Religions often preach love without knowing what Love is (see Chapters 16
and 25). Many religious fundamentalists
interpret their god's love for them to be inseparable from its hatred for others. The U.S. political movement known as the Christian
religious right is
one such group (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right). Its primary
spokesmen are Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (who died May 15, 2007), Franklin Graham,
and James Dobson.
The scientific paradigm (see
Section 2.1) has
produced the theory of biological evolution. Since God is unnecessary in this
theory, fundamentalist Christians are attempting to impose an antievolutionary
doctrine on the educational systems in several States in the U.S. This doctrine
takes two forms, creationism and intelligent design. Both doctrines are derived
from Biblical stories of a universe created by God, and as such, require a
belief in a dualistic God (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism).
Fundamentalists often create enemies on whom to displace their feelings of
self-punishment, self-fear, and self-anger (see
Section
11.8). Their (unrecognized) self-punishment can be so unbearable that
they try to compensate by believing that they are god's favored few, and, in the
name of this god, endeavor to eliminate a competing religion by trying to
convert, demonize, or kill its adherents. Their fear of another religion
or teaching can be even greater than their fear of death.
The belief that God has sanctioned violence leads to additional violence, not
only among believers, but also among nonbelievers. (The daily news contains
ample evidence that this is so.) Scientifically, this has been demonstrated by
having a group of 500 students read a passage depicting violence in the Old
Testament. Half of the students also read another passage saying that God
commanded that the evil-doers be chastened. The half reading the additional
passage were more likely to act aggressively in a later exercise, whether they
were believers or not (Nature 446, 114-115 (8 March 2007)).
Following are a few examples of violent clashes between competing religious
beliefs that resulted in executions, massacres, and wars:
·
In less than a century after Mohammed (570-633) died, Muslims,
in their missionary zeal to convert the "infidels", conquered Palestine,
Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and the South of Spain. In the
eighth and ninth centuries they conquered Persia, Afghanistan, and a large
part of India, and in the twelfth century they had already become the
absolute masters of all Western Asia, Spain and North Africa, and Sicily.
·
Between 1095 and 1270, with the blessing of the popes, and
with the intention of protecting the Holy Land and keeping the pilgrim
routes open to Jerusalem, Christians launched several crusades, mostly from
France, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Muslims.
·
In 1478, Pope Sixtus IV initiated the Spanish Inquisition in
order to purify Christian communities of all Jews and Muslims, even those
who had converted to Christianity. This quickly became an instrument to
expand state power and to fill its treasury with the estates of those found
guilty of being less than fully Christian.
·
In 1517, Martin Luther (1483-1546) in Wittenberg, Germany,
repulsed by papal authority and its practice of buying and selling
indulgences (the remission of religious penalties for sinning, including
freeing the soul from purgatory) rebelled by posting his "Ninety-five
Theses" on the door of the Wittenberg Castle church. Simultaneously, he
called upon lay people to take responsibility for their own salvation and to
renounce Roman authority.
·
In Switzerland in 1523-1524, peasants in the Zurich district,
using the argument that ruling authority should be based on the Scriptures,
revolted against the town council, claiming that they should not be required
to pay tithes on their produce because there was no biblical justification
for doing so. Townsmen, with their own interpretation of the Bible, rejected
the peasants' demand, noting that the Bible did not forbid such payments,
and said that the peasants should make them out of "love". This so provoked
the peasants that the revolt grew to hundreds of thousands in several
countries. In 1525, territorial princes and large cities reacted by raising
large armies that defeated and destroyed the revolt.
·
In 1535, in Münster,
Germany, believing that protection of "true" religion demanded harsh
measures, Protestants, allied with the Catholic Church, persecuted and
executed thousands of Anababtists (a sect that believed only adults should
be baptized, founded in 1525 by Konrad Grebel, Balthasar Hubmaier, and
others, and from whom the Baptists, Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, and
Hutterites of today are descended).
·
Between 1550 and 1650, about 100,000 people in Europe, mostly
women, were persecuted for alleged witchcraft, and about 60,000 were
executed. Under torture, or the threat of torture, many confessions were
obtained, but no proof that an accused person ever attended a
Devil-worshipping "black" Sabbath was ever produced in any witch trial.
·
From 1618 to 1648, the Thirty Years' War was fought between
Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire (comprised largely
of present-day Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic) with considerable
opportunistic meddling by surrounding countries. The war ended with the
Peace of Westphalia (1648), which required that all subjects follow their
rulers' faiths.
