The World is Made of Stories

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The World is Made of Stories by David R. Loy

The World is Made of Stories

by David R. Loy
Wisdom Publications, 2010
$15.95 (list price – paperback)

A modern retelling of the Buddha’s diagnosis of human suffering might be told this way: you are trapped in stories, but the stories aren’t the real problem; it is your attachment to stories that keeps you trapped.

In a time when we are trapped in dangerous narratives more than ever, David R. Loy’s book, The World is Made of Stories, is an important book for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Buddhists who become focused on the technical aspects of practice might benefit by being reminded that attachment extends beyond what they might identify as their own thoughts and actions–their attachments are reinforced by their cultural milieu and the stories that edify the culture.

Loy’s book is also important because it effectively communicates the contemporary relevance of the Buddha’s message to a media-laden society of advertising slogans, political jargon, news sound bites, and the minimalist Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets. Manic and aphoristic, our modern communication has lost its context in regard to the underlying narratives, and as such, remains trapped within them.

The writing style of Loy’s book mirrors but transcends the new media landscape by presenting his extended meditation on narratives in aphoristic paragraphs placed between relevant quotations from a wide range of writers (Borges, Philip K. Dick, Neil Postman), philosophers (Wittgenstein, Socrates, Nagarjuna), musicians (Grateful Dead) and even fictional characters (Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter books). Through the use of these quotes, the reader can appreciate that insight into suffering and narrative isn’t exclusive to Buddhism–in fact these other perspectives may even help us better understand our attachment to narratives in a Western context.

Despite his weaving of intellectual perspectives, Loy’s book isn’t an academic exercise, the message of the book is vital to all of us:

The dominant story of modernity has been progress. Although still hardwired into our institutions, that story has lost most of its plausibility. New genres are taking its place: apocalypse and nihilism. Apocalypse is the imminent and triumphant conclusion of our most treasured stories. Nihilism is their collapse. Both are stories about the end of stories.

Loy is looking for a way out or beyond these two perspectives. Emptiness–also known as shunyata–serves as Loy’s Archimedean Point:

The Buddhist terms most commonly used to story shunyata–that which cannot be storied–are unborn, uncreated, and unproduced. The Heart Sutra declares that all things are shunya because they are ‘not created, not annhiliated, not impure and not pure, not increasing and not decreasing.’ There is no death and no end to death[...] According to Buddhism our basic problem is not death but ignorance of this unborn. If it is our essential nature, why is it so difficult to realize? The unborn is ungrounded, in the sense that there is nothing to grasp and nothing to grasp it. The freedom that comes from understanding how I story and how to re-story is also the ultimate insecurity. Being storyless in itself, no-thing-ness is also meaningless. We gravitate toward the refuge of determinate roles within predictable narratives (including Buddhist ones). We crave the comfortable, ready-made meanings that such stories provide, which objectify a world where we know what is important and what we are meant to do. Realizing our stories and meanings are shunya is a burden greater than most of us are prepared to bear. It is easier to pretend that the stories we enact together are fixed and that the roles we play are real. But then dukkha suffering they create also becomes real. (Loy, 49-50)

Loy recognizes that understanding emptiness provides a diagnosis of our own storying and can make us aware of the storying of others (including the meta stories of ideology), but the diagnosis doesn’t stop the spinning of the tales. We tell stories big and small. Some of our big stories provide a simplistic explanation of good and evil (God and the Devil) and provide comfort and diversion from our more complicated contemporary stories that require our attention. Denial of climate change and fictional WMDs in Iraq are two such contemporary stories with deadly consequences.

But not all stories are bad. Loy notes that some stories increase suffering and others decrease suffering. If we have to spin stories, we might as well spin good ones. After all, a story doesn’t have to be built on fictions or falsehoods, it can be built on our knowledge, our best intentions, our compassion and our imaginations. Loy points to a possible way out.

With that teaser I’ll leave you to read Loy’s excellent book for yourself.

Religion Versus Spirituality

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It seems like yoga is often thought of as a religious practice with the various Hindu deities, chants, new age language about the divine powers of the “universe” and devotional hymns. The practice could be construed as a religion and the studio a temple with the rituals, greetings and protection of the space as sacred. How is yoga not a religion and just a form or spirituality and what is the difference between the two?

In the Bhagavad Gita, which is a book many devout yoga practitioners and teachers read as they go deeper into learning about yoga philosophy, the main character, Arjuna, searches for answers to his dilemmas; he is shown to go beyond the conventional cultural programming and ways of thinking by exploring attachment and considering the duality of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, failure and success.

