I’ve long thought that indoctrinating small children with religion is not without its problems, as religion seems to me something that one should decide on for themselves. For something that can alter one’s life so much, it seems wrong to me to teach kids this way or that way from an early age. If we can get them to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we can get them to believe in anything; to use the innocence, and frankly, gullibility of children to put them on whatever path the parent (or whoever) has chosen seems rather unfair to me.

But of course, I can certainly understand why this happens, particularly now that I’m in the position of the parent. You have to tell your kid(s) something, because rest assured, if you don’t, someone else will. But the big question is, what do we tell him? I consider myself Buddhist, but due to my feelings on the issue, I don’t really want to just say “this is it, kid; this is the way to be.” Buddhism is the choice I’ve made for myself, but I’m really not sure it’s my place to make that choice for him, nutty as that may sound coming from a parent. I’d introduce him to a variety of religions and let him decide, but at his age, I think all that would accomplish would be to confuse him – not to mention, I’d say most people I know would disown me for doing such a thing. While I may not agree with all of them, I can’t completely ignore social norms. I’m not sure how well it would go over in first grade if he went in and said that he’d decided to be Muslim or Hindu; we do, after all, live along the Bible Belt.

Then again, perhaps I’m agonizing over this for nothing. Perhaps, regardless of what we tell him, he’ll find his own way in his own time. I was raised in a Christian family, and I’m certainly not a Christian now. On the other hand, I’ve known people who were raised following one religious path or another, and it caused them endless trouble as an adult as they struggled to figure out their own beliefs and thoughts.

So, here I am. I’m in the position of needing to give guidance on this issue, but unsure as to what guidance I should give. Any ideas on this one?

Let’s make a comparison between religions and say, language. Let’s start that comparison out with a quote from Goethe:

“Wer keine fremde Sprache spricht, kennt seine Muttersprache nicht.”

My approximate translation of this would be: “He who does not speak a foreign language, does not know his native language.” I think the same could be said of religion. If you’re not familiar with other belief systems, are you sure you really understand yours?

As a further example, I suppose one could compare religions (crudely, I know) with that favorite standby of many: food. Suppose you get someone who has never had steak, spaghetti and meatballs, or pizza. You set a plate down in front of him with a steak; he eats it, and proclaims that it’s the right food for him, his favorite out of the three. But obviously, that can’t be right. How can he possibly say that if he hasn’t even tried the other two foods?

Certainly, I’m not saying that everyone who is religious to any degree should be a scholar on all religions (or even one). But I do think that to really understand one’s own path, one needs to at least have a vague idea about the road map that others are using. It’s hard to say that you’re sure your map has the right directions if you’ve never looked at any others.

Perhaps I’m being naive, though. The real truth as to why people don’t investigate other religions, unless they’re experiencing doubt about their current one, is probably that they think that all other religions are wrong. Their religion is the One True Religion, the only one that holds the (right) answers to all of the mysteries of the world. As Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out:

“If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely,’ it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.”

I did pose some questions which he wasn’t able to answer adequately, at least in my opinion, but I sort of expected that. For example:

1. What happens to good people who live their lives in a “good way”, but do not accept Christ, etc.? (Say, the Dalai Lama, for example.) His response was that the scriptures say that Christ is the only real way to God, but furthermore, God would judge each person by their own unique features, etc. That seemed a bit of a cop out to me, but he at least made an attempt. What that would mean for all of the great Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. in the world, I’m not sure.
2. I brought up that Jesus fit the “hero mold” exceptionally well, which made me doubt the historicity of the figure. He said the scriptures state that Jesus was indeed a historical figure and everything in the Bible really happened.

The second question highlighted what I see as a major problem with trying to talk about such things with Christians: they take the Bible as fact, as a perfect historical source, if you will – which just isn’t the case.

He did not, as some of you expected, try to convert me. (Truth be told, I expected it, too, at least slightly.) I stated a few times that I was not, in any sense of the word, Christian, and he said that was fine, that he understood, etc. While I did get the sense that he hoped he was answering the questions in a way that might help “sway me”, he didn’t, in any fashion, come out right and say, “You should become Christian!”, or any such thing. All in all, while I don’t agree with his beliefs, the discussion was enjoyable. He was respectful, I was respectful, and the coffee was excellent.

Yesterday, some pressure was reapplied. After we’d left the service and exited the building, one of the preachers came out and flagged us down. He said he wanted to “get together with me” sometime this week, to just talk with me.

