good in a way, so I let it go.

But a week ago, I got back into my old habit of keeping a dream diary, and then a few days later, I started reading a book on daydreams. Basically, it's about how they're a good thing, how they are necessary for any creative effort, for planning, for building a life.

Then it suddenly hit me: I have basically made a habit out of treating my daydreams with disrespect. I was always a rather introverted kind of guy, I enjoy having a conversation with myself in my own mind, I like building inner-world universes. If I don't treat my fantasies right, of course I don't get what I want! Of course I lose my creative spark.

So I'm rebuilding my daydreams now. I'm keeping a daydream diary along with the night-dream diary, and I consciously build up those sexual fantasies again.

So...

Not that I'm blaming anyone, or whining around. I took this upon myself, and now I found another detail, and that is excellent. It's just one more part of my journey.

I just feel that those experiences need to be shared, so that, if you plan to delve into some form of meditative practice, you know that something like that can happen to you. It's not necessarily bad, either - just something to watch out for. If you feel that your fantasies are overwhelming, and they're giving you a hard time, then that's exactly what you want: some distance. If you're low on energy and in a constant mellow state.. probably not so much.

I think the bottom line is that meditation, tantra, etc. are all tools. Excellent tools. But they're not perfect,  they're not ends in themselves, and as with any tool, using them has a downside that one should be aware of.

And never never never never EVER let anyone tell you that your daydreams are a bad thing, filthy, sinful, or something to be avoided. (Of course, there is something to the buddhist perspective that you shouldn't identify with your thoughts, and of course, this is yet another tool that has other downsides that I'm not seeing yet... but... it's complicated. I'll say more about it once I actually know what I'm talking about.) I say honor your daydreams, treat them with respect, hone them, nurse them, water them like beautiful flowers. They deserve your best, and they will pay you back what you give them, interest and all.

Meditation? Meditations!

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/02/buddhist_retreat.html

In the above article, to which I might come back again in a later posting because I believe that it contains a few very valid points, the author makes a claim about buddhist meditation: namely, that it is a highly unreliable tool and can even "exacerbate depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions in certain people."

Now, I certainly think that this can be the case; most books and articles I read on the subject admit that there can be issues, and that people with severe mental problems should probably stay away from meditation. They then move on to state that those cases are extremely rare.

In my personal life, meditation has had a tremendously positive impact, so I cannot attest to anything else. But I sure understand, on an emotional as well as intellectual level, how feelings of losing one's self, of "unreality", might put some people in a lot of dismay. Personally, I always fancied meditation to be a rather safe method, for the simple reason that you have to put in quite a lot of time, that you have to practice on a very regular basis for an extended period, in order to actually achieve anything. It has its own safeguard built right into its core, so to speak.

But that is not entirely true.

The more I think of it, the more I conclude that meditation is not one thing, but many different things.

If you sit down to meditate, regardless of the method you employ, there will always be thoughts passing through your head. And some of those thoughts will be about the meditation you're just having. In other words, you do interpret your meditation while you meditate. In all practices I know, the goal is letting go of exactly those interpretations - but since this is basically a life-long journey, those thoughts, those interpretations, will be with you for quite a while. And, since you cannot easily have a clean cut between your thoughts and "what meditation really is", that wordless state, your thoughts are actually a part of your meditation. Your words shape your experience of wordlessness. And those words, of course, are themselves informed by your religion, ideology, worldview - especially if your meditation is an integral part of your religion.

If you sit down thinking that you're now enjoying the presence of Jesus, this is a whole different experience than if you sit down with the assumption that you slowly realize that your self is an illusion, which will eventually lead you to enlightenment.

So I posit that christian meditation is not just meditation with some added christian flavor, but a completely different affair than buddhist meditation. The same goes for every other "type" of meditation out there. They are all wildly different affairs.

And of course, this also implies that some of those interpretations are more wholesome than others. I guess that the types of meditation that get practiced in destructive cults tend to be of the not-quite-so-wholesome kind. A meditation engulfed in pressure and idolization of a leader... nah. Can't be all that good.