He also attempts to achieve a balanced state of mind though various yogic lifestyle practices. He is able to bring his spiritual beliefs into his daily practices. When used as a practice of uniting the mundane with the highest level of self-actualization, the term “Yoga” is applied to many different spiritual paths. Yoga is simply a practice of self-awareness, self-actualization and compassion for others. Yoga is a practice of gaining higher knowledge.

My mother is a very devout Catholic woman. She prays the rosary many times a day, volunteers at her church and reads religious texts in her leisure time. She is quite dogmatic and self-righteous in her religious beliefs. She has practiced yoga with me on many occasions and has never found it to be a conflict with her practice of Catholicism.

Religion is often infused with observing holidays that have rituals attached to them.  There is a history of struggle of good over evil. These stories help to explain why that religion has certain beliefs. In most of the world religions, there is a history of conquest, intolerance, cruelty, wars and killing. The focus is often on intolerance in these conquests and non-acceptance. These are contrary to many of the common values that the Upanishads promote.

Religion does not ask us to question beliefs or practice but to simply obey and accept them since an authoritative figure or collective body has decided that. Yoga promotes a deep study of self-inquiry, acceptance and self-realization. Yoga promotes deeper awareness by using tools such as our breath, bodies and awareness in order to come to our own conclusions about the nature of higher reality.

In religion, the nature of higher reality is simply dictated to us. For most, religion is a huge source of personal and collective identity, culture and an attachment to a geographical location such as with the Greek Orthodox Church (Greece), Russian Orthodox Church (Russia), Judaism (Israel), Hindu (various pilgrimage sites for various holidays and gods), and Islam (Mecca).

Fear is often a tool in the major religions to motivate people to behave a certain way. People behave certain ways because they are afraid of the punishment they will receive in the afterlife or do not want to endure public censure for their lack of conformity. They find comfort in knowing they are practicing something as their family has done for decades.

Fear of the “other” is often a powerful way to gather a group together since they can develop rapport and camaraderie and a sense of community for being intolerant of others’ differences and practices. Lack of self-esteem is one of the main contributing causes to this.

A striking case in point would be the Germans before Hitler’s rise to power. The Germans had suffered a massive humiliating defeat. They had a need for significance and they found it by inflicting their own lack of self-worth on those that were not a member of their group. Religion (the Jews) were the main defining factor in differentiation.

Ritual also provides a context for family to come together (Christmas, Easter, Passover). Ritual is also a way to tie people together in a certain religion. Rituals helps to have children become involved in the practices as well. Often rituals are performed on young children or infants who have no say in the matter, even if the ritual is physically and psychologically painful (male and female circumcision). Barbaric practices such as these initiate the child into a world of violence, subjugation and pain. In yoga, free choice and awareness are the tenets.

In religion, negative emotions such as guilt and fear are powerful motivators to induce certain behaviors or practices and even beliefs. In the Spanish Inquisition, people were killed simply for refusing to change their beliefs. In yoga, one is encouraged to find their own path to happiness and peace. Guilt is often a byproduct of the practices or lack of conformity to the practices. The practice of confession, is done in order to shame the devotee of their lack of ability to follow all of the rules. As a punishment, one is often given “hail Marys” or to “pray the rosary.”

Yoga is a more internal path and it is not necessary to do certain lifestyle practices in a group or even at certain times of year in a ritualized fashion. One is frequently encouraged to question and to do a deep process of self-inquiry. The ultimate goal of yoga is self-mastery and deep self-realization.

What Do Yogis Really Want?

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I once lived in Nepal for over a year in a yoga ashram on the banks of the Bagmati, a river as sacred, and perhaps as polluted, as the Ganges in India. We would bathe in the freezing cold waters, even in winter; meditate four times a day, and practice yoga asanas morning and night. Once in a while, charred body parts from the funeral pyres up river at Pashupatinat Temple would float by. In the small adobe structure that was our home, meditation room and yoga studio, I learned how the physical postures of yoga were designed by ancient yogis. How these exercises were designed to achieve health, longevity and equipoise, but most importantly, to enable yogis to sit still, and relatively pain free, for hours on end in deep, blissful tranquility.