I know where this action came from. I had been talking to my mom about Christianity, asking her questions, one of which I wanted her to pose to this particular preacher. Specifically: If God is all-knowing, and always has been, why did he have to take human form as Jesus to “know what it was like to feel human suffering?” If he knows everything, shouldn’t he have known that long before?

She asked him this question at one of her church classes, which led to him wanting to talk with me, one on one. Which is fine, by the way. Here’s the rub: I don’t want to insult him. While I don’t agree with his set of beliefs, I do respect the guy, and I really don’t want to put him off. I know he’s going to ask me my thoughts on religion, God, etc., and I have some concern that my responses, regardless of how polite I share them, may bother him or make him mad, e.g.:

Him: “What’s your take on Jesus?”

Me: “I think that it’s likely that the Jesus figure is a copy, a reiteration of previous ‘hero’ figures. He shares many similarities with prophet types who supposedly lived before him – bringing salvation, father of a god, death, resurrection after 3 days, etc.”

I have similar thoughts on a lot of things about Christianity, which I won’t get into in this post, because it’s not the point; the point is, I just really, really don’t want to insult the guy. I respect him, and I also know that he likes my mom quite well, and I don’t want to disrupt their relationship. On the other hand, I don’t want to say “No, I don’t want to meet with you”, because that’ll come across as rude, too.

And thus, faithful readers, I pose this question: Any ideas? Keep in mind, he knows I consider myself Buddhist, so perhaps I’m getting worked up for nothing. Perhaps he expects such responses from me.

~

Our group met two evenings ago, on Tuesday, at the conference room of a hotel, where one of our members is the general manager. It was the first time we met at this location. In the past, we’ve met in the conference rooms at a local library. The switch from a library conference room to the hotel conference room would be a good one, if we had to stick with it, which we don’t (more on that shortly).

The meeting went quite well. One thing I was quite happy about was that four of us made it – in the past, we’ve generally had either two of us sitting, or perhaps three, if our schedules fell into place correctly, all of the planets were aligned, etc. We sat for 15 minutes, took a short break and discussed a few things, then sat for another 15 minutes.

Before the other two fellows arrived, Jeff (the general manager) and I spoke about the group, where we’d like to see it move, and so on. We were in agreement that we’d like the group to meet more often for sits. In the past, we’ve been limited by the library’s rules, specifically the one which states that you can only use one of their conference rooms once a month. Being a small group and having no funds available for group stuff, we’ve thus been meeting for sits only once a month. For discussions and general get-togethers, we’ve met a bit more often, using a local café.

The hotel conference room was nice, and fine for a meditation session. The only problem with it (if one can even really classify it as a problem) is that it’s not exactly close to any of us. It’s on one of the highways heading out of town, and for the three of us who live in town, it’s about a 20 minute drive. For the other guy, who lives out of town, on the other side of it, it’s more like half an hour. Certainly, we’re not talking huge commutes, but something closer would be nice. Jeff realized this, and was nice enough to offer up his home, in town, for our meetings. Using his house, we’ll be able to meet weekly.

Before I could bring up the topic of our group actively studying Buddhism, Jeff brought it up. He thought that perhaps incorporating a brief reading into our sits would be good, maybe a sutra that we could all meditate on. I thought it sounded like a good idea. We also discussed the issue of feeling like we’re on an ocean with no guide. None of us are very advanced in our practice, which has led to us just kind of floundering about in the water, wondering where to go. Again, Jeff had a solution. Apparently he’ll be frequently going to a larger city near us in the coming months, in which there’s a long-running Buddhist study / meditation group. He’s going to see if one of their more advanced members could come down to our town occasionally, perhaps once every month or two, to have a “class” of sorts. I thought this sounded great.

I suppose I keep thinking about something Drew, my professor, told me. He told me that he read in a newspaper that four people started a small meditation / study group (I can’t recall where it was, sadly). Initially, they met where ever they could – library rooms, parks, whatever.

Fast forward two years: they now have a meditation hall, around 50 regular members, and are a non-profit organization. They have services throughout the week, regular classes, etc.

Small steps, Josh. Small steps.

