Why this Humanist admires the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama, (c) AP.

In the course of reading ancient philosophy, it is difficult to ignore Buddhism. And in the course of reading about Buddhism, it is difficult not to become at least somewhat familiar with the Dalai Lama. In this case, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

For those unfamiliar, there are various branches of Buddhism (what Westerners might call denominations), such as Mahayana, Theravada, and Tibetan Buddhism. 'Dalai Lama' is a high-priest-like position within Tibetan Buddhism, but he appears to be highly respected by all Buddhists and in the case of this man, even many non-Buddhists.

Tenzin was designated to become the next Dalai Lama in Tibet at age two. At age 15 (in 1950) the army of communist China invaded Tibet. He officially became Dalai Lama one month later, but fled into India in 1959 when it seemed the Chinese were about to kill him after a failed uprising. In India he established a government-in-exile which is now run by an elected parliament.

Tibet has yet to receive independence and the Chinese today critically dismiss descriptions as I've given here, saying it is impossible to "invade" a region that had long belonged to them, as they claim to be the case. Today China censors any information about resistance or freedom for Tibet and about the Dalai Lama which they do not control. Meanwhile Chinese government policies dilute Tibetan culture and they commonly infringe on Tibetan religious activities and try to have influence over who becomes the next Dalai Lama and other Lama placements.

Much to the Chinese government's chagrin, the Dalai Lama continues to be welcome in meetings with world leaders as he advocates for Tibetan rights. Most of the world seems to favor Tibetan independence, though China is a powerful nation with a huge economy and nuclear weaponry, so there is little that can be done to force their hand, other than change from within.

Tibetan Buddhism is among the more mystical or supernatural varieties of Buddhism in my view. I tend more toward Theravada, with a few Mahayana elements, but mainly on secular philosophic Buddhism (which appears to be the original Buddhism). For instance, the Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama is really the same entity and that all prior Dalai Lamas have been reincarnations of the first. As for the Dalai Lama himself, Tibetan rights are not his only focus. He continues to serve as a spiritual guide for people everywhere, even beyond Buddhists. He is astute to the differences of belief among different people. When he speaks or writes to Buddhists his subjects will veer into the more esoteric but when speaking to non-Buddhists, he knows how to focus on those elements of Buddhism to which everyone everyone can relate. He does not encourage people to leave their current belief systems to become Buddhists, but seeks to help people everywhere with messages that will benefit them.

I have read a few of his books (such as The Art of Happiness and The Universe in a Single Atom) and have to say, they have contained some of the wisest words I have ever read. His teachings are highly practical and aware of the realities of life and the world, and very applicable. Reading this man's writing or seeing him speak, his authenticity, honesty, integrity, compassion, and intellect are obvious.

Humanists value education and philosophic study. If you consider the upbringing of a Dalai Lama, it seems education has been intense and varied. The environment in which such a person is raised is essentially a perfectly crafted kiln in which to produce a wise person. He's obviously received a well rounded education that is multicultural and global in scope - a virtual Renaissance man. Along with that he's been raised with intense training in philosophic wisdom, empathy, and compassion. If we could manage to give every person that kind of attention and upbringing, such a society might begin to approach a humanistic utopia. In that regard, a few aspects aside, the Dalai Lama comes close to a Humanist paragon. That's not to mention the values he promotes, which are humanistic at their core.

The Dalai Lama is now 75 years old, and it will be a sad day when we must say goodbye to him. His mark will be felt a long time after his passing, but for today we are fortunate to have such a figure as a contemporary.

Reclaiming meaning from the supernatural

(cc) DT Strain.

Last night at the Humanist Contemplatives Houston Meetup, we discussed the areas of overlap and similar concepts about the universe found throughout Taoism, Buddhism, Stoicism, and Complex Systems Theory. I centered mostly on those aspects which would be of greatest relevance to naturalists and Humanist ethics and outlook on life.