While recently looking at nearly 20 years of cover designs and photos of a popular yoga magazine, however, it seemed as if modern yoga practice is primarily designed for outer appearance, fitness and flexibility. It also appeared as if yoga is primarily designed for perfectly shaped white women. Quite strikingly, the covers illustrated that a radical change took place some time in the late 90s. Prior to that time, the magazine covers were artsy, the content often philosophical. But from then onward, the covers featured only attractive women with serene yoga-smiles and bodies exuding a wholesome allure.

Still, the increasing popularity of yoga, in all its profane and divine manifestations, is a healthy and welcoming sign. As a young female yoga teacher told me: “I came to the deeper understanding of yoga by starting out thinking yoga was only about physical flexibility.”  She quickly learned that yoga was so much more. She learned that yoga was about flexible bodies and flexible minds moving together. Moving together toward spirit.

In India, around 200 years before Christ, Patanjali wrote in one of his famous Yoga Sutras that the goal of yoga is “the cessation of mental propensities” (But in reading his text, I did not find any information about perfect anatomical alignment or sculpted hips.). Patanjali’s main focus remained way beyond bone and flesh, and to enable people to reach this goal of spiritual tranquility, he developed Asthanga Yoga. In this comprehensive system, yoga postures, or asanas, forms only one of eight parts: yama and niyama (ethics), asanas (yoga exercises), prathyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), pranayama (breathing exercises), dhyan (meditation) and samadhi (spiritual peace). This system, often termed Classical Yoga by Western yoga scholars, built upon much earlier forms of yoga. French-Indian author Alain Danielou wrote that Patanjali built his comprehensive system upon the much older Samkhya philosophy as well as the prehistoric Shaiva yoga tradition, today better known as Tantra. The goal of yoga, said Patanjali, is not just to attain control of the body, but rather to tame the mind. The final spiritual goal of yoga, he said, is reached when the mind is free of thoughts, desires, needs.

In the creation philosophy of Shaivism, or Tantra, the causal consciousness of Shiva and the creative energy of Shakti are always entwined like the embrace of two cosmic lovers. Shiva’s Cosmic Consciousness is inherent in everything. Shakti’s Cosmic Energy creates everything. Metaphorically, they are two sides of the same androgynous being; two dualistic sides of the nondual Oneness of Brahma. This ancient Tantric concept of yoga appeals to my contemporary, ecological sensibilities: everything is One, everything is interconnected.

Patanjali’s yoga inspires us to find inner peace. In Tantra, the goal of yoga is explicitly God-centered. Tantric Yoga is therefore a practice of both earthly balance and spiritual union. First a yogi attempts to harmonize body and mind, then to live in harmony with the world. Ultimately, he or she seeks Samadhi, or spiritual union—the union between the human soul, or jivatman, and the soul of God, or Paramatman.

Ecstatic dancing and spiritual longing is also an integral part of yoga. Today, these timeless expressions are bursting out of yoga studios, where kirtan artists such as Jai Uttal, Krishna Das and Wah! combine the sacred and the profane with beat-savvy rhythms from both East and West. With the help of poets and translators like Coleman Barks, medieval mystic Rumi is now a bestselling poet among yogis in America. These are expressions of yoga practitioners’ deep search for magic, ecstasy and otherworldly love. Meditation practice and classes on yoga ethics are also becoming an integral part of an increasing number of yoga teachers’ offerings. Yes, in many yoga studios flexible bodies and flexible minds are fusing into spiritual union and oneness. But in studios where there is a clear focus on yoga as a fitness exercise, kirtan artists are generally not invited.

The goal of yoga’s physical exercises is to create a healthy body and mind and thus a conducive environment for spiritual practice—for meditation. The physical exercises are part of a nested continuum, from body to mind to spirit. The body is thus a springboard from which a self-inspired and sustainable spirit can soar. Many of the fitness yogis and yoginis of today may not see it the same way. For them, a beautiful, healthy body and an alert mind is more likely the main goal. In other words, if yoga makes me more flexible, more relaxed, more beautiful, so that I can be more efficient, more powerful, more attractive, why ask for more? Why ask for more, if the body simply is a springboard from which a dazzlingly successful me will ascend?

The yogis of old, however, did indeed ask for more. The intertwined distinctions they made between body, mind and spirit is a brilliant insight of yoga practice and philosophy. Yoga teaches us that any improvement on the physical or mental levels can never be perfect, can never be ultimately fulfilling, and will always leave us shortchanged. Truth is, that perfect body will never quite be perfect enough. The physical realm of our existence is indeed limited. The body will finally age. It may start to ache. Disease may come. So the yogis of old would agree with visionary poet William Blake: “He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sun rise.” I am not this body, the spiritual yogi would say. I am not this mind. I am That. I am Divine.