~

During our break between sitting sessions, we discussed a few things:

• I commented that when I first start a sitting session, I often feel like I’m leaning – a lot. Usually, I feel like I’m leaning to the left, almost to the point of falling over. If I try to correct this posture problem, I find that I’m not leaning at all. No one else had experienced that. After 5 minutes or so, the sensation goes away. How about you folks? Are any of my readers meditators? If you are, do you often feel like you’re the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
• Chris experienced something different, but similar. He said he often feels like he’s rocking back and forth slightly. When he goes to correct it, he finds he’s not actually moving.
• We talked a bit about whether or not we keep our eyes open during meditation. Some of us do, some of us don’t (I don’t). Jeff, who keeps his eyes partially open and focuses on something about 6 feet away from him, remarked that if he isn’t diligent in being aware of what’s going on, he’ll find himself seeing all sorts of things that aren’t there. For example, he said that while looking at the carpet Tuesday night, he started seeing faces, animals, etc. in the carpet pattern. Drew, who was facing the television in the conference room, said he felt like he was watching TV, then realized that it wasn’t even on. I suppose those two experiences show what your mind will do when you try to calm it down. It’s a bit like when you’re trying to get a small child to go to sleep: they’ll do anything they can think of to stay awake. Slap themselves, babble, kick, etc.I personally keep my eyes closed because of similar issues. I don’t necessarily “see” things like that, but I do find that if my eyes are open, my eyes have a tendency to wander, seeking out objects. Before I realize it, my mind’s off in left field (or not even in the stadium anymore), thinking about something that was vaguely related to something I looked at.
• We talked briefly after the second sitting session about how odd our perception of time can be. Both sessions were 15 minutes long. The first session felt like it lasted more like 20-30 minutes; the second session felt like it lasted 5 or 10 minutes, tops. This was something that we all generally noticed. No idea why.

I finished up The Subtle Knife today, the second book in the His Dark Materials series. After having read and enjoyed The Golden Compass, I was looking forward to see where the plot was taken in The Subtle Knife.

The things I complained about in The Golden Compass – namely, the main plot seeming to move a bit slowly, particularly information regarding Dust – have been “corrected” in the sequel. While I’m still not entirely clear on what Dust is, what’s going on overall is fleshed out a lot in The Subtle Knife. Specifically, a war is getting ready to be waged, between “rebels” – Lord Asriel, rebel angels, Will and others – against the Authority, or God. As one reviewer at amazon.com put it, there’s nothing subtle about this knife. Pullman obviously has an axe to grind in regards to the tyranny of the Church, its lies and deceptions. I’m not sure where Mrs. Coulter and Co. tie in with this war and the Church, but I’m sure that’ll be clarified in the last book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. I must say – I’m anxious to see how the war against God goes. I think it’s an intriguing plot idea.

I was a bit bummed to find that armored bears weren’t in The Subtle Knife at all – not even Iorek Byrnison. His name popped up a few times, when Lyra and Will were talking, but besides that, he wasn’t in the book at all. Instead of lots of bears, in The Subtle Knife, there were lots of witches, specifically Serafina Pekkala and her group. I have to admit (and perhaps this is how Pullman pictures them) – from his description of the witches, I see them looking a bit like Sarah Sanderson (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) from Hocus Pocus. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any decent pictures of that character online to share with you.

I’ve not looked into it, but I wonder if churches have raised hell (pun intended) about the His Dark Materials trilogy, similar to how they’ve raised hell over the Harry Potter series. I’ve seen news about a lot of different churches / religious groups banning the Harry Potter series, because it might teach kids “witchcraft” or “devil worshipping” or some other idiotic thing. I wonder what kind of uproar there’s going to be when the movies for Pullman’s books come out, and the main plot line turns out to be a war on God.

That should be interesting.

I want to touch on a specific scene from the film, which really struck me as odd. The scene in question is one showing President Truman, sitting at a desk, speaking to the American public. He says:

“Having found the atomic bomb, we have used it. It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us instead of to our enemies and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His way and for His purposes.“

(emphasis mine)

I don’t believe in the Christian God, but let’s say he exists, for the sake of argument. As I understand it, the Christian God loves everyone. All humans are his creation, and he cares about all of us equally, regardless of what we do. Certainly, there are rules that one should listen to, but if you break the rules, you can generally get him to forgive you (depending on what branch of Christianity you’re dealing with).

So, God loves everyone. And, being an omnipotent being, viewing everything all at once, he probably doesn’t think of his creation in terms of nationalities, countries, races. Everything on the planet is his creation. God doesn’t see the globe with national boundaries pencilled in.

And yet, in the above quote, we have an American President thanking God for, essentially, letting America “find the atomic bomb” first, and then going on to say that he hopes God will help them to use the weapon to do good.

This makes no sense to me. If God existed, and we were all his creations, and he loved all of us equally, I’m fairly confident that one thing he wouldn’t want us to do would be to “find” the most devastating weapon ever created, and then use it to blow up hundreds of thousands of people. That just doesn’t come across as very loving to me.