Using a variety of terminology from each of these, I had summed up and organized the concepts according to this outline:

I. FUNDAMENTAL EXISTENCE

a) the Logos: the universe operates according to a universal set of natural laws.
b) existence & subsistence: some things physically exist, but many phenomena subsist, meaning they are categories, labels, emergent properties, or other manifestations of the existing materials. This is a sort of metaphysical but not supernatural concept.

II. BASIC ORDER

a) polarity: complimentary opposites are fundamental throughout nature.
b) the Divine Fire: a natural creative principle which runs counter to entropy.
c) self-order: spontaneous emergence of complexity in inherent in the universe is dependent arising.

III. COMPLEXITY

a) interdependence: mutually interdependent phenomena are what make the universe holistic and monistic.
b) cause & effect: cause and effect networks as a wave abstraction, karma, butterfly effect
c) impermanence, transformation, & underlying unity: transmutation of substances and impermanence are all related to the ever changing flux, evolution, yet spring from a universal principle, similar to the search for a unified field theory.

IV. HIGHER ORDER

a) cyclical manifestations: natural fractals as an example of cyclical patterns, biological cycles, replenishment, renewal, layered strata of order in systems, relate to underlying concepts in rebirth, the stoic conflagration, etc.
b) the aggregate self: persons as aggregates of qualities are emergent properties without a singular or unchanging nature, thus emptiness and the delusion of self.
c) emergence: other examples of emergent properties beyond the soul/mind and naturalistic approach to incorporeals
d) potentiality: fate, destiny, randomness, and free will - 'statistical fatalism'

That's a lot to take in in just a few lines of text, but it was the summation of five previous sessions of discourse. I'll be elaborating more on these in the future, but the point was this:

Sometime in the distant past, we draw a line between the natural and the supernatural which hadn't existed prior. By that I mean ancient philosophies of around 2,500 years ago, East and West, often considered the universe one whole. If they had ideas about souls or spirits, those words are only incidentally identical in spelling and pronunciation of those words as we use them today. Back then, they were more like the current scientific theories of their day as to questions such as 'why is some matter animate and others not?'  It was all natural and interdependent - it was an attempt to understand the environment in which we find ourselves.

Later, after the conceptual split between the natural and the supernatural, we imagined these separate planes of existence, with the supernatural being some sort of invisible realm. Souls became more like "ghosts" than minds, for example. But the significant point is this: not only was there a split, but we then went about collecting up all of things we consider profound, sacred, meaningful, divine, and spiritual, and dumped them into the supernatural column. This basically allowed us to take a few centuries off from seriously examining or understanding the sacred because we consigned it to the invisible and empirically unapproachable.

This was not too big of an issue until we get around to modern times. Now we have a good number of people either considering the supernatural irrelevant, suspect, or outrightly rejecting it. But with that rejection, we are simply chopping off a categorization that was created by a people who accepted the supernatural as part of existence. The result of simply chopping off the supernatural as is, is that we lose all things of deepest reverence and meaning, and are left with a 'nature' that is completely bereft and stripped of ultimate meaning and value. This is why, when you explain to someone that you only believe in the natural universe, they often imagine you must have a shallow depressing life of meaninglessness.

What we naturalists must do is examine closely those ancient spiritual philosophies of life which looked at the universe as one natural whole. We must reclaim the sacred, the divine, the spiritual, the meaningful, the profound - we must heal that schism and reunite the sacred with the natural. This is not so much a matter of making unfounded claims as it is reclaiming a perspective and a value system on Nature. It is about approaching Nature with the reverence and tone of the ancients, before the great natural/supernatural divide.

How do we do this? First, by learning about what ancient philosophers (who were a fusion of priest and scientist by today's standards) said about their natural universe, what they observed and what they found profound and useful about it. In that, we see remarkable parallels to modern scientific understandings of nature, brains, and complex systems. By noting those parallels, we can begin to approach the natural universe as understood by modern science through the eyes of a people who didn't see a need to relegate phenomena outside of nature or make claims based on faith.