Behind the covers of today’s yoga magazines, I see glimpses of the deeper, subterranean flow of yogic wisdom and practice. In yoga studios all over the world, harmoniums and tablas are placed before outstretched yoga mats; yogis in tight clothing are loosening up their bhakti souls to Indian chants; ayurvedic massage and herbs are integral healing modalities of many yoga studios; many yoga teachers end their classes with at least rudimentary forms of meditation; popular yogis such as Sean Corn see karma yoga, or service, as a way to heal, express gratitude, and to stay centered. These are all signs of a holistic tapestry being woven together from all the integrated strands of wisdom yoga can offer. Still, the question lingers: What do we yogis really want? Keeping this question in our mind, like a silent mantra behind silent lips, I think will keep us more balanced, more authentically yogi-like—both on and off the mat. As Rumi says, it is indeed important to know what you want. Because, says this wise poet of ecstasy: “There is a subtle truth: whatever you love, you are.”

One Dharma: It’s that Simple?

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Somebody recently commented to me that they were having a hard time getting all this Dharma stuff as they were following a discussion on Twitter between myself and another person. We were throwing about terminology like dependent origination, anatta, and bodhicitta in the kind of freeform pseudo-intellectual discussion that Twitter tends to lend itself to.

To this person, I would like to say: it’s really not that hard. In fact, don’t get caught up in the terminology — it’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do.

Be compassionate. Be mindful. Pay attention. Be kind. If you can do these seemingly simple things, you’re already ahead of many “knowledgeable” Buddhists and yogis.

Too simplistic? Well, if you like, there are philosophical and conceptual descriptions of how to get to compassion in the Buddhist Dharma, but these teachings are not absolutely necessary. In fact, compassionate non-Buddhist persons such as Mother Teresa and Gandhi, have been described as “enlightened” by prominent Buddhists like the Dalai Lama and Lama Surya Das. When we start regarding our path — be it Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or other — as the only route to enlightenment and compassion, we become sectarian, limited and — ironically — unenlightened.

Identifying common points essential to most Buddhist schools, Joseph Goldstein, in his book One Dharma, has a wonderful expression which goes as follows:

The method is mindfulness, the expression is compassion, the essence is wisdom.

Goldstein (again, ironically) took some criticism for this succinct expression because it fails to include particular teachings in the many Buddhist schools. But these criticisms are missing Goldstein’s point — he isn’t trying to replace any particular school or Dharma teaching; he is only trying to identify a common thread. I would add that this thread is well documented in both Theravadin and Mahayana teaching and the Buddha’s statements appear to be in agreement with it.

I would say that if you can establish mindfulness and compassion in your daily thoughts, words and actions, you have attained wisdom. Like myself, if mindfulness and compassion seem elusive at times, you may need to practice — meditate, read essential texts and sutras, and get support from a community. But the goal is really about realizing interconnection and actualizing compassion. All the abstruse terminology, rituals and philosophical arguments can’t change that.

If a particular teaching or argument goes against this essence, what good is it really?

The Law of Attraction and Karma

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Followers of the “Law of Attraction” could benefit from understanding the Buddhist principle of Karma.

The Law of Attraction, presented first in the film The Secret with a follow-up book with the same title, essentially states that thoughts influence chance. Ergo, if we think positively about our success, we will achieve success. A formula is presented for this attainment: “ask, believe, receive.” This means that one should determine the object of desire and ask the universe for it, believe (act and feel) that the object of your desire is on its way, and finally to be open (in alignment with the universe) and receive the object of desire.

As far as it goes, I don’t have a problem with this “law.” In fact, one might say in Buddhist terms that the Law of Attraction is a crude presentation of positive karma (focusing on “thoughts” as “acts” and its effects). I believe we can all understand that thinking positively can — at the very least — occasionally grant us a “placebo effect” of good returns. I believe it also stands true that a positive attitude helps inspire skillful behavior which is generally more helpful in bringing about positive outcomes than negative thinking and unskillful behavior. Furthermore, treating such a model as a “divine law” inspires belief which can — although the belief may be ultimately delusional — produce a sense of confidence that we will be successful.