So, it's never really "just sitting". I think this is something to be aware of when you start a meditative practice.

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are core tenets of buddhism; virtually every buddhist knows and respects them, almost by definition - in that regard, they're somewhat akin to the Ten Commandments in christianity. If you want some basic information, let me kindly refer you to their page on wikipedia.

When I first started to write this, I initially planned to restrict it to the First Noble Truth. But I soon realized that this doesn't work - those four teachings are actually ONE teaching, expressed in four steps. If you take them apart, you can't make heads or tails of the parts you're left with.

So.

• The First Noble Truth simply states that "life is suffering".
• The Second Noble Truth: Suffering is caused by reasons, and those reasons are ignorance, attachment and aversion.
• The Third Noble Truth: The reasons for suffering can be removed, and if you remove them, the suffering ceases.
• The Fourth Noble Truth: This is where the actual steps to overcoming suffering are laid out - meditation, a good life, etc.

In general, a good generalization

A lot can be said about the use of the word "suffering" (dukkha) here - that it refers not to suffering in the western sense, but more to a general notion of being unfulfilled, of an inherent unsatisfactoriness of life. And of course, "life" here seems to refer to life in an unenlightened state.

And we can go on and on, interpreting enlightenment, and reincarnation, and that the ultimate enlightenment is realizing that there never really was an unenlightened state to escape from...

But the truth is that, before we get there, we have to accept quite a lot. Sure, the explanation that suffering is caused by craving and aversion makes a lot of sense: When I want something that I don't have (like an ice cream, a relationship, sex, money), then I suffer; when I don't want something that I do have (like a flu), then I suffer. Better, then, to accept that things are what they are, and then go from there.

And I do agree that this is a good strategy, and a good explanation for quite a lot of situations.

It is extremely tempting to simply nod one's head - yes, when I desperately want that money, I suffer. Yes, when I want that aching tooth removed, I suffer. So the rest is true, as well. Suffering is universal.

The first question I'd like to raise is whether that generalization is indeed justified. Is it really true that attachment and aversion (and ignorance, which simply conditions the other two) are the ONLY reason for ALL suffering? Can they be removed under all circumstances? Will removing them also remove all suffering? And is it true, ultimately, that suffering (in this very broad sense of the world) is something that should be removed under ALL circumstances?

After all, in the buddhist worldview, every (non-enlightened) sentient being is prone to suffering: amoebae, plants, animals, humans, even spirits, demons and gods.

And that's what makes me wonder. Let's say that a heavy stone drops from some rooftop and chooses my right foot as an excellent landing spot. After all, my foot is softer than the concrete to its left or right.

Now, before the pain reaches my consciousness, it passes through a lot of unconscious, purely physical processes - shock, instinctive rigor, numerous hormonal reactions, and so on.

And then - only after all that - my conscious mind gets notified.

I argue that the buddhist description of suffering, and how to remove it, can only apply to that very last part. Meditation can change my cognitive processes, but not the biological, physical processes going on in my body. Sure, my instincts do create a kind of fight-or-flight reaction, lust and unlust, that might be interpreted as "craving and aversion" in some limited sense - but surely not in the sense that buddhist scripture has in mind. If part of my "craving and aversion" is strictly physical, then I highly doubt that even a whole life of meditation will change it. Or several lives. The buddha did feel pain.

Is the Buddha prone to suffering?

Am I not being a bit pedantic here?

Well, not if you consider the consequences. First off, this means that the buddhist idea of suffering only describes a very small part of what we usually associate with that word. Granted, I'm fairly certain that buddhist scriptures actually do acknowledge that the buddha still felt pain. He just wasn't annoyed by it.

Well, but then - what exactly is enlightenment supposed to mean? Yeah, I know, shit on a stick, form is emptiness, and all that fun we had, juggling around empty words and zennie paradoxes. I like it. I'm all in for that kind of games, I really am. But at the same time, I cannot avoid seeing that it just doesn't mean anything.

Well... okay, it does mean something. But it doesn't mean all that much. It doesn't mean quite what it pretends to mean.