We can then take those concepts consistent with modern understanding, and note how they drew a connection between 'is' and 'ought'. How did their understanding of the universe create a foundation for their practices, perspectives, and value systems that lead to the good life - the flourishing life?  If their concepts of nature were on-base in many of the more significant ways (which I find they were, albeit more generalized or poetic) then we should be able to construct similar lines of logic from is to ought. We should be able to end up with similar value systems, perspectives, reverence, and practices based on a modern and natural understanding of the universe.

Through this we can begin to grasp the essential 'spiritual feel' of Nature once more and build a way forward that fills human spiritual need, is a practical guide for achieving the good and flourishing life, and has intellectual integrity with regard to modern scientific understanding.

Humanist Contemplatives to meet

Humanist Contemplative emblem.
(cc) DT Strain.

This evening I'll be hosting the Humanist Contemplative's Houston monthly discourse. We've been meeting for several months now. It's a small group that looks at the overlap between Humanism and contemplative practices, traditions, and ideas.

Over the past sessions, we've looked at complex systems theory, Heraclitus, Chuang-Tzu, Taoism, Buddhist physics, Stoic physics, and their ethics. Tonight we'll be bringing it all together to examine the shared characteristics between them, and see what we might infer as implications for the Humanist.

We rarely get around to everything there is to say on these subjects, but it's always a delightful experience. Our effort is to be more in a listening and tolerant mode than in a debating one. We meet at Te House of Tea (1927 Fairview Street) at 7pm on the second Wednesday of each month.

The Extremists of Materialism

Starving Buddha, before finding the Middle Way.
Photo: (cc) John Wigham (Akuppa), Flickr.com.

LiveScience is reporting an Indian Mystic who is claiming not to have eaten in 70 years, saying he can obtain his sustenance through breathing and meditation. We can easily assume the claim to be false, based on what is known of biology and the fact that no one has ever proven such an ability under scrutiny.

As the article mentions, this claim is a common one among Indian religious leaders. Deprivation has been a religious practice for thousands of years. The Buddha at one point is written to have tried this ascetic approach, starving himself. But he later rejected it as a path to enlightenment or happiness, saying that the answer instead rested in The Middle Way - a balance between the extremes of denial and gluttony. A lesson people today could certainly use. Almost all of us in the West today are this Indian Mystic's equally mislead opposite, believing that obtaining more and more material wealth, goods, food/drink, and entertainments are the answer to happiness. So, I prefer to reflect on that before judging this mystic too harshly.

Do you have a sense of progress in your walk?

A path refers to a destination. (cc) Aidan
McManus (adeb?nd), Flickr.com. 

For many of us, days pass by and we often find ourselves 'going with the flow'. Sure, we might make plans for the future. We might even have plans about where we want to be financially in five years, or plans about our hobbies, and so on. But how many of us have a sense of progress and planning when it comes to our spiritual/contemplative path - or, when it comes to our development as a person?

By a 'sense of progress' what I mean is a sense that we are working on something - a project. This would be a sense that where we are today is hopefully going to be different than where we are in the future. I mean this in terms of our habits, our character traits, our knowledge, our wisdom, our kindness, our compassion, and more.

How is such progress made? Learning may be an important first step. Reading worthy materials, joining in discussions (not debates), talking with and asking questions of wise people, and thinking about all of these ideas are essential. But all of that is merely 'data'. It is raw information resulting in nothing more than book knowledge, and as beneficial to your 'soul' as reading about exercise would be to your body. The real "project" is in what you do with that knowledge.

This is where practice comes in. Here we seek to apply those lessons in our lives. Practice doesn't just mean specific practices with names, like: meditation, negative visualization, existential deliberation, and so on. It also means mindfully putting into practice the mindsets and ideas we read about as we go about our daily activities. More importantly, that by doing so, those become habitual to our character and natural inclinations.

These are things with which I still very much struggle. When people refer to me as knowing a lot about some philosophy or being a 'something-ist', I feel rather silly - because I know that all of the reading and writing I do on these topics is worthless. Only the degree to which ancient and modern wisdom is applied in our lives, and the degree to which they shape our character, matter. The rest is vanity.

