On Trying To Be Buddhist

Not Enough Me

I wish I were six people.  More might be greedy - but less couldn't get the job done.  The job?  Just doing the things that interest me, or that I need to do.  Some of this has to do with aging - with less time ahead of me, I want to get more done in each moment.  Now that I'm retired I do have free time but even so, there's so much more that draws me than I can respond to. 

In Buddhism itself, there is so much to learn.  And at least a bit of western philosophy would help me to understand the Buddhist framing of issues of reality, cosmology, psychology, epistemology.  Modern physics has much to say about this reality that I would like to know.  And then there's the internet universe - so many blogs that richly reward frequent reading - what people all around the world are up to - what they think, value, experience.  There are reference works on nearly every topic imaginable. Last week I came across a new blog initiated by an author whose work I enjoy very much.  She's planning a new novel about a medieval saint, and it brings up some very rich issues - the variety within early Christianity before the Roman rite became dominant for example.  I want to leap in, start reading up on the topic, offer some suggestions.... There is no end.

All of this is fine in its own way - but it involves me in a gluttony only slightly more subtle than the usual.  If I were six people or sixty, I'd find more and more to do - more to enjoy, although more to be concerned about too.  More and more and more.  In the long run, I think Buddhism is really about less and less.  A little adjusting to do here. 

No News is Good News

At the end of September, I canceled our subscription to the local paper.  As noted in my last entry, I did miss it at first - both the paper itself and the distraction it provided.  But very soon after that, I really began to appreciate having more time, and less angst in the morning.  I'm getting more done - though not the sitting I intended to use the time for.  Instead I'm wrapped up in an effort to organize my life, set goals, get more disciplined and efficient.  (For reports on progress or lack of same, you can read my other blog if you'd like.) In addition, I'm coming to the conclusion that spending time trying to understand American (and other nations') politics is a lost cause for me. 

For several years I've thought a lot about my responsibility - especially as a Buddhist - to understand what is going on in our government, in world affairs, etc., take a position, and act on it.  But I seem hopelessly inept at this.  It has happened many times that, after reflecting on some issue for awhile, reading, finding TV specials on the topic, I get an impression that seems reasonable and draw some hesitant conclusions.  Then later I find some other information - in a paper, an internet site, another TV interview - that completely undercuts that view; and it too is entirely reasonable and pretty convincing.  End result: I just plain don't know what to think. Though I do trust my over-all view (the Iraq war is insane, students aren't being taught how to think, global warming and evolution are both real, the next generations are going to pay in blood for what we're doing) the details, the subtle causes, the solutions, the possibilities, are all obscure to me. 

One response would be to put in the time necessary to research and study each of these issues.  I could form and test out theories, and so on.  But I'm far closer to the end of my life than the beginning - and I find myself saying, about these issues, and many other potential interests, "Not in this lifetime."  The ultimate triage.

So I'm in the process of disengaging - canceling the newspaper is one sign of this process.  However, this is not giving up, quitting the field, as it were.  My purpose is to discern more clearly what I can do, and find the time and energy to do it.

A Small Insight

A very small insight. 

The Buddhist prayers I've said most often over the years, I have, in the process, memorized.  Not deliberately - just through frequent repetition. 

In A History of God, which I was reading a few days ago, Karen Armstrong speaks of  learning something "by heart" - of course that's a very familiar expression, but I had not thought of memorization in those words in a long time.  But that's what is so potent in memorization - it goes beyond the brain and intelect - it engages the heart.

When I've learned something at this level, even something quite trivial, it reveals a richness that I hadn't guessed was there in my initial encounters.  Learning can be not just an accumulation but a transformation.  This takes time.  It means, in the long run, learning a bit less, but learning it with my heart.

Triage - Again

I'm considering whether to subscribe to a new magazine, Scientific American Mind.  It looks fascinating, but would this magazine be a useful thing for me to spend time on?  How would it help me?  Why am I even considering it? 

Well - I want to learn about the mind, because the mind is very important to me as a meditator, as a Buddhist.  My assumption is that science can tell me something about it.  Certainly the scientists active in this field are also making that assumption.  That's where the problems start, though.  For example, one of the first articles I find when I go through the online archive, is one titled "How the Brain Creates the Mind."  Here's a whopping big assumption - a common one, of course, but an assumption nevertheless.  The brain creates the mind.  Not my view at all.  Will it help me to read this - or articles like it? 

I think part of what lures me toward this is that it conflicts with my understanding of reality at its very foundation.  But science of this sort is generating the world view or views that are coming to dominate our culture.  I guess what I'm experiencing is the Buddhist flavor of the 'war' between science and religion.  And I'm feeling a bit of the need to know my 'enemy.'  Now - that puts me rather closer to the intelligent design folks than I really want to be.  (Or than they would like,  I'm sure.)  Moreover, the Dalai Lama himself speaks often of his interest in science, and his belief in the need to work with such knowledge, rather than reacting against it.  So what's my problem?

It's the assumptions.  It's how it feels to me to encounter such a mindset, and what results from it.  Even while puzzled by the nature of mind and consciousness, and unable to fully describe or define either, these scientists are quite rooted in the reductionist view that what is physical is primary.  Any alternative is most of the time rejected out of hand. 

What is wrong with this view?  The biggest problem for me is that most of what I've learned as a Buddhist runs counter to it.  And more important, much of what Buddhists do - what I do -  in terms of meditation, and other practices, is quite outside the scope of that scientific view.  What we think, learn, practice are all not part of the western scientific world.  Or to say it differently - I see a whole lot of evidence that our scientists are pretty much unaware of, and it's evidence that sometimes or often contradicts their 'knowledge.'   It's evidence that is not considered to exist at all from their perspective. 

So I think part of my desire to learn more has to do with a need to look at some of this work and see if it fits with what I see, and, if so, how it fits.  I certainly see it as having some validity - and I want to reconcile it with other facets of my reality.  But does it make sense to do this?  Is this a good use of my (ever decreasing) time?   Is it better to learn about something that contradicts my understanding of reality and deal with it intellectually, or to become myself evidence of its inadequacy?   Do I have to choose?