·
Many Christians willingly joined the Nazis in trying to
exterminate the Jews during World War II. Islamic fundamentalists have
declared holy war on "infidel" nations, particularly on the powerful ones.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians continue to kill each other today.
·
On September 11, 2001, perceiving the U.S. to be anti-Islamic
because of its support for the presumed anti-Islamic policies of Israel and
other countries, Osama Bin Laden, an Islamic extremist headquartered in
Afghanistan, directed coordinated suicide attacks by fanatical Muslims on
the World Trade Center in New York City and on the Pentagon near Washington,
D.C., killing nearly 3000 people. These attacks inspired the following
exchange on September 13, 2001 between Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (see
above) on Pat Robertson’s cable television program, "The 700 Club" (as
reported by various websites):
Falwell: "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule
if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of
America to give us probably what we deserve."
Robertson: "Well, Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the
antechamber to terror, we haven't begun to see what they can do to the major
population."
Falwell: "The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I'll
hear from them for this, but throwing God...successfully with the help of
the federal court system...throwing God out of the public square, out of the
schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God
will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we
make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the
feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that
an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them
who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you
helped this happen."
Robertson: "I totally concur, and the problem is we've adopted that agenda
at the highest levels of our government, and so we're responsible as a free
society for what the top people do, and the top people, of course, is the
court system."
Falwell: "Pat, did you notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the
Christ-haters, the People for the American Way, NOW, etc., were totally
disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress,
as they went out on the steps and and called out to God in prayer and sang
'God bless America' and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words, when
the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing
to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God."
·
In late August 2005, hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf
Coast of the U.S. and caused more than 1300 confirmed deaths. On September
1, 2005, Pat Robertson (see above) proclaimed on "the 700 Club" that "New
Orleans asked for this tragedy by advertising itself as a destination for
jazz music. As every Christian knows, jazz music is sinful and lures people
into eternal damnation. The connection is obvious" (from
http://datelinehollywood.com/archives/2005/09/18/pat-roberston-corrects-dateline-hollywood-article/).
Reverend Franklin Graham (see above), son of Reverend Billy Graham, suggests
the city was targeted because of the city's sinful reputation. At a speech
in Virginia, he said, "This is one wicked city, OK? It's known for Mardi
Gras, for Satan worship. It's known for sex perversion. It's known for every
type of drugs and alcohol and the orgies and all of these things that go on
down there in New Orleans." Reverend Graham continued, "There's been a black
spiritual cloud over New Orleans for years. They believe God is going to use
that storm to bring revival" (from
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9600878/).
·
As a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the
removal of Saddam Hussein as dictator, Shiite Muslims are waging civil war
against Sunni Muslims in revenge for the atrocities committed by the Sunnis
under the leadership of Hussein.
On p. 61-62 of I Am That (1988), Nisargadatta Maharaj says,
"When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God apart from
the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you
see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark, 'I am', apparently so
small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving."
On p. 200 of Be As You Are (1985), David Godman summarizes Ramana Maharshi's
statements on God:
"1. He is immanent and formless; he is pure being and pure consciousness.
2. Manifestation appears in him and through his power, but he is not its
creator. God never acts, he just is. He has neither will nor desire.
3. Individuality is the illusion that we are not identical with God; when
the illusion is dispelled, what remains is God."
Nondualistically, God is Consciousness, which is all that is. But, just as
we distinguished conceptually between Noumenon and phenomenon in
Chapter 9, we can now distinguish conceptually
between transcendent God and immanent God. Transcendent God is
Consciousness at rest (Noumenon), while immanent God is Consciousness in motion
(phenomenon), see Section
9.2. God is both transcendent and immanent. Symbolically, this can be written (see also
Figure 1, Section 7.1):
Transcendence→ everything is in God (I am in God).
Immanence→
God is in everything (God is in me).
Nondualistically, God is not an entity that is separate from us, that can do
something, and to which we might ascribe emotions and intentions. God is not an
object or entity at all, let alone one that has emotions or intentions. God does
not and cannot "do" anything, because there is nothing but God, so there is
nothing separate for God to act on, to feel about, or to think about. Because
there is nothing but God, I am God and you are God.
While Christianity is basically a dualistic religion, a few passages from the Bible can be interpreted nondualistically. For example, consider some often-quoted passages from Exodus 3 (all
Biblical passages were take
from the Revised Standard Version at
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/browse.html):
13: Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and
say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me,
`What is his name?' what shall I say to them?"