The following paragraph is specifically aimed at my naturalist/non-theist friends and readers:

It may seem odd to talk about one's walk, path, or spiritual practice in a secular context. But the recognition that there is a natural-based, rational, and beneficial function to development of character habits and application of contemplative practices is what The Humanist Contemplative is all about. Very often, we secular folks are among those who go through life day after day without that sense of progress in our character development, and I'd think therefore that my notes on this today would be especially applicable to us.


________________
Comment, Brandon:

The couldn't be more timely for me. Lately I've come to realize that things have been 'just good enough' for a long time, and it's been a struggle to try and fit the idea of 'purpose' into a secular context.

"Only the degree to which ancient and modern wisdom is applied in our lives, and the degree to which they shape our character, matter. The rest is vanity."

That stung, but I needed it :)
Cheers to an excellent article.

Comment, DT Strain:

Thanks Brandon. I really appreciate comments like yours :)
Sincerely,
-Daniel

Comment, tbrucia:
As I prepare for a 485-mile trek beginning in about a month, this article hits home.... The destination is there (like a beacon), but the discipline of preparing for and executing every exercise (walking, taking care of the feet, cooking, eating, setting up one's tent, observing one's surroundings, waiting, being rained on, and so on) are all the biggest part of the trek. In the process of preparing and executing, one changes... and in a sense, one becomes the preparing, one becomes the execution, and one becomes a reflection of the objective realities one meets 'on the trail'.... One of the realities one (I hope) I meet on the trail is another hiker: the one I am becoming....

David Brooks & Justin Bieber on "Happiness"

Justin Bieber arrives at Nickelodeon's 23rd
Annual Kids' Choice Awards, 2010. (c) AP.

Op-Ed columnist David Brooks wrote an article a few days ago called The Sandra Bullock Trade. In the article he writes about some of the interesting research being done about happiness, and about what I'd call the 'happiness exchange rate' between different things in our lives, many of them surprising.

Brooks at parts reminds me of the many instances where we are warned about the dangers of materialism. He writes:

"...most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions. Most governments release a ton of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count, not around the things that matter most."

This kind of common lesson on happiness about focusing on 'what matters most' is part of our culture, and part of our pop culture. It is a common theme in many movies and television show episodes that attempt to have a moral. In the end, Brooks' message is not much more sophisticated than teen-idol-of-the-moment, Justin Bieber. One of his big hits has been the song, "One Time". As Beiber sings:

Me plus you, I'ma tell you one time
When I met you girl my heart went knock knock
Now them butterflies in my stomach won't stop stop
And even though it's a struggle love is all we got
And we gon' keep keep climbing to the mountain top
Your world is my world
And my fight is your fight
My breath is your breath
And your heart
And girl you're my one love, my one heart
My one life for sure
Let me tell you one time
(Girl, I love, girl I love you)

So Beiber isn't singing here about cars or money, but about "love". In another of his songs considered by his young fans to be among the "meaningful", a song called Down to Earth, is about missing a girl because he had to move due to his parents divorcing. As the lyrics go:

I never thought that it'd be easy,
Cause we're both so distant now,
And the walls are closing in on us and we're wondering how,
No one has a solid answer,
But we're just walking in the dark,
And you can see the look on my face, it just tears me apart.
So we fight
Through the hurt
And we cry and cry and cry and cry
And we live
And we learn
And we try and try and try and try

Of course, such angst is par for the course among melodramatic youths, but this is an example of pathos - a sickness of the mind. Which is why Beiber 'cries and cries'. Here someone is certainly focused on 'the things that matter most' according to David Brooks. Why, then, is he not happy?

To be sure, it is folly to be focused on wealth, career, and possessions as one's source of happiness. It is also true that the people in our lives, and love, should come before those things - but this is only chapter one of the lesson. Sadly, that's as far as our culture often gets, and as a result, there is a lot of suffering going on, even amongst people who are peaceful and not what you'd call materialistic.