Because of its simplistic and folksy understanding of Karma, however, the Law of Attraction goes off the rails. Frequently, the Law of Attraction is applied for the acquisition of material wealth with the “object of desire” being something like a new car. As such, it doesn’t necessarily have guiding ethical principles that steer the acquisition from wrongdoing that can occur, especially when the “object of desire” belongs to someone else or the means of acquisition are unethical or even criminal.

One example of a promoter of the Law of Attraction gone wrong is self-help guru James Arthur Ray. Ray, who was arrested in February, rebranded his own version of the Law of Attraction as “Harmonic Wealth” which claims to provide the “missing keys” to those having trouble using the Law of Attraction. As a means of attaining his own wealth, Ray led spiritual retreats in the form of sweat lodge ceremonies in Sedona, Arizona, charging each of the participants thousands of dollars. As reported in a February 4 New York Times article, things turned ugly when three of the participants died and others were injured:

The victims, Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y.; James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee; and Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn., were overcome in the two-hour “spiritual warrior” ceremony, in which hot rocks were placed inside a tent so the 55 participants could sweat out whatever was ailing their souls. Twenty others suffered heat-related injuries.

Participants have said Mr. Ray ignored signs that people were falling into distress in the pitch-dark tent and said things like “it’s a good day to die” in his zeal to keep the ceremony going. Several lawsuits have alleged negligence and fraud. (New York Times).

Naturally, the actions of Ray can’t be blamed upon the Law of Attraction itself, but it is an example of how things can go terribly wrong when self-help philosophies aren’t grounded by ethical principles or even reason. In fact, one might say that this is an example of negative karma on the part of Ray. Ray either ignored or failed to take notice that the sweat lodge participants were already in serious physical distress (eyewitness accounts state that within an hour of entering the sweat lodge, participants — already dehydrated — began vomiting, gasping for air and collapsing while Ray urged everyone to stay inside the lodge).

But are the participants who died or got sick responsible for their own karmic outcome? I don’t think we can make this call. Yes, there is a line of causation (choices and actions exposed the sweat lodge participants to Ray, after all) but as the author Nagapriya points out in his book Exploring Karma & Rebirth, karma is primarily a principle of moral agency:

Karma is not a general law of causation. It is not even a general law of action. It is a practical teaching that underpins Buddhist ethics. It accounts for how our deliberate behaviour leads not only to the transformation of our moral character  – for better or worse — but our relationships with other people, and even the world that we live in. (Nagapriya, 41)

Nagapriya explains that karma is often conflated with the Buddhist principle of dependent origination, but that Karma is limited to the sphere of human action. Therefore, dependent origination’s “meta view” of causation includes karma but is not limited to it. Equating karma with dependent origination as a general theory of causation can be dangerous, as Nagapriya explains:

This is a dangerous misunderstanding. A crude version of the Karma doctrine makes it responsible for all the triumphs and tragedies of life: if we get shipwrecked then that is somehow the working out of our karma; if a brick falls on our head as we walk down the street, that’s our karma; if we win the National Lottery, well, that’s our good karma. (Nagapriya, 30)

Nagapriya points out that this crude understanding of Karma is also out of scope with what the Buddha and early Buddhist teachers taught as well, pointing to statements such as those made by the monk Nagasena in Questions of King Milinda who said “Without a Buddha’s insight, no one can ascertain the extent of the action of kamma.” (Nagapriya, 36)

Causation is often extremely complex and Nagapriya points out that dependent origination includes five modes or niyamas, including the biological, physical, spiritual, ethical and mental modes. As such, deaths resulting from of an earthquake are better understood in terms of the physical niyama — utu-niyama — rather than the ethical niyama of Karma (kamma-niyama). Naturally, one can also imagine cases, such as wars, where more than one modal cause may come into play. Therefore, ascertaining cause (and perhaps even blame) by referring to Karma can be an inaccurate and dangerous practice. With this deeper understanding, one should not blame victims — including the sweat lodge participants — that their fate results solely from their own karma.

Similarly, returning to the “crude Karma” known as the Law of Attraction, the notion of attaining success via positive thinking alone is also unwise. In addition to our intentions, dependent origination informs us that causes include forces outside our own wishes and actions. One might indeed try to harmonize with all these forces, but it is no guarantee of success. And as the ironic morality tale of James Arthur Ray shows us, avoidance of the ethical niyama, Karma, can lead one to tragic behavior.