14: God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to
the people of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"
15: God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, `The LORD,
the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be
remembered throughout all generations.
Nondualistically, the name of God is "I AM". This is easily identified with
what we call pure Awareness or the Absolute (see
Figure 1, Section 10.1). Furthermore, because God is pure Awareness, It is inward. However, since God is not an object, It cannot be located anywhere within. (Inward is the direction away from all objects, not a location.)
Now, a familiar passage from Psalms 46:
10: "Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth!"
and some passages from John 14:
6: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no
one comes to the Father, but by me.
7: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know
him and have seen him."
Nondualistically, pure Awareness (
Figure
1, Section 10.1) is the means and the end (the way and the truth). If
you know your true nature as pure Awareness, you also know the Absolute
(unmanifest Consciousness, the Father).
8: Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be
satisfied."
9: Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not
know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show
us the Father'?
10: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? [I am
in God and God is in me.] The words
that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells
in me does his works.
Philip wants Jesus to show him the Absolute,
but Jesus tells him again that only by knowing his own true nature, can he
know the Absolute.
16: And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to
be with you for ever,
17: even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither
sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in
you.
The "other Counselor", or Holy Spirit, is spiritual intuition (see
Figure
1, Section 10.1), which few know (it cannot be seen with the world's eyes),
but it can be known by all who want to. (Spiritual intuition, not blind belief, is the true meaning of faith.)
26: But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I
have said to you.
27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I
give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Our own spiritual intuition will bring us to Reality and peace.
Now, three passages from John 8:
57: The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and
have you seen Abraham?"
58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I
am."
59: So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out
of the temple.
Jesus tells them that his true identity has always been pure Awareness (as it is for everyone).
(This assertion incited an all-too common reaction among those who fear having
their beliefs challenged.)
Jesus’ identification with pure Awareness (again with the reaction of
those who were afraid to question what they had been taught) is reinforced in
the following passages from John 10:
30: I and the Father are one."
31: The Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32: Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for
which of these do you stone me?"
33: The Jews answered him, "It is not for a good work that we stone you but for
blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God."
34: Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, `I said, you are gods'?
35: If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be
broken),
36: do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, `You
are blaspheming,' because I said, `I am the Son of God'?
37: If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me;
38: but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that
you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
39: Again they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
An even more universally held religion than the belief in god is the belief in objective reality. This belief can be just as staunchly and vociferously defended as the belief in any god. The religion of objective reality
contains an ideology that is every bit as dualistic and as unverifiable as any
other religion. It is dualistic, because it decrees the presence of objects
whose existence is independent of the observer. It is unverifiable since all
objects, whether perceived or not, are nothing but concepts in the mind (see
Section
9.2). In fact, the only nonconceptual,
verifiable experience that you can have is that you are aware (see Sections
1.5 and
9.3). Because the belief in
the independent existence of any object, whether it is god, nature, or
human, always implies a threat to the security of the ego and the body-mind, all religiously held dualistic beliefs,
including the religion
of objective reality, must lead to suffering.
Buddhism is generally viewed as one of the
world's great religions. Because, like Jesus, the Buddha left no writings,
what he actually taught is open to speculation. However, a generally
accepted account is given in the following three paragraphs taken from http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/buddha.htm:
Siddhartha
Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born in the sixth century B.C. in what is
now modern Nepal. His father, Suddhodana, was the ruler of the Sakya people
and Siddhartha grew up living the extravagant life of a young prince.
According to custom, he married at the young age of sixteen to a girl named
Yasodhara. His father had ordered that he live a life of total seclusion, but
one day Siddhartha ventured out into the world and was confronted with the
reality of the inevitable suffering of life. The next day, at the age of
twenty-nine, he left his kingdom and newborn son to lead an ascetic life and
determine a way to relieve universal suffering.
For six years,
Siddhartha submitted himself to rigorous ascetic practices, studying and
following different methods of meditation with various religious teachers. But
he was never fully satisfied. One day, however, he was offered a bowl of rice
from a young girl and he accepted it. In that moment, he realized that
physical austerities were not the means to achieve liberation. From then on,
he encouraged people to follow a path of balance rather than extremism. He
called this The Middle Way.
That night Siddhartha sat under the Bodhi
tree, and meditated until dawn. He purified his mind of all defilements and
attained enlightenment at the age of thirty-five, thus earning the title
Buddha, or "Enlightened One". For the remainder of his eighty years,
the Buddha preached the Dharma [a set of teachings, most of which
can be interpreted as pointers] in an effort to
help other sentient beings reach enlightenment.