I certainly don't intend undue criticism for young Bieber, or even older Brooks. They're words are not unusual. I present them only as examples of how askew is our larger culture - and this has real effects on suffering. One poor girl, Phoebe Prince, recently committed suicide after being tormented and teased by several others at her school. Before I continue, let me be clear: we certainly cannot shave even an ounce of responsibility from those who mistreated her, or the adults who were supposed to be more attentive to the situation. Furthermore, it should be noted that whenever one discusses ways a person can empower themselves against some pitfall, it often can sound as if those victims who have not done so are being blamed. But how much might girls like Phoebe Prince benefit by some more thorough understanding of how to deal with their feelings? All such things as reputation and what others think of us are ultimately not of importance. We cannot have expected this poor girl to have known any better, but even with the best enforcement, there will be cases of harassment and our culture does a poor job of armoring children against it.

When Brooks talks about "happiness" in these studies, he's talking about something very different from the kind of happiness that philosophies like Buddhism and Stoicism aim to increase. This is because, even when it seems he's talking about more enlightened things, he's still caught within the realm of external circumstance.

Brooks reports a study that shows joining a group that meets once a month produces the same happiness as doubling your income. Yet, the Stoics would point out that the ability to be a part of a monthly group depends on one's external conditions: where you live, are you disabled, will others comply by showing up, will they happen to be the kind of people you enjoy being with, will your schedule allow for consistent attendance, and so on. As such, why would it be "more enlightened" to desire a monthly group than it is to desire a higher income? To the Stoics, these things are equally indifferent and the Buddhists would say that attachment to either creates the potential for suffering.

Believe it or not, the same goes even for friends and family. While these certainly come before material possessions, they likewise are externals beyond our control. Our families may be taken from us through tragedy or conflict, friends may betray us, and so on. Attachment to any of these externals is making our ultimate happiness dependent upon the unpredictable tides of events around us, and an unsteady rock upon which to rely.

The Buddhists are very good at delineating the difference between love and attachment - between compassion and compulsion. Therefore, it is possible to be a loving kind person who puts family before fame and fortune, yet understand internally, that our happiness must ultimately be grounded in something larger than ourselves and our attachments to transient things - even when they are other people. The Stoics too, despite their admonitions against such pathos, address the notion of showing love to others and fulfilling our duties to family, friends, and society. In fact, I will soon be releasing an essay on what I would call Stoic Compassion and how it works.


__________________
Special thanks to Jimmy Dunne, who alerted me to Brooks' article.

Humanists embracing secular meditation

Rick Heller, of the Humanist Contemplatives
Group at Harvard. Photo: (c) HarvardHumanist.

Rick Heller at the Humanist Contemplative Group at Harvard, has just made a ten minute video on secular meditation. By secular meditation, he means meditation without any supernatural concepts. Indeed, the types of meditation he describes are precisely what is practiced by many Buddhists already, but Heller may feel the added term is necessary to distinguish it from other kinds of meditation that naturalists or those of other religions may not find relevant.

The Harvard Humanist Contemplative group was inspired by my own Humanist Contemplative group here in Houston, and I was honored and pleased when that group started. My hope is that more Humanist Contemplatives begin appearing in other areas because these are elements I think could only improve the Humanist movement. So, I applaud Rick Heller for his recent overview of basic meditation!

Rick Heller goes over some basics on 'how to' do breathing meditation. There are many other tips on posture, relaxing before a meditation session, and more which one could also learn. He talks about how meditation is helpful when we are experiencing nagging ruminations over various thoughts, concerns, and worries plaguing us, and how meditation helps to clear our minds and relieve stress. This is certainly true, but I would call this 'acute meditation practice'. Meditation can mean so much more, even for secularists.

Rick Heller also mentions scientific studies that have been conducted, and are being conducted on the effects of meditation on the brain. A top-down functional analysis is interesting, but the real treasure in meditation is being a first-person participant in it over a long-term practice.

In addition to simple momentary stress reduction and calming ruminations, meditation makes long lasting changes in the way our brains (and therefore minds) function. For one, it improves our focus. The purpose of focusing on one thing (such as our breath or a mantra) for extended periods isn't merely to calm our minds in that moment. When the practice is honed over time, it seems to improve our ability to focus on the things we want and need to focus on in a more disciplined manner.