Karma refers to the effects of volitional tendencies — the choices that we make — and that we can change, often for the better, by breaking free of bad habits and making good ethical decisions. It would behoove followers of the Law of Attraction to take a deep look at Karma in order to recognize that positive thinking is only good when it is grounded in ethical behavior and reason.

Emptiness, Freedom and System in Buddhism and Yoga

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Buddhism and yoga share goals of freedom. Buddhism has the goal of nirvana which is similar to Rāja Yoga’s goal of nirodha—both of which find expression in the concept of śūnyatā (emptiness). How we balance discipline in practice and application of theory through the perspective of emptiness is key to success.

After briefly exploring the notion of the “Absolute” in Abrahamic religions, Patañjali and Buddhism, Michael Stone notes in his book, The Inner Tradition of Yoga, that one of yoga’s strengths is its relative freedom from systematization:

Yoga seems to move within all these traditions quite comfortably since Patañjali, as an example, and also texts such as the Yoga Vāsişţa and Hatha Yoga Pradīpika, use language purposely borrowed from other traditions in a way that asks the practitioner to move beyond the doctrine of systems in order to see what those traditions are pointing toward. The yogi does not look toward her practices as metaphors of consolation, and in this sense we would call Patañjali’s approach toward reality an agnostic one. Standing on the threshold of imagination but firmly planted in present experience, the yogi is concerned with freeing the mind and responding to present circumstances without self-created entrapments. In an increasingly interconnected world, we come to see that yoga is everywhere and everything and that the human being is compassion. (Stone, 167-168)

Stone recognizes, however, that this outlook isn’t without its problems and possible complications:

The shadow of such a viewpoint is that there is no systematized approach to teaching, and many people simply turn yoga into whatever they want, leading to a self-styled practice that does not avoid the ego’s tricks and games. (Stone, 168)

Naturally, a kind of wisdom needs to be present in order to bridge the “flexibility” of yoga’s outlook with the discipline of systematic practice. Stone points to the term śūnyatā (emptiness) as the common tool that both Buddhism and yoga can use to bridge this divide:

We use the form of the posture to experience śūnyatā, boundlessness. Śūnyatā is freedom beyond the reach of karma, a body beyond the reach of preference, movement without self-image. Isn’t the experience of being alive in a body at all the the most mysterious and ineffable experience we can know? (Stone, 182)

Stone’s description of emptiness is in accord with Buddhist descriptions such as that found in Guy Newland’s Introduction to Emptiness:

It [emptiness] is the lack of the exaggerated and distorted kind of existence that we have projected onto things and onto ourselves [. . .] We can think of emptiness as like the clear, blue sky—a transparent space that is wide open. In that way, our empty natures mean there is no limit to what we can become. We are not blocked, obstructed or tied down. (Newland, 7)

Postural yoga’s śūnyatā is the opening up of the physical body to wider expression in the world, but śūnyatā is also a tool in to recursively avoid reification of ourselves into the “I.” When we begin to fixate on our concepts and labels—whether it is “me”, “Brahman”, or even “Buddhism” or “Yoga”—we can we can recursively and repeatedly apply the Upanisadic emptiness filter expressed as neti, neti (not this, not that). In this way, we avoid identification with things that hinder our development and broader expression.

Stone, like other yoga practitioners and Buddhists, sees practice in both postural yoga and meditation as critical to freedom. But Stone also sees theory—such as that presented by Patañjali and in Buddhist teachings—as a key complement to the goal of waking up.

When practice and theory go together seamlessly and our insights are continually tested out in real life, our waking up is practical and ongoing. This is called prajñā (wisdom). (Stone, 171)

The challenge, then, is for yogins—yogis and Buddhists—to find the balance of theory, postural yoga and meditation to attain freedom. At the same time the challenge is to find discipline in practice while avoiding self-styled approaches that may lead to egoic entrapment. We must help each other find the best tools to achieve freedom and awakening, while also realizing that any systems we employ may require modification and change in order to remain relevant to different times and situations. Emptiness teaches us that the ultimate Dharma, after all, is No-Dharma.

Bill Maher is a Buddhist (and So Can You!)

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Bill Maher is a Buddhist!

As part of his “New Rules” segment on his HBO program, Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher had some disparaging things to say about Buddhism in relation to the Tiger Woods scandal (Tiger claims Buddhism as his religion). Among the things Maher said about Buddhism include:

- the “Life sucks, and then you die” philosophy was useful when Buddha came up with it around 500 B.C., because back then life pretty much sucked, and then you died – but now we have medicine, and plenty of food, and iPhones, and James Cameron movies – our life isn’t all about suffering anymore. And when we do suffer, instead of accepting it we try to alleviate it.