According to What the Buddha Taught (1974) by Walpola Rahula (an excellent
summary of the teaching of the Buddha without the religious intrusions of later
authors), faith and belief played no part in the Buddha’s original teachings. Rahula says on p. 8 of his book,
"Almost all religions are built on faith--rather 'blind' faith it
would seem. But in Buddhism emphasis is laid on 'seeing', knowing,
understanding, and not on faith, or belief ... However you put it, faith or
belief as understood by most religions has little to do with Buddhism. The question of belief arises when there is no seeing--seeing in every sense
of the word. The moment you see, the question of belief
disappears."
On p. 9, he says,
"It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of
believing. The teaching of the Buddha is ... inviting you to 'come and
see', but not to come and believe."
This is the only true "religion" because it does not depend on
beliefs, which always conflict with other beliefs.
The heart of the Buddha's teaching consists of the "Four Noble
Truths". On
p. 93, Rahula presents the Buddha's teaching of the First Noble
Truth:
"The Noble Truth of suffering (Dukkha) is this: Birth is
suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering;
sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association
with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is
suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering."
On p. 17, Rahula says:
"It is admitted that the term dukkha in the First Noble
Truth contains, quite obviously, the ordinary meaning of 'suffering', but in
addition it also includes deeper ideas such as 'imperfection',
'impermanence', 'emptiness', 'insubstantiality'."
The First Noble Truth teaches us that all experience is
impermanent, imperfect, and empty. This might seem to be
an unduly negative view of life but we can see it directly by careful
examination of our own lives. We might think that something is wrong with others
because they are not like us. This only increases our suffering because of the
anger and dislike it induces. We might also think that something is wrong with
us because we are suffering and others do not seem to be. That also is incorrect
thinking that increases our suffering. Everybody except the enlightened suffers.
While the First and Second Noble Truths may seem pessimistic, the Third Noble Truth is
optimistic because it shows us the way out of suffering
(Rahula, p. 93):
"The Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering is this: It is
the complete cessation of that very thirst, giving it up, renouncing it,
emancipating oneself from it, detaching oneself from it."
The cessation of suffering is Nirvana, the Buddhist term for
enlightenment.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the path leading to the end of
suffering (Rahula, p. 93):
"The Noble Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of
suffering is this: It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely right view;
right thought; right speech; right action; right livelihood; right effort;
right mindfulness; right concentration."
Superficially, the Eightfold Path might seem to be a set of rules for proper
living, but they are much more than that. The Buddha spoke to all levels of
understanding. To the unaware, the Eightfold Path is indeed a set of rules, but
to the more aware, they are practices that uncover our true nature.
What did the Buddha say about the existence of a self or soul? On p. 51, Rahula says,
"Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the
existence of such a Soul, self, or Atman [what we have called the
"I"-entity]. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an
imaginary, false belief, which has no corresponding reality, and it produces
harmful thoughts of 'me' and 'mine', selfish desire, craving, attachment,
hate, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities
and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from
personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can
be traced all the evil in the world."
[Note: Rahula is incorrect in stating that Buddhism is unique in denying the
existence of a Soul, self, or Atman since the Buddhist concept of no-self is consistent with
the Advaita teaching of no doer.]
On p. 55, Rahula goes on to say,
"It is therefore curious that recently there should have been a vain
attempt by a few scholars to smuggle the idea of self into the teaching of the
Buddha, quite contrary to the spirit of Buddhism. These scholars
respect, admire, and venerate the Buddha and his teaching. They look up
to Buddhism. But they cannot imagine that the Buddha, whom they consider
the most clear and profound thinker, could have denied the existence of an
Atman or self which they need so much."
Thus, the purest of teachings are often corrupted by
unenlightened teachers. Buddhism became a religion when its teachings were corrupted by the introduction of the
"I"-entity. In contrast to Rahula's purist
description, today's actual teaching of
Buddhism includes a great deal of religious dogma. For example, in The
Story Of Buddhism: A Concise Guide To Its History And Teachings (2001), Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
says (from the excerpt at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week445/lopez.html#right),
“What is encompassed by
this dharma [what is attributed to the Buddha] is indeed vast. It can include
chanting the Buddha's name; circumambulating his relics; prostrating before
his image; copying, reading, or reciting his words; painting his image;
taking and maintaining vows; offering food and robes to monks and nuns;
writing arcane commentaries; sitting in meditation; exorcising demons;
visualizing oneself as the Buddha; placing flowers before a book; burning
oneself alive.”