In the calmness of that focus, we become more aware of what's happening around us. Our mental waters are still, and so anything happening around us makes noticeable ripples. Meditation practitioners tell us that quiet sitting meditation is but practice. It is in our everyday lives, as we go about our business, that we can learn to be as calm, as focused, and as mindful - in effect, a sort of meditation at all times.

But the usefulness of meditation doesn't stop there.

I quite often see secularists, or even Zen practitioners assuming the above is where practical meditation ends, and that the rest are simply religious, superstitious, or cultural trappings. But there is more material in between that is still yet salvageable for the modern naturalist, and equally important - that is, at least some of the core philosophical underpinnings of meditative practice. If we attempt to completely divorce meditative practice from that philosophical basis, we are cutting ourselves short.

For example, the basis of Buddhist ethics, the Eightfold Path, is quite different from Western ethics. They tell us that ethics help guide us toward contentment and freedom from suffering, and aid in our practice. When we sit to engage in meditation, if we are beset by the disturbances of the mind caused by our own direct misdeeds, as well as turbulence happening in our lives which were responses to those misdeeds (cause and effect, or karma), this will necessarily disrupt our internal economy. Therefore, ethics and virtue are an integral part of our contemplative practice and our walk toward the good life - for very pragmatic reasons.

Meditation can even change the way we look at our natural universe. There are many ways in which language and our tendency to label and categorize things gets in the way of our perceptions and understanding. Meditation is a time of silent awareness, without verbal thought and without judgment. During these times, we can learn to experience the world in a more phenomenological sense. This means we see the flow of events around us in a bit more detached way, from a more existential perspective. Meditation helps with this, but it takes some understanding and realizations about the world, about change, and impermanence that are not obvious from a strictly bare bones approach to meditation.

Lastly, meditation can help us improve aspects of our character, including increasing of our tendency toward loving kindness or compassion. These forms of mediation are forms of which I'm aware, but have not yet even begun to master. Obviously, one needs some sort of philosophical perspective on why increasing compassion is necessary in the first place in order to reap these meditative benefits.

Of course, Heller only had ten minutes in this video and the intent was a very introductory overview. So, my additional comments are only meant as additional considerations, not as a criticism of the video, which by the way, you can watch here!

Documentary on the Buddha airing soon

The Buddha. A Film by David Grubin.
(c) PBS.

PBS will be airing a documentary on the life of the Buddha on April 7, 2010. The website says it is especially relevant to our own times of "violent change and spiritual confusion". The documentary is to feature interviews with several contemporary Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama, and will be narrated by Richard Gere. The documentary is by David Grubin, a director, writer, and cinematographer who "has produced over 100 films... winning every award in the field of documentary television, including two Alfred I. Dupont awards, three George Foster Peabody prizes, four Writer's Guild prizes, and ten Emmys".

The website for the program, which can be seen at www.pbs.org/thebuddha, features notes on the program, the story and teachings of the Buddha, timelines and maps, discussion, educational resources, and even a game. There are also several excerpts from the film itself on the website.

The essence of empiricism

Reality, Self, Knowledge, Self Knowledge.
Design (cc) DT Strain.

Empiricism may seem contradictory to many spiritual practices, but some of them manage to fit more comfortably alongside empirical approaches to knowledge. An empirical approach is one that says that all knowledge ultimately comes to us in experiences through one of our five senses. This is opposed to the claim that knowledge of things can come to us through revelation, intuition, or other means beyond our physical senses. Even mere reasoning, without some basis in experience in physical evidence is not enough to generate true knowledge on its own. Knowledge, then, is when we hold concepts about the world which are both true (they match reality), and justified (they are based on some physical evidence verifiable by the senses, and not merely true by chance or coincidence).