- Craving for things outside ourselves is what makes life life – I don’t want to learn to not want, that’s what people in prison have to do. Buddhism teaches suffering is inevitable.

- People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy: it’s a religion. You’re a religion if you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year-olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died, and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred Lama: “His poop is royal!” Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely-housebroken, uneducated being and say, “That’s our leader” doesn’t make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.

Again, we shouldn’t get too worked up about these comments because Maher is a Buddhist. That’s right, the comedian who spends a good part of his career criticizing and poking fun at religion (remember his film Religulous?) is a Buddhist and I’ll tell you why . . .

  • Like most Buddhists, Maher is compassionate toward fellow humans and animals. Maher is a board member for PETA and supports other causes for humane treatment of animals. He also supports human-based causes like the Somaly Mam Foundation. Maher supports gay marriage and was against California’s Proposition 8.
  • Maher appears to try and see reality “as it is” as opposed to seeing the world through the lens of political ideology. He has been outspoken against both Republicans and Democrats in this regard. A real Buddhist also tries to perceive reality, putting aside attachments to nationality, ideology and culture.
  • Finally, Maher distrusts organized religion. Organized religion often suffers from outdated ideas, beliefs and practices that are more often than not simply adopted on “faith.” A real Buddhist doesn’t kowtow to beliefs; rather, a real Buddhist investigates Dharma and discovers truth on his or her own.

As for Maher’s criticisms: I would say most of them are dead on . . .

I’ve seen other Buddhists defend the “life sucks and then you die” aspect of suffering in the Four Noble Truths without understanding that all of these truths are provisional and preparatory—it isn’t the summum bonum goal of Buddhism, but simply the observed state of the samsaric self.

Many Buddhists do treat Buddhism too much like a religion—in the traditional Western Judeo-Christian sense—with all the trappings of mind-numbing “faith” rather than as a philosophy to be lived.

Alright, I jest: Bill Maher isn’t a Buddhist, but I’m making a couple of different points. First, we should judge others by their actions and intentions rather than whether or not they appreciate our religious or spiritual practice. Buddhists should be more upset by the reality distortion and hate mongering machine known as Fox News rather than the remarks of a comedian, particularly one that reflects—or should reflect—many of our compassionate concerns and ideals.

Secondly, before getting our collective panties in a bunch about criticism (particularly in the form of jokes), we should analyze whether or not the criticism doesn’t have some validity in regard to the broader understanding of Buddhism (even among Buddhists). A good Buddhist should also question if he or she isn’t getting too attached to “Buddhism” if there is an itching need to argue on behalf of this vacuous identity.

I’ll close with one big difference between Buddhists and Bill Maher: although many Buddhists smell of sandalwood and patchouli, Bill Maher reeks of pot. I kid, I kid . . . many Buddhists reek of pot too. Apologies to Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert for the title of this post.

Rebirth and Elevator Speeches

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Dharma doesn’t lend itself well to elevator speeches.

I used to work at a place that helped startup businesses. As part of the startup help, we would help develop the startup’s marketing, including something called the “elevator speech.” This meant that if someone asked what the business was about, the entrepreneur could explain the business briefly yet sufficiently in the time it would take for a short elevator ride.

When describing spirituality, like Yoga and Buddhism, we sometimes have the same concern. We want a quick and solid summary of tenets, beliefs and practices.

Oh sure, in regard to Buddhism, your elevator speech might step through the Fourfold Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path easy enough, but there are some conceptual thorns out there that can make an elevator speech spring leaks as quickly as a discount store air mattress.

One of these thorns is rebirth–also referred to as reincarnation. Buddhism seems like a pretty rational system until you hit the notion of dying and being reborn in some other form due to somehow transmitting your samskaras–volitional tendencies or karmic imprints–to a newborn life which could either be an animal, a buddha, a god or a hell being depending on the merits of your actions in the preceding life. I won’t even go into descriptions of Tibetan bardo states or the Tulku system of reincarnated spiritual masters.

In our world of scientific materialism all this is crazy talk. You might as well say you believe in some guy who turned water into wine or rose from the dead or something. For someone hearing about Buddhism for the first time, this is a stumbling block, an irrational deal breaker. Your elevator speech has tanked.