Perhaps it’s because we’re talking about America here, an admittedly special case – at least in the minds of many people. All Americans (and probably just about everyone else who’s hooked into the world via the internet or some other news outlet) have heard the phrase “God bless America.” Our Presidents, particularly the most recent one, have regularly claimed that God is on our side. It doesn’t seem to matter what the government is doing, or how morally wrong it is – because it’s America doing it, a lot of people think it’s fine, because they have this strange idea that God is on “our side.” I think it’s interesting to note that when other countries or groups do this – like when Islamist fundamentalists claim that God wanted them to blow something up – Americans generally scoff and say that the Islamist fundamentalists are just “evil” (whatever that means).

Claiming that God is on “our” side is nothing new; nations have done it for centuries. But America seems particularly bad about it. I’ve read many times online that a lot of Europeans look at our politics with some amusement, because of how often our politicians throw God into the mix. I’ve talked to some Europeans who find it downright peculiar. I do too, but I suppose that’s pretty clear from this entry.

So – I don’t believe in God, but if you do, and you’re someone who thinks that he’s on “our side”, perhaps you should reconsider. Maybe he isn’t on our side. Maybe God is getting fed up with America tossing his name around like a football. If I were in his position, I probably would be. Nukes for God… indeed. I’m sure right below that one, on God’s to-do list, he has “Insure America secures oil supply in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

I have some ideas I would like to test with you.

What do you find useful in Buddhism which you do not find or not as useful in Christianity?

No, I am not taking up the defense of Christianity, but just curious why Buddhism has found favor with supposedly intellectuals of the West, some minority of them but visible.

While I am sure there must be also a visible number although a minority of Buddhists also going over to Christianity.

And I would like to ask them similarly what they find in Christianity that is better for them than their own born into Buddhism.

I told him I’d respond in a post, since I thought my response would be a bit too long for the comments.

I think what I find useful in Buddhism, which I don’t find in Christianity, is that with Buddhism, I’m not forced into believing anything.

In Christianity, it is set forth that there is one God, and that you must believe in that god. It is also set forth that God sent his only son, Jesus, to this earth, to die for all of our sins. Basically, if you don’t believe in these two things, then you can’t be a Christian: the entire religion is built on those two things. You can’t build up your Christian tower without those two foundation blocks.

In Buddhism, there isn’t any of this. There are no gods that one must believe in; there is no story of divine beings coming to the earth. In a previous post here on my blog, I even commented that I think that, most likely, the historical Buddha didn’t exist. And that’s okay! Whether the fellow existed or not ultimately doesn’t matter. The fact is, the Four Noble Truths still exist, the Eightfold Path still exists, and these things make sense to me. They sync well with my personality, with my mind, and my life.

On the flip side, if I read about the story of Jesus, his life, his work, and his death, and then decided that I doubted all of it as actually happening, where does that leave me? How could I move forward with my faith in it? I don’t see how I could. Without solid belief in the Christian God and Jesus, one can’t be Christian. It just isn’t possible, at least not in any way that I see.

Traditionally, it is said that the Buddha taught that all followers should test what he said. He advised all of his disciples to really try what he said, to sit down and try and find the self, to really look at how their minds worked and what caused their suffering. He said he wasn’t divine, he wasn’t sent by a god, that he was just a normal human, just like everyone else. It is this message of “try it, don’t believe just on faith” that appeals to me. Many religions, when you question them, simply respond with “you must believe this, solely on faith.” I, personally, am not fond of that. I don’t know how to make myself believe anything, regardless of how bad I’d like to.

Looking at what I’ve written, the major trend I’m seeing is this: my preference towards Buddhism over Christianity is based on the issue of faith. Buddhism doesn’t call on me to believe in anything “out there”, Christianity does. If I decide that I believe there is a God or gods “out there”, I can still be Buddhist. If, on the other hand, I decide that I don’t believe in anything out there, that there is nothing supernatural “out there”, I can still be Buddhist. Christianity doesn’t give me that freedom.

Hope that helps, mdejess.

Oh, by the way. I feel it necessary to say this, so as to keep things civil here: I’m not attacking Christianity. I don’t have any problem with Christians. I don’t believe the same things they do, and that’s okay. We can agree to disagree and still be nice about it. If you have criticisms for me or Buddhism, that’s fine (and in fact, I welcome it – such things make me think!) However, I do ask that if you respond to this post, be civil! Attacks or general meanness will be sent off into the void.