How can such an approach to knowledge be compatible with a spiritual practice? As a Humanist, the above describes my own position on knowledge. I look at it as a matter of humility. When asked what I think about invisible or unproved things, or the possibility of life after death, or the ultimate secrets of the universe, I am content to say "I don't know". Many of these things certainly aren't impossible. In fact, it's actually likely their are many things that are true about reality that we have not yet experienced, and may not even be capable of experiencing. But we must be humble in accepting that as limited human beings, we are imperfect in our ability to know all things. This practice of humility when it comes to 'what we say is true' not only applies to the supernatural, but to all things. It is a spiritual practice important to good character.

Let's look at another philosophy: Buddhism. One can certainly find Buddhists who believe in all manner of unproved things. The various branches and ways of practicing Buddhism are many, and infused with the cultural heritage of their geographically related manifestations. But the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), when asked about whether the world is eternal or finite, whether the soul and body are identical, whether we exist after death said that those kinds of things were not beneficial and did not lead to wisdom. He said that no matter how long you live you won't be able to answer all of the metaphysical questions, and that these had nothing to do with the fundamentals of religion anyway[1]. Instead, what he offered was a way to address suffering in the here and now.

What is perhaps even more central to this issue in Buddhism is the Kalama Sutra. This teaching says that one should not trust reports, tradition, or hearsay. One should not be lead by the authority of religious texts, by mere logic or inference, by mere appearances, by seeming possibilities, by delight in speculative opinions, or merely on the authority of a teacher - including even the Buddha himself. Rather, one should find out for oneself, through experience, whether something is true or effective, or if it is not.

In the West, several ancient Greek philosophies also valued reason and observation in seeking knowledge and understanding - as such, they were rationalists. The Stoics and the Epicureans believed that a person was born a blank slate, and that knowledge came to him through the senses. However, the Stoics believed there were some "common notions" or innate ideas in all people's minds that did not come through the senses. These were very rudimentary things like, how we know to categorize and question things, a basic sense of longing for fairness or the good, and so on. These were likely struggles to understand the underlying responses shared by all newborn human beings due to the makeup and natural behavior of the human brain and our evolved instincts. Nevertheless, when looked at on the overall spectrum regarding knowledge, the Stoic model more closely aligns with empiricism rather than mysticism or other means[2].

So both of these Eastern and Western branches of what we today would call 'spiritual' or contemplative paths have some kinship to empiricism. The reason it seems so contrary today is because, often in contemplative practice, the goal is to delve into the subjective, and empiricism is thought to deal with the objective. Generally, we conceive of the scientific approach as one where we examine some external phenomenon from the third-person perspective. But what if the thing being studied is, by nature, a first-person phenomenon? In contemplative practice, we are attempting to uncover practices that result in the experience of happiness in life. In building and propagating these contemplative lessons we are trying, not to understand the function of the brain as an organ from the objective point of view, but rather to understand the nature of the experiential mind from within.

Thus we must not look solely at empiricism as it has been practiced in Western science traditionally, but must consider the essence of empiricism...

The essence of empiricism is that we do not rely on authority, revelation, or other unproved means of gathering information, but instead rely on our direct observation and experience. Certainly, this includes various means to extend our senses, as well as cross-correlation with the experiences of others.

In all cases of empirical observation, even on the study of external things such as planets and stars, and no matter how objective we try to be in our methods, the matter will ultimately boil down to a subjective, first-person experience. The most tested instrument will, in the end, show a reading that will enter my eyes and become my own personal experience.

In contemplative practices where we try to learn about practices that effect our own minds from the experiential perspective, the only way to test those practices is to perform them and experience the results directly. Because all third-person empirical observation ultimately ends in a subjective first-person experience, the only difference between these cases, and cases of the first-person empirical approach is in the number of steps removed the observer is from the observed. In traditional empiricism, there may be dozens of steps between the outer reality, and the final subjective experience of the data. In first-person empirical study of the mind, there is only one step. Therefore, not only is a first-person empirical experience the only possible way to measure the efficacy of contemplative practices on the mind, but it is actually far less prone to error than traditional empirical methods.