I’ve been known to avoid difficulty in my own elevator speech, ignoring some of what the Buddha actually said in the Pali Canon, and going with an explanation of rebirth offered by Stephen Batchelor in his book, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening:

Regardless of what we believe, our actions will reverberate beyond our deaths. Irrespective of our personal survival, the legacy of our thoughts, words and deeds will continue through the impressions we leave behind in the lives of those we have we have influenced and touched in any way. (Batchelor, 38)

Whew! I’m back to rational causality. My elevator speech is back on track.

What I leave out of the elevator speech is that I believe that Batchelor’s description doesn’t go far enough (and in fairness to Batchelor, he also has a little more to say about the subject). It almost seems to have simplified rebirth to something like the impact that your favorite high school teacher had in your life. I believe Bhikkhu Bodhi captures the concept of rebirth better here:

To understand how kamma [karma] can produce its effects across the succession of rebirths we must invert our normal, everyday conception of the relationship between consciousness and matter. Under the influence of materialistic biases we assume that material existence is determinative of consciousness. Because we witness bodies being born into this world and observe how the mind matures in tandem with the body, we tacitly take the body to be the foundation of our existence and mind or consciousness an evolutionary offshoot of blind material processes. Matter wins the honored status of “objective reality,” and mind becomes an accidental intruder upon an inherently senseless universe.

From the Buddhist perspective, however, consciousness and the world coexist in a relationship of mutual creation which equally require both terms. Just as there can be no consciousness without a body to serve as its physical support and a world as its sphere of cognition, so there can be no physical organism and no world without some type of consciousness to constitute them as an organism and world. Though temporally neither mind nor matter can be regarded as prior to the other, in terms of practical importance the Buddha says that mind is the forerunner. Mind is the forerunner, not in the sense that it arises before the body or can exist independently of a physical substratum, but in the sense that the body and the world in which we find ourselves reflect our mental activity.

It is mental activity, in the form of volition, that constitutes kamma, and it is our stock of kamma that steers the stream of consciousness from the past life into a new body. (Bodhi, accesstoinsight.org)

Naturally, Bodhi, a great monk, makes a lousy entrepreneur. This small snippet of his elevator speech won’t do–elevator speeches prove insufficient for discussing Dharma. This is further complicated by the fact that the business of Dharma, after all, is one of impermanence. Honestly, you can’t sell this stuff. Not really.

Second Coming of Sakyamuni Buddha?

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G.K. Sandoval, @drumsofdharma on Twitter, posed the following provocative question and exercise today within a couple of tweets:

If Sakyamuni Buddha were present today, how many “modern” Buddhists would give up everything to hear him, to be in his assembly? Contemplate what you would have to do to relinquish your current lifestyle for a life as a member of the Buddha’s entourage.

It was an interesting question/exercise on a couple of different levels: on the one hand, Dharma and Buddha Nature are always available, so we should already be altering our lifestyles and acting as if we are a member of the “Buddha’s entourage.” Still, people would act differently. If Sakyamuni Buddha showed up and was recognized as such, you would see many contemporary Buddhists dispensing with possessions, possibly shaving their heads and, well, doing whatever the Buddha suggested. One can’t dismiss the possible effect of a Buddha’s presence as just another “Dharma Dude.”

The other reason this is interesting is that some would say that such incarnations are periodically occurring. At times, people have recognized various spiritual and religious leaders and gurus as such incarnations (or incarnations of deities like Jesus or Shiva). Naturally, this jives with the notion that we all have Buddha Nature within us–perhaps with the “Force” stronger in some folks than others.

For some of these reasons, I think the identification of Dharma is important. While teachings and charismatic gurus vary over time, can we identify common threads of Dharma that trump “incarnations?” If so, do we “kill the Buddha” that shows up on the side of the road or treat him/her with reverence?

Dharma is not static

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While many Buddhist schools are “open,” we frequently get drawn into debates about “true Dharma.” While this has some validity (there are cases where Dharma is reinterpreted as nihilism, for example), I think that this where Dharma starts to go off the rails and we lean toward becoming sectarian and dogmatic.

It is more challenging and edifying to find the common threads that run through different traditions (Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, etc.). The truly great Dharma teachers (Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind) are adept at pointing out commonality in very different traditions.

I recently wrote elsewhere that Dharma cannot be reified by any one text or school. It is to be lived, investigated and practiced. While I appreciate practice within a tradition–especially for the support of sangha–one has to remember that it isn’t something static. Dharma isn’t something you simply “adopt.” You live Dharma.