If enlightenment only works on our conscious mind, and our conscious mind only makes up a very small part of our actual experience, then buddhist meditative and ethical practice cannot have an impact on my whole being - after all, I am, for a large part, unconscious and physical. And no amount of meditation will ever change that.

Is the amoeba prone to suffering?

The second issue is that, according to the buddhist worldview, suffering is an immanent property of all sentient beings. That amoeba has to be prone to suffering just as much as I do. If it doesn't, then it cannot produce karma; killing it cannot produce karma, either, because no suffering is produced. The amoeba would then be an example of an enlightened being, by virtue of lacking cravings. The whole buddhist system doesn't make much sense if there are kinds of suffering that are not covered by the Four Noble Truths. It makes even less sense if suffering is limited to human beings (or to mammals, which is probably more likely to be the case). But, since an amoeba lacks consciousness, it cannot create cravings and aversions - it simply reacts, on a purely physical level, almost like that stone reacted to gravity. It lacks cravings, and it lacks suffering. And yet it is alive, and it is arguably "sentient" in some sense of the word.

(If you want, you can say that the amoeba isn't sentient, and replace it with some other class of living beings: The point still stands. At some point, there is an edge case that just doesn't fit. Therefore, suffering in the buddhist sense is not universal; at the very least, you can never show that it is, because you can never possibly know all species of potentially sentient beings that ever were, are, or will be. Therefore, the system does not describe what it set out to describe. Therefore, it needs to be revised.)

Again, as with karma, we arrive at a point where we have to say that buddhism is a hasty generalization.

As I write this, I realize that I didn't even cover half of my original questions. So be it. Maybe I'll come back to that later.

At any rate, my conclusion is that buddhist mindfulness practice is a very helpful tool indeed - and the ethics associated with it are very compelling, too - and that's all there is to it. It's a strictly immanent, psychological affair, quite possibly with strong and positive social repercussions. It should definitely be practiced by more people! But it certainly doesn't have any "spiritual", religious implications beyond that one short life of mine. It is not universal.

Enlightenment, after all, IS shit on a stick!

Karma

I often thought that I should do a posting about buddhism. Only to then procrastinate/forget/otherwise weasel my way around it.

See, I had a fling with the thing. While I never was a real, professed, meditating-all-day follower of the Tathagatha, I adopted a lot of its most important tenets and tried to incorporate them into my own life.

And then, I stopped. And instead of trying to explain this in general terms, I think it will make more sense to break it down into smallish portions.

Let's start with the teaching of karma.

In its most basic form, adherents will inform you, "karma simply means cause and effect".

This formula makes me cringe when I hear it. If that was all there is to karma, then why not simply call it causality? After all, causality is a well-established concept. Why would we need a new name for an old ceremony?

Of course, as you probably already knew, that simple formula does not cut it. In a very important way, it's a lie. There is more to it - and every buddhist knows that. Yeah, sure, I get the need to sometimes have a cute little formula when you don't really want to discuss the details. But here, in this blog posting, we are actually concerned with those details.

So let's start with this: "Karma is the law of cause and effect, but EXTENDED TO THE REALM OF ETHICS."

Now it gets interesting.

Let's talk about causality first. It is such a well-established concept that most people would not hesitate even a second when asked whether they "believe in causality". Of course we do. It's obvious, right?

Weeeeell... yes and no. Sure, causality works pretty well. It works so well, actually, that it makes sense to assume that it is universal.

But there is a trap right in there. See, causality is based on observation. We have seen the egg fall from the nest and break to pieces. We have seen the cat catch the mouse, and inevitably the mouse ended up dead. We have seen it millions, trillions, unfathomable numbers of times.

So it must be universal, right?

Well, no. In fact, claiming that causality is universal is one hell of a bold claim. Sure, we can and we should ASSUME that causality is universal, given how many instances we have seen at work. It is the pragmatically useful thing to do. But we cannot be sure. Never. We derived this idea purely by inductive logic. And inductive logic may fail at any point. A quantum mechanic may have something to say about that.