However, I would be remiss not to point out an important distinction. The reason first-person direct experience is the valid way to study contemplative practices, is because the alleged phenomenon being studied is a first-person phenomenon (that being, the experience of a contented life, greater long-term peace, greater concentration/focus, better handling of emotional responses, more compassion, etc resulting from said practices). Where we are prone to disaster is if we take a first-person approach to third-person phenomena.

For example, were we to think that we can 'directly and internally experience' the nature of the surface of Mars or the cause of a disease by meditating on it, there would be a disconnect between the reality and our final stage of data. There would be no confirmed and reliably proved method by which the external facts made their way into our heads. Indeed, some people claim these sorts of perceptions, but alas no one has ever been able to reliably and repeatedly confirm them under controlled testable conditions. Again, that doesn't mean the truth of such claims isn't possible, it just means that the humble person will acknowledge them as yet unverified and unknown, allowing for the possibility - even likelihood - of mistaken perception, self delusion, or fraud.


By the way, the symbol presented above is one I thought of today - a stylized venn diagram of sorts. It represents knowledge and self knowledge. The large one is the main symbol, but I've shown two other styles it could be presented as to the right. With such a simple form, I was surprised not to see it listed at symbols.com, perhaps meaning something else.

The outer circle represents reality. The square inside that represents us (or more specifically our minds). The circle inside that square represents our internal model of reality - a reflection, we hope, of the true external reality, or knowledge. Of course, our minds are a part of reality as a whole, which is why the square is inside the circle. Therefore another smaller square is inside the smaller circle as well. This smallest square represents self knowledge. It is our internal model of ourselves - a subset of our internal model of reality as a whole. Thus, we cannot have true understanding without also having understanding of ourselves. This touches on the possible pitfalls we face in our efforts to learn, if we are not cognizant of our own limitations on knowing and humble in our assumptions.


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[1] See Majjhima Nikaya 63, and the Parable of the Broken Arrow.
[2] Classical Stoicism in a Nutshell. Jan Garrett, 2006. [link]

An excellent plain-language summary of Stoicism

[left] Zeno, founder of Stoicism. [right]
Baruch Spinoza. Composite by DT Strain.

Recently I came across a blog called A Jedi and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar by a housewife and substitute teacher named Elaine. The post was, "Stoic vs. Spinozan Pantheism". However, what struck me was Elaine's description of Stoicism, particularly in paragraphs 2-5, where she writes:

In the Stoic view, the Greek concept of Logos (divine Reason) is identical with what we think of as the laws of nature. We can puzzle out these laws through the use of our own reason; therefore Reason must be the creator of (or, in the Stoic view, identical with) natural laws.


Because God was identified with the course of nature, the "good life" was one lived in accordance with nature. You didn't try to accumulate more than you needed for a healthy life, nor did you try to prolong your life beyond its natural limits. In fact, good and evil could never happen to you, as all externals were considered valueless. The only good or evil thing was how the Stoic behaved, and how s/he accepted life.

What that means is that, if someone injures or insults me, that's neither good nor evil, because it's external to me. What would be evil is if I fought back through injury or insult in turn--but not necessarily because it would be wrong to injure or insult another person. I would be doing wrong by letting my emotions override my reason; that's the true evil in the human world.

Reason was the driving force behind the Stoic understanding of right and wrong. The Stoic determined right and wrong based on reality (i.e., nature), but also had to filter ideas about nature through reason, rather than emotion. Thus the Stoic would find that, since death is natural, death is not bad--but being overcome with sorrow or fear is. The passions (strong emotions that could cloud judgment, such as anger or lust) were not to be trusted; there were appropriate emotions, such as joy, doubt, or hope. The difference between the two (passions vs. appropriate feelings) is that the passions are not reasonable, whereas appropriate emotion comes out of reasoned thought.

I often try to talk about philosophies in ways that are easy to understand for those who don't choose to spend a lot of time learning technical terms, because I think the best philosophy is that which can be useful to people in their lives. Elaine has done a great job of giving this brief overview so I wanted to share that today. Many thanks to her!