Clearly, Buddhism in this form was not taught by the Buddha. Because of its emphasis on doctrine and rules
instead of understanding, seeing, and knowing, Buddhism as religion tends to reinforce the
imaginary "I"-entity and its sense of doership, and therefore it is unlikely to
eliminate suffering.
In the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha taught that craving produces reexistence and rebecoming. Some Buddhists think this means reincarnation.
However, since the Buddha taught that there is no soul to be reincarnated, what
did he mean by reexistence? Rahula says
on p. 33:
"What we call death is the total nonfunctioning of the physical body. Do
all these forces and energies stop altogether with the nonfunctioning of the
body? Buddhism says, 'No'. Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to
continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole
lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. This is the
greatest force, the greatest energy in the whole world. According to
Buddhism, this force does not stop with the nonfunctioning of the body,
which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form,
producing reexistence, which is called rebirth."
Any vision of departed souls is just an image in the mind. Any belief in
reincarnation of the person is a belief in objective reality, not a direct
experience (see also Section 10.4). Reexistence and rebecoming actually occur many times each second, some evidence for which we
saw in Section 7.2. This can
be seen directly by advanced Buddhist meditators (see Mastering the Core
Teachings of the Buddha (2004) at
http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml, a free downloadable book by
Daniel Ingram).
There are many schools of Buddhism. Therevada, which is thought to be
closest to the original teachings of the Buddha, is aimed at one's own individual
liberation. It spread to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in about 240 B.C.E. and from
there to Southeast Asia. Mahayana, whose goal is the freedom of all sentient
beings, not just the individual, was heavily influenced by other Indian
teachings, and arose
in the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E.
The third major vehicle of Buddhist theory and practice, Vajrayana, is thought
to have arisen between the 6th and 12th centuries, and is a blend of Mahayana,
Indian Tantrism, and the indigenous Bon tradition of Tibet. The distinctly Chinese form of
Buddhism called Ch'an arose in the 6th century. It migrated to Japan where it
evolved into Zen in the 12th century. The four schools of Vajrayana in
Tibetan Buddhism arose between the 11th and 14th centuries. Finally, the school
of Dzogchen, regarded by many Tibetans as the culmination of Vajrayana, arose in
the 17th century.
Advaita and Mahayana are different in perspective but similar in result. Advaita
says that everything is the Self (see
Section 10.1),
which is what we are. Mahayana says that everything is emptiness, which is also
what we are. Advaita says "I am
everything". Mahayana says "I am nothing". Ultimately, these are the same (see
Chapter 25).
Vipassana as practiced in Theravada is the understanding of
the Four Noble Truths as taught by the Buddha. It is the understanding of
the transitory nature of phenomena and the selflessness of objects, that the "I"
does not exist. The Buddhist meditation
teacher Sharon Salzberg says about Vipassana meditation (http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/sharon/meditations/meditations.htm#med03):
"Vipassana meditation
quiets the mind and refines our awareness so we can directly experience the
truth of our lives with a minimum of distraction and obscuration. This style
traces directly to the way the Buddha himself practiced, and is common to
all Buddhist traditions. Simplicity, stillness, and attention are its
qualities.
"The first pillar of
meditation is concentration—stability of mind. We focus our normally
scattered energy. The state we cultivate is tranquil, relaxed, open,
yielding, gentle and soft. We let things be; we don’t try to hold on to
experiences. Our mind is alert and deeply connected with what’s going on.
"The second pillar is
mindfulness. We are aware of what is happening as it actually arises—not
being lost in our conclusions or judgments about it. We pay attention
to our pleasant experiences, our painful experiences and our neutral
experiences—the sum total of what life brings us."
This description is similar to our description of
self-inquiry, i.e., inquiry into the contents of Awareness (see Section
23.2), but it stops short of Self-inquiry, i.e., inquiry into Awareness
itself (see Section
23.3). The practices of concentration and mindfulness are described in
Section 24.2.
Centuries after Buddhism began in
India, it spread through the trade routes into China where it was reshaped by
contact with Confucianism, Taoism, and folk religion in Chinese culture. Many
schools of Chinese Buddhism were then formed. In the 6th century, the
"Intuitive School", called Ch'an (derived from the Buddhist meditation
called dhyana), was introduced. From China, in the 8th
century, Ch'an spread to Japan where, by the 12th century, it evolved into Zen, the Japanese
pronunciation for Ch'an.