In short, it's a necessary assumption. And a necessary assumption is not the same thing as an absolute and universal truth. We should never forget that difference.

And that is the first issue I have with the buddhist concept of karma.

In buddhism, causality is treated as an absolute. (In fact, it is even used in refuting the idea of a deity - because such would contradict causality.) But it isn't. It's nothing more than a useful concept. One of the most useful concepts we ever came up with, to be sure - but still, not necessarily universal, and definitely not absolute. If you witness something tomorrow that does not adhere to causality, then that's it - no more law of causality. It's proven to be less than universal. Then we have to do something about it.

(Don't catch your breath though - if you were really absolutely positive that you witnessed something non-causal, chances are you need a visit to the doctor. In fact, if you want to complicate things further, think of causality as a necessity of human thinking itself. It may well be an attribute of the brain, rather than an law of reality. And then, the next time you turn on the light, medidate the implications of that. It's quite mind-boggling, I tells ya.)

The second issue? I mentioned it above.

In basically all of mainstream buddhism, karma is treated as a law regarding ethics. You behave well, you get a good reincarnation. You behave badly, you're reborn as a slug. Or as a woman. Your call to decide what is worse.

Yeah, I know, it's not quite as simple. Buddhism actually has a very cool builtin safety measure: ONLY A BUDDHA KNOWS THE INTRICACIES OF THE LAW OF KARMA. Therefore, you puny non-enlightened being are not to try to judge me based on my ill-fortunes in this life. Case in question, as witnessed by yours truly: a baby born with congenital ichthyosis. Some said he must have done something incredibly bad in his past lives. Others interjected that we cannot tell, because none of us are buddhas.

Well, okay then - but what, then, is karma meant to be? Is it purely a FUD campaign? A way to wag your finger at people who misbehave?

Regardless of whatever the original intention - that is, of course, one of its major applications. I imagine that buddhist children don't get to hear that baby Jesus will be mad at them if they don't do their homework. They just get to hear that they will PROBABLY be reborn as Michael Jackson. Yeah. Much better.

But what really bugs me is that it just does not work in any predictable way. Talking about future incarnations is fine and dandy - but who will be around to check the truth of those claims? - And, really, if it works across incarnations, shouldn't it work much better, much more reliably and effectively, WITHIN this one small, short life? I mean, yeah sure, if I'm kind to my neighbours, chances are they'll be kind to me. I understand that. Society is, to a large part, a karma-producing affair.

But try to tell that to a Jew, in Germany, around 1939.

All the Jews were evil in their past lives. That's the unavoidable conclusion, if you want to stick to your karma. It really is - think about it, what other explanation would there be? I mean, sure, Hitler probably spends a few houndred billion incarnations as a single-cell organism in some remote, very hot place now, but is that really any solace? Do you honestly, SINCERELY, want to go there?

I certainly don't.

In short, karma is bonkers. It's a somewhat nice idea, and most probably it's nicer than baby Jesus and his obsession with my masturbation habits. But it's still rather stupid. At least as long as you think of it as a "law".

But there is another way. And I do believe that this way is actually rather cool.

See, how about seeing karma not as a law, not as an absolute - but simply as a rule of thumb, a very rough guideline to a live as a human among humans?

If you understand it that way, it makes a whole lot of sense.

After all, humans tend to live most of their lives in social situations. And in almost all social situations, there is some reciprocity involved - some one-hand-washes-the-other, some social glue. I smile at you, you smile back. I sell you cheap car-parts, you send me new customes. I kill your beloved cat, you kill my beloved parrot (a danish blue, no less!).

And that's just the thing with buddhism. And that's why I hesitated for years to make my first blog posting about it: Most of its tenets are rather ridiculous when you take them as absolute laws, as formulas that aim to describe the totality of reality. But if you take them as rules of thumb, as generalisations based on some people's rather acute subjective observations, then they suddenly start making a whole lot of sense.

And maybe - just maybe - the same goes for many teachings, in many religions. Not all of them, perhaps. But most.