What I’m talking about is Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. As can be seen on the Wikipedia page, under Karmapa’s death, it is claimed that after he died, his body, as per Tibetan tradition, sat up in the meditation position for three days. It is further claimed that during that time, his heart remained warm, and his body never underwent the effects of rigor mortis. At the end of the paragraph, there is remark that says:

Chief of staff Radulfo Sanchez had no medical explanation for this.

Now, what is a skeptic supposed to make of that? Hearts should, if they follow the typical pattern of death, not remain warm after the person has died. Remaining warm after death, unless you’re by a heat source of some kind, is not natural. Furthermore, bodies in a typical environment should undergo rigor mortis. And then, of course, there’s this line from the Wikipedia page:

During the seven weeks between his death and his cremation, Karmapa’s body spontaneously shrank to the size of a small child.

See my comment in the first paragraph, namely: bodies should not shrink drastically.

Of course, I’m extremely hesitant to believe the Wikipedia article based on the references that are cited. It appears that the references mostly come from a Dutch book, called Het Boeddhistische boek van Wijsheid van Liefde, which is a translation of the French book, Le livre bouddhiste de la sagesse et de l’amour. (For those of us who don’t speak Dutch or French, Babelfish reports that this translates to: The Buddhist book of love and wisdom.) If the reports about what happened after his death were in a non-Buddhist book, I’d be more inclined to believe it. As it is, Buddhist or not, that’s a bit more bias than I can swallow, at least with something so strange. I tried looking around on the internet for other sources, particularly with references to Radulfo Sanchez, but I had no luck in finding anything else at all, except on Buddhist websites. Again, nothing wrong with Buddhists (I consider myself one, after all!), but I’d like some “proof” from a non-Buddhist source, like a medical journal.

I suppose the issue that is more interesting as to whether or not it really happened, is how I would feel if I could verify for sure that it did happen. I don’t really know, truth be told. Such an occurrence is something that could (and most likely would) alter my world view; not hugely, but my views would certainly be shaken up a bit. A corpse sitting up for three days and remaining warm doesn’t really fit into my view of death. Corpses shrinking drastically also doesn’t really fit into how I view the world.

Ironically, while I’m Buddhist, I don’t really feel bad at all about having reservations in “buying” this story. The story goes that the historical Buddha advised his followers to not believe anything based on faith, whether it was passed to you through a teacher, a book, whatever. He said the ultimate teacher was experience. So, I suppose I don’t really have to believe the story, until I have a chance to sit with a dying Buddhist meditation master, and then also have the chance to see if his heart stays warm after death…

How about you? Do you think such things are possible? If so, what’s your take on it?

Update: Thanks to my friend Fig for pointing out some stupid mistakes I made.

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This is actually the second time I’ve read this book, but the first time I’ve written a full entry for it. When I read it before, I mentioned it briefly on this post, saying that it came across as a bit “new agey”, but that I enjoyed it a lot anyway.

After my second reading of it, I’m not so sure I stand by my initial impression. I don’t know if it’s really new agey, or perhaps it’s just that Lama Surya Das is so at ease and genuinely happy about what he’s teaching. I’m leaning more towards the latter at this point.

Awakening the Buddha Within is one of the most popular introductory texts to Buddhism available right now, and, after reading it twice, I can see why. Lama Surya Das, a native American, has spent roughly half of his life studying the Dharma, mostly in foreign countries such as Nepal. He writes in a very natural style, making it extremely easy to understand what he’s saying. I’ve read a few books on Buddhism that were a bit too technical for my tastes, but this isn’t one of them.

The book has all of the things that one would expect from an introductory book about Buddhism: a brief story about Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha; examining the Four Noble Truths; and exploring the Eightfold Path, which takes up about half of the book. There are also many meditations that you can use for your own practice. Throughout the book are stories from the author’s life, as well as from the lives of his teachers and others, which illustrate the principles of Buddhism.

My only real complaint with the book is that it needs to be longer. Often, Surya would start a section on a new topic, and (in my opinion) not devote enough space to it. About the time he’d be getting into the topic he’d started, the section would end. While this can be frustrating, I suppose the bonus is that the topics he doesn’t thoroughly explore give you something to look into. A few of the topics which he skimmed (such as Lojong and Tonglen practice), I checked out online, and they both have plenty of more in-depth material available. And, of course, I’m sure there are books on the topics as well.

All in all, I really like this book; I actually ended up buying it the last time I was at a Borders in Charleston, West Virginia. It certainly doesn’t explore Buddhism in an exhaustive manner, but I doubt there’s any book that does that.