(The following three paragraphs are
extracts from p. 36-38 of an article by Norman Fischer entitled Nothing
Holy, in Shambala Sun, March 2004).
Zen is a pithy, stripped-down,
determined, uncompromising, cut-to-the-chase, meditation-based Buddhism that
takes no interest in doctrinal refinements Not relying on
scripture, doctrine, or ritual, Zen is verified by personal experience, and is
passed on from master to disciple, hand-to-hand, ineffably, through hard,
intimate training.
Although Zen created
controversy at first in all of the countries it spread to, eventually it
became by far the most successful school of Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan,
and Viet Nam. By the mid-1980s, the Zen traditions of all these
countries had been transmitted to America.
Although Zen eventually developed traditions of
study and ritual, its emphasis on personal experience has always made it a
practice-oriented tradition. The practice is meditation, or sitting Zen
(Zazen). Zazen is an intensely simple practice that is generally taught
without steps, stages, or frills. The master teaches sitting in good,
upright posture, paying full attention to breathing in your belly until you
are fully alert and present. This sense of being present, with illumination
and intensity, is the essence of zazen.
We
see that the aims of Zen are similar to the aims of Vipassana, except that Zen
emphasizes illumination (satori) resulting from meditation, while Vipassana
emphasizes insight. In this sense, Zen is very similar to Self-inquiry
as described in Section
23.3, while Vipassana is similar to self-inquiry as described in Section
23.2.
In nondualistic teachings, we can distinguish between two types of concepts,
those that negate what is false, and those that assert what is true. The former
always point away from what is false, while the latter attempt to point
towards what is assumed to be true. Concepts that assert what is true can be
misleading pointers. For example, to assert that Consciousness is infinite
implies that 1) Consciousness can be described in conceptual terms, and that 2)
Consciousness has no limits. Neither of these concepts applies to Consciousness,
which is beyond all concepts. On the other hand, concepts that negate what is
false can be useful pointers. For example, the statement that Consciousness is
not a concept, entity, or object clearly means that Consciousness cannot be
described in conceptual terms. A very useful negative pointer is the statement
that there are no individuals.
Because concepts are to be used only as pointers, it is clear that two
different conceptual systems may both be effective pointers to Reality. This should not worry one who realizes
the purpose of concepts. Which conceptual system one accepts will depend on how
effectively it points to Reality in the intuitive eyes of the student. That is
why different conceptual systems will usually appeal to different individuals.
Clear examples of two perhaps equally effective conceptual systems are Ramesh’s
teaching, which emphasizes deep understanding of the absence of the doer,
compared with Ramana Maharshi’s teaching, which emphasizes inquiry into the
"I"-entity in order to discover its absence. Which one is chosen depends on the
personality characteristics of the individual. (This course is a composite of
both of these teachings.) Other systems of pointers
to nondual experience are Vipassana and Zen.
Because the awakened teacher is not an individual but a body-mind organism
through which Consciousness functions spontaneously and impersonally, from the point
of view of the teacher (i.e., Consciousness), there is no personal sense of
obligation or responsibility (although there will often be from the
disciple’s point of view), so there is no concern about whether a specific
person will accept the teaching. Because a conceptual system of
pointers to Reality can be effective only if it is understood and accepted by the disciple, as experience is gained by the
teaching body-mind organism, the
teaching will usually naturally become simpler and more focused. Somewhat ironically, the
simpler and more focused it becomes, the more some people will be
driven away from it, and the more others will be drawn towards it.
In addition to the fact that spiritual beliefs cannot be true, no mere
conceptual system can ever satisfy the yearning for wholeness, which is the
compulsion behind all spiritual seeking (e.g., "Know Thyself"--Inscription on
the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Greece, 6th century B.C.) Only clear seeing can satisfy this, and
in the end, only clear seeing can lead to the realization that the individual
does not exist. Because the intuition is constantly pulling us towards this
realization, any practice based only on mentation rather than on clear seeing must
strive to ignore this pulling. Furthermore, any belief system is constantly
being challenged by competing belief systems. The result is that any belief
system, in order to be sustained, requires constant effort at defending it,
reinforcing it, and shoring it up. This effort invariably strengthens the sense
of separation that the belief system is supposed to dissolve.
This page last updated November 12, 2007.
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